The Broken Cycle - A. Bertram Chandler [26]
But there must be somebody here! he thought.
He said aloud, "Damn it! There must be somebody here!"
"Or something," commented Una somberly.
"Plenty of somethings," he quipped, with a sorry attempt at humor.
"We can lift off again," she suggested.
"No. Not yet. We have to find out what makes things tick."
"By dropping into the works of a planet-sized clock?" she asked.
He said, "We're here." The jar as they landed was very slight. He went on, "I'm leaving the inertial drive ticking over."
They looked out through the ports. All around them reared the latticework towers, some with spidery, spinning wheels incorporated in their structures, all of them festooned with harshly brilliant lights. A subdued noise was drifting into the boat, a vibration felt rather than heard, transmitted from the metal surface on to which they had landed through the spacecraft's structural members.
The noise grew louder, the vibration stronger. Loose fittings began to rattle in sympathy. It numbed the mind, inducing somnolence. A line of ancient poetry floated unbidden into Grimes' mind: The murmur of innumerable bees . . . That was what it was like, but the alarm bells were ringing in his brain and a voice, with the accents of all the instructors and commanding officers of his past, was shouting, Danger! Danger! Automatically he flipped the face-plate of his helmet shut, motioning to the girl to follow suit
He heard her voice through the helmet phones. "John! John! Get us out of here!"
And what the hell else did she think he was doing? He fumbled for the controls of the inertial drive on his console, his gloved fingers clumsy. He looked down, realized that the pilot lights of the machine—which he had left ticking over in neutral gear—were all out. Somehow the drive had stopped.
He jiggled switches frantically.
Nothing happened.
It refused to restart.
It was . . . dead.
It was . . . .
He . . . .
Chapter 14
"Wake up!" an insistent voice seemed to be saying. "Wake up! Wake up!" And somebody was shaking him, gently at first, then violently. Shaking him? The entire boat was being jolted, to a disturbing rattle of loose equipment "Your air!" went on that persistent voice. "Your helmet!"
Grimes was gasping. The suit's air tank must be very close to exhaustion. He realized that he was no longer in the pilot's chair but sprawled prone on the deck. He had no memory of having gotten there. He rolled slowly and clumsily on to his side, got a hand to his helmet visor, opened it. He gulped breath greedily. The boats too-often-recycled atmosphere tasted like wine. He wanted just to enjoy the luxury of it, but there were things to do. That voice—whose was it? where was it coming from?—was still trying to tell him something, but he ignored it. He crawled to where Una was lying and with fumbling hands twisted and lifted her helmet off. Her face had a bluish tinge. She seemed to have stopped breathing.
"Look to your mate!" came the unnecessary order.
Grimes lay down beside her, inhaled deeply, put his mouth on hers. He exhaled, slowly and steadily. He repeated the process. And again. And again . . . . Then, suddenly, she caught her breath in a great, shuddering gasp. He squatted there, looking down at her anxiously. She was breathing more easily now, and the blueness was fading from her skin. Her eyes nickered open and she stared up, at first without awareness.
Then she croaked faintly, "What's . . . . What's happening?"
"I wish I knew," he whispered. "I wish I knew!"
He got shakily to his feet, turned to address whom ever—or whatever—it was that had been talking to him. But, save for the girl and himself, there was nobody in the boat. He remembered, then, the sleep-inducing humming noise. The voice, like it, was probably some sort of induction effect.
He asked, "Where are you?"
"Here," came the answer.
An invisible being? Such things were not unknown.
"Who are you?"
"Panzen."
"Are you . . . invisible?"
"No."
"Then where are you?"
"Here."
Grimes neither believed nor disbelieved in