Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

He closed his eyes and imagined the wall opening, just as he’d done with countless others. Nothing. He kept at it, concentrating on all the small details, envisioning them turning to liquid and sliding away.

There was a noise like bubbling tar. Success.

Marcus opened his eyes, and before him was the strange heart of Zebra-One. “Come on,” he said.

He stepped forward onto a platform that hung over a great dark abyss, and his two companions followed a couple steps behind. A moment later, the pale blue light grew and revealed the depths of the huge structure, a cylindrical room extending five-hundred meters into the distance, criss-crossed and covered with slender catwalks whose surfaces all faced toward the center. Marcus couldn’t discern which way was supposed to be down, and he started to suspect there was more than one ‘down’ in that room. The view was dizzying.

The catwalks radiated out from a massive apparatus in the center of the chamber, itself suspended on a great spindle that spanned from one end of the chamber to the other. Marcus had no doubt that the apparatus was the generator, the source of all power on the vessel.

Pale blue glowing cable-veins in every diameter imaginable were connected to it, and branched throughout the room like overgrown cobwebs. The light of the room and the cable-veins alike gently throbbed in the same one-two one-two pattern that could be heard everywhere inside Zebra-One.

The generator itself was encased in a bone-like framework of iridescent struts that made it difficult to discern the shapes within. All Marcus could tell from the platform was that something inside was glowing brightly and rotating, causing the bone struts to cast shifting shadows across the rest of the room.

“Should we take a closer look?” Faulkland asked. He sounded cautious. Marcus was assumed that if cowboy Faulkland sounded cautious, any normal person should be pants-wettingly terrified.

The shafts of lights cast out from the generator were bright but not blinding. Would it be hot? Could it be radioactive? Marcus honestly didn’t know whether they should continue on. “Rao?”

“I’m not detecting anything dangerous. It’s your call, Marc.”

He looked left and right, tracing the path of the symmetrical walkways that led in towards the machine. “Seems to me that being reckless has gotten us this far. Be a shame to stop now.”

“That’s the spirit,” Faulkland said, and gave him a firm slap on the back. A glance to his other side revealed a nervous smile inside of Rao’s helmet.

Since both routes to the generator looked identical, Marcus mentally flipped a coin, motioned to the left, and the three of them began their march. The first stretch of catwalk was perfectly flat and they crossed it quickly, but after about thirty meters it twisted so that its surface was at a perfect right-angle. Their first steps onto the twisted section were apprehensive, but they soon realized the walkway’s surface was always down, no matter how it contorted.

Marcus found the process disorienting, like being trapped inside of an Escher painting, and the vertigo forced him to watch the floor under his feet while he walked. At some of the more extreme changes in orientation, he had to fight the impulse to jump from one surface to the next. Rooms like this one would certainly take some getting used to.

It took them twenty minutes to reach the innermost cage of walkways, which were oriented so that the generator apparatus was three meters “above” them. Marcus didn’t look up from his feet until they were on top of the generator… or below it, or beside it maybe. Prepositions were failing him. When he did finally take a look, he was instantly overcome with awe.

Within the bone framework were five devices arrayed in a series, one intact, and four others that had been shattered like light bulbs. The complete device was like nothing Marcus had ever seen before, with a design that interwove flesh and technology into a single hybrid whole.

It had two distinct components: a clear outer casing and a strange collection of organs contained within. The casing was a rounded-off pentagon ten meters in diameter and six meters deep, made of a glass-like transparent material. Each corner held a dense bundle of ducts and unfamiliar machinery, and was connected to the others by a thin metallic band that traced the device’s perimeter. That band was covered in geometric shapes which glowed in every hue, and looked as if they might be controls or readouts.

The interior was dominated by a muscle-like circular organ that was roughly textured, and bore a striking resemblance to the iris of an eye. A hazel eye, rust colored toward the center and shifting to luminous green at the edges. It was suspended in the middle of the casing by five bundles of twisting, woven vines that seemed organic near the iris-ring, but grew progressively mechanical as they approached their mount points.

The most fantastic part was the small, whirling willow-wisp that floated in the hollow of the iris. It was the source of the bright blue light, and was surrounded by glittering particles that turned from white to gold as they raced out, danced and faded like champagne bubbles. Marcus had no idea what it was, but even after a lifetime of staring through telescopes at the wonders of the universe, the willow-wisp was easily the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The device, or perhaps the willow-wisp, made a sound like voices singing in chorus, arranged in perfect fifths, wandering slowly up and down an octave. It was as beautiful as the sight, and together they created an overwhelming feeling of tranquility.

The three men were completely spellbound. They stood there staring in slack-jawed wonder for untold minutes, silent for fear of accidentally disturbing the peace.

Marcus broke from his trance and finally spoke. “I’m going to touch it,” he said. He heard his own words, but they sounded like someone else. It sounded like something Faulkland would say.

He reached up toward the framework and the ship’s artificial gravity simultaneously released him into the air. He wasn’t sure if that was his own doing or not. He crossed the space ever so slowly, then came to the framework and grabbed on. It quivered under his touch. He climbed from one bone-like strut to another until he found an opening large enough to squeeze through, and then he climbed inside.

The willow-wisp at the center of the device was even more beautiful as he approached. The glittering particles that rushed away from it flocked together like birds, weaving in and between scarcely visible tides of fluid light.

Marcus reached out and gently put his hand against the clear casing. As he did so, the willow-wisp dimmed and the particles swirled back toward the center of it. It retracted like a flower at night.

“What’s going on, Doctor?” Faulkland asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. As the last word left his mouth, the light returned, blinding, bright and fierce, accompanied by a deep roar and throbbing waves of pressure. Marcus felt like he was suddenly standing in front of an industrial spot-light, or maybe an oncoming train.

Then all hell broke lose.

The generator’s outburst washed over Marcus and slammed him into the framework. He tried to shield his eyes from the light to no avail, and blinded, he somehow managed to climb through an opening in the cage and emerge on the other side.

Marcus didn’t know what was happening, but he knew it was his fault. He’d just woken a sleeping bear, and an old fashioned mauling was on its way.

It took him several seconds to regain his sight, and he found himself back on the catwalk with Rao and Faulkland. The generator’s outburst only lasted a moment, after which it settled back down to a level still brighter and more active than when they found it, accompanied by a new, dreadful and furious song. The lights throughout the room were dimming and changing color. They turned blood red.