Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

“Can you talk to them?”

“We’re trying, but there’s no reply. Either their equipment is damaged or out, or they just don’t want to talk right now. They’d better. If they time it right we could snag their lifeboats, but we could never slow or stop their ship.”

Over those hours, repeated attempts to communicate with them continued to fail, and the Mountain was reduced to simply giving them instructions on crossing over via lifeboat if they were so inclined. Even as Mountain continued the monumental task of moving everything and everyone they wanted to save into Olivet, they all kept one eye and ear open to see if the mysterious stranger was going to do anything.

“Maybe they’re all dead,” someone suggested. “It’s pretty beat up. Maybe it’s just the ship’s computers flying it.”

“No, they’ve still got sensor control and they’ve used them,” the captain told them. “ Somebody’s still alive on that thing.”

But when they reached the point of no return, after which they could not launch boats and reach the Mountain, they went right on past without any communication.

“They’ll be there well before us,” the captain noted. “If, of course, they don’t wind up as the hundred and first or whatever moon of that thing, crash into its gaseous surface, or skip around and go off into deep space.”

From that point, it was simply a matter of tracking them inbound; the people of the Mountain had much more important things to do for their own future survival.

Within three days, the gas giant began to fill their vision. It was a very dangerous object, but it was also impressive, even awe-inspiring.

“You know, in ancient times if people had gazed out and seen something like that they would have mistaken it for a god and worshipped it,” Karl Woodward noted. “We must make certain that our descendants don’t fall into that kind of error and make a mockery of all that we’ve stood for over the years.”

Thomas Cromwell stared at it and nodded. “Curious that it’s described in the data from both the original legendary discoverer of this place, Father Ishmael Hand, and Mother Tymm, but neither attempted to name it. It’s simply a gas giant.”

“Well, then, I suppose we can name it, for all the good it will do for the future considering nobody will know it but our people. Nothing divine, though. Nothing that can be perverted later. Maybe that was their problem. The ones here before us couldn’t come up with a name that was both adequate for that thing and at the same time didn’t run the risk of potential blasphemy.” He changed the subject. “And what of our silent friends?”

“I’m astonished their ship held as much together as it has, but it’s about at its end now,” Captain Lime reported. “They’ve been doing much what we did, using remote sensors to probe what they can, and they’ve centered on the Kings. I’ve seen evidence they’re putting all the power they have left into deflecting towards the blue one, Balshazzar. At a guess, they are going to try and get as close as they can and then use the lifeboats to make it to the surface.”

Woodward thought about it. “As suckered by it as most of us, I suppose,” he commented, sounding disappointed. Still, he had asked for some divine guidance. Was this it? Could he in good conscience lead them to a landing on Melchior knowing that other human beings had landed on Balshazzar?

The near magnetic pull to his own people of Balshazzar seemed to be underlined; his fervent and near constant prayers gave him only this guidance, yet nothing else had emerged to support his instinct to head for Melchior.

He hated having his hand forced like this, but if Lime was right and a lifeboat from the other vessel did get away and settle on the surface of Balshazzar, they’d have to follow. And he was quite insistent, even to himself, that God had given him the choice of only one.

Balshazzar, then, it almost certainly would be, even though everything in his core being shouted against it and, most of all, he hated doing the popular and expected thing.

Halfway into the fourth day inbound all the indicators and full ship’s computers began to sound their warnings that the Mountain was about to give up the ghost. The crack in the main engines had continued to expand, and if it reached an edge then some of the great power plant modules would rupture and they would cease to exist, making all choices moot.

With enormous sadness and great reluctance, Karl Woodward ordered all personnel off Sinai, sealed Olivet, and detached the smaller interplanetary capable vessel from the wounded and dying interstellar beast.

They were now headed in towards the double-ringed giant with shields at maximum and power full. All around them they could see evidence that they were going through a relatively dense debris field of mercifully very tiny particles that were hitting the energy shields and burning up. Having committed to a Three Kings approach vector, however, they could not maintain these power levels for long and required much of the power from ship’s functions to support it as it was.

As expected, a single lifeboat detached from the mysterious ship ahead of them and headed for Balshazzar. The rest of that ship continued on, on a trajectory to strike and bury itself deep into the great gas giant, a rather minor splinter in Moby Dick’s backside.

“Did they get down okay?” Woodward asked, feeling guilty that he almost hoped that the answer would be no.

“Yes, sir. At least, no explosion, no major impact in the area they would have gone down. Every bit of evidence says that if anybody was in that lifeboat they’re on the surface.”

He sighed. “Then the choice for us is the same, I suppose. Balshazzar, Captain.”

Now let’s see what’s so mysterious and special about these three damned moons!

“You know,” Eve said to John, “when we were living in that farm village I tried to imagine what it would be like to be truly a native there. Now we’re going to be not much different from them. It’s kind of ironic.”

Robey shrugged. “I dunno. The view’s spectacular, but I sure can’t see why this is otherwise any different from where we were, that’s for sure. All those people, all those legends, and it’s just three big moons.”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t have Captain Sapenza and his band underground like the last one,” she noted. “Heaven on top, Hell below.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said worriedly, looking at the view of the blue and white ball on the screen as they approached. “Seems like the more a place looks like Eden the more snakes it winds up having.”

“That’s why Saint Patrick is going down first,” Karl Woodward told them, overhearing their conversation. “Cromwell’s not a name the Irish ever liked, but Patrick was an Englishman no matter what they claim and our Cromwell is very good at dealing with snakes.”

Cromwell wore his combat suit, complete with knightly Saint George crosses, but the rest of those he took with him were planetary scientists rather than combat personnel. He didn’t expect serious trouble down there; he did need to be able to tell Olivet, and before it landed, that it was safe and proper to do so.

They centered in on a broad mid-latitude continent and specifically an area not far from the eastern seacoast where the other ship’s lifeboat was still giving off homing signals. It was the logical landing site, but it was also why Cromwell was going down loaded for bear. No telling if these people were simply unlucky or waiting to pull a fast one.