Zach Hughes - Deep Freeze

"They are all here," Sarah said weakly, when she recognized the ruined faces of her mother and father. "All except Sheba."

"So now we know," Iain said. "Is it time to call in the shock troops?"

"I'm going to take Sarah to our cabin," Pete said.

"That wasn't an answer, was it?" Kara asked, after the de Condes were gone.

"I'm feeling a small suggestion of outright panic," Iain said.

"Pete de Conde didn't get to be one of the richest men in the U.P. by following the letter of the rules," Kara said.

"I'm going to bring up the probe," Iain said.

"No," Vinn said sharply.

"Huh?" said Iain.

"There are eight bodies down there," Vinn said. "And we have no idea what happened to the Erin Kenner and the rest of her crew."

"That machine represents a lot of credits," Iain said. "And I'm signed for it."

"Leave it. Park it. Maybe we can retrieve it later."

"Leave it, Iain," Kara said. "He's right. We don't know what we're dealing with here."

"I want no physical contact with the surface, either direct orsecondhand, not until we know a lot more."

Iain bristled, but subsided. He'd had not a few conversations with Vinn during the trip out, and he knew that Vinn had good credentials. "All right," he said, "what's your suggestion?"

"Run all the tests again, and any others that we can think of."

"Polar orbit?" Kara asked.

"Please, Kara," Vinn said.

The monotonous task of scanning the entire surface of the planet again.

Iain took a sleep break, leaving Kara on weapons and Vinn watching the instruments. The long hours passed.

"Do you mind if I have a look at the planet's magnetic field?" Vinn asked.

"Not at all," Kara said. "Punch in magnoscan."

"I think I know the procedure," Vinn said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

There was nothing unexpected about the planet's magnetic field. A

series of solar flares were sending strong flows of radiation into the thin atmosphere. Vinn measured the power of the flares and the intensity of the auroral display at the north pole. He used the computer's files to compare the readings to those of other planets and found nothing out of the ordinary.

Rose's instruments located an area of relatively thin ice which covered a broad, flat zone lacking the gridded metallic installations. Kara investigated.

"Hey, Vinn," she called out, "this empty area was hit by no less than three blasts from a laser cannon within the last year."

"The Erin Kenner," Vinn said.

"That's my guess, too," Kara said.

"Anything else?"

"Nope. No metal directly under the blast area. At least not enough to show on the ore field detectors. Whoever shot up the joint was using full power, because destruction was complete."

It was, it seemed, another blind lead, another dead end. Vinn looked at the viewscreen moodily. His fingers rested lightly on the keyboard. He sent out another search for life signals and there was nothing. Idly he punched in an order for detection of gravitational waves. That test hadn't been run previously because the duration and strength of the waves could be readily predicted by measurement of the planet's density, mass, and position in relationship to other solar system bodies. He was looking at the screen with only half of his attention, his thoughts once again with Sheba. It is human to hope, and he was trying desperately to abandon the mindset that she was dead.

At first he didn't realize what he was seeing. In addition to the image and measurements of standard gravitational waves there was a connected grid of waves covering the surface of the planet. Directed gravitational force joined each of the metallic installations of the grid.

"Vinn, what is it?" Kara asked, as he bent forward in obvious agitation.

"I don't know," he said. What he was seeing was impossible. While it was true that gravity could be created artificially aboard ship and nullified by the flux engine, it was not possible to direct such forces in straight lines, as was obviously being done under the ice of the planet.

Someone or something was vectoring gravity waves as power or communications or both. The implications of such advanced technology made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

Pete de Conde sipped a cup of coffee as he stared at the grid pattern on the large screen. "Vinn, you're telling me that someone down there has found a way to direct the force of gravity along a single vector?"

"It looks that way," Vinn said, as he waited for the computer to print upthe conclusion of a long and involved calculation. He was trying to figure the relative intensity of one of the straight lines of gravitational force that connected the metallic installations. In relation to the planetary force the answer involved one heck of a lot of zeros after a decimal point. But that figure was misleading, for it measured only the size of the gravitational increment represented by the line of direction and not the applied force or the energy equivalent.

"Then even though all of our instruments show that there's nothing down there under the ice there is, in effect, a live power grid covering the whole planet?" Pete asked.

"Power, or communication, or something I can't even imagine," Vinn said. "This is virgin territory for me."

"And for anyone else," Iain Berol said.

Pete rubbed his chin, sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Those square constructions are refrigerating units," he said.

Vinn nodded. "That would seem to be the case."

"When someone shot up a few of them, the ice melted," Pete said.

"Then the grid was reformed." He pointed to the area where there was a blank space in the regular grid of square installations. "See how the lines connecting the units are more distinct on all sides of the blank area? More power is being directed to those units, but even that isn't enough to reform the ice burden to its original depth. It's only a few feet thick there on the plain."

"But why put a whole planet in deep freeze?" Kara asked.

"Because they have something to hide," Pete said. "And they're willing to be nasty to keep it hidden."

"You keep saying 'they,' " Kara said. "But we get no life signals."

"Could your instruments detect life through several hundred feet of ice, frozen earth, and rock?" Pete asked.

"Through ice, yes," Kara said, "but only through a very shallow layer of earth and rock."

"So there could be something down there at a depth of several hundred feet below the surface," Pete said. "Something or someone who knows how to use gravity as power." He winked at Iain. "Iain, I wonder what the captain's discovery share would be if the Carmine Rose took home the secret of a new and unlimited source of cheap power?"

Iain whistled.

"Don't even think it, Pete," Vinn said. "There are eight bodies down there and an X&A ship is missing. We're going to let the big boys handle this."

"Son," Pete said, "no brag, but I am one of the big boys. And this is my ship. Now whatever it is down there, whether it's a them or an it, it has killed off my wife's family. I think it owes her something for that. What do you say, Iain?"

"As you said, it's your ship." Iain grinned. "I'm still trying to figure my discovery share of applied gravitational power."

"Kara?" Pete asked.

"I'm with Iain."

"Do I have a vote?" Sarah asked.

"Of course," Pete said.

"I would like to know what it was that killed my parents and my brothers and sisters."

"And you're willing to risk the life of one more Webster, not to mention mine, to find out?" Vinn asked.

Sarah looked thoughtful. "I think," she said slowly, "that if it could kill at a distance it would have killed us already. I know that it can reach out and touch me at a long distance. I think that whatever it is down there is able to get into my mind, because the very idea of me, Sarah Webster, being out here so far from home, from my children, from all of my involvements, cannot be explained without postulating some outside influence. I've been thinking a lot about that since we left Tigian. Vinn, it was entirely out of character for me to let you, a stranger, into my housewhen I was home alone. I had no urgent reason to believe that anything was wrong with any member of my family. My parents told us when they left that they might be gone for years. There was no crucial reason for David and Ruth to go jumping off looking for Mom and Dad—unless that idea was implanted by an outside force, and I know that they would never have done—what they were doing—on their own."