Timothy Zahn - Spinneret

"Odd," Barner murmured. "Some sort of giant board game, you think?"

"Not necessarily," Meredith said. "It could just be their method of storing supplies."

"Seems like that would waste a lot of space," the major said.

"Even if you had them in rows you'd need room for ventilation and forklift maneuvering," Meredith pointed out. "And as for identification purposes, a row number plus pallet number is no simpler than a curve number plus distance along it. I understand in some parts of Japan they still use a similar system for addresses."

Hafner found himself staring at the elaborate floor pattern, trying to visualize a race that would rather think in curlicues than in straight lines. Do the Rooshrike do things that way? he wondered suddenly. Might be worth finding out.

"Should we open one of the crates up, see what's inside?" Nichols asked.

"Not now," Meredith said, turning back toward the car. "The follow-up teams can handle details like that."

They passed several more of the storeroom-type doors in the next two or three kilometers, Meredith vetoing any suggestion that they be examined for contents.

"It's obvious that what we've found is a freight entrance and storage area.

Interesting, but not nearly as important as the control room for the Spinneret machinery."

Perez spoke up. "Just out of curiosity, Colonel, what exactly do you propose to do if and when we learn how all this is done?"

Meredith turned halfway around to look at him. "For starters, I'd like to either shut down or drastically restrict the metal leecher—our attempts at agriculture are going to be limited to hydroponics if we can't do that. It might also answer some questions if we found out whether six-centimeter cables are all the Spinneret can produce, or whether we can make plates of the material as well. Why?—did you have some project of your own in mind?"

"I'm wondering about the basic science involved," Perez said. "Are you going to offer the gravity nullifier for sale, too, for instance?"

Nichols caught the key word before Hafner did. " 'Too'?" he put in before Meredith could answer. "What's going on? What are we selling?"

"We're putting Spinneret cable on the market," Meredith said—rather grudgingly, Hafner thought. "It's not a secret, exactly, but we weren't going to say anything to the rest of the colony until we'd settled with the Rooshrike on terms and prices."

"The Rooshrike?" Hafner frowned. "I thought the Ctencri handled all trade with Earth."

"They do," Meredith said. "That's one of the reasons we're going through the Rooshrike."

Hafner thought about that for a long moment, not liking any of the implications that came with it. Clearly, important things had been happening while he'd been occupied with digging up the Astran landscape; just as clearly, Meredith wasn't interested in giving out details. He wondered if Carmen knew what was going on. and made a mental note to get in touch with her as soon as possible.

"But as for the gravity nullifier and leecher," Meredith continued, "that technology is staying on Astra. Period. Unless you have objections?"

"None at all," Perez answered. "Though I would actually go further and say we shouldn't even study the equipment too closely. The minute you begin to store such knowledge you invite its theft, and we can't afford to lose Astra's secrets."

"I expect Drs. Hafner and Nichols would take a somewhat dim view of that philosophy," Meredith ventured. "Or would the scientists here be happy working with a machine that's running on black magic?"

Hafner's inner ear signaled a change in direction. "We've leveled out," he announced, glad of an opportunity to short-circuit the argument. "I think I see a cross corridor up there, too."

"You do," Meredith confirmed, craning his neck to see the car's odometer. "About six kilometers from the end … puts us something like one to two hundred meters underground. Hm. Odd that the Rooshrike metal detectors didn't pick up the place; they're supposed to have a half-kilometer range."

"Maybe it's all made of the same stuff as the cable," Barner suggested. "That doesn't register well on detectors, remember."

"Won't work," Hafner said. "Cable metal's fine for structure and power cables, but the electronics have to use normal metal."

"Why?" Perez asked.

"You need both normally conducting metals and semiconductors for any kind of electronics," Hafner told him. "Cable metal either conducts perfectly or terribly.

More likely the walls here shielded the electronics in some way."

They'd reached the cross corridor now, and on Meredith's orders Nichols brought the car to a stop. "Anything look interesting either direction?" the colonel asked, sending his own gaze back and forth.

"Looks like the hall just dead-ends at a single big door on this side," Barner reported.

Hafner leaned forward to look past Perez. Sure enough, it did … and suddenly he had an idea what they'd find behind that door. "Let's take a look," he suggested.

Meredith shot him an odd look over the front seat, but nodded. "If you think it's worth doing. Major, how's contact with the outside world holding up?"

"It's been fading steadily, but we've still got them."

"Warn them we'll be moving in and out of corridors from now on and likely only have erratic contact. All right, Nichols; drive us over there."

Hafner's hunch proved to be correct. Behind the door was another corridor, parallel to the entrance tunnel and with perhaps four times its cross-section.

Mounted up off the floor, disappearing away to infinity in both directions, was a huge solenoid.

"A particle accelerator?" Nichols whispered as they stood and stared at the monster coil.

"Who knows?" Hafner shrugged. "All we know for certain is that it knocks out repulser plasmas."

Meredith muttered something; apparently, he hadn't made the connection. "You mean some sort of resonance effect with this thing is what wrecked our flyers?"

"Or with one of the pieces of equipment you can see hooked into the solenoid in places," Hafner said. "Must be a tremendous field inside the coil if the stuff that leaks out is that strong."

"Wonder what it's for," Barner said. "Any ideas?"

"Could be practically anything." Hafner shook his head. "This whole place is incredible. Why on Earth would anyone go to the trouble to build something like this?"

"Maybe it was their normal mining method," Perez suggested. "This is impressive, certainly, but so are off-shore oil rigs and the Exxon Tower."

"Then where's the rest of their civilization?" Nichols objected. "They should've left some other traces behind."

"After a hundred thousand years?"

"We find fossils older than that on Earth."

"Actually, the Spinners probably weren't native to this system," Meredith interjected. "Possibly not to this entire region of space. Let's get back to the car and move on."

"What's your evidence the Spinners were strangers here?" Perez asked when they were again driving down the main tunnel. "Lack of fossils hardly counts—nobody's really been looking for them."

"How about lack of other cable-material structures?" Meredith countered. "Not just here, but elsewhere in the system? Remember, the Rooshrike did a pretty complete survey of this place when they first ran across it. Besides, if they lived anywhere near here they ought to at least be hinted at in Rooshrike archaeology or legends."

"Maybe they are," Hafner said. "Stories of godlike creatures and all could be references to them."

"The computer doesn't think so. All the appropriate mythological figures are too similar to Rooshrike themselves to be aliens."

"But after several thousand retellings—"

"Hold it!" Barrier barked, cutting Hafner off and causing Nichols to stomp on the brakes. "On the right, down the corridor we just passed—looked like a hole in the rock."