Питер Филлипс - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

We? This wasn’t even the Fleet’s job. We were on the outermost moon of a gas giant that didn’t even have a name, just a number, to provide security for the scientists who were investigating the gate. The science guys were working for the Terran government, or else we wouldn’t have been there, but the gate was their problem. Unless somebody ordered us to blow it up—but nobody was sure that was possible. Attempts to get samples from the gate’s material for analysis hadn’t worked. I’d heard one of the scientists saying it was like trying to get a sliver off of a endurosteel wall with only a modeling clay chisel to work with.

“Thank you for your confidence in me, sir, but I respectfully decline. I’m leaving in a week and—”

“I know, going back to Earth and getting married. It’d be a shame if you couldn’t leave because of a problem with paperwork. After all, this has been determined to be a Priority One mission—one of the few signs of a technology of nonhuman origin that’s more advanced than we or any of our e.t. allies have. In a P-1 mission, the commanding officer has considerable leeway in determining when critical personnel can be released. You might be in for the duration.”

“Sir, I still decline, and I’ll make a formal protest—”

“That’s your right. Of course formal protests can take a long time to work through the legal plumbing. And in the meantime, your new job might not be there anymore. In fact, there might not be any other job openings for some time.”

He wasn’t being subtle. His brother was very high up in the Terran government, though nobody in the media or the government seemed to have any idea just exactly what Patrick Oberst’s job was. He was probably the reason that Colonel Oberst was here in a nice safe assignment, no obvious dangers, nobody shooting at him, and if the mystery of the gate was solved on Oberst’s watch it might mean at least one star on his shoulder. It’d look good on his resume when he retired and ran for office, keeping the running of the Terran government in the family. If either of the brothers Oberst wanted to get me blackballed from everywhere I might look for a piloting job . . .

“Let’s hear it, sir.” I wasn’t saying “yes,” yet. “What do I do that a monkey can’t?”

His face had gotten hard, but now it eased up. Except for his eyes. They never eased up. “You know the story here, of course.”

I knew the story. An expedition had found something that looked artificial: an arch about thirty feet high and twenty-five wide made of some white material which they couldn’t identify, with what they thought was a jet black surface on one side, and a flat surface made of the same unidentifiable white material on the other. The black side turned out not to be solid. It was pure ebony blackness, not reflecting anything, and instruments poked into it went through like it was a vacuum, and came back apparently unaffected. Except that no information came back from them while they were on the other side of the black surface. Telemetry didn’t transmit. Cameras and other gizmos on rods were poked through with wires leading back outside, but they didn’t produce any info. Nothing came back on the wires. But the cameras, radars, thermometers, barometers, geigers, and so on, worked fine once they were back on our side of the black surface. And of course, the rods were long enough that they should have been stopped by the solid other side of the gate, but nothing stopped them. They apparently went—somewhere else.

So, they started calling it a “gate,” and more equipment and more scientists were sent to the moon, along with Fleet personnel, including me, fully armed, in case somebody or something unfriendly came out of the gate. The few members of the original expedition had been housed in their ship when they weren’t investigating. Now, the gate had several domes, including separate ones for the officers and the NCOs and enlisted men. So far, the military personnel had nothing much to do.

I wish it had stayed that way.

“You remember that they tried all sorts of recording devices, putting them through the gate, and they came out fine, except that nothing had been recorded. They even tried still photographs. With chemical film. God! I didn’t know such things still existed. Then they tried putting a cage of lab rats through, and they came back perfectly healthy.”

I was beginning to see where this was going . . .

“. . . and the monkey came back fine. So now they have a chair big enough for a human, and they need somebody to sit in it while it’s pushed through the gate. How about it, Lieutenant? It’ll look good on your record. Volunteering for a dangerous mission. Maybe even a medal.”

Nobody ever needs volunteers for a safe mission, I thought. Maybe I’d come through it all right, and be on my way in a week. Looked like I didn’t have much choice.

“Okay, sir. Got any more bourbon?”

No more bourbon, as it happened. The scientists weren’t happy about my having had even one shot. They didn’t know what effect it might have on the other side of the gate. So I put on my pressure suit, and they strapped me into a plastic chair they’d taken out of the day room, removed the legs, added straps, and bolted it to a girder that was welded to the front of a deuce and a half vactrac. I could feel the vibrations of the tractor conducted through the girder behind me, and the gate got closer and closer, and I tried not to think of it as a mouth. A wide open mouth. The unreflecting black surface got closer, and I went through it with no resistance . . .

. . . and the next thing I remember was walking back out through the gate. I was wondering where the chair and the vactrac had gone, then I wondered why troops in pressure suits were running toward me, with their guns aimed in my direction. But I wasn’t the complete center of attention. Several of the scientists were staring past me. So I turned around and saw that the black surface was gone. This side of the gate now looked like the opposite side. Solid. Then, Oberst came bouncing over in the low gravity. My radio was still on and I heard him yelling, “Where the hell were you? What did you do while you were gone?”

“What do you mean?” I said. “I haven’t been gone more than a couple of seconds.”

“How’s your oxygen?” one of the scientists said.

I checked the digital readouts inside the helmet, and said, “It’s fine. Nearly full tanks.”

“You’ve been gone nearly two days,” he said.

All this time, I had been noticing something odd. I once had an eye infection and my right eye had to be bandaged over for a couple of weeks. During that time, I kept looking to my right, because it was like a shadow was on my right side, and I kept reflexively turning to see what was making the shadow.

There was nothing covering either eye right now, but I kept seeing—almost seeing—something like a shadow, at first on my right, then on my left. I kept turning, but couldn’t see anything casting a shadow. Then the part about how long I had been gone sank in: nearly two days. And I only had an eighteen-hour oxygen supply.

I should have been dead. But if the readouts were right, I hadn’t consumed a noticeable amount of oxygen at all.

“Let’s get to my office,” Oberst said, and headed toward the officer’s dome.

I followed, feeling very confused. Again, I thought I saw a shadow on my left side, but when I turned my head in the helmet, there was nothing close enough to me to cast a shadow.

Out of the suit, I needed a drink but decided not to ask Oberst for bourbon.

“That’s ridiculous! You were gone for forty-six hours and thirteen minutes. You must have gotten your tanks refilled somewhere.”