Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

“Okay,” he said. “I guess that makes sense.” Big smile. “Hutch, I can’t imagine a better way for you to launch your career. Find one of these? They’ll put our pictures on the Wall of Fame.”

“I’ll settle for my license,” she said. “Benny, we have lots of pictures of this?”

“Yes, Captain. I have a substantial record.”

“I suggest,” said Jake, “we call it in now. Let them know what we have. Before somebody else stumbles across it.” He looked at Hutch. “What’s wrong?”

“I think we should direct Benny to destroy the record.”

“What? Why the hell would we do that?”

She hesitated. She was thinking how nice it would be to go back to a hero’s welcome. To become famous.

“Hutch?”

“I think we should forget what we saw here. Just go away and leave it.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“After we call it in, they’re going to come out here and dig everything up. They’ll take the creature back to a lab and dissect it.”

“Of course they will. Hutch, this is one of the Monument Makers.”

“They’ll desecrate the place.”

“I didn’t know you were religious.”

“Religion has nothing to do with it. What do you think the builders would have thought about us ripping up the grave?”

“They’re long gone, Hutch.”

“No,” she said. “They’re still here.”

“I’m not sure I know what we’re talking about, Priscilla.”

“I’m tired of it all,” she said. “This time, Jake, we have some control over what’s happening.” She turned frustrated eyes on her captain. “I’m tired of hot dog stands on the Moon and beachfront homes on Quraqua and wrecked altars back at the Complex.” She looked up at the sky but of course saw no sign of Hibachi’s World. “If you’ll consent, I’d like to let it go. Forget the monument. And hope that Eddington and Ted Abel and people like them don’t notice what’s here. Maybe by the time somebody else comes across this, we’ll be a little smarter.”

Jake let his disappointment show. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Jake.” She saw the uncertainty in his eyes. “Please.”

He touched the marker. Pressed his fingertips against the engraved symbols. “I wonder what it says?”

The Copperhead was floating through the fogs of transdimensional space, somewhere between Fomalhaut and Serenity Station, which is to say it was well off the more traveled routes. Priscilla Hutchins was half-asleep in the pilot’s seat. The captain, Jake Loomis, had gone back to the passenger cabin, where he might have drifted off also, or was maybe playing chess with Benny, the AI. Soft music drifted through the ship. The Three Kings doing “Heartbreak.”

Hutch was vaguely aware of the humming and beeping of the electronics, and the quiet flow of air through the vents. Then suddenly she wasn’t. The lights had gone out. And the ship bounced hard, as if it had been dropped into a storm-tossed sea. The displays were off and the warning klaxon sounded. Power down.

“System failure,” said Benny, using the slightly modified tone that suggested he’d also suffered a cutback.

Emergency lights blinked on and cast an eerie glow across the bridge. The ship rocked and slowed and accelerated and rocked again. Then, within seconds, all sense of motion stopped. “Are we back in normal space, Benny?” she asked.

“I can’t confirm, but that seems to be the case.”

Jake’s voice came loud and subtly amused from the cabin: “Hutch, what happened?”

She knew exactly what had happened. This was one more test on her qualification flight. There was no danger to the Copperhead . Nobody was at risk other than herself.

“Engines have shut down,” said Benny.

“Power outage,” she told Jake.

The navigational display flickered back to life. Stars blinked on. The captain appeared at the hatch. “You okay, Hutch?”

“I’m fine.” The misty transdimensional universe that provided shortcuts across the cosmos had vanished, replaced by the vast sweep of the Milky Way. “We’re back outside.” That would have been automatic. During a power failure, the drive unit was designed to return the vehicle to normal space. Otherwise, the ship risked being lost forever with no chance of rescue. “Benny, is there an imminent threat?”

“Negative, Hutch. Ship is secure.”

“Very good.” She turned to Jake, who was buckling down beside her. He was middle-aged, low-key, competent. His voice never showed emotion. Forbearance sometimes. Tolerance. But that was all. “You want me to send out a distress call?”

“Where would you send it, Hutch?”

“Serenity is closest.” It would of course be a hyperspace transmission. The station would know within a few hours that they were in trouble.

“Good. No. Don’t send. Let’s assume you’ve done that. What’s next?”

There wasn’t actually that much else to do. She asked Benny for details on the damage, and was told where the problems lay and what needed to be done before restarting the engines. The electronics had gone out because the main feeding line had ruptured. She went down into the cargo hold, opened the access hatch, and explained to Jake how she would have managed the repairs. He asked a few questions, seemed satisfied with her replies, and they started back topside.

They were just emerging from the connecting shaft when Benny came back on the circuit. “Hutch, we’re receiving a radio signal. Artificial.”

She looked at Jake. And smiled.

“No,” he said. “It’s not part of the exercise.”

That was hard to believe. But even though the ground rules allowed him to make stuff up, he was not permitted to lie about whether a given occurrence was a drill. “What’s it say, Benny?”

“I have not been able to make a determination. The signal, I suspect, is greatly weakened.”

It made no sense. There wouldn’t be anybody out here. They were light-years from everything.

While Hutch hesitated, Jake took over. “Benny, can you get a fix on the source?”

“Within limits, yes.”

“So where’s it coming from?”

“The nearest star in that direction, Captain, is Capua. But Capua is more than two hundred light-years. Moreover, I believe the transmission is a broadcast signal. Not directional.”

“Okay,” said Jake. “What do you make of it, Hutch?”

“No way an artificial radio signal’s going to travel two hundred light-years. If it’s not directional.”

“Therefore—?”

“It’s a distress call. Somebody actually did what we’ve been rehearsing. Broke down and got thrown out into normal space.”

“So what do we do?”

“If the signal’s so deteriorated that we can’t read it—”

“—Yes?—”

“They’ve been out here a while, and are probably beyond help.”

“And, Priscilla—” He always used her given name when he wanted to make a point. “Are we going to make that assumption?”

She straightened her shoulders. “No, sir.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Benny,” said Hutch, “is the signal still coming in?”

“Yes, it is, Hutch.”

“Any chance if we sit tight you’d be able to get a clear enough reading to tell us what it says?”

“Negative. It’s seriously degenerated.”

Jake cleared his throat. “Why would you bother anyhow?”