Chindi

Back at the dome, they’d refilled their air tanks, taken turns using the washroom, and waited for more signs that the chindi might be getting ready to leave. Hutch thought it was something else, a launch of some kind, but that was okay for her. She wasn’t going to get stranded if the damned thing took off. So they were ready to clear out at the first sign.

After a while, they decided they were probably okay, and they’d relaxed a bit and had di

Tor was accustomed to the twenty-four-hour cycle on the Memphis, where the lights dimmed at night and brightened in the morning. In the chindi, of course, it was always dark. The light from the dome illuminated the outer chamber somewhat, but there were still gloomy recesses. The place felt remote, abandoned, spooky. He wondered whether he could capture the mood on canvas.

That evening, they again took to the passageways. There were more empty chambers, of course, but increasingly they found displays, many with objects they readily recognized, weapons and furniture, tapestries and musical instruments, electronic equipment and sleeping gear. Two chambers contained libraries, one limited to scrolls, the other to chapbooks with brown pages rendered inflexible by the cold.

Sometimes they saw broken shards and collapsed tables and shreds of clothing, carefully preserved in display cases that prevented an observer from getting too close to them. Lovingly preserved, one might almost think. At other times, the artifacts were new, as if they’d just been gathered from a shop, brought here, and put on display.

One exhibition of absolutely unfathomable objects, which might have been a series of geometric puzzles, was enclosed by magnificent russet curtains that could have come directly from a well-appointed terrestrial dining room.

Sometimes there were figures, presumably representing those from whose world the artifacts had been salvaged. They came in countless shapes and types, mammalian and avian and reptilian and others for which there was no category. Their aspects often suggested a kind of placidity and congeniality. A creature with a crocodilian skull and teeth seemed to possess the serenity of a Socrates. Others were majestic, still others terrifying. The most unsettling, for Tor, was a dark-eyed horror inhabiting what appeared to be a drawing room directly across from the chapbook library.

They debated splitting up. There was too much to see and too little time to continue as they were. George suggested that the forty-eight-hour limit they’d imposed on themselves was unrealistic. That they had an obligation to stay longer, to survey the place as thoroughly as they could. After all, they really didn’t know the chindi was going to leave. It was possible it had been there for years.

“It’s refueling,” said Alyx. “That tells me we don’t have forever.”

Tor agreed. “If I thought we could do it,” he said, “I’d suggest sabotaging it. Prevent it from going anywhere. I hate to think of this thing getting away from us.”

“But it won’t get away,” said Alyx. “Hutch says we can follow it. It’s not as if it’s going to go somewhere we can’t.”

By then they were exhausted. They’d been awake more than thirty consecutive hours, and had gone through the night. It was late morning back on the Memphis. Tor suggested they quit for a few hours, return to the dome, and get some sleep.

“Why don’t you two go back?” George suggested. “I’m not really tired yet.”

“No,” said Alyx. “We all need a break. You get tired, you get careless.”

AFTER A SECOND sleepless night, Hutch went up to the bridge, where Bill was still tracking the sacks. Not all of them, because they’d continued to disperse, and there were more than the sensors could handle. But the dozen they were monitoring were reaching the i

“One of them,” Bill said, “is about to impact.” He put the image on-screen, a cluster of rocks and the sack. “Here’s the target,” Bill said. He highlighted it for her. “Predominantly iron and ice.” It was shaped like a potato. “Roughly thirty meters down the long axis. Maybe half as wide.”

The sack glided through the rubble, skimmed past a boulder, and splashed against the target, dashing a gray-white smear across its surface.

Hutch poured herself some coffee. “The rock will be orbiting out of view shortly,” said Bill. “Do you want to follow it?”

“What about the other sacks?”

“We’ll have another impact in six minutes.”

“Okay, Bill,” she said. “Let’s just sit and watch. I want to stay close to the chindi.”

Nick wandered in on his crutches. He seemed to be feeling better. The painkillers had rendered him unusually jovial, to the point where he’d been telling jokes about his profession. Talk to us and you’ll never need to talk to anyone else. You can rely on us, Hutch, to be with you until the end.

She ached to have the landing party clear of the chindi. Professional researchers might be expected to take this sort of risk, but it was their business. George, Tor, and Alyx seemed like such i

He smiled as if he had another funeral-director joke. But then he let it go.

George was scheduled to come back to the Memphis in a few hours, but she knew it wasn’t going to happen. It had been impossible to miss the enthusiasm in their voices when they reported the wonders of the chindi. And then the call came, the one she knew she was going to receive.

“George on the circuit,” said Bill.

Even Nick knew.

“Hutch,” George said, “we keep finding stuff.” He went on to describe a dead city in the middle of a plain. “We don’t know what happened there. Broad boulevards, wide green parks, malls. Even a theatrical district. I’d say it was abandoned a few years before the pictures were taken. We figure there’s an explanation somewhere in the record, but we don’t know yet how to access it.” Pause. A guilty pause, she thought.

“We’re trying to figure out how it works. We’d like to get copies of all this if we can.”

“You’re ru

“Yeah. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about that. We’ve been discussing it, and you said there should be some warning before this thing leaves. I mean, they’ll have to warm up their engines. Right? And there’s the fu

All old stuff. They’d been over it before.

“What we want to do is to have you keep an eye open for us. If you see something happening, anything at all that suggests it’s getting ready to pull out, give us a holler. We figure we can be back at the exit hatch within an hour and a half at worst.”

Hutch looked at Nick. Nick looked away.

“You’re assuming the fu

“Yes. Well, anyhow, we’re going to hang on here for a bit. Hutch, I know how you feel about this, but this place. We can’t just walk away from it.”

The sense of approaching disaster was thick. “Dammit, George, you’re going to hang on over there until the last minute, aren’t you? And then I’m supposed to come do a rescue.”

“Hutch, I’m sorry you feel that way. But listen, there really should be time. As soon as there’s the slightest indication that they’re getting ready to pull out, we’ll come ru

“Yes. That’s real good. The first indication is probably going to be a change in velocity. They’re going to start braking or accelerating. Once that happens, it’s over.”

“There’s another possibility. Something we haven’t considered.”

“And what’s that?”

“They know we’re aboard. I wonder if they’d really leave while we’re still here? This whole place seems designed for visitors.”

“I think that’s a reach, George. If it were designed for visitors, it’d be a bit warmer, don’t you think?”

“Hutch.” He sounded genuinely pained. “Please try to understand—”

“How do the others feel?”