Once the airlock was a vacuum, Storm pushed the button to open the exterior door. He had to back up in the tiny space to give it enough clearance when it swung inward. And then he was outside, floating free, with the exhilaration that came from being in the heavens without a spacecraft. Astronauts had felt it since the dawn of the space age.

  Storm laboriously cut a large hole in the Enigma’s surface. Once inside, he found himself in a hexagonal chamber, as before. It seemed likely to Storm that the entire outer skin of the Enigma was built this way, presumably to provide a rigid outer shell to protect whatever lay inside. Maybe he’d only have to bore his way thirty feet in to find out what that lay beyond, or maybe it’d take a much more involved expedition and tunneling through 100 feet of structure to uncover the secrets at the heart of this beast. The latter wasn’t on Storm’s agenda; he’d have to content himself with a small incursion.

  He cut a hole in the next layer of the brittle structure and floated inside with a touch of thrust from his maneuvering unit. His flashlight couldn’t resolve anything more than a few feet away, but as far as he could tell, it was another long round tunnel, like the one he’d encountered before. It was entirely possible the second layer and the first were identical.

  So, now what? Cut another whole and see what lay further beyond, or explore the tunnel? Storm’s heart pounded wildly and his palms started to sweat as he thought about either of those possibilities—the boyish excitement of exploring the dark unknown rose up and possessed him. Maybe he should’ve been a scientist, a discoverer of alien planets, like Drew. Or maybe he was more of a primal, spontaneous explorer, drawn to whatever waited just out of reach, rather than flying on missions that were years in the making. The tunneled beckoned him. He felt powerless to resist it.

  With a small touch from his thruster he flew slowly into its dark recesses, constantly checking all around to make sure he wasn’t going to encounter any nasty surprises. So far, so good: it was still completely round, and roughly twelve feet wide.

  Soon he had flown far enough that his entry point was now as dim as a candle seen from across a large room. Was this far enough? What he’d already done was crazy, beyond any sane limits of safety. The wrecks in Lake Michigan have nothing on this, he thought as he peered further into the silent void. Staring into that darkness, he lacked the courage to go any further. He’d pressed his luck enough.

  And then he saw it, hundreds of feet away, coming around the very slight curvature of the tunnel. It was a fiesta of bright colors, a burst of life shining from the gloomy tunnel wall, and it was heading his way as fast as a speeding train. All he could do was gape, open mouthed, wondering if this was the end. He thought momentarily of Anna, and cursed his recklessness. At once the psychadelic presence was all around him. Drew closed his eyes and felt an unreal déjà vu, as if the unearthly presence was taking an x-ray of his soul. And then the words came to him clear as a bell in his mind: Would you possess me?

  Storm barely had time to register his stark terror before the burst of color continued on its way down the tunnel, eventually disappearing out of sight around the bend.

  “Jesus Christ!” Storm sputtered, the world spinning around him. “I have to get out of here,” he panted. He was no longer sure which way was up or down, or where he’d come from. There were no reference points in the dark, which now seemed complete. His eyes strained, desperately hoping to see the point of light where he’d come in—scanning, yearning for the life that lay beyond. He couldn’t even tell whether he was turning in the blackness. He twisted his head one way, then another. At length, as his faculties slowly returned and his eyes readjusted to the dark, he glimpsed light–the way out. He turned 180 degrees and gunned for that light as hard as he dared, trying to calm his nerves and focus on breathing through the only goal that mattered now: getting out.

  He was going so fast he almost missed the hole, and had to brake as fast as his maneuvering unit would allow, before turning and flying out like a possessed man. He had never been so glad to see the crab or the stars in his life. He entered the airlock, wishing he could slam the door behind him, but all he could do was wait. His heart pounded and blood rang in his ears, the door swinging shut with agonizing slowness. He would then have to wait the full twenty minutes for pressurization before he could re-enter the cabin of the crab.

  His mind whirled. One thing was certain: he wasn’t touching the Enigma again. He would call off the rest of their mission and leave as quickly as he could, by any means available.

  Storm looked out the rear windows of the crab, wanting to look at anything but the wall to which the small craft was attached. It’s alive, he thought. It could swat me away, or worse, anytime it wants to. Although, why hadn’t it already done so? It could easily have finished him off right there in the tunnel and nobody would ever have known what became of him.

  Should he tell Drew about the experience? They would think he was stupid—a giant block of Q carbon talking to him? Swirling colors on a surface that was normally as black as night?

  Storm knew he couldn’t get Dmitry and Desira to return any sooner, though they would already be working as hard as they could to get back. He would have to wait it out, hoping that the Enigma wouldn’t object to him riding along, even though he’d punctured it in order to do so. Did it feel pain? Was it a single, giant robotic entity? Whatever the answer, it was beyond human understanding.

  There was another benefit to keeping his experience to himself: the next time Drew went in, he might get the same shock. Storm’s feelings of brotherhood towards Drew from their earlier conversation had softened. There was still a groundswell of rage below the surface that wanted nothing more than to see Drew taken down a peg or two, and that would surely do it. And as for the Russians… it would shock the hell out of them too, which was no less than they deserved.

  Storm turned around and retrieved the photograph of Anna smiling, with her long light brown hair flowing down over the shoulders of her white shirt, and taped it to the back window instead, so he could see her without looking at the Enigma.

  What if he never made it home? Storm had little to be proud of in his life—except Anna. If he never made it home, all it would mean was the end of a mediocre man. But for her, it would be absolute heartbreak, and that was something Storm couldn’t bear to do to her.

  “USS Sigma to Storm, do you copy?” came Drew’s voice over the comms.

  His brother’s timing was excellent. Maybe Drew wasn’t all bad… “Copy, go ahead.”

  “Just wanted you to know that the USS Theta has de-warped and will be here in about four-and-a-half hours, so we’ll have more friendlies for company.”

  Storm’s smile grew wider. “More of a chance we’ll make it out alive.”

  There was a hesitant pause. “What do you mean ‘make it out alive?’ You mean if the Russians actually use force?”

  “Oh. Uh… yes.”

  Drew’s voice grew stern and … was that an edge of fear? “Is there something going on I should know about?”

  Dammit, does he know I’ve been inside? “I just meant the Russians, but also the inherent dangers of spaceflight next to this giant thing that we know almost nothing about.”

  “On those grounds, yeah, there’s a significant risk none of us make it home. The Enigma’s one thing, but the government’s doing a major balancing act as well by keeping us here: facing down the Russians doesn’t come without cost, probably involving ceding some major technological marvel to them.”

  “Yes. I just hope the ISI team can get back here and get me as quickly as possible. I just want out.”

  “So you’re not still planning on stripping the titanium off the surface?”

  Crap, me and my big mouth again. “I just meant that I was getting a little tired of being here.”

  “Listen, come aboard the Sigma. We can fly in close and pick you up.”

  That sounded like a very good idea to Storm, but that would mean leaving the crab unattended, and if it were lost, ISI would be out of business. “Well, thanks for the invite, bro, but I need to stay here and wait it out.”

  “Worried about that crab?”

  “Yes.”

  “Storm, you’re dumb. Do you know that? You came here on a desperately dangerous wild goose chase and you’re still worrying more about property and profits more than yourself. Dad was right about you.”

  ****

  The Russian crewmembers continued their journey into the center of the Enigma, coasting slowly past the vast cylindrical zero-point units, like ants making their way to the center of a large wheel of cheese.

  Sergey shone his flashlight on the core in front of them, as wide as a concrete caisson bearing the weight of a skyscraper, upon which the giant power units were centered. “See the reflection? Platinum! Tens of tons of it. This is wealth beyond imagining!”

  “It is,” Irina said, naked awe in her voice. “It’s a cave of wonders.”

  “I wonder how many thousands of years ago this system last ran?” Anatoly said.

  “I expect its builders are long dead,” Sergey said.

  “But, there’s something here!” Irina said. “You saw it yourself. This thing isn’t a dead relic.”

  Undaunted, Sergey sailed on, bracing himself on one of the ducts on the side of the cylinder. The others landed beside him. “According to the 3D map, this thing goes straight through a donut-shaped hole in the center of the water tank,” Sergey said. “Let’s go that way.”

  Without augmented reality, all the cosmonauts could see was the faint flicker of red laser light in the distance as the probes mapped out their path, and the glare of their flashlights’ reflection on the power duct.

  They floated slowly along the core, towards the rear of the Enigma, approaching the giant circular face of the water tank.

  “This space feels almost tight and confined compared to the last one,” Anatoly said, as they entered the tunnel through the center of the tank.

  “Up ahead there, that wide cylinder around the duct trunk, that’ll be the thrust chamber,” Sergey said. Some eighty feet ahead, the core widened almost to the walls of the tunnel. “How are we doing on oxygen?” Sergey continued.

  “Just over four hours left,” Anatoly said.

  “Same,” Irina said. Others chimed in with the same amount.

  “We’re okay to keep going for now,” Sergey said.

  They drifted slowly, until arriving at the flat, dull metal end of the thrust chamber.

  “Anyone care to do the honors?” Sergey said.

  “I’ll do it,” Anatoly said. “Darken your visors.”

  Their helmets filtered out nearly all light as the intense beam from Anatoly’s laser cutter loosened a large circle of material. He pulled it away easily.

  “Just a covering for the chamber,” Sergey said. “Probably to stop the heat from radiating. Yes, see how the inside’s reflective?” he said, pointing at the metal disc as it flipped slowly away below them.

  Anatoly shone his flashlight through the hole. “Definitely the thrust chamber! It’s even got the hemispherical design on its ends like ours do. I don’t understand how two completely isolated civilizations came up with exactly the same design solutions.”

  “That makes me really want to get at what’s inside,” Sergey said.

  “It’ll take a long time to cut through the wall if it’s tungsten,” Irina said.

  “Focus several cutters on the same point?”

  “Yes,” Sergey said, thinking. “We need a hole just big enough to get through, say five feet in diameter. Darken your visors once more. Let’s get to work.”

  Irina wondered whether the heat she could feel on her face and forearms was real or imagined, as the beams of five laser cutters met, producing an almost thermonuclear fire on the tungsten surface of the thrust chamber. The material was about six inches thick, so the work was agonizingly slow. They weren’t able to use their suits’ built-in position hold systems, with no visual references in the darkness around them, and the light from the lasers scattering too much to provide fixed targeting. Minutes ticked by, and they had still only worked their way a quarter of the way around the circle.

  “Do you think we have time to finish this, or should we leave it and come back on our next trip?” Anatoly said.

  “Finish it,” Sergey said without hesitation.

  The cutting dragged on another thirty minutes, the point of light working its way around almost as slowly as the minute hand of a clock.

  “Woohoo!” Irina exclaimed as it was finally completed. They switched off their cutters. Sergey turned feet first to the scorched metal, moved down a little, and kicked it. The reaction had far more effect on him than it did on the metal, setting him rising swiftly to collide with the inside of the tunnel. “Holy cow, that thing’s heavy!”

  The others pitched in and pushed as hard as they could, while keeping their maneuvering system jets on to stop them floating away. The chunk of tungsten drifted into the darkness below.

  Sergey smiled broadly, as he glided down into the hole. He was inside a cylinder as wide as a road tunnel through a mountain. The intense beam of his flashlight went straight through a large prism-like object, such that only its outline could be seen. Reflecting from the shiny inner wall of the chamber, it then passed through another similar object. The light scattered in all directions, producing an ethereal, psychadelic display of scattered beams of every color imaginable, plus glimpses of transparent surfaces.

  Irina floated in behind Sergey. “Wow! It’s beautiful!”

  Sergey merely nodded and smiled as Irina scanned with her flashlight beam, setting the patterns dancing. “Pretty lights aside, this is what we came here for.” They were looking at six hexagonal crystals of pure diamond, each the size of several buses end-to-end.

  Anatoly entered the chamber, bumping Irina on the way in. “Wow! This is the wealth of ages.”

  “It most certainly is,” Sergey said. “If we can get these bad boys out relatively intact, so much the better. I’ll bet they’re 100% pure, and naturally formed, on some far-off world that we can barely imagine.”

  “Move forward, guys,” Anatoly said.

  “Yes, sorry,” Sergey replied. He flew forward a dozen feet, as did the others, to let the rest of the team in.

  They were suddenly bathed in a fierce white glow from all around, which made their flashlights seem dim.

  “What the…?” Sergey said.

  Irina screamed, while Anatoly merely gasped, wide-eyed. Despite the apparent beauty of the display, each of them felt the same cold dread in their souls. “Would you possess me?” The words took over their minds, sending their mortal brains flailing for answers.

  “A…” Anatoly stuttered.

  “Get out!” Sergey yelled. The last thing they saw was each other’s eyes wide with terror as digital emotions flashed into pure heat, and the inside of the chamber reached 10,000 degrees centigrade.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  July 26th, 1850

  Charles and Rachel wrinkled their noses and looked at each other, silently communicating their dislike of the strong body odor all around them, when the train jerked to a halt. The third-class carriage doors were flung open and the occupants poured out in a shuffling cacophony of feet, black smoke, and train whistles. Charles and Rachel were swept along with the crowd. The smoke was nearly overpowering. Through the haze they could just about make out the funnels and large wheels of other steam trains and, somewhere far above, the windows in the roof of Waterloo Station.

  “Everyone seems to be heading that way,” Charles said pointing in the direction of the crowd’s movement.

  “Oy! Get movin’, you’re ’oldin’ us up,” a gruff male voice said from somewhere behind them, before Charles was half-shoved forward by an old man with gray sideburns and deep lines on his face. Ladies carried or dragged small children and even chickens in small cages. There was a loud hissing roar as the train belched roiling white clouds of steam into the smoky atmosphere.

  “Let’s go,” Rachel said. The pair made their way through the noisy crowd past the enormous locomotive to the end of the platform, and through the brick archway leading out of the station.

  The air outside felt and smelled like heaven compared to their previous environs. People hustled by and newspaper boys and sellers of fresh eels hawked their wares loudly. The road, lined by four-storey important-looking brick buildings, was a mass of people, horses, and carriages. A pack of stray dogs ran past, sniffing busily for any scraps, while seagulls wheeled overhead. Ladies, prim and proper with their bonnets and umbrellas, strolled further away alongside prams containing their offspring.

  “Now what?” Charles said.

  “We’ve got to find the most powerful people. But how do we go about that?”

  “Check in the newspaper?” Charles suggested, looking over at a boy of no more than ten, wearing a dirty flat cap.

  “Strange sights in the sky!” the boy bellowed in his Cockney accent. “Read all about it!”

  “Makes sense—except we can’t read!” Rachel grinned.

  “Neither can he, I suspect,” Charles replied, still looking at the newsboy, “but he still knows what’s going on and who’s who.”

  They made their way across the cobbled street, trying to dodge horse manure and the crowds going in either direction. Charles approached the grubby boy. “Who are the most people important people in London today, son?”

  “If you want to know the news, you have to buy a paper. They’re a penny,” the boy replied irritably, before yelling the headlines once again.

  Rachel took over negotiations. “Now, we don’t really want the news, we just want to know who the most important people are. What’s your name? I’m Rachel,” she said, offering a hand.

  The boy spit in his palm and shook with her. “Johnny. A pleasure, ma’am. So, for important people, you’ve got your king and queen of course, and your lords and ladies…”

  “I didn’t just mean the most powerful, I meant the richest as well.”