In fact, when he looked at it again he realised that the prow, before the crash, would probably have ended in something approximating a sharply pointed spire.

  He chose not to mention this to his traveling companions. They were very quick to assess that this was a Da’al ship, as this then explained why they would be interested in an out of the way place like Tigris. Relations between the visitors and their hosts were stretched thinly enough as it was – he didn’t want to go upsetting them any further than he had to. So, when they eventually asked what he thought about the ship, he was careful to make only vague references to the sheer size of the thing – it was enormous after all – and kept his opinions to himself.

  He didn’t want them thinking that he was crazy. He’d leave that distinction to Nash.

  As they approached the ship he found himself becoming more and more anxious. While the majority of the ice on the lake had a solid, serene feel about it, suggesting that it had been in place for millennia, as they approached the ship it was possible to make out deep fractures within the ice itself. The force of the crash must have been severe enough to compromise the integrity of this glacial ice. The fact that it had subsequently reformed and refrozen didn’t take away from Webster’s sense that they were straying too far into unfamiliar territory. There was a lot going on here that he knew little or nothing about.

  They were out here at the very edge of the star systems and at any moment things could turn against them. The loss of the Dardelion had proven that clearly enough.

  Thoughts of the Dardelion brought up memories of Joanna. Memories he was going to have to suppress for the moment.

  It hurt just thinking about her and he had to make a conscious effort to stay focussed on their current situation.

  It wouldn’t do to get distracted out here. He still had a job to do and it was one he intended to carry out to the best of his ability.

  As they got closer, Webster realised that a jagged door had been cut in the side. Looked like they’d used a laser cutter.

  He looked over at Kekkonen.

  “You’ve been inside?”

  “Of course. How else do you think we were able to make our report?”

  “And yet the Admiralty only heard about this in the last few months.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” Dabiri said.

  “Still doesn’t make it any easier to swallow,” Nash chimed in. “It’s not like you didn’t realise its significance.”

  “Significance to who?” Dabiri asked. “Truth is, no one gave a damn about this whole thing ‘til the Da’al showed up. Suddenly, it’s the next big thing.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t think that the discovery of an alien spaceship had any bearing on our dealings with the Yakutians?”

  “We’re a civilian team,” Kay Marsh said, walking ahead. “We might be bankrolled by the military but it doesn’t mean that we have to think like them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nash said.

  “We don’t look at every discovery and think about how it can be weaponised.”

  Nash snorted at that. “I could maybe understand that if was some plant or a new species of animal we were talking about, but this is different. Something like this could give us a major advantage over all our enemies.”

  Kekkonen was shaking his head.

  “Can you hear yourself? And you wonder why we took so long reporting this thing.”

  *

  As soon as they were out of the sunshine, the temperature dropped considerably. And while everyone else took on a more subdued air at the idea of going inside, Nash seemed energised in anticipation of what was to come. As they took a moment to test their flashlights, his eyes seemed to gleam as he played his beam across the ship’s vast underbelly.

  Stepping inside the ship was like stepping inside a cathedral. Whoever had built this hadn’t subscribed to the usual tenets of spaceship design: that every inch of internal space had to be utilised. The walls soared some thirty metres into the air, so high in fact that their flashlights failed to register on the ceiling. Webster felt dwarfed by what he saw, a feeling which was shared by the rest of the party who moved around sheepishly in virtual silence.

  Webster played his torch along one of the wall’s ribbed beams which curved away from them into the darkness. Marsh came and stood next to him.

  “Beautiful isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. What do you think they did in here?”

  “Who knows? It reminds me of one of those grand old hotels.”

  Webster could see what she meant. There was a filigree design running through the beam which suggested both great delicacy and great strength. Reminded him of one of the hotels the British built in India during the heady days of the British Empire.

  “What about the crew?” he asked. “Did you find any evidence of them?”

  “Nothing at all. They seem to have abandoned ship some time before it crashed, unlikely though that seems.”

  “Do we know anything about why it crashed? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious external damage to explain it, unless I’m missing something.”

  She nodded. “You’re right, of course. All we can think is that the ship got into difficulties when it decided to enter Tigris’s atmosphere. Wouldn’t be the first time a captain’s overestimated their abilities in a situation like this.”

  “In which case, you’d be expecting to find at least a few fatalities. Nobody’s evac procedures are that good.”

  The group had already started moving off and the pair of them had to scurry to ensure that they weren’t left behind. It seemed that the scientists wanted to show them around as quickly as possible before moving on. Dabiri had waited behind for them. He was a difficult man to read. Webster couldn’t work out whether he was being friendly or overly officious.

  But when he drew level with him, Webster thought he glimpsed something in Dabiri’s eyes.

  He seemed spooked by all of them just being there.

  There were airlocks in place at each intersection and the scientists were very fastidious about securing them as they moved through. Equally strange was the fact that the airlocks opened at odd angles. Except when you went through expecting the floor to be on some sharp incline, the floor was always perfectly level. It didn’t seem to matter if the floor was one of the walls or even the ceiling. While such reliance on safety protocols was essential in space, Webster couldn’t think why they were so keen to maintain them now.

  Were they frightened of something getting in? Or getting out?

  One thing was for sure, he didn’t want to get separated from the main party. The darkness was bad enough when you were with a group. You certainly wouldn’t want to go off exploring the place on your own.

  It was an odd feeling considering that this was by far one of the most spacious ships he’d been aboard but the sense of oppression was palpable. It felt like he had a great weight bearing down on him.

  It was with a sense of relief that they came across what could only have been the mess hall. There was something amusing about the fact that the chairs and tables were suspended from the right-hand wall. Webster raked his torch over them, throwing shadows up the wall.

  “That’s strange,” he remarked. “The tables seem fixed in place but the chairs are scattered all over the place. Like they’ve just finished first sitting. How do you account for that?”

  “Some form of magnetic attraction,” Kekkonen said. “You could hang from one of those chairs and it would hold you. The crew must either have been very strong or there’s a knack to moving them.”

  “If they’re using magnets like that are we to believe that they had no other means of creating their own gravity?”

  “I don’t know about that but there’s a lot of things we don’t know. Come, I’ll show you.”

  He led them along to the next corridor. They followed it for roughly a hundred metres or so until it split into two. One strut led towards what appeared to be an armoured steel door.

  “Any ideas what that might be?” Kekkonen asked.

  Webster glanced back the way they’d come towards the mess hall.

  “Judging by its general position, I’m going to say: the bridge?”

  Kekkonen’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “We think so too. Only thing is we haven’t been able to get inside. Truth be told, we only realised its significance after we’d done the 3-D imaging and saw how big it was.”

  “Probably just as well you couldn’t get in.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “If I was the captain, I’d have wanted to keep all my secrets behind that door. Stands to reason you’d want to booby trap the place. First person who comes sneaking around – boom!”

  “What did I tell you!” Dabiri said with heavy emphasis.

  “Anyway,” Kekkonen laid his palm flat against the door. “It remains locked – for now. But that’s a puzzle we still have to solve. Our thinking is that once we get access to the bridge we’ll get access to their computer system, or AI, or whatever the hell else they use.”

  “Something I’ve been advising against,” Marsh was hovering at Webster’s side.

  “Guy can’t have any fun!” Kekkonen opined.

  “I think we have to be very careful with all this,” March went on, ignoring him. “This is a totally alien system, so in that sense, we have to assume it’s hostile. If we go firing up the main computer there’s no telling what we might be initiating. I know everyone’s got a hard-on for all this new tech but be careful what you wish for.”

  “Like the man said,” Dabiri interjected. “The whole thing’s probably booby trapped. Open that door and you could be starting a countdown somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Kekkonen threw up his hands. “This whole place is a death trap. But we’ve got one last thing we want to show you before we get out of here.”

  Webster indicated his ear bud. “Just a second. I need to check in, otherwise my people are liable to get nervous.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Kekkonen said. “You won’t get through. There’s something about this place stifles all transmissions.”

  Webster tried anyway, but Kekkonen was right. He couldn’t get a signal of any kind.

  They followed Kekkonen in single file, walking for a good half a kilometre before arriving at their next waypoint.

  Everyone was surprised to see that Nash was already there, head back, taking it all in. Webster went and stood next to him.

  He was looking up into what at first appeared to be a long black shaft but, as Webster joined him he realised that the more you looked, the more you could see.

  “Can you get vertigo just by looking up?” Webster said.

  “You can get vertigo anywhere,” Nash said. “It’s an inner ear infection.”

  Webster ignored him and continued to look. The walls of the shaft, instead of being pure black as they first appeared were, instead, a riot of colour and the longer you looked, the more vibrant they became.

  Kekkonen came over to join them, half squatting with his hands braced on his thighs.

  “What is it?” Webster said. “Some kind of elevator shaft?”

  “Of some description. This is where it gets a little weird. Either of you two afraid of heights.”

  “He is,” Nash deadpanned.

  “I’m fine,” Webster said.

  Kekkonen stood on his tiptoes to reach up into the shaft itself. He started untying something until, one by one, four fixed lines were hanging down.

  “We’ll go up in twos,” Kekkonen said. “I’ll take you Mr Nash, which means Kate gets to go with the commander.”

  “What about Dabiri?” Nash said looking around. “I wouldn’t want him to miss out.”

  “Eldridge went up there already,” Marsh pointed out. “Make sure there’s no surprises.”

  Kekkonen tried to help Nash with his harness but Nash was having none of it, pulling the harness on and adjusting it himself in under a minute. As if to make a point, Kekkonen took his time with his, getting Marsh to check that it was secure. As they secured and checked their lines, Marsh went off and came back with four helmets.

  Nash took his without a word.

  There was a powerful motor attached to each harness.

  “Do you know how to use one of these?” Kekkonen asked, but Nash was already gone, disappearing up into the yawning darkness.

  “Is he always such an asshole?” Marsh said.

  Webster shrugged. “It’s what he does best.”

  Once Kekkonen had gone up, Marsh helped Webster on with his gear and when they were ready, they ascended together.

  The helmets were fitted with lamps so they could look around as they climbed, watching the constantly changing patina of the walls. When they got to the top, Dabiri was there to help them unclip from their lines. Webster found himself standing on a gantry which extended back as far as he could see. Nash was some distance off, studying the ceiling with Kekkonen.

  Dust swirled through the beam projected by Webster’s helmet. The headlights danced as the three of them tried to make sense of what they were seeing. Long sections of crystal were set lengthwise across the ceiling, catching the lights and reflecting them back. Every time he moved the crystals seemed to change with him. Sometimes appearing to be totally transparent before seemingly transforming into something similar to the solid ice sections they’d seen outside.

  “Is this all part of the ship?” he asked.

  “It’s certainly the weirdest part,” Dabiri sounded suddenly wary.

  Marsh came over and stood behind him. “We thought for a long time it was some kind of propulsion system.”

  “Then we tried powering it up,” Dabiri said. “Big mistake.”

  “Punch a hole through that mountain opposite.”

  The thought of this amused Webster. “Yeah, right.”

  “Damndest thing,” Dabiri said. “Cut out a chamber six kilometres deep.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Webster said.

  “It didn’t last,” Marsh said. “Too unstable. Collapsed in on itself after a couple of days.”

  “Six kilometres,” Webster mused. Then he looked over in Nash’s direction. “Does he know about this?”

  “Why do you think he’s here?”

  Webster nodded solemnly. It was all making sense now. If the ship could do that kind of damage to a mountain then there was no telling what it could do to an enemy warship.

  “Pretty impressive, huh?” Nash was walking back, grinning from ear to ear. “Travelled a long way to see this. Can’t say I’m disappointed.”

  Kate Marsh rolled her eyes. Then she looked at Kekkonen.

  “See! I told you we should have kept our mouths shut. This is only going to make things worse.”

  Nash gave her an incredulous look. “What? You’d rather the Da’al got their hands on this? Because, believe me, they’d be the first to turn this to their own advantage.”

  Marsh said, “Is that why they’re here in the first place?”

  That stopped everyone in their tracks.

  “You think they’re here to recover part of their property?” Webster said.

  “But if they knew this thing was down here, why aren’t they down here now?” Dabiri said.

  “Perhaps that’s all part of their plan,” Marsh brushed the hair from her eyes. “Establish orbital superiority first: that’s why they had to take out your ship. From there, they can do pretty much whatever they like.”

  “They couldn’t take the risk of us getting our hands on something like this,” Nash said. “They’d have to be certain they recovered all of it: the ship, the computer drives, the armaments, everything. Couldn’t risk giving us any kind of a technological leg-up.”

  Webster looked around at the faces picked out by the beam of his head lamp. “Any chance that when you first came aboard you guys might have triggered something? A homing beacon, perhaps?”

  The three scientists looked suddenly guilty. No one wanted to consider that as an option.

  “But that would suggest that Tigris was their main focus all along,” Dabiri sounded defensive. “So, why waste their time targeting Blackthorn like they have? What would be the point?”

  Nash considered the unlikely weapons system which towered over them.

  “That, my friend, is a very good question indeed.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Morton walked quickly alongside the auto-doc. She had changed into medical scrubs, as had Bayas who was taking up the rear. It had taken quite a lot of persuading to get him to agree to accompany her. He had a fair idea of what it was she intended to do and wanted no part of it. Why he had agreed to go along with her in the first place was something she was still trying to figure out. She didn’t want to take advantage of him but, at the same time, she knew her chance of successfully pulling this off without him were virtually nil.

  Deep down she believed that it had something to do with his medical training. Any doctor worth their salt has a code of ethics hard-wired into them and she thought that might have something to do with it. But then the consultants she’d been working with had had no compunctions about abandoning Faulkner just when he was at his most vulnerable, so what did she know?

  Up until this point, Morton hadn’t had much of an idea what she was going to do beyond trying to track Faulkner down. But now that she had him, she was seized with a new sense of urgency. If anyone realised what it was that she was up to, the consequences would be very severe. And to think that all this was down to an off-hand remark Bayas had made.