Resurgence

E.C. edged the Tally-ho sideways and closer to the planetoid, so that he could shine a beam directly down one of the round holes. The blackness within was absolute, with no sign of reflected light. He wondered how that could be, and what material lined the tunnel. It would surely be all right for him to determine at least that much information. Although Graves had told E.C. to keep the Pride of Orion informed, he had not suggested that every independent action was forbidden.

Tally commanded the Tally-ho to maintain a precise fifty-meters separation from the planetoid. He put on a suit and went across to the communications console.

I have discovered a planetoid to which some intelligent agent may have made modifications. My signal beacon will direct you here, should you feel it worthwhile to investigate. E. Crimson Tally.

That was enough. He really was beginning to understand how humans thought and operated. Be casual. More was less.

He instructed the console to send his message after a five minute delay. That would give him enough time to leave the Tally-ho and make his way to the surface of his find.

* * *

As soon as he arrived inside he knew why there had been no reflection from the walls of the tunnel. There were no walls. The hole that Tally had entered expanded outward as soon as he was inside. The slab had no interior, it was nothing more than a paper-thin shell surrounding vacuum. He could see tiny circles of starlight, entering through the million other holes scattered all over the surface.

As a possible Builder artifact this was a total failure. It contained no mysteries, and it just sat there and did nothing at all.

Tally was ready to retreat when he noted something slightly unusual. While outside the planetoid, the gravitational force exerted on him had been tiny, hardly enough to notice. That was just as it should be for such a small body. But now that he was inside, his suit had to apply a constant thrust to hold him in position.

He turned off that thrust, and at once began to fall. That made no sense at all; or rather, it made sense only if some invisible object of high density sat at the middle of the lump of rock.

It was still of no more than slight interest, but since he was here he might as well take a look. E.C. allowed himself to drop for a few more kilometers. His suit’s inertial system kept a continuous track on how far he had fallen, and just how long it was taking. His conversion of those numbers to a law of force was automatic and almost instantaneous, and it occupied only a tiny fraction of his attention. The results were another matter. They concentrated all his resources. Since he was falling freely he had felt no force on his body, but his acceleration had been increasing exponentially. If he fell for another twenty-six kilometers, the extrapolated value was infinite.

Nothing in nature produces infinite acceleration. Tally knew that very well. It was probable that his computer brain would withstand whatever forces it was exposed to. His body was another matter. It was as weak as any human’s. If he damaged another embodiment beyond repair, he would never hear the last of it.

Those thoughts were completed inside a nanosecond. He switched his suit at once to its highest level of upward thrust. His inertial positioning system indicated he was still falling. That was no surprise. It took time to cancel out his downward speed, and start him back up toward the surface. Then he realized that the situation was worse than that. His acceleration was still in the wrong direction. The thrust provided by his suit was not sufficient to balance the downward force, and that force increased with every passing second.

It couldn’t be any type of high-density natural body at the middle of the hollow planetoid. The attraction was too strong for that. So what was it?

Tally had been falling with his body in a vertical position. He looked down, past the boots of his suit, and saw directly beneath him a rolling whirlpool of black oil, curling and tumbling on itself. As he watched, it grew rapidly in size. In another split-second he would fall into its depths.

E.C. felt the enormous satisfaction of one whose theories had been fully vindicated. This was a Builder artifact. The proof of that was right below him, in the form of a Builder transport vortex.

As he dropped into the churning heart of the whirlpool, his attosecond mental circuits had time for a last twinge of conscience. Despite his promise, it was unlikely that in the immediate future he would be able to report his discovery to Julian Graves.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN And then there were none