“Yes, he will,” Wilson said. “More than anybody, he made this flight possible. But even he can’t carry the entire Commonwealth Senate, not for that kind of financial commitment. If we’d found anything out here, anything that indicated why the barrier was established, any hint of a current threat to the Commonwealth, then we might earn ourselves a couple of return missions at the very least. But it’s an enigma. And we’ve lived with enigmas for a long time now. We’re shocked and excited by them at first, then we just learn to live with them. Eventually, we don’t even question them anymore. Look at the Silfen. Why don’t electronics work on their worlds? How the hell do they really travel between star systems? Our popular myth has it there are forest paths between worlds. That’s what the more whimsical members of our race believe. More practical people believe they spread themselves across the galaxy with arkships millennia ago. It doesn’t matter, because we live with it, it doesn’t affect us. Now as far as we can determine, the barrier, for all its grandeur, isn’t going to affect us either. There are no alien battle fleets waiting out here to blow Earth to pieces and steal our gold and our women. This is just one more incomprehensible relic that will take us five hundred years to understand. One day, after that, you and I will be standing here and laughing at how puzzled we once were.”
“You’re taking us home, aren’t you?” Tunde realized.
“Not immediately. But we’ve certainly devoted enough time to the Dark Fortress. Unless either of you have a viable alternative, I’m going to continue with our flight around the barrier. After that, if there’s nothing else to be found, we’ll examine the poles as originally planned. We might follow up with a fast examination of Dyson Beta. I’d like to confirm that it is the same before we head for home.”
“I’ll concur with that,” Oscar said. “Team leaders are getting asked how much longer the investigation is going to last. Nobody has actually complained yet, but I’d say it’s time to move on.”
They both looked at Tunde.
“All right,” he said. “We do have enough data to keep the universities busy for a decade. But I hope to God you’re wrong about the next stage of the project. Understanding the technology in the Dark Fortress would elevate our species to unbelievable heights. We could become transgalactic, for heaven’s sake; there really would be no limits to what we could achieve.”
Anna and her little team of controllers recalled the satellites, carefully threading them back through the moving maze that was the four lattice spheres. Out of the thirty-seven they’d deployed inside the Dark Fortress, nine had been lost, either in the center or due to communications failure. When the remainder were back in their hangar cradles, Tu Lee sent the Second Chance back into hyperspace at a speed that would complete the circuit of the barrier in another five days.
The alarm brought Wilson struggling out of a deep comfortable sleep. He floundered around on the cot for a second, trying to shield his eyes from the cabin lights that had switched on automatically. Anna groaned, squinting and blinking.
“What the fuck—” she grunted.
“The bridge has declared an emergency,” Wilson’s e-butler told him.
“Son of a bitch!” He rolled off the cot and headed straight for the door. His virtual vision was flashing up dozens of icons. It was difficult to focus on them and the corridor he was half running down. Fortunately, the starship’s designers had stuck with maritime tradition and kept the captain’s quarters close to the bridge.
The status icons didn’t indicate any physical damage to the superstructure, and the hyperdrive was functioning normally. Defense was equally reassuring. No immediate danger, then. Wilson forced himself to relax as the bridge door slid open for him. That was when he started to review the sensor icons. The hysradar was breaking through the barrier.
“Shit!”
The bridge’s small night shift crew glanced around at his exclamation.
“It started a couple of minutes ago,” Oscar said as he rose from the command console chair. “I ordered a halt to our flight.”
Wilson glanced at the forward portals as he sat down in the command chair. “Are we still in the wormhole?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, Tu Lee, plot a course directly out of here. Implement it the second I tell you.”
“Aye, sir.”
Both portals were showing the hysradar scan of the barrier surface. It seemed to be fluctuating, bowing inward as if it was being bombarded by projectiles. Then Wilson acknowledged the scale; if objects were hitting it, they’d be the size of gas giants. The hostile force! The reason the barrier was established. “Astrophysics, do we know what’s causing that?”
“No, sir,” Bruno said cheerfully. “Not a clue.”
“Is there anything else out here? A ship? Some weapons system which could be causing that?”
“Nothing,” Sandy Lanier reported from the sensor console. “The hysradar scan is clean for a thousand AUs this side of the barrier.”
