Beneath the Ice

by Harry Lang

part 2

I woke up feeling odd, as though vivid dreams had kept me at the edge of sleep. The ship felt odd too; there were unidentifiable smells and my ears popped as I walked from one compartment to the next.

“Machine?” I called.

“I’m busy. Why don’t you go outside and have a look around?”

I assumed he was being difficult but as I stepped into the middle compartment on my way forward I saw the airlock standing wide open. “Are you trying to kill us?” I cried as I pounced on the controls but he had overridden the manual systems.

“Take it easy. You can have a full report if you want it but the environment is safe.”

“What about pathogens? You can’t possibly know...”

“I can possibly know. Look, the sooner you adapt the sooner we can make the repairs and lift off. The environment is safe and your gear is in the airlock. Do you want to explore?”

“No!”

“Should we start the repairs?”

I really didn’t want to start the repairs as this would require leaving the ship but I had no sustainable objection. I picked up my tools and forced myself onto the first rung of the ladder, drawing a little comfort from a new determination to run the diagnostics after all.

“We should start with the port trap array,” said Mr. Machine as I stood sweating on the last rung. “The first step will be to destratify the secondary force conduits which can be accessed through...”

“I know where they are!”

I decided to keep my eyes on the ship; I was already light headed and there was no telling what might happen if I lost my orientation. Even so I couldn’t help glimpsing the pavement below. It was a mosaic, non-representational and quite beautiful. The foot of the ladder rested on a small section of a pattern comprised of swirling, multicolored strands woven together. It made me think of music.

I had just made up my mind to hold my breath and take the plunge when I got an idea. “Machine!” I yelled, which really wasn’t necessary. “I think we should move the ship into one of those buildings!”

“One moment,” he answered as I scrambled up the ladder and through the hatch.

I made it to the control room just in time to watch as the ship rose gently, turned and floated toward one of the nearest buildings. A hole appeared in the face of the structure, growing as we approached. Mr. Machine deftly turned the ship, backed through the hole and set it down.

As he cut the power I was startled by a sound like a brittle musical tone, loud and piercing. Before I could ask Mr. Machine for an explanation a shimmering column of light appeared at the spot just vacated by the ship at the center of the court. A port had opened at the top of the dome and as the beam shut down I could hear the wind rushing through the tunnel it had created.

While this was going on one of the buildings opposite us had opened. We watched as a large brightly colored sphere floated silently to the center of the court, paused for a moment then shot through the opening at the top of the dome. This operation was repeated a number of times, then the dome was sealed.

“What do you make of that?” I asked

“The procedure is automated,” reported Mr. Machine. “Apparently the inhabitants determined it would be necessary at this point in time and planned accordingly. I will track the objects until they arrive at their destination. In the mean time we should continue with the repairs.”

“Could they be hostile?”

“The probes? Not likely. Given their undoubtedly limited range...”

“No, I mean the people or whatever they are. The ones who built the probes. Do they pose a threat?”

“I’ve made some progress accessing and deciphering their stored information. There are small numbers of them hibernating in underground locations around the planet, all far from here. The rest are dead. That’s as much as I’ve been able to learn.”

“Did they freeze the star?”

“I don’t know.”

Oddly enough, now that we may have found something to fear I found it a little easier to be brave. I stepped onto the alien ground and let go the ladder, leaving the security of the ship for the first time in centuries. The sensation of standing in the middle of the ocean was overwhelming but I fought it. Keeping my eyes on the hull I slowly made my way aft.

At first I was convinced I would be useless. My hands shook. It was impossible to concentrate. Mr. Machine had to walk me through the simplest tasks but as the work progressed I began to forget myself for short periods of time.

Except for the obligatory duels with the lord and master time passed quietly. Every twenty seven hours another building would open up and send its compliment of rainbow spheres swishing skyward. Before long I stopped noticing. Then one day as I was happily realigning a force axis Mr. Machine said, “They’re heading for the sun.”

“Who’s heading for the sun? Charge circuit Z, please.”

“The probes. They are taking up positions along a line between the planet and the sun, like the spoke of a wheel.”

“Why would they do that, Mr. Machine?”

“I don’t know but a segment of the line is missing where it crosses the orbit of the first planet.”

“The explosion. It was one of the hangers, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. The automatons keep an event log...”

“Automatons? Are you talking to them?”

“No. They are talking to me. They recognized me as a ‘similar kind’ as soon as we landed.”

I didn’t ask the Machine why he didn’t notify me about making contact. All kinds of scenarios paraded through my head. Most were easily dismissed.

* * *

Standard data entry:

He is impossible. If I withhold information in order to protect his psychic equilibrium he makes his own unsubstantiated assumptions. If attempts to protect him (per program) are discovered I become a suspect. His mental state defies rational comprehension.

Repairs proceed apace. Work diverts him and may serve to strengthen motivation and resolve. The effect of hibernation upon psychic development will be more fully understood through subsequent revivals occasioned by contrived emergencies.

The automatons of this world are beautiful; they are not all good. Mr. Machine.

* * *

I heard voices.

I lay absolutely still in my rack, staring hard into the darkness, doing my best to become invisible. Mr. Machine would certainly know all about the situation. He would handle it. Unless he was disabled...

As I listened I realized the sounds weren’t voices after all but musical tones, some deep and smooth, others sharp and brittle like birdsongs. They were dulled somewhat by the ship’s acoustic protection but their effect was quite soothing. I suspected this was meant to be disarming so I tried not to listen and concentrated on planning a defense in case they entered the compartment.

Suddenly a new strain was introduced. It was dissonant and unpleasant; the other tones, which I had come to imagine as the voices of individual beings were thrown into a kind of musical confusion. They soon regained their composure, countering the dissonance with harmonies which grew in complexity as the “discussion” (for that’s what it seemed to be) went on. The dissonant tone grew weaker and eventually succumbed, leaving the first set of tones to go on as they had before.

It occurred to me that the ship hadn’t been invaded at all and that Mr. Machine was just eavesdropping on the automatons, though I couldn’t understand why he would make the transmissions audible. Slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb my imagined invisibility I turned my head to look at the monitor and then laughed at myself. Sure enough, the Machine was busily analyzing the transmissions and comparing the data carried by the raw signal with the greater body of information emerging from the undertones and reverberations of the three dimensional sounds.

Realizing this I relaxed and let the soothing tones draw me back to the depths of sleep.

As I went about my business the next day I waited to see what the Machine would say about his nocturnal surveillance. He never mentioned it. The suspicion that he was protecting me from something continued to wrestle with the suspicion that he was up to something and his secrecy kept me in a perpetual state of unfocussed anxiety. I had created him for the sole purpose of providing stability and security in the boundless chaos of a universe which humanity had scarcely begun to comprehend; now he was the source of my greatest uncertainties.

* * *

Supplemental data entry:

The dissonant tones represent an aberrant programming strain acting at cross purposes with the automated general plan. It caused the explosion which destroyed the hanger and its probes and apparently represents an ongoing threat to the execution of the general plan. So far I cannot access the general plan. I can only monitor traffic and examine event logs. I am currently constructing lines of probability based on these two data sources but the overriding probability is that events will be absolutely unpredictable. Mr. Machine.

* * *

“That’s the last one,” said Mr. Machine as I pulled an access panel to begin the day’s work.

“What’re you talking about? We don’t know yet how many magnetic ruptures there are and they keep migrating...”

“I mean the probes. The last one just lifted off.”

“Oh? So now what happens?”

“I don’t know. All the installations around the equator launched probes in sequence with this location. There are now thousands of probes forming a straight line between here and the sun, minus the probes from the destroyed hanger. My assumption is that when the first planet crosses the line it will be used to perform the task of the missing probes. One moment. All locations have launched their final probes simultaneously. According to the chatter between the automatons they are on course to enter synchronous orbits directly above their launch points.”

“Keep me posted,” I said, enjoying the little burst of decisiveness.

“Have you decided to explore yet? We won’t be here much longer.”

“Um, no. Maybe tomorrow.”

Suddenly a low rumble shook the ground. I wrapped myself around the ship’s ladder as the rumble gathered strength.

“Earthquake?”

“Sound. Musical tones. Listen.”

A low rhythmic throb soon emerged. It rose in pitch, spawning new tones as it progressed through successive octaves until it passed beyond my range of hearing and became a silent laser piercing my head.

I climbed into the ship and closed the hatch, shutting out the sound. “What was that all about?”

“A test,” answered Mr. Machine. “And it’s planet wide.”

“A worldwide sound check? What for?”

“There’s no way to tell. However, I suggest we expedite the repairs.”

As I looked out through the view port I saw the ambient light of the city flicker and shift colors. A different rumble could be felt, rough and jarring, like the blows of a hammer swung by a drunken man.

“Now what?”

“I’ll filter it and let you hear.”

Suddenly the control room was flooded with an ungodly cacophony. White noise and shrill, toneless whistles accompanied by arrhythmic poundings of metallic percussion and random blasts of unrelated notes clashed with the ordered ranks of the original progression of tones. The strength of the dissonance seemed irresistible at first but order soon prevailed. The tones faded one by one and silence returned.

“You don’t know what’s going on, yet you ‘suggest we expedite the repairs’? This is a large scale version of what I heard a few nights ago! You still haven’t told me anything about that. Why?”

“Because the only action you can take is to repair the ship and lift off. You are incapable of leaving the vicinity of the ship in order to explore. Anything you encounter on this world will be perceived through the lens of paranoia, thus negating the possibility of unbiased observation. I do not know the things I have told you I do not know and speculation can only cause aimless anxiety.”

“In other words I’m useless! It must be true: you’re patterned after me and you’re useless!” I punched the switch for the airlock.

“Where are you going?”

I told the Machine to go to hell and stormed away from the ship.

* * *

Standard data entry:

Finally, a normal emotional response. He is a slow study, perhaps an effect of prolonged hibernation. I have been trying to provoke this tantrum for days.

What are the automatons up to? I am convinced that their activities are related to the bizarre physics of this place. This renders all probabilities virtually meaningless. The dissonant element further obscures the direction of developments but one thing is clear; the potential volume of sound soon to be generated will easily pulverize the ship. I must lift off as soon as possible. Mr. Machine.

* * *

Proceed to part 3...