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Authors: Sean Williams, Shane Dix
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doesn’t like hearing voices in his head.”
“Good.” Samson smiled openly, making her seem even younger than she already was.
Christ, thought Hatzis. What does she see in him? They were opposites in almost every respect: she a pale-complexioned blond in her thirties, he a rejuvenated sixty-year-old, formerly mixed African/Cuban stock but now in the body of a vat-grown android barely six months old. More importantly, she was still in possession of all of her faculties, while he—
Give it a rest, Hatzis chided herself, tiring of her own maligning of Alander.
“I’ll allow this only on the condition that he actually wants you there,” she said. “The minute he asks for you to leave, you’re gone. Understood?”
Samson nodded. “Understood.”
“Okay.” She brought Sivio up to speed and gave permission for the line to Alander to be opened. The conSense link was a small risk, but a meaningless one if what Alander had said about the Spinners being able to access the Tipler was really true.
She didn’t stick around to listen in on the conversation. There was far too much work to be done for her to afford to be able to just hang about eavesdropping. She had her projections team concentrate their efforts on the fifth tower and spindle, in order to anticipate what Alander might find there. She didn’t want him going in there blind, despite her feelings toward the man.
Engineering reported that they could guarantee constant satellite coverage of the spindle with only a dozen or so orbital maneuvers. She okayed the procedures; as long as the Tipler was safely out of the way, she was prepared to risk a few minor satellites in order to increase surveillance.
The issue of alien versus human origins of the Spinners wasn’t going away in a hurry, despite Alander’s beliefs on the subject. Certainly, the pictures filtering through spoke of massive capability. Such architecture required enormous material strength and a high degree of engineering sophistication, but none of it rang false to her. The angles and planes displayed an appreciable aesthetic, as she understood it. There were three ways to explain it: Architecture throughout the universe followed similar rules; the builders came from the same place she did; or the builders made the spindles the way they did in order to meet human aesthetics, not their own. The first possibility struck her as being unlikely, as did the last, but she was unsure if that reasoning alone justified accepting the second possibility.
Spindle Five consisted of a central, seed-shaped structure approximately one-half kilometer in height. The orbital tower connecting it to the ground was anchored in a slight tapering at its bottom, similar in reverse to the counterweight on the far side. The orbital ring seemed to pass through the entire structure unhindered, vanishing on one side into a deep dimple only to reappear on the other in exactly the same fashion. Apart from that, there were no obvious openings in the central structure’s surface; it was apparently smooth all over.
Surrounding it, however, were seventeen freestanding rings, like streamers encircling a Christmas tree, though never actually touching the branches. They kept a minimum 100-meter distance from the central “seed” and were spaced equally apart around it. From edge to edge, they were ten meters wide and three meters thick. All of them were irregularly dotted with slight, rectangular indentations that the projections team suspected might be windows or airlocks, although none of them were open.
Electromagnetic emissions were minimal. The entire structure uniformly reflected a slight bronze light, but there were no lights, no radars, no lasers. For all Hatzis and her crew could tell, the structure could have been completely dead. But the cable car suggested otherwise.
“Could it really be so easy, though?” she mused aloud.
“Could what be so easy?” asked Sivio.
She looked at him and shook her head.
“Good.” Samson smiled openly, making her seem even younger than she already was.
Christ, thought Hatzis. What does she see in him? They were opposites in almost every respect: she a pale-complexioned blond in her thirties, he a rejuvenated sixty-year-old, formerly mixed African/Cuban stock but now in the body of a vat-grown android barely six months old. More importantly, she was still in possession of all of her faculties, while he—
Give it a rest, Hatzis chided herself, tiring of her own maligning of Alander.
“I’ll allow this only on the condition that he actually wants you there,” she said. “The minute he asks for you to leave, you’re gone. Understood?”
Samson nodded. “Understood.”
“Okay.” She brought Sivio up to speed and gave permission for the line to Alander to be opened. The conSense link was a small risk, but a meaningless one if what Alander had said about the Spinners being able to access the Tipler was really true.
She didn’t stick around to listen in on the conversation. There was far too much work to be done for her to afford to be able to just hang about eavesdropping. She had her projections team concentrate their efforts on the fifth tower and spindle, in order to anticipate what Alander might find there. She didn’t want him going in there blind, despite her feelings toward the man.
Engineering reported that they could guarantee constant satellite coverage of the spindle with only a dozen or so orbital maneuvers. She okayed the procedures; as long as the Tipler was safely out of the way, she was prepared to risk a few minor satellites in order to increase surveillance.
The issue of alien versus human origins of the Spinners wasn’t going away in a hurry, despite Alander’s beliefs on the subject. Certainly, the pictures filtering through spoke of massive capability. Such architecture required enormous material strength and a high degree of engineering sophistication, but none of it rang false to her. The angles and planes displayed an appreciable aesthetic, as she understood it. There were three ways to explain it: Architecture throughout the universe followed similar rules; the builders came from the same place she did; or the builders made the spindles the way they did in order to meet human aesthetics, not their own. The first possibility struck her as being unlikely, as did the last, but she was unsure if that reasoning alone justified accepting the second possibility.
Spindle Five consisted of a central, seed-shaped structure approximately one-half kilometer in height. The orbital tower connecting it to the ground was anchored in a slight tapering at its bottom, similar in reverse to the counterweight on the far side. The orbital ring seemed to pass through the entire structure unhindered, vanishing on one side into a deep dimple only to reappear on the other in exactly the same fashion. Apart from that, there were no obvious openings in the central structure’s surface; it was apparently smooth all over.
Surrounding it, however, were seventeen freestanding rings, like streamers encircling a Christmas tree, though never actually touching the branches. They kept a minimum 100-meter distance from the central “seed” and were spaced equally apart around it. From edge to edge, they were ten meters wide and three meters thick. All of them were irregularly dotted with slight, rectangular indentations that the projections team suspected might be windows or airlocks, although none of them were open.
Electromagnetic emissions were minimal. The entire structure uniformly reflected a slight bronze light, but there were no lights, no radars, no lasers. For all Hatzis and her crew could tell, the structure could have been completely dead. But the cable car suggested otherwise.
“Could it really be so easy, though?” she mused aloud.
“Could what be so easy?” asked Sivio.
She looked at him and shook her head.
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