Descending Road - A DISTANT BOOM by Dana W. Paxson

A DISTANT BOOM

1563 4D

The wailing continued — an alarm, most likely — but nothing in the ship reacted.

It all looked disappointingly human and familiar. Arlen had expected strange controls, with areas for tendrils and other organs he had seen in the video transmissions, but everything looked just the way the crew space of a large complex vehicle should. To Arlen it resembled one of the old air vessels, from before the restrictions on flight, or even more, one of the great oceangoing submarines from before the Closing of the Seas.

The corridor they now stood in led from the antechamber where the guns had stood into the inner space of the ship. At each end of this corridor a molecular lockdoor opened inward bivalve-style, left and right halves cut to meet in perfectly-matched zigzags. Both doors lay open; a wall panel showed ordinary-looking buttons and lights and soundpanels.

Bargaroth‘s team had moved forward to reconnoiter. The Argazindar leader signed to Arlen that the corridors were clear. He paused. Would the command area he had seen on the video transmissions be at the top of the ship? Best to start there. “Let’s go up,” he said. A warning shiver, like the one when the images on the walls of his chamber had stared at him, zipped down his spine. Carchesme bumped him from behind. “Scared?” he asked her.

“Yes, but this isn’t— this is just ordinary stuff. Where’s the alien things you’re looking for?” She ran a hand along the wall as they followed Bargaroth and three of his team into what appeared to be a lift. The door closed on the six of them. Soft orange lighting showed a lift control panel with symbols arrayed hexagonally. This much appeared new. Arlen selected a graph on the top row and pressed it. A frisson rippled through him; Carchesme sucked in her breath.

The lift door opened. To Arlen, they hadn’t moved up or down, but had instead been displaced. Outside the lift, darkness draped itself over a few indistinct chair shapes. Arlen tried again. The door closed, the jarring ripple, and this time they arrived at a lighted room. Bargaroth stepped out, then Arlen and the others.

At first Arlen couldn’t assemble the pieces in his field of vision. On the left opened a large empty space, a high-ceilinged warehouse littered and stacked with upright metal containers each taller than Arlen and wide enough to contain a large human. The blue-gray metal carried the stamp of RhoCorp and a long serial number along the top edge of one face, in white duragraph. Each container appeared to have six sides, with flat top and bottom. Andros, probably, in preservative.

To the right a lower, shell-like chamber lay like a fractured half-egg, arranged like a control room but with two walls chopped away, the ceiling ending jaggedly where this smaller shell met the open warehouse space. Above the ceiling, lights mounted on struts aimed their glare onto the control-room floor.

Arlen approached the cutaway wall of the control-room area, drawing Carchesme with him. The control panels inside the room blinked and flashed with messages and graphics; pedestals with panels of lights stood waiting on the floor inside. Behind the control panels, Arlen saw cables leading away to vanish in the warehouselike walls behind the shell of the room.

He scanned the warehouse space. Hanging in the air a small object gleamed, hovering; here waited another, higher up, there a third, near the floor, closer in: sensicams. As he looked back to the control-room space, he recognized with a shock the room the aliens had shown him in the antiquated video transmissions.

“Morons,” he muttered to Carchesme and Bargaroth. “This is all a mock-up. See those cameras hanging out there? It’s nothing but a show.”

A distant boom, and the lights went out.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	A DISTANT BOOM 1563 4D The wailing continued — an alarm, most likely — but nothing in the ship reacted. It all looked disappointingly human and familiar. Arlen had expected strange controls, with areas for tendrils and other organs he had seen in the video transmissions, but everything looked just the way the crew space of a large complex vehicle should. To Arlen it resembled one of the old air vessels, from before the restrictions on flight, or even more, one of the great oceangoing submarines from before the Closing of the Seas. The corridor they now stood in led from the antechamber where the guns had stood into the inner space of the ship. At each end of this corridor a molecular lockdoor opened inward bivalve-style, left and right halves cut to meet in perfectly-matched zigzags. Both doors lay open; a wall panel showed ordinary-looking buttons and lights and soundpanels. Bargaroth‘s team had moved forward to reconnoiter. The Argazindar leader signed to Arlen that the corridors were clear. He paused. Would the command area he had seen on the video transmissions be at the top of the ship? Best to start there. “Let’s go up,” he said. A warning shiver, like the one when the images on the walls of his chamber had stared at him, zipped down his spine. Carchesme bumped him from behind. “Scared?” he asked her. “Yes, but this isn’t— this is just ordinary stuff. Where’s the alien things you’re looking for?” She ran a hand along the wall as they followed Bargaroth and three of his team into what appeared to be a lift. The door closed on the six of them. Soft orange lighting showed a lift control panel with symbols arrayed hexagonally. This much appeared new. Arlen selected a graph on the top row and pressed it. A frisson rippled through him; Carchesme sucked in her breath. The lift door opened. To Arlen, they hadn’t moved up or down, but had instead been displaced. Outside the lift, darkness draped itself over a few indistinct chair shapes. Arlen tried again. The door closed, the jarring ripple, and this time they arrived at a lighted room. Bargaroth stepped out, then Arlen and the others. At first Arlen couldn’t assemble the pieces in his field of vision. On the left opened a large empty space, a high-ceilinged warehouse littered and stacked with upright metal containers each taller than Arlen and wide enough to contain a large human. The blue-gray metal carried the stamp of RhoCorp and a long serial number along the top edge of one face, in white duragraph. Each container appeared to have six sides, with flat top and bottom. Andros, probably, in preservative. To the right a lower, shell-like chamber lay like a fractured half-egg, arranged like a control room but with two walls chopped away, the ceiling ending jaggedly where this smaller shell met the open warehouse space. Above the ceiling, lights mounted on struts aimed their glare onto the control-room floor. Arlen approached the cutaway wall of the control-room area, drawing Carchesme with him. The control panels inside the room blinked and flashed with messages and graphics; pedestals with panels of lights stood waiting on the floor inside. Behind the control panels, Arlen saw cables leading away to vanish in the warehouselike walls behind the shell of the room. He scanned the warehouse space. Hanging in the air a small object gleamed, hovering; here waited another, higher up, there a third, near the floor, closer in: sensicams. As he looked back to the control-room space, he recognized with a shock the room the aliens had shown him in the antiquated video transmissions. “Morons,” he muttered to Carchesme and Bargaroth. “This is all a mock-up. See those cameras hanging out there? It’s nothing but a show.” A distant boom, and the lights went out.