Chapter Eight

1.

NO MAN SHOULD HAVE survived.

Kaplan couldn’t shake that thought. How many times had Nathaniel Stone cheated death? Those around him perished, but not the man. Though, no-one could argue, Stone was a mess.

He sat in ripped and mixed-matched clothes, some stained, his shirt the only clean thing since another man had relinquished a garment from beneath his uniform. Most of Stone was covered in dried blood that, owing to the lack of sufficient water, he’d only been able to slough off where it showed, yet his skin had taken on a red veined mottled patterning that only a wash and a scrubbing brush might remove. Kaplan considered Stone would require several washes in disinfectant alone. His red hair was as red as it had ever been. Stone had combed it back as best as he was able but bits kept flaking off and the rest had crusted over. If he’d confessed to having found a slaughterhouse and spent a year there without bathing, Kaplan would have been inclined to believe him if he hadn’t known otherwise.

Even Wollf had started back, eyes wide, her gaze sweeping Stone from head to foot. Her brows had lifted as high as they could probably go when the small search party Bedford had sanctioned, consisting of Stevenson, Tally, and Midshipman Moore, had brought Stone stumbling back to camp. Now, an hour later, rested, fed and watered, although what he also required was sleep, Stone sat among them, while the team packed up their belongings, preparing to return to the cutter.

He’d laid his findings out for the researchers to examine. When Kaplan wasn’t looking at the man, he gazed at those discoveries and considered.

“Si, hollow, just as you say. Just like a bird, si si si.”

Quintana’s excitability could be amusing but Kaplan had too much on his mind to find it anything but distracting just now. Maybe he would have been able to dredge up a little enthusiasm had Stone brought him back a mineral to examine, but he wasn’t even sure about that. He had too many questions.

Nathaniel Stone’s great adventures.

Sheer dumb luck or something else at work? He need look no further than Jupiter to wonder about that, although he knew the professor had already been through more than most men ever envisioned even before this latest escapade.

“I wish I could have been there.” Quintana held the white dragon bone in his hands and stared at it with a loving expression. To anyone who didn’t know him, Quintana’s lack of interest in Stone’s appearance would have been shocking.

Kaplan’s main interest allowed him to quickly shift his thoughts back to Stone’s latest exploit.

Swallowed? By a dragon? Then for that very creature to die? In that event, Stone hacking his way out from inside… Yes, Kaplan could believe that was possible. Getting out of the animal had been the least of Stone’s worries in such a predicament.

He’d had no way to know what he would find outside. There were a hundred different ways he could have died other than within the beast. At the very least, Stone should have wandered the depths of Jupiter until his air ran out.

Kaplan couldn’t shake the feeling that Nathaniel Stone’s nine lives, if a man could have such a thing, had long expired; the man should be dead many times over.

Why wasn’t he?

Kaplan wished he had the answer, but his feelings for Stone had changed this day and as for the other team members, even if their thoughts were not as clear on this subject as his were, the mineralogist could see they were looking at Stone as if he were some sort of scientific curiosity. An element of wonder? Or possible future disaster?

“Your thoughts are what? Hmm?”

Kaplan longed to speculate more on Stone’s strange degree of luck, but unfortunately Quintana was speaking to him.

Although he was used to Quintana’s, at times, singular attention to detail that could swing to an abrupt change the moment something caught his attention, some element in his voice made Kaplan stare at the pieces of dragon bone Quintana was turning over in his hands. He looked but his attention remained focused too much on Stone to care. Bone… He often came across it in excavations, but it was not his specialty and the fact that Quintana would bother him with something so inconsequential to his field annoyed him more than it should have. Some men, even when behaving reasonably, could annoy without effort.

“Maybe your coral is not coral, hmm? And what do you think? Diatomaceous earth? Miss Wollf? Si?”

Shame on him. Quintana had not been addressing him at all, but Katharina Wollf. Despite his focus lying elsewhere, surprise and embarrassment captured Kaplan’s concentration. He was not the only person to look at Wollf, who uncharacteristically seemed surprised by the sudden attention—if the widening of her eyes indicated surprise.

“I…have heard of its existence, and I understand the theory of its use, although I question the benefits.”

Quintana had gone back to examining the bone as if he’d forgotten he’d consulted her, but after glancing at him, Wollf explained. “It is technically nothing more than fine powder ground from a fossilised single-cell diatoms.”

“Fascinating stuff to see,” Quintana chimed in. “Under a microscope the earth has the appearance of hollow cylinders. Holes lined in the sides. Some humans believe when consumed it has good… Um…power to absorb negative pollutants.”

“Bacteria,” Wollf enlightened. “Heavy metals, parasites, radiation.”

“Perhaps the dust here…it is not exactly the same.” Quintana crumbled just a small fragment of the bone between his fingers although it apparently pained him to do so. “If the draco… The dragons eat this, maybe it protects them.”

“From Jupiter itself?” Even Stone seemed to struggle with the proposition.

“Si. Any interpretation right now is only theory, but if true…”

“It could explain why they can fly outside. It could also have practical uses.”

“As may be, Professor,” Bedford interrupted them, “but we won’t have time to collect further samples.”

Quintana was already carefully encasing the specimens he had in protective packaging for transport back to the ship.

“Of course.” Stone appeared to accept the need to leave but managed to sound unhappy about it in those two small words. “I also found this.” He took what looked to be a gemstone out of his pocket and placed it down in the dust.

Before anyone else could swoop in, Kaplan picked up what he realised upon inspection was more crystal than gem. “What is this? Where did you find it?”

He waited a few seconds, only looking up when Stone did not reply. Only when Kaplan met his gaze did Stone say, “It’s a draco eye.”

He’s used Quintana’s phrase so it took a moment for Kaplan to realise what Stone was saying. “No,” Kaplan said on a laugh, but then grew sober when he saw Stone was serious.

“The same way I said the bones hardened and grew brittle, the eyes changed even as I watched. I was inside the eye socket as the lens hardened and frosted over. That is all that remained.”

Marcus struggled to believe that, but it was still an incredible find.

“Beautiful,” Bedford said. “We seem to find many incredible crystals through the Solar System, do you not agree? Remember your report of Phobos, Professor? How men were willing to kill each other over pretty rocks? This looks remarkably like a diamond, one already cut and polished at that.”

“Want to put another ring on Annabelle’s finger?” Stone muttered as Bedford walked away.

Tally gave Stone a disapproving look. “Nate!”

“Forgive me.” Stone sighed before gesturing at his own appearance. “I am tired.”

Tally apparently took him at his word but Kaplan was less satisfied. Still, the eye was something that definitely interested him more than tales of crawling out of a dragon’s skull.

The eye of a dragon… Draco as Quintana called it.

“Apresurar.”

Kaplan failed to understand the word but had no problem following Quintana’s gestures for him to hurry. He turned to finish the packing but could not resist lifting the crystal piece of “eye” and looking through it.

Before him, everything changed. He could see so much more, images overlapping, shimmering. Colours flashing, merging, separating, running into each other to form other colours which he wasn’t sure he could name.

Overcome, Kaplan looked away, blinking several times. Whatever these creatures saw was clearly not intended for the minds of men to cope with. Yet, how could he not take another glimpse?

He did, taking more care this time, although the same thing happened. The eye fed too much information into his brain, at once a wondrous and a hideous experience. Undaunted, he swept the area, wishing he could see what these creatures saw. How did Jupiter look to them? How did men? Even the ground jumped up at him, containing a microcosm of colours. The cartouches stood like sentinels, with a multi-dimensional appearance. On the surface…

Kaplan lowered the eye, swallowing and blinking. Spots of light flashed in his brain every time he closed his eyes, as if he’d gazed at something bright for too long.

“Kaplan?”

Someone called his name but he knew not who. As his vision cleared he wasted no time in looking through the eye again.

“Kaplan!”

He paid the voice no mind. What he saw took all of his attention.

The symbols on the stones were moving.

2.

“MARCUS!” NATHANIEL GRABBED THE man and jerked his arm down. Kaplan cried out as he almost dropped the eye. Quintana rushed in to save it, but Kaplan snatched it back.

It was as if he didn’t even know them. Then he searched their faces and finally looked at Nathaniel. Kaplan seemed shocked by his appearance, which was odd when Kaplan knew what he had been through. True, Kaplan had seemed…almost suspicious of him since his return, but Nathaniel had neither the inclination nor patience to worry about whatever aided the researcher, not after all Nathaniel had survived during the last few hours. Kaplan’s apparent unease aside, he had looked through the eye and his strange behaviour had grown worse. Even as Nathaniel watched, realisation, understanding…memory? All those things returned to Kaplan’s gaze.

“Stone!” Kaplan returned his grip. “Thank you, Stone. I was…lost there for a moment. This thing, it’s difficult to look through but, Stone, you have to see this. Look at the cartouches through the eye.”

Nathaniel obeyed, almost cursing at his first attempt. The sight threatened to overload his brain.

He required a few tries before he saw why Kaplan was so excited. When he realised, he spoke to Tally while still staring through the eye. “Fetch Bedford. Tell him we have to postpone leaving.” Nathaniel didn’t even concern himself with the commander’s reaction. They had come looking for something and had most definitely found it.

3.

“THE LEAST YOU CAN do is explain to me why you think this…” Bedford stared at the cartouches, unable to formulate a description for the symbols on them.

“I’m calling it dragon script,” Stone told him, putting down the eye and making more marks on the page.

“Dragon script?”

“Or draco script, if you prefer. Quintana does seem fond of that word.”

“And are you merely copying it down or trying to decipher it?”

“Both.” Although Stone answered his questions his attention was all for the task. He lifted the eye again, put it down, marked the page, muttered impolitely, and called Tally over to him. “Be a good fellow. Hold up the eye for me. And don’t be squeamish about it.”

“’Ardly squeamish, but this is…well, ya say it’s an eye ’n’ I believe ya.” Tally’s expression was one of distaste despite the eye being crystalised. At least he did as Stone bid.

Bedford wasn’t so sure he’d have wanted to touch it either, though he would have done so if necessary. “How long before you have it all down?” he asked.

“Copied?” Stone’s task seemed to go faster now being that he only required quick glances up and back down. “Not long.”

“Then save the deciphering for back on the ship.”

Stone stopped writing. “Bedford, I don’t think you grasp quite what this means. We can’t leave yet.”

Bedford recognised the look in Stone’s eyes. He’d seen it shining out of Annabelle’s gaze often enough. “We are running out of time,” he warned him.

“I appreciate—”

“I don’t think you do.” Bedford considered his next words, and then went ahead. “Your…contempt for my command notwithstanding, you seem to forget we have a matter of a direct order on the time allowed to us and the added complication of air to breathe. For one who came so close to suffocating just a short while ago, you seem to have a lack of interest in the subject.”

“Contempt?” Stone somehow managed to project utter disbelief into that one word. “If that applies, it goes in both directions. I would have thought you more than anyone would understand the importance of what we are doing and how those in charge do not always—”

“Enough.” Bedford managed to keep his voice down—it would not do for the crew to hear them arguing—but he was a syllable away from hissing at the man. “We have orders. We have a lack of air. What would you have me do?”

They stared at each other a moment and then Stone seemed to remember Tally at about the same time as Bedford. Both looked to the other man who pretended to be paying attention to anything but their disagreement. He still held the eye in the air.

“Was that question genuine?” Stone asked.

“Against my better judgement, but yes.”

“Send all your men bar Stevenson back to the cutter, leaving their spare air supply for the researchers. That will lengthen our available time here. They can also carry all unnecessary equipment back with them.”

“Our orders,” Bedford had to remind him.

“I will take responsibility.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“What’s his nibs gonna do out here?” Tally butted in.

“There is the brig,” Bedford said.

“Then it’ll be the brig for me then. I am somewhat well acquainted with Sovereign’s brig, you may recall, Commander. I’ll tell Theobald I refused to leave.” Stone went back to drawing, probably in part because, although he knew orders were orders, it stood to reason some assignments ran outside of some “rules” and directives, and Bedford could indeed spare him more time.

“Gallant, Professor, but more like for both of us.” Bedford could see none other but him and the professor getting the blame, and in truth, such missions were indeed in part under the commanding officer to direct, but he would use every ploy he had to give Stone a push. Researchers could be an argumentative bunch.

“An unfortunate possibility, I grant you. What could you do if I indeed refused to leave?”

“Arrest you.”

“Do you have enough men to arrest the entire research team?”

Bedford jumped at the voice coming from behind him. Wollf stood looking down and he had to resist the urge to spring to his feet in defence of his position. Instead, he regarded her and forced out the question, “You would argue with me?”

“That may be unlikely.”

Bedford noted she didn’t give him a direct denial.

“Some of the others would possibly stand with Professor Stone. The captain may throw us all in the brig if he likes, and there may be disciplinary action upon a return to Earth.” Wollf spoke as if she were musing. “This is all speculation. The captain… The ship… The mission…requires researchers. Researchers who are quite capable of bringing that fact home to him, if forced so to do.”

Bedford shook his head, lost for argument. Maybe he was better off directing things from a lower standpoint after all, with Theobald in charge of the ship. This team would take some handling. He looked at Stone. “Theobald will likely keel haul you if there is some way to do it.”

“Then I will pay that price,” Stone told him.

Bedford sat back surprised. This find was truly important then. Despite the sense of urgency to return to Sovereign, and despite his personal feelings towards Stone, he did not doubt the professor in this. “What do you think you have here?”

“Something bigger than our orders. Bigger than our captain. I believe this is a map to something extraordinary.”

They were wasting valuable time arguing. All Bedford could come up with was compromise. “Very well, Professor. We have some time left and I will do as you say and send a couple from my team topside to possibly extend it, but if you have failed to find this something amazing in the allotted time, we are leaving.”

“I suggest you send Quintana back,” Wollf said. Bedford looked at her. “He is…portly.” She had clearly chosen that word with some care. “He struggled on the way down here and I would hate for him to struggle to leave quickly.”

“No.” Stone spoke without looking up from his task. “I agree, but not…yet. I require his services awhile yet. He can pair up and leave with others as the time grows shorter.”

Wollf looked surprised but gave Stone a quick nod. Confused and showing more faith in their advice than he was feeling, Bedford decided he would again compromise and send two of his men to the surface—the same two who had joined their team last.

Before Bedford could move, Stone stood up abruptly and walked over to one of the tablets. He set his findings aside and reached out to trace parts of the script. Shaking his head he went on to another, then moved back before looking at a third. He stood up, stared at them for a time, during which the others all exchanged glances. Fascinated and wondering what Stone had found, Bedford could only watch.

Before one of them had a chance to enquire, the professor snapped his fingers. He followed the same pattern, choosing the middle cartouche first, then the right, back to centre, the left, then centre again. Each time he examined the symbols, he pressed one of them. Each time, the symbols he pressed either sunk into or rose up from the cartouches.

As he pressed the last, a grating sound filled the air. The ground began to shift, causing everyone to take a hasty step back. Under their feet, a sloped path appeared leading down.

4.

TALLY WATCHED NATHANIEL REACH down yet again to pat the pocket containing the eye. Nate seemed rather too attached to that thing for his liking. He longed to cast it aside, stomp on it, and crush it beneath his heel. He couldn’t explain his dislike. None of the others seemed to have an aversion to touching it, exclaimed at its beauty, but they were taken with scientific interest, and Wollf… Well, maybe he was being discriminating when it came to her sex, for he had imagined her interest would be of a woman examining something gemlike. Oddly, she seemed the most disinterested, more concerned with his handing her lucky playing card back. Quin and Kaplan on the other hand had been delighted with the find, although Kaplan appeared to have a problem with how Nate had obtained it.

Out of the head of a dragon. Whoever would have thought it? Tally didn’t know whether to admire the man for his tenacity or to feel a little creeped out.

The eye certainly made his skin crawl. Something unnatural about carrying an eye in a pocket. Something unearthly about the way it had crystalised like that. Talk about a reminder that he was very far from Earth. If he ever got to tell his adventures over a pint down the pub, no-one was ever going to feckin’ believe him.

The bones as well as the eye made Tally shudder. Tally couldn’t help wondering if that was what would happen to a man dying on this planet. He really wanted Nate to get rid of those things but he knew the researchers would never hear of it, and maybe they were right and these things would turn out to be important and necessary.

Nate said the eye was mentioned on the dragon script. He hadn’t finished deciphering it. Some of the cartouches were a key; some when combined a set of instructions. Nathaniel had concentrated on that, opened the floor under their feet in the very spot Tally had been kipping. To think, he could have fallen into the thing if he’d had a chance of a rest at the same time Nate had opened it. The path leading down was the very one they were following now.

The first part of the passageway had a gentle slope although the low ceiling had forced them to duck or even crouch in parts. Then as the slope levelled off they’d entered a horizontal corridor leading in one direction only. If not for the growing heat and the unevenness of the floor and ceiling the journey would have been easy going.

Tally was content enough. He’d been in worse-looking pubs, although he’d had a moment of hesitation when the thought of that entrance closing on them had entered his head. Bedford had apparently thought the same for he left a man at the opening with directions of how to operate the mechanism should they require it.

Bedford made a stop now, lifting one of the SAWs to contact the sentry.

“All quiet, sir. Nothing to report. Over.”

“And the opening is as we left it? Over.”

“Aye, sir. No changes. Over.”

As Bedford signed off, telling the man he would be in touch, Tally had to admit to feeling relieved. Seemed they were safe enough but he was aware of a growing sense of impatience from which only he felt immune. Nevertheless, it must have begun to affect him for when the path took a turn heading up Tally experienced palpable relief.

When they at last emerged into a cave his relief was tainted somewhat by the closeness of the space.

5.

NATHANIEL MOVED DEEPER INTO the cave while the others remained in a group by the entrance. He could see they were suitably captivated, or at least surprised, although Nathaniel felt neither of these things. He’d expected…something more spectacular.

The roughly circular area consisted of an outer ring of stone as if someone had cut a passageway for some great architect to work on the middle construct. Walkways—short gaps in the stone—allowed for attendants to move into the centre and probably maintain the machinery that lay there silent, almost brooding.

The smaller cave was still approximately fifty feet across, but the low ceiling and tight outer ring made it a place of shadows where imagination could fray the nerves.

All light, the little there was, came from the central machinery. Both the light and the metal gleamed golden. From a central column of serrated rings, several spokes pointed outwards, veering at right angles straight to the roof of the cavern. At the top of these spokes, round objects of various sizes balanced precariously. Some were missing.

“What is it?” Stevenson asked.

Nathaniel spared him a glance. Being that they had one on the bridge of Sovereign the explanation was hardly necessary. Stevenson understood perfectly well, although in this instance, maybe his confusion was understandable enough. “An orrery…the like of which we’ve never seen before.”

“Orrery? Like the one…?” Tally glanced at him and fell silent. “I mean, what’s an orrery?”

Tally knew very well, having seen one in the City of Light and Science, but Nathaniel gave him a smile. Tally was keeping his own counsel and that of Nathaniel’s—when in doubt the Irishman would keep his mouth shut. The orrery they had seen back on Luna had displayed balls of floating light representative of planets, although that particular example had contained many more planets than they knew of in their Solar System…as did this one. There the similarities ended alas. Nathaniel wondered when he’d last seen something looking so ancient and worn.

To support Tally’s evasion, Nathaniel answered his question. “An orrery is a mechanical device depicting the Solar System. The movement illustrates relative position and motion of the planets.”

“But this one isn’t working,” Stevenson said. His tone and expression had taken on a sense of wonder, yet his gaze drifted over the equipment and he quickly spotted that which Nathaniel had already realised. “Some of the gears are out of alignment.”

“Yes. And some of the spheres are missing.” Nathaniel cast his gaze about, pointing to a couple on the ground when he spied them. For the rest they would no doubt have to look more carefully.

Kaplan collected one of the two Nathaniel had seen, carrying the sphere with his arms wrapped around it, holding it tightly against him. “Is this what we’re supposed to find?”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And you believe we can fix it?”

Kaplan’s words seemed to contradict his expression. Nathaniel was aware that escaping the dragon, finding the eye, the eye being the key to understanding the cartouches, and the cartouches leading them here, was too incredible a design. He was on the verge of losing what rapport he had with some of the crew. If word of his miraculous escapes spread throughout the ship, he dreaded to think how most of those on board would view him. There were those who would follow for the good of the mission, and a handful who trusted him, but the rest would look at him as if he were akin to a witch, something to be treated with suspicion and superstition. People would look at him much as Kaplan was doing now. If he managed to mend this contraption and it resulted in them obtaining something to aid them on the journey, he could imagine how it would further damage some of his already tenuous relationships; nonetheless, he wanted to say he could but try when Bedford once more reminded him of time.

“How long would you require, if you can?”

“Impossible to say, but I suggest we use every last available second in the attempt.”

“Why?”

Before Nathaniel could reply, Wollf stepped forwards. She had placed a hand over her mouth in apparent shock. Kaplan glanced at her, then to where she was looking, his eyes going wide. They had just seen what Nathaniel was sure he and Tally already knew.

“We see it too, Professor. I believe if Arnaud were here he’d say, mon dieu,” Kaplan said.

Ignorance combined with the pressure of this command would make Bedford snappy. Nathaniel wasted no time enlightening him or the remaining members of the party. “An orrery operates in a heliocentric circle, with the sun represented as the centre of the Solar System.”

“Some claim we should use a geocentric system, making Earth the central component,” Wollf cut in. “We are more enlightened these days.”

It took Bedford a moment to apparently catch up. “Are you saying this orrery is neither geo nor heliocentric?”

“Si.” Quintana dragged the word out. “I cannot believe I failed to see that.”

Bedford looked back at the mechanism in front of him. “Then what is represented here as the central point of the Solar System?”

“That I do not know.” Nathaniel stepped into the internal ring. “The middle sphere is one of those missing. I can tell you this design displays far more than the Solar System as we know it.”

“There are also too many moons even for Jupiter,” Wollf said. “This conforms with my findings on the way here, that Jupiter has many more moons than we believed, but we’ve still only seen a few of them. And if this part of the orrery is accurate, we have to believe it is possible the rest is too.”

“Yes.” Nathaniel gave one of the spokes a push expecting it to refuse to move, but it shifted, screeching a little as it did. He could tell from the movement that this mechanism would revolve like any orrery. “This will operate on a diurnal motion and the positioning is to scale.”

Bedford was staring at him. “This is another map?”

Nathaniel nodded. “What else it might be, I cannot say until I get it started.”

“Then I suggest you make haste.” Bedford looked from one to the other until the researchers all turned to stare at him. “Based on our current rate of consumption, I can only give you an additional six hours, Stone. More than that and I’m liable to lose what authority I have on board Sovereign, so you had better be able to make sense of this map and give me…us something to report back to the captain. He’s going to want a damn good reason why we’re late.”

“I think I may have found it,” Quintana said from one side of the cavern. For one moment his voice seemed bodiless, but then he stood from where he’d been crouching. At first it was impossible to tell what the odd shape in his hands was until he walked towards the central ring and stepped inside it. In his hands were the remains of a Drobate skull.

6.

“I SHOULD BE THE one to help you.” In his eagerness to press his point, Stevenson laid a hand on Nathaniel’s arm. At the other man’s quick glance at his hand, he withdrew it again. Did Nathaniel believe he meant anything by that touch than was appropriate? Well, maybe he did, but not here and now. As Nathaniel glanced across at Bedford, Stevenson deduced by hope alone that the professor was just being cautious.

“And why is that?”

“Why I should help?” He waited for Nathaniel’s nod. “Because of what’s happened to me. Because…there’s something in this room. I know you can feel it too.”

“You know what I’m feeling now, hmm?”

Nathaniel’s smile was one of humouring him but Stevenson wasn’t fooled. “I can see it in your expression, the way you keep looking at that thing. There’s energy here, something. It’s coming from…” Stevenson looked over at the orrery. “The middle. Below. I’m sure of it.”

“Even if that’s true, what makes you believe you’re suitable?”

“Because of what the Drobates did to me.”

He’d expected Nathaniel to agree, but as the conversation continued, the professor’s expression grew hardened, resolved. He finished arranging the notes he was going to use to try to repair the orrery and then turned to face Stevenson.

“I don’t want you anywhere near that thing.”

Stevenson was so surprised he took a step back. “I…”

“No!”

“Trouble here?” Bedford approached.

“No, Commander.” Nathaniel sounded very decided about that, but apparently Bedford wasn’t about to take his word.

“Stevenson?”

He hesitated, shot Nathaniel an apologetic look. He couldn’t lie to his commanding officer. “I was volunteering, sir, to help repair the orrery.”

“And I was rejecting his offer.”

“Why?”

“Kaplan is going to help.”

“Wouldn’t two working be faster?”

“No!”

For a moment, Nathaniel and Bedford appeared to undergo a staring contest of which Stevenson was the only spectator. He wished he’d never said a word, when Bedford looked at him again.

“Any particular reason you’re putting yourself forward for this?”

Stevenson opened his mouth but didn’t know how to explain the buzzing in the room without sounding crazy. This time, Nathaniel spoke for him.

“There seems to be some kind of energy emitting into this room. Stevenson believes his contact with the Drobates may insulate him. I believe the opposite is true.”

To Stevenson’s surprise Bedford was nodding. “Energy you say?”

“Yes, sir. Some sort of…buzz.” That was inadequate but would have to do.

Bedford looked around. “I can feel it too, though I can’t say…maybe I don’t feel it quite the same way you do.”

“I need to get on. Kaplan will assist me.”

Bedford looked at Nathaniel once again as the professor pushed through them both. Stevenson didn’t know what decision would be made but he wanted to help. He took a few steps to the centre of the orrery and even before he attempted to touch it, went to one knee. He was sure the only thing that stopped him from vomiting was all the nerves in his body tightening, making him feel as if his body was shutting down.

He was aware of hands on him, people dragging him, and then he was gasping at the side of the room.

“What I feared,” Nathaniel said.

“Kaplan?” Bedford’s voice.

Stevenson managed to clear his head enough to watch the researcher march over to touch the orrery. Kaplan shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“That settles that at least. Come on, lad.” Bedford reached for Stevenson, no doubt to help him out of the room.

Stevenson wanted to argue but there was no point. He managed a last look back to see Nathaniel watch him being taken from the room. Then the professor swung his gaze around to look at Kaplan with the most pained expression on his face.

7.

AN HOUR LATER BEDFORD sought out Stone again. “Stone, I am deadly serious. If you do not think you can repair this within the time I’ve stated then we may as well stop now. I will give you every moment I can, but if this isn’t worth putting our positions…our lives on the line, and if there is no hope—”

“Please, Commander.” Stone looked down at him. “You are wasting precious air talking and what time you’ve given me. I would not risk this without good reason. We all know what we believe the central sphere to be.”

Planet X. There was no denying it and something about the workings of the orrery set Bedford’s skin tingling. Time had no meaning in this cave aside from that every breath drawn was one less the breathing apparatus could provide. He was but a visitor in an alien landscape. He knew none of life’s secrets, less than he knew of the universe. His beloved and her child were so many miles away they might as well not have existed in that moment.

His thoughts for once shifted from Annabelle to Kai. The result of a pregnancy forced upon Annabelle when she was a young girl and yet now she wouldn’t give up the child for any world. Kai had taken to Annabelle faster than he’d believed possible, but Bedford had required far longer to earn even a fraction of the girl’s trust and he was risking that burgeoning relationship even as it had started to bloom. He hated to think what damage his absence might do to their already tentative rapport. Returning to her with stories of great achievements, battles, and finds would help, but still sooner was far better than later. He was out in the aether for good reasons, but Stone knew how much he was risking so he’d better be right and this had better be a star map to Planet X because…

Because Bedford needed it to be. A map could cut weeks off their expedition overall and as ridiculous as it seemed, every day saved from being away from his wife and the child that he was quite willing to take on as his, that time was precious to him. So despite his arguing he was going to give Stone every moment he possibly could. He just couldn’t stretch their air reserves much more.

Speaking of atmosphere, the ambiance in the cave was oppressive. The silence seemed to speak of unseen things whispering. Bedford wasn’t one to believe in ghosts, but this place had the same air as the cave at Greenore Gulch in Arizona where they had found the remains of a full Drobate skeleton, one historically worshipped by the Apache no less. That they should find another skull here… Bedford felt he should be amazed but he was not. The only thing that worried him was that Stone had insisted the palaeontologist accompany them into the cave almost as if he’d believed that if such a thing was to be found then Quintana would be the one to find it.

Quintana had spent some time down here looking around but when he could find nothing else aside from a few small bones possibly from the same skeleton, he accepted that whatever discoveries remained were for future researchers should they come this way. He’d packed up the skull and gone ahead with Wollf and Bedford’s last crewmember to return to the cutter. The only people to remain besides Bedford and Stone were Kaplan, Tally, and Stevenson. That should at least prolong what remained of their air supply for it left them one more canister each once their current capsules ran out, and they would need a portion of that to make it back up top.

The air would last long enough, but he didn’t know if he could give Stone the time he surely needed.

This machinery was bigger than any orrery he’d ever seen. What it presented, immense. He could only feel gratitude that the Russians had so obviously missed it. Although they had set out on the same initial course as Imperator, and were heading for the same point, alterations in their flight had to be made due to the constant shifting of the planets’ orbit around the sun. If the Russians had stopped off on Jupiter they’d found no evidence of it, and clearly this space had remained untouched for years of a number Bedford had no desire to consider.

Whether Stone could get it working in time seemed less likely as the minutes ticked by. He’d already been through an ordeal and, running a hand over his face as if he could just wipe his own exhaustion away, Bedford couldn’t recall when any of them had last slept. He was almost dead on his feet, and he hadn’t been through anything like Stone had.

This place didn’t help. Stevenson claimed something in the room set his head buzzing of which they’d seen the evidence when he almost collapsed. Bedford could have sworn Stone knew what the seaman referred to, but he refused to take a break, and Stevenson had only taken one upon orders, although he’d had the audacity to protest. Bedford had allowed him to rest some distance into the corridor rather than waste time arguing with him.

Tally remained steadfast for the most part, ever protective of Stone, but he too had taken breaks, acquiescing a little more easily each time Bedford told him to rest. He often joined Stevenson in the corridor, and at other times switched with Bedford up top guarding the entrance.

The only two not to leave the room at all was Stone and Kaplan.

The most obvious assistant would have been Stevenson, but contact with the orrery seemed to produce waves of sickness that were more time consuming than productive. Tally didn’t have the dexterity. Wollf had tried to follow Stone’s directions, but she was too tall to get into the smaller places that needed adjustment, just as Tally was too large. Nathaniel couldn’t decipher the instructions as he went while trying to make repairs alone, so in the end the manual labour had fallen to Kaplan. He’d swiftly become as enamoured with repairing this contraption as Stone was.

While Bedford admired both man’s tenacity, he wasn’t convinced. Even if Stone and Kaplan could put this machinery back together, much of it looked in a poor state of repair. He checked on them periodically as gears were replaced and began to mesh. He touched one of the spokes now, and his fingers came away covered in metallic particles.

Sometime later he blinked, wondering how long he’d stood there. His hand was still out, his fingers still covered in orange dust. Stone and Kaplan still worked, and he could have been standing there a second, an hour, or a century. He had the sense of standing inside the great workings of a clock in which time meant nothing. This wasn’t the first occasion when Bedford found stretches of time spinning out in which he remembered nothing, his mind as blank of thought as he was of emotions. Annabelle was an ever present “idea”, but he began to lose his sense of her being out there in the universe, back on Earth waiting for him. He began not to care.

That was when Bedford backed out of the chamber. He took a last look at Stone and Kaplan and left them to it.

He stumbled up the corridor, gathering Stevenson on the way and pushing him ahead of him, ignoring his half-hearted protests. Something was very wrong here, but he no longer doubted they might find the item for which Stone was looking. The contraption was so antiquated in construction and design that Bedford should have taken it for a piece of junk. The way gears ground together, squealing in protest, told him it would never work, or if it did, not properly. Why then did he believe Stone when the man said this was important machinery?

Because no-one would hide it away like this if it didn’t serve a specific purpose. No-one would place such protections around it.

The place had the feeling of a trap, and someone only set a trap around something worth protecting.