He forces them to stand before the box while one of his men punches numbers into the security panel. There’s a high-pitched beep and a series of clicks from unseen locks. Jack steps back as the box unfolds. The top lifts free like a swinging door, then all four sides lower flat to the ground. Fully opened, the pattern of insulation on the inner walls forms a series of straight lines that meets in the center, where the alien object stands.
A sphere. Ten feet in diameter, pulsating with a redness from within, like a heartbeat, slow build and fade, constant and evenly spaced. The surface is cloudy but at least partially translucent. Pale blue gems have been embedded in a deliberate pattern. Jack finds himself circling clockwise, following the design. The blue gems or stones or diamonds or whatever have been arranged in neat vertical columns. Consecutively, the columns become smaller in this direction, narrowing to a single point ending at a bright red stone. It could be a message or it could be decoration. To Jack, the red gem seems like a point of origin, spraying blue stones sideways. Like rows of soldiers exiting a building. He almost doesn’t notice the other markings. Two squiggly lines that come out of the top and bottom of the red gem and curve around the blue ones like brackets or parentheses, as if to contain them. Just to the left of the red gem there is a deep indentation about six inches in diameter, black inside. An opening. It might run to the center of the sphere, or just a foot deep.
“The fuck is it?” Dino says.
“A bomb,” Hunter says.
The Dandy laughs. “Why would you put jewels on a bomb?”
“We can’t know,” Stetson cuts in. “It’s alien. That’s the point.”
“But you will know,” Dandy says.
A few years after the war, stories of especially heinous atrocities began to trickle into the mainstream. Tales of experimentation by FROST scientists. Similar sadism had occurred during Earth’s great wars. Doctors wondering how long a person could survive with his intestines pulled out. Babies put into pressure chambers. People dropped in boiling vats of whatever the fuck. These so-called medical experiments vastly improved humanity’s understanding of the human body. So much so that the perpetrators who brought these nightmares to reality for thousands of innocent men and women and children would not be charged if they turned their data over to the western world, which they happily did. FROST followed this centuries-old lead, experimenting with prisoners to better understand the body’s limits in outer space. People exposed to ammonium rains, dangled naked on cables into Jupiter’s atmosphere, skinned alive and rubbed with Martian soil, crushed slowly by artificial gravity, and a number of Zero-G experiments: dismemberment, live vivisection, pain thresholds, immolation, etc.
And that is Dandy’s plan. He’ll retreat to his ship while one of his men stays to activate the sphere. If they can’t turn it on—if it’s not a device at all—they’ll just shoot it or hit it till it cracks. Whatever happens, he will be the first to experiment with this technology. If it doesn’t pan out, he’ll just blast Belinda away, along with everyone aboard.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Stetson says.
“You know what I think it is?” Dandy says.
“If it is a bomb, you don’t know the size of the blast radius.”
“Look at the gems on its surface. That red jewel in the center. It’s a generator. This, ladies and gentlemen, manufactures wealth. Diamonds and gold. Anything you can imagine.”
“That’s fucking crazy!”
“Oh, calm down. Gregorian, pick a volunteer. We’re out of here.” He spins on his heel.
The head mercenary nods and speaks rapidly in Saturnese. A thin youthful man with red hair steps forward and raises his hand. There is always some young fool ready to die first.
The others follow Dandy toward the exit.
There is nothing they can do. Lana gapes. He knows that look. People get it while trying and failing to comprehend their imminent death. Lining up with blindfolds on.
He has to think of something.
“You can’t leave,” he calls.
What is there? What logic?
“I’ll be watching, so make it a good show.”
Something real. Something plausible.
“No,” Jack says. “I mean you can’t leave. My ship won’t let you.”
Yes. No way to confirm or deny. A solid bluff.
He tries to put on a confident air, an imitation of Dandy’s knowing snideness. It’s difficult to maintain with the burning sensation up and down his arms and the pressure in his head.
“I wouldn’t step foot outside this room if I were you.”
Dandy pauses at the doorway. “Oh? Do go on.”
“My ship has been listening to every word. Didn’t you notice the turret when you came in? The one above us now? I told her if you come aboard, she can’t let you leave. The moment you step outside the hold, she’ll mow you down. And if you kill us first, she’ll do it anyway.”
Dandy smirks. “That sounds like a big fat lie to me, Jackie.” He says this, yet he takes a tentative step away from the door. “Why wouldn’t she just kill me now?” He points at the turret above. The camera lens is blank, dark.
“Because,” Jack says. He licks his lips. He can hear the blood pulsing in his ears. “Because you still have your rifles pointed. Our safety is her number one priority. But if you leave you’ll turn around and kill us. You said it yourself. As long as we’re in this room together, we’re all safe.”
Dandy seems taken aback. His showmanship failing. He must realize there’s only a small chance Jack is telling the truth, but with a guy like Dandy, that’s chance enough. He’ll put himself before everything. “Is that possible?” he says to the leader. Gregorian. The name Jack thought sounded like Orion before his rifle exploded.
Gregorian shrugs and mutters something.
It could very well be true. If Jack had thought things through beforehand, he could have programmed Bel in just this way.
Dandy considers the door. He says, “Tell her to speak.”
“What?”
“Your ship. Her AI. Tell her I want to talk to her.”
“She won’t.”
“No? Why?”
He glances at Stetson and Hunter, who ask with their eyes what the hell he is doing.
“We’re under attack,” he says. “She’s in lockout mode.”
“Lockout mode. That’s very clever.”
“Not clever, Jim. Dangerous. For you.”
Dandy’s eyes flash at the use of his first name. He puffs his chest, and then he rubs a hand over his lips and composes himself. He takes a breath. “So we are at a standstill.”
Jack considers bargaining. He could say Bel will let them leave if no harm comes, but Dandy’s word counts for nothing. If he escapes this ship, he will kill them. Guaranteed.
“Jackie.” He’s back to cooing in that theatrical tone. “Do you remember my note?”
He remembers. Or your family.
“I wasn’t just talking about the shipment. See, if I’m not back in range of my people within two weeks, my men are going to kill your ex-wife and child. If I die, they die.”
“Bullshit,” Jack says. He feels flush. Sweat beads down his cheeks.
Please let it be a lie.
“I have a strict policy of covering my own ass on things like this.”
There are only wrong choices to be made. Die with his crew and let Ani and Kip live, or take his chances with Dandy and his trigger-happy mercenaries, and maybe get his boy and his ex-wife killed in the process. Certain death vs. terrible odds.
Self-sacrifice would be most heroic, but it doesn’t say “hero” on his neck.
“Fuck you,” he says.
Dandy grins. “Looks like we’re stuck then, Jackie. You won’t let me leave, and I won’t let you live. What ever shall we do?” His men are poised for something, their attention drawn behind Jack. Jack follows their eyes, which have settled on the sphere and the young man slowly approaching the hole in its center.