There could be only one source for such an inconceivable quantity of shell material, and that was in the sun itself. Matter is energy, and energy is matter. Every active star hurls the equivalent of millions of tons a day of its own substance into space in the form of light and other radiations. But in the case of Pengetty’s Star someone had set up a boundary, turned that energy back on itself, manipulating and modifying it, translating it into matter. With precise control over the most elemental forces of the universe they had created an impervious shell of exactly the sort of material they wanted — harder than diamond, immutable, eternal. When the sphere was complete, grown to the required thickness, they had again dipped their hands into the font of energy and wrought fresh miracles, coating the interior surface of the sphere with soil and water and air. Organic acids, even complete cells and seeds, had been constructed in the same way, because at the ultimate level of reality there is no difference between a blade of grass and one of steel…
“The air is good, sir.” Kraemer’s voice came from close behind. Garamond stood up, turned and saw the lieutenant had opened his faceplate.
“What was the reading like?”
“A shade low in oxygen, but everything else is about right.” Kraemer was grinning like a schoolboy. “You should try some.”
“I will.” Garamond opened his own helmet and took a deep breath. The air was soft and thick and pure. He discovered at that moment that he had never known truly fresh air before. Low shouts came from the direction of the aperture as other spacesuited figures emerged.
“I told the others they could come through,” Kraemer said. “All except Braunek — he’s holding the buggy in place. It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“It’s all right, yes. I’ll be setting up a rota system to let everybody on the ship have a look before we go back.” Again Garamond sensed a difference in Kraemer’s attitude — before the lieutenant had seen the interior of the sphere he would not have cleared the buggy without obtaining permission.
“Before we go back? But as soon as we signal Earth the traffic’s all going to be coming this way. Why go back?”
“No reason, I suppose.” Garamond had been thinking about Aileen’s reluctance ever to travel more than a few kilometres from their apartment. He had been planning to return her to the old familiar surroundings as soon as possible, but perhaps there was no need. Standing on the interior surface of the sphere was as close as one could get to being on the infinite plane of the geometer, yet there was nothing in the experience to inspire agoraphobia. The line of sight did not tangent away from the downward curve of a planet and so the uniform density of the air set a limit to the distance a man could see. Garamond studied the horizon. It appeared to curve upwards slightly, in contrast to that of Earth, but it did not seem much further away. There was no sense of peering into immensities.
Kraemer put the toe of one boot down into the small hole Garamond had made and tapped the metal at the bottom. “Did you find anything?”
“Such as?”
“Circuits. For this synthetic gravity.”
“No. I don’t think we’ll find any circuits in our sense of the word.”
“What then?”
“Atoms with their interiors rearranged or specially designed to do a job. Perfect machines.”
“It sounds incredible.”
“We’ve taken the first step in that direction ourselves with our magnetic resonance engines. Anyway, what could be more incredible than all this?” Some instinct prompted Garamond to push the soil back into the hole and tamp it down with his foot, repairing the damage he had done to the grassy surface. In the region close to the aperture the soil was thinly distributed, but there were hills in the distance which looked as though they could have been formed by drifting. “As soon as your men have got over the shock tell them to gather vegetation and soil samples,” he said.
“I already have,” Kraemer replied carelessly. “By the way — none of the suit radios is working, though mine was all right again when I went back out through the aperture.”
“There must be a damping effect — that’s something else for O’Hagan to investigate when he gets here. Let’s have a look at some of those ruins.”
They walked to the nearest of the indistinct mounds. Under the blanket of climbing grasses there was just enough remaining structure to suggest a floor plan of massive walls and simple square rooms. Here and there, close to the black lake of stars, were distorted metallic stumps which had once been parts of machines. They had a sagging, lava-flow appearance as though they had been destroyed by intense heat.
Kraemer gave a low whistle. “Who do you think won? The people who were trying to get in, or the ones who were trying to keep them out?”
“I’d say the invaders won, Lieutenant. I’ve been thinking about all those dead ships hanging out there. They can’t be in their battle stations because even if they had been stationary during the fight the forces used against them would have kicked them adrift and there would have been nothing for us to find. It looks as though they were rounded up and carefully parked just outside the aperture.”
“Why?”
“For salvage, perhaps. There may be no metals available within the sphere.”
“For beating into ploughshares? It’s good farming country, all right — but where are the farmers?”
“Nomads? Perhaps you don’t have to till the soil. Maybe you just keep moving for ever, following the seasons, with the grain always ripening just ahead of you.”
Kraemer laughed. “What seasons? It must always be high summer here — and high noon, too. It can’t even get dark with that sun right above your head.”
“But it is getting dark, Lieutenant.” Garamond spoke peacefully, all capacity for surprise exhausted. “Look over there.”
He pointed at the horizon beyond the black ellipse of the aperture to where the shimmering blue-greens of the distance had begun to deepen. There was an unmistakable gathering of shade.
“That’s impossible,” Kraemer protested. He looked up at the sun.“Oh, no!”
Garamond looked up and saw that the sun was no longer circular. It had one straight side, like a gold coin from which somebody had clipped a generous segment. Shouts from the other men indicated that they had noticed the event. While they watched, the still-brilliant area of the sun’s disc grew progressively smaller as though a shutter were being drawn across it. At the same time, keeping pace, the darkness increased on the corresponding horizon and a new phenomenon made itself apparent. The delicate ribbed effect which Garamond had noticed in the sky earlier became clearer, the alternating bands of lighter and darker blue now standing out vividly. In the space of a minute, as the sun began to disappear completely, the slim curving ribs became the dominant feature of the sky, swirling across it from two foci, sharply defined as the striations in polished agate. Near the horizon, where they dipped behind denser levels of air, the bands blurred and dispersed into a prismatic haze. The last searing sliver of sun vanished and Garamond glimpsed a wall of shadow rushing over the landscape towards him at orbital speed, then it was night, beneath a canopy of stratified sapphire. Garamond stayed beside the lake of stars for an hour before returning to his ship and sending a tachyonic signal to Starflight House.
eight
It was almost exactly four months later that Elizabeth Lindstrom’s flagship took up its station outside the sphere’s entrance.
Garamond had spent part of the time carrying out investigations into Orbitsville — the name for the sphere had originated with an unknown crew member — but, as it was primarily equipped for locate-and-report missions, the Bissendorf did not carry a large science team, and the studies were necessarily limited. The astronomy section, under Sammy Yamoto, made the most profound discovery of all — that there was yet another sphere surrounding Pengelly’s Star.