Approaching Omega by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

length of the gallery until he reached the flight of metal stairs. He descended step by step, making as little noise as was possible in the clumsy suit, readying his pistol and turning his head constantly to take in the entirety of the hangar.
    He reached the first row and lifted the cover of the closet pod, and his heart sank. It was empty. He moved along to the next pod, paused, and then eased up the cover. This one, too, had been vacated.
    After that he hurried to aisle B, then counted along the row until he came to pod 46. He paused, his heart hammering, and only after long seconds did he lift the cover. He knew what he would find, but even so the sight of the empty berth filled him with despair.
    He moved across the hangar, checking a few pods on every row. Every one was the same. They were empty. The sleepers had been removed.
    The question was: where were they now?
    He recalled what Renfrew had said: get in there, and then get out. No heroics. He wondered if he should quit now, get back to his team and report what he'd found.
    Or go on, try to find out what had happened to the sleepers? To Carrie...
    Perhaps the bastards haven't butchered her yet, he told himself. Perhaps, still, there is hope.
    He was debating what to do when he became aware of the vibration.
    The deck below his feet thrummed with a great, resounding pulse. He paused and stared around him. It came again, and continued every five seconds, lasting for a second or two. He took a step forward, and the vibration grew stronger, as if he were approaching its source. He hurried forward, moving towards the very middle of the hangar, then stopped.
    Ahead, perhaps ten metres from where he stood, he saw that the deck had been cleared of pods and a great hole had been cut through the steel plating. He stepped forward, slowly, his pulse racing.
    He reached the lip of the hole and peered down.
    The AIs had sliced through the deck, through the upper superstructure of the ship, to gain access to hangar Five. Directly beneath were the great, cavernous chambers where the requisite supplies for planetary colonisation were stored. This chamber should have been in darkness, but now the magnesium dazzle of a hundred arc lights illuminated whatever work the AIs were undertaking. The vibration beneath his feet was a constant thrum now, and he could hear the distant roar of heavy machinery.
    He paused, considering, then activated his powerpack and stepped into the void.
    He sank slowly though the hole in the deck, and as he did so the scene in the chamber rose into view.
    At the far end of the deck, perhaps five hundred metres away towards the front of the ship, dozens of AIs and cyborged humans were operating machinery. It was hard to tell at this distance what exactly they were doing, but judging from the kind of tools they were using, Latimer had a pretty good idea.
    They were tearing through the reinforced steel bulkhead that separated the industrial bulk of the starship from the working end, where Central AI was situated and where they, Latimer's maintenance team, was housed.
    He activated his powerpack and rose from the deck. As he shot vertically into the hangar, heading towards the gallery and the emergency exit, he realised that he was crying, but whether for Carrie — or for himself and his team — he could not tell.

Seven
    "The mission's over," Li said. She perched on her swivel-chair, hugging her shins, looking for all the world like a disconsolate gymnast.
    It hit Latimer, for the first time, that the mission might indeed be over. Humankind's first effort to send colonists to the stars might very well end in abject failure: worse, in unforeseen and irrevocable horror.
    When he thought of Carrie, all consideration of the mission seemed crass.
    Despite himself, he said: "There's still the sleepers in hangar Two. There's nothing to suggest they've been got at, yet. So long as they're okay, the mission proceeds."
    Li looked from Emecheta to Renfrew, and then let her