The Base
Timothy looked up at the old sprinkler system as it started knocking and groaning. Nothing came out, but the klaxons kept on whooping because of the fire.
He heard Ruth walking about, swearing and knocking on things and causing a commotion until a few minutes later the klaxons shut down one by one. A moment later Ruth came in with a large old wrench held over her shoulder and a satisfied grin on her lips.
“You look like you’ve been doing God’s work, Ruth. Will they ever work again?”
She laughed and turned back to her dinner preparations. He noticed she had lost some weight, looking slimmer and more…feminine. She had also done up her hair, which had grown longer since he had noticed it last. He was impressed at how pretty she could look when she tried to be more feminine.
Timothy surveyed his surroundings. The hospital area was large, with enough beds to care for over one hundred people. It was in surprisingly good shape considering how long it must have been here. Putting together all the clues he had gotten the day before, it was obvious that the hospital was underground, and that it was only a small part of a very large structure. Steel girders hugged the walls and ceiling at regularly spaced intervals, and Timothy noticed that both the doors and windows looking into the hallway outside looked indestructible. It was clearly an important place to the military.
But what was its purpose, and why had it come under such fierce attack? Why was it not destroyed and what had happened to the occupants?
As he was mulling this over, Ruth came in with dinner.
“The salt’s flat but the pepper is still good. I found these plates too, but no forks. Apparently, the Ancients ate with their hands…” Ruth said, giggling at her own little joke.
Timothy stared open-mouthed at the roasted rabbit. Then his eyes slid back to Ruth's face. “How...where?”
“Out of my hat,” she replied.
“Really, how in the world did you get a rabbit?”
“Can’t tell you. A woman’s got to keep her secrets, you know.”
“Ruth, I have to tell you, you never cease to amaze me. Hands down, this is the best surprise yet. But tell me where you got that.”
“Nope.”
“Come on Ruth!”
“The Lord provides.” She said with a grin. Seeing the impatient look on his face, she added, “He provides an open door that rabbits and other animals run into each evening before the poisons come out.”
Now Timothy laughed too, even though it hurt.
“I have another surprise for you, you know.” Off she went, only to come back with two crutches. “This is a hospital after all. Don’t want you sitting on your ass all day long just because of a broken leg.” She knew he couldn’t keep still, and that the last thing he would do was spend two weeks sitting. Yet she didn’t want him to aggravate the injury. They had just finished losing Dart, a young girl of mating age who had died of gangrene after she had fallen and not taken proper care of her injury. There were precious few of those left.
Although anyone could mate and have offspring, those over 20 had to promise to take proper precautions. Any subsequent births were immediately culled to protect the gene pool. It was the way and it had been that way for longer than any could remember, written in the annals. Only those under twenty years of age were allowed to mate and produce offspring able to propagate, seeing as the toxins in their systems had not yet reached a high enough level to cause birth defects, mutations and genetic weaknesses. Both Ruth and Timothy were thirty-two, old for this world and much too old to have Ruth carry any children.
“What would you say if we had a look around? I want to know more about this place, what happened to it, and where the people went,” Timothy said.
Ruth looked at him with a worried eye and then said, “I can answer part of your question. The ‘people’ didn’t go anywhere. They lived here for a bit and then they left to go outside.”
“How do you know that?” Timothy asked.
“Because you can see a pile of garbage filled with open metal containers near the garbage pickup points, and although they were rusted, I could still make out some of the pictures on the containers, pictures of food.
Also, on top of the pile were discarded animal bones. A hospital would not normally have garbage out in the open. Plus the fact that there are no human bones here tells me that they left and abandoned this place before they died.”
Ruth stood there quietly after she had finished talking, watching him and waiting for any possible challenge to her reasoning. Timothy could only lie there and wonder why he hadn’t married her yet. What she had said made perfect sense. The elders would have shunned him for this, and they constantly warned against taking up residence in underground structures or caves because of the toxins. Perhaps the people inhabiting this place abandoned it because of the toxins.
“Ruth, why do you think that everything here is in such good shape? After all, it’s been almost 800 years, and everything should have decayed to uselessness. But the air seems fresh, and there is no unusually thick layer of dust anywhere. The lights work, and those horns work too, although you fixed that…” he added with a smile.
Ruth had wondered about the same thing and answered: “I’m not sure why, but I think we’ll find out soon enough.” Timothy knew he wouldn’t get anymore from her, so he got back to eating the rabbit.
After a while, Ruth said, “There was one more thing Tim, and I saw it while you were unconscious. This hospital also has a room that’s completely enclosed in transparent plastic and airtight I think, and inside it was something…something not right…” Timothy waited for more, but Ruth seemed worried about saying anything more.
“Ruth, Pliny isn’t here. What’s more, he’s been saying a lot of things that simply aren’t right. The truth is the truth, whether Pliny agrees with it or not. If there is something important here, something that tells me the truth about our past, then I want to see it too.”
“Well then, get up. Might as well get it over with…” Her voice softened then and she added, “Plus I want to get your opinion on what I found.”
Ruth helped him up but even with her help he almost passed out from the sudden stab of pain. Eventually he regained his composure and he hobbled alongside her in the hallway. Timothy was surprised to see the lights come on and turn off as they walked, and he thought about it until they came to the room she was talking about. The door was locked and wouldn’t open for them, but they peered inside and made out the form of an insect, except this one was much bigger than the tiny ones they were used to. It was face up on a table, and they noticed that the complete torso from head to thorax was about a meter long and looking somewhat like a giant ant. The antennae and legs added another meter and a half to the creature.
Someone had done an autopsy on it, and various exoskeleton parts had been cut away and put on the smaller tables around the insect. The color had faded on it and what they could see of the innards was all dried up.
It was clear that whoever did this was especially interested in the brain, because all of the head’s outer shell had been carefully removed. They could still see electrical wires attached from the insect brain to a complex machine.
As they looked more closely, Ruth said in a whisper: “Tim, look at the body. It’s tied down and hooked up to equipment, tubes and bags. They didn’t take those off before doing the autopsy, which means…”
“…that they cut it open while it was still alive.” Timothy concluded.
They both noticed the unusually large straps holding down 6 legs, all of which appeared to be broken. The uppermost two legs were much thinner and ended in almost humanlike hands - four spindly articulated ‘fingers’ and an opposable ‘thumb’.
“Could humans do such a thing?” Ruth asked. Timothy was silent as he contemplated the insect and thought deeply of the machines, the “Tests of Faith” left behind that maimed and killed so many of his family and friends. He thought of the tiny buttons too unwieldy for human hands, but perfect for the needle sharp ‘fingers’ at the ends of the insect arms, the view-screens on them that showed colors and patterns instead of objects, and the final Cataclysm that almost wiped out the human race. He thought of the nightly poisons that seeped out of the ground with the mist and rotted out your lungs if you breathed it in for too long.
“Yes Ruth, I think we could end up doing that. I think we could end up doing much more if need be…” and without another word they both returned and huddled together under a blanket, more for support than warmth.
Ruth and Timothy were startled awake with more klaxons sounding. Timothy jerked again with the noise, and although the pain was intense, it wasn’t as bad as before. Ruth was eyeing the hallway door from where she had slept snuggled up to Timothy. Although they never had sex, they were very close and had lost all shyness with the passage of time.
“I thought you fixed those…”
“I thought so too. No fire now though. Wonder why they went off… I’ll go take a look.” Ruth got up and grabbed her old wrench, and when she opened the door, she dropped her wrench on the floor.
Timothy couldn’t see what she was looking at, but whatever it was definitely startled her. She slowly bent down, never letting her eyes off of whatever it was on the other side, and picked up the wrench again very slowly.
“What is it Ruth?” Timothy asked as he desperately tried to get up, but she gave him a ‘be quiet’ hand signal. Time passed slowly, until finally a voice from the other side said in the ancient language, “Please do not damage the klaxons.” Timothy then heard a very low hum, gradually fading to nothing. Ruth followed with her eyes, and when she was satisfied it was gone she came back to him. The klaxons were still ringing.
She kneeled down and said: “Well, I found out what is keeping this place maintained. Do you feel up for a walk? I have to find out more about this place.”
“Sure, but first tell me who that was.”
“Not who, but what,” Ruth said. “It was a machine, very large with four arms and an assortment of tools around it. It was fixing the klaxon right outside our door when I opened it. Now let’s go! Something is wrong and I want to know what it is.”
With no further comment Timothy got up on his crutches and carefully kept his foot off the floor as he followed Ruth out the door. He had to smile as he watched her carry that old wrench on her shoulder, ready to strike anything in her path.
They exited the hospital area and noticed that all klaxons had been repaired by the machine. As he hobbled by, he again watched the lights come on and then turn off as they passed each one. What was their power source? Obviously it was still powering the machines and this building, or part of it.
The klaxon warning sound thankfully shut off, though the red blinking lights near them kept going on and off. They headed in the direction the robot had gone, and soon came to an intersection labeled “Elevators”. The corridor they were on stopped there facing the elevators and new corridors continued to the right and left. The lights above Timothy and Ruth penetrated the darkness of those corridors for only about 20 meters either way, so they had no way of knowing how long each corridor was.
The central elevator doors opened automatically as they approached, and it appeared to Timothy and Ruth that they had been kept well maintained. They walked into the elevator and looked at the panel.
It was difficult for them to press any button at all because the tribe had been warned for so long that buttons and mechanical or electrical things of this sort were part of the “Dangers of the Heathens”, the evil god-like enemy that caused the Great Cataclysm and left behind the “Tests of Faith”. But by carefully studying these “Tests” and pressing similar buttons, Timothy had kept himself and a number of others alive. He came to the conclusion that these devices were too mechanical to be from any god and that the heathens weren’t gods at all. From what he could tell at the time they weren’t human either but that he kept to himself. In the meantime he had disassembled and reworked some of those “Tests” and used them to do chores according to their abilities, until Pliny found out and yelled at him for removing them and ‘Interfering with what God had put in place,’ as he said. He insisted that Timothy rebuild them and put them back where he found them, but these were weapons designed to kill humans and had been very effective on the tribe, and without the support of the group Pliny found himself unable to enforce this demand. Last time Timothy saw the elder, he’d noticed real hatred in his eyes.
Once in the elevator, Ruth finally chose a button labeled ‘CR’. It was one of three buttons in that center section, the other two being ‘MAIN’ and ‘GR’.
The hum heard in the hallway was louder in the elevator and increased in pitch as they descended to CR. Timothy felt great speed and it took only fifteen seconds before the door opened again. In front of them stood a long single corridor with doors on either side, and the corridor itself went on into the darkness. Ruth took one step out of the elevator and a scanning laser suddenly started surfacing her. Timothy and Ruth had seen similar designs in the past, and in each case it meant big trouble. The laser was an identifier, which in turn informed a computer on whether to fire or not. The only way to defeat such a setup was to stand absolutely still and wait for a companion to disable the turret that fired the micro-flechetes, small carbon needles almost invisible to the naked eye that penetrated the skin and embedded themselves, tearing people up with each movement. Timothy had learned that it was designed to scare people and slow them down, to occupy the group with the injured that now had to be carried and cared for and to demoralize them as they watched their loved ones die a painful death.
He knew that most people hit by the darts died, and he was terrified that Ruth would be next. Surprisingly though, the laser shut down, much to Ruth’s relief. The four gun turrets powered down and withdrew into their ports.
They carefully started walking down the hallway in the only direction available, the lights turning on in front of them and off behind them as they walked. The hum was louder on this floor, but it didn’t increase in pitch as they walked. Finally the last light of the hallway turned on and both Ruth and Timothy stopped as they looked at what the light revealed.
“WHAT is that?!” Ruth asked, while Timothy stood there open mouthed. Ahead of them was another machine, humanoid and standing in front of a thick, solidly built door, its nondescript face dark. It held a single weapon, large and attached to its back, and on its torso were a pair of arms on each side of its body, one set facing forward and the other set facing the back. Timothy guessed that it could see behind itself as well as in front. Ruth looked at Timothy, wondering what they should do.
“We’ve come this far, and the turrets didn’t shoot us earlier, so maybe it’s ok…” Timothy said as he positioned his crutches in front of Ruth and moved ahead of her. She was upset he had jumped in front of her, but he was already up against the machine and there was nothing she could do about it. The machine stood there unmoving even though Timothy had touched it.
“Maybe it has no power,” Ruth said.
“I doubt it, everything here is powered except the first door we through and the room in the hospital with the alien. But it does look inactive. Maybe it broke down? It has been 800 years after all.”
“Tim, look behind the machine.” He saw the words “Control Room” beside a palm pad. The whine they were hearing suddenly increased in pitch and a deep rumbled started shaking the floor.
“Something’s happening. We have to get in there… I think our answers lie behind that steel door,” Timothy said.
At that moment, the klaxons sounded again but with a different sound, and a voice came over the intercom and said in the old world language: “Generators on stand-by, opening exterior weapon port.” They heard a metallic sounding clump, and then another slower rumble added to the first. Timothy decided to go around the machine as he tried to get to the door but it suddenly moved aside, allowing him access. It was so quick that Ruth jumped and gave the machine a solid whack with her wrench.
Timothy cringed with what might come next, but all the machine said was: “Please don’t do that,” and continued facing the hallway. They were so relieved they couldn’t help but laugh at the machine’s reaction.
Ruth stepped up to the door as Timothy looked at the palm pad. He had no idea what it was but figured it must be some system that was used to get in. As he stood there trying to figure it out, Ruth turned to the machine and asked, “How do you open the door?”
Without any visible reaction the machine said, “I would have to break it open.”
Timothy and Ruth laughed at their mistake, but before they could correct themselves the machine added, “But you have clearance to go into the control room if you so desire. To gain access, simply put your palm against the palm pad, the dark rectangle on the left where you are standing, Timothy.”
“How do you know my name?” The machine remained silent. Timothy shrugged his shoulders and touched the pad with his hand.
As he touched it, it lit up and scanned his hand in less than a second. It was so fast he didn’t even have time to react. The heavy door opened, revealing a room full of blackened displays with a countdown visible in the top center. As soon as they entered, all the displays turned on, and Ruth and Timothy looked at them one by one.
The countdown was near zero, with only ten seconds to go. They could see one display showing the outside ridge, and noticed that the ridge was actually two ridges – one circular, similar to the ridge of a volcano and the second one straight, intersecting the round one at one edge and running to the chasm Timothy had seen earlier. The round one had a depression in the middle, now open and the center had two large half round doors that had swung up to reveal a large weapon. The door surfaces appeared to be rock from the outside.
Another display cycled views from different parts of this structure and a third had an image of something not from Earth, dark and sinister, near the stars. That one they watched intently. A voice over the intercom stated: “Firing, 500 milliseconds” and before they knew it, the sound died and the red lights stopped flashing. The sinister machine on the display had just been chopped up into a neat little cube, and then the same voice said: “Gravplane on intercept course. Approximate time of intercept is 1.7 hours.” Then all the displays went black except for one.
Ruth was confused while Timothy, now exhausted from the walking, slumped into one of the chairs in front of the only still lighted display.
“What just happened?” Ruth asked.
“Alien species number 001 has sent a scout ship from a Capital Ship that was in high moon orbit. The scout ship has been rendered inoperable and its computer module is now deemed safe to approach,” said a disembodied voice. It sounded as if the speaker was right beside Timothy and Ruth, though they were in different parts of the room. It was unnerving to them both, and Ruth hadn’t really expected an answer from this invisible person.
“Ask it another question, Ruth.”
“Is that scout ship the object near the stars?”
“Yes,” the voice said.
“How big is it and how many scout ships are there?”
“Only one exited from the Capital Ship, as far as can be ascertained,” said the voice. “As to its size, scout ships vary in length, girth, and displacement, but this one carried only one pilot and was twelve decimal six two meters long.”
Ruth and Timothy thought about that one for a second. “Pilot?” Ruth said to Timothy.
“I think it means an operator for the machine,” Timothy replied. “Is the pilot like us?” he asked the voice, but stopped himself. “Wait, you answered that – alien species 001 you said. Is this the same as the creature that was found in the infirmary?”
“Yes.”
“Why was it destroyed?” Ruth asked.
“It is a danger to the human race.”
They thought about that for a few moments. “What happened to the Capital Ship? You said that it was in moon orbit. Where is it now?”
“It was destroyed within one second of the destruction of the scout ship by China Lunar Base.”
This took them both by surprise. There were two of these bases, as this voice told them, and one was near or on the moon. The implications left them with a thousand questions, but Timothy focused on the event. “How many ships have been destroyed since the Cataclysm?”
The voice remained silent for a few seconds and then said: “By Cataclysm it is calculated that you mean the attempted human extermination by species 001, 743 years ago. If so, since that time this station alone has destroyed over 400 alien craft, the majority of these being scout ships of various sizes and capabilities. China Lunar Base has destroyed over 850, both hive ships and scout ships.”
As the voice answered, the computer started calculating their IQ. It had been very impressed by the results generated from Timothy’s question and his actions, but it knew that more replies would be needed.
“Ruth, do you understand what this voice is saying? It must be talking about Pliny’s ‘agents of God’, and it called them alien species 001. This machine created by us has been destroying these things for 743 years!”
Ruth let this sink in. So many questions were running through her head and she didn’t know where to begin. She thought of the last statement the voice made. “You gave this species a number, ‘001’. How many alien species are there?”
“There is not enough information available to answer your question.”
She rethought her question. “How many alien species have been catalogued?”
“Parameters please. What degree of intelligence are you looking for?”
“Species intelligent enough to communicate with other species,”
Timothy said, looking smug.
“There are 687 known extraterrestrial species.” It corrected its initial assessment of Timothy and Ruth’s intelligence, and noted a probability of 62% that its new assessment was correct.
“How many of these species are able to travel the heavens?”
“If you mean ‘space flight capability’, there are only six, according to my last update.”
“How many have attacked us or shown that they are our enemies?” Ruth added.
“One.”
“How many have helped us?” Ruth asked. “Out of the other five, that is.”
“That information is not available to you at this time.”
‘Hmm’, Ruth thought. She drew a blank and looked at Timothy.
He thought deeply about the reply given by this ‘voice’, and then he asked: “How do you know there are 687 extraterrestrial species?”
The machine bumped up Timothy’s I.Q. calculation to close to 200, but simply said, “That information is not available to you at this time.”
‘Fine’, he thought. Timothy tried another question.
“What happened to the humans that were here just after the destruction?”
“Because of the nature of the power generation for this Base, ground-based toxins left behind at around the time of the alien retreat were especially concentrated in this area. These poisons drifted upward from the generator area and made the base uninhabitable. The poisons are now diluted to just above higher than normal concentrations in day time.”
Timothy and Ruth thought about the answer, and Ruth didn’t miss the part about the ‘alien retreat’.
“How many operational bases like these are there on Earth?” Timothy next asked.
“That information is not available to you at this time,” said the voice, and recalculated their intelligence with an 84% probability of being correct.
Timothy thought about that, while Ruth asked: “How many non-operational bases are there?”
“Four.”
“What happened to them?”
“Base Cuba was destroyed by aliens just before the retreat. Base Japan was destroyed by an earthquake 432 years ago. Base Hawaii was flooded out in a Tsunami and destroyed in a subsequent volcanic eruption and Base Canada was attacked and made inoperable by humans, as far as I can ascertain.”
Those names and places meant nothing to Timothy and Ruth but they had so many more questions to ask that they didn’t know where to start.
Timothy blurted out, “How far away is Base Canada?”
“From here, a straight line measurement at ground level would put the old world border at 1678 kilometers away, and the base itself 2660 kilometers away.”
“I don’t know that unit of measurement. How many cubits away is it?” Timothy asked.
There was a pause and the voice replied, “It’s presumed you are referring to biblical cubits. That being the case, the most accurate known point of reference is the water tunnel built by Hezekiah. Archeological excavations done on the tunnel almost 900 years ago confirmed its length at 533 meters, and historical records recorded a length of 1200 cubits. That puts the cubit at 44.5 centimeters. Thus, the base is 3,843,700 cubits away. What will you do with this information?”
Timothy couldn’t imagine that distance, but he knew he could travel 72,000 cubits in one day if the ground was clear and the terrain easy. He quickly worked out that it would take him at least two lunar months to reach there if he wanted to. He felt that this was an important question although he didn’t know why. He thought carefully as he looked at Ruth and then said: “My tribe needs to know the truth.”
“All humans need to know the truth!” Ruth added.
“Why did humans destroy the base?” Timothy asked. He looked at Ruth and saw a pensive look on her face that slowly turned into a frown.
“There are various theories surrounding the base’s deactivation.” They didn’t miss the fact that this voice now called it ‘deactivation’ instead of ‘destruction’, but they let it continue without interruption.
“One theory involves an attack from an outside force. Another is that the base’s discovery by those living outside, and the subsequent information given to a tribe by those they contacted inside the base disrupted the local hierarchy. To protect their position, ruling religious leaders misled their group of humans into believing that the base itself was a spiritual test, and that its deactivation would guarantee God’s favor and bring about an earthly transformation.”
“Is the tribe still there?” Timothy asked.
“Yes and no. Its progeny are still there but the ruling system has changed.”
“How do you know this?… And what is their situation?” Timothy was now slightly suspicious.
“Timothy, I am not programmed to lie. I can either answer your question or refuse to answer it according to my original programming. As to your questions, a cleaning bot survived the destruction of the base. It was accessed by this base via remote link and reprogrammed to repair surveillance cameras and avoid detection. Concerning the tribe itself, optical link confirmed that the knowledge some received brought on destabilization on the local religious government, and that the subsequent rebellions led to cannibalism and human sacrifice. The last significant information received over two hundred years ago confirmed that the religious order had been usurped and replaced by a military one fashioned somewhat similarly to the existing system before the… ‘Cataclysm’.”
Timothy and Ruth absorbed the information they had received from this voice and meditated on what it had said about the religious order. The similarity between this tribe that attacked Canada Base and their own tribe was unmistakable.
“What is your name, voice?”
“The resident humans in this base called me HAL, after a name of a character in an old science-fiction movie.”
He had no idea what a science fiction movie was, but ignored this. “Well then HAL, why are you telling us this? You can see the outcome the last time people were informed…”
“Because it is my mandate to ensure the survival, propagation and advancement of humanity. Knowledge is the key to successful propagation and advancement. I have been created for this purpose.” As it answered, it studied Timothy and Ruth’s reaction to the information, noting their facial pattern, tonal inflection, body temperature and a dozen other variables.
Timothy had run out of questions, and when he turned to Ruth he noticed her crying, tears streaming down her face.
“What is it Ruth? What’s wrong?” Timothy asked.
“No. Well, it’s just that…Tim, everything we have learned is all wrong! We have lived our whole life taught to believe that punishment was retribution for a sinful course, …the need for penance…so many people of ours dead for their supposed sins, and Pliny and the others lying to us, …and…and…” Now she was sobbing uncontrollably as the truth finally sank in.
Timothy got up from the chair he was sitting on and hobbled over to Ruth. He caressed her face as he wiped the tears off, and held her closely until she stopped sobbing. By now all the monitors had shut down, the noises had ceased and there was an eerie quiet in this whole place except for the constant low hum coming from below. They were about to get up and leave when Timothy thought of another question.
“HAL, how many humans live out near the stars?”
HAL analyzed Timothy’s question, noting that it had never stated that humans had gained star-flight capability. “Parameters, please,” it finally responded as it continued to study Timothy.
“You mentioned China Lunar Base, on the moon. It was obviously built by humans. If they went that far, it only stands to reason they went farther. Or at least the possibility exists. How many humans live there and in the hea…I mean near the stars?”
“Those are two questions, Timothy. In both cases, I don’t have enough information to give you a correct answer.”
“HAL, you can be very difficult at times. Do a significant amount of humans live up in the HEAVENS?” Ruth purposely used the word because she knew HAL, machine or not, was being obtuse.
HAL added this bit of information to its I.Q. calculations, and replied, “A significant number of humans live in space.”
Ruth glowered at it, unsure of whether it could see her or not but guessing that it could.
Timothy let it go for now. He was convinced that this HAL was much more then it appeared to be and that it was something to be taken very seriously.
“Ruth, we have to find a place to sleep tonight, and food, come to mention it. HAL, where can we get some food around here?”
“No consumable food has survived from the past. But a number of mammals live in the generator level, and there are fish that live in the river itself. Perhaps you can find a way to get them.”
“A river in the generating level?” Ruth asked.
“Follow the hallway back to the elevators and press the button marked ‘GL’.”
Before they left, HAL interrupted them. “If you don’t mind, I would like to ask you both a personal question. Have you two mated? Do you have any children?”
Timothy’s face blushed and he expected the same with Ruth, but was surprised to see both of her eyebrows up and a slight smile on her lips. “No HAL, no children.”
“That’s unfortunate,” was HAL’s reply.
“You’re darn right HAL. I’ve told Timothy the same thing,” Ruth said laughing.
After she allowed Timothy a few awkward moments, she asked HAL, “Is our test over?”
There was silence as HAL calculated her intelligence quotient and concluded that it must surpass Timothy’s.
“Not yet,” it replied, and compiled an interim report on the events and packeted it off as Ruth and Timothy turned to leave.
They left the Control Room and headed for the elevator as HAL had instructed. As they walked, Timothy thought back to the displays in the Control Room, and then he asked Ruth, “Ruth, that door you brought me in through on the surface, did you close it after you came through?”
“No, Tim. It was jammed partly open, just enough for me to drag you through. Why?” Ruth replied.
“Just curious…”
***
Unknown to them, Rat followed them from the beginning and had snuck into the Control Room after they had left. He was thin and short, and his skin was greasy and pale, although the dirt that clung to it gave it some color. His fingernails were dirty and broken and his teeth ragged from biting on things that shouldn’t go anywhere near a person’s mouth. His beady, close-set eyes didn’t miss a thing as he ferreted out information and used it for his benefit, which earned him only the wrong kind of friends. He would have been shunned had Pliny not been his father.
He looked over the equipment and watched as the monitors stayed black, wondering what it was that they had been up to. He dropped to his hands and knees and carefully scanned the light dust on the ground, noticing that they had gone from one of the screens to the other, as if they were looking at something.
He had also heard a another voice, but once in the room he had found no sign of anyone else. Puzzled, he thought it over, thinking that perhaps they were onto his presence and were trying to fool him, but the way they walked past him in the hallway as he hid behind the metal monster told him they weren’t.
He decided to put that aside for now, and walked back out of the room and into the hallway. He smiled and congratulated himself at his cunning, knowing that he was incredibly good at this sort of thing and that Pliny would be very happy with this new information. He had received many blessings from Pliny, who had saved him from sure death, being the misfit he was, but Rat wasn’t fooled. He knew that Pliny despised him, but he also knew that he was valuable. Pliny had even promised him a woman! He had a smile on his face as he contemplated Pliny’s reaction to what he had learned and the end result.