The Black Tower: The Complete Series Read online

  “Yes, Lieutenant. But, as you have already pointed out, such has been your take on the mission from the start. Not so?”

  Lt. Quinn had made it clear that so far as he was concerned, the science teams were there to aid in getting the military contingent to the eightieth floor. Whatever scientific discoveries were made along the way was fine, but second to the mission.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he said. “Nonetheless, circumstances force me to, well—”

  “Ask that science take a back seat?”

  “Not a back seat, so much as—”

  “Science will likely be what gets us through this alive, Lt. Quinn.”

  “I understand that, Doctor.”

  “Then what is it you are asking?”

  Lt. Quinn leaned forward and placed his hands on the rails. He stared out at the green sea. “Our focus must be on finding the access to the next floor. At each floor, the immediate goal must always be to get to the floor above.”

  “Of course.”

  “Your observations, and those of the other science teams, must focus solely on meeting that goal.”

  “Ah. And thus to your earlier commentary regarding our science serving the military mission.”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor. I—”

  “And so... you will be most grateful of our scientific perspective on the matters at hand, but let us not dawdle unnecessarily.”

  “Under the circumstances, there can be only one mission.”

  We’re not in the back seat, thought Church. We’re in the trunk.

  “I see,” he stated. “You want me to support you on this.”

  “You are the civilian leader of the mission. Therefore, once you and I reach consensus…”

  There were three different science teams. Church led one, Elizabeth Owen another, and Peter Asher was on his own. Dr. Church served as the overall leader of all three.

  “You have met Elizabeth Owen, have you not?” Church grinned broadly. “I doubt my siding with you on this will help, Lieutenant. For all matters Elizabeth Owen, I defer to Banister.”

  “I will handle Dr. Owen,” said Quinn. “But thank you for your concern.”

  §

  Returning to the lounge, Lt. Quinn looked first to Ramos. Nothing yet.

  He then turned to the rest of the group. Everyone waited expectantly. He even had Dr. Owen’s full attention.

  “Our first task is to get a complete picture of this ship,” he said. “We need to know what’s here, and just as importantly what isn’t.”

  “The crew, for instance,” said Banister.

  “That would be a definite good to know,” said Lt. Quinn. “And supplies. We need an inventory, anything we might be able to use.”

  “If you happen to see a doorway to another world, that’d be great,” said Owen.

  “Just don’t leave without saying good-bye,” said Church. There was an uncomfortable chuckle from several in the room.

  “Yes,” Lt. Quinn managed a smile, despite himself. “Maybe give a quick callout before you go, just to let the rest of us know?”

  “Oh, but of course,” Owen said slyly.

  Lt. Quinn let it go with a slight shake of the head, then set about dividing the group into three search teams. He assigned a military person to each search team, with Cpl. Ramos staying behind in the lounge to man the radio, continue to attempt to communicate with the command center outside.

  He also asked Ray Do to stay with Ramos.

  “My staff go where I go,” Owen stated coolly.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Owen. I’ll not have anyone left alone on this ship,” said Lt. Quinn.

  “So pick someone else.”

  “Really, Elizabeth,” said Banister. “You can do without Ray for an hour.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Just what is the point?”

  Elizabeth Owen set her jaw tight, gave Lt. Quinn a cold stare. “I’ll not have the military dictating to me and my staff.”

  “Oh, dear lady,” Banister moaned. “You’ve been answering to the military throughout your entire career.”

  “Everyone, please,” Church stepped up beside Lt. Quinn. “It’s circumstance that is doing the dictating here. And the circumstances tell me that we need one person directing traffic, a single goal on which to focus. Now, so long as the lieutenant here remembers that he’s dealing with a bunch of hoity-toity scientists and not a crack military unit, then he will be the person running things.”

  “You speak for yourself, Church,” growled Owen.

  “As the civilian leader of this mission, I speak for all of us, Elizabeth. That includes you.”

  “Church, don’t you—”

  “Liz, please,” Banister said softly. “Let it go. For now, let it go.”

  With that, Elizabeth Owen grew absolutely silent. She had lost this one, and she knew it. She would be the first to admit that she could be a pretentious ass, but she also knew when to call it a day. There would be other days. There were always other days.

  Dr. Church pulled Lt. Quinn aside, spoke in barely above a whisper.

  “Considering Doctor Owen’s current state, it might best serve the interest of us all to send young Ray out in her stead and have her remain here in the lounge with the corporal.”

  §

  Crew’s Row was a narrow hallway with half a dozen doors along one side. The quarters were small, two-person rooms, each with a two-high bunk, a desk and chair, and a built-in dresser set into the wall. An eight-inch porthole provided a bit of outside light.

  Asher and Susan searched the first room while Carmody stood out in the hall and kept watch.

  The bunks were made, the room neat and sparse. A black and white photograph was pinned to the wall over the desk.

  “At least they’re human,” said Susan, indicating the picture; a woman in her twenties. It was impossible to tell where the picture was taken.

  “Look at her clothes,” said Asher, studying the picture.

  “Yes, I noticed. About sixty years out of fashion.”

  As with the ship. Asher continued to look curiously at the picture. He touched it.

  “The photograph… old style. But I don’t think the picture itself has been hanging on the wall that long.”

  “I see what you mean.” Susan looked about the small room. “The crew has been gone a while, but not sixty years.”

  Asher looked in the drawers of the built-in dresser. He found a couple of shirts, several pair of dungarees. They left the room then, took the few steps down the hall to the next room. Carmody followed silently after, again stood out in the hall.

  They found much the same thing in the next quarters. Right down to a photograph on the wall above the desk, this one of a young woman holding a baby. They quickly moved on to the next quarters.

  The remaining quarters were the just about the same. A set of bunks, beds made, a desk and chair, built-in dresser drawers, a single porthole, a black and white photograph on the wall above the desk.

  They reached the captain’s quarters at the end of the hall. It was three times the size of the crew’s quarters, with a bunk, large desk and chair, a table, several cabinets and a full-sized chest of drawers. Two open portholes let in light.

  Asher sat behind the desk and began opening drawers.

  “Not much here,” he said. There were a few old pencils, block eraser, an old fountain pen; hanging files in the large drawer, nothing in them.

  He pulled out a nearly empty liquor bottle with no label. He unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle under his nose.

  “Wow,” he said huskily. He held the bottle out to Susan. “About one swig left.”

  “Thanks. I’ll pass.” Susan stood in front of a map hanging on the wall beside a narrow door leading to the captain’s private head. “An ocean, some islands. I don’t recognize any of the names. English, though.”

  Asher screwed the cap back onto the bottle and returned it to the drawer. He looked up, frustrated. “That’s it,” he s
aid.

  Carmody spoke up from her position at the door. “What about a logbook?”

  “Yes,” said Asher. He stood, looked about the room. “Yes, don’t they always keep a log? There should be a log. I don’t see a log. Do you see a log?”

  §

  Lt. Quinn stepped out onto the metal gangway, some twenty feet above the floor of the hold. He walked far enough out to allow Lisa Powell and Ray Do to come through the hatch and out onto the gangway beside him.

  “Looks a lot like the rear hold,” said Ray.

  “It’s exactly like the rear hold,” said Lt. Quinn. Both of the holds were empty but for a considerable amount of standing water. The lieutenant frowned, absently held onto the railing and leaned forward. There was the sound of screeching metal.

  He grumbled to himself. Nothing usable in either hold, and nothing much in the handful of supply rooms they had passed while traveling the ship’s central passageway connecting forward hold to rear hold.

  The inventory won’t take long…

  “One bit of good news,” said Lisa. She gave a nod to the great pool below. “We don’t appear to be taking on water at the moment.”

  It took Quinn a few moments, but he did manage to lose the dark frown.

  “Yes,” he said, finally. “Quite right, Miss Powell. The situation could certainly be worse.”

  “Okay,” sighed Ray. “Not sinking. I like it.”

  They had taken a measurement of the water depth in the forward hold. Four feet and stable. Unless there was something unusual about the floor of this hold, it was probably the same here.

  Okay, not good, an awful lot of water, but… it wasn’t getting any worse.

  Lt. Quinn sought out something on the far wall that he could use as a marker to read against the water level. There was a horizontal support I-beam on the hull two feet above the water line.

  “All right,” he said to the others. “Let’s head back to the lounge.”

  §

  Sgt. Costa stood several steps from the door, watched Church and Banister as they shuffled about the pilothouse, each lost in thought, studying the banks of knobs and darkened thumbsized bulbs. They each gave off the occasional quiet hmmph, the soft ahhh. Wes Banister would nod knowingly, scratch at his thinning scalp and pull at graying hair.

  What an odd pair, thought Sgt. Costa. Always bickering, always snapping at one another, and obviously inseparable.

  Church stepped over to the forward wall, a bank of windows running the width of the pilothouse. He stared silently out at the alien sea, an unnamable green reaching all the way to the horizon. Light from an invisible sun shone through the dull glass, giving Church’s dark skin a strange shimmer.

  “It’s warm,” he said without turning.

  “What’s that?” asked Banister, standing before the wooden wheel. He placed his hands on it and studied their position, as if this would somehow answer unasked questions.

  “The sunlight,” Church grumbled. “It feels warm… through the glass.”

  “Interesting,” Banister said absently.

  “I know.”

  “Hmmph,” said Banister. He glanced over at the old fashioned engine order telegraph. “All stop,” he said, reading the speed indicator.

  “So I saw,” said Church, his attention still focused on the sea before them.

  “No one’s been here for years.”

  “I doubt anyone has ever been here.”

  Banister mumbled. He let out a quiet sigh. “Quite right.”

  “Doctor?” Sgt. Costa asked. She couldn’t let that comment go. “Either doctor. Doesn’t matter.”

  Doctor Church turned from window, stepped up beside his friend Banister and laid a hand absently on the wheel.

  “As our host has created this environment for our benefit, there is no reason to assume that anything we may find has ever existed outside this floor.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What Church is trying to say is that this ship may never have existed in the real world.”

  “The Adversary may well have created it from the memory of any one of us.”

  “Yes,” said Sgt. Costa. “Yes, Lieutenant Quinn did say it reminded him of an old movie.”

  “That could well be its origin,” said Banister.

  “But then what about that?” Sgt. Costa pointed to the alien sea beyond the window.

  Church turned back to the view. “Perhaps it comes from the world of the Adversary.”

  “Or from the mind of another such as we,” said Banister. “A being taken from yet another world.”

  §

  Ramos tried to ignore the unnerving woman stalking the lounge. He hovered over the radio and adjusted dials, holding the headgear in place with a cupped his hand over the ear piece.

  But he couldn’t help himself. Each time he glanced up and away from the radio, the woman was looking in his direction. She was never in the same place, but her eyes were always on him, always watching him, always boring into his skull.

  What is up with this lady?

  Elizabeth Owen, for her part, said nothing. Nothing aloud, anyway. She looked to the radio man, walked to the door, looked out, looked to the radio man; walked to the tables, walked to the couch, looked to the radio man, walked to one of the portholes and looked out.

  This is infuriating.

  A quick trip to the bathroom. The head? Then back to the lounge. The radio man just about jumped out of his skin when she came back in. Good.

  Where are they?

  She started toward the door, probably for the fifth or sixth time. She was halfway across the room when the door opened and Carmody came in, Asher and Susan Bautista following behind her.

  Carmody set a canvas sack on a table, ignored Owen and looked to Ramos.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  “Had ‘em for about five seconds,” he answered. “Lost ‘em before I had a chance to say anything.”

  “That’s somethin’, anyway. There’s hope.”

  “Whatcha got?” Ramos nodded to the sack on the table.

  “Hope you like spinach.”

  Susan Bautista had settled into a chair at the empty table. Asher sat on the arm of the couch. He looked at Owen, who by now was rummaging through the sack.

  “We didn’t find much in the crews’ quarters; found a few things in the galley.”

  Carmody sat on a stool at the bar. “Whatever might have once been in the vegetable bins has long since evolved into something other than food, but we did come across some canned goods.”

  Owen was looking at a can of spinach. “English.”

  “Yep,” said Asher. There wasn’t much on the label other than the word ‘spinach’ and a small picture of a spinach plant. No dates, no list of ingredients.

  Each member of the group had brought their small backpack with them from the first floor, containing basic supplies, a handful of personal items; rations and water to last four or five days at most. If they were going to survive this thing, it was important they supplement en route whenever possible.

  “Yuck.” Owen put the can back in the sack and continued rummaging. “That’s it?”

  “Some clothes in crews’ quarters,” said Asher. “A finger or two of whiskey in the captain’s cabin.”

  “Now you’re talking.” A quick glance around the room. “You didn’t bring it?”

  “Sorry.” He probably should have… for medicinal purposes.

  Church and Banister came through the door, Sgt. Costa at their heels. She went quickly over to Ramos as the two doctors joined the group at the tables and couch. They were exchanging information when Lt. Quinn returned with his small team.

  The lieutenant went straight to the military contingent at the bar, leaving Ray and Lisa to tell the others what they had found.

  Ray stated categorically that this boat wasn’t going anywhere under power. The diesel tanks were empty and the engine room half under water; the holds as well.

  None of the three teams h
ad come across anything that might suggest an access to the next floor. For supplies, they could only add eight cans of spinach, which may or may not be any good.

  And finally, they were fairly certain they were alone. The crew, if there had ever actually been a crew, was no longer aboard.

  Lt. Quinn joined them, leaving Ramos at the radio.

  “We remain to our own devices,” he said. “Though I believe the corporal will yet make contact with the outside world.”

  “All right, so what do we do now?” asked Lisa.

  Quinn thought that was obvious. A methodical search. Start at the bow, work their way to the stern, deck by deck. This last had been a simple investigatory explore, discover their surroundings. Okay, they had that. They could now focus all their attention on locating the portal to the next floor.

  First things, first. He placed a hand on the canvas. “How ‘bout we try the spinach?”

  “Count me out,” said Owen.

  “A critical experiment, to be sure,” Church said thoughtfully. He raised a brow to the group-wide questioning gaze. “Ladies and gentlemen, we do need to know whether the food we might find along the way is edible.”

  “Quite right,” agreed Banister.

  “I’m almost afraid to find out,” said Susan.

  She nonetheless stood beside the lieutenant and watched as he pulled a can from the canvas sack.

  “Sergeant,” he said, and gave it to Sgt. Costa. She reached into her shirt and pulled out a simple can opener she kept on a chain with her dog tags. She set the can on the table and set to open it.

  She froze, her hand hovering over the can, the opener at the ready.

  She glanced up, first to Asher, then Lt. Quinn.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  A rumbling noise, very faint at first, then it grew slowly louder.

  “I don’t know,” said Quinn.

  “Crap,” grumbled Owen. “What now?”

  It came from somewhere below decks. As it faded, a deep vibration reverberated throughout the ship, a thrumming along the hull and inner walls.

  “Did we hit something?” wondered Asher.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn repeated.

  “Perhaps we have company,” Banister thought aloud.

  “Crap,” Owen repeated.