The Worlds of the Sheaf

The Ring - Part 3

The Bescot left the habitation block a few minutes later and set off for the block on which Thomas had seen a flashing light. The only block they'd seen that showed any kind of activity. Any evidence of surviving life.

It turned out to be a much larger block than the one they were leaving. It was the size of a small city all in itself, and as they approached it, manoeuvering carefully between the tether cables, it was soon dwarfing the smaller blocks that surrounded it on all sides.

"That looks like an opening in the side," said Tager Yee as they drew close. "A doorway. Could it be the entrance to a harbour of some kind? A mooring place for ships of space?"

"The flashing light's right beside it," added Saturn. "To guide ships in, perhaps? Look, there are other lights spaced around the opening, all dark. Once, the opening was ringed with light."

"It looks large enough for us to take the ship in," said the felisian. "I'd feel a lot safer inside. After the attack on your ship, I feel horribly exposed out here."

"By all means take the ship in," agreed Saturn, his single eye staring eagerly at the image in the viewscreen. "There might be docking cradles we can moor to. Maybe even airlocks large enough to accommodate the whole ship."

That last turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking, but as the felisians eased the ship in through the square opening and they were engulfed in darkness, Tager Yee ordered the external lights turned on so they could see what the vast chamber contained, and as the searchlight beams swept the bare metal walls they revealed a sight that took all their breaths away.

There were at least twenty other ships of space moored within the great open space that, they could now see, accounted for fully two thirds of the volume of the block. The entire block, it appeared, was a space harbour. A place where ships of space berthed themselves upon arriving at this world. Probably one of several scattered throughout the ring. The ships were of several distinct designs, seeming to suggest that they came from different civilisations, but most of them had large funnels at one end, the rear end as far as they could judge, with complicated systems of pipes, struts and spars all across their outer surfaces.

The exceptions were gathered together on the opposite side of the space harbour from the opening they'd come in through, and the felisians gasped in astonishment at the sight of three ships identical to the Bescot in all but minor details.

"Masters!" one of them cried in near panic, his yellow eyes widening in terror. "Masters, here!"

Tager Yee barked orders and the Bescot halted dead in space, then began to reverse slowly back the way it had come. "Probably dead ships," he remarked. "As dead as the rest of the ring, but we can't take the chance. We know that the Masters were alive just a few decades ago. We can't ignore the possibility that there are live Masters here."

"If there are, they'll already have seen us," said Saturn calmly. "Moor the ship, commander. It's too late to run, and besides, what hope does one ship have against three?"

Tager Yee stared at him for a moment in undisguised fear, but then he nodded and gave new orders to his men. The felisians stared at him in terror, then tapped the controls with trembling hands.

There was no sign of activity as the Bescot drew in alongside the other three ships, though. They saw that the ships were attached to metallic extensions that reached inwards from the harbour walls, and Thomas named them piers, correctly deducing that the crews would have used them to move to and from their vessels. Saturn directed them towards a vacant pier, which they saw was designed to attach to the airlock of a visiting ship.