Read Online The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

said curtly.
    ‘Do we tell . . .?’ Laura waved a hand at the titanic alien artefact glowing beyond the windscreen. The exopod’s strobes were still flashing regularly.
    ‘No,’ Ayanna said quickly. ‘Let them get back here before we hit them with this. I don’t want anything to distract them out there.’
    ‘Okay.’ A slow shiver ran down Laura’s spine. It seemed to generate its own chill. ‘Even if the ships were pulled out of orbit, that doesn’t explain what happened
to all the drones.’
    Ayanna gave a quick nod. ‘I know.’
    Laura watched Ibu fit the remainder of the deep-scan packages. They started to reveal the amazing molecular substructure within the tree’s crystal edifice: millions of distinct layers
interwoven in the most incredibly complex patterns. Each band possessed a different energy level, many of which dipped into negative functions.
    ‘This is some seriously impressive bollocks,’ Laura said faintly. Her secondary routines were trying to map the pathways which the packages were exposing, but her macrocellular
clusters simply didn’t have the processing capacity to hack it. Even with Fourteen’s array working on the problem, it would take weeks. ‘And we’re only seeing a tiny
fraction. The whole thing is a giant solid state circuit that manipulates negative energy – and that’s just the part I do understand. It must be generating its own valency differences,
too, which is practically in the realm of perpetual motion.’
    ‘So there has to be a control mechanism somewhere,’ Ayanna said. ‘Perhaps a section that runs its routines?’
    ‘Somewhere. Yes. But we’re dealing with cubic kilometres here.’
    ‘Logically it would be at the centre of the bulbous section at the other end.’
    ‘Sure. Logically. Ibu, Rojas, are you sensing any kind of thoughts coming from the tree? They wouldn’t necessarily be as fast or even similar to ours.’
    ‘Sorry, Laura,’ Ibu said. ‘Nothing. My ESP can barely get a look inside the crystal, not that I understand half of what I can perceive, anyway.’
    ‘Okay. I’m sending you a file with the coordinates I want for the sampler modules.’
    ‘Laura,’ Rojas asked, ‘this is one very complex molecular structure we’re seeing in the crystal. Is sampling appropriate, do you think?
    ‘Appropriate?’ she spluttered. ‘This is the most incredible molecular mechanism I’ve ever seen!’
    Ibu chuckled. ‘What he means is, if we start sticking sampler filaments in there, is it going to be like shoving a pin in a balloon?’
    Laura took a breath to calm down. ‘I’m going to take ten grams out at the most, and none of that is coming out of the negative energy channels. Sampling isn’t going to damage
anything, okay? It’s safe.’
    Ayanna turned round in the pilot’s couch and raised a very sceptical eyebrow.
    ‘Safe,’ Laura reiterated, refusing to back down.
    ‘All right,’ Ibu said. ‘Applying the first module now.’
    The first thing they learned was how difficult it was for the filaments to slide through the crystal surface with its enhanced atomic cohesion. ‘This might take a while,’ Laura
admitted as she monitored the painfully slow progress the filament tips were making.
    Ibu applied the last of the sample modules. ‘I’m going to take a look at the eggs,’ he said.
    Laura expanded the optical ride he was providing, and observed him slide along the bottom of the illuminated valley. As he progressed, the harness emitted occasional puffs of vapour which
glittered in the eerie light. The fold grew smaller and narrower, merging with several others as it curved about.
    ‘Ibu, is the light dimming?’ Laura asked. The image she was riding had been suffering an increasing number of those annoying judders as he moved along the fold, and now she was
struggling to make out the fluctuating slivers of phosphorescence inside the crystal. It was as if he’d moved into shadow, which was impossible.
    ‘No,’ he