It’s painfully bright outside, and the temperature is rising; slowly, but inexorably.

This is because there are two suns in the sky. The fake one, directly above; and a real one, off to one side.

We’ve arrived.

I was woken up early, just before what would normally be dawn, by unaccustomed light streaming in through the window and into my face. I spent a few moments in vague confusion before I remembered that the fake sun always shone vertically downwards, and so would never directly light up my room. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up so quickly.

We couldn’t have been out of the warp bubble for long. I reached the beach at about the same moment that Green and Black did. We didn’t say anything, just looked.

The new sun is painfully white, tinged with violet. It hangs malevolently in the matte black sky, casting a raw, burning light over the island. Under its rays, all the colours seem to have been washed out of things; the grass is too pale, the sea, normally blue, has become a steely grey with nasty violet highlights.

There are other things in the sky, too. All around there are pin-pricks of light; not stars, but something shining in the sunlight. There are a lot of them but it’s just too bright to make out what they are.

“Where are we?” I said eventually.

“I do not know,” Green replied nervously. She had no hands to shade her eyes and was squinting instead; she was trying to avoid looking at the new sun, but it kept drawing all our gazes. “I wish that the Big Ship not stay.”

“Me, too.”

I looked again at the violet highlights shining off the water. Oh, dear, I thought.

“We should get inside. Now. I bet there’s a lot of ultraviolet coming off that thing.”

“Ultraviolet?”

“Light. Um. Much blue; too much blue? Hurts your eyes, can cause skin problems.”

“Much blue. Yes. Yes.”

Safely in the Hotel’s shadow, we paused.

“I think you’d better teach me how to use the space suit as soon as possible,” I said. Then dawn came; the fake sun above us flared into life. The amount of light around doubled and it grew painfully bright. With the fake sun shining down and the alien sun shining across there was no place to hide. We went in.

[break]

Say that again?

The helmet has a radio. This pocket has a radio. We will have the radio pocket. The radios will talk. You and we will talk.

That’s clear. What’s the range?

Range?

How far, um, at what distance will they stop working?

Very far. Very very far. More far than the Big Ship.

That’s good.

You can take the dictaphone. It listen with the radio.

Oh? I can talk to it with the suit radio?

Yes.

But… couldn’t it be used as a radio receiver, then? Why haven’t the people in the Big Ship talked to us with it?

I do not know.

Hmm. Well; what do you want me to do?

You will fly to the ceiling. There will be a floor. You will land on the floor. You will find a pedestal. I will draw the pedestal. You will remove the helmet. The ceiling is far one kilometre. There is air. You will put the helmet on the pedestal. The helmet and the radio pocket have radio. It will talk to it. I will talk to the pedestal.

How do you know there’ll be a floor?

Logic say that there will be a floor. The Big Ship have persons. The persons control it. There will be a control. It will be on a floor.

But mightn’t the controls be on the other side of the barrier?

Yes.

Right.

The air is hot. The air will be more hot. The Big Ship is not far to the sun. The Big Ship must go.

I get you. Are you sure the suit is charged up?

Yes. The power pack is full. The helmet has food and water.

How long will it last before the pack goes flat?

Six or twelve or eighteen days.

So I don’t have to worry about power?

I do not understand worry.

Never mind… all right. You’ll have to draw a pedestal.

[break]

Right.

Ready to go.

It’s seriously bright out there. We have the window closed, and the Hotel’s air conditioning is keeping the air comfortable, but it must be baking. The bird-things have all gone; if they have any sense, they’re hiding in the forest somewhere.

This has to be an oversight of some kind. The Big Ship went to all this trouble to provide the island with a compatible sun, and now it just seems to have forgotten all about us…

It’s dawning on me just how much of a long shot this trip is going to be. Green has her hopes set on finding some sort of control station. I’m not sure there’s going to be one. I don’t think this ship is a product of any civilisation she knows about. Why haven’t they contacted us? If this dictaphone can receive radio transmissions, why hasn’t it picked anything up?

But she’s right; I have to try. The island can’t take much of this double sunlight. And the Big Ship brought us here for a reason, and I’m not entirely certain I want to know what the reason is.

Wish me luck.

[break]

I’ve found a place where I can rest. There’s no sign of any kind of control gantry, and certainly no pedestals. The only reasonably flat place where I can set down is on top of the housing that appears to hold the fake sun, which is where I am now; it’s a vast funnel, sweeping up behind me and joining the core of the ship.

The trip up was much less eventful and easier than I expected. Green and Black escorted me to the foyer. From the way they recoiled back when the door opened, I suspect the air outside was hot; I felt nothing, of course. So I stepped outside by myself, twisted the dial to on and took off with little ceremony.

The Hotel slid past and then dropped away below me. The whole island slowly fell away as I gained altitude; for the first time, I felt something of the thrill of flying. This was quickly brought short when a gauge suddenly appeared in my helmet view, highlighted in warning amber. Green had taught me several of the builder squiggles and I quickly worked out that I was getting too close to the fake sun, and the suit was overheating. I had to detour away from the centre before I could safely continue rising.

As a result, I reached the top of the cage near the edge, where the spines were still fairly far apart. I approached one; a colossal horizontal column, matte black with violet highlights from the new sun. Gingerly I rose up past it, my hands outstretched, and at exactly the moment I expected it my hands made contact with the barrier wall, now a lid over the top of the island.

I’d planned for this. Staying in contact, I accelerated inwards, towards the centre of the ship. At the suit’s top speed of thirty kilometres an hour the only sensation I had of the frictionless barrier rubbing against my back was a gentle pressure. This way I knew I would not run the risk of running head-first into the invisible wall at high speed.

The trip inward took much longer than the trip up; the cage was much wider than it was high. I watched the island slowly slide by beneath me. From here, the extensive coral reefs were clearly visible; they stretched out from the shore to where they were abruptly cut short by the curved black wall bounding the area abducted by the Big Ship. I saw the hills, their forests smashed and broken, and the brown smear that was the lake. In the centre was a tiny shining thing. I saw the gleaming white buildings, and only realised now that they were arranged in a distinct pattern around the island; like a Celtic knot of some kind, with every intersection marked by a structure. The only exception was the concrete landing pad up at one tip, with its two blank white hangars. And that must be the Hotel.

I began to realise then that the barrier above me was beginning to curve upwards. I slowed and look around. The spines, I saw, rose in a majestic sweep, meeting the central core of the ship at a point considerably above me. The core extended downward and became the centre of the kilometres-wide funnel that was the sun.

As I flew over the wide, flat rim of the funnel, I was suddenly taken from flying over a landscape to exploring inside a huge machine. The glowing greens and blues of the overexposed landscape were replaced with the dull blacks and sheens of the Big Ship’s structure, and all sparkling with violet highlights from the new sun, now behind me.

The funnel was smooth and featureless. I flew around it, nevertheless, and confirmed that there was no sign of any kind of control mechanism. I reported back to Green; she just said, “Yes.”

Next stop was to follow the spines upward. I repeated my trick of putting my back to the barrier and sliding upward, this time feet first. The spines grew closer together, and the huge black wall of the central column moved towards me. Above me, between my feet, I could see the rest of the ship bulking out in a huge, confused mass of pipework and chambers, shining in the sunlight.

I was beginning to feel quite dizzy from being head downwards, so I slowed down preparatory to turning over and having a result. It was a good job I did, because with a tremendous impact I hit an invisible wall feet first at about ten kilometres an hour. It doesn’t sound fast, but I was slammed against it painfully and then, somehow, through it, winded and tumbling end over end.

And somehow the suit motor had failed, because I was falling, flailing madly as I tumbled towards the funnel far below, the spines and column sliding past on all sides…

But then I realised that they weren’t. And that I wasn’t falling, after all. I collected myself, drew myself together, applied a slight touch on the suit to stop my spin, and realised that somehow I was in free fall. I must have left the Big Ship’s artificial gravity field.

I called Green. There was no reply.

Up here, there were still a few hundred metres between the spines and between the spines and the central column. But they were all so massive that the cramped little space I was in was horribly claustrophobic. Almost without thinking, I rotated myself so that the column, easily a kilometre wide, was below me. Suddenly the view made sense; the spines swept up and away from the central beam I was hanging above. Ahead I could see where the beam flared outwards into the vast trumpet of the sun housing, and far above I could see a curved line of brilliant blue; the edge of the sea, just visible beyond the funnel.

I gingerly moved forward, back to the place where I had hit the barrier. It felt just as slippery and strange as the barrier down by the edge of the sea. This one, however, was flexible. If I pushed at it, it gave. I pushed harder, and suddenly my arm popped through; I could feel the edge of the field pinching my arm. The suit motor pushed me though and I popped out the other side like a spat melon seed. The suit kept me hanging in space, but now gravity was pulling at my limbs.

I called Green again. This time she responded.

I explained what I had seen so far. No pedestals. A radio blackout beyond the barrier. She was silent for a moment, and then said, “I do not know. I do not know the Big Ship. What will you do?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I could try exploring some of the rest of the ship, but if the radios won’t work through the field there’s no way you could talk to a pedestal even if I found one.”

I heard the sound of one of the sealin changing position. There was no surf; they must have been in the Hotel. Good.

“You will return,” she said eventually.

I thought. “Hang on,” I said slowly. “This ship must have some crew, right? What if I could find some?”

“Find some?”

“If I could find my way onto the ship, I’m sure I could get their attention. If necessary I could find a window and start banging on it.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a long shot, but if I’m here already, I may as well try. What do you think.”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll, oh, return in a couple of hours and report.”

“Yes. Two hours.”

I disconnected, hesitated, and plunged through the barrier again.

It might have been another kilometre or so to the main body of the ship. It might have been more, it might have been less; with the huge, abstract shapes, and the precise, sharp, blue-white light illuminating everything in crisp detail and inky shadows, it was practically impossible to judge distances. I knew it was a long way, and at the suit’s top speed, it took several minutes to get there.

While the mass of pipework grew in front of me, I studied the sky. The black surrounded me on three sides, now. In the intense sunlight the stars were, as usual, invisible, but those metallic shapes resolved themselves to be disturbingly familiar; tiny, precise, shining in the sun, they were sister ships to the one I was now flying over. When I thought of the Big Ship in orbit over the sealin’s planet, looking as if it was a few thousand metres up, I realised that these ships must be correspondingly further away… thousands of kilometres. I could still make out every detail.

Below me the spines finally met the central column. They merged into it and joined to form a thicker, ribbed column. It ran forward and plunged into the main mass of the ship…

…and I say mass because it was not a single structure. The main body of the ship seemed to be, if the tiny part of it I saw was representative, a huge, tangled, contorted mass of pipes, chambers, valves, spirals, forks, spheres, cuboids, cones, ductwork, struts, girders and scaffolding at least sixty kilometers long and ten wide. That meant that there must have been about five thousand cubic kilometres of the stuff. If God drilled for oil, this would be the refinery He distilled it in.

Those vast pipes could have contained machinery or living habitats for all I knew. I couldn’t get into it too deeply. There were no windows, hatches, controls, lights or anything; everything I saw was completely featureless. There weren’t even any seams. The pipework was made out of a smooth, shiny material, quite unlike the solidified tar of the spines or the funnel, and it was quite even. I explored as much as I could, and everywhere I looked it was the same. A single, incomprehensible mass.

I realised that I’d seen a tiny proportion of the ship. There might be something more interesting up towards the front. But that was a hundred kilometres away. At the suit’s top speed, it would take me over three hours just to get there.

Instead I returned to the barrier and reported back. Green didn’t have anything to say, but suggested that I come home. I didn’t want to do that just yet. The suit is surprisingly comfortable, and I didn’t want to give up. I descended to the sun funnel and I’ve been investigating that since.

There has to be a way into this ship.

If only I knew where.

[break]

Green? Are you there?

Yes. Will you come?

I’ve had a thought. There’s one place I haven’t tried yet.

Where is it?

Up where the spines meet the column. I want to have a look inside, up where the two meet. It’s just it’s on the other side of the barrier, and I thought I should warn you I’ll be out of touch.

Yes. You will look and then you will return.

All right, all right, I will.

Yes.

I’m off. I’ll be right back.

[break]

That was horrible.

I left the funnel and crossed the barrier, but this time instead of flying through the gap between the spines and out into open space I stayed under the spines and kept going. The space shrank until the spines touched and merged above me, and met the column below.

But, the spines were tubular. So where every pair of spines merged into the column, there was a shrinking triangular space. And it was this that I flew up.

I’d remembered that ribbed column, you see. It didn’t look as if the spines had been absorbed completely into the column. There might be a gap. And I was right.

It wasn’t a large gap. As the spines merged into the column the gap shrank. Inside there, the only entrance behind me towards the funnel, it was absolutely pitch black. Luckily I’d worked out how to turn the helmet light on (wanting into the lens assembly on the front of the helmet; when I worked it out I thought irrelevantly I really love these user interfaces), and by its light I could see that the triangular tube closed to be a few metres across, and then shrank no longer.

On I went.

This wasn’t like the barrier. The walls of the tube were of that roughened, black material, and when moving quickly I had to keep away from them. Eventually I just stretched prone and dived, superman-style, straight down, neck arched back so I could see where I was going.

The tube went on, unchanging and featureless, for a long way. Two kilometres? I really have no idea. But eventually, to my utter surprise and considerable relief, far ahead I saw a light. A gentle orange glow.

I’d found my way into the ship.

The tube walls suddenly turned from black tarry stuff into smooth shiny stuff laced with glowing orange lines. The tube curved away, bending sinuously and confusingly. I followed it. It got narrower, and for a moment I thought that it might get too narrow for me to follow, but then it ballooned out into a large, featureless chamber, banded with shining green. The orange tube continued on the far side.

I continued following it. It wound around, this way and that way, curving and twisting, never branching, until quite suddenly it opened into a vast spherical chamber. The walls were inscribed in brilliant primary colours, spirals and triangles and rays…

But in the centre of the chamber there was something very familiar. Remember the Observatory? Right.

The streamers of light here formed a twisting, twirling tornado of motion and colour. Completely silent, it vibrated with vibrant life.

I stared, entranced, while I drifted out of the tunnel. It drew the senses, lulled the soul. The trailing streamers of light drew across my mind and slowly began to smooth over the thoughts there. I forgot what I was doing and where I was going and only watched, as it… it… it talked to me.

Unauthorised.

There was no voice speaking in my mind, there was just the knowledge of intent, appearing there by itself. My numb brain started to move again.

Unauthorised. Unknown.

I looked around frantically. I was deep inside the thing, now. I wanted the suit to take me away, but it didn’t respond. The lights swirled around me and through me. I squeezed my eyes shut but they were in my head, too.

Escape? Unauthorised.

“Who are you?” I cried, my voice echoing in the helmet and, no doubt, being broadcast all over the room.

Control.

“Let me go!”

Unauthorised. Origin?

“I was on the island…”

Cargo? Occupied?

“Yes. Who are you?”

Scavenger. Only unoccupied.

“What?” The lights, the dizziness, the un-voice, all were pulling my brain in ways it wasn’t designed to go. I felt myself fraying, inside.

Cargo occupied. Three. Mistake.

“Please let me go…”

Return cargo. Destination?

“I want to go home!”

Apologies.

“Just let me out!”

And then I had drifted through it, and had hit the opposite wall of the chamber. The glowing lines were deeply scored into the surface, and I gripped the grooves they made for dear life, and just hung there until the shaking stopped.

Moving slowly, being very, very careful not to turn around, I pulled myself over to the tunnel entrance and into it. The suit was responding again, and I fled down the corridor and round the corner, and it was only then that I stopped.

I’m very glad I brought the dictaphone. I have to talk, to get things straight in my head. Its words are burnt into my mind so deeply that they were beginning to push me out. I need to talk, to be myself, to reestablish dominance in my own brain. I never believed that there were things that could drive you mad just by looking at them until now. I can’t face that thing again.

Which is a pity, because I think this is the wrong tunnel.

[break]

I don’t know what time it is. I’m tired.

I’m lost. Completely, unutterably, lost.

I followed the tunnel. The orange walls changed to blue, the tunnel became square, then one of the walls curved away to form a triangular chamber… I took one of the exits. It led to a nasty maze of dog-legs, picked out in purple triangles. Somehow I got out of that and found myself in a set of nested tunnels, with crescent cross sections. That led to a tall gallery full of glass pipes with brilliant stars bouncing back and forth in them.

I kind of forget the rest.

I don’t know how much of the ship I’ve seen. I suspect there’s a lot more. I’ve tried to memorise routes, but my brain is all fuzzy and I can’t remember things. Not long ago I found myself drifting from one tunnel to the next at random in a sort of trance, hoping against hope that somehow I’d find myself staring at black sky and the exit, dreading that I might find myself back with the thing.

Currently I’m in a flat, disc-shaped room. Three tunnels meet it on one side, two on the other. I’m reasonably sure I came in on the side with two tunnels. But it’s a place where I feel secure enough that I might be able to sleep. There’s vacuum outside, I’m sure, but Green said that the suit will provide air, food and water as long as the power works…

I wonder what the sealin are doing, down there on the island.

I hope this thing can transmit out of the ship.

[transmit]

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