Chapter 40 - The Kraken Gate
There was a smell of sweat in the air, and it wasn’t the result of hard work; it was fear. The last time the Koulomb Gate had opened, forty-eight people had died. Professor Maddison had spoken, shortly after Director Harman, to inform us that the operators had managed to get an astronomical fix on Ganessa, so the gate would be powered up shortly.
We all had our backpacks on. I held one of Na-Su’s spears, assembled and ready in one hand. James, Mahkran, Inigo were with me at the front. Like me, James was holding a spear, while Mahkran and Inigo were ready with the crossbows. The science team of two stood behind us. Dr. Polonius Evershed looked nervous; Dr. Millicent Onacar was just trying to avoid eye contact with the naturalist for fear he’d start talking to her.
By agreement, Benjamin, Captain Banks, Privates Overstrand and Yates had taken up the rear. Overstrand seemed like the quiet, thoughtful type. Cropped black hair. Frown lines underpinned by one solid, continuous eyebrow. He was as muscular as James, but a head shorter. Occasionally the frown was replaced by a brief grin, usually in response to some absurdity from his fellow marine. Yates was the clown, a tall, garrulous evacuation of mindless chatter, a beacon of marmalade-coloured hair, in spite of its military cropping. I caught him frowning at Mahkran a couple of times and decided he didn’t like foreigners.
Several more marines had joined us in the portal chamber and were standing beside the materials for the stockade, ready to ferry them through. Unlike us, they would be returning before the portal closed. I was adamant that we would only risk a small team.
Professor Maddison was back again with some last-moment instructions. ‘Polonius has been through the portal so he knows the drill. The rest of you will have heard some of this, but it’s important you pay attention to what I’m about to say. Your lives depend on it.’
‘Absolutely no iron or steel. My engineers gave you the all-clear, but that was before Director Harman spoke. If you’ve picked up anything else since then, step forward so that I can get it tested and approved. You’ll get no warning as you approach the gate, because the flux gradient is so steep.’ Maddison paused. Yates and Overstrand looked confused so I made it simple.
‘One turn you’ll be striding forward and the next, even something as small as an iron nail in your boot will drag you off your feet and into one of the dynamos.’
’Mercifully for you, it’ll be a quick death,’ resumed the professor, ‘but it’ll be a bloody nuisance for the rest of us though. We’ll be picking splinters and brick dust from our clothing for a whole cycle, and trying to rebuild all this from scratch, again.’
We nodded, but he wasn’t done.
‘That reminds me…please check your wristbands are on. No one is allowed through without one. Am I clear?’
There was a chorus of assent.
‘Follow the yellow line painted on the floor as you approach the portal. One-by-one, and stay on the yellow line. There’s enough iron in your blood to feel the pull in your extremities, especially the taller among you. Keep your hands tight to your sides or crossed in front of you. It’s a strange sensation, but that’s the Koulomb Field.’
‘How long do we have once we’re through?’ I asked. Maddison sucked air through his teeth.
‘We haven’t had time for a full-length trial, but in theory, we’ve as long as it takes both planets to rotate past the plane of their mutual ecliptic which, at the moment, is roughly six bells, but…any gravitational or magnetic perturbations between here and Ganessa could disturb the lock and cause the portal to collapse. If both steam engines break down, the portal will collapse.’
Banks interrupted. ‘I thought there were batteries.’
‘They’re depleted at inception.’
‘They’re used up in the process of opening the portal,’ offered Inigo with a wink.
‘What do we do if that happens?’ asked Benjamin.
‘Sit tight and wait until the planets have both spun back to the point where we can get line-of-sight, roughly twenty-two bells, which is a day on Ganessa, oh, and that’s assuming the weather holds.’
‘What’s the forecast like?’ Benjamin asked.
‘Only scattered clouds until tomorrow, Lieutenant Scott,’ replied Maddison. ‘Now remember, there is no yellow line on the far side, so just try and aim for the middle of the portal when you’re coming back through.’
The field generators on either side of the platform had began to turn, their noise adding to the thrumming of the steam engines on the other side of the control room.
We all answered in the affirmative and Maddison headed for the door that led up to the control room. The gas lights lining the cavern went dark leaving a row of weak electric lights to light our path up the steps and across the platform towards the gate. The huge generators were spinning faster by the tick. The heavy framework of wood, brass plates and bolts had begun to vibrate, but held firm.
The last of the technicians hurried from the portal chamber, closing the safety doors behind them. I glanced up at the control room. Professor Maddison was in position behind the toughened glass. He was holding a microphone in one hand that was linked with a loudhailer bolted to the wall on our side of the glass.
‘WHO IS GOING FIRST?’ boomed the professor’s voice through the amplifier.
I shouted, ’ME!’ Well now I feel stupid. No way anyone in the soundproofed control room would have heard me, so I raised my hand.
‘WAIT ON THE TOP STEP UNTIL I GIVE YOU THE SIGNAL.’
I climbed the seven steps to the top of the platform. Ahead of me was the gate. It loomed over me like a gigantic wreath, straddled by a pair of demented windmills. I wanted to run away. My bowels felt loose and my legs moved weakly. I turned to survey the small team and gave the thumbs up signal, waggling it to make it a question. Everyone returned the thumbs up, Benjamin waiting until he’d seen his marines give the signal. Sergeant Banks winked at me, as though this was all some grand schoolboy adventure. James looked unconcerned. He’d wrestled lifeboats off the deck of a sinking ship, while shells from the Nallian navy landed all around him. There would have to be more fire and shrapnel before he started to panic.
Impossibly, the noise levels were still climbing, the platform humming beneath my feet as the Koulomb Gate approached full power. The two concentric rings that we would step through were set so that the inner ring was flush with the platform. Unbidden, the image of Charg was in my head, reaching one of its tentacles through the portal. I glanced at the failsafe detectors, one on either side of the rings, and hoped they were working. It was too late to check them again.
Through the rings, I could see the rear of the cavern, but the air was shimmering now, as though looking through a heat haze. The whine of the generators reached a plateau. Filaments of blue lightning crackled around the edges of the gate, some making the jump across to the generator windings.
It reminded me of Dorgrund’s Relent, the literary classic in which a mad scientist harnesses the power of a lightning storm to bring his dead wife back to life. There would be nothing like that tonight. Instead, the hazy air in the centre of the device solidified, turning translucent, like ice on the surface of a lake.
Suddenly the ground lurched, the beams holding the dynamos and the ring groaned and creaked as though under an enormous load. The circle inside the ring cleared, like an old man’s milky eye undergoing a miraculous cure. Instead of the back of the cavern, a landscape of broken rock and scrub was visible through the eye. With that came the wind, rushing and swirling through the cavern.
‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ Benjamin shouted from behind me.
‘LOWER AIR PRESSURE ON GANETON,’ bellowed Inigo, who was nearest to him.
Professor Maddison’s voice came over the loudhailer again. ‘AWAY TEAM, PROCEED.’
It was time to step onto another world.
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