Grailem by Gary L Beer (top 100 novels txt) 📖

the starship's drop out of hyperspace and Grailem looks at his scanner outputs. The planets and moons are easy to plot but at least a million other bits of rock, comets and disused space vehicles litter the system.
Space travel looked prolific, maybe from several thousands of years ago. Some ancient vehicles orbit aimlessly at the very edge of the universe, their sub-light engines must have taken them centuries to get that far out and Grailem scans them in the hope of finding humanoid life.
Some of the space vehicles he examines are the size of colonising ships. One that he examines, built in a torpedo shape, is ten kilometres long and three kilometres at its widest point. Appearing to drift aimlessly it spins end over end in an almost graceful movement.
Detecting no life or power output Grailem orders his navigator to another huge vessel of a similar size that orbits a large asteroid. Remembering his first feelings when he landed on that lonely asteroid years ago now, he feels optimistic that this craft will contain life.
The sensors detect a weak power source that would be sufficient to power the ships internal systems - but the main engines read inoperable. Within the huge space vehicle his sensors tell him the atmosphere inside is high in nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and a multitude of other gases. Vegetation appears to fill the ship along with various mammals; and a humanoid species.

Fine tuning his sensors to look inside the spaceship in more detail at the humanoids bone structure they do not appear to fit the profile of a normal biped. Instead the head appears larger, by as much as double the normal size, along with a frail, almost skeletal body. Very little flesh or muscle surrounds the bone of the skeleton, which in most cases appear in the horizontal position.
Bringing his flagship close to the alien vessel, Grailem makes his way to the cargo hold and boards the small shuttlecraft. Putting on a spacesuit for appearances sake, as he does not want to alarm the humanoids on board, he opens the cargo doors and flies the small craft to an airlock that is on top of the vessel.
Landing the shuttlecraft as gently as possible next to the airlock, Grailem gets out and examines the door mechanism. A simple spoked wheel in the centre of the airlock looks to be the way in and Grailem spins it open. The door releases with a gentle hiss and Grailem opens it wide and steps inside.
Shutting the door behind him he turns the wheel until the door is firmly sealed. The airlock is a perfect three metre cube and Grailem walks over to the inner wall. Pressing a green coloured button he feels the air pressure start to slowly increase as an amber light flashes brightly on a rectangular panel. Several minutes later the flashing amber light is replaced by a continuous green light as the inner doors automatically slide open.
Atmospheric readings show that the air is breathable and Grailem removes his helmet. The smell of fresh vegetation washes over his nose receptors and he can feel the richness of the oxygen in the air. Stepping through the doorway he finds himself in a long corridor. In either direction he cannot see the end as it fades in a perfectly straight line into the distance. The airlock he had entered, almost in the centre of the spacecraft, had shown a large concentration of humanoids half a kilometre below.
Looking for an elevator or a way to descend, Grailem walks slowly along the corridor. Unbroken panels of a hard blue plastic type material line the walls and Grailem walks nearly half a kilometre before finding a break in the monotonous shiny surface.
A doorway, two metres high and a metre wide stands open before him. The door, made of the same blue plastic material of the walls is wide open and held back magnetically securing it to the wall.
Stepping through the doorway Grailem can see that the room he has stepped into is a very small one. Suddenly the part he is standing on falls away beneath him and he finds himself on a narrow platform, a metre square, that is taking him down into the depths of the huge spacecraft.
The view from his tiny platform is awe inspiring; the roof of the spacecraft is one giant light that stretches from one end to the other. The light, though not bright, is obviously of the right spectrum for plants to grow as below him it is a green jungle. Many areas that had been planted with cereal crops were being enveloped by fruiting bushes and bountiful trees.
The platform continues downwards until Grailem's view becomes obscured by the lush vegetation. Slowly the platform descends onto a metal walkway that is two metres wide and stretches away to become lost in the sea of green. Grailem steps off the platform and starts to walk in what he hopes is the right direction. As he steps away the platform starts to slowly ascend, gaining speed as it gathers height and is soon lost to Grailem's sight.
Following the metal walkway for several hundred metres he passes a large round chamber thirty metres in diameter. The chamber appears to have no ceiling as it stretches up towards the top of the craft disappearing from sight. Set into the walls and individually lit by a pale red light humanoid occupants lay.
Stepping closer Grailem looks inside the nearest one to see a male humanoid with an abnormally large head. The head is covered by incredibly long black hair that also covers his face and stretches down to his bony knees.
A long black tube reaches down from the roof of the transparent container and fits neatly into his mouth. The chest rises and falls at a count of two a minute indicating the occupant is still alive. The bed, or panel, that the humanoid lies on appears to feed electrical signals into him. The occupant responds by an almost unnoticeable tightening of the muscles on his face when the panel increases its light by a few lumens.
The chamber is full of humanoids in the same condition, stacked one on top of the other they number in there thousands. Looking into more of the chambers Grailem sees more hair covered males and also hair covered females. The heads on all are abnormally large, and Grailem wonders if this is an effect of being in space for so long.
In an environment that has little or no gravity the bones of a humanoid start to soften and dissolve. Being in the kind of suspended animation that the occupants were in, and being fed with nutrients and electrical stimulation feeding the mind, had possibly made their brains continue to grow.
The legs do not look able to support the weight of the body, which in itself has degenerated to mainly tissue that has replaced a lot of the dissolved bone. The change looks as more of an adaptation or evolution to their environment than anything harmful occurring to them. The life signs indicate that they are all in good health and Grailem cannot find any that are diseased or have died inside their chamber.
Curious as to how long this spaceship had been on its now pointless journey Grailem goes in search of the main bridge.
When he scanned the spacecraft from his own flagship, the bridge and main control area was indicated as taking up a large section of the front of the craft. Realising he has at least four and a half kilometres to travel Grailem leaves the chamber of humanoids and emerging onto the main passageway runs along the blue plastic lined corridor.
Every one hundred metres, doorways leading to more chambers of humanoids, stacked one on top of each other like so much cargo, fill this lower level. Grailem enters several to see that the occupants are in a similar sort of suspended animation as the first chamber he had visited. All register as fit and healthy with high brain activity and all appear the same; with a very large head and thin wasted body.
The blue plastic material of the corridor walls changes to a lighter shade of blue, and Grailem estimates he has run over four kilometres. The corridor appears cleaner; which may be due to the effect of the lighter colour, but Grailem is not convinced. He senses conscious moving beings close by, possibly on the level above him.

He had passed some closed doorways between the open ones of the chambers and assumed they led to the other levels. Testing his theory he walks back about twenty metres to one he has just passed. The handle is set into the door and Grailem grasps it firmly and slowly pulls it down. Pushing the door open he looks inside to see a small chamber with a spiral staircase made of incredibly thin black metal and a door, which is possibly an elevator door. Beside it a transparent panel with strange markings seems to confirm it is an elevator.
Hoping that he has not already been observed and not wishing to alarm the beings above, Grailem starts to slowly climb the black spiral staircase. Keeping balanced in the middle of each step so as not to shake the staircase he climbs up to the next level.
Reaching the next level Grailem sees the same arrangement of elevator door and spiral staircase heading up; and a door leading into the main corridor. Walking over to the door he opens it a small amount and peers at the corridor beyond. The walls are covered in the same light blue material as the level below; except that he can hear movement and voices along the distance of the corridor.
Opening the door Grailem steps into the corridor and shuts the door behind him. The sound of voices drifting along the corridor appear monotonous and mechanical and the movements regular. Walking along the corridor in the direction of the voices he passes the familiar chambers of humanoid's stacked one on top of the other.
Several hundred metres and thousands of chambered humanoid's later Grailem reaches the main control room of the huge spacecraft. The mechanical voices continue as several robots read aloud the displays in front of them. The language is strange and Grailem scans his translator memories for a similar one. Being robots the language must be based on a binary code, feeding in the sounds of the nearest robot voice the translator starts to assemble a parallel.
The robots totally ignore him as he stands watching them from the doorway. The regular sounds that he heard are the movements of several of the robots arms as they operate the controls. The bridge appears a strange mix of modern computer controlled technology and older versions requiring a physical movement to maintain power.
The robots appear a similar mix with body and limbs appearing as a coarse metal framework that supports a super computer inside the smoother metal casing of the skull. Most appeared integrated with their particular instrument as most had only moving arms and rotating heads. The multi-faceted eyes appear unnecessary as the robots have little to look at and Grailem wonders if they have a multiple purpose.
Stepping onto the bridge he