Helium 3: Fight for the Future

by Brandon Q. Morris

  Shipmaster, the loss of the energy storage unit is leading to further problems, warned one of the bridge officers. All systems are currently overloaded, and there is a dangerous fluctuation in the containment of tokamak number four!

  There was hardly anything more dangerous for a spaceship than losing containment of one of the fusion reactors. If the plasma were to erupt uncontrollably, the ship would burn up in a giant fireball.

  How critical is it? Tolkut asked.

  If I can stabilize the containment again, there’s no danger. Otherwise there’s a risk that the reactor will go haywire. I’m working on it, but it doesn’t look good!

  Tolkut danced a curse. If the Techweaver couldn’t keep the system under control, they’d no longer have any choice but to expel the plasma in a controlled emergency procedure before it destroyed the ship. However, the loss of a tokamak in their current situation, which required every last ounce of energy, would be a disaster. It was impossible to imagine what the impact would be. It would take several pulses to restart the fusion reactor following an emergency shutdown. They may have escaped the greedy clutches of the dense atmosphere, but the ship remained in great danger.

  The signal is rising again! The exciting message from the remote scout came across the thread. It’s gaining altitude!

  This time, Tolkut only cursed inwardly. Now, of all times, when they urgently had to gain altitude themselves, the signal was rising—and with it, whoever was carrying the device that generated it. They practically had to run away from it to avoid a complete state of emergency. An even greater state of emergency than they were already facing! The alarm lights and shaking were getting worse from one micropulse to the next. The Bud wouldn’t be able to take any more.

  Shipmaster, the containment is becoming critical! The Techweaver danced steps of concern and smelled of fear. We don’t have much time left to decide whether to proceed with the emergency shutdown and expel the plasma.

  Tolkut knew that if they lost the reactor they would have to return to space immediately. Without its energy, they wouldn’t be able to escape the gravity of the planet.

  The signal is now right below us, the remote scout drummed. Only a few hundred body lengths away!

  Techweaver, you have to give me a few pulses. Tolkut had an idea. It may have been a reckless one, but it was still the only one he had.

  I’m trying my best!

  Tolkut raced out of the bridge and threw himself into the nearest airlock. He grabbed one of the spacesuits hanging there and climbed into it as quickly as possible. It wasn’t easy, as he had to fold his six legs under his body so they would fit in the leg pocket on the belly. Only with the two front limbs, his gripping and his drumming legs, did he pull himself into his suit before guiding them into their two separate sleeves. Since the legs were useless in space, they had to do without separate sleeves designed especially for them, and instead they were folded up and stowed below the belly.

  Tolkut put the helmet over his head and sealed the suit. The display at the top of the visor showed that it was ready for use. He closed the inner airlock door and activated the vacuum pump. Then he switched on the radio and drummed a message with the tips of his gripper fingers onto the glove’s sensor plates. The vibrations were converted into electrical signals and transferred to the bridge’s communication thread so the officers there could feel them.

  I’m going out and am going to try to reach the alien space traveler. Keep the Bud stationary above me as long as possible. When it’s no longer possible, just ascend. I’m hanging on a rope below the ship and you can pull me up. Either I’ll have the alien with me or I won’t!

  The airlock display confirmed a vacuum in the interior, and then the automatic system unlocked the outer airlock gate. Tolkut fastened a rope to his suit. It was several hundreds of body lengths long, and was intended to be used as a safety rope for external work on the body of the Bud. With his front legs, he pulled hard toward the outside on the supports provided for this purpose. He swooped out of the ship toward the roaring clouds and the Bud quickly grew smaller behind him.

  Strictly speaking, he was still only at the edge of the atmosphere and could even see a few stars above him, but it still felt like he was swimming in a thick soup. Wisps of fog with yellowish, orange, and light brown tones kept running through his field of vision, and for a short time left him completely disoriented. That far up, there was hardly anything to be felt of the roaring storms.

  Tolkut activated the small control unit in the backpack. Normally, the blasts were used sparingly in order to be able to move slowly and carefully in space—but this time Tolkut went full thrust downward.

  He switched the helmet display to infrared, hoping that in this frequency range the alien’s spacesuit would stand out from the cold environment. A space traveler would need some heat source. Otherwise it would quickly freeze to death at the temperatures that prevailed here.

  Sure enough! He could make out a heat signal that was just a few dozen body lengths below and slightly to his right. He readjusted the engine on his back and accelerated to the location.

  Then he saw the alien! The figure was floating motionless on its back, its two strange wings spread out, and seemingly lifeless. Tolkut hoped that he wasn’t too late and he wouldn’t just find a corpse.

  When Tolkut was just over the alien, there was a bright flash from above. It was almost like an explosion. Right away he knew what had happened. The containment of the reactor must have finally failed and the Techweaver had been able to eject the plasma from the ship just in time before it could transform the Bud into a new sun in the gas giant’s sky.

  He would have to act in just a few nanopulses.

  Tolkut went full throttle and crossed the final body lengths to reach the motionless figure. He stretched both legs forward and wrapped them securely around one of the alien’s wings—oddly, it didn’t seem to be inside the spacesuit—just as a tremendous jolt went through his body.

  The rope attached to the spacesuit tensed and jerked him upward violently. With all his might he held the rescued space Explorer in his front legs. It would be tragic to lose the alien now to the murderous gas planet that was reluctant to part with its victim.

  The weight almost tore out Tolkut’s gripping legs, but he held on tightly. Then the hellish strain slowly eased and gave way to steady acceleration that was more bearable.

  He and the alien had left behind the clouds and wisps of fog on the edge of the atmosphere below. The sky continued to clear up, and finally they were surrounded by the total blackness of free space.

  Tolkut felt the winch in the airlock chamber slowly pulling him back to the Bud. Someone must have activated it. The alien hadn’t moved yet, and Tolkut just towed it along with him.

  52nd of Frien, 298

  Nine Iks were huddled on their roosts in a room that was bright but free of any decoration. They were the Supreme Leaders, the council that determined the fate of their species. Marizinu was the youngest of them. She had only been appointed Supreme Navigator a few years ago. Her predecessor's death had been such a surprise that the planned successor had not yet been available. Since then, Marizinu filled the role she had never been prepared for as best she could. She’d never had a good feeling about it. Her greatest hope had always been that everything would work out fine—but now what was happening was the complete opposite.

  The Supreme Mother had called the meeting, as was customary. She had invited the Iks who presided over the individual castes. Conquerors and Protectors, Providers and Navigators, Knowledge Guardians, Teachers, Mothers, and Artists had sent their deputies. An elderly Iks represented the vanished Supreme Explorer Norok. The meeting today, Marizinu knew, was not going to be the usual tactical banter with every caste trying to assert its interests. It would be about the fate of the Iks. And her own error would also be discussed.

  “You know what happened,” the Supreme Mother said to open the meeting.

  Of course she knew. Several alien s
paceships had attacked the Iks’ flying machine. The crew had been able to report the raid. They’d even sent a few pictures of the strange ships. Since then, nothing had been heard from them.

  “The specialists reconstructed the last video recordings and used them to create a schematic representation of the alien ships,” said the Supreme Mother. She tapped an invisible button on the floor and a rotating hologram appeared in the middle of the room. The ship didn’t look very elegant. It consisted of a thick cylinder, half as wide as it was long, with various structures. There were different colors to show the probable locations of the weapons as well as sensors or antennas.

  The ship was obviously not designed to fly in an atmosphere. It was too unwieldy for that. This might have been an advantage for the flying machine—since the attack had taken place very near the gas giant, it may have been able to dive into the masses of clouds. The fact that they were no longer in contact could be due to the planet’s intense magnetic field.

  “It doesn’t look elegant,” said the Supreme Mother, “but it is effective. The weaponry is so varied that the attack did not last long. And notice the size. There are at least 500 wingspans from fore to aft. Still, they don’t fly any slower than our flying machines, which are only one-tenth of their size.”

  The strange ship was slowly turning in front of everyone’s eyes. Marizinu wondered what its crew looked like. Did they have big or small beaks? How far could their wings reach? Or was it a very exotic creature with four wings or even without feathers? Despite their long history, the Iks had not yet met any other intelligent life forms. There were indeed legends that intelligent flying dragons once populated the home world, but the Knowledge Guardians had found no evidence of this.

  At any rate, the aliens had no sense of aesthetics. The ship appeared to be strewn with scars and pimples. Even if the basic shape communicated great power, the various superstructures detracted from this impression. But they shouldn’t allow themselves to be misled. In battle, beauty was unimportant.

  “There are a few important questions that remain unanswered,” said the Supreme Mother.

  “Yes. Most of all, why the attack was such a surprise,” said the Supreme Conqueror. “It is my view that this is a failure on the part of the Explorers.”

  Norok’s representative straightened his upper body. “I won’t tolerate such accusations,” he roared. “We searched all wavelengths. The attacker must have used the planet, its numerous moons, and the strong magnetic field to hide.”

  “The attacker?” asked the Supreme Protector. “We identified at least four ships in the images.”

  “Right,” said the Supreme Mother. “There were four ships involved in the fight. What’s remarkable is that they also attacked one another.”

  “Perhaps the flying machine’s active camouflage confused their sensors,” suggested the Supreme Protector.

  “Possible, but unlikely. The conflict did not end when our ship disappeared,” the Supreme Mother replied.

  “What if it’s not just one, but rather two other alien intelligent life forms that are fighting in this system?” the Supreme Conqueror proposed.

  “And our ship just came into the line of fire by accident?” asked the Supreme Provider.

  “That would explain why they didn’t make any contact,” said the Supreme Artist. “They were already dealing with their own war. Then we just have to wait quietly until they’re finished and then speak with the victor.”

  “I would almost completely rule this out,” said the Supreme Conqueror. “The ships certainly have individual differences, but the construction principles and the equipment are identical. At most, we have before us two factions of the same species that are working out their differences of opinion in a warlike manner. We certainly know all about that from our own history.”

  “We have to be careful not to let this degenerate into a debate,” the Supreme Mother warned. “This is still about our future. The most important question is, how dangerous can the aliens be for us? What do the military representatives have to say?”

  “In our estimation, just one of the alien’s ships cannot harm the generation ship. Probably not two of them, either. However, it would still be dangerous.”

  “Thank you, Supreme Protector. What do the Conquerors say?”

  The Supreme Conqueror pounded his chest proudly. “We believe that we can easily contend with at least five of the alien ships. Our soldiers look forward to the fight,” he added.

  “Now stop that nonsense, Miki,” said the Supreme Protector. “Every dead Iks is one too many.”

  “Even if you’re my cousin, you have to show me respect,” said the Supreme Conqueror. Marizinu noticed how his tail feathers were lifting upward, as if he wanted to attack his relative right there and then.

  “Is this how we pay our respects to our fallen friends?” asked the Supreme Mother. She did not raise her voice, but there was a certain sharpness to her words. The two rivals went silent.

  “We’re missing one critical piece of information,” continued the Supreme Mother after a short pause. “How many ships do the attackers have that they can mobilize?”

  “Unfortunately, we have no data for this,” answered Norok’s representative on behalf of the Explorers.

  Marizinu thought about what Kimikizu had shown her, saying that 20 wormholes had opened, but she—as Supreme Navigator—hadn’t taken Kimikizu’s wild theory seriously. Aliens that traveled through wormholes? The Knowledge Guardians had always said that such a thing was impossible. Should she come forward now with her knowledge? She’d be asked why she hadn’t reported it earlier, and be forced to admit her mistake and lose face. The only witness, Kimikizu, was probably dead, just like everyone aboard the flying machine. That left nobody who could say that she’d known the number of alien ships beforehand.

  It was a good thing that the Supreme Protector already saw serious problems with the theory about two enemies. This was typical and was in keeping with her role. But what had the Supreme Conqueror said? They could easily handle five ships. Then it would be almost impossible for them to survive against 20 attackers. Even if there were two factions, there were still at least two times ten enemy ships. If she were to keep her knowledge to herself, she risked the downfall of her species.

  “There are probably twenty ships!” she blurted.

  The others didn’t respond. They were probably taking it in.

  “A few days ago we found evidence that twenty wormholes had opened in the outer solar system. That’s how the aliens got here.”

  Offense was the best defense. If she explained everything right away, she’d finish faster.

  “I had thought this observation was irrelevant, that it was a mistake,” she continued. “Our Knowledge Guardians can certainly confirm that we previously believed their existence to be unlikely.”

  The Guardian nodded. “Their artificial creation lies far beyond our capabilities and our physics,” he said. “You would need negative energy for this, something that does not exist with our physics.”

  “Thank you, Navigator, for sharing your observation with us now,” said the Supreme Mother. “It would have been better to inform us earlier. But I suspect we would not have believed you. Or would any of those here think it would be possible to travel through space using wormholes?”

  “The Supreme Mother is right,” said the Keeper. “I would have been the first to relegate this theory to the realm of fantasy.”

  These candid confessions took Marizinu by surprise. Before, this attitude had been most uncommon among the Supreme Leaders. Was the danger already bringing them together? They were probably all in shock.

  “But we must ask ourselves what your observation means for us,” said the Supreme Mother. “If the aliens have mastered wormhole technology, they must be far superior to us. And not even the Conquerors would want to take on twenty of their ships. Have I got that straight?”

  The Supreme Conqueror struck his wings together briefly. “Yes, Supr
eme Mother,” he said. “Twenty of these attackers would be dangerous for the generation ship. Our large mass makes us a good target. There’s no way for us to hide, but we could destroy two or three of their ships. Maybe that would make them call off their attack.”

  “We’d better not rely on that,” said the Supreme Protector. “It could provoke them even more.”

  “Are you suggesting that we submit immediately?” asked the Supreme Conqueror, his feathers draining of their color.

  “We have to try to contact them,” said the Supreme Mother. “It’s more important now than it was before. It must be possible to reach an agreement!”

  “And if not?” asked the Supreme Conqueror, brooding.

  “In the event that we achieve nothing, the Conquerors and Protectors will work out a plan together. I say together! It must be an airtight strategy that guarantees the survival of our species.”

  “I can’t think of such a plan,” said the Supreme Protector. “There’s nothing we can do about twenty technologically sophisticated ships, no matter how good the idea.”

  “It’s not an option, Supreme Protector. If you are unable to do so, I expect you to step down,” said the Supreme Mother, her tone bitingly cold.

  “I will do my best.”

  “Good. The plan should be presented to us tomorrow. Does everyone agree? Of course, suggestions are welcome.”

  No one disagreed, so the Supreme Mother’s decision was accepted. Their species' fate would be decided the following day—at least as insofar as it could be squeezed into a plan.

  An intense pain awakened Norok. He opened his eyes and looked into the thick fog that filled the entire cockpit. The belt was still tight over his abdomen. He was strapped into his seat. The breathing mask was on his face and he didn’t dare risk taking it off. He carefully unfastened the belt. He wanted to use his wings to get up, but the pain returned—the pain that had woken him up.