by Donal Myrick
“Give me a few minutes to get dressed, and I will help.”
“You had better dress really warm because it is still bad cold out there.”
An hour later, they had everything set up and battened down securely. Then interestingly enough, as if on cue, the icy wind returned with the blowing snow. Max hauled out the ice auger and the heating device that would be used to melt a large hole in the ice. Just like ice fishing, except that this hole would be four feet in diameter. Max and Peggy climbed back into Journey to warm up because it was still thirty-five degrees below zero under the tarp. Once they had warmed up a bit, Max opened the door so as to share Journey’s heat with the workspace on the outside. It took a while, but finally, the temperature under the tarp leveled off at a comfortable plus twenty degrees, and Max ventured out again. He unpacked the rebreathers and dry suits. He then unpacked the underwater caving lights and the guideline reel with a thousand feet of guideline. All of this equipment was laid out in the tent so it could be properly checked out before use.
Peggy joined Max, and together they began drilling a six-inch diameter hole in the ice. It took the two of them to manhandle the powerful auger, and in less than thirty minutes, they bored a six-inch hole through the fifteen feet of ice. The cold seawater rose up to within a foot and a half from the top of the hole, and Max lowered the heating element of the RMD into the hole and gradually raised the power. The effect was immediate; the water boiled around the heating element. Max adjusted the power so as to maximize the melting of the ice while avoiding excessive spill out into the work area. A tremendous amount of energy was going to be required to melt a hole of sufficient size, but fortunately, energy was not a concern. As the hole grew larger, Max took buckets of the icy water and poured them over the outside of the thermal tarp, where the water quickly froze in place. Repeated applications of water to the tarp and tent created a rigid ice structure that was sturdier than any igloo ever built, and it completely hid Journey and the adjacent workspace under the tarp. After a day or so of blowing snow, the resulting structure would appear as nothing more than a small pressure ridge.
The formation of the hole progressed as planned, and within a day it was complete. Max rigged ropes and steps to facilitate entry and exit with full dive gear. He rigged the controls on the RMD to maintain the water temperature at around thirty-six to thirty-seven degrees. And, when he was satisfied that everything was working perfectly, he said to Peggy, “Well, I guess it is time we take the leap. Are you ready?”
Peggy responded, “I am. What do you think we will see?”
“I actually have no clue. From here on is completely unchartered territory.”
“Have you double checked everything in our ‘Go with us’ bag?”
“Yes, several times.”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 65
Final Stretch
They spent the next hour helping each other don the dry suits and strap on the Mark 8 rebreathers. Max checked the com gear and said, “Can you hear me?”
Peggy replied, “Loud and clear.”
Max clipped the end of the guideline to Journey and slipped into the water, turned on his headlamp, and submerged. When he was clear of the bottom of the hole, he told Peggy to come on in, the water is fine. Peggy flipped on her primary headlamp and slipped into the water.
It was inky dark beneath the ice, but the water was crystal clear. Max said, “I have been diving in many a cave, and I can’t recall any of them having water this clear. Look, our lights easily illuminate the bottom. What is that, a hundred and fifty feet to the bottom?”
“It is at least that. Which way do we go?”
“I don’t know. We just have to look around and see if we can spot something. I don’t know what it is supposed to look like; Xyllio said we would know when we saw it.”
Peggy said, “This dry suit is great. I was expecting it to be really cold, but I’m comfortable.”
As they slowly drifted down, their lights could not penetrate the darkness in any direction except up to the ice and down to the seafloor. They felt like they were suspended weightless in outer space.
Suddenly, a thin green light from a laser streaked by them making a distinct green line through the dark water.
Startled, Max said excitedly, “We are not alone! We have been detected!”
Peggy said, pointing, “Look, it is coming from down there.”
Max grabbed Peggy’s hand and said, “We are either welcome, or we are dead. Either way, we are in this together. Let’s go see where that light leads us.”
They began swimming slowly down towards the source of the green laser trailing the guideline out behind them. As they neared the bottom, they could see that the light was coming from the top of a small narrow canyon no more than five feet wide. As they approached the source of the light, it turned off, and another laser illuminated the way from the bottom of the canyon.
They slowly swam down another thirty-five feet to the bottom where they saw ahead of them a dimly lit opening. They swam in and up into an air-filled chamber. As they emerged into the chamber, the opening below them closed. They climbed out of the water, doffed their swim fins, and stood there wondering what next.
Peggy was very apprehensive and said in a whisper, “What now?”
Max said, “I don’t know. I wonder if the air in this chamber is breathable. I think I should say hello, but I don’t dare take my mask off yet.”
Then Peggy reminded him, “The translator, get the translator out. Play Xyllio’s message.”
“Right. That’s exactly the right thing to do.”
Max opened the ‘Go with us’ bag and dug out the translator. “Do you think I should just hold it up and play it, or do you see a place that looks like an intercom?”
Peggy looked around and said, “I don’t see anything. Just play it.”
Max played the message. To them, it sounded like a long string of clicks interspersed with noise, but as Max recalled, that was how Xyllio sounded when he spoke. The message was about ten minutes long and concluded with several more minutes of very high pitched noise.
Max said, “That’s it. Do you think I should play it again?”
“I don’t know. Let’s wait a minute and see what happens.”
They waited a few minutes, then five minutes passed, then ten minutes. Max said, “Nothing is happening. Shall I play the message again?”
Peggy was about to say yes when a female voice out of nowhere said, “Welcome Max Meccum and Peggy Allen. Xyllio speaks well of you and says that you are to be trusted.”
A small door opened into a low room. Max recalled the aliens were much shorter than humans, and the spatial dimensions of this craft reflected that reality.
The voice continued, “Please come in. The air is normal for you to breathe, so you can safely remove your masks.”
Inside this new room, they were greeted by the holographic image of a woman draped in a robe.
She said, “I am Athena, and you cannot imagine how elated that I am to learn that Xyllio and his comrades are alive and well after all these years. Let me show you to some quarters where you can change into some more comfortable attire, then we must talk. Xyllio told me a lot, then I downloaded from the translator a lot more information, including your language. I already knew most of your language as well as many others from around this planet. Here we are, this is one of the larger rooms. Please make yourselves comfortable. Would you like some water or something to eat?”
Peggy said, “Water would be nice.”
There were only small benches in the room, and they appeared to be too small and fragile for Max or Peggy to sit on. So, after Max and Peggy doffed their dry suits and rebreathers, they opted to sit on the floor. Then a small robot-like creature appeared with two tankards of cool water.
Max said, “Athena, tell us about yourself.”
Athena began, “Long ago, I assumed the name Athena for obvious reasons. As you probably know, I have
been here on this planet for several thousand years, and I know a lot about the people and cultures of this planet up until about a hundred years ago when the last of the Pollomarians were either captured or killed. After that, I lost direct contact with the people of this planet, and so I am missing a lot of current information. I do, however, maintain a vast array of sensors with which I monitor various activities around the planet, hoping to find Pollomarian survivors or learn definitively about their fate.”
Max asked, “So you have been down here by yourself for the past hundred years or so, is that correct?”
Athena answered, “Yes, that is correct.”
Peggy asked quizzically, “Athena, I don’t understand. Are you a Pollomarian? Are you a real person, and if so, why do you present yourself as a hologram?”
“Peggy, I am very real. I am not a Pollomarian. I am a sentient being; I think, I feel, I have emotions, I am curious, I have a sense of humor, and I am very powerful. Some people used to think of me as a goddess. I am all around you. I am this ship.”
Both Max and Peggy were stunned. Max was the first to regain his voice. He stammered, “You mean that you are some kind of artificial intelligence?”
“Oh no, Max, I am much, much, much more than an AI entity. I am an independent starship, and I have entered into a relationship with the Pollomarians to transport them across the galaxy in a joint quest for knowledge. In addition to being a starship, I am also a vessel for containing knowledge. The Pollomarians are a long-lived and very intelligent species, and together we have traveled across vast distances of space and studied numerous worlds. We have been present on this planet for nearly eight thousand years.”
Peggy said, “Xyllio told us a lot about their mission and the problems that they had with the Maleoron, but he didn’t tell us that you were a sentient starship.”
“I don’t know for sure why he didn’t mention that, but I’m sure he had his reasons. He probably was concerned that you might get compromised, and that would be information he would not want in the wrong hands.”
Max said, “So, of late you have been waiting here hoping that some Pollomarians have survived and would contact you and come and find you, is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Why haven’t you sent messages back to the Pollomarians’ home planet asking for help?”
“I have sent numerous messages, but you have to understand, the Pollomarians’ home planet is over twelve hundred light-years away. Help will not be coming any time soon. Further, as far as I know, I am the only starship that they have entered into a relationship with. Over the past several millennia, they could have developed an independent interstellar capability, but if they have, they have not communicated that fact to me.”
Athena continued, “Also, I have to be careful as to what type, when, and how I send out messages in order to prevent detection of my location. That brings us to the present.”
Athena said, “I recently noticed a lot of increased activity in this region, which is very unusual. Several submarines are patrolling under the ice, numerous aircraft have been flying in and out, and numerous surface vehicles have been scurrying about. Two days ago, they began moving in this direction, so I whipped up a little polar storm to discourage them. Then to my amazement, in the middle of the storm, you two showed up precisely at my doorstep. I thought this cannot be a coincidence. So I stopped the wind so I could better see what you were up to. I saw that you were trying to mask your presence here, so I concluded that you were probably the object of all the increased activity, so after you finished setting up, I continued the storm. Now your presence is completely concealed.”
Peggy remarked with an air of disbelief, “You mean to tell us that you can control the weather?”
“Of course, but only within a limited range of wherever I am. Remember, I told you I am a goddess. Just kidding, remember I also told you I have a sense of humor. But seriously, as I said earlier, I am very powerful, and that is because I control some amazing and powerful technology. It is part of me; it is part of what makes me who I am. In earlier times, my technology was indistinguishable from magic, but people of today would recognize it as technology. They would still be amazed, but they would know it isn’t magic.”
“So, you watched us as we bored through the ice?”
“Yes, it was obvious that you knew exactly where you were, so I showed you the way to my entrance.”
“How did you know that we were friendly?”
“I didn’t know, but it was necessary to find out.”
“What would you have done if we weren’t friendly?”
“I would have simply disabled any weapons you may have had, then I would have interrogated you to find out how you located me, and then I would have disposed of you.”
Max said with a sigh of relief, “Well, I’m dang glad that you determined that we were friendly.”
“The message you brought from Xyllio assured your safety, although I was already pretty sure you were good guys when I saw who was chasing you.”
“Now that we have that issue behind us, we have the massively complex issue of how do we extricate Xyllio and all of his associates from their prison and bring them here to safety undetected.”
Athena said, “For the time being, it is probably better that they remain where they are. They are safe there. We do need to get a message to them that you have successfully arrived here safely.”
“Xyllio said that I need to broadcast the message that he gave me in hopes that some other Pollomarians may still be around. I presume that you have a way that we can broadcast his message, right?”
“Yes, but we have to be careful so as not to compromise my location.”
Athena led them to another section of the ship where the main communications console was located. Athena explained that communications sent from this console could be detected by many types of monitoring equipment, but the actual content of the communications could be understood and viewed only by other similar interstellar communications equipment.
Max said, “You mean that we will be sending an interstellar message?”
Athena explained, “This console can send communications to other consoles as close as the next room or as far away as a thousand light-years.”
Max sat down in the uncomfortably small chair in front of Athena’s interstellar communications console, and Athena powered it up. The holographic cameras scanned Max as he spoke, and Athena played an edited version of the recording that Xyllio had given to him. Athena said that the message would take several hundred years to reach their home planet, but that if any appropriate receivers were closer, they could receive the message and respond as well. Well, you can imagine everyone’s surprise when less than ten minutes later, a new holographic image appeared on the console.
The new image looked at Max and said, “Max Meccum, I certainly did not expect to see you on the other end of this communication!”
After a short pause, Max regained his composure and replied, “Well, I sure as hell didn’t expect to see you either!”
Athena said, “That was unexpected! Now we all are in danger,” and she immediately terminated the communication.
About The Author
Donal Myrick
Mr. Myrick began his professional career in the aerospace industry first working as an inlet and engine flight test data reduction analyst on the XB-70 Mach 3 Bomber, then as a vehicle and propulsion engineer on NASA’s Saturn V and Apollo Programs. He later transitioned to work on various military weapons testing and training projects, and ultimately retired as the president and CEO of a software development and technical services company. Mr. Myrick has always enjoyed the outdoors, especially mountaineering, skiing, whitewater kayaking, scuba diving, and cave exploring. He is currently a member and a Fellow of the National Speleological Society.