The Reticuli Deception (Adventures of Hannibal Carson Book 2)

by Alastair Mayer

  Something slammed into the back of Rico’s right thigh and he went down. He scrambled to get back up into a crouch, turning and squeezing off more shots at Reid, who was limping towards him, and then forward again, firing again, to give himself a moment to assess.

  A couple of men had piled out of each car and were now hunkered behind them, firing over and around at Rico. Reid was yelling something. A bullet slammed into his left shoulder. Again on the left? Rico fell forwards but raised his gun and kept firing, shot after shot after shot. He felt another impact, but by this time he was so dazed he wasn’t even sure where. He rolled to his back, weakly raised his pistol in Reid’s direction and fired some more. Why was it getting so dark out? He looked up at the sky, his vision fading.

  The last thing Rico saw was the charter ship lifting towards space.

  31: Nearing Zeta Reticuli

  One light-year from Zeta 1 Reticuli

  “Anything?” Carson asked. There’d been nothing at two light-years, no dust rings and no alien signals. They’d dropped out of warp again at one light-year, and Roberts had been scanning radio frequencies for a half-hour now. Marten had gone back to strap himself into his berth, it helped him with the transition to free fall.

  “Not so far,” she replied. She touched a set of controls and opened another display on her command panel. “No obvious indications of warp fields on the gravity sensors, either, although there’s a bit of low level gravity noise that looks odd.”

  “Comets? That wouldn’t be too unusual this far out.”

  “Actually they’d be pretty far apart. But no; masses big enough to show up on the sensors exhibit smooth variations. This pattern is irregular. Even if it were an oddly shaped body spinning rapidly, it would show periodicity. It’s probably just noise in the sensors, not enough to worry about.”

  “So we continue on? Marten will be happy to be back under gravity.”

  Roberts thought it over. A radio signal would have to be pretty strong or directional for her to pick up at almost a light-year distance, especially if they were using tight beam or spread spectrum. Just because she couldn’t detect any signs of civilization with the Sophie’s sensors didn’t mean that there was no civilization there; she wasn’t exactly equipped for a deep sky survey. But she wouldn’t just go warping deep in-system anyway, no more than would an old sea captain deliberately run into the shallows at full sail.

  “We continue on,” she said. “But I’ll drop us out again further out-system than I normally would, a light-month out. We’ll re-scan then and play it as appropriate. Then maybe take it in half-hour jumps, a light-week at a time.”

  “Marten’s going to hate that.”

  Roberts agreed. The timoan could adapt to zero-gee after a while, it was the transitions that were roughest on him. “I know. Poor guy. I’m sorry but I think it’s best.”

  Carson nodded. “You’re the captain.”

  32: Leaving Earth

  Charter Ship Dragonfly, en route to Alpha Centauri

  “All right Dr. Brown, we’re safely in warp, next stop Sawyers World,” the captain said. “Now, do you want to explain what that was about back there? I mean, I appreciate the bonus, but I probably violated a few regulations. First time I’ve ever heard of declaring an emergency to take off.”

  “There were people shooting, you don’t think that’s an emergency?”

  “Not if they’re not shooting at me. But if you don’t want to explain . . .”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit shaken up. I had a . . . a friend out there. I don’t think he made it.” That was probably true, Brown realized. Rico would have kept up his “distraction” as long as he could until Brown was away. He might surrender if he was still alive to do so once Brown and the files were clear, but even that wasn’t certain. Rico lived for action, he probably would have wanted to die that way.

  “Oh, sorry,” the captain said. “Look, this is on the up and up, right? You said something about UDT business. You’re not a crook are you?”

  Brown shook his head. “No. Those people shooting out there were the bad guys. This is important. I need to get this information to Sawyers World.” That was true, it was important. It was three days to Alpha Centauri, he could get a lot of analysis done in that time. Rico deserved it.

  The captain seemed to come to a decision and nodded. “All right, sir. If you need anything, just let me or my partner—” he gestured at the co-pilot “—know.”

  33: Zeta 1 Reticuli

  Sophie, near Zeta 1 Reticuli

  They didn’t detect anything unusual at a light-month out either, nor at any of the light-week-apart hops. Marten had given given up fighting the weightlessness, and with a sullen “I’ll be in my bunk,” had gone to strap himself in.

  At what would be considered the outer fringes of the system, at about the distance of the furthest planet, they heard something.

  “It’s not a radio signal as such, but we’re picking up electromagnetic fluctuations. Faint, and scattered.”

  “Radio noise?” Carson asked her. “Lightning storms, or something from the gas giant? Doesn’t Jupiter emit—”

  “Give me some credit for my astrophysics training,” Roberts cut him off. She’d eliminated those explanations, and a half-dozen more subtle that Carson probably wasn’t aware of, before raising the issue. “No, what I’m seeing is faint, and from what I can tell the sources don’t correspond to any of the obvious bodies in this system. It’s more like the transients you’d see from circuit switching. Artificial satellites or probes, perhaps.”

  “Human explorers perhaps, maybe prospector beacons? Should we try hailing?”

  “Beacons would be sending a clearer signal. It could be passive emissions from survey instruments or other ships. Ordinarily yes I’d hail, but I’m not sure we want to do that if this system belongs to technological aliens.”

  “But there’s no sign of them.”

  “Not out here. We’ll need to get closer to any terraformed planets to be sure.” Roberts wouldn’t be so worried if there’d been no anomalous sensor readings. Zeta Reticuli was far enough out, at the edge of explored T-space, that it wouldn’t be frequently visited by humans, if had even been visited at all. The Chara system had been radio-quiet because the small human settlement there was Mennonite, and they avoided technology. If the same were true here, what were the EM emissions she was picking up? They’d have to go deeper in-system, to where Sophie’s instruments could pick up more detail. If only there were a way to send out a hail without actually revealing where they were.

  Oh. “I’m stupid,” Roberts said.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want to tell anyone we were here. I’m going to send out a hail, but we won’t be here by the time anyone gets it.”

  “Huh? Oh!”

  “Yes. I’ll broadcast then warp to a few million miles away. Then we’ll see if anyone answers. Even if they answer on tight beam we should pick something up, or see some activity.” It was more complicated than that, and they’d want to get in closer so they wouldn’t have to wait all day for a signal return, but there was no point trying to explain the details to Carson. She’d leave a relay in place before warping away. The disposable communication relays were standard equipment for exploring worlds where a team might be out of direct line of sight communications, the Sophie had plenty in inventory.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Relay is away. Stand by for warp in thirty seconds.” That gave the relay a chance to get clear and for her to broadcast a hail.

  Jackie keyed the transmit button and spoke into the microphone, for some reason feeling more self-conscious than usual. “Calling anyone in range. Calling anyone. This is S-class ship Sophie, just entered the Zeta Reticuli system, calling anyone in range. General call. Anyone there?” She paused for a few seconds, then “I say again, calling anyone in range, this is the Sophie making a general call. Please respond. Listening out.” She clicked off the mike and turned to Carson, who was strapped in
to the other cockpit seat.

  “That ought to do it. It’s set to repeat periodically. Warping in three, two, one. Now.” The warp field engaged and the view out the windows went away. A couple of seconds and a few million miles later—Jackie had dialed down the speed—the warp collapsed and the stars came back.

  “That was short,” Carson said.

  “I didn’t want to go too far, or we’d have to wait too long for this.” So saying, Jackie tapped a switch to put the comm on speaker.

  “—general call. Please respond. Listening out.” Jackie’s earlier voice came over the radio.

  “You wanted to hear yourself?”

  “I wanted to make sure the signal had passed before turning up the gain,” she said as she made some adjustments to the comm. “That would have killed the sensitivity for a while. Now we listen.”

  “How long?”

  Instead of answering, Jackie brought up a display on the main screen, a schematic of the Zeta 1 Reticuli system showing the approximate orbits of the planets and their current positions. A small triangle marked the Sophie’s location, near the center of a slowly expanding circle.

  “That’s us, although we’re actually above the plane of the ecliptic. The circle is the wave front of my hail. We’re almost fifteen AU out, it will take two hours for the signal to reach the primary, another eight minutes to reach this planet,” she pointed at a dot on the far side of the central star. The planet wasn’t in direct line, their signal wouldn’t be blocked by the star. “It will take the same again for us to get a response. Obviously we’ll hear sooner if anyone is closer and replies. I’d say we wait about five hours to be sure.”

  “All right.” Carson unstrapped and floated up out of his seat. He paused at the hatch into the main compartment, hovering with a hand on a yellow grab rail. “I’m going back to the galley to eat. Can you put that screen on the galley monitor?”

  Jackie touched a control. “Channel 237.”

  “Thanks. Want anything?”

  “No. I’ll stay here and monitor.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Hannibal had just taken another bite of something vaguely burrito-like when Roberts called back to him. He chewed it unenthusiastically. The choices for zero-gravity meals were rather limited, but at least this one was well-spiced. Redistribution of body fluid in weightlessness tended to make his nose stuffy, with the result that he found most food rather flavorless. Roberts’ voice was a welcome interruption.

  “Carson, I’m seeing that odd gravity noise again.”

  He swallowed and glanced over at the monitor, which showed the wave front of their broadcast had passed the orbit of the system’s largest gas giant and was nearing the outer edge of the habitable zone. “Any radio signals?” he called. He popped the last bite of his lunch into his mouth and disposed of the wrapper.

  “Nothing yet,” she replied. “Wait, we just got a burst of EM noise. Nope, that’s gone now.”

  “I’m coming forward.” He pushed off and glided down the short corridor to the cockpit. “Still getting anything?”

  “No, it’s quiet now. That was strange.”

  “Does that burst of EM correlate with anything?”

  “I’m checking now.” She tapped a few keys and a second curved line, this one bright green, appeared on the Reticuli system schematic. “If our broadcast had triggered something, it would have to be somewhere on that line given the time delay. There’s nothing big enough to be visible, no planets or large asteroids.”

  “A beacon or probe perhaps?”

  “If it’s correlated at all. The signal is weak for a beacon.” She turned back to look at the screen. “I don’t think that . . . wait a minute.” That last was more mumbled to herself as she started tracing lines on the screen with her finger.

  “What is it?” Carson watched as Roberts traced out a line between Zeta Reticuli and the gas giant, and then two more lines to make an equilateral triangle with the third point lying on the green arc representing possible locations of their EM source.

  “Ha! Elf hive point. That must be it.”

  “Must be what? What’s an elf hive?” It sounded vaguely familiar, but Carson couldn’t place it.

  “Not elf hive. Ell. Five. L5 is the fifth Lagrange point. They’re gravitationally stable points in an orbit; L4 and L5 are sixty degrees ahead of and behind the planet in its orbit. There must be something there.”

  “So why didn’t it answer? Or was that burst of EM an answer?”

  “It doesn’t correlate with anything I’ve ever seen before. It doesn’t look like a deliberate signal, at least not meant for us. Could be something encrypted.”

  Carson wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “Really?”

  “Not likely. It’s just that any sufficiently well encrypted signal is virtually indistinguishable from noise, especially if it’s spread-spectrum. Since we’re not hearing anything else, it probably is just noise.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Fifteen minutes later, Roberts announced another burst of noise. “This one doesn’t correlate with anything either.” She displayed a third arc on the screen, this one blue. “See, our broadcast has passed the habitable planet, Zeta 1 Reticuli III, but the line at which we’d be hearing an echo isn’t there yet.”

  Carson examined the image. He imagined a line drawn between the L5 point and Z1R III. The blue arc would cross it just about at its midpoint. Coincidence? He didn’t like coincidences.

  “Jackie, how long would it take us in warp to go from the L5 point there,” he pointed at the screen, “to Zeta . . .” he trailed off, then said: “How about we name that planet. I’m already getting tired of saying Zeta One Reticuli Three. Even Zee-One-Are-Three gets old. Considering how the latter looks abbreviated, how about Zirth?”

  “Zirth? We haven’t landed, we don’t have naming rights. And it’s a dumb name.”

  “Just between us,” Carson said. “And it rhymes with Earth.”

  “Zirth is still a dumb name. How about Zarathustra?”

  “That’s almost as bad as Zee-One-Are-Three. Zirth.”

  “Oh all right. But just between us. I’m not logging that.”

  “Fair enough. Anyway, how long would it take us to travel in warp from that L5 point to Zirth?”

  “I wouldn’t warp the whole way, not in an unknown system. There could be—”

  “I’m not asking you to, just asking how long would it take.”

  Jackie looked at the screen. “That’s about twelve AU.” She turned back to Carson. “A bit under twelve seconds at our top speed. A minute at—”

  “Close enough. Check me out on this. If a ship—or a message torpedo—left that L5 point when our broadcast reached it, heading for Zirth, and there was a signal emitted from Zirth when it arrived, when would we detect it?”

  Jackie’s eyes widened. She looked at the screen again, as though to double check. “Just about now. But Carson, we didn’t detect anything that looks like a ship or torpedo going to warp. There’s an electromagnetic spike as the power ramps up, then a distinctive gravity wave signature.” She turned back to the console, tapping controls. “Let me double check.” She pulled data up as a series of graphs on another display.

  “Our warp drives, perhaps. Would an alien warp drive have the same signature?”

  “I don’t see how it wouldn’t. Better shielding or more efficient systems might reduce or hide the EM pulse, but I don’t see how the gravity wave would be any different. That’s like the wake behind a boat in the water.” She paused, as though considering what she’d just said. “Something small would produce a smaller wake, of course. A message torpedo might be too small for us to detect at this distance—military or research sensors could pick it up easily—but that’s about as small as you can build a warp drive and power supply.”

  “So, not ruled out, then.”

  “Technologically, no. But does that make sense? Assume a listening post at L5. Maybe there are others, L4 for example. Is it worth sendin
g a ship, even a message torpedo, to the planet just to announce a signal that will get there in an hour or two anyway? I mean, it might make some kind of sense for traffic control, except you’re adding to the traffic you have to control. They don’t even do that in the Sol system, they just have lots of beacons and strict rules about in-system traffic. We haven’t detected any beacons here.”

  “All right. How soon before we can move in for a closer look?”

  “Call it two hours, just to give us a margin for someone slow to answer.”

  Carson turned to head back to the galley but paused, struck by a thought. “Jackie, how detectable are we when we warp?”

  “In general? We leave a gravity wake same as anything else. There’s no EM pulse when we drop out, but there is a small one just before the warp generator switches on. And of course if there are enough gas molecules we’ll leave an ionization trail from interactions at the warp boundary. That’ll be very faint; if there were too much matter the safeties would drop us out of warp.”

  “What about specifically?”

  “A gravity wake is only obvious if you know what you’re looking for, and the detectors work best away from large rotating masses.”

  “Like planets?”

  “Yes, or stars. Frame dragging blurs the signal.”

  Carson wasn’t exactly sure what frame dragging was, other than something related to spinning gravity fields, but it didn’t really matter. “What about the EM spike?”

  “That depends on the design of the power supply. In our case the power ramps up smoothly and charges a capacitor bank. When the warp field actually switches on there’s a startup transient, a sharp spike as the capacitors discharge, but by the time the pulse propagates out of the warp field we’re several hundred meters away and moving, so the pulse is smeared. Again, obvious to someone who knows what they’re looking for.”