by Laer Carroll
"In pursuit of that I've asked NASA to provide personnel to help us investigate the L4 and L5 Lagrange points and their contents. If I choose I can kick you and your colleagues, one or all or in any combination, off MY spacecraft. So you will not DEMAND anything. You will REQUEST it. Is this clear?"
He glared at her but said nothing. Beside him Dr. Mailey, with an amused glance at him, said, "It is indeed, Major Kuznetsov. Now, perhaps we could talk a little bit about why you wanted NASA's help."
Jane nodded. "The following information is classified Top Secret Trojan. You will be prosecuted if you divulge any of it to anyone not cleared for the Trojan compartment, including holders of Top Secret clearances outside that compartment. I must have an affirmation from each of you that you have been given such notice."
There was a chorus of "I understand" and "I so affirm" from each of them. Stone sounded as if he was suffocating but his affirmation was clear.
"About 95 years ago an alien race placed four space stations in an orbit halfway between the outer edge of the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter. They were disguised as 300-foot flattened potato-shaped asteroids. Their appearance is identical. The impact craters on them claim they are millions of years old. But actual craters made after their placement reveal their true age."
She gestured for quiet as the younger woman opened her mouth to ask something.
"Each of you will have access to the classified database that Captain Kobayashi has set up for this Lagrange point study. More details of this discovery are there. None of the information is to be transferred to the public database set up for the Lagrange point study. In order to read it each of you must affirm in the classified database that you are reading it. You may freely discuss the information with each other and in the hearing of the Space Force crew. They have clearance for the information."
She paused to assess the reactions of the NASA crew. They all were fascinated. Stone's annoyance seemed to have been washed away.
"We only have speculations as to why the alien stations were placed there and not closer to Earth if their purpose was to spy on Earth. If they are part of some spying effort we guess--GUESS--that more satellites were placed much nearer Earth.
"One possibility is in the L points, disguised as natural objects. That's where you come in. We want you do your research just as you normally would. With the addition that if you notice anything suggestive of alien activity that you notify us."
She waved around to indicate her crew and Major Fresedo.
"I'll now entertain questions. But you should know that as soon as this meeting is done we will move away from the transit station to take up station near L5."
Mailey smiled. "Evil of you, Major. To give us this horrible choice between getting questions answered and immediate action."
There were a few questions, quickly asked and as quickly answered. Soon the NASA five hurriedly left the conference room.
Fresedo said, "I notice you said nothing about placing a counterspy drone in place at the Lagrange points."
"I don't mind if you or your crew mention it. But it is nothing the NASA people need to know."
Fresedo rose. "So let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
<>
In the control room Fresedo announced that Seeker was about to travel again. After all preparations had been made Fresedo had the pilot take Seeker away from the L1 station near the Moon and accelerate in the opposite direction of the Moon's orbit.
Slowing down, Seeker dropped "lower," closer to Earth. When L5 passed overhead she did a J-turn to accelerate once again in the direction of the L point's orbit 60 degrees behind the Moon. She quickly caught up and stopped in place behind the L5 point. Fresedo then ordered Pilot to establish station keeping. That done she had Configuration to extend two cans then to spin Seeker to give personnel sleep and off-shift time in one-third of Earth's gravity.
This time Fresedo had the Top and Bottom cans extended. This gave them equal time providing living quarters that the Left-Right cans had provided during the L3 investigations.
L5 had much more material in it than L3 had because it and L4 were stable. In addition to the small stuff there were hundreds of boulders up to the size of houses.
The NASA crew was happy. They catalogued and studied the contents of L5 for more than two weeks. Then they said they were ready to go to L4.
Jane had Fresedo give the order to release a counterspy drone to drift into place near the center of the Lagrange point to begin its monitoring of possible alien hyperspace communications.
A day later Seeker pulled in behind L4 and began station keeping.
<>
L4, ahead of the Moon, held several times the space debris than L5. Behind the Moon in the same orbit, L5 received mostly material that the Moon did not sweep up.
A week into the studies Stone spoke up at a daily briefing that he held for his group and anyone else who wanted to attend. Several of Seeker's crew did. So did Jane and all her group.
"Katherine has an announcement. Kat, your floor."
The young NASA PhD stood, weaving on her feet in the zero-g conference room in the core of the slowly spinning spacecraft.
"Recently we noticed something about the rocks here in L4. None are bigger than 100 meters wide. Further, some of them seem to fit together. Here are two examples."
She clicked a hand-held remote. The big wall vision screen at the end of the conference room lit up. It showed two rocks. Slowly the images changed orientation until two ends came close together. Visually they merged, forming the familiar potato shape of most asteroids.
"The flat ends where a break seems to have occurred is irregular. But if you look at the flat ends side by side, you can see they match, a mound on one matching a hollow on the other. It's as if some giant hand held each end of a rock and snapped it in two."
The screen had switched to two side-by-side images of the supposedly formerly joined object. All could see how the two halves matched.
"This effect could come about because a third object struck a rock side on, splitting it. But examinations of this pair show no impact point."
She looked around at the room. Her focus rested on Jane's face for several seconds before traveling on to light on the next.
"After we--"
Stone interrupted. "Kat is being modest by saying WE. This is all her smart, hard work."
The woman glanced down at the top of the table before her, then she raised her head.
"After I noticed this I looked at a dozen other rocks. I saw the same overall pattern."
The screen showed six pairs of images in a two by three configuration.
"Notice that the break is exactly the same with each pair. An accidental break would have different break patterns. But you can see that each pair has three hills and three matching valleys in the flat ends. A standard tool, or weapon, did all of these.
"In all I found 84 broken pairs of rocks. Then I reset the computer to look for three or four broken rocks. It found 43 rocks which were broken into three pieces and 27 into four pieces. I found one long rock broken into six pieces."
Jane said, "You've come to a conclusion, haven't you, Dr. Woentjens?"
"Yes, Jane. Somebody put these rocks here and broke them up to make it easier for us to process them."
"I'm guessing you have other reasons for this conclusion?"
"Every one of these broken rocks has abnormally high fractions of metals: gold, silver, aluminum, iron, and several more. There's even one that's mostly zirconium. That's a bit of a puzzle. It's rare to find it in pure form. It's usually part of zircon or other compounds."
Riku said, "Maybe it's a puzzle. There's a use for these rocks we have to work to discover. Or maybe the aliens just wanted to screw with our heads."
"Thank you, Kat. If there's nothing else?"
The woman sat down with relief, shaking her head.
Shortly thereafter Stone called the meeting to a close.
Chapter 4 - Cat City
/> The explorations at L4 ended and Jane had Seeker return to the L1 Transit Station. She went down to Luna City and collected Phil. His business had progressed a good deal. The rest of it would be pursued on Earth.
She took him to the World Space Station, along with her crew and the NASA scientists, and parked Seeker there. The Gang, Phil, and the NASA scientists returned to Earth. So did a third of the Space Force crew for a week of R&R. For three weeks the rest of the Space Force crew rotated to Earth for a week of R&R. Fresedo was the only one who took the last week on Earth.
Then Jane and her crew and a new group of NASA scientists embarked on yet another trip in Seeker.
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Physics Today - breaking news
Today NASA announced the findings of their recent second set of studies of the Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system. This one came from research into the L5 and L4 points.
Among them is a discovery involving L4, the leading point in Moon orbit but 60 degrees ahead of our satellite. L4 contains several times more material in the area than previous calculations had suggested as the upper limit.
More significantly, there is an unusually high amount of precious metals in L4. This includes zirconium, rarely found in pure form. Most often zirconium is chemically bound up in the mineral zircon.
Rumors have galvanized the internet in the last 24 hours since the announcement. The most persistent is that some alien visitors deposited the material there for our benefit.
PT contacted Dr. Olivia Vermont, head of the Physics Department at CalTech, about this rumor.
"I suppose it's possible. After all, the universe is strange. But it's a little too early to say."
Dr. Vermont added...
CONTINUED HERE.
<>
L.A. Times Science & Technology section - Sunday magazine
We contacted Dr. Hilliard Watson, the head of the Mining Institute at UCLA, about the NASA discovery earlier in the week of abundant minerals in the L4 Lagrange Point.
"What do you say of these rumors that there will soon be a gold rush into space to harvest precious metals at this treasure trove in space?"
He laughed. "Well, there will certainly be efforts made to mine these materials there. But the efforts won't be easy or quick. Unlike Earthly gold rushes prospectors can't just walk to the mine fields, killing squirrels along the way and harvesting berry bushes to get something to eat.
"Other issues than transportation include settling the legal issues involved. Who owns the L points? Remember how long it took to settle legal issues involving who owns what on the Moon.
"Then there are...
CONTINUED HERE.
<>
By now Seeker had been fairly well wrung out, so Major Fresedo increased her acceleration to a half gravity on the trip to the Asteroid Belt. Their destination was the asteroid housing Cat city, at this time almost on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth.
It took three days to approach the asteroid Bastet, named after the Egyptian cat goddess. Nearing it Seeker's pilot had to deal with a traffic control center operated by the United Nations. Eight other deep-space craft were parked near the asteroid, carefully spaced to eliminate the possibility of collisions.
The United Nations also controlled who could take up residence within a particular building, though that had involved a good deal of discussion at first. Eventually the thirteen corporations or national exploration teams were allocated a swatch of Cat buildings on the north pole, an arbitrary label for one end of the three mile long rock.
NASA had been assigned a building near one edge of the roughly circular swatch of inhabited buildings. Fresedo ordered one of the runabouts and a pilot to take Jane, her crew, and five of the dozen NASA investigators down to the building.
The runabout lowered to near ground level and extended arms to latch onto spikes blasted into the rock. Secured to them, the pilot pulled the craft down till it was tethered to Bastet's surface.
The Jane Gang was the first group out of the airlock. Before them were waiting three of the occupying NASA investigators. One raised a hand and said over short-range radio, "Welcome. Follow us."
The three used their space jets to pivot in place above Bastet's surface then to float some twenty feet to the open door to the building's airlock. Inside they had to wait briefly while the lock was filled with air. Then they exited to be met with five people. This included the leader of the occupying NASA team, Cecile Durand, a thin grey-haired older woman. Their greeters were wearing a colorful collection of body-hugging spacesuit liners.
"Major Kuznetsov, people. Welcome to Building 54. If you'll come with us, please." She had a slight French accent.
Jane cracked her helmet then tilted it back to so that most of her head was exposed. Her crew followed suit.
The first thing the newcomers noticed was the odor of the air inside the building. It smelled of human bodies. The several NASA teams working there had a limited amount of water. It was recycled so they could wash themselves and did. But some odor still lingered, faint but noticeable.
A short distance along a hall brought them to a conference room. Or so it was called, solely because it had a long oval table attached to what would have been a floor if the artificial gravity the Cats seemed to have had was working. There were no chairs so everyone floated with their feet down near the floor.
Durand "sat" at one end of the table. Her companions took seats on either side of her. Jane sat next to the nearest and her crew sat next to her.
"Did you have a pleasant trip?"
"Well enough. We came on the latest model of the deep-space craft and they're comfortable and fast. It only took us four days to make the trip."
The woman shook her head. "Every time I turn around there's something new. When we came here four months ago to relieve the previous team it took us almost three weeks to get here."
The sound of voices made Jane and her crew turn their heads toward the door. In moments the five NASA investigators left in the runabout came through the door. This included the head of the mission, Song Ha-nui, called Hannah.
"Hello, Cecile. I'm sure you're happy to see us."
"Damned right, Hannah. It's high time we got off this rock. Sit. Let's chat a bit before we get you settled in."
The newcomer leader sat at the other end of the table. Her companions took the non-existent seats on one of the sides beside her, opposite Jane's crew.
Durand said, "I understand that you have some new equipment to probe the walls and floors of the building. I hope you have more luck than we did."
"We brought deeper penetrating x-ray and sonar, plus some supposedly super diagnostic equipment. Plus we brought Jane here. She has a penetrator of her own invention."
Durand looked at Jane. "I've heard you called a miracle worker. I hope you work another miracle here. Frankly, we're approaching damn near discouraged."
"We'll have to see, of course. What I brought was two items. One is an x-ray like device but using some pretty esoteric physics. The other is software much better able to diagnose form and function of alien structures."
The "x-ray" device was a dummy machine cooked up by a friend of her father at CalTech. The real device was Robot inside Jane with its esoteric senses. The software was the combination of Jane and Robot to form a super-advanced cyborg.
"For now what I want to do is review all your work, limited though you seem to imply. You may have overlooked something that a stranger won't."
Song said, "We brought everything you requested, oxy, nitrogen, food, an additional hydroponics unit, and so on."
Riku spoke up.
"We also brought goodies. Beefsteaks, salmon steaks, other meats, all in self-contained cooking packages that won't add to the odor of your air. Several more microwave ovens, several kinds of veggies. And most important of all, lots of sauces and spices. THOSE are the real keys to fun food, that can turn something plain to something special."
Nicole said, "Ricky knows what he's talking
about. His family owns a line of restaurants and he's been taught cooking practically from when he could walk."
The leader of the old team laughed.
"Well, we seem to be in luck. What say we convene, start bringing in our supplies, and maybe let Mr. Kobayashi do his magic."
"Sounds good to me," said Song, and arose. Everyone else joined her.
<>
By local nightfall the runabout and a second runabout had made several trips from Seeker, bringing a good chunk of all the supplies from Earth. The supplies had been brought inside and put into rooms designated as supply rooms.
Meanwhile Riku and the mission's food-service manager had created a feast. The old and the replacement investigation teams and the Jane Gang took their time consuming it. Everyone made each other's acquaintance, a process that lasted more than an hour after the dinner.
Jane had received a room all to herself, Klaus and Riku a second, and Kate and Nicole a third. Jane retired early.
She got into the sleeping bag tethered to the putative floor of her room and used a remote to turn out the light. Then she merged with Robot and the diminutive network established inside the building. This would let her quickly get up to speed on all the findings the NASA team had compiled and stored in its project database.
As SHE began to study the information SHE began to notice a ghost network. While she worked it remained just a wisp of something unheard/unfelt touching HER consciousness. SHE ignored it, but when SHE'd finished absorbing the contents of the database SHE could no longer do so. SHE had to turn HER attention to the ghost.
It was like a building or monument emerging from fog as one grew closer to it. As SHE somehow came closer it was as if SHE was looking down from above at a large forest area. A cultivated one. With six clusters of trees spaced equally around a...park? There were about a hundred "trees" in each cluster.
The trees came more into focus. They had a hexagonal shape.
Like the hexagonal buildings that made up Cat City.
Aha!
With that recognition the ghost became clear. The City was made up of 1300 or so buildings. Each had tunnels to each of the buildings beside it. Each tunnel had an airlock at each end.