The Martian Enigma

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  The Power Plant increased its output considerably to meet the demand which would shortly be put upon it, and in so doing radiated a powerful electromagnetic pulse, which reached out some hundreds of kilometres into space.

  Huge pumps, static for so long, received their commands to pump, and groaned into life, sending a surge of fuel to the holding tanks aboard the massive Traveller.

  The Sequencer had only two commands left to give, but before doing so, had to run a check to make sure every former command had been completed and logged back.

  The Command Logger reported that everything was in order, and released the Holding Directive within the Sequencer, and the first of the last two commands went out.

  A reluctant motor creaked and then squealed into life, and having spun up to full speed, engaged its hydraulic pump.

  High pressure fluid surged up a series of pipes lining the launch shaft, finally reaching the four giant rams.

  With an ear shattering roar, not that there were any ears around at the time to hear it, the ground above the shaft’s dome split open in four huge rents, sending a cloud of fine dust particles and sand soaring upwards.

  The Command Logger checked that the covers had cleared the opening at the shaft’s exit point, and satisfying itself that this was the case, released the final Holding Directive, which had been in place for so long.

  The Sequencer, if it could have felt emotion, would have felt a lump in its output line, as it sent the final command which would complete its contribution to the Event.

  The Traveller surged up the shaft, heading out into space.

  The Traveller, having cleared the thin atmosphere of the planet, energized its Scanner, looking for the Travellers which had preceded it, but couldn't locate them.

  The Scanner expected an answering code to be sent back from the preceding Traveller, but because it didn’t get one, handed the problem back to the Navigation Unit.

  One lone non coded signal came bouncing back from an object which was accelerating away from the planet, so the Navigation Unit locked on to it in all innocence, realigned the Traveller, and asked for full power from the Drive Units.

  The Traveller began to move, slowly at first, but gathering velocity all the time, desperate to catch up with the fast disappearing speck up ahead, as it spiralled in towards the distant sun.

  The Complex, which had completed its contribution to the Event, began shutting down. First the Illusion Screens were disabled, the Projectors being withdrawn into their housings below the planet’s surface, and the power withdrawn.

  The Proximity Sensors, lights, the atmosphere production plant, water extractors and all ancillary units, ceased to operate, and their power was also withdrawn.

  The Power Plant scanned its outputs for requirements, and finding none, also closed down.

  For the first time in many millennia, nothing lived or moved by mechanical means on the surface, or beneath that ancient red crust, except the dust storms and the howling gales which drove them, and of course, the odd small stone which had been perched on the edge of a ravine, and dislodged by a vagrant gust of wind to rattle its way down the slope and impact a large white bone. The bone rang out in response like a bell, but sadly, there was nothing to hear its plaintive tone.

  Paul gently eased the Lander up underneath the orbiter, nudging the docking guide into its locking ring and then activating the clamps.

  ‘Home, sweet home, folks.’ he called out cheerfully, as he swung back the entry hatch. ‘At least we’ll have a bit more room to move about on the way back.’

  Taking it in turns, they squeezed through the narrow hatchway and into the more roomy craft, feeling thankful that they had completed their survey, and had returned to the sanctuary of the orbiter in one piece.

  After a quick break for refreshments, they got underway with the serious task of preparing the orbiter for the long journey home, not that there was a great deal to do, except for connecting up the refilled oxygen and water tanks, stowing away any loose objects which might become missiles when the craft accelerated, and opening communications with mission control.

  ‘I’ve told Earth we’re on our way,’ said Greg, ‘but I’ve had no reply as yet. Ben, perhaps you would like to begin downloading the rest of the video pictures and reports we were unable to send back earlier when we have contact.

  John, you can run the medical checks once we’re underway, just to make sure we’re all alive and kicking. Oh, and Earth will want a white cell count and a bone density check to see if the Martian gravity has had the predicted effects.’

  A few minutes later, all was ready for the journey home.

  ‘Stand by.’ called Paul. ‘Power up in three minutes, I’ll be giving her full acceleration for twenty minutes, and then the automatics go in until we reach full speed.’

  Everyone took up their positions, waiting for the thrust of power which would see them homeward bound after a more than successful mission.

  The thrust from the propulsion units, when it came, signalled their final goodbye to the red planet. The orbiter arced away from the planet’s relatively weak gravitational field with little effort, and headed inwards towards the sun.

  When the twenty minutes full acceleration period was up, a gong like tone sounded over the audio system, and the crew knew they could now move around safely and attend to their duties. Although there was still a constant thrust being applied by the propulsion units accelerating the craft, it was nothing like full power, and could be compensated for by the crew as they went about their business.

  A few minutes later, the orbiter give a single shudder and the lights went out, along with the instrumentation.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s that? Yelled Hans, as the emergency lights flickered, and then came on fully.

  ‘Not that such things exist, as far as we know, but if they did, I’d say we just passed through a space warp.’ said Greg, trying to make light of it.

  ‘Something’s knocked out the power trips.’ Hans said, his head buried inside a control unit. ‘I’ll reset ’em.’

  Two lights came on, but the instruments remained dead. Hans reported later that some of the circuit boards which had micro circuits on them had burnt out.

  ‘I only know of one thing that can do that,’ said Greg, ‘and that’s an electromagnetic pulse, the like of which you’d get from an atomic explosion, but there hasn’t been one, or we’d have seen the flash.’

  ‘So what did it?’ asked Hans, furious that anything should damage his precious equipment.

  ‘I don’t honestly know.’ was all Greg could say, finally stumped for an answer, ‘See if the radiation monitors have picked up anything, that’s if they’re still working.’

  ‘How do we control the ship if the instrumentation's out?’ asked John, a touch of panic in his voice.

  ‘We still have a degree of control,’ replied Hans, ‘there’s a backup unit for emergencies like this, but it means a lot of manual work with regard to calculations. Normally, we just tap in what we want to do, and when, and the automatics take care of it. With the backup, we do all the mathematical hard work and then use the basic controls to switch things on or off as they are needed.’

  ‘How do you know the backup system's still functioning?' John persisted, his fears still not allayed.

  ‘Because the controls themselves are in the propulsion pod, and that’s hardened against radiation, or we’d all be fried alive. You should know this,’ Hans said crossly, ‘it was all explained in the basic lectures.’ John went silent.

  ‘OK,’ Greg intervened, ‘lets check out everything, and then we’ll know for sure what we have left that’s still functioning, I don’t see any great problems in getting back to Earth, as long as we have basic controls.’

  Half an hour later, and they convened to share information.

  ‘The propulsion units and the emergency controls are intact.’ Hans reported. ‘The long range transmission system is down, but the more basic short range system is
still working, as far as I can tell, though we can’t use it effectively until we are within about one hundred thousand kilometres from the space station. It would seem that the pulse, or what ever it was, cooked some of the more delicate micro circuits, probably due to a heavy current induction. So, the sophisticated equipment has suffered, the more basic stuff is still functioning.’

  ‘Looks like we’ll have a busy time getting home,’ said Greg, ‘but we’ll make it OK.’

  John went about taking his blood samples and bone scans, the scanner was still working, but the data logger’s screen refused to light up. As the reports had to be written up by hand, this gave him something extra to do, taking his mind off more troublesome matters.

  The orbiter accelerated on, the crew blissfully unaware of the massive dark ominous shape trailing behind it, and slowly catching up.

  The journey back to Earth’s orbiting space station passed relatively quickly for the crew, as they were kept busy doing things the automatics normally did for them.

  The deceleration point was reached, according to Paul's calculations, and the process of slowing the craft down began. Shortly after that, they received their first transmission from a distraught mission control, wanting to know what had happened.

  The orbiter had only been detected when it was half way back from Mars, as communications had failed to get through to them before this, leaving mission control in doubt as to whether they were alive or not.

  As the orbiter drew nearer to Earth, communications improved considerably, and tensions eased to the point where wisecracks were batted back and forth, although the crew still had plenty to do, controlling the ship manually.

  All was going too smoothly for Greg’s liking, and he was keeping a sharp eye out for the next impending disaster, when the radio burst into life again, and a worried voice announced that they were no longer alone in space.

  ‘We’ve just picked up a reflection signal from something rather large, which seems to be trailing you. We’ve nothing out there, and it doesn’t respond to our signals. Can you pick up anything on your sensors?’

  ‘Oh no, not the bloody Martians again,’ said Hans, ‘this I don’t believe.’

  Greg gave him a hard look, not wishing to spread alarm and despondency to the rest, who were now listening intently.

  ‘Our sensors are down,’ he radioed back, ‘so we only have visuals to go by, we’ll have a look and call you back.’

  The two rear facing ports gave a good view of the star studded heavens, and the crew took it in turns to search for the alleged mystery craft. Some twenty minutes later, Ben let out a yell, and everyone jumped, John banging his head.

  ‘Can’t see what it is, but a shape has just blotted out a star. There’s definitely something out there, and it’s following the same line of approach to the station as us.’

  Greg rushed to the port, unceremoniously pushing Ben out of the way. Something large and dark moved in front of the occasional star, blotting out its faint light, and betraying its presence by doing so.

  ‘We have company.’ he announced, sounding unconcerned, but cursing under his breath. ‘There’s nothing we can do except wait and see what happens next.’

  Mission control kept them informed on the movements of the alien craft, announcing that it was closing up to them and following their path exactly.

  ‘As we have manual control,’ Greg suggested, ‘we could divert a little, and see what happens to our follower.’

  ‘Go for it.’ control responded. ‘We can do little from here.’

  The orbiter veered off its intended course, swinging away from Earth for a while, and then coming back on track.

  ‘It followed that move exactly,’ mission control radioed back after a while, ‘and it’s now back on track. It seems to be still closing the distance between you, do you have a visual yet?’

  Two pairs of eyes desperately scanned the twinkling star field behind them, looking for the alien ship which was dogging their course with a determination which instilled fear and dread.

  ‘Got it,’ exclaimed Paul, ‘sunlight reflected off something for a moment, and I could see a faint outline. God, it’s big. If we knew how far away it was, we could get a more accurate idea of just how big it is.’

  The alien vessel continued to follow the orbiter at a respectful distance as it approached Earth’s space station.

  Mission control were in two minds whether they should blast it out of existence, or wait and see what transpired as the pair of vessels drew ever closer to Earth.

  Fortunately, the decision was taken out of their hands, as the orbiter curved around to rendezvous with the station, the alien craft sailed straight past and injected itself gracefully into an earth orbit.

  Thankful that a possible space war had been averted, the orbiter and its crew docked with the space station. The missiles which had been readied to fire, were stood down, temporarily, and a general sigh of relief echoed around mission control.

  Greg and his crew had a brief debriefing, boarded the shuttle, and spiralled down to Earth, looking forward to the pull of her gravity, and a little sanity after their expedition.

  Several days later, their full debriefing completed, all data handed over and explained where possible to an unbelieving investigation board, the team were ready for some well earned leave. But it was not to be.

  The craft had continued to encircle Earth, changing its path on each rotation as if it was hunting for something, and then it found it.

  The alien craft had taken up a stationary position over Egypt, much to the anxious concern of the Egyptians, and the general relief of all the other nations. For several days it just stayed there, dark, enigmatic and brooding, while those below experienced an increasing level of panic, a glut of gurus forecasting the end of the world, and a sharp drop in the tourist industry.

  While mission control were debating whether or not to try and blast it out of existence or send a shuttle up to investigate the alien ship, and if they did, how they would coerce a suitable crew to man it, events took control of the situation once again.

  The alien ship lowered itself down to the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere, and disgorged, or broke up into, twenty or so separate units, each of which drifted slowly down to land in the sands just outside El Giza.

  It was later found that the remains of the alien ship consisted of a framework for holding the separate sections, and a drive unit which had powered the whole conglomeration from Mars.

  Greg and his crew were just getting used to the extra pull of Earth’s gravity, and were now able to walk around without wobbling, or falling over, when they were called to the Chief Controller’s office.

  ‘We have, as you probably know,’ he beamed, ‘a little problem in Egypt. They don’t feel like handling it, and have passed it over to us. As you men have had more experience of things Martian than any of us, we would like you to take control of the situation, and sort it out.’

  If he had expected the team to jump for joy at the prospect, he was sadly mistaken, they just sat there, looking from one to the other, wondering who was going to say ‘get lost’?

  Eventually, Greg felt sorry for the man, and broke the embarrassing silence, speaking as he thought, for them all.

  ‘We have only just got back from Mars, we’ve been threatened by invisible forces, tricked into seeing things which weren’t there, prevented from seeing things which were there, shot at by something, but we don’t know what, and generally been given a bloody hard time of it. And all that without one Martian in sight. In fact, I don’t think they even exist anymore.

  ‘What that ship and its bits and pieces is, or was, is well outside our capabilities to handle. Surround it with the military, and then knock on its door. If they come out shooting, shoot back. If they don’t come out, go in, and speak nicely to ’em. You may get luckier than we did, and God knows, it wouldn’t take a lot to surpass that.

  ‘I think we’ve done our bit, now it’s someone else's turn to have
a go. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but give us a break.’ Greg sat back, wondering if he would ever regret having spoken his mind so adamantly.

  ‘I really can see your point,’ the Chief smiled back, quite unshaken by Greg’s outburst, ‘but see mine. We don’t have anyone who has the faintest idea what to do, except blast the alien vehicles into smithereens, and I’m sure that isn’t the most advantageous approach to the problem.

  ‘There could well be a rich harvest of alien technology there for the taking, if we play our cards right. You people have had some experience of Mars, and of the artefacts they left behind, there really is no one better qualified to do the job.

  ‘Obviously I can’t force you to help, but I would ask you on behalf of the rest of us, who have no experience of such things at all, to do what you can in this most unusual and dangerous situation.’

  ‘Naturally I would like an answer right away, but I don’t really expect one. Please go and talk it over among yourselves, take your time. Once the surprise of the whole thing has passed, you may have a change of mind, I sincerely hope you do.’ With that, he arose from his chair, extended his hand to be shaken by each of the team in turn, and then stood back, smiling.

  They left, feeling they had been manoeuvred into an impossible position by a smiling bureaucrat who wouldn’t know a Martian from an egg sandwich, as Hans put it.

  Later that evening, the team got together over a large pot of hot coffee and an imported bottle of something considerably stronger, to discuss what to do.

  The more they talked, the more reasonable the Chief’s request became, until the normally placid Paul burst out,

  ‘That sod’s got us by the spheroids, and he knew it before we left. I suppose we’ll have to agree to do it, I don’t really want to go down in history as the one who lost Earth such a chunk of wonderful Martian technology.’

  ‘I think we were all stressed to our limits by the expedition and the somewhat shaky journey home,’ said Greg, ‘but let’s face it, the man’s right, we do know more than anyone else on the subject, and therefore stand a better chance of handling whatever is out there on the Egyptian desert.