America One: War of the Worlds

by T I WADE

  VIN must have said something over the intercom inside their helmets, as one of the medics moved towards the small person. The suited person grabbed an IV fluid system from the cavern, placed it next to the blanketed Matt, cut away the suit around the man’s small arm, and injected the lifesaving vitamins, minerals and fluid from the IV pouch into the inert body.

  Mars was dressed in the new suit. He was too cold to help much and Ryan placed the helmet on his head and began screwing.

  “Can you hear me?” Mars heard Ryan ask a couple of minutes later as the warmth from the suits heating system gave him a bath of beautiful hot air.

  “Yes, boss. I have intercom connection. God! It was cold out there,” replied Mars as his new helmet was screwed on so everybody could hear him. “I spoke to the Commander before he keeled over. He is Commander Fob, there are I think he said, three others in the chambers, all kids.”

  “Max, you back in the shuttle?” Mars heard his father ask.

  “Yep! Been here thirty minutes,” was the reply.

  “Is there anybody else who can sort out that train thing?”

  “Negative VIN, not on this shuttle, or SB-IV,” Max replied.

  “I think you being in the tunnel for most of your last spacewalk spared you the usual cosmic radiation loads. I need more suits down here. We have one suit for this guy Mars found, and one other. We need the kid suits. Can you get two kid suits into one canister?”

  “Easy, we have tried it before” Max responded. “But we have only two kid suits. The tallest kid will have to be fitted into one of the teenage suits you have down there already. I can be ready in an hour, but need your permission to exit before my three-hour rest limit, and its dark and minus 100 Celsius out there, over.”

  “What do you think Mr. Noble?” Ryan asked the most experienced man in the room.

  “I know the tunnel is hiding us from direct Cosmic rays. I would do it if it was necessary,” VIN replied looking at Ryan. “We only have about an hour before those sleep chambers open, and even if the rooms are back at normal temperature, the kids’ real small bodies waking up will shiver themselves to death, like you and I did when we woke up on DX2017. Remember boss, we’ve been there and done that.

  “Joanne how many space blankets do we have?” Ryan asked.

  “Three plus the two on the commander guy,” she replied.

  “I saw the guy turn up the support systems to full power. I didn’t even know there was a switch for that,” added Mars.

  “I had found it while on Titan or Enceladus,” responded VIN. “I should have thought about increasing the systems to full power, but forgot. This age thing is getting to me.”

  “I’m willing to help Max,” piped in Saturn.

  “I think Saturn and I are the shortest aboard the shuttles right now,” stated Maggie.

  “Both girls are shorter than me,” added Jonesy.

  “How many spare adult suits do we have aboard?” Ryan asked.

  “Three,” replied Max.

  “OK, Max rest for a 60 minute period from your shuttle entry,” ordered Ryan. “At least that will give you a break. Saturn, Maggie, get ready and pack two canisters. One with two of the kid suits, the other with extra food, water, and IVs. We will also need as many suit rechargers as you can fit. Also, I think a pistol or something in that department will be in order. Max when should we expect you?”

  “Say 75 minutes. Who is staying, who is coming back to the shuttle?”

  “We only need one in here. Maggie can stay and come through the door with the canisters, you and Saturn head back to SB-IV. We need both craft ready at all times. Saturn have your co-pilot prepared to follow Jonesy at a moment’s notice. We don’t know if this guy had telepathic contact to the other part of the base, Ruler Roo is down here, so we will get Roo questioning him once he comes around, out.”

  Max was good. An hour and 20 minutes later he had picked up Maggie on the second trip, and was already heading down the tunnel with canister for the second time towards Saturn sitting in the darkness like Joanne had at the fork.

  The commander was still unconscious, and he was on his second small pouch of IV fluid.

  VIN and Mars had checked out the two levels of the cryogenic chambers and both had felt Déjà vu. The whole system was an exact replica of the one on DX2017, except that the units were single sleepers, not doubles like on the asteroid.

  All the sleep units in the entire bottom section of the chamber were empty, except one. Scrolls that looked like reports, or daily logs on sheets of a canvas type material were found in the closest unit to the stairs.

  Both VIN and Mars could pick out a few words in Matt here and there when they tied to read the first scroll, but they had Ruler Roo begin to go through the papers until the commander awoke.

  On the upper level both men could see that the three chambers were changing. There was no way to tell how far they were through their heating process, so Patricia stood by them while Ryan and Joanne guarded the commander.

  “He looks as old as any Matt I have ever met,” stated Ryan to Joanne.

  “Roo told me that their history records at the Pig’s Snout told that these Matts they met centuries ago could live a very long time,” replied Joanne looking at the sleeping Matt. His face had regained the usual Matt coloring, and the man could awaken at any time. “They could live far longer than Roo’s tribe, as it seemed that actuate recordings were kept on arrivals and departures, and the same visitors were described and named over half a century. Did you know that the recordings from the Pig’s Snout showed that over 1,000 female Matts, and over 600 children were taken from the Pig’s Snout?” Ryan’s head movements showed that he didn’t.

  “I wonder what happened to them?” he replied.

  “We can ask the Commander when he wakes up,” stated Roo from across the room going through what he had just been given by VIN and Mars.

  Ryan looked at his readout. “We should see crew outside in a few minutes.” He got up and headed into the larger cavern where he saw movement through the see-through door.

  “Max is here,” Ryan stated to VIN and Mars, and the three of them returned to cavern to ready opening the door. This time Mars would be ready for the gush of air. The door to the command room was closed, and they told Max to add air into the helmet.

  Maggie was pushed in by Max. Saturn rolled in the first canister with both gloves. The rolling canister went into the cavern easier than Maggie, and then Max pushed in the second with his foot. The door closed as Max removed the helmet from the panel and the crew looked at each other. Mars had not even had time to hug his wife, but he had managed to throw out the two liquid samples VIN had collected. Once the door was shut the astronauts inside the cavern could just hear Saturn and Max stating that they were returning to the exits.

  “The robots are doing a stellar job cutting up the gold, but if some of you don’t return from visiting the Matts soon, we are going to be behind in loading the precious metal into the cargo holds.” Max relayed to Ryan before their voices disappeared.

  “You OK Maggie?” Ryan asked.

  “Sort of. I like the tree and the river. Look it even has a sort of waterfall.”

  “You should see the lake under here,” added Mars. “It is cold down next to the water but there is enough water down there for a long time.”

  “I think we need to get back to Roo and the medics,” VIN suggested, and he checked his readouts. “This time the pressure loss was half of what we lost the last time. I think 10 minutes is enough before we open the door.”

  “I want to see the lake,” stated Ryan.

  “Me too,” added Maggie.

  “I think we can all get down and back in ten minutes, but I will have to recharge my suit pretty soon,” replied VIN, and Mars led the way past the toilet to the stairs.

  In a line and ten stairs part, the four headed down to the lake below. The tiny light was on when Mars, who was leading the group reached the two-foot wide flat area just after t
he last stair.

  “Be careful, don’t slip, or get near the liquid. It could still be an acid or liquid methane for all we know,” stated VIN as he squeezed onto the shelf, the opposite side of the stairs and facing his son.

  “Very weird, the atmospheric levels in here,” stated Ryan looking at his suit’s readouts. “High amounts of helium. Nitrogen is here in good quantities, although low. Same with oxygen, nearly deadly without a helmet on, and CO2 at very low levels. I wonder what could have caused this air down here?”

  The water gushing through that hole for thousands of years, thanks to the Matt air systems,” answered Mars.

  As all four astronauts reached the bottom, the added light from four suit helmets showed more than before. Ryan has a flashlight with him, so did VIN and the six lights then lit up the cavern as never before.

  It was far bigger than both Mars and VIN expected. Maggie gave a gasp at seeing the lake and Ryan was silently in shock.

  “This is far more valuable than all that gold out there,” Ryan stated looking over the view.

  Even with all the lights on, the far wall couldn’t be seen. This time they could see at least 150 feet, and still the lake didn’t end.

  Ryan asked if VIN could dip his spacesuit with its readout into the liquid to see what it would come up with. But first he asked VIN to place his hammer into the liquid.

  “If it is acid, it will eat the hammer, or at least do something to it. If it is liquid methane, I don’t think any harm will come to the hammer. If it is water, it could only freeze on the hammer,” he told VIN.

  “Remember I have metal or human tissue hands. Which one do you want removed first?” VIN joked. He lent over the water having his other arm tightly on the stair railing and for a whole minute, he submerged the hammer in the water. He pulled it out and they all inspected it. Nothing had changed.

  “I hate to tell you this, but I put my finger into the liquid upstairs,” mentioned Mars sheepishly.

  “Well thanks for letting us know, son. If it was acid, you would be down to three human fingers by now,” replied Ryan sternly. “VIN, Saturn should have the samples Mars gave her in the shuttle soon. I suggest she give them to Jonesy in SB-III and he return them to the base for testing. And I think that we are going to need a few more spacesuits with a couple more build crew in them to catch up with our gold hauling.” VIN nodded.

  “VIN, give your suit arm a few seconds in the water. At least we can get a temperature,” Ryan replied. VIN did so and the temperature came back that the liquid was five degrees above freezing Fahrenheit, exactly what he and Mars had thought it was.

  Back up the stairs, Ryan noticed that they had been away from the cavern for nine minutes, and Mars checked his readouts, noticed that the pressure was again above the danger level, and pushed the door panel.

  The four astronauts were shocked to see a mess of equipment in the command center, Roo and Joanne were sitting on top of the Matt who was moaning and struggling to get up. Both crewmembers seemed in command of the situation and smiling at them as the door opened.

  The pressure was safe enough and with their suits getting low on power, the astronauts began unscrewing each other’s helmets.

  As Maggie unscrewed Ryan’s helmet, Ryan gave orders to Jonesy to collect the liquid samples from his daughter before she boarded her shuttle, head back to the Retreat for reinforcements to help loading the gold in the cargo holds, the cryogenic units were about to open, and they all needed to go offline.

  Ryan could see that the chamber door was open and Patricia was in there. Joanne mouthed to the astronauts to hurry up.

  Within minutes their helmets were off. The air pressure was low, it was quite hard to breathe, but Ryan knew that it could only get better.

  “VIN, please come and hold this man,” shouted Joanne in English. “He is writhing like a rattlesnake. Patricia needs me, and you Ryan, in the chamber. The units are about to open.”

  VIN helped Joanne climb off, and helped the little man up once Roo got off him.

  “I told you I was stronger, and younger than you Commander Fob, and you don’t have a tall wife to help you,” stated Roo to the Matt in his own language as VIN grabbed the man with his metal arm.

  The commander began to struggle again, and VIN applied a lot of pressure. His metal hand could have squashed the poor Man’s old arm easily, and the Matt began to realize that this Tall Person’s arm was strong, and maybe not of bone and skin.

  “I will stop trying to get away if you ease your grip,” stated the Commander and he stopped struggling. “You are made of metal?” he asked.

  “Yes, thanks to your attack on our base, I was standing outside, and thanks to you commander, I lost my arm. That’s why I might just rip your arm out of your body, and then we’ll be quits,” replied VIN in perfect Matt menacingly.

  That quietened down the Matt. Mars smiled as he took off his right hand glove off, and showed the Matt his hand.

  “Your second attack,” stated Mars.

  “What second attack? We have only attacked you once,” the Matt replied.

  “Maybe you were asleep when I lost my arm, so maybe I won’t rip your other arm from your body,” Mars smiled.

  “I need some water. I am in need of water. I will not fight you metal robots. Let me go,” stated the Matt. Mars eyed his father, who let go of the man. What astounded them next was what the Matt did. VIN hoped that he knew what the Matt was going to do and shielded the man from seeing the globe of Mars as he passed through to the main cavern. The man was thirsty. He didn’t bother to look in the direction of the globes as he walked out of the command center, bent down by the river and took a long drink of the ice cold liquid.

  “Well, I suppose that is our liquid test done. I want the tests returned from Doctors Messer and Smidt before we drink from the water,” ordered VIN to the crew as Patricia exited the cryogenic area with a tiny Matt in her arms.

  “Mars, Roo get a second blanket ready,” ordered Patricia. “This little thing is a baby, like your second son Roo. I’ll put him down on the space blanket and you get ready to cover him.”

  Commander Fob was hustled back into the command center by Mars and VIN each side of him. Again he didn’t bother to look at the globes.

  The medic cut away the sleeve of the space suit and within seconds had IV fluid entering the tiny body. Commander Fob, with VIN behind him entered to see what was going on.

  Joanne exited the foggy chamber with a second child, a little larger than the first. Ryan was right behind her with the third person.

  Each Matt was placed on a space blanket on the floor, fed through an IV and a second blanket put over to warm them up.

  The space blankets designed by NASA decades ago worked extremely well to keep a person warm.

  “Who are the children?” Roo asked the commander quite concerned.

  “They were playing by the river when I believe the explosion occurred,” Commander Fob replied. “We always had drilled into our people that they head into a safe area if they heard any noise or rumbling outside the base. I was in the command center, they were scared by this massive rumbling in the ground all around us, and immediately ran in. The door closed behind them. I saw others running into the river chamber when the doors shut. They were not quick enough.”

  “The door closed because atmosphere was lost?” VIN asked.

  “No,” replied Fob. “The doors closed because of the vibrations. I checked on my command console and assumed that somebody had attacked our base. Then I tried to reopen the door, but the light glowed blue, which meant that the air the other side wasn’t safe to open the door. The children, one is a family member of mine, but not my son, had some food with them, and as base commander, I always keep supplies of water and food in case the door closed unexpectedly. It had happened to this door before, and I was waiting for a repairman to arrive from our headquarters.”

  Ryan, Mars, Roo and VIN checked on the children. They were asleep, would be for several h
ours, and the medics and Maggie were looking after them.

  “So what happened to you next?” VIN asked with the crew in the room listening in. All the crew in the room had been on the odyssey, and all spoke fluent Matt.

  “My communications with the rest of my base were broken,” Fob replied, and got a shock when Roo, and then VIN and Mars tried to converse with him through the Matt system of mental telepathy.

  Commander Fob was extremely shocked that these aliens could communicate like his race. It took him a full minute collect himself.

  “We know you never communicated with your controls, only with your minds,” he heard one of the two Tall People think to him.

  “My friends are as good as you and your people in communicating,” added Roo mentally. “Do not try and trick them. They do not like you very much and are very warlike. I believe they do want to hurt you for the deaths of their friends by your space fighters.”

  A very slight smile crossed VIN’s face. He couldn’t have thought it better than what Roo had just told the commander. To make sure that he looked like he meant business, he picked up the laser pistol and thought to the commander.

  “This little machine caused that explosion you felt all those years go,” VIN added making up the story. “We asked for peace, and yet, your pilots shot at unarmed people, and killed many of us. I could leave you and these unimportant children here, and when we leave finish the job the explosion didn’t.”

  VIN’s sentence was so believable that Roo placed his hand on VIN’s arm to calm him unknowing that VIN was already calm. VIN had lost most of his want for vengeance whilst sleep for 14 years. Commander Fob carried on in Matt aloud.

  “I was told by others in our base, the second chamber that there were people alive there, and that I should try and get down the tunnel to them. I tried the door but it wouldn’t open. My people tried to come and get us, but I assume you know already that our suits are not protective in the vacuum conditions. They told me that the tunnel was open to the vacuum, and there was no way we would survive. Nobody was coming. After a day of consideration, the children and I realized that since we were not already dead, the air and heat systems were still working the only way we might live was to go to long sleep. That is all I can tell you. Did anybody on the other side survive?”