“But you don’t know what was happening?”
“I have no idea, Jake. I thought we had probably struck a piece of debris. But it felt like much more than that. I don’t know how to describe it. I could see the bulkhead beginning to pull away as if something were stretching it. As soon as the launch doors had opened, we were propelled outside. Isha did everything from the bridge. We were spinning end over end, the lander, and maybe the Vincenti, too. I don’t know. It was impossible to ascertain what was happening. Otto was hurled against first one bulkhead, then the other. One of our wings was torn off.”
Jake had never known an AI could be capable of near hysteria. But he heard it in Simon’s voice. “You couldn’t see what was happening to the ship?”
“No. I couldn’t line anything up. We were tumbling the whole time. Once or twice, I caught glimpses of the Vincenti. But I couldn’t see anything unusual except that it was out of control. The only possibility seemed to be that it had struck something. Or been attacked.”
“Okay. Simon, you have things a little confused. You said one of your wings was torn off as you came out of the Vincenti.”
“Actually, both were. One stayed with us, dangling by a few cables, until we came down. Then it broke loose.”
“I can’t figure out how you could have landed on this hilltop even if there’d been no damage, let alone losing your wings. How the hell did you manage it?”
“I do not know, Jake. We did fall for one minute seventeen seconds. Then the descent stopped. The fall stopped. We continued going down. But it was as if we were under control. As if a cushion of air or something had taken hold of us and was guiding us toward the ground. I know that is hard to believe, but the evidence is here. Otto died days later, when the air ran out.”
Jake was struggling with the extra weight. He eased himself down into one of the seats. “Could another ship have taken you in tow somehow without your being aware of it? Would that have been possible?”
“I don’t see how. No.”
“Okay. Am I also to assume you weren’t responsible for the lights?”
“What lights?”
* * *
JAKE DEPRESSURIZED THE cabin and opened both air-lock hatches. Then he lifted Otto’s body and tried to prop it over his shoulder. But it was too heavy to carry in that manner. Otto wasn’t particularly a lightweight to start with. He got the body into his arms and stumbled toward the air lock.
“Jake,” said the AI, “you won’t leave me here, will you?”
“I wouldn’t leave you here, Simon. I’ll be back in a while.” He got out into the snow, staggered a few more steps, and lost his balance as he started downhill. He had to give it up. No way he could carry the corpse a kilometer across a slippery surface in this gravity. He hauled Otto back up the ladder into the lander and set him in one of the seats. “I’m sorry, pal,” he said. “They’ll have to come back for you.”
“I don’t think,” said Simon, “he will care one way or the other.”
Jake looked out at the icy hills, stretching away in all directions. He knew precisely where the Baumbachner lander was, down in that rift off to the right. But at the moment it was lost in the dark. “Simon,” he said, “during the time you’ve been stranded here, have you seen anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all?”
“No, Jake.”
“Your landing: From the condition of the vehicle, it was obviously a soft landing.”
“Yes, it was.”
“You must have seen whatever it was that supported you.”
“I am sorry. I did not see anything.”
“Were you still spinning during the descent?”
“No. We gained equilibrium. But I cannot explain how that happened.”
“Were your own engines on?”
“Negative, Jake.”
He sat, staring at the barren landscape. Eventually, he sighed, took the transmitter from the bag, and installed it on the control panel. He was just finishing when Priscilla came back: “Jake,” she said. “What have you got?”
“Priscilla, only one of the crew made it to the lander. Otto. He’s been dead for a couple of days.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I was hoping maybe they had some extra air tanks. Any idea what happened?”
“No. They got hit by something. But I don’t know what— Weirdest part of this—”
“What’s that, Jake?”
“They came down without wings and landed otherwise intact on top of a hill.”
She took a long time to answer: “Okay,” she said at last. “We can try to figure it out later. By the way, we picked up another piece of the Vincenti in orbit. Part of an exhaust tube. Jake, it was broken off at both ends. But the really spooky thing—It looked as if it had been stretched. Pulled apart.”
“You’re serious?”
“You ever know me to kid?” She was silent for a few seconds. Then: “What were the lights?”
“I have no idea. They went out after I got here.” He got up out of the seat. “I’ll talk to you later. Be up as soon as I can. Meantime, keep an eye open.”
He removed the AI—which once out of its cradle could no longer speak to him—and carried it back to his own lander. It should have been an easier hike this time since it was downhill most of the way, but the downhill part made it more treacherous. He fell once and almost went down a second time. Whatever the manufacturers had installed in the Flickinger control gear, though, must have been working because the force field didn’t shut off.
* * *
THE LANDER ROSE into the night. Priscilla sent pictures of the damaged exhaust tube. He looked at it, brought up images of the Vincenti, and compared the two. It looked as if a giant hand had seized the rear of the tube, crunched it, and pulled it apart. Stretched it, as Priscilla had said.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“The hand of God.”
“Seriously.”
“I’m being serious. Listen, you don’t see anything else up there with you, right?”
“Negative.”
“Tell Myra to keep watching. If you see anything, I don’t care what it is, stay clear of it.”
“You want to tell me what you think is going on?”
“Priscilla, let’s just say that if you suddenly got two feet taller, it would do nothing for your good looks.”
* * *
BAUMBACHNER LOG
It’s hard to imagine what could have happened to bring the Vincenti lander down more or less intact. The only possibility I can think of is a vehicle with advanced magnetic capabilities. Lock onto the lander and carry it to the ground. But if anything like that was in the sky around here, we’d know about it. I’ve never seen a place in my life that looked less likely to be home to anybody, let alone a high-tech civilization.
—Jake Loomis, February 8, 2196
* * *
SHE WAS WAITING for him in the launch bay when he climbed out. “I’ve sent in a report,” she said. “I’m sorry about Otto. He was pretty young.”
Jake nodded. “So was Isha. Everybody’s too young for something like this to happen to them. But we can talk about it later. Let’s get belted down and clear the area.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“I can only think of one possibility. If I’m right, it would be a good idea to talk about it somewhere else.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
* * *
JAKE WAS RELIEVED to watch the dark world drop behind them. “So what’s your theory?” she asked.
“They were getting ready to send a landing party down. Otto was packing supplies and whatnot into the lander, when—”
“What—?”
“I think they ran into some sort of superdense object.”
“You mean a black hole?”
“More likely a
piece of matter like the kind you’d find in a neutron star. The details don’t matter. The bottom line is that there’s a good chance a superdense object is orbiting Orfano.”
“You think they literally collided with it?”
“I don’t think you collide with something like that. You sort of get sucked in.”
“How much mass are we talking?”
“Myra, how much would a baseball weigh if it were made of this stuff?”
“I don’t think a baseball composed of that type material could hold together, Jake.”
“Forget the theories. Assume that it does, what’s its mass?”
“I would estimate approximately one and a half trillion tons.”
Priscilla shook her head.
“Imagine,” said Jake, “what the gravity would be like if you got anywhere close to something like that.”
Myra applied the math: “Priscilla,” she said, “if you came into contact with the baseball, your weight, relative to it, would be approximately 125 million pounds.”
She shook her head. “That wouldn’t be good.”
“Apparently, assuming that’s what happened, when they came within its influence, Isha reacted immediately. She saw no possibility of escape. Probably didn’t know what was happening. Except that the Vincenti was coming apart. So she told Otto to get into the lander. And she sealed it and launched.”
“Heroic woman.”
“Yeah. For all the good it did anybody.”
“What about the lights? What were those?”
“They really were odd, weren’t they?”
“The only thing I could think of was that whoever had been in the lander set something up to get our attention.”
“Well, Otto was dead. And Simon says he didn’t know anything about it.”
“Simon’s the AI?”
“Yes.”
“So what was going on?”
“You tell me, Priscilla.”
“I have no idea.”
“Okay. Here’s something else: Simon says the lander was damaged during the launch. It lost its wings.”
“How do you mean ‘lost’?”
“Torn off.”
“Impossible. I mean, the lander was more or less intact on the ground, right?”
“Yes. Except for the wings. One was down on the slope; the other was missing.”
“So how’d they get down?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“There’s somebody down there.”
Jake nodded. “I don’t see any other explanation.”
“And they’re friendly.”
“Maybe.”
“So do we go back to find out who it is?”
“What do you suggest?”
She thought about it. “The smart thing to do would be to quit while we’re ahead.”
Jake adjusted his harness. “Makes sense to me.”
“But we’ll spend the rest of our lives wondering—”
“I know,” said Jake. “That sounds like one of those comments that get engraved on tombstones.” He pushed back in his seat. “So, I take it you vote for going back?”
* * *
PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL
Orfano is the saddest, most dismal place I’ve ever seen. We talk about people needing sunlight and we use sunny as a synonym for optimism and so on. Nevertheless, I don’t think I ever realized how critical sunlight can be to setting a mood. Remove it, and darkness becomes a palpable force. In Orfano’s skies, there are, of course, stars, but they are only glimmers in an overwhelming night. There isn’t even a moon. Not that it would matter if there were because a moon needs sunlight, too.
—February 8, 2196
Chapter 40
THE ODDS OF encountering the object seemed remote, but to play it safe, Jake placed them well outside the orbit in which they’d found the exhaust tube and the chair. “I hope you’re right,” Priscilla said, “about all this. If the Vincenti was brought down by some sort of hi-tech weapon, we wouldn’t have much chance.” She looked genuinely concerned.
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” said Jake. “If there was a system to take out any strangers who went into orbit, we’d know about it by now.” He looked down at the ice-covered world. “It’s just hard to believe there’d be anything there. Myra, I know we have no idea how long ago Orfano was expelled from its planetary system. But what’s the minimum? What’s the least amount of time it’s been without a sun?”
“Indications,” said Myra, “are it could not have orbited any known star during the last three hundred million years. The consensus, however, is that it has probably been adrift more than one and a half billion years.”
“Well,” said Priscilla, “if you’re right about all this, the Baumbachner will go down in history.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t just go down.”
“We should inform Union of our intentions.”
“Do it. They’ll respond by directing us to use caution.” Priscilla looked uncomfortable. “What’s wrong?” said Jake.
“Aside from wondering what we’re getting into? If it turns out we’re going to make history, I’d like my name associated with something that sounds a little flashier than the Baumbachner.”
“You on that again?”
“It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.”
“Nothing wrong with going back to Starhawk, I guess. But I don’t think it’s going to fool anybody.”
“Valkyrie would be nice. Or maybe Defiant. Even Reliable. In fact, Reliable’s good.”
Jake couldn’t help smiling. “How about Reluctant?”
“You’ll be sorry when we become historic figures, and everybody’s laughing at us.”
* * *
THERE WERE NO lights anywhere. But the sculpted landscape had taken on a new significance. Jake had been inclined to dismiss it when they’d first arrived as simply natural formations mixed with an overactive imagination. He thought that the various symmetries would be explainable without resorting to aliens. Now it was hard to believe there wasn’t an alien force at work.
But after thirty hours in various orbits, they had nothing. No lights. No responses to radio transmissions. No sign of any activity whatever.
Although, in fact, they did come up with something. “I believe we’ve found our superdense object,” said Myra.
“Where?” they both asked.
“It is at a substantial distance.” The display lit up, and they were looking at a swirl of dust. “Actually, I noted it before, but since it had nothing to do with our objective, I paid no attention. Error on my part.”
“Is it in orbit?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Get it on the record so we can make sure we stay away from it.”
* * *
“IF SOMEONE’S ACTUALLY down there,” said Priscilla, “they don’t seem to be interested in setting up a conversation.”
“Maybe they can’t,” said Jake.
“How do you mean?”
“They might not have the right technology.”
“So how do you think they got the Vincenti’s lander down safely?”
“I don’t know, Priscilla. Why don’t we give them a chance to do another rescue?”
They went down to the cargo bay, where Jake equipped the lander with extra sensors. Priscilla rigged some pillows in the pilot’s seat, wrapped them in blankets, and put her cap on the resultant figure, creating the impression of a pilot. “Good,” said Jake. “That should work. Now let’s go set up the launch.”
Priscilla nodded. “We should get near the downed lander.”
They returned to the bridge and depressurized the cargo area. “I just can’t imagine,” Priscilla said, “anything being alive on that world. Maybe there’s some sort of automated mechanism at
work.”
“What would be the point?” asked Jake.
She shook her head. “It could be something left over from another time.”
“We’re talking hundreds of millions of years, Priscilla. That would be a pretty substantial mechanism.”
“Four minutes,” said Myra.
Priscilla was back in the pilot’s seat. “Open the doors,” she said.
Jake opened a channel to the lander AI. “Andrea, after we launch, I want the lander to look as if it’s lost partial power. As if you’re struggling to keep it from going down. Do that for three minutes. Then shut off the engines, and do a free fall as long as you can without damaging the vehicle. If anything unusual happens, record all circumstances. If nothing intervenes to prevent the fall, restore power and return to the ship. We’ll pick you up on the next orbit. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Jake. It sounds simple enough. I wish you luck in this experiment.”
* * *
“LAUNCH IN ONE minute,” said Myra.
Jake turned toward Priscilla. “Wish us luck, kid.”
She gave him a thumbs-up. “What do we do if someone walks out of a cloud, grabs it, and takes it down?”
“I think,” he said, “we say thank you very much and skedaddle.”
Priscilla sat quietly. Jake watched the timer click off the seconds.
Priscilla leaned over her mike as the time ran out. “Launch the lander,” she said.
“Vehicle launched,” said Myra.
“Okay, Andrea,” Jake said, “you’ve got it.”
“Roger that,” said Andrea. She turned on the lander’s navigation lights. And one of the interior lamps, whose glow did give the impression someone was in the pilot’s seat.
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