Wilson sighed. “Meaning if you don’t get it to work, then there might not be any way for us to get back home.”
“Let’s not jump the gun on that one yet. We’re still working on it.”
“Working on it?”
“We’re looking into the situation right now. Don’t worry, Frank. We’ve got our best people working on the problem, both in the sim and—”
“Deke.” Wilson was surprised to find his mouth dry. “What’re our chances?”
There was a long pause before Deke answered. “One in five of getting the Tai-Ping’s systems rebooted. We’re not sure if some of the backup systems were compromised by the explosion.”
“So one way or the other we’ve got to take the chance and see if we’re going back to a dead ship.”
“That’s the long and short of it, Frank.”
Wilson propped himself up and glanced out the window at Benny and Yeoh making their last survey of the exterior of the Copernicus. His knee was throbbing badly inside the splint, but he took almost no notice of it.
“Houston, not a word to my crew.”
“Understood. How’s the knee holding up?”
Wilson couldn’t help but laugh. “We’re still assessing that situation, Houston.”
“So what do you suggest we do, Dr. Zell?” asked Soong, still staring at the area around the airlock.
“I’m not the team leader, my dear. It’s your call, Alan.”
“Suddenly I love being the boss,” Donovan said, grinning. “Let’s crack this walnut.”
“Now you’re talking!” Zell said, clapping his hands together.
“Dr. Donovan,” Soong said, stepping forward, “I, as much as you, would like to explore this mystery, but I believe we should contact the ship before we—”
“We can’t, remember?” Zell noted. “If Alan couldn’t contact us while we were on the surface and he was in the fissure, we certainly can’t contact Wilson from here. Something—probably the cave itself—is interfering with the transmission.”
Despite her concerns about being out of radio contact with the Copernicus, Soong followed them toward the area on the curvature marked with the word airlock in various languages. She suggested that they attempt to find the manual release or, barring that, the grooves around the airlock’s seal. Finding themselves in agreement, the three scientists slowly began to sift away the ancient lunar soil. The dust flew around in strange directions in the lighter gravity before drifting down to the ground at a rate six times slower than it would have settled on Earth. To Soong’s eyes, the odd gravitational effects were not nearly as strange as the object she was helping to uncover. Not only did the surface have the unusual distinction of seeming like the hardest metal she had ever touched, but it was also perfectly preserved, still shining brightly, as if it had been encased in a protective sheath. What was even odder was that the metal had no imperfections. Surely, if the object had crashed here, as they suspected, it would have developed some damage on impact.
“I think I found it!” Zell exclaimed.
Soong and Donovan hurried to his side. With their small brushes they began to clear away the last remnants of the lunar dust. Before them was a round indentation, about a square foot, with what looked like a handle in its center.
“Looks like a crank handle,” Donovan muttered. “See if you can turn it.”
Zell grasped the handle. “Opposable thumbs,” he said, noting the handle’s design.
“Not necessarily,” Soong suggested. “Maybe they just built it so that we could let ourselves in.”
Zell nodded and carefully exerted pressure on the handle. He feared it might snap off in his hand. Yet no matter how much force he exerted, the handle wouldn’t budge.
“The damn thing’s stuck,” Zell muttered, his gasps of air audible in their headsets.
“I’ll check for a seam,” Soong said, picking up her brush. “Perhaps we can pry it open.”
Donovan took his turn on the release. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, he thought, recalling the rhyme Mr. Arroway had sarcastically taught them in shop. I’m turning it the right way. Why the hell won’t it budge? Then he laughed. The right way for Earth, at least.
“I’m unable to find a seam,” Soong informed them. “Unbelievable—look at how much surface area I’ve cleared. Is it possible that the airlock is—”
Donovan shined his flashlight on the release again and noticed a button in the middle of the handle, not unlike a bathroom-door lock. He pressed it, and the crank popped up. He grasped the handle again, and it turned with ease.
“My God,” Zell whispered. “Alan, look at the airlock!”
Donovan turned to see a seam appear seemingly out of nowhere, its perimeter deep inside the area Soong had cleared. As the seam solidified, the airlock sprang to life, and the three scientists watched as dust flew upward through the beams of their flashlights and into the vacuum of space.
“It’s venting gas,” Zell muttered. “This thing’s still pressurized.”
“Yeah, but with what?” Donovan wondered. “Oxygen or methane? Who knows what they breathe?”
“I don’t know,” Zell said, flashing his helmet’s light into the airlock. “But whatever it is, it means that whoever was the last to step inside here never stepped back out. At least not this way.”
Soong gathered her equipment. “We can check the air quality once we repressurize the lock.”
Zell looked at her. “Are you mad? You mean we should seal ourselves inside this bloody thing?”
“It is the only way to tell,” Soong observed. “Otherwise we might vent all the remaining atmosphere into space.”
Zell groaned. “I’m not sealing this blasted thing behind all of us.”
Zell’s grumbling aside, Soong concurred with the assessment. Not all of them should go in at once. They decided that Zell would accompany Donovan inside the airlock, while Soong waited outside in case anything went wrong.
Zell snatched up his kit, grasped the edge of the airlock, and lowered himself inside. “The things you talk me into.”
Donovan followed Zell inside. Donovan judged that the ship—if this was a ship—was pitched at a ten-degree angle and had settled slightly to what he guessed was starboard. The interior was even darker than the cave had been. At least the outer cave initially had the benefit of sunlight filtering down through the fissure. But this interior was darker than any place any of the explorers had ever been. They could see no more than a few feet forward. Walking the airlock’s length and width, they judged it to be about twelve feet wide and thirty feet long. The walls were composed of the same odd curved metal found outside, unadorned except for two pairs of releases on either end of the enclosure, plus a pair of what they took to be pressure gauges. Above each release was a flat pad not unlike a small computer screen—the powered release, Donovan assumed. He pressed the button on the manual release and turned the crank. The exterior airlock door shut, and its seal disappeared.
“Better crank the other one.”
Zell did as Donovan asked. Another rush of gas blew into the airlock as the interior door’s seal revealed itself and the portal began to slide open.
Donovan monitored the air tester. “Amazing. I’m reading an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. We could conceivably take off our helmets.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Alan,” Zell muttered as he flashed a wrist light through the open interior door, “I think we’d be well advised to keep them on. I can’t speak for you, but when the temperature gets below two hundred degrees, I tend to catch cold.”
June 28
The White House
Washington, DC
10:13 p.m.
The President peered out the Oval Office window. It was a remarkably clear night. None of the usual low-hanging summertime clouds blanketed the sky. As she stepped off the ladder of Marine One upon arrival at the White House that afternoon, the air had been hot and crisp and dry. So it remained as the night came on. The weather reminded her
of a day long ago when she drove cross-country with a couple of college friends on spring break. They were in Arizona, and the only thing clearer than the air had been their heads. A long time ago. She glanced at the Moon one last time and stepped away from the window.
There was a knock at her door, and General McKenna entered. Despite the starched, pressed sharpness of his uniform, the President could clearly discern weariness on the general’s ruddy face.
“You sent for me, Madam President?”
“Yes, Jim.” The President gestured at a nearby couch as she took a seat in her favorite rocking chair. “Anything new from Phoenix?”
“None, ma’am. As you know, the archeology team’s been deployed. NASA’s coordinating repair efforts with Wilson’s team.”
“Good.” The President nodded and scratched the back of her head, the skin on her face slack. “I just got off the phone with the Chinese president. He’s none too happy that I gave the go-ahead for the mission without consulting him. Commander Yuen, it seems, was a very esteemed member of their military, and they felt we were . . . cavalier about his death.”
McKenna tried to suppress his annoyance. “How cavalier, ma’am?”
“Let me play you the tape.” The President cleared her throat and said to the room in a clear voice: “Activate recorder. Play telephone conversation of this date, sixteen hundred hours. Start six minutes in.”
On the President’s desk a small speaker stirred to life. “—certainly hope you will not be so cavalier when it comes to our sovereignty over Taiwan.”
“I don’t think it would be prudent to discuss Taiwan at this juncture, Mr. President,” her recorded voice responded, “and certainly not while we both have people on the Moon and in danger.”
“I disagree, Madam President. The Taiwanese situation highlights the need for cooperation between strategic partners. Without consultation, we would be guilty of—I believe the term is cowboy diplomacy. Surely you see the wisdom in consultation.”
“You don’t need to lecture me, sir. I know my obligations to both China and Taiwan.”
“I do not mean to lecture you. Nevertheless, I must impress upon you the necessity of asserting our sovereignty over Taiwan if your government continues to make decisions regarding both of our nations without our consultation.”
“I hope you’re not threatening me, Mr. President.”
“The People’s Republic of China does not make threats, Madam President. We only claim what is rightly ours and will make our own decisions regarding it in the future.”
“End tape.” The President stood up and paced the floor with her hands in her pockets. “What do you think, Jim?”
“The Chinese have made threats like this in the past, ma’am, with no consequences.”
“Still, the Taiwanese situation is pretty fragile since the assassination of their separatist leader. They might think they should declare their independence in reaction to it—especially if there’s the slightest hint that Chinese agents were involved with it.”
“You don’t think the Chinese would be so bold as to assassinate—”
“No,” the President replied with a shake of her head. “But we’ve still got to convince the Taiwanese of that. They’re pretty hot on that idea right now.” The President went back to the window but didn’t draw the curtains. “It won’t matter one way or the other that we have a joint mission to the Moon. If the Taiwanese declare their independence, the Chinese fleet will move in regardless of whether or not our fleet’s in the vicinity.”
“Should I alert the fleet, ma’am?”
“Yes. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to Taiwan and make sure they don’t make a move without us. We’ll coordinate any defense of the island with them.”
McKenna stood up. “I’ll make the preparations, Madam President.”
The President turned from the window. “Put whatever Skystalkers we have over the Chinese fleet. I want to know if they so much as twitch a hair on their asses.”
Corridors. Seemingly miles of them. They arced this way and that, stretching down the length of the ship, slipping into darkness well past flashlights’ beams. The walls looked like obsidian glass curving in a gentle arc over their heads. Unlike the exterior, however, the walls were completely devoid of markings—no writing or signs, no instrument panels, no comm system. If this was a ship, it was unlike any ship Donovan, Zell, and Soong had ever seen. Its walls betrayed no hint of its technological capabilities or purpose. Its interior revealed no remnants of its inhabitants. This was more than a strictly practical, form-follows-function design. The interior looked as if it had no discernible function except protection from the elements—which couldn’t possibly be its sole purpose. Could it be unfinished? Donovan wondered. Yet even the most unfinished structure built on Earth betrayed some of its designers’ intent during construction. This ship was like a stage set, devoid of furniture or paint . . . anything that might indicate what it would be.
Donovan looked down. He noticed some kind of phosphorescent lighting running in strips down the corridors, practically the same kind you would see in an airplane’s aisle. Yet the lighting was also like some sort of bioluminescent organism, not unlike the ones he’d seen while cave diving as a younger man.
Were they there as markers? Could they be some remnant of the crew?
“Alan,” Zell called over the comm, “better take a look at this.”
Zell was standing at the end of the most recent corridor they had explored with Soong, who had joined them inside the ship. So far they had found three such corridors, each on top of the other, seemingly running what appeared to be the entire length of the ship. Each had been lined with a series of sealed sliding doors, each shut almost as tight as the airlock had been, except that these portals displayed obvious seals where the doors met the frames. They had managed to reach this level through a series of ladders running parallel to what they took to be the ship’s main elevator.
As Donovan approached them, Zell’s flashlight reflected off another door. “Unlike the others, this one was slightly ajar,” Zell noted.
“Should we go inside?” Soong asked.
“Are you kidding?”
The door was open only about six inches and easier to force than the airlock had been. Together Zell and Donovan pushed the door into its housing with ease.
“I feel like I’m on the Enterprise,” Zell said as he flashed his wrist light into the interior.
“Does that make you Captain Kirk?” said Soong.
“I always preferred Dr. McCoy.”
“Hardly a surprise.”
What they found inside was nothing like what could’ve been offered on an old television series. Before them was a deep and wide laboratory with dozens upon dozens of beds and a complex series of what appeared to be blank computer screens lining both the walls and parts of the curved ceiling. Yet, for a medical laboratory, there were no signs of any equipment. Not even anything that might have passed for a futuristic Bunsen burner. Not even buttons or controls for the vast array of screens. As they walked the lab’s length, they noticed what appeared to be cabinet doors lining the walls under the screens. They tried to force open two or three of the doors, but none would budge.
“It would appear they made sure to keep all the medicine away from the children,” Zell said after giving up on his door.
“It’s so strange,” Soong said more to herself than her companions as she walked around some medical beds. “How large was the crew to need so many beds?”
“Maybe it was a triage center,” Zell suggested as he ran a hand over what appeared to be some kind of foam padding. “Maybe they had been anticipating a war.”
“Maybe they had one,” Donovan added. “And ran away from it.”
“If that is so,” Soong mused, “then where are the bodies? Come to think of it, if this . . . ship is as large as it appears to be, why have we been unable to find a single corpse?”
A ship. Donovan was convinced of it now. This was as much a shi
p as anything ever built on Earth that flew through the air or sailed the seas. It had decks and sections and cabins. And now a medical lab. Even the doors seemed to be of a fairly standard size—eighty inches by thirty-six inches, by the look of them. Whoever built the vessel had to have been humanoid; that was apparent. But who were they?
“I don’t know if we’ll find any, Soong,” Donovan suggested as he flashed his light on some nearby screens. “Whoever came here probably did so millions of years ago—they had enough time to die and probably be buried by the survivors.”
“So where are the survivors?” Zell wondered. “If this was their only means of transport, then the last surviving members of this crew must be here somewhere.”
Donovan stepped toward him. “Elias, where would you go if you were the last man on the Moon?”
Zell thought about it for a moment and smiled. “The bridge.”
“And why would you think that, Dr. Zell?” Soong asked.
“Elementary, my dear Dr. Soong. If the crew planned to blow a hole in the Moon, as we assume, at a certain time—say, early in the twenty-first century—then the way to do that would be from the nerve center of their technological universe—i.e., the bridge.”
Donovan laughed. “You’re a smart-ass, Zell.”
“And where do you propose we might find this bridge?” Soong asked.
“I don’t know,” Donovan answered. “We’ll probably have to search the whole ship.”
“That could take days,” Soong said, then looked at him. “Why, this ship is enormous.”
Donovan looked around for a sign. “Any idea what deck we’re on now?”
“Why, I thought it was the lido deck,” said Zell. He looked around a moment. “Well, whatever planet you’re from, up is up and north is north. If there is a bridge, that’s the direction we’re likely to find it.”
It would have been difficult enough to climb the ladders to the remaining twenty decks minus their space suits, but with the protective gear the exertion was almost more than they could stand. The passageways had obviously been constructed for people not wearing backpacks—or at least with ones of a considerably smaller size. As it was, the trio had to squeeze themselves through each portal, often with the aid of someone else. Those were the moments Donovan feared the most. One wrong step, and they could tumble down to the lower deck. Luckily the ladders were staggered with landings, but one slip could still drop them a good twelve feet and shatter an ankle or worse. After three more decks, Donovan called for a break. Zell sounded as if he would collapse if he took another step. The air inside their helmets was thick and humid from perspiration. A second skin of sweat encased their bodies.
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