“There’s a huge mass of some kind at the center of the ship, near the bottom. And I mean huge; makes us wonder if there’s a tiny amount of superdense matter in there, perhaps forming some part of the propulsion system. Personally, I’m wondering if they were controlling gravity in some way. Maybe they invented some form of antigravity—it’s not impossible, is it?
“We still don’t know what to make of that quite large empty area which was the most badly damaged in the crash. It’s a bit of a mystery.
“That’s about all for now. Orlov, over and out.”
* * * *
He had hardly finished when he started to receive an incoming message that had been winging its way through the ether as he talked. As now seemed inevitable, their earlier transmission, which had included the scenes of destruction on the alien planet, had raised more questions than it had answered.
...our linguistics people are having some success. They say there’s no way it could be a truly alien language. The syntax, phonetics, morphemes are typically human in origin. More on that when some sort of translation’s available, but the message definitely seems like a warning.
Meanwhile, the stellar astronomers have been analyzing the star-patterns that could be seen in the night-shot, and in the view from space at the end. As you must have noticed yourselves, they look very familiar, meaning that the star-system can’t be too far from our own.
So our best computers were put to work plotting the constellations as they would appear from the closest likely stars. They change surprisingly little, actually, until you travel a long, long way, but the computers would be able to find very slight angular changes. You have to bear in mind that we’ve been looking for a binary or double star, which limits the field a bit.
We had a problem there. We couldn’t find any star that fits within ten, even twenty light years. We extended the field, but no star would fit. We even got the computers to take into account the time a ship might have been travelling, compared with the time light takes us to reach us from various stars. No good. In the end we had to give up.
But one of our men, Shiro Takeda, pointed out what should have been obvious: if we were looking at constellations in the sky of a planet of another star, there should be an extra star somewhere—the Sun. For instance, if we were looking from a planet of Alpha Centauri, the closest possibility, the Sun would be in the constellation of Cassiopeia. But it just isn’t there.
Takeda decided to try another approach. I won’t go into the technical details now, but he was sure that those constellations, as they appear, could only have been seen from a solar system that fits the facts: our own, though presumably a long time ago. He took the computer-simulated sky back, even to millions of years. But he couldn’t get it to fit that way, either....
There must be some other explanation—perhaps distortion due to some other effect. It’s even been suggested that the process of your videoing the screen and transmitting it to Earth could be responsible for some distortion. and the computer’s working on that. But personally I think this is clutching at straws.
If it was Earth, then obviously we still can’t explain the double star, or the nova explosion. Frankly, we’re baffled. Perhaps what we’ve been watching is nothing but an in-flight movie—someone’s imaginary idea of an alternate reality? We don’t know. But you’d better believe we’re working on it....
Mission Control, out.
“Phew! What in the name of blazes have we uncovered here?” said Vitali.
Despite the excitement of their discoveries, and the strange results of the analysis, there was a sense of anticlimax and frustration around the camp, where the team was taking a much-needed rest day and performing neglected housekeeping chores. There was in any case very little more that they could do at the alien craft with the instruments they had with them, which had never been designed for this sort of discovery.
It seemed that the scene of action had moved to Earth. Yet scientists there, in many fields, must be itching for the opportunity to get to Mars themselves and do hands-on research on the ship—not to mention its humanlike “crew”.
Aurora seemed particularly distracted. She would sit for hours, a puzzled, faraway expression on her face, and would sometimes not respond when spoken to until the second or third attempt.
Finally Beaumont sat beside her and put an arm around her waist. “What’s the problem, love?” he asked gently.
She blinked and looked at him, her eyes slowly focusing. “Yes. You’re the only one who could really understand, aren’t you? You know all about those...visions I used to get. That most of the audience saw at that rock concert.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“I’ve been getting them here on Mars, too. They won’t leave me alone. Especially since we saw that film, or whatever it was. Sometimes I see them superimposed on reality. They fill my dreams. I think I’m going mad—it’s like a sort of schizophrenia.
“The thing is, I’m sure they hold the answer to all this. To everything we’ve discovered here, perhaps. There must be some connection—mustn’t there?
“If only I could get a handle on them. They cluster at the edges of my mind, but I can’t grab them. Am I making sense?”
Her face was anguished, and he wanted to hold her close, and soothe her. But he just nodded again. “Yes. I think so.”
She tapped her blonde head. When she had left Earth her hair had been cropped quite short, but she had allowed it to grow much longer than regulation length despite the occasional difficulty of tucking it inside her helmet, and she now looked much more as she had done back in the days of the Gas Giants. “It’s all in here,” she said. “And there must be a reason. I feel I shall never be at peace until I get at it. But how? How?”
“Have you ever thought of hypnosis?”
“Occasionally, yes. I don’t believe it would work on me.”
“I think it might. It’s much more widely accepted by the medical establishment than it was even twenty or thirty years ago. As long as it’s done by an expert, of course. It seems to be a way of reaching the subconscious, which may be just what you need. Come on—let’s find out.”
Without waiting for her to agree, he called: “Doc! Can you spare us a minute please?”
Lundquist looked up from the instrument case he was checking and reloading. “What’s the problem? Not birth control?”
Beaumont and Aurora looked at other blankly, then burst out laughing. Such matters had been so far from their thoughts. “Oh, no—I’ve had my shots!” said Aurora. “I’m due for a booster soon though, as I expect you know.”
Beaumont said: “Are you any good at hypnosis, Doc?”
“Hypnosis?” It was Lundquist’s turn to look blank for a moment. They explained the situation.
“As a matter of fact, I did dabble with it a bit when I was a student. Enough to know it can work, anyway. OK, I’m willing to give it a go, if you are. How about tonight? If you’re going to come up with a revelation, it’s best if everyone is around to hear, isn’t it?”
“We-ell....”
Aurora looked doubtful, but finally agreed.
* * * *
There was an air of expectancy as the team gathered in the Refectory that night. Out of deference to Aurora’s wishes, Lundquist had started his attempt with only Aurora and her husband in the room. Beaumont had spent a little time briefing the doctor on what he knew of the key moments in her life, and had lent him his pendulum to use as a point of focus for Aurora’s eyes.
It took only seconds of Lundquist’s chanted litany—“You are feeling tired. Your eyes are tired and heavy. Tired and heavy. Heavy as lead....”—before Aurora was under.
Beaumont beckoned to Orlov, who was awaiting his cue, and the rest filed in quietly.
Lundquist seemed uncertain how to proceed. “What is your name?”
“I have no name. But I am known as Aurora.”
“Where were you born, Aurora?”
“On the Second Home.”
/>
“What is the Second Home? Where is it?”
A pause. “I—don’t know. It just is.”
Robert abandoned that line of questioning. “Aurora, you are ten years old. Where are you?”
In a little-girl voice, Aurora said: “I’m at school at Nairn. We’re going to see Granny Petrie on Sunday.” Her face visibly paled. “I—don’t want to think about that—”
Her eyelids flickered, and it seemed that she was about to wake up.
Hastily, Lundquist said: “That’s all right, you don’t have to. Aurora, it is June, 1972. You are on stage, playing in a concert with a group called the Gas Giants. What do you see?”
“Faces. A sea of faces. Swaying, like the waves. They are all looking at me. I am playing music, and they like it, they want to be part of it, part of me. We are all part of one. No, not all. Some are not able to be part of the whole; their minds are not open. That is sad.”
Her voice changed, became deeper. “But now everyone is happy. It is the Music Festival, and everyone is always happy at the MusicFest. I see the Two Mountains. The people walk among trees and ferns, along the waterways. Everyone joins in the Music. Not all play an instrument. But I do. I am a Musician.” She sounded proud.
Robert interrupted. “Aurora, where are you now?”
“Why, on the Second Home, of course. But my name is not Aurora. My name is...is....
“Father!”
Abruptly, her eyes opened wide, and a look of such incredible pain and loss suffused her face that the others had to look away, not wishing to intrude on her private grief. She hid her face in her hands and for some minutes her body was racked by sobs. Beaumont tried to put an arm about her and draw her to him, but she did not respond. The moment passed, but Aurora was now fully awake.
Refusing further hypnosis, at least for that night, she stumbled off to bed, white-faced. Her husband followed her, trying to speak reassuring nothings to her.
The others remained, talking among themselves.
DISRUPTION
The next morning Aurora was depressed.
“I was a failure, wasn’t I?” she said to Beaumont.
“Not at all,” he replied. “That session was invaluable. We learnt things we didn’t know. Like the fact that some of your memories—perhaps implanted memories?—are not yours but those of someone else, perhaps your own father’s. Or was it a ‘Father’ in the religious sense?”
“No. I don’t think so. I felt better after I’d had a cry. But I know it’s still in here.” She tapped her temple in frustration. “How the hell are we going to get at it, Bryan?”
“I’ve had an idea about that. But I’ll tell you about it later. I want to think on it a bit more.”
Orlov came in from the comm desk. He did not look very pleased.
“Mission Control want us to go back to Camp One,” he said without preamble. The other team-members raised their heads. “They say there’s nothing more we can achieve here, with the equipment we have on hand, and we could do more harm than good if we continued to poke around. Oh, not in so many words did they say that, but it’s what they meant. They’d like us to continue with our original scientific program until it’s time for us to return. Work on the alien ship will continue when the next team of so-called experts arrives. How do you become an expert on alien human life? That they could not answer me!
“It shows how much they know. They wanted us to take the Beacon back to Earth with us. I said, in the first place it seems locked in position inside the ship now, and in the second it appears to be essential for operating many of the mechanisms on the ship. That’s not all. Only Aurora has been able to operate it. They’ve been putting out appeals on all the media, on every channel, every e-group, for anyone who resembles Aurora in physical appearance, or has had any kind of experience with ‘visions’, or has healing or regenerative powers, to come forward.
“They’ve had to stop that. They’re blaming me. Well, it’s true I did suggest it—but they would have thought of it anyway, wouldn’t they? Of course, every crank has been coming forward. Some bleached their hair. One even wore a long wig!
“They couldn’t afford not to check any of them out, of course, just in case there is a genuine alien among them. But they have drawn a blank.”
What Orlov said next surprised Aurora.
“How do you fancy staying here on Mars, Aurora? Or at least coming back here very soon?”
She turned a worried face towards him, not sure if he was joking or not.
Orlov did not seem to notice, but continued: “Robert, they want you to seal up the woman’s body, making sure it’s totally airtight, and one of the babies, complete in its capsule. We are to bring them back to Earth. It may mean taking fewer rock samples with us than the original plan demanded, but that’s taking second place now, of course.
“They actually seem serious about a couple of us staying on the surface. They’re looking into the logistics of it at the moment. They’ll probably ask for volunteers, but....”
He turned to Aurora again.
“There will probably be a gap of only a month or so between us leaving and the next team arriving. Mars has a really high priority—at last. I’m afraid the military are in on the act—will they never learn?—but at least it means they are putting all their efforts into their new high-energy booster, and all our governments have high hopes for what they’ll learn from the advanced technology we’ve got down here. Oh yes—Bryan, you’ll probably be pleased to know that the next mission will make a stop-over on Phobos. It seems some scientists are taking seriously your idea—only they’re calling it their idea, no surprises there—that Phobos might be the mother ship, a hollow asteroid ark left in a parking orbit.
“Well, I think that’s about all. It’s enough, isn’t it? We have our orders. Start breaking camp.”
* * * *
Rover 1 was only half-an-hour from the landing site when an emergency signal blinked on its dashboard. It meant a message had come in from Earth which was so important that it needed attention at once and couldn’t wait until they got back to base, so had been relayed to the rovers.
Orlov flipped a switch.
Aurora, who had been dozing as she bounced in her seat over the rocky ground, woke to hear Bill Emmart’s voice begin talking, fast and urgently:
Mission Control to Orlov. You will need to act immediately; this message will be delayed reaching you because that duff relay satellite will be the one overhead to you when it arrives. I’ll keep sending, so that one of the others will receive it.
Our orbiting solar and X-ray telescopes have shown an increase in radiation levels from the Sun. Could mean an SPE. It might be nothing, but signs are it’s gonna be a monster one, and the stream is heading your way. There’s been a big group of sunspots building up for a while.
Vitali, we suggest you start protecting the Hut the moment you get back. You know how. You’ll have an hour at most before levels get dangerous—if they do. We’ll be monitoring the situation, of course, and we’ll send you regular updates.
Good luck, guys! Over and out.
“Roger, Bill, we got your message,” said Orlov. “Bloody hell! What timing! Well there’s nothing we can do until we get back—then we’ll get right onto it. Keep us informed. Out.”
The team was already feeling tired and sweaty after their long drive, but an SPE—a Solar Particle Event—was an ever-present danger on a long mission such as theirs.
Orlov contacted Rover 2 and said: “Did you all hear that message from Earth?”
They had, and had woken Lundquist, since as physician he was likely to be needed if the flare did indeed prove to be a bad one.
Verdet said: “I know we were all briefed before the mission, but what are our chances, Doc?”
“It depends on a lot of factors. The atmosphere will only shield us to a small extent, but as long as we can get under cover we should be OK. Otherwise, there’s the risk of radiation sickness—bad sunburn, loss of hair. Ve
rdet—you all know the score.... Plus a greater chance of getting cancer in future—the hazard of that is twice as high for you women. Sorry about sexual equality and all that, girls, but that’s the way it is.”
Nobody laughed.
At last the two rovers, separated by only a few hundred meters, came into view of Base Camp. The Sun was setting almost directly behind the conical Lander, and the two half-tanks which formed their living- and working-quarters glittered golden in the evening light. As the Sun sank, the glow leaked rapidly from the sky, whose color passed through a sequence of amber, rose, magenta, ultramarine, and finally near-black. Stars sprang into view as if flicked onto a dark canvas by an invisible brush.
When the Sun rose again, its light could well be accompanied by a hail of particles and electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths as a shock-wave in the solar wind exploded in their direction.
As she stepped down from Rover 1, Aurora arched backward, hands on hips, trying to ease her cramped neck-muscles. As she did so, stars moved across her field of view, through the transparent faceplate. “I wonder which one it is?” she mused aloud. “Is it even in our universe at all?”
It took some time to unload all their equipment and surplus stores. The precious Mylar tubes which contained the female astronaut and the dully gleaming cocoon holding the baby were taken into the stores section, where the temperature was kept uniformly low by the simple expedient of its having a silvered outer skin to reflect the light and heat from the Sun.
As decreed by the Mission Plan for such an emergency, the first thing they did to protect themselves was to unroll the Blimp and spread it out. Next, the big elevators—wings, effectively—which served as fins for steering in flight, and were separate compartments, had to be pumped full of water from the electrolysis plant. While they were away, this had filled a large tank and shut itself off automatically. The fins were then positioned, with difficulty, to where they would give the best shielding effect outside the Hut.
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