by T I WADE
“You should talk to your wife and Mr. Rose next time to see them, VIN,” Dr. Martin suggested. “Cryobiology is a big, new, growing field. Cryosurgery, operations at low temperatures, is big in medicine today, especially to do with cancers.”
“Cryoelectronics,” added Igor. “Research regarding superconductivity at low temperatures. Of course! These guys must know about cryogenics. Stupid me!”
“I believe we could also be dealing with cryonics here, doctors,” added Ryan.
“You think so?” asked Dr. Nancy excitedly. “Mr. Jones, hurry up, get us down there.”
“Yes, Doctor Lady. We will all be frozen corpses if I fly any more erratically,” stated Jonesy, smiling at the conversation.
“So you think my sixth sense is telling me there are frozen, living people in that room?’ VIN asked in amazement.
“Frozen dead people, frozen living people, or frozen blood, or frozen food, it could be any one of a dozen possibilities, VIN,” Dr. Nancy replied from above.
“Well whatever is in there, is frozen,” replied the Marine thinking that the hairs on his neck were still telling him that there was something alive in there.
“Maybe it’s the crews’ pets,” suggested Jonesy in his “cold” humored way. “Maybe the trip was so long that they froze their dogs and cats so that they wouldn’t be too old before they reached Saturn or Jupiter.”
“A reasonably good suggestion, Mr. Jones,” replied Dr. Nancy sarcastically, “but the cost of cryonics is a little steep for Fluffy and Brutus to be given extra life. It could be a human transportation system, or just a frozen blood bank, or meat locker. These orbital trips do take longer than your average frozen food lifespan, so hurry up and get us down there or I will invite your best friend, Dr. Martha, to join us next time,” remarked the pretty doctor knowing the astronaut’s failing. The men smiled at her remark.
Seven hours later Jonesy brought the shuttle in for a perfect landing. Ryan and the others were on top watching for the shuttle to pierce the shield. It was almost impossible to see it through the shield.
Without any vibrations, the shield was pierced and the shuttle touched down; Jonesy closed her engines down and Allen opened the side hatch to allow the two doctors out of the cockpit.
While the doctors got a tour of the inner dome and its beautiful vegetable gardens and flower beds, VIN helped Jonesy and Allen take out the one piece of cargo, the doctor’s emergency canister.
An hour later the door into the central room was opened and VIN, Igor, the two doctors and Ryan went inside, shivering in the icy cold temperature. Boris and Fritz closed the door behind them and Igor turned on the inside batteries, which brought the lights on and would warm the rooms.
“Currently minus 39 degrees in this room, and same temperature is showing in the new room, the door is still open,” remarked Igor. “Both rooms are warming quickly though, temperature already risen to minus 36 degrees. It is safe to go into the hospital room without suits, but it is going to be icy cold. I suggest we wait a few minutes, minus 34 and rising.”
The doors to the control room and power room had been closed all the time so that there wasn’t any danger to these important rooms. They would have lost power and light, but using the small hand mirrors, these two rooms could be opened and closed at will.
It was the first time Dr. Nancy had been down to the surface. She had spent most of her time researching the pregnancy problem, and had very little interest in being an actual astronaut. She was the only person aboard who expressed no interest in wearing a spacesuit; now that she didn’t need to, she was interested in going anywhere.
VIN led the way into the new room several minutes later, the first time without his spacesuit on. The temperature was now a little warmer; minus 11 degrees.
Nothing had changed. The air smelled very faintly like a hospital, but it was so cold that all smells were masked. There was no smell of rotting flesh, or anything other than chemicals hitting his nose.
He looked around, so did Ryan and the two doctors with the others peering in over their shoulders.
“Certainly a place I want to spend the rest of my life in,” remarked Dr. Nancy excitedly, her warm breath clouding the room. “Look Martin, scalpels! Look how long their blades are, three times the length we use. Over there, knives, monitors, bandages. This place does look like a hospital. That two-man saw over there reminds me of operations done on pirate ships. Why would they have that in here? Okay, Mr. Noble show us what you think is in here. Let’s start with those dials, and don’t touch anything.”
VIN saw what the doctor was looking at. On the counter top in the far opposite corner of the room were 12 dials about four inches across, and a control board with what looked like 12 round push-buttons with different colors. VIN noticed the same three lights on three of the center buttons as were on the cabinet wall; one was red and blinking, and two were green. The others were nearly colorless, but slightly pink. He looked at the 12 sealed cabinets in the far side wall and the lights corresponded.
“I think that three of these twelve cabinets are the same type of pull-out cabinets we found on Mars and here on DX2017. They are the same as the cabinets in which we found the three suited astronauts in heaps of dust; however, these have lights controlling them, or at least showing temperatures inside them. Doctors, I believe they are much the same cabinets one would find in a morgue. Except these have actual glowing lights on them, the first time I’ve seen that,” VIN remarked.
The whole team edged into the room carefully. The room was large, big enough to hold a dozen people, and they all looked towards the gauges.
“Temperature gauges; I agree with VIN,” Igor said. “The two with green lights are showing correct temperatures, I hope; the others, I assume, are red for below optimal temperature, or pink for much lower than optimal zero or could be in the ‘off’ position. Also, there are four large cumbersome air tanks on the other side, about 500 pounds of liquid nitrogen per tank I would guess. Not enough for 10,000 years. I’m sure they must have spares, or larger tanks somewhere else in this system. That means three cabinets per tank, and maybe the tanks are interactive, and one of the tanks is still controlling the three cabinets with the green lights.
“Good, then if we coordinate these little codes around the gauges we could decipher the numbers,” Ryan said. “VIN bring Fritz in here, he has studied these hieroglyphics more than anybody.
VIN came back with an excited Fritz a few seconds later. The others stood back and discussed what they had seen while the German studied the 12 dials, pulled out a small notebook and tried to take notes. His pen didn’t work because it was too cold, so he pulled out a small cell phone-size video camera from a temperature protective bag he had brought along, and got in a dozen close-up photos before the camera froze. While he was doing that the others chatted, condensation rising with every word.
“I believe it won’t hurt to bring this room up to normal heat,” suggested Nancy Martin. That is an operating table, the counter over there. I looked underneath the counter, and it has folded up legs, and I believe the counter can be pulled out from the wall. It is a space-saving system I guess. But they couldn’t do operations in here is these cold temperatures, that is my point.”
“Also, if they are the usual five foot long cabinets, the end of the cabinets would be about two feet in from the inside cavern wall next to the door; the area where there wasn’t a door in the cavern wall. Now we know. It was exactly the same in the cavern on Mars. I bet each one of their bases has one of these systems.” added VIN. “I bet we left a lot of vital information on Mars.”
“These three cabinets showing lights are probably sealed from opening manually,” suggested Ryan. “Igor, try one of the other ones. Nancy what is the optimal temperature for cryogenics?”
“Between minus 150 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperatures is still argued over between scientists, but I believe any temperature over 150 degrees will do.”
“Well it is minu
s 3 degrees in here now,” stated VIN. “The cold is dissipating out to the whole underground system and its going to take days to heat it to above freezing temperatures again.”
“We can sleep outside in the balmy 60 degrees up there,” Ryan said. “In Nevada I always slept better in the winter months anyway.”
For the next cold hour every piece of equipment was inspected. Igor began by pulling one of the non-lit bottom draws open. They were surprised to find paper-type bags of what looked like seeds, hundreds of them. Ryan asked Fritz to carefully pick up a couple of the bags of seeds and put them in his temperature-controlled bag. Jonesy, still waiting for them inside the dome on the surface, could take them up to Suzi, Martha and Petra to begin researching.
The second cabinet, still extremely cold, had an icy vapor rising out of it even in the sub-zero conditions of the room, when it was opened. The cabinet was packed full of what again looked like two hundred bags of seeds, each bag about the size of a fist. The third bottom drawer contained the same.
“Must be their long-term freezer space. At 150 minus, these supplies should last longer than we could ever imagine,” Dr. Nancy stated. The next line of cabinets was where the lights were and Ryan suggested that they leave it for last.
The third line even surprised the medical staff. All three cabinets contained glass vials of what looked like pills and powders found in a pharmacy. Most glass used on Earth would crack open at such cold temperatures. The glass containers were in several sizes, and looked like perfectly formed, transparent hand grenade cases. Of most importance, each vial had a label on it; the chemists could analyze the contents, and then likely decipher the writing.
As each cabinet was opened, VIN took the temperature with a hand-held thermometer. In every cabinet the temperature was minus 145 degrees. They opened all nine of the cabinets that had no lights, or faint pink lights, on the handles, and each one held much of the same, either bags, or glass vials.
“A little warm for cryogenics,” mentioned Nancy Martin, whose teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Maybe the system is slowly running out of power?” suggested VIN.
Ryan ordered three samples from each cabinet to be put inside Fritz’s bag. They closed all the cabinets, left the area, closed the outer door from the cavern, went back up through the now very cold caverns, and returned to the warmth of the dome. The walls would warm up the caverns while they slept outside, and VIN was sure the long-drop toilet didn’t smell anymore, it was damn cold down there.
Jonesy was given the bag with the samples; he and Allen readied for takeoff, and headed up through the shield and back to America One.
VIN had to prevent Nancy Martin from falling over as the mining craft exited the dome; she looked pale and unsteady. The lower gravity the astronauts were used to on DX2017 was having an effect on the pretty doctor.
The next day was the big day. During the rest period, both doctors discussed what they had seen with Ryan and Igor, while the others slept, or cooked food. Fritz studied the words on his camera that he had carefully defrosted. He didn’t sleep a wink.
Ryan radioed Captain Pete and ordered Maggie and Michael Pitt to transport Doctors Martha Von Zimmer and Petra Bloem to the surface; they were the two astro-biologists who would be most interested in any alien or human remains. He was also sure that this was the day he had waited for all his life: to be the first human to find an alien life form, even if they did come from Earth. Who cared!
The incoming flight would take ten hours, so Ryan decided to wait for the incoming doctors. They were bringing better cameras, and the slowly rising temperatures below should allow them to photographically record this historic event.
Twelve hours later, VIN entered the new room. Nothing had changed, except that the two green lights were now blinking green lights, and the red light had stopped blinking. Something had changed due to the rise in temperature. It was a toasty 15 degrees above freezing in the outer rooms; the heating system was working at full power he guessed.
“I bet that the natural coldness down here has helped the depleted nitrogen tanks keep the cabinets within a cryonic temperature field for the extended time,” Dr. Nancy theorized as they entered the room. “Now that the tanks are probably empty and it is warming up in here, the lights are showing internal temperature changes.”
“I’m sure that the whole cryonic system is automated, to warm the internal cabinets to return whatever is in there, to normal temperature conditions and at the rates of warmth necessary,” said Ryan, and everyone nodded in agreement, none of them experts. “Let’s start with the cabinet with the red light. Red lights are not normally good, so whatever is in there, has already redlined, shall we say.”
This cabinet refused to open. There was only the one button they could push, the red one in the middle of one of the 12 temperature dials on the wall. Ryan pressed it and as he did, the lights dimmed in the room. Power from their nuclear battery, a lot of power, was diverted away from the walls to the cryonic system and was transferred to one red dial on the wall; it started to glow brightly. Rapid, sharp vibrations like an earthquake were felt through the floor. It was quite soothing on the feet, and VIN knew in which direction to dig next.
The light in the room dimmed, and the vibrations continued for over an hour before the cabinet with the red light suddenly shot open in a cloud of gas and vapor. As it did, an alarm somewhere began a horrible noise.
All eyes were on the smoking cabinet and the air began to really smell of chemicals and stale air. It took several seconds for the cloud of vapor to dissipate, revealing a space suit and helmet; exactly the same suit and helmet VIN had found in the first cabinets on Mars. Except that this suit had a whole body in it, not a pile of dust, and it looked very pale, and dead.
“Homo Floresiensis!” exclaimed Martha and Petra together.
“It is an exact replica of drawings in our biology reports,” added Martha.
“I would say dead and dead for a long while, by the degradation of the skin and its color,” added Dr. Nancy Martin.
“Mr. Noble, Mr. Warner,” said Ryan calmly, “can we detach the whole cabinet from the wall? I’m sure it would be better to take this body up to America One in the cabinet.”
VIN and Fritz pulled the cabinet as far as it would go. They had done the same on Mars to see how they were installed. The spider would be needed to cut through four metal frames to detach the whole thing from the wall. There were also several hollow metal pipes to detach before the body and cabinet would be free. Igor suggested that since the occupant, about five feet tall, was already dead, a few more minutes, or weeks in the wall wouldn’t matter, as detaching the pipes could be a dangerous task releasing nitrogen and any compressed air. They shut the cabinet and the alarm stopped. It was time to press the next button, the first one with a green blinking light.
Dr. Rogers had their doctors’ bags open and their contents already laid out on the floor and side counters by the time Ryan pressed the second button.
The same happened; the lights dimmed, the floor vibrated, but much harder and for three hours instead of one.
“Having to defrost from a lower temperature, I bet,” said Dr. Martin.
It seemed that the changes inside this cabinet demanded more power; the walls were nearly dark and more power was added from the battery, before the same cloud of vapor erupted from the cabinet as it automatically shot open.
Again alarms everywhere went off but then stopped instead of continuously blaring as they had done on the first cabinet. To the group avidly watching, it seemed an eternity before the cloud dissipated to allow the crew to stare into the cabinet.
They were surprised that the suited body was less than four feet tall, and it was still vibrating, much the same as the floor had done a minute or so earlier. The small body in a helmet and spacesuit, with the same soft tubes attached to the helmet was vibrating like Jell-O in an earthquake.
“Igor, Boris, pull out the operating table from the side wall q
uickly,” Dr. Rogers ordered. “Nancy, light up the defibrillator, give me an ampule of smelling salts, also the small oxygen bottle and facemask out of the canister. Martha, do you remember how to take off the helmet?”
Martha immediately grabbed the helmet, and like all the helmets these blue suited people used quickly unscrewed the ring around the neck area “It comes off just like ours,” she stated, “but we turn the ring a couple of 360 degree turns instead of our helmets’ 50 turns.”
“Table is out, and legs down,” stated Boris.
“Gently pick up the body when Martha has the helmet off and place it flat on the table,” ordered Dr. Rogers, grabbing for equipment in the canister.
Carefully, Martha removed the helmet while Nancy gently lifted up the top half of the body. “It looks like a child, maybe a boy,” said Martha, and the crew gathered on each side and six pairs of hands gently lifted the small body out of the cabinet and side-walked over to lay the body on the operating table. VIN could see the face. He was holding the body underneath the shoulders and saw the small face of what looked like a boy, a brown native boy. The boy’s face didn’t look like a normal face, it had no chin, and the face was square underneath the mouth. The nose was petite and small, and the ears looked normal, but big, slightly larger than an adult’s ears. Also there was very short, curly blond hair on his head.
VIN looked carefully at the eyes, and he saw them begin to flicker faster than the vibrating body.
“Nancy check inside the nose and ears,” ordered Dr. Rogers. “I’ll look inside the throat to make sure that the throat is clear. Check for blocked passages, I read somewhere that the body needs to be plugged, and sealed for this sort of thing, but I’m not sure. Martha, grab the large scissors, see if we can cut this suit off his upper body.”
“I’m sure I see eye flicker,” VIN said while Dr. Martin completed her checks, pulling gauze, or what looked like plugs out of both ears and nostrils, while Dr. Rogers pulled the same material out of the back of the child’s throat with forceps.