The argument remained whether doing so would be safe. The risk of contamination still seemed low, but Bridget thought that was an argument from ignorance. Alien spores that could survive a vacuum would be—alien. Until they learned more, it was pure speculation whether a pathogen or an opportunistic spore was present and viable in an Earth-like atmosphere.
They’d have more knowledge soon. She focused on the cycling of the engineered-in-place air lock. She watched for the signal that the Dhin field was powered off long enough for her to move from their ship’s side to the second air lock chamber. An engineer with her would make the temporary attachments to achieve the needed seal, then detach them once she’d moved on to the next chamber. Her cart and equipment were safely through, and the engineer then sealed the port behind her. The cylindrical light above the portal flashed yellow, then turned red.
She felt her weight vanish, and the cart drifted slightly up from the floor.
Whoa.
Bridget wasn’t an astronaut. She hadn’t had more than a brief lecture on spaceflight and some safety protocols. She only knew what to expect from a few carnival rides. Zero gravity was strange. She knew she’d have help. The whole team was here, and some of them were astronauts. That didn’t make the feeling any less strange. She focused on the cables and handholds attached to the walls and floor ahead of her. It would be easier for her than it had been for Thys.
She attached a ring on the cart to one of the cables and a ring on her belt to a short belay line attached to another cable. She only fumbled a bit and was able to right herself more easily than she expected. The work lights set up along with the safety lines cast a patchwork of gray shadows out into the curved chambers and passages that extended away into the alien craft.
Bridget wasn’t alone in the ship. Ahead of her, a science team member busied himself scraping samples from the walls, while another moved a portable welder farther along the passageway. She knew that yet another two deeper in the ship worked with drills and clamps, setting spikes and loops for the belay lines.
Remembering protocol, she opened the communication channel and said, “Team, this is Exobiologist Crist. I’m on derelict one. Proceeding toward the first sample location.”
Focusing on the use of the belay lines to move herself down the corridor, she made easier progress by the minute. Her ultimate destination was farther into the ship. The safety lines and lights would be there, but that was where they would stop. In that hallway, with the alien corpses. The curving passageways made using the belay lines a sequential process rather than something like click and go.
As the passage curved up or around, they had set additional anchors to keep the lines close to the floor or wall. Otherwise, the line would end up in the middle of the passageway, and while you would be able to pull yourself along, there would be no simple way to grab a handhold or foothold. So the frequent anchors that kept the belay line close to a surface also meant more work. You had to disconnect the carabiner and reconnect it at every anchor point.
Bridget found herself getting into the rhythm of it. She found she’d reached the passageway that led to the alien corpses sooner than she expected. There they were, floating in the passageway, just as they’d been in the video and stills from Thys’s initial discovery.
“Team, Crist here. I’m at the first location. Setting up the portable lab equipment now.”
Her gaze kept returning to the two alien corpses as she anchored the cart and prepared the sample containers, tool kits, and the like. She’d have to restrain the aliens too; otherwise they would move about once she touched them when she examined them more closely and took samples. She had webbing and lines for that. Would the desiccated tissues crumble at even the lightest touch? Would she need to scramble to catch pieces in bags and containers? First, she’d make an initial examination without touching them.
“Crist again. I’m approaching the alien bodies now for initial assessment and to restrain them.”
The alien body’s surface showed evidence of desiccation in some places. Other areas looked stiffer. She had examined the video from Thys’s first encounter repeatedly, but seeing the body firsthand brought a renewed thrill. They weren’t like anything found on Earth, but of course that was what you’d expect. Still, there were aspects that were analogous. They had four limbs. They had some parts that looked like they would be eyes. There was something that could be a mouth. Then again, either of those could be sex organs. That the being had a mouth and eyes was an assumption. A reasonable assumption, but still an assumption. Some of the skin was bumpy. Some was smoother. She examined all she could with the corpse in its current position.
Now to keep them in place. First one, then the other. She carefully stretched out the mesh fabric and placed it around the body. Bridget held her breath, only exhaling when the netting touched the alien and she saw that it didn’t crumble into dust or break into tiny pieces.
After securing the fabric and attaching it to three lines, she took out the other fabric and performed the same task for the other corpse.
“Alien bodies secured,” she said and gave a sigh of relief.
She opened a sample container, held in place with Velcro, and used forceps and a scalpel to cut a section from the tip of the alien’s head. It was different from almost all animal tissues she’d worked with. Other than the desiccation, though, it was well preserved as far as she could tell. She didn’t expect that these aliens would normally survive in a vacuum. The damaged organs, whether they were eyes or something else, seemed to confirm that.
Bridget made a few more cuts and took more samples, then struck something hard. Very hard. She pulled apart the tissue above that location and saw that she’d hit not bone, but something very different.
Crystalline. That looks like quartz. And is it glowing?
“Hey, team? Are you seeing this? Over.”
Jeff
The stars faded back into view. Jeff watched them brighten and felt his weight return. He checked the navigation computer to validate his location. He did so as a matter of procedure, as there was no reason to doubt that he’d arrived where he intended. Sure enough, the coordinates showed he was at Gliese-667. He checked his controls and instruments, then activated his mic.
“Control, I’ve arrived at Gliese-667. Drive and support systems all look good. I’m entering the in-system coordinates now for my survey of the system. When complete, I’ll make my approach to the target planet, Gliese-667Cc. Over.”
“Roger, Jeff,” said Thys. He’d taken on the role of Control for this mission, as there was no guarantee that Jake would be in place and have the communication channel open.
“The good news is that there’s no sign of a gravity trap or a graveyard full of alien spaceships, I’d say.”
“True enough,” said Thys.
Several hours later, Jeff had made his first orbit around the planet. While there were high-quality optics in the external cameras, the ship carried nothing like an orbital telescope. To get a good look at the planet, low orbit would only be part of the effort. He knew he’d have to do several below-orbit circuits to capture what the planet’s surface held.
“Control, you can confirm from the feeds that there’s no sign of satellites here. Launching our own now.”
With the prohibition on advanced drones with even rudimentary AI, the satellite did far less than it might have. It provided simple weather radar and video information. Jeff’s exploratory craft didn’t have the cargo capacity to carry a full-size, full-featured satellite. That delivery might come later, depending on what they discovered. The teams on the station back in Earth’s orbit had significant resources, but not the manufacturing capability. They had just a few of these simpler tools for now.
Jeff double-checked his craft’s conditions. Launching the small satellite required temporarily disabling the Dhin field. Given the protective nature of the field, that launch held a higher risk than most anything he might do. With the field down, he was vulnerable.
<
br /> He knew he could immediately reactivate the field and head home, but this operation still had his adrenaline pumping.
Check radar. Visual inspection. All clear. Check drive status. Field off. Check drive status again. Release probe safety. Launch probe. Field on. Check field status.
The launch went off without a problem.
“I’m descending from low orbit, starting the series of circumnavigations now.”
Jeff could only provide a visual inspection, but the data feeds from his cameras and instruments would provide far more information and detail to the science teams back at the station.
After several passes, he’d confirmed something unexpected.
“Control, we’d thought 667Cc might be tidally locked, but I’m seeing rotation. Can someone on the geo team confirm?”
“Roger, we’re seeing that too. It’s slow, but it’s rotating. That’s exciting. And that’s an understatement.”
“I’m seeing what looks like water ice at the poles, just to state the obvious. There wouldn’t be anything else frozen at the temperatures we expect. We’ll see. The mission plan suggests going down there. I’d really like to confirm the temperature range. We have an estimate of around four degrees Celsius, if my notes are correct. Am I a go to get a closer look?”
“Roger, Jeff, you are a go. Let’s see what’s down there,” said Thys.
Jeff switched the flight controls to manual and began his descent past the Karman line and into the planet’s atmosphere.
The star that acted as this planet’s sun hung large in the sky. It looked huge to Jeff, as big as four suns maybe, or even five. Despite it being what would be midmorning, the light was dim. He didn’t know exactly what they’d find, but he personally didn’t expect there to be a sprawling alien civilization with cities, flying cars, and the like. Some scientists seemed to. The possibilities were there, bouncing around in discussions. The existence of the Dhin, and now the discovery of those ships with at least one type of different alien than the Dhin, charged some scientists with an unruly optimism regarding the amount of alien life out there.
Granted, this planet was in the directory. Scientists just had no idea why.
He wasn’t here to get out, walk around, take air and soil samples, plant flags, and so forth. He’d drop a small probe that would do some of that, then head onward. There were other planets and two other stars in this local star system.
A few more circuits of the planet, and he’d be done here. Then he saw it. Something artificial and definitely alien. A set of broad and deep canyons and valleys, like an interconnected set of strip mines. And there were structures. At the edges of the excavated areas, there were tall structures. Maybe twice the size of humanity’s tallest skyscrapers. They looked something like geometric stalagmites.
“Control, look what we just found,” he said.
“Roger, Jeff. Wow. OK, this is the first stuff we’ve seen planetside. Everything else has been in space.”
“Heading for it now for closer inspection.”
“Roger. I’m going to alert our exobiologist. She’s busy here, but she’ll want to know. Bridget, if you have a minute, switch on the AV feed from the mission to Gliese-667. It’s on channel six. You’ll want to see this.”
After a moment, they heard the exobiologist’s voice. Jeff didn’t know her. He saw her name pop up when she spoke. Bridget Crist.
“Hi. Wow, so we’ve found something on a planet. Buildings, and, well—those look like strip mines? Those excavations? Over.”
“Hello, Dr. Crist,” said Jeff. “Nice to meet you. Yes, it does look like that. I guess they weren’t big on environmentalism. I’m heading over for a closer look. Maybe it’s not what it looks like at first glance. Over.”
Jeff flew over the vast geometric holes in the rocky terrain. He made his initial pass at his current speed, planning to go slower and lower when he made a second circuit of the area.
“This is the first thing you’ve found that’s evidence of advanced alien life while there?” asked Bridget.
“Yes, but I haven’t covered the whole planet’s surface in my survey orbits. I was about seventy-five percent done with them when I saw this.”
“And there are just those structures then? There are just a few of them. They’re big but not like a city that’s supported by a big mine or something. No roads?”
“Not that I’ve seen. It looks like just these huge areas were strip-mined and these stalagmite-skyscrapers happened to be right next door. Unless the refineries or manufacturing used for them are underground or inside the buildings themselves, it’s not clear where all this material went.”
“Right,” interjected Thys. “A lot more material is missing than what it took to build those structures. Where did it go? There aren’t waste piles or anything.”
“OK,” said Jeff, “I’m going to slow down and make a pass at the structures. There isn’t any sign of lights, and I’m not picking up any electromagnetic communications, radar, or the like coming from them.”
He guided the craft toward the nearest of the towering structures. As he got closer, he could see a self-similarity in their structure. Diamond-shaped sections were subdivided into smaller diamond shapes, which from this distance seemed to have a crosshatched texture that he suspected would resolve into smaller diamond shapes as he flew closer. The color, now that he was close, was a dark gray, like hematite or graphite.
Then he saw it begin to move.
“Hey! The surface of this thing is moving! It just started shifting, all over.”
The movement sped up, and then he saw a few, then dozens of, dart-shaped pieces of the tower spalling away and then turning toward him. They looked glossy now and black, like their color had changed from graphite to used motor oil. Jeff had no time to ponder that. Then there were hundreds. More than a flock, it was a massive swarm. His jaw dropped.
“Thys! Control! I’m getting out of here! This doesn’t look friendly!”
Jeff swerved around in a path directly opposite the surging swarm. He accelerated and continued pushing the thrust control to continually increase that acceleration.
The Dhin engine was fast. And accelerated faster than anything humanity had ever built. He looked at the rearview image. He was fast, but maybe not fast enough. The swarm appeared to be gaining on him. He maxed his acceleration.
“Thys? I’ll be in orbit in a minute, but these things seem to be keeping pace. They speed up as I do. They may catch up with me before I get out to N-dimensional translation distance. Before I can jump.”
He looked at the rearview monitor, then brought up a radar image.
“They’re definitely getting closer. I’ve got to change course to head directly away from Gliese-667c—to get to translation distance in the shortest time.”
“Roger, Jeff. Hang in there. You’ll get faster as you get farther away.”
“It may not be enough. Radar shows them gaining on me.”
The minutes crawled by. Jeff tried not to fixate on the radar display that showed the swarm moving continually closer.
He ran the numbers. It didn’t look good.
“Thys, these things are going to catch up with me before I get far enough out to jump away.”
“Roger. Well, they haven’t shot at you, but they haven’t stopped pursuit, and you’re well away from that planet’s orbit. So far, it looks like they’re not going to stop till they catch you. I can’t see how slowing down or stopping is a better strategy than to keep trying to run from them. We don’t know; maybe they’ll give up at any time.”
“Maybe. Thanks for the thought. These things have to be powered by the same technology to go this fast. To keep up with me. And they’re still gaining on me.”
“The same, or something just like it.”
His pursuers were only clearly visible via radar and wide-spectrum infrared. He could see their presence when they occluded stars in his field of view, but the dart-shaped pursuers were a deep black, and there was very l
ittle light this far out from Gliese-667c.
His speed increased more and more, but the pursuers kept pace, still slowly closing the distance between them. Twenty minutes later, they were upon him.
“Thys, they’re here. They still haven’t shot anything at me. I don’t know what they’re going to accomplish with the Dhin field protecting me, but I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Jeff watched on the viewscreen as one of the ships, the size of a motorcycle, surged toward the rear of his ship and then touched, slowly spreading out like melting wax.
What the . . . ? How? How is that thing staying in contact with the field?
He watched, wide-eyed. Less than a minute later, another of the black spearheads reached his ship, attaching itself like a remora.
Then he saw an alert. The exterior of his ship. The damage sensors showed holes in the hull. Holes where the attackers had somehow penetrated the protective field.
“This is bad. Really bad, Control.”
Jeff knew there was nothing he could do as the glossy black shapes seeped through the field and continued to come through the titanium foam of his hull.
The field is still up. They’re just coming through it. Slowly, but coming through it. Then boring holes through the metal. Like the holes in the derelict in the graveyard.
“Thys, I think these things are what took out that ship your team is on.”
“Jeff, you’re likely right. You’ve got your suit on. You won’t be sucking vacuum.”
“But I’ve got nothing to fight with. Not that anything I’d have would be effective—Oh, hell! One of them’s through the hull. It’s in here!”
Jeff was strapped in, but there was nowhere to run even if he hadn’t been. He white-knuckle-gripped the controls and watched helplessly as the black shape surged through the widening hole in the hull, then shot forward and struck the Dhin engine.
The Power of the Dhin Page 20