by S A Pavli
It was just an hour later when Alden announced that the new system was fully mapped. There were two gas giants, and three inner rocky planets. The interest focused on the two Earth type planets. All the scientists were in the ‘Science Room’, with LeBlanc and Walters operating their equipment and fending off feverish questions.
“Two Earth type planets. That’s fantastic,” said Leslie to Melanie.
“They are both on the edge of the ‘Life Band’ though,” replied Melanie. ”One may be too hot and the other may be too cold. We may not be able to tell very much until we get much closer.” As if she had been heard, Mark’s voice on the intercom interrupted them.
“Attention everyone. Please take your positions for the next Warp jump. Miss Carstairs to the Bridge please.”
“Guys, the Captain will want to know which planet we should head for,” said Melanie, addressing the two scientists.
“Hard to say Melanie,” said Walters. “We are too far away to discriminate very much, but we do know there are signs of life from both planets. The closer planet to the sun shows very strong life signs.”
“OK, I’ll tell the Captain. He will probably want to take us to a position where we can examine both planets thoroughly.”
“That would be good,” agreed Walters.
As Melanie made her way to the Bridge, she could not help thinking how well insulated the staterooms and corridors of the Bounty Hunter were. You could be in a city centre apartment she thought, except for the lack of windows. Back in the Bridge, the hum of machinery, purposeful screens showing a mass of text and visual data and the crew, strapped into their well padded safety seats and murmuring clipped commands into their computer microphones, reminded Melanie forcibly that she was on a starship.
Melanie listened to the crew’s technical commands at the door before entering. I wonder if they are taught to speak in this fashion she mused, hearing their clipped commands. Pilots and astronauts all seem to be able to talk in this way, a sort of nonchalant short hand that outsiders could not emulate. Like doctors and their scrawled writing. Perhaps it’s a device to create a sort of professional mystique to baffle outsiders, she thought. I can’t complain, scientists are just as bad, she concluded.
“Ah miss Carstairs…,” Mark turned in his seat towards her.
“Captain, I wish you would call me Melanie like everybody else. I think we have all been together long enough to dispense with formality.” She blurted it out, then wondered why she had said it. She had been perfectly happy for the Captain to call her ‘Miss Carstairs’.
“Of course…um…Melanie. It would be a pleasure. First names all around.” She nodded and took her seat.
“We have two planets with life signs Miss… ah, Melanie,” said Mark. “Has your team considered which one we should go for first?”
“They are both good possibilities,” said Melanie. “How close can you take us in one jump?”
“As long as we stay above the plane of the ecliptic, about twenty million miles. We have to complete our journey using the AG Drive,” replied Mark.
Melanie nodded. Within inhabited systems, there were strictly monitored areas free of debris that ships could safely jump into. But in an uninhabited system, there was always an element of risk. Jumping into an area above the normal plane that the planets orbited, the so called ‘plane of the ecliptic’, reduced the possibility of encountering Space debris.
“Let’s try somewhere equidistant between the two planets? That will allow us to have a closer look,” said Melanie.
“OK.” Mark turned back to his console and began the countdown for the next jump. Melanie watched the back of his head thoughtfully, remembering Doctor Leslie’s outburst. She really has a crush on our Captain, she mused. Can’t blame her, he is charming and glamorous. The dashing young Captain, owner of his own starship no less. But there was more to him than that. His professionalism was beyond question and Melanie had found herself warming to that. He had not taken advantage of the beautiful young doctor’s infatuation, which was the main surprise for Melanie. Perhaps at the end of the trip he may allow himself to respond to her. She quickly suppressed the feeling of annoyance that came with that thought, telling herself she did not give a damn about other people’s sexual adventures.
Chapter 8
Major Pete Follet opened the message icon with mixed feelings. He knew who it was from, it had arrived just a few minutes earlier by Hyperspace Mail and been forwarded to him by Alden as part of his personal mail. The file was in code and he could only read the message after he had put it through the decoding program supplied by them. He clicked a few buttons and the decoded message appeared.
Major,
We have failed to get exploration rights to the star. We are trying again. In the meantime I am relying on you to sabotage Carstair’s mission, without putting anybody’s life at risk obviously. Disable the ship’s Hyperspace comms so that they can’s put in any claims. The Chameleon arrived three days ago but I have not heard from them for twenty four hours. They will claim to have equal exploration rights with Carstairs and if you do your job Carstairs won’t know any better until it’s too late.
Hippopotamus.
He had no idea of Hippopotamus real identity, and he did not want to know. He was being paid a great deal of money to do this, an amount of money that would allow him to set up his own company and get others to do the dirty work while he enjoyed the comforts of home. He had been approached by ‘H’ through an intermediary after being retained by Carstairs and had gladly sold them the information they needed. He had no qualms about double crossing his employer; these bastards are all billionaires he reasoned. Who cares which of them makes a few more billion, or who loses a few billion. They had launched the Chameleon five days before the Bounty Hunter to get the drop on Carstairs, but it looked as if their plan failed. They had failed to win the exploration rights to the ‘Elpida’ star.
He scowled and muttered curses. Disable their Hyperspace comms? Was he mad? But then, once the Space control centre at Adelphi lost contact with them, they would eventually send a rescue ship. So in theory, no risk. The intercom buzzed with the Captain’s voice.
“All passengers strap in for final warp jump.” The Major buckled himself in and waited.
“Prepare to exit Hyperspace. Three two one, energise.” The Major felt the momentary dislocation and his eyes went to the main view screen in the cabin. The stars were back on. He unbuckled himself and made his way to the ‘Science Room’ to join the others. What will they think when they find someone has beaten them to it he asked himself. The scientists were gathered around their equipment talking excitedly. Jimmy nodded to him amiably and the Major approached him.
“Hey Jimmy. Anything interesting?” he asked. Jimmy pursed his lips and frowned.
“Uh, I think they are getting stuff from Alden. About the two planets.”
“Right. No little green men yet?”
“Nope. No little one, big ones, green ones or any other colour.”
“Shame,” said the Major. “D’ye know, whoever is first to discover an alien civilisation can write their own cheque. Fame, fortune, everything.” Jimmy snorted in disbelief.
“Aliens! More likely to win the lottery.”
“Yeah, the odds are about the same,” grinned the Major. Alden’s voice came from the intercom.
“I have detected an object orbiting the moon of the inner planet.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. Jimmy looked at his commanding office with his jaw comically open and his eyes round with shock. The moment of silence was broken by a confused babble of voices as everyone suddenly recovered their wits. It was Melanie’s voice which eventually asserted itself.
“Quiet everyone please, one question at a time,” she shouted above the others and an unruly silence descended. “Alden, can you tell what kind of object it is?” she asked.
“The Captain has just asked the same question,” replied Alden. “The answer is no. We are too
distant to discriminate the nature of the object. However, I have broadcast a standard hailing signal on all recognised bands. I have received no response yet.” There was a muttered “shee-ite!” from Jimmy.
“How long would this response normally take to come back?” asked Melanie.
“If it was a human ship, its ship’s computer would respond immediately,” said Alden. There was a hiss of static and Mark’s voice came over the intercom.
“Attention everyone. We are investigating this object more closely. Please be patient for a while and we will update you as soon as we know more. It is possible that this object is a derelict or a ship that has been lost. We are searching our records to see if there has been any report like this in the past. For now don’t ask Alden any more questions. Thank you.”
“Ray, are we still receiving data from Alden?” asked Melanie. LeBlanc nodded, pointing to the data stream on the screen.
“It’s information about the planet and its moon,” he said. “Nothing on the mysterious object.”
“OK, let’s concentrate on the science for now and let the Captain try and sort out what this thing is. As he says, it’s probably a derelict or a lost ship.”
“There’s no sign of intelligent life on the planet,” said Walters. “No radio transmissions, no signs of cities or anything artificial.”
“So whatever this object is, it’s not from here,” said Melanie. Walters nodded his agreement and the scientists went back to examining their data streams.
The Major felt a twinge of guilt at his duplicity, but this was followed by a greater feeling of concern. Why had the Chameleon, and the mysterious object must surely be the Chameleon, not answered Alden’s hailing transmissions? Ship’s computers are programmed to follow procedures and the Chameleon’s computer could not fail to respond to the Bounty Hunter’s communication. He remembered ‘H’s instructions; disable Bounty Hunter’s Hyperspace Comms. All parts of the ship were permanently monitored by Alden. Any attempt by him to access a restricted area and tamper with equipment was bound to be noticed. But until he knew what had happened to the Chameleon, he decided, he was not about to sabotage the Bounty Hunter.
“I’ll go and see what is happening on the Bridge,” said Melanie standing to leave.
“I’ll join you I think,” said the Major. “Can’t do much here.” Melanie nodded and he followed her out of the Science room, along the corridor and up the stairs to the Bridge which was situated at the very top of the saucer shaped ship. The Captain and his Systems Engineer were both concentrating on one of the screens when they entered.
“Any news Captain?” asked Melanie. Mark turned and nodded to them.
“Come and look at this,” he said. “No, er…Alden, put this on the main view screen,” he added. The big screen lit up with an image of what were obviously the alien planet and its moon, shown symbolically with figures displaying their actual sizes and distances from each other. A speck of light was circling the moon.
“The target planet, slightly smaller than the Earth,” said Mark. “Its moon is also smaller, about half the size of Earth’s moon, and is further away, about half a million miles. The system is quite a few million miles older than the Earth system.” He pointed to the speck of light circling the moon.
“The alien object,” he explained. “It’s clearly artificial, with a very high reflective index. Obviously metallic. It’s in a low orbit, about twenty miles above the surface and its orbit is not stable.”
“Not stable?” asked Melanie. “How…?”
“Well, it’s not about to crash into the moon,” said Mark. “Not for a few years anyway. But it does mean that it has not been in this orbit for very long. If it’s a ship, it’s about the same size as the Bounty Hunter.”
“No response from it yet?” asked the Major.
“No. We can’t get much more info from this distance so we will be starting up the AG drive soon.”
“How long before we get there?” asked Melanie. She knew that the final few million miles must be travelled by AG drive. Warp was too dangerous in a crowded star system.
“Twelve hours or so,” said the Captain. “We should start getting much clearer data soon.” Melanie nodded.
“We’ll try to contain our curiosity.”
They both left the bridge, going their separate ways.
Meanwhile, although they could feel nothing, the ship accelerated heavily under the power of its AG drive. At turnaround, ten hours later, the AG drive reversed its polarity and the ship decelerated at a rate calculated to bring it into orbit about the alien moon. Both the crew and the ship’s passengers had taken a short sleep break, and Melanie found herself taking breakfast with an impatient pair of scientists.
“Come on James,” said LeBlanc, hovering impatiently by the door, still chewing on the remnants of his frugal breakfast.
“My old dad used to say, when you see food, you should eat. You never know when you’ll see it again,” said Walters shovelling in another spoonful of muesli. LeBlanc scowled at him.
“Where did your dad grow up? Ethiopia?”
“It’s a long time since they had a famine in Ethiopia,” pointed out Melanie.
“Did they actually have famines in Ethiopia?” asked LeBlanc. “I thought it was just a saying.”
“In the twentieth century,” said Melanie. “Or was it the twenty first?”
“Both,” said Walters.
“Where is Ethiopia anyway?” asked LeBlanc.
“For a genius, you are a very ignorant fellow,” said Walters.
“And for a thin man, you don’t half eat,” said LeBlanc.
“I’ve got a fast metabolism,” said Walters, taking a last mouthful of food and a slurp of his coffee before following LeBlanc out of the door. Melanie drank her coffee with a smile hovering over her lips. If I had to take a long trip with anybody she thought, I could do worse. Not just the two scientists but the whole team had made the trip entertaining and interesting. Apart from the little spat with Leslie over her infatuation with the Captain. I could have done without that she mused, although it seems to have passed. Since the incident, the Doctor had been friendly and relaxed with her, and seemingly in control of her emotions.
Melanie removed her breakfast from the microwave and poured herself a coffee. The hot food did not smell too unpleasant, it seemed to be pancakes with a mushroom filling and she was surprisingly hungry. She tried to think back to when she had last eaten; Their sleep patterns had become so irregular recently she could barely remember what day it was.
She was barely half way through her breakfast when the intercom blared.
“Melanie to the Bridge please.” She scowled as the message was repeated and taking a last gulp of her coffee she made her way to the Bridge. The Captain was there with Josephine.
“Ah, Melanie, hello,” said Mark with a nod in her direction. “I hope you slept well.”
“Very well thank you Mark. Ready to take on a few dozen nasty aliens.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary for now,” said Mark with a smile. Melanie gave him an inquiring look. “We think it’s a human ship,” he said.
“Someone got the jump on my father?” she asked, her dark eyes wide with disbelief.
“It would appear so, but we have still not received any communication from them,” said Mark.
“Perhaps they just don’t want to talk to us,” said Melanie. Mark shook his head in disagreement.
“Not possible,” he said. “The ship’s computer is programmed to give at least its ID, name, and the ship’s origin and destination. It’s Space law.”
“Mmm…could they have some sort of breakdown?” asked Melanie.
“If their computer has broken down, they can still transmit manually,” said Mark.
“Some sort of comms failure?” asked Melanie, looking inquiringly at Josephine. The engineer looked doubtful.
“We are talking radio frequencies, not hyperspace comms,” she said. “They must have some
sort of working transmitter on the ship. We have half a dozen.” There was silence while Melanie mulled this over.
“How far are we?” she asked eventually.
“We’ll be in synchronous orbit in a few minutes,” said Mark.
“Can we see them?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” said Mark. He clicked a button and a picture of a ship appeared on the wall screen.
“It’s a Centaur class ship, a bit smaller and older than the Bounty Hunter, but a good modern ship,” said Mark.
“I can’t believe someone got here before us,” she muttered. Mark grunted his agreement.
“To get here when they did, they must have set off at least two days before us.”
“Unless it’s just a coincidence,” said Melanie. “They may not be here to file a claim.”
“Well, we shall soon know,” said Mark. He thumbed the intercom and spoke into the microphone. “This is the Captain. Would everyone strap in please. We will be entering synchronous orbit in a couple of minutes.” Melanie watched with interest over the next couple of minutes as Mark and Josephine monitored the ship’s operation. She had believed that starships mostly flew themselves and was surprised by the close attention that Mark and his engineer paid to their instruments. Josephine was clearly monitoring engineering readouts while Mark was checking Alden’s piloting.
Melanie could not help thinking that it was a pointless exercise until an item of old news suddenly snagged her memory. What was it now, she scanned her memory to remember the details. The space liner Spirit of the East had been coming into orbit when she suffered a major computer failure. The ship’s computer had gone off line and the pilot had to bring the ship in manually. The pilot’s heroism had been slightly tarnished with the discovery that he’d had the assistance of a ‘normal’ off line computer to calculate his orbital trajectories.
However, she could now understand their concentration. She felt the ship’s motion changing as the Artificial Gravity drive altered their momentum. In theory the passengers should have been totally insulated by the internal artificial gravity, but there was always a very slight lag between the AG Drive and the Internal AG environment, which manifested itself in tiny and disconcerting lurches and tugs in different directions. What clever little monkeys we are she mused, a small smile turning up the edges of her full lips. Flying our huge complex starships between the stars with the aid of our clever computer friends. Not so long ago we were hiding in trees from man eating tigers and digging for roots and berries. No…berries grew in trees, not underground. Digging for roots and climbing trees for berries. Get it right Melanie, you ancestor’s lives depended on it once!