There was a sharp chirp before Karl’s slightly staticy voice responded. “Go ahead, Ma’am.”
“I need an update on the incoming object.”
There was a pause. While she waited, Yakata peered out into space, as if she had any chance of pinpointing the object without the aid of the cameras. It was getting closer, but not that close.
Another chirp brought her out of her distraction. “Ma’am?”
“Go ahead, crewman.”
“The object is ten minutes out and closing.”
“Acknowledged,” she responded, and cut the connection.
Ten minutes. Barely enough time to deploy the arm. She snapped her boots into the dock and engaged the control panel. Powering up the arm, she then hit the sequence instructing it to retrieve the grappling attachment. While the mechanism prepared, she triggered the cargo bay doors. The strident warning klaxon sounded as a large segment of the ship opened to space. The arm rose from its cradle in slow, precise movements. Her teeth gritted and her muscles tensed as she watched. It had to move faster or she would miss the interception point. With her free hand, she depressed the activator on her comm hood once more.
“Command deck . . . ”
“Go ahead, Ma’am.”
“Feed me the trajectory of the object.”
On the panel in front of her, a micro-display came to life. The information played across it. It was going to be close. She deployed the grappling net to intersect the flight path and held her breath. The object crested the drive section in a gentle arc, and seemed to flare as it came into contact with the sun’s rays, bathing the ship and arm in a startling green glow. It faded in the shadow of the arm. Yakata leaned into the console. She was afraid her prize was going to overshoot the net. Reaching for the joystick in front of her, she extended the assembly as high as it would go over the drive section.
Her breath hitched. It still looked as if it was going to skim past. This was ridiculous. It was space debris. There was no reason she should be so upset. She tried shifting the joystick even further, but the arm was fully extended.
Her father’s face drifted unbidden across her thoughts. It felt like she was failing him. She clenched her teeth and forced the thought away. Furious blinking cleared her vision, but she could hardly believe what she saw: the object changed trajectory. It was a slight alteration; barely perceptible except for the drive section being there as a point of reference. Still, Yakata had to wonder if she had really seen it. There was no way the thing could have changed its trajectory. Short of mechanical means or an outside intervention, an object moving in space would continue along the same path until it encountered another force. And yet, as the artifact plowed into the grappling net, she forgot all about the laws of physics. The net closed, locking the object into place.
“Yeah!” Her cry was loud and unbridled in the seclusion of the rendezvous station. Only the boot docks kept her from bouncing around the compartment. “Oh, yeah!”
A burst of unexpected static crackled from her comm hood. She felt the blood drain from her face as she went still.
“Hey! Knock it off!” Karl’s amused voice came over the connection she’d forgotten to close. “You want to rupture my ear drum?”
“My apologies, crewman,” she responded with a degree of dignity she did not currently feel. “The object has been retrieved. I’m locking down and securing the salvage.”
She cut the connection.
Shoving embarrassment aside, Yakata input the sequence that returned the arm to its cradle. Another rapid set of keystrokes, and the cargo bay doors closed. She was impatient with the drawn-out procedure. Recklessness in vacuum, however, could get a spacer killed.
Once everything was locked down, she retreated to the antechamber to climb into her protective constrictor suit. She waited for the green light from the automatic systems check before securing her helmet and engaging the O2 tanks. Prepped for EVA, Yakata cycled through the airlock into the cargo bay.
She grabbed an empty storage container and hauled both it and herself down the length of the armature. Once there, she anchored the container to the deck and pulled herself up the handholds along the wall until she was even with the grappling attachment. She hit the release and worked the fingers open.
Her hands twitch over the surface of the artifact and she had to resist the urge to draw off her suit’s skin-tight gloves. The object demanded to be caressed. In shape it resembled a short, squat obelisk. It tapered slightly from top to bottom and had three columns of unfamiliar symbols running up and down each side. It was metal . . . apparently old metal, given the deep, dull sheen. The color had a greenish tinge, like ancient bronze. Only this was no metal she recognized. It seemed smooth, almost soft, other than the etching. Otherwise, there were no seams or depressions. It took extreme effort to lower the thing into the bin. Now was not the time to ex-amine it. She had less than ten minutes to get herself secured for hyperdrive. Unhitch-ing the container, she hefted it to her shoulder and propelled herself toward the airlock. In the antechamber, she slid her burden into a storage locker by the cargo bay hatch and keyed it to her personal code. It would be safe until she could take it down to the lab.
Duty Log: 42.05.18 - 1100hrs, Kinney, Captain J.
Reactor status - nominal;
O2 levels - 98 percent;
Power - ten percent over-consumption
Note: Schedule diagnostics of ship’s systems upon arrival at Demeter, McKay exhibiting systems-wide reduction in efficiency despite recent overhaul. Power fluctuations ship-wide, stabilized. Malfunction of atmospheric filters in compartments 8A through C, corrected. Electrical fires between bulkheads 10 and 11, section 5, contained; damage minimal.
Cargo Bay Antechamber: 42.05.18 - 1100hrs
Yakata struggled for hours to get some rest. She just couldn’t do it, though. The artifact haunted her thoughts. She would almost say it called to her, but that was as nuts as thinking it had changed its trajectory. She tossed and fussed until Jones and Pittman, the crewmembers trying to sleep in the billets flanking hers, begged her to give up.
That was why she was again climbing down into the cargo bay antechamber. Cap-tain Kinney, in position on the command deck, had given her a considering look, but didn’t question her. She’d already briefed him about the events that occurred at the end of her shift.
All thought of anything but the artifact fled her mind as she pushed open the last hatch and continued down the ladder, which in orbit had been the floor. She hated the way hyperdrive and the artificial gravity it created turned reality perpendicular to orbital conditions. Kneeling down, she punched her code with rapid jabs and hauled open the storage locker at her feet.
Any thought of spatial geometry evaporated.
Yakata half expected the artifact to be a dream. But there it was, nestled in its bin. She tried to draw it out of the locker.
It wouldn’t budge! In the weightlessness of the orbiting ship, the artifact had been nothing to move. Now that they were under drive there was artificial gravity again. Not earth-norm, but enough that they could walk on the deck. If the obelisk was this heavy in three-quarters grav, she didn’t want to consider what it would be like under normal conditions. It had to be denser than gold.
No! Yakata straddled the opening, flexed her knees, and inch by inch pulled the container up, until sweat ran into her eyes and her muscles screamed. She wasn’t going to wait forty-eight hours until they were in orbit. The bin was coming out now.
Personal Log Entry: 42.05.18 - 1230hrs, Dunn, K.
We retrieved something today. ’Ta . . . excuse me . . . First Officer Ushimi hasn’t told me what it is. Don’t think she even knows. While I was on shift, she took it to the storage bay Captain had temporarily converted into a lab. She talked O’Neal, the metallurgist we’re shep-arding to Demeter, into helping her try to figure out what it is.
She goes on shift in seven hours, but they’re still holed up in that lab. She’s going to be a real bitch on deck
tonight if she doesn’t get some sleep, but she’s obsessing on that bit of debris.
Of course, I can’t stop thinking about it either. It’s gotten under my skin. It shouldn’t be on this ship! It has me so freaked, and I can’t even tell why. The first half-hour of my shift is a lost memory. All I know is that it feels like we are in for a major shitstorm.
Temporary Science Lab: 42.05.18 - 1230hrs
“What in the world made Corporate think it was worth the 100-million- dollar ticket to haul you up here?” Yakata growled through clenched teeth. Bastian O’Neal, world-renowned metallurgist, lowered his instruments to the work surface and gave her a long, silent look. The dignified expression on his ebony face didn’t change, but his hazel eyes were disapproving. He didn’t answer. He looked away and took up the artifact in both latex-covered hands, repositioning it for another documenting photograph.
She’d strained to haul her prize down here; he seemed to toss it about as if it were cotton candy. Part of that was due to his clearly prosthetic left arm; but part had to be because of his own innate strength. He was developed enough that someone who didn’t know better could be excused for thinking he mined metals, rather than studying them.
The metallurgist set aside his digital camera and picked up the item once more. He turned it in his hands until he’d looked at every side, his finger lingered over the engraving. She wanted to snatch it from his grasp. Uncontrollably, a muscle in her forehead twitched, as did her fingers. How dare he manhandle her salvage like that, hefting it with an ease that she couldn’t? She tensed and fought not to scowl at him. What was wrong with her? The stress was scrambling her circuits.
Yakata tried to shake it off. This was O’Neal’s field. She’d come to him for help and he was kind enough to give it. She should be grateful and respectful, at the very least. It wasn’t like her to behave this way. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm, to smile and be pleasant.
Finally, he set the artifact down. Yakata expected to relax. Instead, she tensed even more; ready, in fact, to hurry forward and grab the obelisk away. But then O’Neal spoke, distracting her.
“I can’t identify it.”
“What do you mean you can’t identify it?!”
“The tests were unable to determine the age or composition of the material.” Her resolve to be polite evaporated. “What did Corporate do . . . send you up here as a tax write-off?”
Seething with frustration, Yakata grabbed for her artifact. O’Neal stepped in her way.
“If you’re done insulting me?
“There’s one more test I can run, but I need some equipment from the storage bay. My imaging spectrometer is our last option on-ship.”
She glared at him and had to force her negativity down. It was getting harder to do. Without a word, Yakata moved to the terminal set into the chamber wall, her feet straddling the boot docks.
The muscles in her shoulders bunched and tightened as she keyed in the commands calling up the ship’s manifest. He was watching her. Surely plotting to take her salvage for himself.
Whoa! Where did that paranoia come from? She forced it away.
Finally, she located his equipment and requested immediate retrieval. Closing out the screen, she whirled to face him. For a moment, everything held a greenish tinge like the one she’d noted when the object crested the drive section. The sense of looming increased with the glow. It faded so quickly, though, that she had to wonder if it were her vision causing the effect. That would explain the flickers out of the corner of her eye. Yakata clenched her eyes shut and popped her neck. It sounded like several rounds of gunfire.
“Sorry, O’Neal, can’t imagine why I’m so edgy. Jones will bring your spectrometer down in short order. Why don’t you head to the mess for some coffee . . . I’ll comm you when the equipment gets here.”
“That’s okay. If I’m here when it arrives I can hook it into the ship’s systems quicker. This has already taken longer . . . ”
“O’Neal,” Yakata cut him off, her tone sharp and brittle, even to her own ears. “Go get some coffee. I’ll have the spectrometer rigged up when you get here.” For a moment, she thought he would refuse. Her suspicions flared brighter and she had to consciously force her fists not to clench. She didn’t trust him here; didn’t want him here, unless he was in the middle of a test. Even then she had issues. Her gaze again locked with his. She read concern in his eyes. But was there
something else lurking beneath that? Something sly? Calculating? Damnit! She couldn’t tell! It took more effort to mimic something of a reasonable tone. “I have to be here to sign off on the retrieval. If you don’t want any coffee, could you at least get me some? I’m dying here.”
Temporary Science Lab: 42.05.18 - 1245hrs
Yakata vibrated with impatience as O’Neal finished calibrating the spectrometer. She wanted to snatch his hands away from the knobs and buttons and yell at him to get on with it. It wasn’t just an overwhelming need to know. That she could have han-dled. No, it was more like whatever lurked behind her was drawing closer, just out of sight, just out of hearing range. Always there, always watching . . . Some part of her equated it with the artifact. She had to know what it was now, but the technology would do them no good if it weren’t set up properly. She understood that.
Then why was she ready to scream when he slipped a common bit of steel in the spherical sample chamber and fired up the machine?
She couldn’t restrain herself any more. “Come on, already!”
“Do you want accurate results, or do you just want me to go through the mo-tions?” O’Neal’s voice came out a low, controlled rumble, contrasting sharply with her outburst. “If you don’t care if the results are true, you’re wasting my time and I’m out of here.”
His response made Yakata want to scream even more, but he was right. What was wrong with her? Her impatience did not serve either one of them well and she couldn’t afford to have him abandon the test. She could probably figure out the machine, but the data it spit out would be indecipherable to her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to calm.
“Sorry.”
It took a lot of effort not to fidget as O’Neal watched her closely a moment. The concern had returned, along with a thread of irritation. He clearly wanted this to be done as much as she did, even if their reasons were different. Without a word, he turned back to the spectrometer.
“Okay, we’re ready.”
Yakata’s pulse sped up. She reached for the artifact, only to flinch back as a mild static arced between it and her fingertips. It seemed to cling to her hand like the persistent suction of vacuum through a hull breach. Like she was being sucked out the tiniest hole, only the hard surface of reality kept her from going through. Before she could say something, the pull abruptly released and a surge of rage and frustra-tion swelled over her. She shook it off. Looked up in a daze. O’Neal had lifted her prize away and slid it into the chamber in place of the metal bar. He made no comment and Yakata saw no sparks when he touched it. Had the phenomenon been her imagination? She couldn’t resist creeping forward to glance at the operator’s display as the spectrometer charged up to pulse full-spectrum light at the object from four points within the sphere.
The hum of the machine seemed to come up through the deck plates until she expected her entire body to vibrate with it. A flaring light intensified abruptly until it engulfed the machine and the room. There was a power surge and the deck plates vibrated more violently beneath Yakata’s feet. Both she and O’Neal flinched in that instance of brilliance before they were engulfed by utter darkness. The only sound was a sharp gasp. She couldn’t tell which of them it came from. She could no longer hear the spectrometer or any of the ship’s normal background mechanical noises. Other than their nervous breathing, silence dominated the pitch black.
Yakata struggled not to panic. Where was the hum of the hyperdrive? The click of relays opening and closing? The sizzling snap of the coms? Sounds every spacer took for granted;
their unrealized security blanket in everlasting night. Yakata shud-dered.
The darkness seemed to last forever; in truth it was less than twenty seconds before systems re-engaged with a whir. Not even long enough for them to fall out of drive.
Right on the heels of everything powering up, all coms within hearing distance gave a strident chirp.
“ . . . eport . . . All crew, report!”
She reached for the comm on the console and toggled the activator to respond to Captain Kinney.
“Yakata here. O’Neal and I are in the Science Lab.” “What the hell was that?”
Yakata didn’t have an answer. She couldn’t have gotten one in, anyway, as a stream of responses came over the com. All crew were accounted for. “Everyone to stations, run full diagnostics. Let’s figure out what the deal is before it happens again,” Captain Kinney ordered before closing the comm line. Turning to O’Neal, Yakata was struck by the confusion on his face as he looked at the read-out from the spectrometer.
“What? Something go wrong?”
O’Neal turned toward her, his head shaking. “The test completed before everything shut down, but this doesn’t make sense.”
She walked over and read the printout:
Processing Error 021:
Spectral Anomaly - Negative Scan
“Kuso shite shinezo!” Yakata hissed through clenched teeth.
O’Neal was looking at her odd. “I don’t know what you just said, but it sounded painful.”
Yakata flushed. Among spacers it was one thing, profanity was a part of their make-up. But in front of others she was generally more circumspect. She was just grateful the man did not speak Japanese.
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