Rapid steps were heard on the steps leading to the pilot’s compartment. The door opened and the Chief Engineer came in.
“What’s up, Skip?” he asked as he came.
“Is the cargo secured?”
“Yes, we can get going.”
“Good, we’re getting out of here urgently. Have you seen the pilot?”
“No, but what’s all the hurry?”
Kimble gestured towards the computer.
“Move the long-range radar image to the main screen.”
As soon as the engineer saw object 137, he realised what it was all about.
“You think they’re pirates?”
“What else could they be? Aliens?”
The door then opened again and the rest of the crew entered the pilot’s compartment. Seeing the long-range radar display on the main screen and the engineer’s worried face, they soon guessed what was going on.
“Pilot, take position. We’re setting off right now.”
The pilot took his seat without unnecessary questions, and began to perform his magic on the console.
“Everyone else, action stations! Stay in contact at all times. No drinking till we’re clear of them. Fetch your personal weapons, clean them and make sure they are in good order. Keep them with you. Await further instructions. Any questions?”
There were no questions.
“Dis-miss!”
Back to Earth
“Clive, can you hear me? Clive!”
Steve was standing next to the operating table on which Clive was lying, passing his hand over Clive’s closed eyes. He had been rummaging around in the onboard computer’s database, studying the finer points of flying, when the computer reported that the patient would soon return to consciousness. As soon as he heard this, he set off for the medical compartment at once.
When the medical complex had finished patching up Clive, it removed the last catheters from his body and pumped the green fluid out of the capsule. Having made sure that the patient was capable of supporting his vital functions himself, the complex raised the cupola. Nevertheless, Clive’s skin still had a green tinge due to the artificial blood replacement still circulating in his veins.
It would take quite some time for it to return to its normal appearance. Most of the nano-assemblers had already completed their work and corrected the mechanical damage to the internal organs. They then changed their surface structure so that the kidneys could filter them out.
It would take more time to get rid of the artificial blood replacement. Clive’s bone marrow would first have to create an equal amount of blood, and this would take some weeks. It looked as if Clive would have to return to Earth in the form of a little green man from Mars. Steve could barely refrain from smiling as he imagined the reaction of the scientists in the hall.
Meanwhile, the shadow of the hand moving over Clive’s closed eyes had done its work. He slowly opened his eyes.
“Well, at last! How do you feel?” asked Steve, taking his hand away.
Judging from the way he looked, he had not yet fully come round. Seeing Steve’s head leaning over him, he looked him in the eyes for some time, as if trying to remember who Steve was. Eventually he asked:
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the ship. In the medical compartment. You got involved in something, but everything’s all right now. You don’t need to worry.”
Clive spent a few seconds thinking about what Steve had said.
“Why am I... on the operating table?”
He spoke slowly, having difficulty in getting the words out.
“You mean you don’t remember?”
Clive again thought for a few seconds, slowly blinking, as if in a slowed-down film. Then, barely noticeably, he shook his head.
“We were at the spaceport... Then we flew... We transferred to the harriers...”
Steve nodded.
“Well, then what?”
“Then...” Clive thought again. “We ran down the slope to the ship... And then... And then I don’t remember.”
Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“So you really don’t remember any more?”
Clive shook his head.
“What happened, did I fall when I was running and hit my head?” he asked after a pause.
Steve raised his eyes to the onboard computer camera on the opposite wall. If it had not been a soulless machine, but a living man, it would have understood the significance of such a look: Steve wanted to know if he ought to tell Clive the real reasons for his being on the operating table. But the computer remained silent. Steve looked at Clive again.
“Yes, you had concussion. But don’t worry, it’s all over now. While you were asleep, the computer did a scan of your body,” said Steve, pointing at the camera. “It found no permanent damage. Your head will soon be buzzing with ideas, no worse than before.”
Clive nodded in satisfaction. Then he made some cautious movements with his shoulder.
“I’ve got a strange feeling... under the left shoulder blade.”
Steve reflexively glanced at the camera again.
“Perhaps you’ve been lying on it? Don’t bother about it.”
Clive cautiously moved other parts of his body and was apparently satisfied with the results.
“Where are we now?” he asked, sounding more confident.
“First we went back to the spaceport. I was going to hand back the ship and fly to Earth on the first flight as soon as you were back on your feet. But then a message from Shelby came in. He said we should dock with the station in areostationary orbit to obtain certain data from it.”
“Telemetry from the trackers?” guessed Clive.
“Uh-huh. However, the station wouldn’t let us in. But it did at least agree to send us the data.”
“Have you already received them?”
“I have. And looked at them.”
“So what do they show?”
“MacQueen is sending a strike group towards Jupiter. It includes heavy bombers and God knows what else.”
“Seriously? Has he gone out of his mind?”
Clive became animated and tried to get up, but there was no gravity in the ship so his body was held by the operating table, the surface of which was like a jelly.
“Steady, steady. You need peace and quiet. Lie down, don’t get up.”
Steve took Clive by the shoulders and laid him down.
“In brief, this is what’s going on. I sent a message to Shelby... By the way, he asked you to tell him how you feel as soon as you wake up. Anyway, I sent Shelby a message, and then I thought that as we are in orbit, we could dock with some cargo ship leaving for Earth and fly there together with it. Then we can turn the ship in on Earth. It will be more comfortable that way. A whole ship just for the two of us, can you imagine?”
Clive shrugged his shoulder.
“Not bad. And have you already come to an agreement about the tow?”
“No, I’m talking to you instead.”
“Well, go and do it then, while I record a message for Shelby.”
“That’s what I wanted to do.”
“Then I think I’ll get some more sleep. I feel kind of groggy,” said Clive.
“Would you like a drink of water? Or something to eat? Are you hungry?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, just call if you want something.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
Steve waved goodbye and, pushing off from the wall, floated into the cockpit. He had adapted to weightlessness quite quickly. At first he had suffered from a slight feeling of nausea, but he no longer had any problems. You just had to be careful when taking food, and not miss taking your tablets even occasionally. Then the stress overloads and the changing direction of the force of gravity were completely tolerable.
The Falcon had already descended to the low orbit of the Mars cargo terminal and was slowly catching up with the station in orbit. Docking with the terminal was due to t
ake place in an hour.
The cargo flow of the whole planet passed through the orbital terminal, and now a huge number of transport ships had accumulated there. Steve could see on one of the monitors that almost all the docking ports were occupied by large cargo vessels.
Although the Falcon had powerful engines, their thrust would hardly be enough to make an interplanetary flight. Theoretically it was possible, but such a flight would take too long. Steve didn’t have that much time. He would dock with some large cargo ship heading for Earth and overcome the interplanetary distance by hitching a ride on it, and when they approached Earth, after the cargo ship’s deceleration manoeuvre, he would fly the rest of the way under his own power.
“Are we in contact with the terminal?” Steve asked the onboard computer. And without waiting for an answer, ordered: “Ask who is flying towards Earth next and find out if they would take us in tow.”
“Yes, sir.”
The onboard computer was quiet for a moment.
“Sir, there are several ships ready to depart and due to leave the terminal on the next loop. They are willing to take us to Earth. With which cargo ship would you prefer to fly?”
“Which one will reach near-Earth space first?”
“DHL 25631, but it is asking the highest price for the tow.”
Steve brushed this aside.
“To hell with the cost, we’ll take that one. Dock with it.”
The Falcon accelerated slightly. Steve barely noticed as he was pressed into his seat by the acceleration. It’s a rather strange feeling when, for no obvious reason, your body suddenly starts leaning to one side or the other. The Falcon’s engines were scarcely audible at low thrust, there was a vacuum outside, so there were no atmospheric noises pounding turbulently on the ship’s plating, which meant that the ship accelerated and changed flight direction virtually without noise. In time you got used to this, and began being very sensitive to any manoeuvre.
Steve remembered that he was in Mars’ orbit.
“Open the hatches on the side facing the planet. I want to take a look.”
On going into orbit, ships covered the panoramic windows in the nose with armour plate, so as not to be unnecessarily subjected to the high temperatures and the abrasive effect of dust particles. Outside the atmosphere, there was no reason to keep them closed.
The armour plating disappeared, opening up the view of the planet. The Falcon was flying with its ceiling facing Mars, so the planet was visible in all its beauty. In such a low orbit, it took up almost all of the field of vision from the captain’s seat. The spectacle was indescribably beautiful. Steve, pressing his head to the ceiling, enjoyed the view. Down there, on the surface of the planet, Mars looked empty, lifeless, boring, but from low orbit it was splendid. Even the irritating rusty colour of the sand harmonised excellently with the overall picture.
Its reddish colour augmented beautifully the dark lines of the crevasses, mountain ridges, and chains of extinct volcano craters. At the poles, the white polar caps brought a little light variety to the picture. Here and there, dark sectors were visible as if someone had sprinkled ash on the planet. It was a different beauty, unlike on Earth, where every colour was teeming with life. Not for nothing was Mars named after the god of war. The name fitted it perfectly.
Steve turned his gaze from the planet to the orbital terminal moving in front of them, standing out against the black background of space in its unnatural whiteness. It was already near enough for its approach to the ship to be noticeable.
The terminal’s dimensions were huge. From a distance it looked like a centipede, with the body formed by the station itself, and the legs by the cargo ships nestling up to it at the sides. In several places, legs were missing, as though they had been torn off. These were the free docking ports, ready to receive spacecraft.
The cargo ship Steve intended to latch onto to reach Earth was already prepared for departure, and was waiting for its slot at the opposite end of the station.
The terminal was rotating round Mars in low orbit, moving at tremendous speed relative to the planet’s surface. To make optimum use of kinetic energy, ships embarked at a certain point of its revolution. For those heading towards Earth, this sector would soon begin to leave.
Steve cast a glance at the auxiliary monitor showing the Falcon’s flight parameters. More than ten minutes remained to the docking with the cargo ship, which would itself start off about one minute later. The time window was quite small. The Falcon could increase speed to reach the cargo ship sooner, but speeds were strictly limited close to the station, so they had to be content with this snail’s pace.
“Show the countdown to the cargo ship’s undocking,” he commanded.
The countdown appeared on the main screen. The terminal was now loaded almost to capacity, so the cargo ship would have to start exactly at the planned time and not a second later. Due to the dense traffic round the terminal, about ten other cargo ships would be starting at the same time. Their trajectories were carefully calculated: if one of them made a hash of it and didn’t leave according to plan, this day could end in disaster. Many of the cargo vessels were loaded with minerals from Mars and were extremely heavy. They would not be able to turn round to avoid a collision. So DHL 25631 would start on time, whether the Falcon had managed to hitch onto it or not.
Steve began impatiently drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat. There was sufficient time, but there was devilish little margin for error.
“Sir, please fasten your seat belt. We have little time to spare, we may have to manoeuvre, causing significant overloads,” warned the computer, as if reading his thoughts.
“Well, who would have thought it?” thought Steve sarcastically.
Looking at the gigantic slowly-moving belly of DHL 25631, now on countdown to its undocking, Steve felt blindly for his straps and strapped himself in.
The Falcon’s legs struck sonorously against the bottom of the cargo ship. It had finally made contact. Now it only remained for it to be fastened firmly in place. Steve heard mechanisms working inside the ship, engaging the couplings outside.
Time passed, but the onboard computer still did not announce a successful docking. Steve waited for a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, and asked:
“Well, how is it going, are we coupled?”
“Sir, one of the coupling mechanisms is stuck, I am trying to fix it.”
Steve looked round for anything that was badly fastened and might fall on him if the Falcon suddenly started moving in tight pirouettes. Then he looked back at the countdown to undocking. Less than twenty seconds remained.
Steve broke out in a sweat. Ten, nine, eight... Steve gripped the arms of his seat. His heart was racing. Six, five...
“Warning, sharp manoeuvre!” the onboard computer almost shouted. The lights in the ship blinked, attracting even more attention, and in an instant Steve heard the resounding noise of the already-clamped mechanisms breaking away. Almost simultaneously, the ship gave a sharp jolt and shot away from the cargo ship.
According to the Spaceway Code, ships were strictly forbidden to fly on hull plating if all mechanisms were not fixed. The thrust of cargo vessels when the main engines were switched on could be strong enough to tear away an attached but not fully clamped ship.
Such accidents could end badly, particularly for the smaller ship, because it would begin to buck about, hitting the cargo vessel’s hull plating, and it could breach the seal before the onboard computer had time to stabilise the ship and take it a safe distance away.
The Falcon, strictly observing the safety rules, had made an emergency interruption to the docking process and flown several hundred metres away from the cargo ship. Only a few seconds later, DHL 25631 broke free of the terminal and floated away from it.
Travelling by inertia with engines switched off, it moved strictly in a straight line, therefore it was no great trouble for the Falcon to make another attempt to dock. It effortlessly caught up with the car
go ship, manoeuvring more gently this time, but now it selected a different docking unit. On this occasion all the mechanisms worked like clockwork, fixing the Falcon firmly in place. There was now nothing preventing the voyage to Earth.
“Sir, the docking was successful. Please be careful, the ship carrying us might manoeuvre at any moment. For your own safety, stay strapped in until we are on course and travelling at cruising speed. When the engines have been switched off, you can again move freely about the ship without restriction.”
Living or not?
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!” said Shelby, opening the morning briefing. “I would like to discuss a number of problems that have accumulated recently. It will not have escaped your notice that our discussion with the object has taken on rather a strange form. The incomer’s position is forcing us to mark time. Over the entire period of our inter-civilisation exchange, we have not moved forward one iota in understanding each other’s motivations.
“I think that to many of you, such a development of events will seem strange, to say the least. It is worth mentioning that the military are becoming more nervous than anyone, and indeed from my point of view, they have every right to do so.
“This situation cannot drag on indefinitely. For a start, our project is top secret. The special services are providing us with information cover, but no-one can conceal such news from the whole of mankind for as long as they like. So far, suspicion is confined just to people closely connected with the space economy, but the day when rumours will spread further is not far off. Nor should it be forgotten that our very presence at this base is beginning to give rise to questions. My receptionist’s phone just never stops ringing these days. Whereas previously it was just our colleagues and partners, now the press is starting to ask questions. I think you have the same situation in your own offices.
“Also, our economy is in a state of emergency (secretly, of course) and is suffering huge losses as a consequence. The military have severely restricted interplanetary traffic. In many sectors they have banned it altogether. There are already many discontented shareholders of big transport and mining companies, not to mention the still greater number of discontented people in medium and small businesses, whose interests depend on the space industry.
The Contact Episode Three Page 3