Solar Express

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Mom and Dad appreciated your last messages. All your messages, in fact. They think you’ve always been good about that. Amazing how much guilt can be instilled before you leave home. Maybe it didn’t hit you quite so hard, but if more than a few days go by …

  An involuntary chuckle escaped Tavoian. Obviously, we got the same treatment.

  Mom’s getting frailer by the day, but so far she’s not in any pain …

  By the time he finished the message, he was shaking his head. If Kit’s right, there’s no way I’ll see Mom again. And about those sorts of things, his sister was seldom wrong. And there was nothing he could do about it … now. If he hadn’t agreed to the mission …

  He shook his head. First, while he’d worried, he hadn’t known. Second, under the current circumstances, even if he’d declined the mission, he still wouldn’t have been able to go Earthside until the standoff between the great powers had been resolved one way or the other.

  Still … He shook his head again. Thinking like that will drive you mad.

  He finally turned back to the message queue. The last message was from Alayna. As he read it, it was more than clear that she understood what he was doing, but that she wasn’t about to make it too obvious for anyone who might intercept the message, and that was fine with him. He smiled briefly … and then again near the end when she described just how close the target was going to come to the sun. Although the colonel had instructed Tavoian not to go much inside the orbit of Mercury, Tavoian was warmed by Alayna’s effort to make the danger clear to the colonel as well.

  Since he wasn’t sleepy at the moment, he decided to answer all his messages and send one to his parents, although keeping that upbeat and cheerful without sounding totally false would take a great deal of time and care. The time he had. He began by drafting a position report on the target for Donovan Base, followed by the messages to Kit and his parents, and ending with the one to Alayna. Once all his messages were ready, he sent them.

  Then he studied more AI documentation, just long enough to feel sleepy, when he dimmed the cabin lights, flattened the control couch, and stretched out. He had the feeling he wouldn’t be getting that much sleep in the hours after Recon three reached the target.

  At 2146, decel ended, and Tavoian woke up with the loss of decel-pseudo-gravity. At 2152, the AI announced, THE TARGET IS THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX THOUSAND KAYS OUT-SYSTEM OF RECON THREE.

  About as far from you as the Moon is from Earth. That distance was necessary because the drive couldn’t be used again for two hours after decel, and during that time the asteroid or artifact would close that gap by a quarter of a million kays. If the AI’s calculations were correct, and they usually were, that is, if the data supplied by Donovan Base and updated daily happened to be accurate enough, by the time Recon three was traveling at the same in-system speed as the target, they would be close enough for fine maneuvering. A few hundred kays would be acceptable, less than that even better.

  “What’s the status of the booster?”

  ESTIMATED FUEL REMAINING IN BOOSTER IS FOURTEEN MINUTES.

  Tavoian nodded. It could have been worse.

  Because it would be almost another two hours before the drives could be used and close to forty minutes after that before Recon three was anywhere close to the asteroid/alien object, Tavoian dimmed the control area lights once again and closed his eyes, hoping he could sleep or at least doze for some of that time.

  The resumption of acceleration immediately woke Tavoian. Except it didn’t last for more than two or three minutes. His eyes went to the status board. It was blank.

  “Interrogative status!” he snapped.

  BOOSTER FAILED. FUEL EXHAUSTED. BEGINNING SEPARATION. With the words from the AI, the monitors all reappeared.

  Belatedly, Tavoian realized that everything had gone blank for the time it had taken for the AI to switch from booster power to the Recon three system. But there shouldn’t have been that great a lag. “Report on separation.”

  AUTOMATIC SEPARATION FAILED. EXPLOSIVE BOLTS TRIGGERED. RECON THREE IS NOW CLEAR OF BOOSTER. MINIMAL DRIVE OPERATION REQUIRED UNTIL SAFETY CLEARANCE ACHIEVED.

  Tavoian watched the monitors and the readouts as Recon three crept—that was the way it seemed to him—away from the spent FusEx booster. He understood the need for that minimal acceleration, since there was a definite, if small, possibility that higher power on the drives might reflect from the booster back onto Recon three. Small as that probability was, he couldn’t risk it, not where he was, especially if the result damaged the drive.

  Finally, the AI announced, CLEARANCE ACHIEVED. COMMENCING ACCELERATION. CURRENT ACCELERATION WILL RESULT IN TARGET OVERTAKING US BEFORE WE REACH VELOCITY SUFFICIENT FOR MAINTAINING STATION.

  Had the manual separation taken that long? He checked the time. Twenty-five minutes since the booster had failed. That delay couldn’t have caused that much of a discrepancy, could it? It could, he realized. Twenty-five minutes at the target’s inbound speed of thirty-six kps meant it had covered almost fifty-five thousand kays. That wasn’t an insoluble problem, but it would mean having to accelerate above the target’s speed in order to catch up, and then decelerate to match speeds and rendezvous. And all that took extra fuel. You should have ditched the booster after decel. But how were you to know that the fuel calculations were wrong and that the uncoupling would take so long? He also had another thought. How accurate are the fuel calculations for Recon three? “Distance to target?”

  TARGET IS FIFTY-NINE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED KAYS OUT-SYSTEM OF RECON THREE.

  On and off, Tavoian watched the screens, concentrating on the plot showing the relative distances, with the actual separation in kays reading out at the bottom of the plot. It was fascinating, in a way, to see how the distance between the target and Recon three shrank, even as Recon three increased speed, although the rate of closure shrank with each passing moment.

  Then, just about forty-five minutes after Recon three had commenced acceleration, the AI announced, TARGET IS NOW IN-SYSTEM OF RECON THREE.

  Tavoian had been watching the optical screens as well as the position plot and hadn’t seen a thing on the optical view. “What was CPA?”

  CLOSEST POINT OF APPROACH WAS FIFTEEN KAYS THIRTY-ONE SECONDS AGO.

  Recon three’s in-system speed was slightly over twenty kps and accelerating, while the target was steady at thirty-six kps. In less than a minute, the target that Tavoian had only seen as a dot on a screen was well over a hundred kays insystem of Recon three. Another twenty-four minutes passed before the AI had initiated turnover and a brief decel.

  Almost an hour and a half of extra acceleration because you thought you could save Hel3. Tavoian winced inwardly.

  IN-SYSTEM VELOCITIES MATCHED. BEGINNING APPROACH MANEUVERING.

  As Recon three neared the target, Tavoian concentrated on the visual screen. Even at ten kays, all he could see was a thin sliver of white. Abruptly, he realized that when he only saw darkness—and no stars on one side of the white line—he was looking at what appeared to be a dark circle viewed at an angle. He could also see that it was rotating slowly, which explained the variability in brightness mentioned in Alayna’s reports.

  The AI eased Recon three closer. Over the time of the gradual approach, Tavoian just stared at the enhanced image in the screen—from one angle it looked like a perfect circle that had been sliced from the side of a far larger sphere. From another, from what he would have called a side view, it looked flat on one side and slightly curved on the other. “What are its dimensions?”

  ITS CIRCUMFERENCE IS A PERFECT CIRCLE WITH A DIAMETER OF 1,989 METERS. THE THICKNESS AT THE EDGES IS FIVE METERS. THE THICKNESS IN THE CENTER IS 359 METERS.

  Almost two kays across or long, but only a fifth of a kay at its thickest point. “Calculate the diameter of the sphere from which it came.”

  ASSUMING THAT THE CURVATURE OF THE ORGINAL SPHERE WAS UNIFORM, THE SPHERE’S DIAMETER WOULD BE FIVE POINT FIVE KAYS.

  W
ho or what could possibly have created a sphere that large? And if there had been a sphere that large, what had happened to it? Had it been destroyed … and by what? Or was it orbiting somewhere in the solar system … or had the artifact drifted in from out-system?

  He turned his attention back to the artifact. Since the white side was likely merely a polished shield, the first part that Tavoian wanted detailed images of was the darker side. “Maneuver so that we can get images of both sides in full sunlight. Far enough out that we can get a complete image of the entire object.” After that and after Tavoian studied the images, he could move Recon three closer.

  COMMENCING MANEUVERS.

  “Is there any heat radiation besides reflected sunlight?”

  NEGATIVE.

  That confirmed that the object was either old or totally insulated.

  Almost ten minutes passed before Recon three was in position sunward and slightly “below” the object. At a distance of five kays, it loomed over Recon three, as well it might, considering the difference in size. The object rotated, the curved side slowly turning toward the sun. In the light, the reflective side appeared to be a brilliant silver-white, with no visible marks, gouges, or impact markings. After eleven thousand years, it’s unmarked? Tavoian found that hard to believe, yet the lack of heat and the orbit suggested great age. And if someone or something had created the object more recently and placed it in such an orbit—that was even less believable. He continued to study the image, knowing that there was something about it that nagged at him. “A composite image of the reflective side, with false color shading for anything different.”

  Another screen appeared on the monitor wall, showing the entire domed circle, which shimmered, then shifted, revealing smaller circles spaced regularly across the two-kay expanse. Tavoian counted. There were thirty-two of the circles. “What is the diameter of those off-color circles?”

  EACH IS TWENTY-THREE POINT EIGHT METERS ACROSS.

  “What is the difference between them and the rest of the surface?”

  THE COMPOSITION OF THE MATERIAL, BASED ON THE REFLECTION AND RETURN OF THE PROBE RADIATION, IS THE SAME. THERE IS A SLIGHT DIFFERENTIAL IN THE SPECULAR REFLECTIVITY.

  “Which is?”

  THE CIRCLES DO NOT REFLECT LIGHT AT THE WAVELENGTH OF 379 AND 380 NANOMETERS.

  “Can you determine the reason for that differential?”

  POSSIBILITIES INCLUDE THERMAL STRESS, RADIATION, OR DELIBERATE COLORATION.

  In short, there wasn’t enough information. “As the dark side rotates toward us, display a composite image of the nonreflective side.” Tavoian definitely wanted to see the dark side, the one that telescopes hadn’t captured except as a dark blur.

  He caught his breath as the first detailed images of the dark side began to appear, with patterns filling the entire circle, which now showed up as a deep and dark shade of green. The patterns were definitely regular rectangles, and the shorter sides of the rectangles had a space between them and the next rectangle. All the rectangles were the same width, roughly five meters, but the longer ones were huge, some almost fifty meters in length, according to the AI. The smaller ones were likely twenty-five in length. The rectangles formed polygons approximating circles, with a trapezoidal space between the ends. Each polygon contained fewer rectangles, until the last polygon, which was a hexagon around an open space too deep for Tavoian to see whether it extended all the way to the back side of the shimmering hull.

  The majority of the rectangular chambers had had their overheads removed. Sheared off by whatever force separated this section from the original sphere. And that had to have occurred almost instantaneously by a force that hadn’t crushed, fragmented, or crumpled the severed material. Like a gigantic knife only molecules thick that separated two sections … or a particle beam or the like with an edge so finely defined that the material not destroyed was scarcely affected.

  At first glance, the edges of the rectangles appeared regular but when Tavoian increased the magnification he could see that the tops of the walls around them seemed slightly rounded. By intense heat? The rounding suggested the interior of the artifact had been constructed of materials less indestructible than the outer hull. Except that didn’t seem right to Tavoian. The interior—the walls and structure, at least—couldn’t have been too much less hardy than the shining outer hull, since there were no obvious scars, pits, or craters on the dark green side, either.

  He could have watched and studied for far longer, but he knew he was getting too tired to think as clearly as he should be, and he did have his orders. That meant composing an immediate message. When finished, he read it through.

  Robert Anson, Colonel

  Noram Space Command

  Donovan Base

  1. Recon three on station.

  2. Target object appears to fit all parameters of technologically created object.

  3. Object appears to be remnant of far larger object, likely a sphere with an estimated diameter of five point five kays.

  4. Initial scans, measurements, and images follow.

  Tavoian paused. What else can you say? He really felt like shouting, “Yes, it’s a frigging alien spacecraft!” Part of it anyway. Instead, he ordered the AI, “Attach all data and images we have so far and send the message.”

  MESSAGE, DATA, AND IMAGES SENT.

  Next came the grunt work. Tavoian had decided to deploy a single array of cubesats around the alien artifact, along with a repeater that would automatically send the data to Donovan Base if anything happened to Recon three. Then he’d begin with close-up scans of the “dark” side of the alien craft/object to determine if there were points of entry, since there didn’t appear to be any on the silver-white side that had likely been the outer hull of the larger craft.

  “Deploy outer ring cubesats in optimal pattern.”

  BEGINNING CUBESAT DEPLOYMENT.

  Tavoian watched intently as the ISV, the independent space vehicle, slipped away from Recon three and began to release the cubesats in a pattern designed to cover all parts of the artifact simultaneously. That took over an hour, but after the first few minutes, Tavoian was preparing the first AI rover for the ISV to ferry over to the artifact once the cubesat deployment was complete.

  Once the ISV had returned, picked up the AI rover, deposited it on top of one of the larger rectangles, and returned to Recon three, Tavoian began to deploy and unshutter the solar panels designed to power Recon three while on station. By the time he was finished, he could barely keep his eyes open.

  “If the rover gets dislodged, have the ISV recover it and hold until I wake up.” With that, Tavoian dimmed the control area lights, hoping he hadn’t forgotten anything, but he’d only slept, really slept, something like four hours in the last thirty-six, and he didn’t want to do something stupid because he was too tired to think straight.

  Before his eyes closed, he had a disturbing thought. It looks too new to be as old as Alayna thinks it must be.

  38

  THE TIMES OF INDIA

  9 NOVEMBER 2114

  (DELHI) “At the first offensive movement against India, we will retaliate in massive force. We will not be intimidated by Sinese threats,” declared Prime Minister Narahaj Ravindra, immediately after the Sinese Federation closed all its borders in South Asia.

  No comment was forthcoming from Sinese Head of State Jiang. Requests for elaboration were referred to the Sinese Defence Ministry.

  In a related development, the Indian Defense Ministry announced that both Noram and the Sinese Federation have dispatched high-speed fusion-powered spacecraft to investigate a mysterious object heading toward the sun. “Noram and the Sinese both seek to monopolize whatever discoveries may await them,” stated the ministry in a prepared statement. “They have not offered to share any benefits. India has suffered enough of what has become a one-way avenue to the future, where we have supplied expertise to both nations and received little in return. The Sinese attempt to bully India into halting its near-E
arth and deep space initiatives is nothing more than twenty-second-century colonialism.” A high-ranking ministry official confirmed that all of India’s Indra scramjet missiles were on high alert and ready to launch at a nanosecond’s notice.

  The Indra has a range of over fifteen thousand kilometers at a speed of between Mach 10 and Mach 16, approximately twenty thousand kilometers per hour, depending on altitude, and can be programmed to strike within a ten-meter square. India is presumed to have more than two hundred such missiles. Some experts claim that number is closer to five hundred.

  Sources within the Noram government conceded that there was an “element of truth” in the news stories claiming that both the Noram and the Sinese Federation have dispatched exploratory craft to investigate an object approaching the sun that is rumored to be of possible extra-solar origin.

  Noram President Dyana Yates was unavailable for comment on either matter. Sources close to the President indicated that Yates was giving both issues “immediate and serious attention” and was deciding among possible options to deal with the situation. They refused to elaborate on what those options might be …

  39

  DAEDALUS BASE

  9 NOVEMBER 2114

  On Friday, Alayna was up early, not because she had to be, but because she had slept fitfully, her mind and dreams racing from one subject to another. Over the past ten days, she had tried a number of variations on the screening system that she had developed for Marcel to apply to the solar observations she’d been able to make in between or concurrently with observations contracted for by various Earthside astronomical entities. None of the variations were markedly any more satisfactory than the initial screens had been, although several revealed more multi-fractals … but not any more near-matches. Nor had any of the screens revealed anything different about solar convection, flares, or prominences … or anything else that might shed light on what lay beneath the solar surface. With more than nine months of her twenty-four gone and only relatively minor progress, she couldn’t help but admit she was getting worried. Maybe a solar minimum wasn’t the best time for her research.