Solar Express

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  By the way, I did forward your quote about ocean coastlines to Kit, and she enjoyed and appreciated it.

  What quote should he use in return? He came across one that appealed to him: “Military technology is that marvel that allows a person too tenderhearted to slaughter a sheep to annihilate half the world with the touch of a button.” While he smiled, he wasn’t about to put that into something read by a high-ranking military officer. He kept looking until he found another.

  It’s been a long day, but I did come up with a quote. It’s not precisely on target, but it reminds me of the Sinese rhetoric, and their continual protestations of being fair and open-minded in the use of space.

  Any ideologue who rallies his supporters with cries for “economic justice” neither has justice in mind nor understands economics.

  I’d say that any leader who says he opposes the militarization of space and theoretically wants space free to all nations while building a base on Europa and threatening India for building its own space elevator neither has nonmilitarization in mind nor understands the concept of open access to space …

  When Tavoian finished, he attached selections from what he had sent to the colonel and sent it off, wondering, again, if Donovan Base would let it go through.

  Then he checked the ISV once more, but it continued to scan the circumference, unsuccessfully, so far.

  He’d remain awake as long as he could, then have the AI wake him if the ISV detected anything … or if anything else went amiss. He still couldn’t believe that he’d missed the fact that the increased speed of the artifact and Recon three meant that they’d near the sun that much sooner.

  And why hadn’t someone at Donovan Base caught it? Or were they all so overworked and overstressed about the Sinese-Indian-Noram power-play triangle that it had slipped past them? Or had everyone thought someone else had let Tavoian know? He wondered if he’d ever find out … or if, like so many things in the Space Service, there just wouldn’t be any record of the slipup.

  53

  COGITO

  15 NOVEMBER 2114

  SOLAR EXPRESS: FATE

  Lonely orb, artifact of dark,

  Spinning slowly, alien spark

  Of ancient flame or distant mind,

  Could we now mourn a queerer kind?

  Silent song, stilled by space and time,

  Of unknown rhythm, cryptic rhyme,

  Green confined in silvered shimmer

  Sunward bound in growing glimmer.

  Down relativity’s deep well

  Toward an incandescent hell

  Or through perihelion’s fierce flames

  In parabolic flight from fleeting names?

  No choice for artifact or sun,

  No altering the orbit’s run,

  For mass draws mass, from dark to light.

  The question left? Flamed day? Dark night?

  THREE’S COMPANY

  54

  RECON THREE

  16 NOVEMBER 2114

  When Tavoian woke on Friday morning, he wondered by how much they were inside Earth’s orbit, and he asked the ship’s AI.

  ACCORDING TO ALL INFORMATION, RECON THREE IS WITHIN THE EARTH’S ORBIT BY SLIGHTLY OVER TWENTY MILLION KAYS.

  “Did the ISV discover any material that could be removed for sampling?”

  NO SAMPLES WERE DISCOVERED.

  “Status of ISV?”

  ISV IS IN MAIN LOCK. IT IS WARM ENOUGH TO BE SERVICED OR REMOVED.

  “Reserve air supply status?” Tavoian hated to ask, but he needed to know.

  SIXTY PERCENT REMAINING.

  That amounted to about one and a third total replacements of the atmosphere in Recon three. “What about the Sinese ship?”

  SPY-EYES AND REMOTE EQUIPMENT HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED TO AREA OF CENTRAL SHAFT. REMOTE SCANNING OF ARTIFACT CONTINUES.

  “Is there any sign of another vessel?”

  NO VESSELS WITHIN DETECTION RANGE.

  “Notify me immediately when there is any sign of one.”

  WILL COMPLY.

  Tavoian checked the systems and monitors and then looked for messages. There were none, except for the standard Noram Space Command news summary. It was getting so that he didn’t expect meaningful messages the first thing in the morning, but then he was waking earlier than most officers at Donovan Base. He scanned the news summary, noting that both the Indians and the Sinese had mobilized more forces, while the Israelis and the Iranians had offered military support to India. Noram President Yates and DOEA Secretary Luvalle offered no comment. Matters are definitely going in the wrong direction.

  After eating and drinking hot tea, Tavoian immediately began to reprogram the spy-eyes for a survey of the large space that he thought might be the equivalent of a ship launching bay. From the images returned by the AI rover, it had looked large enough to accommodate Recon three and possibly even a bigger vessel.

  Even though you don’t know whether they even had such ships. Except whoever had built the artifact had to have had some way of getting to and from the artifact, since it was far too large to enter a planetary atmosphere and did not appear designed for landing on even smaller bodies such as moons or asteroids.

  What if it was totally self-contained? That was theoretically a possibility, but the hexagonal chambers the rover and spy-eyes had been able to enter had been empty, and there didn’t seem to be enough space inside the material between the chambers to support a complex system. But then, he didn’t know what might be inside all the sealed hexagons. Could they still hold devices, materials, information?

  Tavoian had no way of knowing, but after little more than a week, he had his doubts about the ability of human technology to enter those sealed chambers with anything short of weapons that would likely destroy anything remaining there, assuming that anything at all did. But what was all that space for? It couldn’t have been just for structural support, not with all the passageways outside the hexagonal spaces, and not with what were clearly entry and exit points.

  Tavoian returned to the reprogramming. When he finished, he made his way down to the lock and moved the ISV there out into the passenger area, and then eased the first ISV into the lock, along with the AI rover, the spy-eyes, and the space anchors. Once he returned to the control area, he watched as the ISV moved back toward the artifact. Less than an hour later, the first of the spy-eyes departed on their preprogrammed routes to investigate the possible “launching bay.” When all the spy-eyes were on their way, Tavoian turned over monitoring to the ship’s AI and began his exercise routine.

  He actually finished and was cleaning up when a message from the colonel arrived—a very formal-looking message.

  Tavoian, Christopher A.

  Major, NSC

  NSS-21/Recon Three

  Latest reports and attachments received. Continue explorations and analyses to the greatest degree possible commensurate with resources and safety. Request you do not leave ship except for emergency situations.

  Interrogative frozen traces of possible atmosphere?

  That was a good question. Tavoian would have to consider how he might gather such traces. Any gases from an atmosphere that were frozen on the outer surfaces would likely have long since sublimed, and if not, given the almost frictionless green material, would have slipped away centuries ago. Theoretically, if there had been gas crystals—oxygen and the like—they would be deep inside the artifact, yet, so far, none of the images had shown any indications of such, but perhaps he hadn’t been looking closely enough.

  Understand difficulty of obtaining samples. Continue to seek new ways to obtain materials.

  Exactly how?

  Time and resource limitations now preclude any other Noram mission to alien artifact. Lack of optimum Earth/artifact positioning also a factor. This underscores the importance of gathering all information and data possible.

  As if you hadn’t gotten that message already.

  Report arrival of Sinese research vessel immediately. Report any discr
epancies of any sort.

  Discrepancies of any sort? Sabotage? The immediate appearance of monsters out of the sealed hexagonal chambers? Attacks by the Sinese?

  As he floated just above the control couch, Tavoian wondered if the colonel understood, emotionally as well as intellectually, that there just might be civilizations or beings whose technology humans could not yet understand. Will our descendants, if we have any, be able to? Tavoian knew he had to hope for both descendants and enlightenment, but … at the moment, he wasn’t all that hopeful.

  He turned his attention back to the message, but there was only one section left.

  Do not hesitate to risk duplicate equipment if necessary to obtain data or anything else of value …

  Tavoian already knew that. As soon as he finished reading the message, he said to the ship’s AI, “Scan all feeds from rovers, ISV, and spy-eyes for small crystals, especially blue crystals. Start from the first feeds.”

  BEGINNING SCANNING.

  Tavoian looked for other messages, but there weren’t any.

  SCANNING OF ALL RECORDED FEEDS COMPLETE. THREE POSSIBLE AREAS EXIST WHERE LIGHT REFLECTIONS SUGGEST MATERIAL OTHER THAN THAT OF THE ARTIFACT’S CONSTRUCTION.

  “Display images.”

  Tavoian couldn’t see anything in any of the images. “Enhance the location where the reflections suggest material.”

  The ship’s AI immediately did so, but Tavoian still had to strain to recognize the tiny pinpoints of light. The first image was one that Tavoian didn’t recognize at first, but then realized was one of the dead-end areas first explored. The second was another dead end off the central shaft of the artifact. The third was in the hexagonal chamber with the fused and melted protrusion, near the base of the half-melted mass.

  Interestingly enough, the ship’s AI hadn’t found traces of possible frozen atmosphere or materials in the “drive” chamber, but that didn’t mean there weren’t traces there, only that none had appeared within the limited range of the lights used by the rover or the spy-eyes.

  He was about to make his way from the controls aft when the AI announced, ISV AND FOUR SPY-EYES RETURNING TO RECON THREE.

  So soon? Except it had been over two hours. “What happened to the fifth?”

  IT MALFUNCTIONED. REASON UNKNOWN. FEED FROM THIRD SPY-EYE SHOWED IT WINDING THROUGH PASSAGES AWAY FROM TARGET.

  “I’ll review the feeds after I finish with the sampling mission.”

  Once the ISV with the spy-eyes neared the ship, Tavoian held it outside the lock while he continued readying the other ISV to seek out the AI-identified locations for atmospheric remnants. Given the limitations of Recon three, and the fact he had no way to keep any possible frozen atmosphere that cold, the analysis would have to be handled by the repaired sampler on the ISV.

  Because all of his fiber-optic line was with the other ISV, and he didn’t want to spend more time letting the first ISV warm up and then re-rigging things, he’d set up three programs for the AI rover, each able to be triggered separately through the ISV. He decided to begin with the hexagonal chamber containing the fused mass, since that was the simplest one to reach. An hour or so later, once he’d finished his preparations, he sent off the second ISV and recovered the first.

  Some twenty minutes later, the rover was entering the opening. When it was some five meters into the chamber, Tavoian lost the signal. Once again, he hoped that the rover could find what the AI had indicated was there. Some ten minutes later, the rover, propelled by its miniature thrusters, reappeared, as did its signal and the images from its sensors, and headed toward the ISV.

  Tavoian accessed its memory, and discovered that there had indeed been something there, a bluish crystal-like object perhaps the size of his fingernail, which had been lodged in a slight declivity on the side of the fused protrusion farthest from either of the partly open doors. He held his breath as the rover maneuvered into position opposite the sampler drawer. As the grabber arm placed the crystal in the drawer and it began to close, a large part of the crystal broke and slowly drifted out of the sensors’ view.

  A flash crossed the sensors.

  “What was that? A Sinese device?”

  A SINESE COLLECTOR-BOT. A NUMBER OF THEM HAVE BEEN MAKING PASSES OVER THE ARTIFACT.

  “What is it doing?”

  IT IS HEADED BACK TO THE LONGLINER.

  Stealing our sample. Even though Tavoian couldn’t have immediately recovered the larger fragment of the gas crystal, not with the positioning of the ISV and the AI rover, somehow the “theft” irritated him, especially since he wondered if there was enough in the sampler to analyze. And how representative might it be? He waited, and finally the analysis data appeared on the screen in front of Tavoian. According to the sampler, the small crystal contained nitrogen, oxygen, and argon, in that relative order of abundance, with about twice as much nitrogen as oxygen, and only trace of argon.

  No carbon or carbon dioxide? That was interesting, but Tavoian didn’t know what to make of it.

  Before moving the ISV to the central shaft, Tavoian had the ISV sweep the area around it, but there did not seem to be any other Sinese spy-eyes that close. Less fortuitously, there was one monitoring the central shaft, but it remained in position as the ISV moved into the opening and headed “down” it. Nor did it advance toward the signal repeaters that Tavoian had the rover deploy.

  The wait for the rover to return seemed endless to Tavoian, and it was almost an hour before the rover emerged from the passageway and moved to the ISV. But it held a crystal twice the size of the first. This time, the entire crystal went into the sampler. Although the second crystal appeared to look like the first, the analysis showed three times the nitrogen as oxygen and a great deal more argon, almost ten percent. Could that have been because you got a larger sample? Tavoian had no idea.

  That thought vanished as the ship’s AI announced, CLEAR SIGNAL WILL FADE IN THREE MINUTES.

  Tavoian used more thruster propellant than he wanted hurrying the ISV up the shaft, picking up the lower signal repeater on the way, and moving the ISV into the center of the shaft. There was a moment where the images vanished, but only a moment. Then the ISV was headed back toward the first side passages that Tavoian had explored.

  The rover headed off. An hour later it returned, its grabber and sticky pad both empty. A quick check of its sensor feed revealed that when the grabber arm touched the crystal, it fragmented into tiny pieces that sprayed everywhere.

  Two out of three samples wasn’t bad, and there were likely more tiny crystals here and there, but there was no way that Tavoian or even all the tiny Sinese devices were going to be able to find any appreciable fraction of them in the time that they had.

  And you thought a month or two would allow plenty of time. Tavoian smiled crookedly. He hadn’t really understood just how big the artifact was until he’d started trying to explore it.

  Belatedly, he realized that his eyes were blurring and burning. He checked the time. More than seven hours since he’d had anything to eat … and not much to drink either. Those would have to wait a few minutes longer. He turned the ISV over to the ship’s AI with instructions to return it to the ship and dock it outside the lock.

  Then he gulped down a bag-bowl of mushroom risotto, along with cool tea. He was so hungry he didn’t even mind the fact that the tea was cool, neither hot nor cold. As he ate, he monitored the Sinese craft, and the occasional small device appearing out of or disappearing into the artifact. He had noticed that those devices did not interfere with the equipment he had deployed—except for stealing part of the one sample. So far, anyway.

  With each day that passed, Tavoian had found himself feeling more and more helpless, and that he just didn’t know enough to find as much as he should be discovering. The sampling incidents had just reinforced that feeling. You’re a pilot, not a scientist. But he’d thought he knew something about science, yet with each day around the artifact, he felt like he knew less and less.

  When h
e finished eating, he immediately called up the feeds from the spy-eyes.

  The first spy-eye followed the programmed route from beneath the hexagons out to a point paralleling the hull and then toward the “drive” chambers before slowing at the narrow hexagonal opening on the outboard side of the passageway. The spy-eye rotated slightly and entered the chamber. Once again, Tavoian was struck by the fact that the space was essentially rectangular.

  The spy-eye immediately moved to the slightly curved bulkhead opposite the entry, where it scanned the ridges projecting a third of a meter from the bulkhead, ridges a third of a meter thick, situated a third of a meter from the deck and the overhead, suggesting to Tavoian that they did indeed form the outline of an enormous lock. The spy-eye followed the ridges the entire length of the space to where they ended—a third of a meter from the end of the bulkhead. The two ridges at the top and bottom, some thirty meters apart, were joined seamlessly by another ridge, indicating that the same ridge formed a huge rectangle. The spy-eye’s light revealed more clearly that the material framed by the ridges was also a lighter green, possibly matching the shade of the hexagonal energy funnels in the drive chamber. That’s all supposition on your part. There was little enough to support that supposition, Tavoian knew, and it was also based on what might well be excessive anthropomorphism, but the two areas that seemed to be possible openings directly to space were a different shade, and that was at least suggestive, and there was also no trace of any gray coloration, pointing to different functions for the two spaces.

  From the first spy-eye’s examination Tavoian could also find no trace of debris, frozen atmosphere, or anything else. He had the ship’s AI examine the feed as well, but the AI could find no traces, either.

  The missing spy-eye had actually been the second one, because the second feed that Tavoian watched showed a spy-eye ahead in the passageway, with intermittent thruster pulses causing it to waver from side to side. Then at a junction where the passageways between hexagons separated, the second spy-eye took the passageway not on its programmed route and began to accelerate into the darkness, its point of light soon vanishing.