Some mechanical failure, or did you somehow misprogram it? Unless the spy-eye turned up somewhere on its own or another device from Recon three encountered it somewhere, Tavoian doubted that he’d ever see it again. All the devices had micro-locator beacons, but since the interior of the artifact didn’t allow any signal transmission except line of sight, trying to track down the errant spy-eye would be a waste of time and thruster propellant. Speaking of which …
“How much thruster propellant is left?”
SIXTY-NINE POINT TWO PERCENT.
That was assuming that the measuring systems were perfectly accurate and that Tavoian could draw everything that was in the tanks. Neither was a hundred percent likely; ninety-five percent was a far safer assumption of working propellant stocks. Thirty percent used in eight days, with four weeks to go.
While he could explain and explain why he was going through the propellant stocks—for starters, the rotation of the artifact, the need for line-of-sight signal transmission, the sheer size of the artifact—the plain fact was that he couldn’t keep operating the way he was.
That was emphasized by the fact that none of the last three spy-eyes found anything new or of import.
LARGE UNIDENTIFIED SHIP APPROACHING AND MATCHING SPEED TO THAT OF ARTIFACT.
“Ship characteristics?”
SHIP EXHIBITS DOUBLE-ENDED DRIVE CLAMSHELLS. SIZE IS APPROXIMATELY 295 METERS. ENERGY RADIATION INDICATES IT IS CREWED. EXTERIOR SHIELDING RESEMBLES ARMOR.
“Display what you have.” As another screen on the display bulkhead opened, Tavoian shifted his attention, watching as the vessel drew nearer and the image grew larger, clearly heading for the uncrewed Sinese craft. As it came to rest, relatively, anyway, beside the other Sinese craft, the disparity in size was more than apparent. Not only was the new arrival almost a hundred meters longer than the longliner, but it appeared to be half again as large in diameter. Tavoian didn’t see anything resembling weapons bays, but a pair of circular exterior hatches strongly suggested torp ports. Given the size and mass of the ship, and the comparative speed of its arrival, Tavoian’s first thought was that the Sinese had to have developed a better drive system. Then he realized that wasn’t necessarily so. All that they had to do was add a second drive, and do turnover, letting one drive cool while using the other. Hel3 fuel constraints—they could only carry so much—limited how many hours they could accelerate or decelerate, but they could accelerate for longer and achieve higher speeds sooner.
And if they have achieved even modest drive improvements as well …
Tavoian kept his message to the colonel short.
Two hundred-ninety-five-meter ship taking station on artifact this time [1511 UTC] beside Sinese remote longliner. No visible identity, but has double-ended clamshell drive nozzles. Appears to have two torp ports. Radiated energy suggests crew aboard. No exterior activity yet.
He was certain he’d have to send more information before long, but his orders were to report the Sinese arrival immediately.
55
DAEDALUS BASE
17 NOVEMBER 2114
Saturday morning Alayna woke up early, very early—and on purpose, not that she was all that enthused, but she had received a message from Director Wrae the day before noting that the Williams consortium had booked three straight hours of both the optical and radar arrays for a special galactic coordinated study, dealing with a recently discovered active galactic nucleus. That was all that the director had indicated. While Alayna was well aware of the schedule, the director’s mention of the Williams consortium was just another indication to Alayna of the fact that nothing should go wrong, particularly after her “failure” to give credit to the consortium for the use of their time in discovering 2114 FQ5 … the alien artifact that the world now knew as the Solar Express. Considering that almost no one outside of astronomical circles had even mentioned her name or COFAR in talking about the artifact, she had her doubts about how much the consortium had lost. She did know how much she was likely to lose if anything went wrong with the Williams observations. So, even though there was very little more she could do in advance, she wanted to be ready in case something occurred at the last moment.
That was why she was up checking everything well before the consortium’s observation program began. She could find no problems, but she sat with her coffee in the COFAR control center as the consortium observations started, ready to react if she had to, but her thoughts were actually on active galactic nuclei. Early on in her grad work, she’d thought about working on AGNs, and the mysterious way in which the massive black holes at the center of such galaxies balanced gas and energy outbursts over millions if not billions of years, regulating the energy radiated from that galaxy. She’d read something else about AGNs recently, not in any professional publication, but somewhere else. She just couldn’t remember where. She began to search, and before long, she found what she was looking for—in her personal directory—from The Passion of Science:
It’s more than merely interesting that AGNs regulate their galaxies. That’s like saying superheated steam is warm, or liquid oxygen is slightly cool.
In considering the words, she couldn’t help but think about the artifact. While it had been following its orbit since before humans had been using metal tools, and possibly far longer, even that time span was nothing compared to the timespan on which galaxies and all the suns that humans observed as stars operated. Does it all really just happen through the interaction of the mechanics of physics that we still don’t understand fully?
She smiled ironically. Was that why she kept pursuing the idea that there had to be something behind—literally underneath—the multi-fractal mini-granulations? Because you need more meaning in the universe, and if there isn’t, you at least need to understand more of how it operates?
Was there really any question about that?
That was another reason why she had been working on—and had almost finished—a multiple correlation-regression-link program that analyzed the appearance and frequency of multi-fractal mini-granulations, high-powered ultra-thin coronal loops, inter-granular magnetic fluctuations, and the convective activity of “normal” granulations.
Alayna tried not to check the systems too often, but the tightness in her abdomen didn’t go away until the three-hour window reserved by the consortium ended, and an hour block for the University of Nevada began.
She stretched and started toward the aeroponics section.
“There is an incoming message,” Marcel announced.
Her abdomen tightened again, almost painfully, as she sat down and accessed the message.
Just a word of thanks for the excellent service and support for the project. We appreciate it.
Alayna frowned. The message was from Jay Mehlin, the Director of the Williams Observatory, with a copy to Director Wrae. She’d never gotten a single message of thanks in the time she’d been at COFAR. She’d never heard of a postdoc getting something like the message she’d received, not directly and personally.
Where had that come from? Emma’s doing? Or did Director Mehlin have something else in mind? How could he? She’d heard of him, but never met him. In fact, she doubted that she’d ever been within a hundred kilometers of him.
She had to respond, but what exactly could she say? Too formal a reply, and she’d come off cold and uncaring. Too effusive, and she’d come off as an ambitious young postdoc. Which is exactly what you are. She just didn’t want to show that to the entire solar system.
Almost an hour later and after who knew how many attempts discarded, she sent her acknowledgment.
Dear Dr. Mehlin:
Thank you for your kind words.
Director Wrae has always insisted that any of us at COFAR do our best to provide optimal services, and it is good to know that we could help in your project, especially since there is still so much to be learned about AGNs.
With much appreciation.
She just hoped she had struck the right balance
, but without knowing Dr. Mehlin and having heard nothing about his character or habits, that was the best that she could do … and not to reply would definitely be a mistake.
Still wondering about why Mehlin had sent the message, and since there was little else she could or had to do for the moment, she hurried down to the lower level to finish the laundry she’d neglected for too long, which, thankfully, didn’t require that much time to fold and put away.
With that done, she returned to the control center, where she sat down and reread Chris’s latest message, again. She smiled as she read his self-deprecating comments about how, according to what little he knew about gravitation, the artifact shouldn’t be speeding up as much as it was. Somehow that pleased her, as did the information he passed to her about there being no detectable reason for that acceleration. But what could be causing that in an inert body?
Another thought struck, one that she should have considered earlier—much earlier. If the artifact was accelerating, was Chris having to accelerate to keep position on it? Because, if the increased speed was a result of something associated with the artifact, it shouldn’t have affected his ship because the artifact certainly didn’t have enough mass to bring the ship along with it.
She wished she’d thought to ask Chris that, and much earlier.
Either way, the logical answers boiled down to two. Either some outside force, beyond gravity, was acting on the artifact, or the artifact wasn’t as inert as it appeared to be. The problem was that, according to what she knew, both answers were impossible. The next most obvious conclusion was that the object wasn’t speeding up and that the calculations were somehow flawed, but she couldn’t check those with observations from COFAR for another four days, possibly five, depending on the exact positions of the object and COFAR.
What if the impossible is happening? Who can you contact—Emma!
Alayna immediately composed a message, then read through it.
Emma—
I don’t know if you’ve recovered enough from the cyclone/hurricane damage to determine this, but we’ve done some tracking on 2114 FQ5—yes, my Solar Express—and we either don’t have enough data points or … it appears to be accelerating more than can be accounted for by gravitational forces. Because of COFAR’s current position, we won’t be able to check positions until the 22nd.
I thought you might be interested.
Oh … by the way, I received a very nice message from Dr. Mehlin.
If Emma responded to the last line, that might also tell Alayna something else.
After checking all the COFAR monitors, she headed off to make sure the aeroponics system was operating as optimally as possible.
Less than two hours later, when she returned from her at least daily check of the aeroponics system, a longer time than she’d anticipated because she’d had to replace two of the sprayers, and locating the spares had taken more time, because they hadn’t been stored where the system indicated, Alayna discovered another message—from Emma.
Alayna—
We’ve been tracking 2114 FQ5. Same results. Details attached.
Would appreciate your updated information when available.
Dr. Mehlin can be very thoughtful.
The line about Mehlin was suggestive, but not conclusive in any way, but the very terseness of Emma’s response confirmed Alayna’s feelings about the alien artifact. The more worried the older astronomer became, the less voluble she was. The data definitely suggested that the artifact was speeding up more than could be accounted for by solar gravitation.
In turn, that meant Alayna needed to reply to Chris immediately.
Chris—
COFAR is still not in position to confirm the increase in inbound speed that you’ve reported. I’ve checked with one other astronomy facility, and that facility’s observations tend to confirm what you’ve reported.
Your observation about the effect of gravity is largely correct, in observed practice. Although gravitational attraction between two bodies is proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, the sun’s mass is so much greater than that of any small bodies in the solar system that, for practical purposes, the speed of attraction to the sun is effectively equal for such bodies and the result of the sun’s mass. In effect, all small bodies should move with equal acceleration under gravity toward the sun, but that obviously isn’t the case with regard to the artifact, which is why it just might deserve the name of Solar Express, unless the calculations of at least three reliable sources are all wrong.
This brings up another question, one which I should have asked earlier. Have you had to accelerate in order to maintain position? That would be helpful to know.
Whether you have or not, that still leaves us, and you, in particular, with three possibilities. (1) All our calculations are wrong. (2) The artifact has some form of yet undetected propulsion. (3) The artifact is far more massive than its size indicates. The third possibility seems unlikely because if the artifact has as much mass as would affect its inbound speed, it would also have enough surface gravity to attract your ship and squash you flat. At the same time, I’m dubious about two facilities and your AI all making miscalculations of the magnitude represented by the increased inbound velocity over what it “should” be. At this point, all the possibilities seem impossible. What makes them “impossible”? In the first case, it seems unlikely that speed calculations could be so misconstrued, but it has happened. In the second case, it is certainly possible, at least theoretically, that an alien technology might develop a propulsion system undetectable to us, but the odds seem long that such a technology would still be operable after thousands of years in only a fragment of the original sphere or craft when there is no sign of heat or energy as far insystem as you now are. In the third case, the only way the artifact could be that massive is if some technology restricted the effect of gravity around the artifact, and if that were the case, then the effect of that mass would seem to be nullified.
In short, at this point, I don’t have any answers. I do have a very strong feeling that it would be far better to make plans to depart the area of the artifact much sooner than whatever date you had originally anticipated. Right now, I can’t justify that through calculations, but I will as soon as I can after the twenty-first of the month.
As for your quotation, I would agree. Human beings talk about sharing knowledge while doing their best to hide it or get it first. Open space for the Sinese seems to mean open to them and open to others on their terms, but from what I’ve read of history that wasn’t much different when the British Empire ruled Earth’s oceans.
I don’t have a quote this time, and I want to get this off.
Please take care.
Alayna immediately dispatched the message. She sat looking at the COFAR monitors, her thoughts on the impossibility that her discovery had become … and on the fact that so few, so far, seemed to know, or care, about what it might represent.
56
ASTRONEWS
17 NOVEMBER 2114
On 24 March 2114, two observatories reported within minutes of each other an object tentatively identified as a comet [C/X/2114 FT2 COFAR-SMOA]. The first report came from the Combined Farside Array at Daedalus Crater on the far side of the Moon, the second from the Sinese Main Optical Array. At first, there was nothing to distinguish Comet COFAR/SMOA from any other long-period comet with a high inclination, typical of comets originating in the Oort Cloud. Then, by the beginning of April, several observers discovered that the object’s albedo varied dramatically, suggesting that the object rotated and had two sides with different characteristics. By mid-April, the comet brightened as it passed the orbit of Jupiter, but not as much as might have been expected, and early spectrographic analysis suggested the presence of silicon and silver, rather than the ice and dust composing most comets.
By September, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Comet COFAR/SMOA as a minor body [2114 FQ5], most pr
obably an ice-covered heavy silica-based asteroid in a cometary orbit. More observations determined that 2114 FQ5 was far smaller than initially assumed, less than two kilometers at its greatest dimension, with one side having an albedo of point nine nine, and the other comparatively dark side still with an albedo of point five four.
Reports indicate that sometime on 1 November 2114, Noram Space Service launched a modified fusionjet on a trajectory aimed at a rendezvous with the so-called asteroid. Within several days of that, likely on November third, the Sinese Federation launched an uncrewed modified longliner. Observations made by the DOA facility in Victoria have verified that two smaller objects are positioned close to 2114 FQ5. Those observations also indicate that one half of the object has a shimmering surface containing silver and silicates.
Unverified reports suggest that 2114 FQ5 may be an artifact that has been orbiting the sun since approximately 12,900 B.C. More than a score of amateur observers have also noted that the object is moving toward the sun significantly faster than can be accounted for. Neither DOEA authorities nor the Sinese Space Ministry have replied to requests for information or comments.
A noted astronomer, who requested anonymity, noted that it is “almost certain” that the object is an alien artifact of some sort …
57
RECON THREE
18 NOVEMBER 2114
By midday on Saturday, Tavoian was even more frustrated and concerned. The second Sinese vessel had avoided Recon three and its ISVs, even while it disgorged independent monitors that seemed to swarm everywhere. More worrying was the manned space tug/sled that carried space-suited figures and equipment to various parts of the artifact, particularly to the partly open hexagonal chambers with extruded protrusions. He hadn’t seen any signs that the Sinese had found or explored the side chambers and passageway to the “drive” chamber, unless they had found an entry on the far side, which was certainly possible. All of this he had dutifully reported to the colonel, including the fact that the Sinese had made no attempt to contact him, as if carrying on a charade that they believed Recon three was an uncrewed mission like their longliner was. Following his own orders, in turn, he had not attempted communications with the Sinese, although he had attempted, unsuccessfully, to intercept their communications.
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