“Good God, it's a perfect little working model,” exclaimed Smithson. “I bet if we could stick a miniature electric motor in it, you'd be hard pressed to tell it from the real thing.”
They all crowded around to get a closer look, one commenting “That's creepy.”
“Put it back under the hood, XO, I've got an idea,” said Brentford, thoughtfully.
The beetle was put back, and the hood automatically closed down.
“OK, XO, now press the middle button.”
Smithson did as ordered. The right-hand hood promptly filled with a grey swirling vapour which hung around for a few seconds, and then faded from view. Inside the hood was a perfect replica of the beetle on the other side.
After the string of various expletives had died down, and the look of shock had faded, Brentford said, “This may seem preposterous, but I think we have a duplicating machine here. Whoever built this was way ahead of us in science.” As he spoke, a small chute with a little box at its end, extended from the side of the machine.
A flap under the beetle dropped, and it disappeared below, to appear a few seconds later on the chute, which it walked along energetically, and dropped into the box where it continued to scramble about. This brought forth a new string of unprintable words as everyone jumped back a few paces, with a look of astonishment on their faces.
“My God,” exclaimed Smithson. “The bloody thing has given it life!'
'Can we be sure it's not some sort of mechanical motion?' asked Brentford. 'Maybe it's got a tiny motor in it, as you suggested, XO.'
'Well, we could take it apart, and see what's in it,' Smithson replied. 'Or make another one, and see how they interact.'
Before anyone could suggest anything else, Smithson had pressed the knob, and produced another beetle. It too, dropped into the box, and everyone crowded around to see what would happen. The new beetle went up to the one already in the box and they shuffled around each other for a few seconds, each inspecting the other, and then continued their individual efforts to escape the confines of their prison.
'That looks like a normal action for a bug, I'd say,' was Smithson's response. 'I don't somehow feel happy about pulling one of them apart. But how can a machine imbue life into something that's been constructed out of bits and pieces?'
'I think we may better understand this whole setup if we explore the complex a bit more,' said Brentford. 'It doesn't look as if anyone is here now - but I wonder why they left in such a hurry? They didn't even switch off their machines, and the power plant must still be running for these things to be working.'
'Before we move on, I'd like to take the beetle in the first compartment apart - it's not as though it's alive, that only happens in the second compartment,' said Smithson. Brentford nodded his approval.
'Anyone got a small sharp knife?' he asked. 'If you notice, this beetle appears to be dead, but a dead beetle would have stiff legs and this one's legs are all loose and move freely.' A knife was produced, and the beetle was carefully dissected.
After a few minutes, the beetle lay in bits, and Smithson made his pronouncement.
'To all intents and purposes, this was a real beetle - all the parts seem real, except it wasn't alive. I think they somehow made all the bits and assembled them making a 'master', which was then duplicated and given life - why is a different matter. I think all those rods coming down from the ceiling are small pipes, supplying the materials for duplicating whatever is in the first chamber, and then giving it life.”
“Well, that would certainly seem to be the case,” Brentford responded. “It seems to be the only logical explanation I can think of - as impossible as it sounds.” He paused for a moment, “My first thoughts were that bones were being collected from the different creatures on the islands, but it now looks as if these people were populating the islands with new life forms by creating the creatures themselves - some sort of experiment I suppose - maybe to see what type would be best suited to each island. But to what purpose….?”
For once there were no answers forthcoming from the rest of the party.
“I think we ought to release the two living beetles,” said Smithson. “After all, we created them.” And so saying, he scooped them up from the box at the end of the chute, muttering a quiet curse as one of them nipped his hand. With the newly created beetles now outside the building, and foraging about for something to eat, Smithson returned to the ‘duplicating’ room.
“Feel like another experiment?” asked Brentford, with a sly smile on his face. “How about we put a chocolate bar into the machine, and see what it makes of that?”
Someone produced a small bar, took off the wrapper, and handed it to Smithson. He opened the hood, placed the bar in the centre of the receiving plate and lowered the hood again and turned to his Commanding Officer.
“Would you like to do the honours, sir?”
“Certainly,” Brentford responded.
The middle knob went down with a soft click, the chamber filled with the grey vapour, and everyone pressed forward to see what would happen.
As the vapour cleared, there was a complete copy of the chocolate bar, even to the angle of the ‘master’ in the other chamber.
“Volunteer required to taste it,” Smithson called out, and one of the quieter members of the party stepped forward, with an outstretched hand.
The look on his face said it all, followed by a ‘Hmmmm.’ Four other eager hands reached out, and Smithson took a piece himself.
“Just noticed,” said Brentford, “the machine must somehow differentiate between a creature needing the life ‘pulse’, and something inanimate, because it didn't drop through the flap - now that's clever. Anyway, it solves our food problem until the machine runs out of ingredients - and that's if none of us get ill.”
They left the ‘duplicating’ room and tried the next door, which refused to open, as did several others, much to their frustration. At last one did allow them in, and they were confronted by a full size duplicator - big enough for one of them to have got into.
“Well, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised,” said Brentford. “The humanoids had to come from somewhere - but how the hell do you go about building one of them? They couldn't have evolved on the islands.”
“If you can make the bones, it shouldn't be too difficult to assemble a skeleton, but the internal organs and a brain are beyond my comprehension,” Smithson replied. “But someone seems to have done it.”
There were no volunteers to try the duplicator, and being no ‘master’ under the hood, there was little else they could do, so they left the room and continued down the corridor to the end. The door confronting them opened easily - and they found the ‘stock’ room. It was enormous, stretching off into the distance with rows of shelves filled with the ‘masters’ of the creatures the alien race had constructed.
They were all here, the beetles in great variety, the crawlers, the humanoids - even the spaghetti-like strands which hung down below the islands, and the willow-like sticks which had interwoven themselves to form the islands themselves. There were also many more creatures which the party had not seen before - some of which were so grotesque that not a few shudders went down a spine or two.
There were several other buildings and rooms they found by using the interconnecting corridors, most of which were filled with incomprehensible machinery, which even Smithson couldn't fathom out.
The sun was beginning to lower in the sky, and it was decided to return to the submarine for the night. After a well earned meal, Brentford and Smithson went up the conning tower to discuss what they had discovered, while the rest of the party related what they had seen to a dumb struck crew.
“Why do you think the operators of the complex left in such a hurry, XO?”
Smithson thought for some moments before replying, as there were so many unanswered questions to do with this strange world.
“There's a lot more to learn before we can be sure, but I think there was a violent volcanic er
uption which took them all by surprise, and they had to get off the planet quickly - which would explain why all the systems still seem to be working, including the main power plant - wherever that is. Remember that large metallic construction we saw on the ocean bed with a rent in it? I think that was their shuttle, which they used to ferry personnel from the interplanetary ship; that would have been in orbit around the planet. It's possible that just after take-off, it was hit by a flying fragment from the eruption, and crashed into the ocean.”
“What we thought was a meteoroid hitting the ocean could have been the mother ship. Maybe it lost orbital height, and they couldn't correct it - so it just came down, burning up as it hit the atmosphere, and then hitting the ocean. What puzzles me is how they got such a vast amount of plant and building material down to the planet, the shuttle certainly wasn't big enough.”
“I've just had an awful thought,” said Brentford. “Do you think we have been ‘seeded’ on Earth, like this world?”
“No, sir. We have proved evolution on Earth, there's no doubt about that. I think this was a big experiment to see if life could be created artificially, and then populate a planet with it - but why they would want to do that, bearing the amount of effort involved, beats me - but that's what they've done. I think this planet has developed its own life forms in the oceans, and the aliens have added the islands and their creatures.”
The stars came out, the three satellite moons raced across the heavens, and the crew of the Tristan were stranded on a very strange planet, with no hope of returning to their home world.
“With a bit of careful planning, we can exist here,” said Brentford. “But a few females wouldn't go amiss. What's the chance we could get the complex to produce some for us?”
Smithson did his best to suppress a disrespectful laugh, and failed.
“Not a chance,” he said at last. “We stand very little hope of deciphering their language, and even less of how the equipment works. We may be able to create something - but I dread to think what it might turn out to be.”
“What do you suggest we do if the aliens return to see what happened to their friends?” asked Brentford.
“Hi-tail it back to the submarine and go out to sea,” Smithson replied. “If they attack us while afloat, we have enough fire power to put them off - in fact we could take the whole island off the map. I've been thinking about their possible return; I somehow doubt if they will come looking - it would need a distress message to have reached home base for a rescue party to be sent out, and that would require the orbiting satellite to be manned to send the message. I don't think it was manned, otherwise the orbit correction would have been done, and it clearly wasn't. The shuttle probably wouldn't have a powerful enough transmitter to reach base; so I think we're in sole control for the foreseeable future.”
“Right, what we'll do is put the whole crew in the picture, damp down the reactor to just give enough power to keep things running, leave a skeleton crew on board, and those who want to can move into the accommodation block we found; then we can continue to explore the complex - we might just be able to get things working in our favour; what do you think, XO?”
“Sounds like a good idea, sir, we don't have any other viable options really.”
Next morning the crew were informed of the situation again. It hadn't been totally real to a few members when announced earlier, which resulted in two members breaking down completely and needing sedation, and three others who needed careful supervision for a few days.
What they thought to be the alien's accommodation unit proved to be just that, complete with what passed for beds, and the other needed utilities; but they did have to supply their own duvets. A kitchen was set up in one of the rooms for future use, and before long it was a real home from home - well, as near as they were likely to get in the prevailing circumstances.
During the next two weeks, one of the men who had been under sedation was found hanging one morning in the accommodation unit - he was given the usual burial at sea ceremony - the other man seemed to have recovered enough to carry out his duties, but a close watch was kept on him.
Brentford, Smithson, the Chief Medical Officer together with an engineer, set about trying to find out how the supplies for the duplicators were organised. They managed to trace the fine supply pipes back to a main feeder system, which then led them to a large building full of what they thought was the actual machinery which processed the materials. Because of what looked like air filters, one machine, they thought, separated the atmospheric gases and stored them in huge spheres.
Another device, although they were not completely sure, seemed to be a water purifier, mainly because of the filter systems, and they could just about hear the flow of a liquid.
The biggest piece of equipment in the building was a real mystery, until the engineer found a small valve on one of the outlet pipes. He turned it, and a stream of fine particles poured out.
“This looks like finely ground up rock,” he announced. “I would assume they have drilled down to the bedrock, and are extracting the minerals it contains.”
A careful investigation revealed that the powder was fed into several separators, processed, and then sent on to a row of storage tanks.
“It certainly looks as if we have all the ingredients to make just about anything,” said Brentford. “How the hell they put them together will be a bit more difficult to fathom out - that's if we ever can.”
“As long as the power plant continues to run, we can keep the duplicators working,” said the engineer. “Material supplies shouldn't be a problem. We can produce fresh food by duplicating items from our own stocks, so we won't go hungry.”
Some days later, the Med (Chief medical Officer) asked permission to try and make a creature using the bone stocks they had found earlier. Permission was given by Brentford, and the great experiment began. One of the machines had a skeleton of a small dog-like creature already in it, and had been left ready for the addition of muscles and tendons - at least, that's what the Med thought after inspecting all the other devices in the building.
Although no one was sure, it seemed that the sequence of events was - build a skeleton - add muscles and tendons - insert internal organs - cover with skin, and then duplicate - the last machine somehow giving life to the creation.
The Med had discovered that the skeleton in the ‘muscle adding device’ had tiny coloured dots on the bones where tendons would be attached, so when he assembled his creature (after finding the odd looking pen which left the marks) he felt confident that he could complete the first stage of playing God. He chose to construct a four legged creature about the size of a small cat, but there the resemblance ended.
He assembled his skeleton, the bones seemly having a magnetic property, as they easily stayed together when placed end to end. Choosing a skull bone with jaws took a long time, as he had difficulty in finding the correct machine to make them in; also working out where to put the tendon markers caused several furious arguments between him and his assistant, but a complete skeleton was finely marked up and put into the machine.
The Med had noticed that a small metallic plate had been inserted into the top of each of the building machines, and he thought that they contained the coding for the type of build required. As yet he hadn't found a stock of these plates, not that he would have been able to decipher what they produced anyway, so he used the ones already installed.
When the mist cleared there stood a hideous looking creation, the bulging muscles glistening a red brown colour, and looking mean with it. Neither of them felt like picking it up and transferring it to the next machine.
When he finally picked up his creation, he was surprised to find it wasn't as wet and slimy as it looked, and so it was placed into the next machine. The knob was pressed, and they both stood anxiously by to see what would appear.
When the vapour finally cleared, it didn't look very much different, except it now had eyes. The skinning machine produced a disappointm
ent, as it covered the creature with scales so that it looked more like an armadillo than any thing else.
The Med called for Brentford to witness the final stage of his creation, preparing himself for a few caustic comments.
“What the hell's that supposed to be?” asked Brentford. The Med tried to explain about the coding plates, suggesting that they could try each one in turn, and then mark them up with the results for future use.
“Would you like to initiate the final sequence, sir?” asked the Med. Brentford gave him a hard look, and pressed the knob.
The right-hand hood filled with the usual grey vapour, which swirled around for a few moments - and then it cleared, the trapdoor opened and the creature disappeared below; and a few seconds later it slithered out of the chute and dropped into the holding box, its head turning this way and that, trying to make out its surroundings.
“God, it's an ugly looking bugger,” said the Med. “but I suppose its mine.” He said with a touch of resignation in his voice.
“Not bad for a first attempt, Med,” Brentford responded. “You'll get better with time and practice - especially if you can sort out those code plates. Are you going to let it go free?”
“I guess so, it's got life - I owe it a chance to survive.”
Carefully positioning his hand behind the creature's head, he made a grab for it, its jaws just missing his fingers as its head swivelled round more than expected.
“I think we're still a long way off making ourselves some female company,” said Smithson, unable to resist a little dig at a previous remark of Brentford's.
Smithson took the creature outside and let it go, whereupon it disappeared into a pile of volcanic rubble, while the ‘master’ creature was taken to the stockroom, and added to the other multitude of bizarre offerings constructed by the previous occupants of the complex.
Eventually all the buildings and their respective rooms were opened, their contents carefully catalogued along with what they thought their purpose was. Those few doors which wouldn't respond to the normal method of opening, were forced, and left open for future possible use - if they could figure out what the rooms were for.
Flight of the Tristan Page 5