“The external port is inside? That doesn’t make any sense,” Wayne said with a laugh. Then he bent over.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help,” Jonathan said, walking toward Wayne to help him carry the fuel cell. Maxim got down from the rover, walked to the entrance, and held the door open with his left hand.
“I’ll go first,” Wayne said. He shuffled backward into a narrow hallway. They were in luck. The fuel cell fit through the passage, just barely. They reached the inner room without incident, where Jonathan used the lamp on his helmet to cast light into the darkness. The space was round and maybe four meters high.
“The port must be here somewhere near the entrance,” Maxim said.
They put down the fuel cell. They found a nondescript outlet near the floor.
“That’s it,” Maxim said. “You got the cable?”
“Not me,” Wayne said.
“What cable?” Jonathan asked.
“A standard charger cable, like we use to charge the rovers. Wait here. I’ll get it.” Maxim turned around and walked out.
Through the helmet radio, Jonathan heard someone whistling a song. Then it went quiet. Only his suit’s life-support system continued to hum.
The inner dome, with its scientific instruments, appeared to have excellent electromagnetic isolation. That was important, because otherwise they wouldn’t have any protection from solar eruptions.
Jonathan looked around in the light from his helmet lamp. There was a clear lack of color. The inner walls were just as gray as the walls on the outside. Even the metal dome appeared to be painted gray. How could anyone have a positive mental attitude in an environment like this? He should complain to the resident doctor. But, of course, he’d have to look in the mirror to do that.
Then a ceiling light flickered on. Jonathan was surprised. He hadn’t even noticed that Maxim was already back. Three screens lit up on the right-side wall. The telescope’s control computer started booting up.
“We’ve got ninety-three minutes,” Maxim said. “That’s what the display on the fuel cell says, anyway.”
“Better subtract at least ten minutes from that. The motor that moves the dome sucks up lots of power,” Wayne said.
“Away team to base. Do you copy?” This time it was Maxim trying the communications. He seemed to be well-rested.
“Very well,” Atiya replied. “I guess the repeater’s working?”
“Seems to be. You’ve got about ninety minutes. Are you going to send us the coordinates?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather control the telescope remotely from here.”
“Understood. You’re the astronomer, Atiya.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Commander, but I’ll be able to do the work more quickly myself.”
“No need to explain. None of us knows anything about astronomy.”
Suddenly the light inside the dome changed. Jonathan automatically looked up toward the ceiling. A gap had appeared in the titanium cover, through which the telescope could now observe the sky. The narrow black strip that Jonathan saw from his position looked cold and distant. He felt as if a cold wind was blowing through the dome, but that had to be some sort of illusion or power of suggestion.
As if controlled by a ghost, menus and windows opened and closed on the three computer screens. Jonathan had no idea what Atiya was doing, but it all looked professional. She hadn’t had many opportunities to train on the FST yet, but at the speed she was working, all modern telescopes must’ve worked basically the same way.
“Can you maybe let us see through the telescope too, Atiya?” Jonathan asked.
“The raw images won’t help you much, I’m afraid. I’ve got to process them first so that you’ll be able to recognize something. But if you want, I can put up a live picture on the left screen.”
“If it’s not too much trouble for you.”
“Not at all. I imagine it’d be pretty boring for you to stand around while I do my work. I’ve got to thank you again for making this possible for me.”
“Anything to help.”
“Oh, if the data from the ARES is correct, this might be quite a sensational discovery.”
“From the ARES?” Maxim asked.
“Those guys who took our money and supplies and are running off to Mars to get into the history books?” Wayne asked.
“Don’t blame the crew on board the Mars ship. It’s not their fault,” Atiya said.
“They didn’t have to accept the positions for that mission,” Wayne argued.
“Would you have said no if they had asked you?”
Wayne grumbled something unintelligible. No, of course, none of them would’ve declined a place on the ARES. But they had already completed the training for the moon base. They would have been the last ones to be asked. It was all a bit unfair—Wayne was right about that.
“What did they see from the ARES?” Jonathan asked.
The left screen turned black. Then a bright spot appeared approximately in the center.
“That,” Atiya said via radio.
She obviously meant the bright spot. Jonathan bent over the screen and looked at it. It could’ve been anything, a star, a supernova that had just appeared, an asteroid, Planet X.
“And what is that?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Then we’ll stop bugging you and let you do your work.”
Now the wait was getting too long even for him. And he also understood why Wayne had made himself comfortable and spread himself out across the floor. He couldn’t take the boredom much longer either.
“How much longer do you need, Atiya?” Jonathan asked.
“Give me ten more minutes.”
He strolled over to the fuel cell. It indicated it still had enough energy for half an hour more. “Okay,” he said. “Have you found anything yet?”
“It’s very interesting. I’m sure I’ll be done with my calculations by the time you all get back here.”
“Nice. Then we’ll have something to look forward to.” He was looking forward much more to finally taking a shower and getting clean again. But he didn’t have to mention that to Atiya. “Hey, what’ll we do with the fuel cell after this?” he asked.
“We’ll have to install it back into the power station,” Maxim said.
Jonathan smiled. The commander was doing everything he could to stay away from the medical station back at the base. He hoped the fracture hadn’t damaged Maxim’s nerves and blood vessels. The fact that he had complained so little about pain made him more concerned than relieved. The Russian was a tough guy, but the pain medicine couldn’t be working anymore. And it was no fun living with such a recent fracture.
Jonathan pulled the cable from the outlet, and it went dark in the dome again. Headlamp beams darted across the floor.
“I’ll take the cable,” Maxim said.
He held it out to him. The commander started to reach for it with his right arm, apparently without thinking. Despite the reflective helmet visor, Jonathan could see the pain in Maxim’s face. That made him feel a little better. If he was still feeling pain, at least some of the nerves were still alive. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to take another look at the fracture yet. And Maxim was doing everything he could to delay that as long as possible.
“Can you help carry the cell again?” Wayne asked.
“Aye-aye.” Jonathan bent down and found a grip underneath the cell with his gloves.
“And... up!”
They lifted the cell. Jonathan let out a groan.
“Out of shape?” Wayne asked.
“Seems that way.”
“I’ll go in front again.”
They walked with small steps through the passage to the outside. It was still bright. Jonathan was sweating, even though his suit’s cooling system was working at full blast.
Maxim was already waiting at the rover. “Careful, Wayne, there’s a step behind you,” he said.
>
Wayne stopped and oriented himself. Carefully he felt around with his foot. Jonathan’s arms felt like they were getting longer and longer. They started moving again. He watched the ground attentively so he wouldn’t stumble over the step. The fuel cell was a sensitive piece of equipment. They had better not let it slip out of their fingers.
They finally reached the rover.
“On my mark... Now!” Wayne said.
Jonathan tried to raise the cell to the height of the cargo bed, but he only managed to lift it about ten centimeters. “I think it was lighter before,” he said.
“Get ready, Jon. We can do it,” Wayne said. “And... Now!”
They tried again. His muscles were screaming in pain, and after lifting the cell 20 centimeters, he couldn’t raise it any higher. Shit. Shouldn’t the cell be lighter after converting its hydrogen and oxygen contents into water? That’d be true on Earth, he corrected himself. But this was a self-recycling cell. It stored the water for the next step.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help,” Maxim said.
That wouldn’t be good. Maxim wanted to help with his broken arm!
“I got it,” Jonathan said.
That was the wrong thing to say. He realized that with their next attempt. He couldn’t even get the cell half as high as before. But suddenly it got much lighter. He looked to the right. Maxim was using his left hand to help them lift the cell. The three of them succeeded.
Jonathan breathed heavily. Tomorrow he was going to have some muscle aches.
“Thanks, Maxim,” he said.
“Don’t mention it. You’ve been carrying me around all this way.”
Jonathan promised himself he’d exercise more after they returned to base.
“Away team to base.”
“Yes, Wayne?” Yue was at the radio now. Atiya must’ve been busy analyzing her images.
“We’re back at the power station. We’re going to quickly unload the cell and reconnect it to the system. Then we’re coming home.”
“Okay. Don’t you need a break?”
“We want to get back as soon as possible,” Wayne said. There was no shower in the outpost, and by this time they had agreed that getting cleaned up was their number one priority.
“Be careful. We look forward to you getting here.”
“I’m supposed to tell Ken that Maxim wants sushi.”
“I’ll tell him. He’s at the construction site for the greenhouse right now, but he should be back before you.”
The sushi that Kenjiro could create with the limited resources at the base was hard to distinguish from that made on Earth. Somehow, Ken had figured out how to replace the fresh vegetables with seasoned tofu, and to use rehydrated fish, so that the rolls had an unbelievably fresh taste.
“And what news from Atiya?”
“I haven’t seen or heard anything from her for two hours. Whatever she’s found must be really exciting.”
He recognized the base from its position lights. Jonathan couldn’t remember ever coming ‘home’ in the dark before. But today was one of the few days that the base was in shadow. Without the four red lights that marked a square around the building, he might’ve never found their shared home. Most of the living quarters were below the moon’s surface.
This was where drilling robots had dug out chambers and corridors as the first step for the base where they would live. The 3D printer robot, which was currently building the greenhouse, only arrived later. Living underground, he didn’t feel like he was missing anything with no view of the lunar landscape. The moon did not feature particularly diverse terrain. And it was a good feeling to know there were a few meters of compacted regolith between him and outer space, which was the source of a constant bombardment of cosmic radiation and small meteorites.
They stopped in front of a hill that was maybe two meters high and three meters wide. There was a metal door in the side facing them, the entrance to the main airlock. The door slid to the side like an elevator. On the inside, a lamp lit up red. Wayne took over control of the entry procedure. The door closed again, and a foggy mist flooded in from the ceiling. In the cold, all the water vapor in the incoming air condensed. Sixty seconds later, the fog disappeared again.
The lamp on the ceiling had turned green. Nevertheless, Jonathan checked the pressure and temperature in the airlock against the instruments on his suit. Everything was normal.
“Ready?” Wayne asked.
“Absolutely,” Maxim said.
“Please,” Jonathan said.
Wayne pressed the open button. The door on the other side opened. Beyond the door, the passageway continued steeply downward. The corridor led into a reception room, where Yue and Kenjiro were waiting for them.
Jonathan immediately sat down on the bench on one side and stretched his arms and legs. Yue and Ken helped Maxim get out of his suit. Jonathan began to open his own spacesuit. A stench filled the room, a bitter mixture of sweat, urine, and feces. Nobody made any comments about it. It was normal. Anyone in a spacesuit for more than ten hours had no other choice but to stink wretchedly upon return. The ventilation system worked at full blast, trying to eliminate the odor.
“I’ll bring Maxim to the shower,” Kenjiro said.
“You want to use the other one?” Wayne asked him.
Jonathan shook his head. “You go ahead. I need a few minutes of peace and quiet.” He was so exhausted that even his own body odor didn’t bother him. Everyone began to leave the room.
Yue turned around one more time to face him. “Can I help you somehow?” she asked.
Jonathan waved her away. “Thanks, that’s very nice of you, but I’m just going to wait here until Wayne is done.”
Yue waved at him and disappeared down the corridor. Jonathan shut his eyes.
Everyone but Atiya had assembled in the control center. Maxim was wearing a sling to support and immobilize his right arm. Jonathan had finally given him a thorough examination, and the fracture had seemingly had no additional consequences. The commander had been very lucky. Maxim and Wayne had reported their adventurous outing, but their presentation was mostly just a way to pass the time as they waited for Atiya to tell them what she had found.
Now, they were simply waiting, restlessly.
Atiya suddenly entered the room and all eyes glommed onto her—she must’ve felt like a star. Atiya remained standing and raised her eyebrows. “Is there something wrong with my hair? Why are you all staring at me like that?” she asked while running her fingers through her black hair.
“Come on, tell us all about your big discovery,” Wayne said.
Atiya took a chair that was at the side of the room and moved it to the center. Then she sat down and crossed her legs. Jonathan almost always had trouble reading any hint of her feelings from her face, but this time it seemed clear that she had some major news to announce.
“Strictly speaking,” she said, “it’s not my discovery. The first observations came from the ELT at the European Southern Observatory, and then Giordano delivered conclusive evidence from ARES.”
“But, of what?” Maxim asked.
Atiya raised one finger. Then she stood up and retrieved a tablet from one of the desks in the corner. She tapped on it a few times and then showed them an image.
Jonathan saw a cigar-shaped object, reddish-gray in color, with multiple narrower sections. Where the heck did I see something like this before?
“This is our visitor. It doesn’t have a name yet. It’s about 400 meters long with a diameter of maybe 100 meters,” she said. “What you see here might be a D-type asteroid, or it might be a comet. The shape is a bit unusual, but not exceptionally so. It’s also possible that, instead, it’s several objects on trajectories very close together. Anyone notice anything odd?”
“The narrow parts?” Jonathan suggested.
“No. What’s odd is that I didn’t say ‘orbiting the sun.’ That is a real anomaly. This celestial body very clearly comes from somewhere beyond our solar system.�
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Jonathan was again reminded that he’d seen something similar before, but now he remembered when, where. About twenty years ago, a similar object had visited the solar system and then left again. It was called Omama, or something like that. He’d still been in school at the time and remembered being amused by the name. “Is it something like that Omama comet several years ago?” he asked.
“Good observation,” Atiya said. “The solar system already had a visitor something like this back in 2017. Its discoverers named that one ʻOumuamua, or assigned it the scientific name of 1I, for the first identified interstellar object.”
“Is it possible 1I’s come back?” Kenjiro asked.
“No, it left the solar system in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. We’ll never see 1I again. In the case of 2I, however, I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jonathan asked.
Atiya tapped a few more times on the tablet. The red cigar disappeared, replaced by a bright spot that moved at a constant rate out of the image’s center. But suddenly the spot jumped and started moving in the opposite direction.
“This simulation is based on the data that Giordano Bruno recorded on board the ARES. What you see there is completely impossible for a natural celestial body.”
“But couldn’t the object have been affected by something else that we just can’t see?” Kenjiro asked.
“Its brightness and absolute velocity have changed only slightly. It would’ve had to have been an elastic impact against an object with a huge mass. And this unknown object would also have to be completely dark. I don’t know any phenomenon that fits those conditions.”
“At least in principle, it would have to be dark only in the visual range, right? Or did ARES make observations in other wavelengths too?”
“That’s true, Ken. There are still a lot of ifs and buts and maybes. It looks to me that 2I changed its direction of motion itself. That would seem to be more plausible than the existence of a giant, invisible object that 2I ran into with an almost perfectly elastic rebound and also without being destroyed in the process.”
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 5