Day of the Dragonstar (4 page)

“You’d better get the
Astaroth . . .”

“Yeah.” Melendez keyed in his mike. “Big Mother, this is SP2 double A . . . Do you copy? SP2 double A, calling Big Mother . . .”

“Big Mother here.” Major Franco’s voice swept through the phones.

“Major, we have scanner-contact.” Melendez read out the incoming data. “Visual will come momentarily. It’s
big,
Major.”

“Affirmative, SP2 double A. I have orders to patch you directly to Copernicus now. Good luck, gentlemen. Big Mother, out.”

Static crackled, followed by a series of bleeps and clicks as the scrambler codes activated. All transmissions from the Snipe would now be beamed hundreds of millions of kilometers back to the moon. Traveling at the speed of regular radio waves, communication from the asteroid belt to the lunar surface would have required a fifteen-minute time lag between transmission and reception. Thus, an inquiry and the reception of an. answer would consume a half hour of real time. Communication over the immense distance within the solar system would be frustrating if the IASA were constricted by the old laws of relativistic physics. Indeed, it was the discovery of the tachyon
—
that particle zipping along at hyper-light speeds, incapable of deceleration
below
the speed of light
—
which had made Deep-Space Operations feasible. Deep Space communications were accomplished by means of a tachyon wave-generator.

Peter Melendez keyed in the proper frequency code, which would validate the Priority Channnel transmission, and waited.

* * *

At Copernicus Base, it was early afternoon. Business as usual for the majority of lunar base personnel. Almost eight hours had passed since Phineas Kemp had convened the meeting of the Joint Chiefs. Only a handful of high-echelon Copernicus staff knew of the as-yet-unidentified object. Kemp was pleased with the efficiency and smoothness of Oscar Rheinhardt’s Security operations.

Copernicus Base hummed with the life of the hive: farmers, mechanics, technicians, scientists, administrators, pilots, all busily engaged in their duties, all necessarily unaware of the drama about to unfold in Deep Space, thought Phineas Kemp.

Attired in his Informal Officer’s jumpsuit, he paced back and forth in the Communications Center, waiting. Waiting and brooding. The room was empty except for Major Alterman, Director of Communications for Copernicus Base
—
one of the few personnel briefed on the current Security topic. The room was bathed in a soft darkness above, illuminated only by the operational lights on the consoles. It was cool and quiet with the relaxing murmurs and thrums of smoothly functioning machinery permeating the atmosphere.

In contrast, Kemp felt tense.

The image of the reactions of the Joint Chiefs to Labate’s pronouncements still registered in his mind. Kemp realized they were merely reflections of his own awe. The words reverberated.

“. . . initial sign of its presence was a series of luminosity peaks. These peaks were caused by the specular reflection of solar radiation off the surfaces of the object
—
flat surfaces,”
Professor Labate had told them.
“The intervals between reflectance peaks indicate that the object is rotating about a principal axis of inertia. It’s an immense cylinder, tumbling end-to-end through space as it approaches the sun. Whenever the flat ends of the cylinder face the sun, we get a bright flash of reflected radiation and light. Spectrometer readings suggest that it is of a metallic substance of uniform characteristics. The object is emanating some kind of VLF electromagnetic field. So far we have not been: able to identify its nature, although the parameters indicate something of a fairly large order, well within the limits defined by a controlled fusion reaction.”

They’d immediately realized the implications of that. Kemp’s own words had almost been superfluous.
“A ship. Evidently been there in orbit for a sizable amount of time. Some product of an alien civilization.”

The expressions of the others had changed rapidly, passing through stages of shock, flickering briefly through a spectrum of awe and confusion, finally settling into acceptance. Excited acceptance.

Security measures previously implemented by Kemp had been reinforced by Oscar Rheinhardt, Security Chief. No doubt neither the Chinese or the Khan Base had, any idea of what was out there. Their equipment was not as good. Still, they could take no chances. The discovery was of immense political importance, to say nothing of scientific significance. Officially, the Observatory claimed it had had a hardware crash on
the machinery pertinent to the discovery, and were awaiting repairs.

Because it would take an estimated four weeks to reach the object if they deployed one of the ships in the lunar area, it had been decided to use a DS mining operation in the approximate vicinity of the object’s closest approach to
the asteroid belt. Two ore-processing ships were within range: the
Astaroth
and the
Cassandra.
The Mission Commander of the
Astaroth
was a former crewman of Kemp’s
—
Major Altimiras Franco. He could be trusted. The Joint Chiefs had agreed.

He was in charge of the first operation with the chance of contacting an alien intelligence. How about that, Dad, Kemp thought to himself as he waited. How about that.

Alterman looked up, his beard strangely underlit by the instrument lighting. “Colonel, we’ve just gotten word from the
Astaroth.
Their
Snipe reports instrument-contact with the object and Major Franco is patching us in.”

Finally! thought Kemp, turning quickly and returning to the central console. He slid into a chair next to Alterman, strapping a throat mike to his neck quickly. “Thank, you, Major. Ready when you are.”

“The Snipe’s just keyed in his scramble-sequence. Go ahead, Colonel.”

“Copernicus Base, calling SP2 double A. Do you copy?”

“This is SP2 double A, Copernicus. Spec-5 Peter Melendez on the com. How is my signal, Copernicus?”

“We copy, SP2 double A. This is Colonel Phineas Kemp, Melendez. What have you got for us?”

As the Snipe crewman repeated, his initial data material, Kemp nodded to himself, then signaled Major Alterman to contact Security Chief Rheinhardt, Scientific Operations Chief Marcia Bertholde, and Gregor Kolenkhov, Chief of Support Operations, a summons which would bring them immediately to the Communications Center from where they waited on standby, quite close.

“We copy that, Melendez,” Kemp said. “You should be getting a visual any minute now. In the meantime, I want all instrument-data on telemetry ASAP.”

“Roger, Copernicus. Stand by, please.”

Panels on the console began flashing and blinking within three seconds. Display screens began accumulating rows and columns of data. Kemp nodded to himself as he spoke again. “All right, SP2 double A,
we have a copy on your telemetry. Copernicus Base is standing by until you have visual confirmation.”

“We copy,” said Melendez. “SP2 double A, standing by.”

Kemp leaned back in his console chair and exhaled slowly. The feelings of tenseness mixed with ennui had been extinguished
—
at least for the moment. Memories flashed through his mind, and he briefly recalled scenes from his years in space. The claustrophobic cabins, the eternal night always threatening to swallow you up, tension as thick as the smell of your sweat. Kemp remembered and he wished that it was
him
in that Snipe, drawing close to the unknown object.

A door slid open at the far end of the chamber. Turning, Kemp saw the other members of the Staff enter quickly. The expression on their faces betrayed anxiety mixed with excitement.

Kemp motioned them over to the console, and began to explain the current situation.

* * *

After keying out
the throat mike, Melendez turned to O’Hara. “Kemp! Colonel Phineas Kemp. Commander of Copernicus Base, and he was talking to
us
on Priority Channel.”

O’Hara was staring straight ahead as though afraid of what he might see looming from the darkness. “I don’t like it,” he said softly. “We’ve been thrown inta something big, Melendez. Why else would the top brass be interested in what we’re doin’?”

“Yes. My feeling exactly. For once in my life, I think I agree with you.” Melendez smiled to relieve the growing tension, but O’Hara was in no mood for it. The larger man grimaced and returned his gaze to the forward viewing port.

“Jeez! What’s
that?
See it? Something just flashed!”

Melendez had trouble speaking. “Yes. We’re closing in on it. Relative velocity down to five KPS plus. Hang on . . .”

O’Hara obeyed, then breathed deeply several times, nervously rubbing his lips with the back of his hand. “Bigger every second. Christ almighty, that’s it! Look!”

Staring into the speckled night, Melendez concentrated on something shining with grey-whiteness . . . a metallic glint. The object appeared to be a rectangle, much longer than it was wide, growing larger. As the Snipe homed in on the object, the resolution became more clear, the configuration more distinct.

An immense cylinder. Slowly tumbling, end-over end . . .

O’Hara cleared his throat. “I seen a lotta rocks in my time, but I ain’t seen nothin’ like that. Ain’t no asteroid, that’s for sure.”

Melendez realized he was gawking. “I’d better get Copernicus back on line.” Unsteadily, he keyed in the mikes, and spoke his identification, following it with: “We have a visual.”

“We copy, SP2 double A. We have your current velocity at 5.3 kilometers per second. Distance from the object 2.67 thousand kilometers. Do you copy that?”

“Affirmative, Copernicus,” Melendez said after a glance at his readouts. “Do you suggest deceleration and manual control at this time?”

“Affirmative. Cameras on, now. We want to
see
that thing.”

“I’m switching to VOR transmission immediately.”

The instructions were quickly punched into the instruments. In addition to the omnifrequency scanners, sensors, spectrometers, and other analyzing instruments, three high-resolution Hitachi-Kodak VOR cameras zoom-focused on the object. One camera transmitted crystal-clear images in the visible spectrum, while the others produced infrared and ultraviolet images.

“All right, SP2 double A. We have a signal. Good hard line. Continue to monitor your telemetry and approach the object on manual.”

“Switching,” said Melendez as he nodded to O’Hara, who punched out the autoguidance and assumed control of the small ship
.

“SP2 double A standing by,” he said, then keyed out the throat mikes. The cylinder was already much larger, he noticed. Its dimensions were staggering . . . and they still had more than a thousand kilometers to go! “How’s it going?” he asked O’Hara.

“Fine.” O’Hara did not look at him, but continued staring at the cylinder which floated silently ahead of them.

It
was
hard to keep your gaze away from the object. Now that its shape was clearly discernible, it was obvious that it was no natural formation
—
asteroid, meteor, or even monstrous chunk of frozen water or gases. A perfect cylinder
—
hundreds of times larger than the tallest building. Impossibly large, thought Melendez, yet there it was filling up the viewport with its bulk. The thought kept hitting him over and over: something this large, so cleanly-devised, had to have been designed.
Created.

The notion could hardly mesh with his acceptance, and yet before him was all the evidence he needed.

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t believe it. I
don’t
believe it,” said O’Hara, his voice soft, almost reverent. “What the hell
is
it, Melendez?”

“I think you know about as much as I do, O’Hara.” A shiver of awe ran down his spine.

* * *

The VOR transmissions burst upon the Communications Center screens. Phineas Kemp and the Staff members stared at the images silently, unable to speak. Growing larger, clearer with each second, the representation on the computer-enhanced screens was obviously of an intelligently conceived and constructed object. Kemp could see the first details and markings along the dull, metallic surface. One end of the cylinder flat and almost featureless, but the opposite end, when it tumbled past the camera’s field, revealed large conical things, superstructure and tank-Iike formations.
Engines.
Engines capable of propelling the monstrous ship across impossible distances among the stars. No other alternative. The ship was not of Earth’s stellar system
—humankind
had already established that it was alone in Sol’s collection of planets.

“It
is
a ship,” whispered Marcia Bertholde, beginning to look every bit of her forty-nine years. Smoke coiled up from her cigarette, coiling like DNA molecules near her lace.

Rheinhardt’s aging, wrinkled face looked grim. “If you laid it on its side it would stretch from Washington to Manhattan.”

Kolenkhov shifted his ample girth uneasily in his seat, hands clasped together as though for a wished-for drink. “What are you going to have those two men do, Phineas?” he asked. “It might be dangerous.”

“Observatory data indicates that the object has been locked into that cometary orbit for a long time. The orbit is
very
stable, and the period is precise. Aside from an undifferentiated electromagnetic field
—which the Snipe’s instruments are picking up
here
”—Kemp pointed to a column of readouts on one of the console’s screens—“the object seems to be dead in space, although the scanners indicate precise axial spin. Probably for artificial gravity inside.”