Solar Express (27 page)

EACH IS TWENTY-THREE POINT EIGHT METERS ACROSS.

“What is the difference between them and the rest of the surface?”

THE COMPOSITION OF THE MATERIAL, BASED ON THE REFLECTION AND RETURN OF THE PROBE RADIATION, IS THE SAME. THERE IS A SLIGHT DIFFERENTIAL IN THE SPECULAR REFLECTIVITY.

“Which is?”

THE CIRCLES DO NOT REFLECT LIGHT AT THE WAVELENGTH OF 379 AND 380 NANOMETERS.

“Can you determine the reason for that differential?”

POSSIBILITIES INCLUDE THERMAL STRESS, RADIATION, OR DELIBERATE COLORATION.

In short, there wasn't enough information. “As the dark side rotates toward us, display a composite image of the nonreflective side.” Tavoian definitely wanted to see the dark side, the one that telescopes hadn't captured except as a dark blur.

He caught his breath as the first detailed images of the dark side began to appear, with patterns filling the entire circle, which now showed up as a deep and dark shade of green. The patterns were definitely regular rectangles, and the shorter sides of the rectangles had a space between them and the next rectangle. All the rectangles were the same width, roughly five meters, but the longer ones were huge, some almost fifty meters in length, according to the AI. The smaller ones were likely twenty-five in length. The rectangles formed polygons approximating circles, with a trapezoidal space between the ends. Each polygon contained fewer rectangles, until the last polygon, which was a hexagon around an open space too deep for Tavoian to see whether it extended all the way to the back side of the shimmering hull.

The majority of the rectangular chambers had had their overheads removed.
Sheared off by whatever force separated this section from the original sphere.
And that had to have occurred almost instantaneously by a force that hadn't crushed, fragmented, or crumpled the severed material.
Like a gigantic knife only molecules thick that separated two sections … or a particle beam or the like with an edge so finely defined that the material not destroyed was scarcely affected.

At first glance, the edges of the rectangles appeared regular but when Tavoian increased the magnification he could see that the tops of the walls around them seemed slightly rounded.
By intense heat?
The rounding suggested the interior of the artifact had been constructed of materials less indestructible than the outer hull. Except that didn't seem right to Tavoian. The interior—the walls and structure, at least—couldn't have been too much less hardy than the shining outer hull, since there were no obvious scars, pits, or craters on the dark green side, either.

He could have watched and studied for far longer, but he knew he was getting too tired to think as clearly as he should be, and he did have his orders. That meant composing an immediate message. When finished, he read it through.

Robert Anson, Colonel

Noram Space Command

Donovan Base

1. Recon three on station.

2. Target object appears to fit all parameters of technologically created object.

3. Object appears to be remnant of far larger object, likely a sphere with an estimated diameter of five point five kays.

4. Initial scans, measurements, and images follow.

Tavoian paused.
What else can you say?
He really felt like shouting, “Yes, it's a frigging alien spacecraft!”
Part of it anyway.
Instead, he ordered the AI, “Attach all data and images we have so far and send the message.”

MESSAGE, DATA, AND IMAGES SENT.

Next came the grunt work. Tavoian had decided to deploy a single array of cubesats around the alien artifact, along with a repeater that would automatically send the data to Donovan Base if anything happened to Recon three. Then he'd begin with close-up scans of the “dark” side of the alien craft/object to determine if there were points of entry, since there didn't appear to be any on the silver-white side that had likely been the outer hull of the larger craft.

“Deploy outer ring cubesats in optimal pattern.”

BEGINNING CUBESAT DEPLOYMENT.

Tavoian watched intently as the ISV, the independent space vehicle, slipped away from Recon three and began to release the cubesats in a pattern designed to cover all parts of the artifact simultaneously. That took over an hour, but after the first few minutes, Tavoian was preparing the first AI rover for the ISV to ferry over to the artifact once the cubesat deployment was complete.

Once the ISV had returned, picked up the AI rover, deposited it on top of one of the larger rectangles, and returned to Recon three, Tavoian began to deploy and unshutter the solar panels designed to power Recon three while on station. By the time he was finished, he could barely keep his eyes open.

“If the rover gets dislodged, have the ISV recover it and hold until I wake up.” With that, Tavoian dimmed the control area lights, hoping he hadn't forgotten anything, but he'd only slept, really slept, something like four hours in the last thirty-six, and he didn't want to do something stupid because he was too tired to think straight.

Before his eyes closed, he had a disturbing thought.
It looks too new to be as old as Alayna thinks it must be.

 

38

T
HE
T
IMES OF
I
NDIA

9 N
OVEMBER
2114

(D
ELHI
) “At the first offensive movement against India, we will retaliate in massive force. We will not be intimidated by Sinese threats,” declared Prime Minister Narahaj Ravindra, immediately after the Sinese Federation closed all its borders in South Asia.

No comment was forthcoming from Sinese Head of State Jiang. Requests for elaboration were referred to the Sinese Defence Ministry.

In a related development, the Indian Defense Ministry announced that both Noram and the Sinese Federation have dispatched high-speed fusion-powered spacecraft to investigate a mysterious object heading toward the sun. “Noram and the Sinese both seek to monopolize whatever discoveries may await them,” stated the ministry in a prepared statement. “They have not offered to share any benefits. India has suffered enough of what has become a one-way avenue to the future, where we have supplied expertise to both nations and received little in return. The Sinese attempt to bully India into halting its near-Earth and deep space initiatives is nothing more than twenty-second-century colonialism.” A high-ranking ministry official confirmed that all of India's Indra scramjet missiles were on high alert and ready to launch at a nanosecond's notice.

The Indra has a range of over fifteen thousand kilometers at a speed of between Mach 10 and Mach 16, approximately twenty thousand kilometers per hour, depending on altitude, and can be programmed to strike within a ten-meter square. India is presumed to have more than two hundred such missiles. Some experts claim that number is closer to five hundred.

Sources within the Noram government conceded that there was an “element of truth” in the news stories claiming that both the Noram and the Sinese Federation have dispatched exploratory craft to investigate an object approaching the sun that is rumored to be of possible extra-solar origin.

Noram President Dyana Yates was unavailable for comment on either matter. Sources close to the President indicated that Yates was giving both issues “immediate and serious attention” and was deciding among possible options to deal with the situation. They refused to elaborate on what those options might be …

 

39

D
AEDALUS
B
ASE

9 N
OVEMBER
2114

On Friday, Alayna was up early, not because she had to be, but because she had slept fitfully, her mind and dreams racing from one subject to another. Over the past ten days, she had tried a number of variations on the screening system that she had developed for Marcel to apply to the solar observations she'd been able to make in between or concurrently with observations contracted for by various Earthside astronomical entities. None of the variations were markedly any more satisfactory than the initial screens had been, although several revealed more multi-fractals … but not any more near-matches. Nor had any of the screens revealed anything different about solar convection, flares, or prominences … or anything else that might shed light on what lay beneath the solar surface. With more than nine months of her twenty-four gone and only relatively minor progress, she couldn't help but admit she was getting worried. Maybe a solar minimum wasn't the best time for her research.

She'd also heard nothing from the Foundation, and that was troublesome, and there had been no further communication from the IAU, although that wasn't exactly surprising. 2114 FQ5 had been classified, and now it was up to her and others to discover what it was … or was not.

When a message from Chris finally did arrive, she immediately called it up and began to read.

Alayna—

I've been busy, but wanted you to know that I'm well and on station, so to speak, where I'll be for the next several months. By now, even the news summaries I receive mention your discovery. I wouldn't be surprised if every media outlet is rumoring it might just be the first indisputable evidence of alien life discovered by humanity, but since I don't get any of the vidloids, I'm only guessing. They're also probably speculating on the fact that both Noram and the Sinese have sent expeditions out to investigate. Before long, if your main optical array is trained on the object now … well, you'll likely see.

Main optical array? To see something as small as a spacecraft? He's going to be there?
“Marcel, when will we be able to get new observations on 2114 FQ5?” Alayna could have figured it out, but asking Marcel was faster.

“November twenty-second.”

“We'll need observations then. Work the time in on every day when it's observable.” She went back to the message.

I'll have to say that periods of alternating decel and weightlessness don't do much for my sleep patterns, and it will be good to get back to a more regular routine, not that any routine off-Earth is ever exactly regular. For the next few months, I won't be doing much piloting, more like station-keeping and programming various AI units. That's what's planned, anyway, but that could change. I'll know more in a while.

Alayna nodded. Another indication that Chris was where she thought he was.

There's not much else I can say at the moment so I'll ask how things are coming on your solar multi-fractals. I hope you've either found more information or another approach that will prove more productive.

I'm not as creative as I might otherwise be, but here's another quote from
Observations:

Most politicians fall into two categories—those already bought, in one way or another, and those not worth the price. That truism, unhappily, also applies to all those in other occupations who achieved their positions through political expertise as opposed to subject matter or technical expertise.

Alayna would have laughed, except that the quote was all too true. She'd already seen that in grad school and again in the Farside Foundation.

I'd have to wonder if all intelligent species run a race between technical and scientific advances and the corresponding increase in political self-interest that becomes indistinguishable from species stupidity. That's certainly been true of human beings. I suppose at some point, if we survive long enough, we'll find out.

There's not much else to say at the moment, and since I can't do anything else right now, I'm going to try to get some sleep before I do something stupid induced by fatigue.

Until later.

She reread the message, then frowned. He couldn't have reached the object, not yet, not the way he had phrased his words, but the implication was that he was close. If he were closer when he'd sent the message, and it was just an asteroid, he would have said so, or at least hinted more strongly. And if it were more than that … there would have been hints.

Are you reading too much into his messages?

There was always that possibility, just as there was the very real and growing possibility that she would be unable to discover anything more about the source or mechanics of the solar multi-fractal mini-granulations. In the meantime, she needed to think about yet another way to deal with her own problem, since there wasn't anything she could do to help Chris.
And likely never had been.

 

40

R
ECON
T
HREE

9 N
OVEMBER
2114

Exhausted as he was, Tavoian didn't sleep all that well—or long—waking at 0610 UTC, worrying about whether the AI rover and the cubesats were still functioning. He immediately asked, “Interrogative status of rover and cubesats.”

ALL UNITS FUNCTIONING. DATA BEING RECEIVED.

All that meant was that nothing had happened to the equipment, not whether the data and observations were useful or even related to the alien artifact. Tavoian took a squeezebottle of water and drank almost half of it before focusing on, first, the input from the solar panels. He nodded. They'd managed to meet Recon three's needs and to recharge the aux power system's energy storage units slightly. If he didn't draw on the system too heavily for the next few days, that would work out, since each day would bring the artifact and the ship three million kays closer to the sun.
More than that, since our inbound speed will increase second by second.

He frowned, then asked the AI, “Have you had to use the drive to maintain station on the object?”

AFFIRMATIVE.