Solar Express (40 page)

Border attacks?
Tavoian had only seen mentions of rising tensions along the Sinese/Indian borders. He stopped reading and checked the latest news summary, only to find a mention that Sinese and Indian forces had traded weapons fire at several locations along the northern and eastern borders of Arunachal Pradesh.

 … isolated as those places are, when the Sinese start attacking and the Indians get their backs up … You know what I mean. I worry. We all worry.

I wish you were here. Mom keeps insisting that you'll be here soon. We can't tell her otherwise. She coughs all the time, and we've had to move her into what amounts to home isolation. I know otherwise, but I still can't believe no one can find a treatment for T3. It's like it's almost a cross between the old Ebola virus and tuberculosis, except that can't be because one's a virus and the other's a bacterium. There are still times I wish I'd opted for med school, and this is one of them.

Oh … I forgot to mention it. I did enjoy the quote about ocean coastlines, especially the part about how politicians react. Just from that, I think I'd like your astrophysicist friend. I take it she's just a friend from your mentions. Too bad, but maybe someday, little brother.

How could Alayna be anything else?
He'd only spent something like three hours anywhere close to her, and they'd only talked for an hour. The rest of the time he'd been piloting the FusEx. He had definitely enjoyed her messages, but … He couldn't help but smile. Kit definitely wanted a partner for him.

Should he let Kit know exactly where he was? Even assuming that the colonel would let that go through, he wasn't sure it was the best idea. While he might actually be safer, at least more removed from possible direct military action, no deep space mission, with no immediate backup available, was exactly safe, and Kit would certainly know that.

You volunteered.
That was true enough, but he hadn't expected his mother to be dying, or the three major powers squabbling on the brink of war. And he had to admit that he had liked the idea of exploring Alayna's artifact far more than loosing torps at Sinese installations or ships … if it even came to that.
Which it might the way things continue to deteriorate.

He finished reading her message and then immediately replied, thankful that the requirements to burst send messages only once a day had been lifted.

Dear Kit—

I'm so sorry. I really can't say where I am at present, except that I'm certainly not in the direct line of fire if matters worsen. Even if I were still piloting FusEx ships between Earth and the lunar facilities, I wouldn't be able to go Earthside.

I wish you didn't have to deal with it all. That's not something I'd wish on anyone, and especially not on you, and especially not now …

As for Alayna, I've found her interesting and intriguing, but I'd like to point out that we've spent all of an hour in person talking, and she'll be at Daedalus Crater for another year. Who even knows where I'll be in a month, let alone in a year? I will admit, willingly, that I look forward to her messages and that I enjoy reading them and sharing thoughts with her. For now, that's all that's possible.

How is Dad doing under all this strain? And you? You're both taking every precaution, I hope? I know T3 isn't wildly contagious, but please don't take any chances …

He still wondered where his mother had caught T3, but she'd never had great resistance to illness, even when he and Kit had been children, and modern technology and travel meant that diseases traveled just as easily and quickly as people did.

After he sent the message to Kit, he checked on the progress of the circumference survey, but the ISV had discovered nothing that could be sampled.

As time passed, Tavoian tried to think of other possible avenues of exploration and other approaches. The one possibility was a more thorough exploration of the space that might have been hangar for a spacecraft using the spy-eyes in the same way as they were currently operating. If the spy-eyes located any material that looked loose, then he could send one of the rovers after it.

By 1245, he was beginning to worry that he might have lost five spy-eyes for nothing. By 1300 he was definitely concerned.
What's taking so long? Did you miscalculate the thruster fuel requirements?
Except he'd had the ship's AI check his calculations.

The first of the spy-eyes returned to the ISV waiting in the passageway beneath the hexagons at 1307 UTC, and Tavoian began to breathe more easily. The last one returned to the ISV at 1317, and the ISV eased its way back out of the passageways and above the hexagons, where the rover recovered the anchors and line. It was almost 1500 by the time the ISV and spy-eyes were in Recon three's main lock.

Tavoian could still download what the spy-eyes had recorded while the ISV and equipment warmed, and he began reviewing the images, in order of the devices' return to the ISV. The first spy-eye followed the angled passageways roughly perpendicular to the “drive” chamber. Even though he froze the image when the spy-eye reached the open aperture to the large chamber he still considered as a possible ship lock he could not make out anything in the darkness beyond. The spy-eye continued in a direction he thought of as downward, although it would have been sideways if the sphere had rotated on an axis perpendicular to the drive chamber. When the last passageway turned inward and continued toward the drive chamber, Tavoian waited until the image feed showed the partly melted doorway, when he again froze the image, studying the evenly slumped ridge of dark material at what he thought was the base of the opening, but could easily have been the side. There was no indication of change in coloration or other materials, as had been the case in the half-melted protrusions in the partly opened hexagons earlier explored.

Once inside the huge “drive” chamber, the spy-eye proceeded along the bulkhead from which the massive gray hexagonal columns extended. As with the earlier images from the AI rover, Tavoian could not determine exactly the size of the columns, but he could make out that they tapered slightly from the bulkhead. He judged that they were twenty meters across, but that was as much guess as estimate. Although the bulkhead was the dark green and the hexagonal column gray, there was no visible joint where they met, just a change of color. That suggested to Tavoian that the hexagon extended into or through the bulkhead.

But you don't know.

The spy-eye continued past three more of the hexagons before turning and heading back toward the passageway that would take it back to the ISV. Tavoian went back over the images and froze the picture just before the spy-eye turned. He could see the vague outline of another hexagonal column. If the columns matched the slightly discolored circles on the hull, there would be one or two beyond the one barely visible. The images of the return showed Tavoian nothing he had not seen before.

The next spy-eye dropped “lower” compared to the first, but also hugged the base bulkhead … and passed three hexagonal columns, spaced so that they were lower and midway between the ones scouted by the first spy-eye, before turning back. Tavoian stopped the image feed several times, trying to see if there was any loose material or any objects that might bear closer investigation. He saw neither, nor did he find anything on the return.

The third spy-eye, following Tavoian's programming, made straight for the nearest of the hexagonal funnel-like devices, possibly energy-focusing equipment, attached to and apparently just beneath or in back of the inside of the outer hull. While Tavoian had thought that the funnels, or energy nozzles, were the same dark green shade as the other decks and bulkheads, as the spy-eye drew closer, he could see that the funnel was a lighter green.

Lighter green and gray …
While the difference in color for both likely had significance, he could only guess that the color difference was because both columns and funnels/nozzles handled or channeled some sort of energy. The fact that both were fixed, rather than extruded as needed, also strengthened his hypothesis.
Unless they were all in use when the artifact was severed from the rest of the sphere.

And that, mused Tavoian, was also a definite possibility.
So many possibilities and so few certainties.

The fourth spy-eye went straight to the surface between the two nearest hexagonal funnels. As the device neared that surface, Tavoian could make out the very gentle curve, strengthening his belief—and the calculations already made by the ship's AI—that whatever the columns and funnel-nozzles did, it was close to the hull and designed to project beyond the artifact. The most likely possibility, to Tavoian, was a propulsion system, especially given that the thirty-two circles on the hull were set in a balanced pattern, and that there was no indication of anything similar elsewhere …
although there might have been on the missing part of the artifact.

The last spy-eye immediately turned right after coming out of the passageway and scanned the bulkhead from beside the damaged entry all the way to the barely curved surface backing the hull. It found nothing except smooth green surface. Nor did it discover anything loose or which might reveal more about the artifact, either in the large chamber or on its return to the ISV.

After studying the feeds, Tavoian linked them to the artifact database, then said, “When not otherwise occupied, scan the feeds from the spy-eyes and report anything that might reveal information about the artifact or its builders.”

THAT WILL REQUIRE WAITING UNTIL AFTER THE SECOND ISV RETURNS.

“That's acceptable.” Tavoian remained before the controls, thinking, noticing that, even by 1641 UTC, the other ISV had only completed inspecting another third of the circumference … and had found nothing unattached or even another “thread.”

After making sure that the ISV with the spy-eyes was securely docked to Recon three, Tavoian fixed himself what might have passed for a cheese and salami wrap and slowly ate it, or washed it down with cool tea, definitely not the same as truly iced tea.

The next thing was to finish his daily report to the colonel, which he sent off immediately, along with selected images from the spy-eyes feeds, since trying to send the full feeds would have taken far too long, and left the entire transmission open to interception. Because the manned Sinese expedition was scheduled to arrive the next day, he left the ISV to continue its study of the circumference, and decided to reply to Alayna. She might have some other suggestions. Before he did, he reread her message. One passage caught his attention—again.

Any beings that built something to last tens of thousands of years must have had a different perspective … or am I missing something?

Don't ever debate anything with a geologist. They're passionate enough, and they care, deeply, about good science, but for them, a million years is a short time, and so many of them really don't think that anything that can happen in mere decades or centuries can matter all that much, but it can, as witness the recent global warming. Astronomers who study galactic dynamics are similar, but haven't had their various applecarts upset yet … not in a decade or so.

Tens of thousands of years … and not in a decade? What a juxtaposition!
He shook his head at the incongruity and began his reply.

Alayna,

Thank you so much for the updated calculations about the artifact's increase in velocity. The impact wasn't something that was immediately obvious, or not to me, because while I was aware of the increase in inbound velocity, I didn't immediately realize the magnitude of the cumulative effect on timing. I should have, but I've been so focused on trying to decipher the enigma that is the artifact that it didn't register immediately. Part of that might have been because there's no indication here as to what is causing that, either. According to what little I know about gravitation, we shouldn't be speeding up as much as we are, but there's no detectable radiation of any sort from the artifact, and my ship hasn't used its drive. Nor has the uncrewed Sinese craft. Another part of the enigma puzzle. Have you any ideas along those lines?

By the way, I did forward your quote about ocean coastlines to Kit, and she enjoyed and appreciated it.

What quote should he use in return? He came across one that appealed to him: “Military technology is that marvel that allows a person too tenderhearted to slaughter a sheep to annihilate half the world with the touch of a button.” While he smiled, he wasn't about to put that into something read by a high-ranking military officer. He kept looking until he found another.

It's been a long day, but I did come up with a quote. It's not precisely on target, but it reminds me of the Sinese rhetoric, and their continual protestations of being fair and open-minded in the use of space.

Any ideologue who rallies his supporters with cries for “economic justice” neither has justice in mind nor understands economics.

I'd say that any leader who says he opposes the militarization of space and theoretically wants space free to all nations while building a base on Europa and threatening India for building its own space elevator neither has nonmilitarization in mind nor understands the concept of open access to space …

When Tavoian finished, he attached selections from what he had sent to the colonel and sent it off, wondering, again, if Donovan Base would let it go through.

Then he checked the ISV once more, but it continued to scan the circumference, unsuccessfully, so far.

He'd remain awake as long as he could, then have the AI wake him if the ISV detected anything … or if anything else went amiss. He still couldn't believe that he'd missed the fact that the increased speed of the artifact and Recon three meant that they'd near the sun that much sooner.