Prelude to Extinction
Page 5
“About ten-million kilometers from asteroid A832 – the largest of the asteroids that Don identified earlier,” Palmer replied.
“Damn,” Jack said softly. “Kurt, review the impact thresholds on the blast shield. Also, work with one of the pilots on a course adjustment that would potentially bring the Magellan into orbit near A832. We can’t risk blindly going through that region at high speed.”
“Sir,” Palmer said, “I would recommend active scanning for the remainder of our inbound trip.”
“I agree,” Jack said. “Reinstate the same search rotation and protocols we used when traversing the Kuiper belt.” Turning to Kurt, he continued, “What’ve we got that can see...”
“I’m already working on it,” Kurt answered, “not much. We’re still too far to see anything in detail. Maybe some telescope and radar scans will help, but the fragments’ll be too small to resolve individually.”
“I see,” Palmer replied reluctantly.
“Let me know when you have the calculations done for the course adjustment,” Jack said. “We’ll see what other ideas we can come up with in the meantime. Otherwise we’ll implement that plan out of an abundance of caution.”
“OK,” Kurt answered.
“Start on it in the morning. I think we all could still use a little more sleep.” Jack stood up and walked over to Don who was staring blankly at the display. “I’m going to need your group to go over these images with a fine-toothed comb. Make sure my calculations are correct and refine them. Let’s see what else we can learn from this debris.”
Don gave a barely audible “OK,” without looking up.
Jack watched him sit there for another moment before saying, “Don, do it in the morning with the group. Just go get some more sleep right now.”
He gave another “Ok,” before reluctantly getting up.
Jack looked to Palmer who was already walking over to him.
“I still have night watch to complete,” Palmer said. “I think I’ll do it from here and look over this data a bit more myself.”
“Good. I’ll check in with you first thing in the morning.” He started to walk out but turned back and said, “Palmer, thanks.”
His first officer nodded in acknowledgement as he sat down to get back to work.
Jack followed Kurt out of the command center as Kurt said thoughtfully, “I see your point, flying through a debris field would definitely leave streaks on a picture. You even reminded me of a family ski trip in the Alps when I was a kid. I remember looking out the passenger window of my parents’ car and trying to pick out the individual snowflakes; of course I couldn’t – at a hundred-forty k-p-h they were just long streaks of white.”
“Something’s still not right,” Jack said mostly to himself.
“What?” Kurt replied. When Jack didn’t answer immediately, he continued, “Are you talking about Palmer’s paranoid crap? Like they planted this debris as a trap?”
“Think of it. Put yourself in the shoes of some aliens on Epsilon Eri-D who don’t really know who we are. What would you think if you’d reviewed over a hundred and fifty years’ worth of radio and television broadcasts from Earth?”
“Don doesn’t think....”
“I don’t care what Don thinks,” Jack said firmly. “I am asking you what you would do in their shoes.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do,” Jack pressed. “Be honest with yourself. It wouldn’t be hard to conclude that Humans are an aggressive race. We’ve had world wars, regional battles, economic fights, oppression, just to name a few.”
“So?” Kurt challenged.
“What I’m saying is that if you didn’t want direct conflict with these uninvited travelers – us – then the logical course of action could easily be to try and avoid letting them know that you were even there.”
“Jack, that’d be impossible. Think of it, you’d have to suppress all transmissions that might leak out.”
“But, if you started immediately after receiving the first Earth transmissions of any real strength, broadcasts from the nineteen-fifties, then the last of your transmissions that inadvertently leaked out would have swept past Earth in the nineteen-seventies; long before any of the real radio searches for extra-terrestrial intelligence began.”
Jack paused in the middle of the Garden and looked around at the quiet surroundings. Kurt however, broke the silence and said, “Come on. Are you saying this is all deliberate? The radio silence, the debris…”
“We’ve got to consider all possible scenarios.”
“Maybe you should limit yourself to realistic ones, not stuff Palmer’s dreaming up. I mean, if these aliens are more advanced than us – and they’d have to be in order to suddenly make a whole planet go radio-silent – then they must surely have known that it wouldn’t hide them forever.”
“But if this is the case, then it did buy them over a century’s worth of anonymity; that is, until the lunar telescope array’s spectroscopic analysis of Epsilon Eri-D’s atmosphere in 2070. The problem now is that our approach is anything but a secret.”
“So why stay silent?” Kurt asked.
“In their place I wouldn’t want to give anything away yet. I’d review Magellan’s data feeds from Earth to try and understand whether these humans were ambassadors or conquerors?”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. What I’m saying isn’t anything brilliant or unheard of. In fact, it’s the most prudent course of action. If you read Sun Tzu’s, ‘The Art of War,’ you’d know that.”
“A twenty-five-hundred-year-old book by an ancient Chinese general?” Kurt challenged.
“Yes,” Jack said calmly. “Sun Tzu said that the key to victory lay in knowing your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, while telling him nothing of your own. From their point of view, destroying the planetary probe would postpone giving away anything about their capabilities and fits perfectly with this.”
“So you’re saying that they’ve somehow gotten access to and read ancient texts from Earth.”
“Of course not!” Jack shot back. “But I’m sure any technological race would have developed their own analog to it.”
“Then you’re saying that they had to destroy the probe in some way that didn’t make us suspicious. And making it look like an accident by having the probe run into a debris field would fit the bill.”
“Almost…” Jack said, letting his voice trail off.
“What do you mean, ‘almost’?”
“Using machined metal is sloppy – too sloppy for a well-planned action like this. I’d have used something natural like rocky material from the asteroid belt.”
“So they were sloppy,” Kurt answered as he threw his hands up dismissively.
“No Kurt, they weren’t. One of my professors back at the academy had told me that whether you were playing a game of chess, or engaging in battle, never assume that your opponent made a mistake. The use of finished metal is just too big a mistake.”
“So what do you mean? Do you or don’t you think it was a trap?”
“I don’t know. There’re too many uncertainties.”
“I told you pursuing Palmer’s logic was a waste of time,” Kurt said with a smile.
Jack ignored his friend and just glanced at his watch: it was already three-fifty-five a.m. He had allowed himself to run too long with this particular fantasy. They walked the last few paces to the ring road in silence before Jack said, “The problem is that without the planetary probe, we won’t know anything for certain for a few weeks. And that means we’re going to have to proceed carefully.”
“Like you weren’t going to do that anyway?” Kurt replied.
Jack just smiled; maybe his friend was right and this was all a waste of time. He turned toward his apartment and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” He was sure Kurt had answered him, but he wasn’t listening. He needed sleep. The next few weeks were going to be stressful and push the crew to the limit.
Part 2: Epsilon Eri-D
Chapter 5 – July 3, 2124
Jack stood in the center of the bridge, arms folded, staring grimly at the view screen. Palmer and Don flanked him as they silently looked on. The display showed the results of Kurt’s latest radar scans – the first with enough resolution to pick out small particulate matter. Stretching out before them was a hazy yellow arc consisting of thousands of yellow specks – each representing one of the myriad of asteroids comprising Epsilon Eri’s inner belt. That, however, wasn’t the problem. A straight white line, depicting their inbound trajectory passed uneventfully through the belt; it was the presence of three, globular, green clouds that had their attention. The amoeba-like forms identified the boundaries of large debris fields that lay in their path and were near the asteroid A832. Each was a few hundred-thousand kilometers across. Their presence, though, didn’t require any emergency course changes; Jack had already chosen the cautious approach two weeks earlier when deciding to bring the Magellan into orbit near A832. If anything, the data proved he chose wisely. Once they had a full handle on the situation, they would be able to work their way around the obstacle.
“The positions of these clouds looks more than coincidental,” Palmer offered. “Now that we’ve got better scans, it looks like they cover most potential inbound trajectories from Earth.”
“The problem is,” Jack replied, “Their coverage isn’t complete.” He pointed to a small but significant gap between two adjacent clouds and said, “If we wanted to, we could have adjusted course and gone right through here.”
“Would you have risked it, knowing what you know now?” Palmer asked.
“Probably not. However, it’s an awfully large mistake to make if you’re laying a trap.”
“Maybe they were pushing their tech to the limits just by setting this up. I don’t think we could have done much better back home if we wanted.”
“You’re assuming they were sloppy or not very advanced. That’s a big leap to make if you’re still arguing that this is a trap,” Jack said. They stared silently at the map for a few moments longer before he continued, “Don, were you able to identify the composition of the debris?”
“Not completely,” Don answered. “I can tell you that the cloud closest to A832 is comprised mostly of typical asteroidal material. Maybe as much as seventy-five percent.” A hint of excitement crept into his voice as he continued, “The remainder is definitely metallic. What’s particularly interesting is the fact that the two clouds further out from it are mostly metallic debris. However, I’m unable to determine what type of alloys we’re looking at.”
“What do you mean?” Palmer asked abruptly.
“It’s not really a problem since we’re still two days out. The stuff’s just too cold and made up of solid particles, so I’m unable to do a spectral analysis. We should get a better handle on it when we’re closer.”
“Were you able to get a read on the particle sizes?” Palmer asked as he continued staring at the screen.
“There’s a wide range. A fraction are sub-millimeter grains, while others are in the five to thirty centimeter range that we saw in the last images from the probe. There’s nothing bigger than a half meter across.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds before Don added, “The strangest part is their shapes.”
“Explain,” Jack said.
“The radar signatures suggest that they’re all rounded. I’m not sure what to make of it. They’re not perfectly circular, but there are no sharp edges or anything. Like little globs or ellipsoids.”
“Like it was from a molten cloud that condensed out there,” Jack said softly.
“Say again?” Don replied.
“I’ve seen something like this before,” Jack answered. “An automated mining ship back home in the main asteroid belt had its reactor go critical. It was carrying a couple tons of processed Iron and Aluminum on board when it blew. The explosion had a power in the tens of kilotons – enough to vaporize the cargo. When we went in to investigate, we found clouds of metallic condensate. Small metal beads had solidified from the vapor cloud.”
“That explains it,” Don said softly. “This could be the result of some sort of accident. That’d mean there’s nothing nefarious here.”
“That’s a bit of a leap…” Palmer started, but was cut off as Don said, “What are you talking about? We’re talking about clouds of metallic particles. You heard what Jack said.”
Jack jumped in quickly to cut off the debate; “Before we start speculating, we need to get a handle on the extent of these debris fields and if there are any other hazards we haven’t spotted yet. Palmer, we’ll need detailed maps of this entire region. Find out where we can safely park the Magellan. We’re only two days out from A832 so it’s essential that we get this done asap.”
“Understood,” Palmer replied.
“Don, the proximity of these debris clouds to A832 probably isn’t coincidental. Continue your analysis of the clouds, but also work with the others to look in detail at A832. See if it was the source of this and what might have happened.”
“We’ve already been working on that,” Don said. “In fact, we may already have an idea about the source of the clouds.”
“Go on, explain,” Jack said with a hint of impatience.
“We calculated the mass of the one closest to A832 and then analyzed a preliminary map of the asteroid. It seems to have a fresh crater about the right size for creating a debris cloud of this size.”
“Why just the near cloud?” Palmer asked.
“Mostly because of its shape and composition,” Don replied. “If you look closely at it, it’s more of an arc than a random blob. In fact, it looks like it’s in the process of forming a ring around A832. This would be consistent with material blasted off of the surface from some sort of impact. The rocky material in the cloud also seems to have roughly the same composition of the asteroid’s regolith.”
“What about the others?” Palmer asked.
“Aside from being mostly metallic, their distance from A832 and the fact that they’re symmetrical says to me they didn’t originate from the asteroid.”
Palmer voiced the obvious question, “From where then?”
“That, we don’t know yet.”
“Based on the inner cloud’s shape and position, can you tell when this happened?” Jack asked.
“Only in rough terms,” Don said softly. “Because we don’t really know the dynamics of this system that well yet, we can only guess that it’s in the neighborhood of a few centuries ago.”
Jack looked at each of them as they stared at the screen in silence. There was a mix of emotions swirling around. There was no longer any doubt that they’d answered one of humanity’s oldest questions: they weren’t alone. However, this was hardly the time to celebrate.
“Sir?” Palmer said.
“Yes,” Jack replied.
“In light of this, should we increase deceleration further to make sure we’re a safer distance from A832?”
“Not quite yet. Let’s see what the radar shows over the next few hours. We’ve still got a little time to play with.”
“Yes sir,” Palmer replied emotionlessly.
Jack allowed another moment of silence to pass before asking, “Any questions?”
Don turned to him but didn’t say anything.
“Don, what is it?” Jack asked.
“I’m still concerned about the lack of signal from E-Eri D. Especially considering all of this.”
“Let’s just take it one step at a time. For now, continue your investigation into the source of these clouds.”
Don answered with a reluctant, “OK.”
Chapter 6 – July 5, 2124
Kurt stood by the service elevator door, tapped his comm. unit and called the bridge. “Jack, final inspection is complete. We are go for engine shut down.”
“Very good,” was the quick reply.
“I’ll be up in a few minutes; Kurt out.”
Despite the accompanying tension, he welcomed the fast pace that had crept back into their lives over the past few days. The fact that they were now only ten thousand kilometers from A832 – the seven-hundred kilometer diameter asteroid that was their current target – filled him a sense of excitement he hadn’t felt since the Magellan’s launch. Now there was one final maneuver to perform: steer the giant ship toward the planetoid, and shut off its great engines for the first time in the five years since turnaround at mid-point.
A tone announced the elevator’s arrival; he took a deep breath as he stepped through its doors. His mind let go of the myriad of technical details that crowded his thoughts and allowed the exhilaration of the moment to inch back into the fore-front of his consciousness. They even had a real mystery to investigate. Don’s group had confirmed that one debris cloud did indeed originate from the asteroid’s surface, while the other two were likely from some sort of artificial structures – possibly orbital processing stations. Based on Jack’s memory of the mining disaster back home, Don had even put together what he described as the most likely chain of events here: one processing station blew up, with its scattered debris destroying the other one as well as whatever base was on the asteroid itself. There was certainly room for debate, but Kurt didn’t really care that much. He was captivated by the fact that they’d actually found evidence of an advanced alien species. The mystery was: where were they now?
The elevator’s arrival at the command level pulled him back to the present. He half-jogged the short distance to the bridge and tapped the door’s “open” button. The hatch quickly slid aside, releasing a wave of commotion. Half a dozen simultaneous conversations blended into unintelligible noise. Maneuvering his way into the crowded room, it took Kurt a moment before he spotted Jack and Palmer at the central command console. They were deep in discussion with Janet Kinkade, the Magellan’s primary pilot and navigator. Hovering in front of them was a detailed holographic image of A832 accompanied by a shimmering crescent – its half-formed ring of debris. The bright white line of the Magellan’s trajectory dove in from the left, before gracefully entering into a high altitude orbit that stayed well clear of the debris field. Janet traced her finger along the white line as Jack and Palmer listened intently. Though he strained his ears, Kurt couldn’t make out what was being said. He made his way toward them, but before he was within earshot, Jack looked up and called over, “Kurt, can you confirm that everything is ready for zero-g?”