Analog SFF, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He turned around and ran his index finger over the Martian dirt covering the high-tech spacecraft's exterior.

  Katerina peeked over his shoulder—and laughed at what he'd written.

  WASH ME.

  The two of them held hands as they retraced their steps. As a beaming Sun reached its zenith in the coral-tinted sky, they reentered the habitation module and had a quick lunch of semitasty dehydrated food together. Then they prepared for the only task not on their original schedule.

  While Katerina went to radio Mission Control for final instructions, Martin tested the handheld transceiver that would maintain their radio link to the module. The latter's transponder would relay the transceiver's signal to an orbiter and from there to Earth.

  Katerina rejoined him near the open module's hatchway. Her heavy cross dangled from the gold chain she'd just fastened around her neck. She flashed the precious golden band of diamond-studded jewelry on her left ring finger at Martin and said, “I'm so happy my engagement ring fits me again. I hated not being able to wear it on the trip here because my fingers were too puffy. Its amazing how a few hours out of microgravity can shift fluids from your upper body back to your legs, where it belongs!"

  "My ring probably fits again too. Do you want me to go put it on?"

  Katerina shook her head. “No need to do that. I'll be with you to fight off any little green Martian hussies we meet who can't see you're already taken!"

  She slipped her right hand into the grip strap of a video camera and checked its battery status. Then, as they walked back into the welcoming afternoon sunlight, Martin said, “It's over three kilometers to our target. Do you want to unpack the rover from the module? I'll even let you drive."

  "No, assembling and prepping it would take several hours. It'll take us less time to walk, and I want to find out what that artifact is as soon as possible. Besides, it's such a beautiful day!"

  They set out toward the south at a brisk pace. At first the silence around them, broken only by the crunch of their footsteps, was vaguely unnerving. But soon Martin let himself be soothed by the enchanted world around them. As their hike continued, he almost expected Tweel to come leaping over a nearby mound of sand and land on his beak beside them, or to see a distant cloud of dust as a thoat galloped by.

  Every few minutes Martin unclipped the transceiver on his belt and keyed it to send a brief continuous wave signal in Morse code back to the habitation module. It was just enough to let the folks back home know they were safe. A few brief answering tones from the transponder at the module confirmed their signal was received.

  It wasn't long before they encountered their first alien life-form. The small plants scattered beneath the shadow of a low rocky ridge were scrubby and a sickly shade of green. On Earth they would have been mistaken for a common weed and never given a second look.

  Katerina turned on the video camera and recorded the small patch of vegetation from multiple angles and distances. Meanwhile, Martin bent over and dug his hand into the loose moist soil. The light umber-colored dirt sifting through his fingers didn't look too much different from the kind he'd harrowed as a child growing up on the family farm in the Missouri Ozarks.

  The former country boy thought of the packets of seeds for beans, corn, and wheat back at the habitation module and dreamed of vast fields of crops swaying in the breeze. He chuckled at a vision of his future self wearing blue bib overalls and holding a pitchfork while Katerina stood beside him in her gingham dress, looking out together over their Martian green acres.

  Katerina knelt down beside the present day's lonely bit of greenery, brushing it gently with her palm. Then she shook her head and stood up. “We can collect a specimen on the way back, Martin. These plants obviously aren't native to Mars. They must have been planted by whoever did the other landscaping on this planet."

  A disturbing thought popped into Martin's mind. “I wonder if the aliens introduced any animal life here too."

  Katerina fingered the gold cross hanging from her neck. “If they did, let's hope we see it before it sees us—and that it isn't too big and hungry."

  * * * *

  They encountered several other types of small mossy and lichenlike vegetation as they cautiously continued their odyssey. Martin became so absorbed in scanning the plain for any other signs of life, either flora or fauna, that for several minutes he didn't realize they had a serious problem.

  He stopped. “Wait a second."

  Katerina turned around. “What's wrong?"

  Martin pressed the transmit button on the transceiver again. Only a faint crackle of static came from it in answer. “We've lost contact with the module."

  He switched to voice mode. “Mission Control, we are en route to the artifact."

  He glanced at the combination watch-compass-pedometer on his wrist. “Current position is 1.62 kilometers due south of the habitation module. Please confirm reception."

  They waited anxiously as his watch soundlessly counted the seconds. As it neared the minimum time of nearly two minutes before they could expect a reply, he and Katerina held their ears close to the transceiver.

  Four minutes after his transmission, Martin repeated the message. Again they waited.

  Five minutes later, as they listened to the soft static hissing from the transceiver, a faint wind rustled their matching blue jumpsuits and blew a light patina of dust over their boots. A cooling shadow fell over them as the Sun, slowly sinking toward the horizon, slid behind the only cloud in the sky.

  Katerina whispered, “What do you think the problem is?"

  "I don't know. The transceiver seems to be working. There might be something wrong with the transponder back at the habitation module—but that could be anything from a circuit board going bad to aliens pushing the power button to ‘Off.'

  "Whatever's wrong, we're out of contact with Earth."

  Small orange-tinged rocks crunched beneath Martin's boots as he paced in a small circle. He muttered, “The safe thing would be to go back to the module. That's what our bosses would want us to do. But if we're not willing to take a calculated risk for a good cause, we shouldn't be here. Think of all the astronomical discoveries that would never have been made if NASA hadn't reversed its decision to cancel a last service call on Hubble thirty years ago."

  Katerina interrupted his soliloquy. “And the stakes here are so much greater. I think we should keep heading south toward the artifact."

  Martin stared down at his feet uncertainly. Finally he whispered, “Let's do it."

  They moved slower now, alert for any signs they weren't alone. Martin periodically stopped to try the transceiver again, pointing its stubby rubber ducky antenna back in the direction of the habitation module. Every attempt brought only increasingly louder bursts of static from the transceiver as they neared their goal. Katerina used those brief pauses to sweep her video camera slowly across the landscape, making a record of their journey to upload back to Earth when they returned to the module.

  They spotted the edge of the artifact when it was about fifty meters away. Martin grabbed Katerina's arm and stopped her. He whispered, “Wait. That thing could be dangerous. Maybe only one of us should investigate it, while the other one stays here and records what happens."

  Katerina gently disengaged his hand. “Since I'm the one holding the video camera, I won't ask who you had in mind for the dangerous job. We can either stand here arguing all day about who does what or just keep going together. Which will it be?"

  The withering look on her face quickly decided the issue. They pressed onward together.

  The soil bordering the artifact was suspiciously flat and smooth. The landscape they'd just traversed had been littered with sharp rocks ranging in size from tiny pebbles to a few as big as basketballs. But all those rocks were missing within a straight swath of ground extending about ten meters out from the extraterrestrial object's edge. Looking down at that bare area around the artifact, Martin remembered he'd once compared the aliens’ a
bility to move planets to humans using a bulldozer. Here, it looked like the aliens had used a conventional-sized bulldozer themselves to clear and level the ground—but one that didn't leave any track marks behind.

  Their footprints pressed softly into the bare damp ground, dotted with small mud puddles, as they cautiously approached the artifact. When they reached its edge, Katerina panned her video camera along the closest section of the artifact while Martin studied the steel-gray metal's glassy flat surface. The object was larger than a football field. An eyeball estimate confirmed their radar readings from orbit that it was about ten centimeters thick. A series of shallow parallel grooves etched into its surface divided it into squares about a meter on a side, in a pattern resembling a checkerboard.

  Most of the squares near the edge of the artifact contained wildly different sets of symbols and colorful abstract pictures. One square held a series of fluorescent orange marks in a spiraling pattern that could be part of an alien alphabet, while the ones adjacent to it held what looked like entirely different letters in a rainbow of clashing colors. Scattered squares held intricate, vertigo-inducing geometric patterns that, Martin thought, resembled pictures he'd seen of crop circles.

  Several squares seemed blank. When he squinted at one of them closely, however, it contained faint lettering he suspected would be much brighter if viewed under ultraviolet light. Another empty square actually seemed to produce a faint scent that changed with every cautious whiff he took. One moment it had the aroma of baking bread, the next a fruity perfume, then the repelling smell of rotten eggs. A third square produced a faint musical warble at the very upper edge of human hearing.

  Martin looked up from his perusal of those peculiar squares to see Katerina edge closer to the artifact and raise one boot—

  "Don't step on it!"

  He grabbed Katerina's jumpsuit from behind near the base of her neck, nearly pulling his crewmate backwards into an undignified tumble onto her backside. She steadied herself against Martin, then turned around angrily. “Why not, Martin? Do you think it's booby-trapped? If the aliens were hostile, they're so powerful they could have destroyed us long ago. They don't need to resort to a complicated trap like something from one of your Flash Gordon serials!"

  Martin started to defend those classic science fiction movies he'd shown her on the trip here as more helpful than she gave them credit for. But the expression on her face told him she wasn't in the mood for him to point out that the artifact resembled a giant-sized dark monolith lying on its back.

  Instead he replied, “This thing may be dangerous even if the aliens don't mean to deliberately hurt us. Maybe it's some kind of machine that generates a force field or an electrical charge, like a high voltage transformer, that's strong enough to electrocute whoever touches it. For all we know, it could be a teleportation device that's activated when you stand on it. The place you'd wind up might not have a breathable atmosphere or could kill you in some other way."

  Katerina looked at him dubiously. “Let's see if you're right."

  She walked back across the bare area of ground and returned with a baseball-sized rock in her hand. Before Martin could speak she threw it like a fastball across the artifact. It skidded along the metal surface and came to rest.

  "What did you do that for?"

  Katerina shrugged. “Well, at least the rock didn't disintegrate or set off any alarm bells."

  "At least none that we can hear! I—"

  He stopped, looking at the rock. It was slithering rapidly back toward them across the surface of the artifact. A few seconds later, the stone plopped gently to the ground at their feet.

  Both of them took a step back from the once again inanimate rock. Martin cautiously examined the suspiciously pristine surface of the artifact. He said, “Maybe it generates some kind of electrostatic field to keep it clean and free of dust and debris. Or maybe it has an electromagnetic field and the rock was ferromagnetic enough to—heck, I don't know what happened!"

  He turned his transceiver back on and turned down the squelch control. A loud burst of static erupted from its speaker. The static grew softer and louder as he slowly swept the transceiver's antenna from side to side in the direction of the alien metal.

  Martin said, “Whatever this thing is, it's generating an electrical field. That's why we lost contact with the habitation module. Something on this artifact is producing so much electromagnetic interference we can't get a signal to or from the transponder back at the base. Funny thing is, the source of the interference across this artifact is spotty—stronger in some directions than others."

  "Why is that?"

  "I don't know. Maybe there's more than one power source on or beneath its surface."

  Martin set the transceiver to scan through a wide range of frequencies and signal modes. Between 824 MHz and 894 MHz its speaker emitted a variety of low, warbling signals like an ancient theremin. Scanning lower through the UHF and VHF bands produced a cacophony of similarly strange, modulated sounds.

  He turned the transceiver off and clipped it to his belt. “I wonder if there are transmitters buried under some of these squares."

  "Why would the aliens do that?"

  "Well, unless we go for a stroll out on this thing, we'll never find out."

  He sighed, thinking aloud again. “The safest thing to do is to go back to the module and bring back our multimeter, high voltage probe meter, and a short metal rod. Then we stick the rod into the wet soil here, clip the high voltage probe's ground lead to the rod, and touch the business end of the probe to the surface of the artifact. That should complete the circuit and give a rough reading of how much voltage is running through this thing.

  "If the reading is low enough, we use the multimeter to get more accurate measurements of how much voltage and current is present. It's the only way to tell if this alien contraption has enough power running through it to fry us if we touch it and get grounded somehow."

  Katerina shook her head. “No. If we go back to the module, you'll feel obligated to check with Mission Control about what to do next. It's their duty to be cautious and keep us safe. While they're taking hours or days to decide what's the least dangerous thing to do, you'll do your duty by waiting for their decision.

  "And while all of you are doing the ‘right’ and prudent thing, we'll be wasting time and accomplishing nothing. I can't prove it to you, but I feel we'll regret it if we don't find out as soon as possible what this platform is and why the aliens put it here."

  Katerina handed Martin the video camera, then unclasped the gold chain around her neck. She slid the golden three-barred cross down to one end of the chain and carefully made a small loop enclosing the relic. Slipping her engagement ring off her finger, she tied it to the other end of the chain. Then she knelt down beside the alien artifact and stuck the bottom end of the cross into the soft wet soil.

  Martin wrinkled his forehead. “What are you doing?"

  With the cross fixed securely upright in the soil like its archetype on Calvary, Katerina stood up. She said, “You're not the only one who's had training in electrical engineering. Gold is an excellent conductor of electricity. My cross acts as a ground, so to see if there is high voltage in this alien metal all I have to do to complete the circuit is this—"

  She leaned over, dangled the free end of her chain over the surface of the artifact, then let the chain fall. As her gold ring touched the artifact—

  Katerina smiled triumphantly. “See? Nothing happened. If there were high voltage present, we should have seen at least a big spark when the two metals touched. If the voltage were great enough it might even melt the gold. Now we know it's reasonably safe to step on this platform."

  Martin leaned cautiously forward, studying the ring and the section of the chain lying inertly on the artifact's surface. “Maybe—but I'm still not convinced it's safe enough to try. There may be parts of this thing that are electrified or dangerous in some other way. I want to find out what this is all about as m
uch as you do, but I don't want either of us to get hurt or killed trying. The only reasonable thing to do is to go back to the module and check with Mission Control."

  As he was talking Katerina knelt down again. She swiped at the part of her chain dangling in midair between the cross and the alien platform with her hand, whipping the free end of the chain off it and onto the ground. Then she pulled the cross from the ground and reverently cleaned the dirt from its end with her fingers.

  After putting the ring back on and readjusting her chain until it and the relic hung from her neck again, Katerina said, “By the way, Martin, perhaps you didn't notice that for an instant I was part of the circuit too when my fingers touched the chain. I didn't feel a shock."

  "You—that was stupid! You could have been killed!"

  Katerina's face darkened. “Maybe it was stupid. Maybe I could have been killed. And you're right, the safest and most reasonable thing to do would be to leave here and do what you said.

  "But sometimes thinking and analyzing aren't enough. Occasionally you have to go beyond reason alone and do what you feel is right. Perhaps once in a lifetime, when the stakes are as high as they are now, you have to put your very life on the line and rely on faith. You're a good man, Martin, and I love you. If something bad happens to me, and you want to know why, when you return to the module read those books I brought with me. Especially the one by Kierkegaard."

  "Who? Oh, you mean—don't!"

  Before he could stop her, Katerina made the sign of the cross, took one small step toward the alien platform—and made a giant leap onto its surface.

  * * * *

  Martin made a choking sound, waiting in petrified helpless horror for the woman he loved to die in a shower of sparks, contorting in agony as electricity clamped and seared her entire body. His brain and training screamed at him to stay back from the platform and not become a second victim, but they weren't fast enough to keep him from jumping beside her—