Travels of the Orphan (The Space Orphan Book 3)

by Laer Carroll

  One model had indeed been the base for Jane's "excavator." It had a transparent cabin in front of and atop the body of the machine. The original device had cut large fields of hay, bailed it, and left the bails behind like eggs lain by a hen.

  "I don't see wheels," said one of the assistants.

  Jane said, "It flies on a floater field. Now, if you'll go out that airlock." She pointed down the hall in which they stood. "Sergeant Janeway here will assist you in its use. You'll be able to see me exit Connie and can follow along to be sure I'm not doing anything to damage the artifact. Stay off to the side of me, not in front."

  As the three scientists and the sergeant left Jane entered the room in which the "excavator" sat. Its insides contained an anti-matter power generator and mysterious pipes and blocks of machinery which were a fake excavator mechanism.

  In reality Jane would be using Robot to transmute dirt to helium. The whole machine was a ruse to hide that fact.

  She climbed into the cab and started up the machine. That included an air storage and recycler as she would be working on the nearly airless surface of Mars. This way she would not have to use the three-hour air supply of her spacesuit.

  Jane signaled the cargo hold to evacuate the air and replace it with the air of Mars. This was less than a percent of the density of Earth's air and was mostly carbon dioxide.

  That done she signaled the door of the hold to open to the outside, lifted the fake excavator on its floater field, and slid over the floor to the exit. There a ramp had folded out and down to rest on the soil of Mars.

  Jane drove down the ramp to the reddish orange dirt and under orange-tinted sky. She checked and saw off to one side the scientists and the sergeant. She waved to them and moved forward about a hundred feet. Through Robot she saw that the easternmost edge of the Martian city was another hundred feet further and under fifty-plus feet of dirt. The edge was a flat plate which had been christened a parking lot.

  Now she had Robot begin to transmute the dirt twenty feet in front of her fake excavator to helium. Its field she had range a couple dozen feet to each side.

  At first the dissolution effect was a fraction of an inch deep and at a slight downward angle. In effect she'd begun creating a ramp down to the city's edge.

  To watchers the effect was negligible. The further she went the deeper the ramp got. An edge began to be visible to both sides of the floating machine. About ten feet down the edge ceased to be a sharp right angle as the dirt began to collapse. As the dirt hit bottom some of it bounced into the air as dust.

  It settled fairly quickly in the almost non-existent air of Mars. Still, Jane's path began to be increasingly visible to the four watchers, following well back of the machine, as a faint haze.

  Halfway down to the city's edge Jane began to widen the ramp until it was twice its beginning width. From then on she cleared a fifty-foot wide swath of dirt.

  At that point the solidified dirt in front of her was a cliff some thirty feet high. Jane had Robot tilt its dissolution field so that the straight up-and-down cliff began to angle backward. She was creating a slope ahead of her.

  It took an hour to reach the edge of the "parking lot" and another hour to clear dirt from it to its furthest northern and southern edges. This revealed to sight a wall of dirt-enclosed buildings. Jane began to remove the dirt from around them. Finally she cleared the north-south cross street labeled Avenue 16 just beyond the buildings.

  Or whatever they were, Jane had to remind herself.

  She decided that she was done for the day. She turned the excavator around and floated up the ramp then into the ship, set the machine down, closed the door behind her, and let Earth air replace the Martian air in the airlock.

  Outside the airlock she met the sergeant who'd been escorting the three scientists.

  "Where are your chickens, Sarge? Gone to roost?"

  The man chuckled. "Gave up a couple hours in, Captain."

  "What about you?"

  "I had an extra bottle of air so I was able to shadow you all the way, Ma'am. Quite a job you did out there."

  "Thanks for sticking with me, Rosemont. But I won't need you tomorrow."

  "Oh, goody. I get to go back to monitoring the enlisted doing laundry duty."

  "Well, I wouldn't want to keep you from that excitement."

  They both laughed as they turned to go to their respective duties.

  <>

  The mess hall did triple duty as a ballroom or a conference room. It was sparsely inhabited as Jane, Lopez, and a couple of her usual assistants went to dinner. They were soon joined at their large round table in a corner of the room by the chief scientist and a couple of his cronies.

  "Quite a job you did this afternoon, Captain," said the "young skinny Santa Claus" as Jane thought of the head scientist, Dr. Julius Hornsby. "That's quite a machine you've got there. It should make you another fortune once you patent the underlying technology. Or can a military person profit by inventions they come up with while enlisted?"

  "They can, though there is a whole cage of restrictions around making that money. But you won't be seeing the tech any time soon. For one thing, it's very expensive. You need most of the power of the smallest anti-matter power generator, and those cost as much as a fighter jet. And some expensive materials, including gold and a couple of rare earths.

  "On top of that, the tech can be made into a weapon, and I'm not releasing it to anyone for a good long time."

  "You, a military person?" said one of the two scientist sidekicks. "Objecting to weapons?"

  "Only some weapons, and only to how they are used."

  "Santa" said "So, while you were clearing the rest of your swath of dirt we were inspecting the insides of the buildings you uncovered with the 'gravity radar' of your ship, with the kind help of Commander Lopez and her technicians.

  "We've only guesses about what the equipment inside the buildings is, much less how it worked. But we did not find any air recycling equipment. At least none which we could identify. The air ducts look pretty much like those of any home or office. Inside them are small units which might be the aliens' equivalent of fans."

  For the next hour the discussions were more speculation than anything else. Jane ended the session with a statement of her tentative plans to uncover the city.

  <>

  It took another dozen days to clear the rest of the city. As parts were cleared scientists began to study the revealed building, or devices, or whatever the blocky one- to three-story high blocks were.

  The "buildings" were a motley collection of shapes, mostly blocks but with a few cylindrical or pyramidal shapes. There was one big icosahedron: a ball with a surface made up of triangles. It was mounted on three tall legs. It was dubbed the Water Tower which it vaguely resembled.

  Their colors ranged the rainbow. Most were pale versions of primary colors but dark green was a very popular color. Pinks and reds were the least.

  On all the building there were outlines which resembled the edges of windows or doors. However the surfaces enclosed by the outlines were the same colors and textures of the rest of each building. Close examination, even at microscopic detail, found no cracks in the surface under the outlines. They might be purely decorative though that seemed unlikely.

  By the time Jane had completely cleared the putative city the uncovered artifact had been completely mapped and photographed. Attempts were made to open the outlines of what appeared to be doors but only by the gentlest of methods, as decreed by the head scientist and by Jane.

  Attempts were made to analyze the surface of the streets and buildings by exposing patches of them to radar, electromagnetic fields, and sonar. Nothing could penetrate the material. This surprised no one, as the edge uncovered by a meteor strike had withstood the heat and pressure exerted by the explosive release of kinetic energy as a small flying mountain struck the planet's surface. Only the ship's gravitar gave any idea of what lay within the buildings.

  <>

  T
wo weeks passed. Then at 3:47 am one night Jane was awakened by Robot. It had sensed a power source becoming active inside the artifact/city.

  Jane merged with Robot to become a cyborg. SHE examined the situation for several hundred milliseconds and decided there was no threat, at least not an eminent one. SHE fell back into her merely biological part.

  Jane dressed and went to the nearby control room. The night watch officer transferred command to Jane then took the seat to Jane's right.

  "What's up, Captain?"

  "Just wondering about something, Lieutenant."

  Jane examined the readouts of the spacecraft's instruments which were focused on the artifact. They revealed nothing. She was not surprised. Robot was far better at their job than they were.

  She watched through it as the power generator came more fully online. It reached a peak and its output leveled off to a routine level. Meanwhile elsewhere in the artifact other devices were coming alive and using the power available to them.

  "Hello!" said the watch officer whom Jane had supplanted.

  In the view screen showing the nearest edge of the artifact yellow lights had come on. They were mostly on the surface of the "buildings" inside the outlines of what the scientists had labeled windows. All along the wall formed by the nearest row of the buildings the "windows" came alight as if someone had turned on the lights inside the structures.

  Another set of lights were white. They came from balls floating perhaps forty feet in the air as if mounted on invisible posts.

  Jane sent several drones into the air and positioned them several hundred feet above the artifact. The same lights had appeared all over the city. It was now visible as if in broad daylight.

  Jane sent a wakeup call to all day and evening personnel, leaving the evening crew to continue sleeping. Crew members quickly arrived in the control room and took up stations.

  Once they were all settled in Jane addressed the crew in the room and elsewhere.

  "Sorry to wake everyone up, but the alien city, or whatever it is, has come awake. We need to be ready for whatever happens. So far there seems to be no danger from it, but better to be prepared than not.

  "So far nothing interesting has happened besides the artifact coming awake. If things stay that way I'll release you in shifts to get breakfast. For now, stay alert but also calm. Captain, out."

  Both Robot and Constellation's instruments showed the city remaining still though well lit.

  Then a couple of hours later, about an hour before usual sunup, something else happened. A shimmer took place in the air over and around the city. When it settled down a barely visible bread-loaf-shaped curtain had enclosed the city from its edges and to a height of about a hundred feet.

  Robot also sensed other activity. It was from six cylindrical structures placed in two rows of three. They were all in the two rows of buildings one outward from the two rows of buildings on each side of "Main Street."

  "Young Santa" Dr. Julius Hornsby settled into the left seat on the command dais, the place for the Science Officer. He had a no-gravity sippy cup in one hand.

  "I see interesting events have been taking place."

  "They have. What do you make of that?"

  Jane gestured toward the view screens in the front of the control room. The big center screen showed the entire artifact viewed from a drone that had been placed and remained a couple of thousand feet above the city the day they'd arrived. Six of the several smaller surrounding screens showed the cylinders which had come active. A faint mist was issuing from the tops of the cylinders.

  "I assume you're talking about that mist. I'd guess that the city is adding air to the surroundings. You'll notice from the panorama view that already the image of the city has lost the sharpness of Mars' low-pressure dry air.

  "Are those force fields all around the city? Like those you invented?"

  "No idea. They seem to function much the same way. The principles behind the aliens' force fields may be completely different."

  "I wonder if we'll be able to enter the city now that it has come awake. I marvel that it is still functional after the thousands of years it has been here. And covered by dirt."

  "Have you narrowed down the age of the city?"

  "As best we can tell dust started to cover the artifact nearly five thousand years ago. It might be much older than that. That material it’s made of-- Some people are calling it 'eterna-stone.'"

  <>

  For several hours what seemed to be air filled the force dome covering the city. During that time Jane let the early-awakened day crew have breakfast in shifts, keeping the control room at almost full capacity at all times.

  The evening crew came awake and excitedly caught up on the news.

  Lunch came and went.

  At a little after 2:00 in the afternoon the artifact's force envelope changed color to a light translucent grey on its sides and a dull black on top. More crucially at each end of Main Street the force material turned completely clear within a thirty-plus feet wide and twenty-plus feet high half oval. Each shape resembled an arched portal.

  "What do you make of that?" said Jane to Julius Hornsby.

  "My guess is the black roof is a big solar panel delivering auxiliary power. The two clear areas are what they appear to be: portals."

  "That's my guess, too."

  Jane organized a small group to accompany her to investigate the city more closely: a first lieutenant and two enlisted personnel, the woman a sergeant and the man an airman first class. All three had advanced degrees.

  Jane invited Hornsby to come with her with no more than three other scientists.

  They dressed in space suits and entered one of the four elevator air locks which dropped twenty-feet down below the bottom of the spacecraft to rest on the ground. The elevator was just roomy enough to accommodate the eight people crammed against each other.

  On the planet's surface they walked out from under the huge bulk of Constellation and the hundred or so feet to the edge of the artifact. The side of the force-field envelope loomed above them some twenty feet in from the outer edge of the parking lot.

  Jane and Hornsby stopped ten feet in front of the clear "portal" and their entourage arrayed themselves in a semicircle behind them.

  As soon as they halted a voice spoke in their earphones.

  "Greetings, honored guests. Is there one among you who can speak for the others?"

  Hornsby glanced at Jane, who had been looking at him.

  "I think that's you, Captain."

  She faced forward. There was no one and nothing to focus on. She looked through the portal, if that was what it was, and gazed at a spot a hundred feet or so along the main street which stretched empty for a mile beyond them.

  "I can speak for all of us here. Who am I speaking to?"

  "I am the manager of this habitat. You may call me Manager."

  "Manager, how is it that you can speak my language?"

  "When I woke up I communicated with the four sentinel space vehicles stationed in this stellar system. They sent me a familiarization module for the inhabitants of the nearest planet. Observation of your spacecraft revealed a name painted on its side which was most likely that of an English speaker. I used that language to address you. You understood it and replied to me in that language confirming that you are likely a member of one of several nations where that language is commonly used."

  "You appear to be preparing to perform some function. What is it?"

  "The function is to give organic beings a place to live."

  "There are many kinds of organic beings. Do you accept all kinds?"

  "All kinds which do not threaten the survival of other organic beings."

  "Does that include humans?"

  "Peaceful humans. We do not allow humans who war on others."

  "It is sometimes difficult to tell which are peaceful and which are warlike. How can you tell the two apart?"

  "My makers have supplied me with a set of rules which was d
eveloped over several millennia. It is very effective."

  "Will you allow the people in the artifact labeled Constellation to inhabit you?"

  "Yes. That is my purpose in greeting you. Will you do so now?"

  "For a limited time."

  "Then follow this guide."

  A blue glowing ball about the size of a softball appeared in the air ten feet away and head height to Jane. It began to move down the middle of Main Street at a walking pace. Jane then the rest of the group with her followed it.

  Their path took them into and through the clear side of the force field wall. There was no discernible feeling when Jane passed through it. Robot reported, however, that they now were surrounded by air which matched human needs in pressure, composition, temperature, and humidity.

  For three city-sized blocks the structures on both sides of Main Street were one story tall and uniformly boxlike though with a seemingly random mix of color. At the fourth city block their guide veered to the left and approached the front of a light blue structure about the height and shape of a hotel.

  Double doors slid to each side to let the group enter. Inside was a lobby obviously modeled on an Earth-side hotel lobby. The Manager floated to "stand" in front of a waist-high reception desk in front of the left-most wall. Behind it floated three similar balls, two colored pink and one dark brown. The colors reflected the colors of the faces of Jane's group, all being white except Lieutenant Bailey.

  "This building," Manager said, "is a hotel tailored to a composite of the most numerous hotels on Earth. You will check in here, eat in the dining room adjoining this room, and live in rooms on the second and third floors. This first floor has meeting rooms and other facilities. The hotel is still adapting to its function and will change in the times to come. You and other guests may help tailor it to your needs."

  <>

  Jane and her companions registered for rooms by speaking to the robotic desk clerks. They were told that the rooms would be theirs for a Martian year, then they would have to re-reserve them personally. After an absence of more than a month the room would be declared vacant unless the tenant requested more time in person before leaving for more than a month. No payment was required.