He paused to tap a command, and a second signal appeared beneath the first. “This is what we're receiving now. “
Fahim Barad watched it cycle through, leaning forward to examine the intertwining helixes. “It is different,” he said quietly. “I can see that immediately. But it is not completely different – there are many similarities. May I?”
Frost passed him a stylus, and Fahim began to highlight segments of the two recordings. “Here, and also here. Look: to my eye, these portions of the transmissions are identical, but they are in different positions. In the first signal, it occurs near the beginning; in the second it is further on. It also looks... I can't quite describe it, but the new signal seems flatter, somehow. As though it is less friendly. Can you see it?”
Frost and Ortega stared at each other, and then at the screens. “Ah, I'm not quite sure,” Ortega hedged.
Frost shook his head, his amazement plain. “I hadn't seen any of that! You should come up here more often, Doctor!”
Fahim allowed himself a smile. “Perhaps. So, maybe they are telling us some of the same things, but not in the same way. We have to work out why that is. But at least we have much more data to work with now.”
He sat back and let the signals continue their loop on the screen, watching the waves rise and fall. There was something trapped in the back of his mind: if he waited, he thought he might find the key to let it loose.
After a short silence, Ortega glanced back up at Frost. “What about the audio? Is that any different?”
Frost sighed. “Actually, I've been trying not to listen to it. Do you need to hear it, Doctor?”
Fahim nodded absently. “Yes, please.”
Once again the dome was filled with the squeal of interstellar noise, sending shivers of discomfort rippling down his spine. A roaring, atonal wind.
The wind...
He was staring across the room at one of the monitors: a view of the night sky, as seen by one of the observatory's instruments. A large nebula occupied one corner of the screen. The shape looked peculiarly familiar to him. The moment congealed as the pieces of the puzzle shifted in his mind, rotating into place. It was as if he had been looking at everything from the wrong angle. From the wrong plane – now he could see all three dimensions.
“Dear God, it has been there all the time,” he muttered, shaking his head in amazement. “All the time! Professor, that screen there – can you print a picture of the stars in that sector? Good; bring it with you. We will be outside.”
***
Ortega had to hurry to keep up with him, but Fahim had no time to smile at the irony in that. He strode quickly through the complex, his eagerness to prove his new theory urging him into a jogging pace as he reached the main lobby.
“What's wrong?” Ortega asked, breathless after the chase. Fahim held up one hand to halt her questions and stepped out into the afternoon, bracing himself against the wind that buffeted him almost immediately.
“Listen,” he told her. “Just listen.”
The wind had turned to come from the north now, bitter with the taste of swirling dust. It broke uselessly over the streamlined shapes of the cars in the parking lot, and howled when it found the spiralling funnels of the alien sculptures.
Ortega winced. “Hell, this is worse than ever, Doctor. It'll give me a migraine.”
Fahim gestured to the sculpture. “No, bear with it if you can, please – they're trying to tell us something.”
She frowned and covered her ears. Frost emerged from the lobby, hurriedly pulling his coat back on, a printout rolled up and stuffed into one pocket.
“Can't you hear it?” Fahim continued. “Listen to the sound wave, not the wind. I didn't hear it last time, but it follows the same patterns as the signals that Scipius found.”
He watched them, waiting impatiently for the recognition. “Well?”
“You might be right,” Frost said slowly. “We'd have to record it and make detailed comparisons to be absolutely certain, but...”
“And there is more,” Fahim added. He gestured at the sculpture. “Look at the structure of this thing. The curves – so mathematical. I've spent so long analysing these things that I can even tell you the ratios and sine values of some of these shapes. This is language too – it occurred to me back in the dome. The signal we have been looking at – if you look, you can see some of the frequency shapes in this sculpture. The two things together – the sound and the curves – they constitute one language. They mean the same thing.”
“Hah. All this time, we've been looking at half a picture,” Frost said. “No wonder we haven't been getting anywhere.”
Fahim grinned openly. He had just been thinking exactly the same thing. “It is the same language. I have no doubt. Which means they have been trying to tell us something since we first arrived on this world. But they cannot have known that we would come, which means that...”
“These were left here for any travellers who came along,” Ortega finished, and Fahim nodded. “That sounds crazy, Doctor.”
Fahim held out his hand to Frost, and the Professor passed him the printout he had brought with him. “Bear with me, please; I haven't yet finished. My theory is still formative.”
“In other words, he's making it up as he goes along,” Ortega muttered to Frost, just loud enough for Fahim to hear.
“Quite right. Genius on the wing,” Fahim replied straight-faced. “Right. This is the night sky as seen by Scipius. With this nebula, here, dominating our view. Now: fix that picture in your mind, and look at the sculpture again. More specifically, stand there and look.”
Frost wore a bemused expression, but he circled around the massive sculpture until he stood between it and the Scipius dome. Ortega followed him, standing further back with her hands braced against her hips. For a long moment there was only the sound of the wind.
“Okay, I'm lost,” Ortega said at last. “What am I supposed to be seeing? Art appreciation was never my strong point.”
“Here.” Fahim passed her the printout.
“The nebula,” Frost said suddenly. “I think I can see the shape of the nebula at the end of that hole through the damned thing.” He crouched, peering closer. “Bloody hell, I think you've cracked it, Doctor! That's just got to be a representation of the nebula up there. And there's a piece jutting down from the top – I don't know if that's been worn down by the wind, but what are the odds that it's meant to point to a particular part of the nebula?”
Maria Ortega frowned, glaring at the relic. “It's a map? All of that, and it's just a map? Why in God's name are there so many of them?”
Fahim smiled. “As you said yourself, Maria, they are graffiti – of a sort. Most graffiti says one of two things, I think: either 'We were here' or 'This belongs to us'.”
“And this one comes with a map,” Frost said. “So perhaps more likely to be the latter interpretation?”
“I believe so,” Fahim agreed.
“The question is, what's the rest of the message they're trying to give us? And why has the transmission changed?”
Fahim began to walk around the object, sorting his thoughts one last time. The theory was almost complete. “Exactly. Why has it changed? To the best of my knowledge nobody has sent a reply. Correct?”
“Correct,” Frost said. He paused for a moment. “You're implying that this second signal has been sent because we haven't sent a reply. A warning.”
“Possibly,” Fahim said.
The professor hunched forward and ducked his head. “Ouch. I don't much like the way your theory is headed, Doctor.”
“It may yet be worse than this,” said Fahim. “For the Corporation, at least. Think about it for a moment. Aside from the sculptures, what have we actually recovered of their civilisation? Pots? Buildings? Pictures? Bones, even? We don't actually even know what they looked like. This world was a blank canvas when humanity arrived upon it. An unpainted picture. An empty room, if you w
ill. Yes, the sculptures probably proclaim their ownership of this world, but I believe that is all they do. Our aliens own this world, but they have never lived on it.”
Comprehension had already dawned on Frost's face. Ortega was not far behind.
“They're the landlords?” Ortega said incredulously.
Fahim nodded. “And the rent is overdue.”
Salvage
by MJ Kobernus
Near Orbit, Palsenz, 2387
The shuttle approached the larger ship’s docking port slowly, performing an intricate ballet of trajectories and vectors, matching speed, angle and rotation until it mirrored the other vessel precisely.
“Argoss III, this is the shuttle Heimdal. Requesting permission to dock.” The radio remained silent. First Officer, Stephanie Chu looked to the pilot and shrugged. “Still no response, Pål.”
Captain Pål Knutsen acknowledged this with a nod. But he had his orders. Dock with the Argoss, and enable ingress for the salvage team. He triggered a burst from the central reaction control system, giving the shuttle a push sufficient to allow it to move slowly towards its vastly bigger host. With a clang that reverberated throughout the smaller vessel, the shuttle mated with the Argoss, its inexorable progress countered by the torsional and compression systems that absorbed most of the collision’s impact. With a glance at the control panel, he saw that the Orbital Docking System indicated the seal was tight. All green. He flipped the comm channel open.
“OK, boys. You’re clear to disembark.”
Stephanie pulled her headset off. It floated away gently. Raising an eyebrow, she said, “Boys?”
Her partner shrugged. “Just a figure of speech. You be careful, Steph. Make sure that seal is tight. I don’t care what the panel shows.” He gestured to the ODS which continued to give its electronic assurance that the docking ports were cleanly mated.
“I always am, Pål. Don’t worry about me.”
She quickly moved to the small hatch in the bulkhead behind them. Making good use of the handholds, she swung around and pivoted through the narrow opening, flying through with the speed of long familiarity. This put her in the central fuselage where the tech-engs from the Bitter Sea were waiting, already suited. The six men and three women were checking each other’s EV suits, before tapping their partners’ shoulders to indicate final approval. At zero gee, they could move easily in the heavy, articulated bodies, but they were bulky and cumbersome under normal grav conditions.
Stephanie punched the code for the airlock and a door slid open revealing a small chamber just big enough to hold four of the suited figures at a time. The first group entered, some of them carrying silver cases containing the instruments and tools needed to assess the condition of the third colony ship, which steadfastly refused to acknowledge their presence. She activated the close routine and the hatch slid shut silently. Watching through the tiny sight glass, she could see the expedition leader manually operate the docking port. The shuttle vibrated for a moment as the port dilated open, and the tech-engs passed into the airlock on the other side.
One of them turned before entering the Argoss, giving her a thumbs up gesture, then sealed the hatch behind him. The panel displayed a flashing green light. They were in. She repeated the process for the three remaining crew and watched as they too disappeared into what some people were already referring to as the ghost ship. She shook her head ruefully. Stupid to let rumour affect her like that. So the ship had suffered some kind of environmental disaster and most likely killed everyone aboard. That was no reason to start getting superstitious. And yet, she could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
***
Inside the Argoss III, Officer First Class Jensen examined the external pressure and air sensor unit mounted on the sleeve of his suit. With a nod to the others, he started to unclamp his helmet. Quickly, they helped each other, hanging their suits in racks that lined the wall of the small chamber. In just a few minutes, nine heavy EVO suits slumped against the airlock wall.
Jensen sniffed cautiously. He was the first of his family in almost three hundred years to breathe air not filtered through the Bitter Sea’s scrubbers. It was disappointingly familiar. The same aroma of rubber and steel. But there was a hint of something else too. Something he did not recognise.
The airlock opened into a narrow corridor, its once white walls now grey, several of its lighting panels dimmed or broken. Noting the condition, Jensen felt his fears for the people aboard the Argoss III mounting. No one had been doing any maintenance for a very long time, it seemed.
“Alright folkens, let’s get to work.” He gestured to the Drive Techs who carried a crate between them. “Finn and Cho. You two get moving. Find out what state the main drive is in. The rest of us are heading for the control centre.”
The two drive techs nodded, lifting their heavy crate easily in the zero gee, and headed down the corridor. Even though their names denoted a familial heritage that could not have been more different, they looked surprisingly similar. Both men were tall, with high cheekbones and dark hair. Finn’s blue eyes spoke of his Norsk roots, while Cho’s brown were rooted firmly in Shanxi province. They moved at a steady pace, their boots providing solid traction on the floor. Theirs was the longest journey, as they had to go through the gen-pop section in the third sphere in order to get to the engines, but there was a control station in section two that could provide some answers first. They turned left at the junction in the corridor without hesitation. They did not need to think about where they were going. They were as familiar with the layout of the Argoss as they were with the Bitter Sea. The colony ships were all built identically, down to the last nut and bolt, even if each did its own unique ‘flavour.’
The great vessels had left Earth in the wake of the Final Fall. They had maintained close communications during the first generation, but after forty years, the Argoss had gone quiet. It also maintained a longer and harder acceleration program than the other three ships, so after many decades it had pulled too far ahead to be tracked easily. And though it was clear that it had not exploded, as had the luckless Truman seventy years into their journey, it was equally certain that something had gone catastrophically wrong.
After eight generations, only half the expected colonists had arrived safely at their new home, a G star system with a Kepler-classified Super-Earth planetoid. But this would be enough as each ship was fully capable of establishing a colony on its own. However, the success potential of any fledgling outpost increased with greater numbers. When Endurance and Bitter Sea entered the Palsenz star system, there was much celebration when the Argoss III was discovered to be waiting for them in a geo-stationary orbit.
Each of the giant ships had been sponsored by a consortium of privately held companies with cooperation from national groups on Earth. The Bitter Sea was a joint Sino-Norsk enterprise, with lesser representation from several other countries. As a result, most of the colonists on the Bitter Sea had Eurasian features, with a prevalence for high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes, even those with blonde hair. In contrast, the Endurance was largely of North American manufacture, with a large percentage of Southern American and a small minority of central Europeans. The colonists aboard Endurance were much darker in complexion, with a prevalence of brown eyes and darker hair. The vision of a melting pot for humanity had become reality only after its almost utter extinction.
Officer Jensen began to lead the group of engineers, technicians and computer operators on the long march to the control centre, located in the third and most forward section. The Heimdal had docked in the middle section, which contained the engineering, hydroponics and various other support industries. This was the heart of the great ark and it should have been a hive of industry.
The modular design always reminded Jensen of pictures he had seen as a kid; a bulbous bug, with a large abdomen, smaller thorax and tiny head. Each section was bigger than the previous, and all were connected by multiple limbs and tub
es.
Only the third section had gravity. The General Population pod was based upon a design from the twentieth century; a Bernal sphere. The entire core of the sphere was hollow and housed the majority of the ship’s crew and personnel. There were no passengers. If your ancestors were not specialists or would not work, they did not go. A constant three quarter gee was maintained by spinning it along a central axis ensuring that the population could maintain sufficient muscle and bone mass throughout the long journey to their new home.
The salvage team led by Jensen continued through various corridors, some of them entirely dark, requiring them to use their light beams on scatter setting, creating odd, looming shadows out of nothing. It was in one dark passage that they found the first Argoss crewman; or what was left of him. The synthetic material of his uniform was perfectly intact, in contrast to the skeletal remains within. It looked to Jensen as if the man had died leaning against the bulkhead, then simply fallen over.
The Med Tech drew a handheld scanner and went to work. She looked up, face grave. She said just one word, but it chilled them all.
“Radiation.”
At that moment Jensen’s ear comm chirped, announcing an incoming signal. He keyed it to relay, so the others could hear the drive tech through their own comms.
“Chief, there’s something not right here. We’re at the engine control centre. There’s no sign of any activity, but the nav system shows that a containment coil was aligned recently.”
Jensen understood enough about the singularity drive to know what a containment coil was, but he did not understand why this was important.
So?”
“So, the procedure is not automated. It has to be done manually.”
Jensen let the significance of the words filter through. Someone must have been performing the alignment. “Well, that’s good news. There must still be some crew alive, right?”
Aliens - The Truth is Coming (Book of Aliens 1) Page 10
