Hours drag by.
An̆duru never seems to get any closer.
Out of nowhere, Kath says, “The corrugation we see rippling over the outer surface of An̆duru is deliberate. Spectroscopy is revealing a different composition in the ridges. The shape helps disperse energy. It dissipates heat by increasing the surface area.”
Like everyone on Earth, Nolan’s waiting for something more, but Kath falls silent. Apparently, that piqued her interest, so she shared what, to him, is a horribly obscure insight.
Finally, the distance drops into single digits. From where he is, Nolan can’t see An̆duru. If he was to loosen his straps and float up to the windows, it would be there, dominating the view.
“Deploying probe,” Nikki says. She works from an electronic checklist with timings for each step. A burst of white gas appears, flashing over one of the windows. Nolan cranes his neck, wanting a glimpse of the probe as it departs. Solar panels unfurl, catching the golden rays of the sun. The tether is visible as it unwinds.
Kath says, “We’re seeing signs of fresh cracks in the outer shell.”
She zooms in. A fracture runs into the darkness, barely visible on the black shield of the alien vessel.
“I’m not sure how long these have been there,” she says. “But they must have appeared after contact with Venus. If they’d been there during the atmospheric maneuver, the superheated plasma generated by the flyby would have cut the craft in half.”
Over the radio, Mission Control says. “Iris, you are coming up on five kilometers and are GO on approach.”
“Copy that,” Nikki replies.
The closer Iris gets to An̆duru, the slower it moves. NASA calculated a parking orbit for the Orion. Both spacecraft are in motion. In the same way cars and trucks drive next to each other on the freeway, they’ve matched An̆duru’s speed and heading.
Nolan shifts in his seat, wanting to get comfortable. He’s barely touching the padding. He pees. It’s the result of nerves and a slowly bulging bladder. Warm urine seeps into his diaper. Over time, it’ll cool, leaving him sitting in cold, damp padding. He’s not looking forward to that. Thankfully, he hasn’t had any bowel movements. Yet. Disposable adult incontinence diapers are anything but comfortable. Given the crew didn’t really need to be suited up until now they’re on final approach, Nolan’s less than impressed at the occasional squishy feeling. He floats slightly above his seat with the straps loose, trying to ignore the sensation.
Each of them have a snack pack. NASA thinks of everything. Months ago, somewhere in Houston, someone planned their First Contact encounter as a culinary affair. Foodstuffs and drinks have been spaced out to ensure they stay hydrated and satiated. They’ve come up to another meal point. Although no one at home realizes, within the span of a minute or so, they all reach for their snack packs. Food bars and drinks have been strategically Velcroed beneath the monitors. Nolan takes a prescribed sip of reconstituted juice and bites into a granola bar. To be fair to the mission planners, they’ve worked in some good variety. The latest snack tastes of peanut butter. Although eating seems trivial, humans are like rockets—they need fuel.
“Three kilometers out,” Nikki says, again working from the playbook. “Extending the probe to two hundred meters.”
“Iris, you are GO to turn on the Christmas Tree.”
“Copy that,” Nikki replies, working with her controls.
The probe is bait—a lure for some dark, deep-sea monster.
Nikki powers up the probe.
At the top of her screen, almost out of reach, a large red button appears, marked Abort. If anything happens to the probe, Nikki can hit that and the tether will detach from the Orion. At the same time, the spotlights and the attitude control jets on the probe will light up simultaneously. The idea is to make as much commotion as possible until the tanks are drained. Hopefully, that diverts attention from Iris. Nikki will then be given two options—get the hell out of dodge or drift on by. The hard abort option is a ‘slew and burn.’ This has them reorient the craft and fire their main engine for a direct return. They’ll accelerate away from An̆duru and back to Earth. The soft abort is ‘play possum.’ This will shut down Iris. The Orion will go completely dark while the crew switch to their suits for life support. All electronics will power down, leaving the capsule inert. It’s a case of play dead and hope for the best.
“Bringing up radar imaging,” Nikki says.
This is it.
“Pinging An̆duru at two gigahertz.”
If An̆duru perceives this as hostile and reacts, it’s time to cut and run—that’s Nolan’s preference.
“Navigation lights are on.”
The probe is symmetrical. In part, it had to be as it needed to be aerodynamic during launch, but the design is deliberate. NASA wants to signal intent to the aliens. This ain’t a rock. Someone built this probe. Hopefully, that makes them curious.
An̆duru is homogenous. It flipped end-over-end while on approach. It could be mistaken as natural. It’s no wonder it was initially designated as a comet. There’s no mistaking the probe, though. It’s bigger than Iris itself.
NASA wants to send a message in the physical design of the probe. Nothing is hidden. There’s no ulterior motive. NASA wants the aliens to recognize this as an artificial structure. The use of red strobe lights by the main instrument bay and a single blue light on the nose cone is also deliberate. They signify the narrow band of light visible to humans.
No response.
“Spotlights,” Nikki says, pausing for the prescribed ten seconds as she turns each one on. “And we are live with one… two… three… four… and five.”
Beneath them, an area the size of a football field is flooded with light. The surface of the alien shell is smooth. Cracks run across the grooves. They’re fractured and irregular but clearly visible.
Nikki says, “The probe is holding steady at three hundred meters beneath Iris. Local altitude is two hundred meters. I see no response. Iris is holding steady at four hundred and ninety-six meters.”
Nikki uses the attitude controls on the probe to turn it through 180 degrees. This allows Kath and the scientists on Earth to see how the shadows move, giving them an idea about the depth of the grooves lining An̆duru.
Nikki works with a joystick extending from the arm of her couch. The view on her monitor is from the probe. As her controls are also used for the Orion, a red banner stretches across the bottom of the screen with the wording, Probe Remote Control Active. It wouldn’t be good to forget which craft she’s steering. With a slight touch and a puff of gas, the probe turns again, panning across An̆duru. A few seconds later, Nikki brings it to a halt with another deft touch on her joystick.
After what feels like an eternity, Houston says, “Iris, your telemetry is coming through clear. We see no response from An̆duru. You are GO for close contact survey.”
“Copy that,” Nikki says. “Descending to investigate one of the crevices.”
If Nikki’s nervous, it doesn’t show. She works with her controls and the probe descends closer to An̆duru.
“Approaching at half a meter per second.”
“Copy that,” is the response from Houston.
Although he knows this is a critical moment in First Contact, Nolan can’t help himself. It’s not in his nature to stand idly by with unresolved questions.
“Where did they come from?” he asks.
Kath holds out her hand, signaling, ‘Not now.’
“Taurus, right?” Nolan says, remembering the constellation mentioned in one of the press briefings. For him, An̆duru is an enigma. Nothing makes sense. It doesn’t look like anything they’ve ever seen. Why was the craft tumbling as it passed through the solar system? Every vehicle ever developed on Earth has a clear front and back, a bow and a stern. But not this thing. Having a bunch of unanswered questions leaves him feeling unsettled.
“How far away is Taurus?” he asks.
“Ah,” Kath says, not really listeni
ng to him. She’s trying to concentrate on the metrics pouring in from the probe. Kath is looking for clues, but Nolan’s worried they’ve missed the big picture. She pauses before replying, “Taurus is an entire constellation. It’s not at any particular distance, being a loose grouping of stars at a variety of distances.”
“What distances?” he asks.
Nolan’s aware everything that’s being said is being transmitted back to Houston, but he’s anxious. This is not the time, Nolan. Sit back and shut the fuck up. But he can’t. Something’s wrong. His quirky brain demands answers.
At some point, there has to be a reason for what they’re observing on An̆duru. Kath said the outer layer acted like a heat shield. Okay, he can roll with that, but the cracks worry him. Any machined part would break open along clearly defined lines. When the Apollo Lunar Module took off from the Moon’s surface, explosive bolts and guillotines fired, severing the vehicle in two. This allowed the top half of the craft to launch back into space, leaving the base and legs on the lunar surface. Clean cut. But not An̆duru. To him, the cracks on the surface of the alien spacecraft look like the parched desert crying for water.
Kath is annoyed.
She may not like it, but to Nolan, being annoyed is good. It’ll get her thinking and push her outside her comfort zone. She swipes to one side on her monitor and a document appears on his tablet: Taurus. The outline of a bull is visible on the first page, but only the head and shoulders. Large horns protrude into space. Muscles ripple on its thick chest. Hooves trample the heavens. How the Greeks got that image out of a handful of stars scattered across the sky is beyond him.
Beside each star is a name. In some cases, it’s an ancient term, like Alcyone or Pleione. The majority of stars, though, are labeled with a number and an abbreviated form of the constellation, like 13 Tau and 72 Tau.
“The closest star is Gliese 176,” Nolan says, reading from a list he’s sorted on his tablet.
Kath is not happy. She rattles off, “It’s a red dwarf. A variable star. A couple of exoplanets orbit close in. It’s probably not the point of origin. Too chaotic for life.”
“But it’s thirty light-years away.”
“So,” she says, turning toward him. Her lips are drawn tight. It’s all she can do not to tell him to zip it—he can see that in her fiery eyes. For that matter, he’s half-expecting Houston to ask him to be quiet during the final approach.
“You said it would take them five hundred years to travel a light year. That would mean they spent fifteen thousand years in transit.”
Kath has had enough. She doesn’t say anything, but she gestures with both arms, exaggerating her movements. She positions one hand on top of and the other beneath the screen in front of her. She needs to focus on her work. Her nostrils flare. With a slight huff, she turns back to the screen.
Nikki leans forward, looking across in front of Kath at Nolan. She raises an eyebrow as if to say, ‘What the fuck, dude? Can’t you see we’re busy?’
They’re too close. Nolan wants to say that, but he doesn’t mean physically. He remains silent as he knows that’s how that particular phrase would be interpreted.
Nikki sits back, saying, “Fifty meters. Slowing descent to a quarter of a meter per second. Surface probe armed.”
“Copy that.”
Nolan is troubled.
Over the past four months, all anyone has talked about is An̆duru. Speculation has been rife. Culturally, all their fears have come at them at once. Scientifically, there’s only been a thin sliver of information available. Most of their reasoning is conjecture.
Politically, An̆duru has been disastrous for the United States. Even now, suspicion rages over the Iris mission—hence the live stream and the presence of observers from Russia and China. The United Nations wanted the mission to represent the leading nations in the UN First Contact Commission. There was no way an American President was putting anyone other than Americans on Iris. To be fair, no one had time to overcome written/spoken language/cultural barriers. But any arguments about the difficulty of operating NASA equipment were nullified by the inclusion of two amateurs.
The Russians fought fiercely within the UN and on social media, pushing the case for inclusion. The unintended side effect was a higher degree of confidence in the science around An̆duru than was warranted. Any doubts were drowned out within the debate. NASA and ESA felt they understood the motives of their celestial visitors. Looking at An̆duru, Nolan’s not so sure. They’re too damn close to this thing. It isn’t meeting any of their expectations, but it seems no one has stopped to recognize that.
“They didn’t come from a star,” he says, trying to provoke a broader discussion.
“What?” Kath snaps.
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Don’t you,” she begins, stuttering. “I—It’s just—”
Kath gets it.
Her demeanor changes as the realization hits.
The allure of the monitor buzzing with information no longer holds sway over her mind. She looks deep into his eyes. The cogs are turning.
“Twenty meters,” Nikki says.
Nolan ignores Nikki. “They couldn’t have come from a star. They could have never achieved the precision we’ve seen across a distance of thirty light-years. That’s a travel time of fifteen thousand years!”
Kath’s mouth hangs agape.
“We’ve never seen any kind of rocketry or exhaust,” he says. “Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
Nikki interrupts, saying, “Everything strikes me as strange.”
Finally, Kath says, “We’ve got this all wrong.”
“Yes! Exactly,” Nolan says, pointing at her, glad to have found a companion in the insane asylum that is the Orion capsule.
Nikki locks her controls. She releases the upper clips on her seatbelt and leans half out of her couch. She’s shocked by what she’s hearing.
“I don’t understand,” she says. “What do you mean wrong?”
Nolan taps at the screen before him. “Look at the cracks. Look at the way they run across the grooves, not with them. Look at how they’re jagged and broken.”
Nikki says, “I don’t get it.”
“It’s natural,” Kath says.
“As opposed to?”
“Mechanical,” Nolan replies.
“Wait. What?”
Kath points at Nikki’s screen, saying, “We’re down to five meters.”
Nikki swings around in her seat, working with her controls and trying to sound professional as she says, “Ah, Houston, we are on hold at five meters.”
Like a deep-sea submersible surveying the darkest reaches of the ocean, the probe comes to a halt just above the surface of An̆duru. Floodlights illuminate the night. Most of the surface is as smooth and black as obsidian glass. Below them, a jagged crevice has opened in the undulating surface of the alien spacecraft. Darkness lies beyond.
“Pulling back to twenty meters,” Nikki says.
“Copy that,” is all Houston will add to the discussion. Nolan has no doubt they’re hanging on every word.
There’s silence for the best part of a minute as Nikki withdraws the probe. Kath is madly checking something on her tablet. Nolan stares into the dark void opening up beneath them. The surface of An̆duru has split apart with what looks like tectonic activity. Jagged tears widen in its hull. Nolan tries to make out subtle shapes in the shadows, just outside the reach of the spotlights.
“Okay,” Nikki says, temporarily disabling her controls so she won’t accidentally bump them. “Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
First Contact
Nolan taps the screen. “It’s organic.”
“What?” Nikki asks. “As in alive?”
Nolan’s finger traces a faint outline in the darkness as he mumbles, “Look at the cracks. It’s breaking apart like an eggshell. What the hell is down there?”
“We assumed too much,” Kath mutters, shaking her h
ead.
“This thing is coming apart,” Nikki says.
“How deep is that ravine?” Nolan asks.
“Ah,” Nikki replies, searching through the data being returned from the probe. “Radar imaging makes it just on three hundred meters. Beyond there, An̆duru is hollow.”
“We need to get the probe in there,” Nolan says.
“To do that, I’ll need to take Iris below five hundred meters,” Nikki replies. “Houston, this is Iris requesting permission to descend to one hundred meters.”
Nolan’s expecting a quick response. To him, it’s a no brainer. They’re here. They need to see inside this damn thing. With the probe limited to a tether length of five hundred meters, they have to descend if they want to see what’s happening within the alien artifact. Nolan can’t think of it as a spaceship anymore. That illusion has been shattered. The problem is An̆duru is rotating. It’s difficult to hold a set altitude.
An̆duru’s rotation matches that of Earth. One surface of the alien craft will face them for roughly twelve hours, but it’s in motion. They can’t hover over a particular spot for more than a few minutes without it drifting away. Getting low is dangerous. It demands frequent bursts from their jets to reposition the Orion overhead.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this is not good,” Nikki says. “This is very not good.”
Kath’s fingers ripple over the tablet Velcroed to her thigh. Text messages come pouring in from her science team. Nolan recognizes the surnames—Hendi, Conrad, Alvarez, Knight, Chambers. His comments have spurred a flurry of conversation back on Earth. They just needed to be nudged in the right direction.
“Iris, Houston,” comes across the radio.
“Go ahead, Houston,” Nikki says.
“Iris, you are clear to descend to one hundred meters.”
“Copy that.” Nikki says, turning to the others as she adds, “Are you guys ready for this?”
They both nod.
“Okay, here goes. Setting the probe to autonomous mode, maintaining twenty meters. Withdrawing tether as we descend.”
Wherever Seeds May Fall (First Contact) Page 30
