The Eridani Convergence (Carson & Roberts Archeological Adventures in T-Space Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “I’m going to need to be awake then to help you find it. It’s not visible from the air. Carson, sorry, but I should rest a bit. I’ll look at your pictures later. Heh, when we get to my ship, you can see the real artifact.”

  Carson took it well. “Sure. Get some rest. We’ll wake you when we get there.”

  Tevnar lowered her headrest and closed her eyes. “Go ahead and close the pod,” she said, “it’s quieter.”

  “No problem.” Jackie touched the control to do just that, and checked the monitor screen. Tevnar’s pulse and temperature were elevated, but not worryingly so. Probably just reaction to the exertion.

  “What do you think?” Burnside asked Carson.

  “That story seems way too elaborate to have been made up, nor can I think of any reason why it would be. Jackie, does what she said about Kapteyn’s star and its planets make sense?”

  “From what I know, yes. I’ll check the data on the planets, but it may not have been explored. We tend to ignore red dwarfs. Probably most of them in tee-space have only been visited once, if that. They’re more common than any other kind of star. There are over seventy-five within twenty light-years of Sol, and only a handful have maintained refueling stops.”

  Carson let out a low whistle. “I didn’t realize there were that many.”

  “What about the wrecked ship?” said Burnside. “I get the impression you know a lot more about that sort of thing than I do.”

  Carson weighed what to say next. Even if Burnside was Ducayne’s man, it wouldn’t be appropriate to give him information from a privileged source. But there was something he could talk about.

  “I’ve been going through a lot of historical records of so-called UFO sightings, unidentified flying objects. They were a big deal in the early space age. Most of them were either misinterpretations of natural phenomena, or hoaxes, and so on. There were a few that could not be easily otherwise explained, and might—just might, mind you—have been sightings of craft operated by the species we know is out there.”

  “The Kesh?”

  “Okay, so you’ve heard of them. Yes. The individual I talked to said that some of the descriptions sound similar to Kesh scout craft, but that he wasn’t aware of any such scouting in that period. What they may have been doing a thousand or more years before that, we didn’t discuss. The Belize find is estimated at two thousand years old.”

  “So, whatever Tevnar has on her ship, and the wreck at Kapteyn’s, could be from a Kesh scout craft?”

  “That seems most likely. Or rather, the least improbable, other than an outright hoax.”

  “But why did the Kesh leave known space? Surely we didn’t scare them off.”

  “You’ll have to ask them that. They wouldn’t even tell me if they came from a terraformed planet or if they evolved independently, although they didn’t seem too dissimilar from terrestrial life.”

  Jackie had heard this before, and Carson was lapsing into lecture mode. She got up to head forward. “Don’t mind me, guys, but we’re getting near her coordinates. I’m going to go fly the ship and start dropping our altitude.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  As the Sophie descended on a path toward the coordinates Tevnar had given, it became clear to Roberts why it would be hard to spot from above. An escarpment ran northwest-southeast here, with a height difference of one to two hundred meters. Mostly, the sides were steep but not cliffs, with occasional exceptions. The area toward which they were flying was a series of box canyons, possibly where ancient waterfalls had eroded back the scarp in several areas. The area was dry now, with low grassy scrub and scattered trees. There were more trees closer to the cliffs. There were enough clear areas to land vertically, and with the Sandquist’s powered landing gear, it could have taxied under an overhang or beneath some of the scrub growing out around the lower part of the cliffs. From above you wouldn’t see it if didn’t know what you were looking for, and maybe not even then. She began circling the area at an altitude of six hundred meters, low enough to check out the ground but high enough not to have to worry about trees or other obstacles on the high side of the escarpment. It was a little bumpy, a breeze from the northeast was kicking up some ridge lift and turbulence.

  She used the intercom to call back to the men chatting in the galley. “Somebody want to wake up our guest? I think we’re here, but I don’t know where I should set down,” she said.

  “On it.”

  A few minutes later, Tevnar’s voice came over the intercom. “Mind if I join you? It will make it easier to guide you.”

  “If you feel up to it, sure. Come on forward.”

  This time Roberts had left the cockpit door open, and a few moments later Tevnar came through, a blanket draped over her shoulders, and took the co-pilot’s seat. Carson and Burnside followed behind, hanging back behind the seats. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Circling the coordinates you gave me, a kilometer out.” Roberts touched a control, and the screen in front of Tevnar switched to a view of the ground. “Anything look familiar?”

  Tevnar studied the screen and glanced at the other views on the windows. “Looks right. Hold on, let me turn on the lights.” She retrieved her omni and tapped out a sequence. “Bearing 305, unless your hull is messing with my beacon. Under some trees near a cliff edge to its north. Should be enough poking out to see the port running light.”

  Roberts banked the Sophie to the given heading. Yes, there was part of a canyon wall ahead of her, and there was a red light shining from a stubby wingtip. “Got it. Where should I set down?”

  “Vertical landing a hundred meters away should be fine. The canyon will funnel your down-wash a bit, but there’s an open area just outside the canyon entrance, here.”

  Roberts glanced over to where Tevnar was pointing at the overall view on her screen.

  “Right, no problem. Gents, please take your seats, it might be a bit bumpy.”

  As they did so, Roberts eased the airspeed back and diverted more power to the ventral thrusters, turning their glide into a vertical descent. The wind and turbulence didn’t help. It got worse when she lowered the landing gear. She hoped that would let off some when it came time to take-off.

  As she dropped down below the crest of the escarpment, the buffeting eased. Jackie checked her ground-proximity radar. Forty meters. Twenty. Ten. Five . . . A wind gust rocked the Sophie, threatening to send it toward the trees, and Roberts quickly corrected. She thumbed a switch on her joystick handle. “Brace,” she said, and cut power. There was sudden weightlessness as the ship dropped, then weight surged back as the Sophie’s thrusters cut in at nearly full power for a fraction of a second before impact. The ship came to rest with a thump.

  “Nicely done,” said the timoan pilot beside her.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Carson watched as Roberts ran through her post-landing checklist and secured the Sophie, while Tevnar used the app on her omni to check her own ship’s systems and turn off its navigation lights. “Undisturbed, just like the last time I checked,” she said.

  “Good,” said Roberts. “I’m sure the boys are anxious to take a look at what you found.”

  Carson agreed. “You could say that.”

  “How are you feeling?” Roberts asked Tevnar.

  “Sore.” She stood up. “The leg’s a little weak. Got something I can use as a crutch?”

  Roberts did. “Wait one, I’ll go get something.” She disappeared into the back of the ship and came back with some construction of metal and plastic tubes which would serve the purpose. Carson had no idea what it really was, and didn’t ask.

  “All right,” Carson said, “let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 39: THE ARTIFACT

  The Razgon

  SOPHIE HAD LANDED a short distance from the Razgon, and as Carson and the others hiked toward it, it was still half concealed under the foliage in the shade of the cliff.

  From what Carson could tell, the Razgon looked about the same size as the Sophie, but where t
he latter was a deltoid shape with internal warp pods and pivoting aft fins, the Razgon had a more cylindrical body with stubby wings mounted toward the rear, the tips of which each held a warp pod. Like the Sophie, its surface was adorned with the outlines of hatches and inspection plates, plus the thruster ports.

  “Hold up a moment,” Tevnar said. She touched a control on her omni and the ship’s port-side hatch opened while a short boarding stair extruded from its lower edge. “All right,” she said, moving to the stairs, “come on in. Layout’s a little different from the Sophie. Take a right at the corridor and the galley is on your left. I’m going to check the cockpit.”

  The others followed her in, taking the right and left turns to the galley area. It was a human-built ship, of course, but with a few customizations for timoans. The lighting was dimmer, and everything felt a bit cozier. The galley chairs and table were slightly lower, timoans’ average height being a bit shorter than humans’, but not so small as a human child. The seating was adequate.

  Tevnar came back from the cockpit. “Can one of you gents give me a hand? That artifact is a bit heavy for me right now.”

  “How did you get it back to your ship at Kapteyn’s?” Carson asked, rising to help her.

  “With some difficulty. And a freight dolly.”

  “Ah.”

  “Here,” she said, pointing to a low storage locker near a door at the aft end of the passageway. She touched a control and the segmented door panel rolled up and folded back into a recess above it. “That’s it.”

  It wasn’t in a crate, although there was padding around it to keep it from moving around. A metallic cylinder, a two-thirds of a meter long and a half meter in diameter. There was what looked like a display panel of some kind, and square buttons with markings on them. They looked vaguely cuneiform. Whatever this was, it was nothing like the so-called Maguffin they’d found on Chara III, either in overall appearance or the symbols on it. The symbols looked more like what Carson had seen in the pictures of the Belize wreckage. Bingo!

  “Here, bring it back to the galley,” Tevnar called. “The others will want to take a look at it.”

  Carson knelt down and pulled it out of the locker. It was hefty, and a little awkward in the passageway. He was pondering the best way to lift when Burnside came aft from the galley

  “Want a hand?” he asked.

  “Wouldn’t hurt. I’d hate to drop it.”

  The two of them took it by either end, cradling it—there were no obvious carrying handles—and carried it back to the galley table, where they set it down gently. The under or back side of it had an opening that looked like a panel had been removed, or where it had attached to something. Cables extended through the opening; they were torn as through it had been ripped out. There were traces of corrosion and sediment wedged in to gaps and corners of the device, which fit with Tevnar’s story.

  “Did you clean it up some?” Carson asked.

  “Yep. You’re probably horrified, being an archeologist, but I wanted to see what I had. And I wanted a good look at it to scan for fabbing a copy.”

  “So, the Velkaryans have a copy of this?” Burnside asked.

  “A plastic shell that looks a bit like it, yeah. If they can figure anything out from that, more power to them.”

  “As long as they don’t have another like it.”

  “Why would they?”

  “No reason. These markings,” Carson pointed to the symbols, “are totally different from what we saw in the pyramid. This is more likely Kesh technology.”

  “Who or what is Kesh?” Tevnar asked.

  “Other spacefarers,” Carson said. “We haven’t really met them, just seen signs. Speaking of which,” Carson reached for his omni; he had remembered the Belize pictures. “Tevnar, you pulled this out of a ship, or wreckage of one. Do these pictures look like anything?”

  Most of the pictures didn’t show much that was recognizable. There were sections of tubing, some structural beams or hull material, all of it dented, bent and severely worn and corroded. But other pictures showed more of interest, like a rectangular display that might have been dislodged from a control panel or dashboard, with symbols or writing on parts of it, and another section with several pipes and what might have been remotely controlled valves at one time.

  “Woo, that’s a bit of a mess,” Tevnar said. “Some of those symbols match what’s on this gizmo.” She pointed to several on one of the pictures, then to the corresponding labeled rectangles on the artifact. “Could be numbers or common icons like ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’, or ‘INCREASE’ and ‘DECREASE’.”

  “Good call,” said Carson, impressed. “You might be right.”

  “The rest of this, though . . . .” she flicked through the images again, occasionally pausing and zooming in. “This one,” she said, stopping at the picture of the pipes and possible valve. “I’ve seen this valve before, on the wreck. See this bit sticking out? And this connector? I remember that. Looks like a solenoid-actuated valve, and I remember wondering what it might have controlled. Part of a fuel line or part of the waste management plumbing?” She started to chuckle, then winced. “Ouch,” she said, putting a hand to her injured side. “Remind me not to do that for a while.”

  “Where did you find this thing?” Burnside asked, tapping the cylinder.

  “It was on the deck, mixed with some debris. There was what was left of a pedestal sticking up from an instrument panel that might have connected to that opening. Might have ripped loose when it crashed, or enough so that gravity got to it eventually. No clue what it is, of course.”

  “Do you have an idea where it was mounted relative to the rest of the ship?”

  “Hard to say. Could have been the middle of the cabin, but that seems silly. It would always be getting in the way.”

  “Unless it was something added later,” Roberts said. “Experimental gear, perhaps? Some of my charters bring some odd stuff along, and I’m not letting them put it in my cockpit.” She hesitated, reddening. “Carson, don’t say a word.”

  “Right. You wouldn’t let them put unknown gear in the Sophie’s control cabin. I got it.” He suppressed a smirk.

  “Why not just mount it on a wall, or the floor?”

  Roberts shrugged. “No particular reason. Unless . . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “If you don’t bias the warp field for artificial gravity, somewhere in the center would be where the influence of the warp pods balanced out, so that would be a good place for some kind of mass sensor or something. That’s assuming the ship had warp pods as we know them, and some reason to want to sense mass.”

  “Might be the only thing you can sense outside a warp field, when you’re travelling,” Tevnar said.

  She had a point. Photons got randomized trying to cross the immense local gravity of a warp bubble boundary; light and radio didn’t work. Not that they would have been useful while travelling faster than light anyway. An external gravitational field, however . . . if it were strong enough it might be detectable.

  “This thing has to be way too small to detect gravity waves,” Roberts objected.

  “So far as we know,” Burnside said. “Didn’t you say there was some advanced technology out there?”

  Roberts opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but then closed it and sat back in her seat looking thoughtful. “Maybe,” she said, “but I’d think the mass of any crewmembers moving around would swamp any outside signal with so short a wavelength.”

  “So, Mister Smith, or Burnside,” Tevnar said, “is this what you wanted?”

  “It certainly seems so. What are the chances of getting to Kapteyn’s to check out the rest of the wreckage?”

  “That will cost extra.”

  “I expected it to. What do you think, Carson, want to come along?”

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it. Considering what I went through to get here, I want as much out of this trip as possible.”

  “What’s the plan?” R
oberts asked. “I’d like to see this too. Whose ship were you planning to take? Or both?”

  “It’s a heavy planet. We know the Razgon can land and take off again. What about the Sophie?”

  Roberts looked at Tevnar. “What about it?” Jackie asked. “Is it within a Sapphire’s limits? I’m based out of Skead.”

  “Then you know how to do a high gravity take-off. Kapteyn’s is heavier. I’ll give you the specs, so you can judge for yourself. But probably, yes.”

  Carson knew Roberts well enough to know that “probably” wasn’t going to cut it. She would be running lots of simulations and weight calculations based on the data before committing to a landing. That was fine with him.

  “So, two ships?” said Burnside. “Not a bad idea. Is that all right with you, Tevnar?”

  “The more the merrier. We just need to decide who is going with whom.”

  “I think we should get off planet,” Roberts said. “We can rendezvous in space and transfer there. Ah, Burnside, do you have a suit? I know I have one that fits Carson, but if I don’t have another then I’m afraid it’s rescue balls.”

  “Did you see me pack anything big enough to hold a spacesuit? Tevnar, how are you equipped?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to fit in a timoan-sized suit. Sorry, my human passengers got off at Spitzer. But let me check inventory, I’ve usually got more junk stowed away than I realize.”

  “Balls,” Burnside said. It sounded like he was swearing, but Carson wasn’t sure if he meant the rescue balls or something else.

  “I’ll check too,” Roberts said. “It’s surprising how many places there are to stow things even on a small ship. Unless it’s something I use regularly, things tend to hide. We are going to need breathing gear for everyone who goes out on the surface, but I think I’ve got that covered.”

  “All right,” said Tevnar, “Burnside can come with me for now. We have things to discuss. But I need to taxi the Razgon out from under the trees to where it can lift. Jackie, it would help if you play marshaller for me.”