Aurora

by David A. Hardy

  To reassure herself that she would not be observed as she conducted her illicit experiment, she popped her head round the door into the radio section and asked: “Any news from the dig?”

  Minako looked up. Did she look guilty, too? If so, why? She said: “Not really. They’ve nearly uncovered the rest of the ship, and they’re making tests. Vitali’s looking for some sort of door or handle—some way to get inside it. How are you getting on?” She did not really sound interested. Aurora told her about the retracting legs. Minako nodded, and Aurora withdrew.

  Back alone with the Beacon, she reached out her naked right hand (Her new hand: was that relevant? Probably not.) and touched the artifact. If she had expected something spectacular to happen, she was disappointed. It did not spring open, there were no sparks, no electrical shock.

  The surface was warmer than she’d expected, and it seemed to become faintly warmer still—and wasn’t that a faint humming, felt rather than heard? Then she realized that the black band around the upper sphere was no longer black. The change was not great, but it now glowed an intensely deep ruby red. An image popped into her head: a bubble, or dome?

  Aurora became aware of a faint crackling sound behind her, and wheeled around. The lightform was hovering there. As before, but much more quickly, its spherical shape elongated, became pear-shaped, and took on a distinctly human form. This time there was no doubt about it. It was a white-gowned figure, with pale hair visible under a hood, pale eyes gazing straight at her. It was semi-transparent, like a hologram. And it was beckoning.

  Aurora spoke, softly. “What do you want?” She moved forward a step, and the figure shied away, like a frightened animal. Yet still she felt that it wanted her to approach.

  She took another step, very slowly—If it goes away much further it’ll pass right through the outer wall, she thought—and reached out her right hand.

  A tingling shock ran through her, and her brain seemed to turn cold, then freeze solid. The room vanished and she saw what seemed to be a close-up of the surface of a soap bubble, its sheen a play of shifting yellows.

  Then she slumped to the floor.

  * * * *

  At the excavation site, Orlov had found a very slight depression in the skin of the craft, and had been pushing his palm against it, hoping that it was some sort of lock. All to no avail. He had just sat down to take a sip of fruit juice with glucose when the transparent dome disappeared.

  He thought it might have retracted into the metal skin, but if so it had been too quick for his eye to follow. He noted the time on his watch and tongued his recorder. Then he shot off some pictures, both flat and holo.

  What had caused the sudden change? Nobody had been closer than a couple of meters at the time. He imagined an ancient mechanism, perhaps triggered by something he had done minutes ago, coming out of its long sleep and becoming activated. Perhaps the electrical systems of the craft were solar-powered, and were only now recharging in the weak morning sunlight after having been buried for millennia?

  The other three had noticed the change at last and, with startled exclamations, were gathering around.

  Suddenly Minako’s voice came through their helmet phones, sounding worried.

  “Base Camp to field party. Dr. Pryor has just collapsed, near the first artifact. I don’t know what happened—I just found her. Come in, please. Over.”

  Lundquist instantly took charge. “Roger, Minako. This is Robert. Is she still unconscious? Over.”

  “Yes—no. I think she’s coming round. A moment, please.” Obviously off-mike: “Are you all right, Dr. Pryor? What did you do?”

  There was a pause, and some sounds off.

  Aurora’s voice, rather shaky, came next. “Sorry to scare you, folks. I was examining the Beacon, and that light appeared behind me. I—I touched it.” She omitted to mention that it was with her bare hand. “I got some sort of shock, and passed out. I know it was silly of me, but it seemed a good idea at the time. The light’s gone now. Oh, yeah, that black band around the little sphere? It was glowing a dull red just before the light appeared. But it’s black again now. Er, over.”

  Orlov’s heavy brows drew together.

  “I rather think you may have done more than you thought,” he mused thoughtfully. “What time was it when you touched that thing, do you know? Over.”

  “About eleven-ten, as near as I can say. Why? Oh, over.”

  “Well, at exactly eleven-eleven and fifteen seconds, the central cockpit of the spacecraft opened. Don’t you think that’s rather a coincidence? Over!”

  A babble of conversation broke out then, until Orlov bellowed “Hold it!” loud enough to burst their eardrums.

  “Anne, if you’re quite sure you’re OK, let’s clear the airwaves now and get on with our jobs. I suggest you take a rest—and don’t touch that thing again. Roger? Over.”

  “Roger”—rather reluctantly. “Over and out.”

  Shrugging away the conundrum, the big Russian engineer got back to work. He crawled gingerly over the curved torus shape, and peered down into the cockpit—for by now it was obvious that this was indeed a cockpit. There were two reclining seats made of some black plastic material which still looked supple, and an instrument panel which contained surprisingly few controls. The panel was likewise black, but set into it were pale grey keypads and some clear crystals which he could imagine as glowing lights. They sparkled in the yellow sunlight which blazed down from the sky above.

  There were two rectangular panels that might have been digital readouts, but they were blank, and what was obviously a large blue-grey viewscreen, nearly two meters across and half that in height, which followed the curve of the wall. It too was blank. Below and to the left of the instrument panel was an oddly shaped recess: two hollow hemispheres making a figure-of-eight, the upper being smaller than the lower. The same shape appeared as a symbol emblazoned above the screen. It had some characters inside it.

  Orlov looked back at the other three questioningly, and seemed uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “Anyone object if I’m the first to go inside?” he asked.

  “No, of course not—you go right ahead. You’re the boss!” said Lundquist, and the rest grunted agreement.

  Orlov gingerly lowered himself down into one of the seats, wondering how he would get out if the dome suddenly reappeared above him. It didn’t.

  The seat could have been designed for a human. It was just the right height and at the right distance away from the control panel for his arms to reach the keypads. The viewscreen was just below his eye-level, but he could have seen the outside view through the canopy, had it been in place. As a pilot, he approved. He felt that he could fly this thing right away—if only he knew how, and if it still worked.

  He gazed around. There was a short section of curved wall uncovered by instruments; surely an access door for the rest of the ship. He stood up and examined it for handles or other signs of an opening. But, as with the exterior, there was nothing but a slight depression, and, though he placed his hand on this and pressed, nothing happened. He sighed. It looked as though they were going to need Anne—Aurora—again. But why? She had proved to be a total enigma, yet she seemed to hold the key to all this, somehow. Indeed, but for the presence of her and Bryan, the team would now be back at Base Camp, taking rock and ice samples.

  Base Camp—?

  “Damn!” he suddenly exclaimed.

  “Anything wrong, Vitali?” asked Lundquist.

  “Nothing in here. Funny what you think of at the oddest moments. Here I am in the middle of the greatest discovery of the generation—of any generation, most like—and I’ve just remembered I made a mental note to do something about our supplies. With everything that’s been going on I’d forgotten all about it until now. Unforgivable of me.”

  The others immediately knew what he was talking about. There was a logistics problem with their current situation. They were supposed to have gone back to Base Camp days ago. Naturally, they’d brought more
supplies than they’d expected to have to use, but, with the protraction of their stay out here, now even the reserves were running low. They were going to need more food, oxygen and water very soon.

  Verdet said: “So someone’s going to have to take a rover and collect some stuff. No problem, is it?”

  “I can’t let one person go alone. It means we’re going to lose two people for a while. Oh well, it can’t be helped. We’ll discuss it back at the Igloo.”

  Orlov climbed out of the control cabin, slid down the curving metal until his feet hit the ground, and walked a few meters, taking in the whole scene. The craft was now fully exposed except for a buried section near the damaged portion, which lay on bedrock. He went over to Verdet.

  “What are your feelings about this?” he asked. “It seems to me that it couldn’t have hit from much of a height, or the damage would be greater. I’m not even sure that it made the crater it’s lying in—I think that might be a previous meteor impact. Either that, or the lower part of that ship is a lot denser than it looks.”

  “Oui. I agree. It seems it must have come in at quite a shallow angle. Maybe it was trying to land in the desert, but couldn’t make it, and had to fly along the canyon a little way. But something else is bothering me. I’ve been running some tests on the skin. It’s an alloy, but nothing too unusual: nickel, steel, titanium, carbon, a few other traces. But I’ve also been looking at the erosion patterns, and at signs of oxidation by all the peroxides in the Martian soil—it’s pretty corrosive stuff. Well, I’ve got a positive result on both, but....”

  He looked at each of them in turn. They looked back expectantly.

  “How long would you say this ship has been here?” he asked.

  Beaumont replied, “As I said the other night, it could be millennia. Granted, it wasn’t buried very deeply, but with the winds on this planet blowing the dust around, that doesn’t prove much, does it?”

  “It’s that very dust which creates the problem—or, at least, the erosion the dust causes. That and oxidation. You see, both tests agree that this craft can’t have been here for more than about a century. That’s with a margin of error of, oh, plus or minus fifteen years at this stage. But I’d opt for less than a hundred years.”

  There was silence at this. The four men stared mutely at each other. This wasn’t a result they’d expected.

  Then Orlov said, “Well, anything’s possible, of course, though that’s pretty recent. As we said before, you’d have thought that Earth would have seen or heard something from them. But there’s always an explanation. Those flying saucers of Bryan’s, for one. Wasn’t that term coined in the 1940s?”

  “Hey!” yelped Beaumont, “Don’t lump me in with the ufologists! Mind you, you’ve got to admit they have a point when they say the reason nobody in authority’s been contacted might be because the aliens have a non-intervention policy.”

  “I was about to say, couldn’t you have misinterpreted your test results in some way?” continued Orlov, looking at Verdet. “I mean, if that alloy is more resistant than you’re assuming it is, that would change everything, wouldn’t it?”

  “True.” The Frenchman nodded. “But I don’t think it’s the answer. Wherever this thing comes from, metals are metals. It doesn’t contain any ‘strange unknown element’, like you read about in sci-fi stories.”

  “Used to,” muttered Bryan, wincing. “And it’s SF, Claude, not ‘skiffy’.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “Anyway, Claude,” said Orlov, “I’d like to go through those results with you when we get back.”

  “Sure.” But Verdet did not look happy about it.

  ANOTHER DISCOVERY

  Deciding which two crew members were to return to Base to fetch supplies was difficult, but it was finally agreed that Verdet and Minako should go. Aurora and Beaumont seemed essential around the alien craft; Orlov’s engineering knowledge might yet prove important; and Lundquist, as physician, needed to be with them—in addition, his knowledge of life-support systems was almost as great as Verdet’s, and it was always possible that his knowledge of biology and allied subjects would be required.

  Rover 2 set off soon after dawn, the early morning sunlight sparkling off its bubble canopy. A miniature dust storm obscured its progress as it drove almost directly into its own long shadow.

  Hardly had it disappeared from sight than a message warning flashed on the comm desk. It was William Emmart—himself a US astronaut, and an old friend of Orlov’s—at Mission Control.

  Vitali, United Press and TV have asked us to confirm the contents of a press report they have received, from an unrevealed source. And I’m not surprised. Isn’t it enough that you’ve discovered an alien ship, and Martian ghosts, without all this stuff about Dr. Pryor healing you of a broken leg and paralysis? And her being nearly eighty years old into the bargain, with forged records! Come on, guys! What are you trying to do to us? This is all a joke, isn’t it? Please tell me it is! Over.

  Vitali leaned close to the microphone. “Sit on it, Bill, please. We’ll get back to you later. Over and out.”

  He looked round at the other three. Aurora and Beaumont were about to suit up ready for the day’s examination of the alien craft. Lundquist was to remain by the comm desk today, and also intended to examine the Beacon microscopically.

  “OK, who’s the joker?” asked Orlov. He was obviously angry. He continued, caustically: “You all heard that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we did agree to say nothing about that little incident, did we not? So who’s got themselves a little contract on the side, writing for the popular press?”

  He looked pointedly at Beaumont.

  Beaumont reddened and looked away, but firmly said, “Not guilty.” He turned to Aurora. “You know I wouldn’t do that...?”

  Aurora nodded.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Lundquist. “I’m still trying to come up with some sort of rational explanation, and I’m the last person here to want this sort of story to get around. Christ! This whole expedition’s become some sort of pantomime! I’m sorry, Anne,” he added quickly, “It’s not your fault, and I’m only too aware that you did more for Vitali—not to mention yourself—than I ever could have. Come to think of it, I could well be redundant.” He softened this with a grin. “But we came here as a scientific expedition, expecting to do some research, prepare the way for a later permanent base, see how much water lies below-ground as permafrost, stuff like that. And look what we’ve got ourselves into. I sometimes wonder if I’m dreaming. Perhaps we all are....”

  As Lundquist ran out of steam, Orlov said: “In that case it must be one of those two on the rover.”

  “I can’t see Claude sending that message.”

  Aurora thought of Minako’s veiled hostility to her, and remembered the woman’s guilty look when Aurora had walked in on her at the comm desk, but she remained silent.

  Lundquist, however, said: “Minako has always seemed rather keen to volunteer to remain here on comm duty.”

  “Whichever of them it was, I think we’d better say nothing until they get back. Then, perhaps, we’ll hold an inquest. Let’s get out in the fresh air. Well, you know what I mean.”

  * * * *

  Beaumont had been widening the area of his dowsing, in case any more artifacts or other evidence might be scattered around. Having failed to find anything in the local tributaries to the canyon, today, after dropping the rest off by the spaceship, he drove Rover 1 to the desert just above the site of interest. The others would, at the end of the day, climb the scree slope for the drive home.

  Aurora was not sure what she could do that might be constructive, so she stayed close to Orlov as he climbed once more into the cockpit, which had remained open.

  “Curses!” he said. “I meant to bring the Beacon back here with us today. There’s not much more we can find out about it back at camp, and I still think it may have acted as some kind of key to open the canopy of the space
ship.”

  “You do realize,” said Aurora, “that we’ve never found a trace of radio waves emitted by that thing? Anyway, if it was something I did back at camp that caused the canopy to open, the message would have had to have passed through a hell of a lot of rock. Our radios couldn’t do it.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t use radio. Nothing about them would surprise me anymore.”

  She climbed down into the cabin with him. Having examined the control panel and its various instruments, she placed her hand on the slight indentation in the wall that he’d said he felt sure must somehow control the door’s opening mechanism. Like the Beacon, it felt warm to her touch—and did she feel the same sort of faint vibration?

  She pointed at the big figure-of-eight-shaped recess under the instrument panel, noticing it for the first time. “Vitali,” she said eagerly, “I think we’ve just discovered....”

  “Yeah,” said the Russian. “I was just coming to that very same conclusion myself. Looks like that’s where the Beacon belongs. Double curses on me that I didn’t bring it today! We’ll have to—”

  At that moment Beaumont’s voice came over their helmet phones, loud and excited. “Can you two drop whatever you’re doing? I think I’ve found something interesting here!”

  Vitali and Aurora looked at each other, and wordlessly clambered out of the cabin. She gazed up at the canyon rim. The ascent would have been a stiff one under Earth gravity, but did not look too difficult here, especially as the scree slope served as a ramp. They started climbing.

  Small flakes of rock shifted under their feet, and little avalanches of sand cascaded back into the canyon. They had to hold onto larger rocks, testing them for solidity, as they pulled themselves up to the serrated edge. For the final part of the ascent they had to go up over a series of platforms or terraces of rock very much like sedimentary layers, dusted with fines, where the level surface of the plain had apparently slipped and sunk several times, creating a set of giants’ stairs with treads perhaps a meter deep. A curved bite had been taken out of the rim at the top.