Project Sail

by Anthony DeCosmo

  She watched as the walking box reached the shuttle’s lift and was hauled up and into the plane with Stein, Thomas, and her three drones.

  Stein’s voice broadcast, “Air Boss, we are ready to get the show on the road. We clear?”

  She wanted to say ‘no’ out of spite, but her professionalism took over and she sent, “Roger shuttle one, you are cleared for launch.”

  The space plane eased out the top of the open cargo bay, fired its engines, and descended toward G-Moon.

  ---

  Captain Charles sat in a chair alongside his bed and listened to Hawthorne and Fisk.

  “Are you getting plenty of exercise?” The mutinous bastard who had shoved a gun in his face asked.

  “A dozen laps around the cargo bay and I had lunch down on the crew deck yesterday. I’ll bet this is what it’s like to be a passenger on your cruise ship.”

  Fisk blurted, “When we arrived we sent a message to UVI. Since then, we have sent daily reports over the QE link but no response from Oberon. What do you know about that?”

  “That’s a joke, right?”

  Hawthorne said, “Look, Captain, we are twenty-two light-years from Uranus and we have not heard from home base since we got here. I would think that would concern you, too.”

  Charles saw Fisk and Hawthorne as surprisingly unnerved, and drew a conclusion.

  “You found something, didn’t you?”

  Commander Hawthorne said, “We found an artifact, left over from what might have been a civilization.”

  Fisk jumped in, “That’s all we will say unless you share information with us.”

  Charles eyed them suspiciously and then said, “I don’t believe you. An alien artifact? If this is an attempt to play on my curiosity, you are wasting your time because I have no secrets to spill.”

  “We are cut off, Captain,” Fisk repeated.

  “Sorry,” Charles said, “I don’t know anything about communications; it’s probably an equipment failure.”

  The two stood at the open door for another few seconds as if waiting for their deposed Captain to speak, but when he did not, the backstabbing son-of-a-bitches left, locking the door behind them.

  Captain Charles leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, and waited.

  41. Field Survey

  Stein felt his breath grow rapid and while the suit would automatically adjust the oxygen mix, he could still hyperventilate. Needing to calm his nerves, he decided to start a conversation with base camp as he entered the cave.

  “Say, this reminds me of a spacewalk I did in Mars orbit.”

  Professor Coffman radioed, “Bill, we should keep the chatter to a minimum.”

  Darkness surrounded Stein, but a beacon of light called him forward, a light that caused him consternation.

  “Professor, we didn’t even draw straws because you said it had to be someone without a thinker. So you will listen to a story. Now, I was working a private station in Mars orbit when me and this tech—his name was Danny—went to give a docking strut the once over. Seemed a maintenance drone spotted a problem but was too big and dumb to get at it.”

  The light ahead formed a square as framed by the short shaft leading from the cave into the cylinder chamber. Stein’s feet crunched on soft rocks and loose dirt.

  “So me and Danny suit up, but not in pumpkins like mine here, in the big ones. You know, the heavy-duty suits for doing repairs with the gloves so bulky it’s like trying to pick up a pencil with a steam shovel.”

  Hawthorne radioed, “I know what you mean, Bill.”

  Stein came to the tunnel that funneled visitors from the outer cave to the interior chamber.

  “We take a peek under a docking clamp and find a package magnetically locked to the superstructure. It was the size of a delivery drone but didn’t look like one.”

  Coffman interrupted, “You should be entering the main room now.”

  “I know, professor, I call it hesitation.”

  “Take your time, Bill,” Hawthorne said.

  “Not too much time,” Coffman corrected. “The cylinder should emit another burst in twenty-three minutes. That should allow enough time to make the repair and get out.”

  “Repair? Yes, me and Danny were out on a repair job but turned out there was nothing broke,” and Stein started down the short tunnel under the rusty-red beams. “An object had locked onto the hull and we couldn’t figure out what it was.”

  He entered the chamber. Robotic walking lights surrounded the reddish cylinder, joined in the two days since its discovery by another half-dozen automatons fitted with cameras and sensors.

  “Danny calls control and they mull it over for an hour until this new voice comes on and tells us that what we have is an alarm clock. Danny starts shitting his bag but I’m confused, because I don’t see any clock.”

  Stein stopped and stared at the floating cylinder. The object did not wobble; it was not hanging by strings. He wondered if it were an illusion.

  Coffman transmitted, “Rover seven should be to your right.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah.”

  Stein walked around the artifact and its court of robotic admirers.

  “So you said it was an alarm clock,” Hawthorne prompted.

  “It seems Danny knew what that was and they assumed I did, too, even though I had no clue. So this fellow tells me how to open the casing and what to look for and then has me cut a wire and remove a chunk of it, and that was that. Of course, Danny ends up in the infirmary on tranquilizers. Wait, I found number seven.”

  Stein knelt but without taking his eyes from the artifact. He then removed tools from his utility belt and pried open a box on the underbelly of a rover.

  “So what was it?” Hawthorne asked.

  “I told you, an alarm clock. Of course, I didn’t know what that was slang for.”

  Coffman jumped in enthusiastically: “You are talking about a boosted fission weapon.”

  “A blue ribbon for you, professor.”

  “Why was there a hydrogen bomb attached to the docking clamp?”

  Hawthorne answered the professor, “Let me guess, Bill, you were working on a Rama Systems station. They were a favorite target for terraform terrorists like the Green Ground movement because Rama was into housing and land development on Mars. The Greenies think they are purposely stifling terraforming to benefit the corporations.”

  Stein reported on his repair work, “You’re right, professor, the power cell crapped out. I will put in a new one.”

  Stein did his work but fumbled twice because his eyes kept finding the cylinder, watching it the way a Christian eyed the lions’ den upon entering the coliseum.

  Coffman said, “Twelve minutes until the next burst.”

  “Another thirty seconds,” he answered but fumbled and dropped the replacement cell. He tried to blame the pumpkin suit’s gloves, but they were tight and flexible, perfect for the job.

  “So what happened with the alarm clock?” Hawthorne asked.

  “I didn’t know what the hell we were dealing with until we finished the job. At that point, it was too late to start worrying, although I remember drinking myself silly that night. Hang on, got it.” The power cell clicked into the compartment and lights on the rover sprung to life. “Number seven is good to go.”

  “Excellent, Bill, now come on out of there.”

  Stein left the chamber faster than he had entered.

  “Point is,” he told them, “Danny knew what it was and was so scared he couldn’t function.”

  Hawthorne radioed, “But you got the job done because you didn’t have a clue. What made you think of that?”

  Stein stopped and looked back at the cylinder.

  “It sort of came to mind.”

  ---

  The capsule fell from space, skimming the thin atmosphere above the dark side of Gliese 581g. The heat shield glowed a soft red that nearly matched the burning horizon separating the planet’s cold and hot hemispheres.


  Carlson dared take his eyes from the control panel to appreciate the view on the port side monitor. A plain of black met a wall of red light, a view that reminded him of a school research trip ten years ago to Tvashta Paterae near Io’s north pole. The other students feared the destructive power of that volcanic region; he had felt in awe of its beauty.

  Volcanoes were tools of creation, birthing oceans and atmospheres, spreading nutrients to the soil, growing mountains and islands. Yet they conjured images of fire and destruction, an unfair legacy to Carlson’s thinking.

  And while volcanoes on heavenly bodies beyond Earth may serve different purposes, he found them captivating nonetheless. Given G-Moon’s abundance of life, he felt certain they would find such instruments of creation once they had fully mapped the surface. Of course, that mapping would continue without him; the geological survey on the main planet required attention.

  “Hey up there, we coming in a little hot?”

  Carlson blinked and looked down at Sheila Black who, like him, wore an orange space suit. She was the only one sitting in the circle of seats surrounding the pilot’s chair.

  She pointed to a display where lines tracking the capsule’s descent turned red.

  He waved a finger to activate the ship’s boosters and the cabin shuddered.

  “Sorry to wake you up.”

  “What?”

  She repeated louder to be heard over the shakes and rattles: “I said, sorry to wake you but you don’t want to fall asleep here! The gravity will smash us to pieces!”

  Another blast from the rockets helped slow their descent as the altimeter ticked below forty thousand feet.

  Black said, “As soon as we touch down our mother ship is racing back to G-Moon and forgetting about us. We have a whole planet to ourselves for the better part of a week!”

  The rockets fired for five long seconds filling the interior with a roar.

  “I hope we can finish up here faster than that!” Carlson realized she might take that as an insult. “I mean, not that I don’t like spending time with you!”

  “Relax Matthew; we would both rather be stuck on this rock with someone else!”

  He glanced again at the monitor. The glowing horizon of red seemed even bigger, now that they neared the surface. According to his instruments, heat blew over from the light side before the cold could freeze away the atmosphere. This caused vortexes to dance near the terminator like fiery tornadoes.

  Black said, “At least they could have given us the plane! We could have used the passenger module for shelter; now we have to erect a temporary one! That will take hours to set up and we have to wear those damn exoskeletons over our suits! Matthew, we get the shit jobs!”

  “Geologists usually do!”

  “But hey, we earn the big payday if things work out! What do you think?”

  He told her, “The readings from the drones were promising! Gliese is a rich planet!”

  The rockets fired again, this time staying on and subjecting the two passengers to strong g-forces, stifling conversation. The gyro containing Carlson’s seat and flight instruments threatened to spin.

  Outside, the landing struts extended and a stream of fire and a rolling cloud of smoke blanketed one hundred square yards of rock and ice. A moment later, the capsule rocked and bounced as the landing cycle completed.

  Sheila removed her harness and tried to stand, but nearly fell over.

  “Holy Christ, you can say 1.7 gravity but trying to walk in it sucks. I may need one of those stupid exoskeletons just to move around in here.”

  Carlson unstrapped and nearly fell from the pilot’s gyro. His heart beat harder, his breathing felt difficult.

  “I don’t know if I can last four days down here,” he said.

  Sheila huffed, slapped him on the back, and said, “Cheer up, Matthew, we have an entire planet to ourselves, but start calling me Eve and I am going to kick your ass.”

  It struck him that Sheila was in a good mood because she was away from the ship and the craziness of both the onboard politics and that unnerving alien object.

  He told her, “We should start working on the shelter and airlock.”

  “I have something to do first.”

  She reached into a storage compartment for a small red and white flag with an eleven-pointed red maple leaf in the middle; a flag obsolete since the North American merger.

  “I claim this planet in the name of Canada.”

  ---

  Reagan Fisk stood in sick bay nervously swaying, like a school kid in front of the class.

  With Hawthorne and Coffman on the surface, it fell to the corporate liaison to oversee ship operations and he wanted to return to the bridge as soon as possible. While he listened to Dr. King, her assistant Soto, and engineer’s mate Phipps explain Kost’s status, Charles could be escaping confinement and cracking open the weapons locker.

  “Mr. Phipps has determined the chip inside Ellen’s head is not physically damaged,” King said. “Instead, we believe it is a software issue. We need to reboot the chip and it should start working.”

  Fisk glanced at King and then at Phipps and then at Soto, but Soto was another one who seemed on the verge of rebellion so Fisk did not keep eye contact with him.

  King went on, “Unfortunately, we do not have access to the original program. If we did, we could load it through the calibrator she brought along.”

  “What about the ship’s library?”

  Soto answered, “There is nothing in the data files that covers such a unique device.”

  Phipps put it succinctly: “We have to write a program that will do the job.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Me and Andy have programming experience,” Soto said with an edge in his voice that suggested he did not like explaining himself to Fisk.

  “But Reagan,” King said, “if you were to send a message to UVI Oberon they could find the program and send the information to us.”

  Phipps said, “It would be difficult to communicate a software program through a QE link; it cannot handle complex communication.”

  Fisk told them, “We have not heard from Oberon in almost three weeks. There must be a fault in the equipment.”

  The assembled group turned their eyes to Kost who slept. Fisk did not want to think about how horrifying it must be to suffer from what resembled locked-in syndrome.

  Then again, he found it hard to think about anything other than his girlfriend on Earth. He had expected to be gone for two months, but nine weeks had passed and now he worried it might be another three months before he saw her again.

  “Reagan, are you listening?”

  “Sorry, doctor, you were saying?”

  “I will talk to Professor Coffman and see if he can start working on a program. We should try to have Ellen on her feet as fast as possible.”

  “Of course, but is there a reason you say it like that?”

  King said, “Reagan, I have no implant and still saw images, Lieutenant Thomas has military grade thinkers and experienced intense, detailed visions. With a chip as advanced as Kost’s, imagine what she saw.”

  ---

  The dog-shaped robot named Larry bound across a field between rolling hills and Kelly Thomas—through her link with the drone—ran along with him.

  The outer half of G-Moon still faced away from its red dwarf star, but dawn approached; the first rays of a new ‘day’ shimmered on the horizon as the moon orbited toward Gliese.

  Wren had told Kelly what to expect and that it would be breathtaking. From what she could see, he was right. Wren had said Gliese would look ten times larger in G-Moon’s sky than the sun did in Earth’s sky, but dimmer.

  Meanwhile, Kelly Thomas shared her robot’s experience, seeing the landscape through its—his--eyes, although those eyes were sensors “seeing” with various image intensifiers.

  Their connection went deeper than a video feed. The performance of his metallic muscles, the rhythm of Larry’s electronic nervous syste
m, the algorithms extrapolating in his computer brain, all came through the link.

  Moe circled above at two thousand feet tracking birds. Evidence suggested the flying creatures on G-Moon relied on echolocation to navigate the dark nights. Kelly had overheard Wren suggest that some ground animals might also use bio sonar.

  As for Curly, that whirring and clanging contraption served sentry duty fifty yards away guarding the space plane and a landing capsule.

  Kelly moved her link to Larry to the background, allowing her eyes to see her surroundings. She wore a pumpkin suit and sat on the grass outside the mouth to a cave, this one plainly natural, a kilometer from the alien cylinder.

  Behind her, a hermetically sealed wall of heavy plastic covered the cave entrance, the first barrier between the atmosphere of G-Moon and the research camp inside.

  The scientists had pumped out the native air, filled it with imported oxygen, and decontaminated the rock walls, resulting in the one spot on the moon where they could confidently remove their suits.

  Kelly, however, preferred being outside, even in the suit. She found the open space exhilarating.

  Up to that point, her life meant bouncing from posting to posting, mainly around Saturn and always inside a ship or confined base, no natural sunshine.

  Earth was a place to which she held attachment but it never seemed important. Growing up at the orphanage and then while at Culver Academy, she desperately wanted to get off-planet, driven by a need to serve her country and find purpose.

  Since meeting Hawthorne and spending time with Ellen, she wondered if she were missing something. When the cylinder had given her the sensation of fresh air, she found that what she missed was Earth. Her eyes craved mountains, forests, rivers, and fields. Her soul craved a sense of home.

  She might not be able to take off her helmet on G-Moon, but she could sit out there and look forward to the coming dawn, imagining what it might be like to do the same on Earth.

  ---

  Leo Wren ran his bare fingers over the rock wall again. His cluttered thoughts cleared with the mind-blowing realization that he stood inside a cave on a world twenty-two light-years from Earth where a non-human civilization once lived.