by T I WADE
“What is that?” VIN looked at the other two, who were just staring at the same spot.
VIN released the cables from the wall and the hole stayed open. He felt inside. There was a smooth surface directly where the cover had been, like a fancy keyless entry found in secure buildings; however, those systems generally glowed green or blue, this one didn’t glow at all.
VIN asked Boris to close down the battery and, once it was secure, asked Ryan to help him remove his right glove. The gauges on his suit showed a slight increase of radioactivity, but not at dangerous levels yet. Boris handed VIN a Geiger counter and the emission from the opening was no different.
Carefully, he touched the wall. It was still warm from the power of the battery juicing through it. Then, he touched what looked like a glass panel inside the opening in the wall. It was warm and smooth, just like glass. He pushed it gently at first, then harder; nothing happened. He pushed his fist, and then the palm of his hand against the inner glass panel and still nothing happened.
“I’m sure this is a secure entry for a door somewhere in here,” VIN said. “Ryan, put my glove on again. Boris, get the battery fired up and connect both cables directly on the glass panel, it might blow it up, but anything happening is better than nothing.”
Again, nothing happened, except the usual sparks and fireworks, so he let the power bleed through the glass and into the wall.
Suddenly, a much larger area—a door—opened next to the newly glowing blue panel. They couldn’t hear anything since they were fully suited up, but a five-foot tall door moved sideways a fraction, exactly as the panel had done. Boris kept the juice flowing, but the door only moved another fraction of an inch and then seemed to jam. Ryan asked him to shut the battery down and place the tube from the air analyzer into the quarter-inch space. The tube was just narrow enough to fit through the hole, and the readouts on the machine were exactly the same as when they had first entered the caverns. Little to no oxygen, favorable amounts of nitrogen, but this time the carbon dioxide was at dangerous levels.
“I bet whatever was in there breathed the same air we did, ran out and maybe died from carbon dioxide poisoning,” VIN suggested, looking at the readouts.
“You think something was asphyxiated in there?” Ryan asked. VIN nodded his head.
VIN tried to open the door further. For two minutes he had the battery on 30 percent power connected to the wall. The glass panel glowed deep blue, and he was sure the entire wall was getting very hot, but nothing else budged. Boris suggested they try further along the wall, and still they had no luck.
“I think we should give it a break and get the spider in here to cut out the door covering,” suggested Ryan.
“I’m worried about our new air entering a space that has not had atmosphere for a very long time; there could be relics or remains that have been maintained in perfect condition, like that 29,000 year old skeleton found frozen in the Alps several years back,” suggested Boris. The two other men concurred.
“I think we can get this door open. I’m sure there are other rooms or chambers, but I’m convinced we will find something new in this one,” Ryan continued.
The battery was removed to the safety room by the two helpers, while Hans the German walked the spider back into the cavern.
VIN, and then Ryan and Boris tried to peer through the slit in the door, but it was pitch black on the other side. There was nothing else to do but to wait for the spider to cut part of the door’s covering away; they needed a hole big enough to allow a space-suited human through and that was going to take at least a few days.
Satisfied that at least they had found something, Ryan decided that it was time to return to America One, and assemble all of the scientists to discuss the subject Boris had brought up: the potential of decay due to a return of an atmosphere.
Jonesy and Allen Saunders returned to the planet six hours later with supplies and new glass panels, and transferred the three men back to the ship. With a little luck, and non-stop work in America One, they would have the outer glass chamber completed in time, just before the first storms were expected.
In the cafeteria the next day, Ryan opened the meeting. “Thank you, everyone, for your hard work. Let’s begin this meeting by hearing what has been learned about the piece of metal Mr. Noble brought down from the little round planet. For your information, this little planet is heading towards where Jupiter will be in about two to three years.”
Martha and two other scientists delivered their findings on the metal. All three said that they did not learn much more than what Boris had suggested, that it did contain elements of titanium, osmium, mendelevium, nickel and platinum in the makeup. They had carbon tested the metal and couldn’t get closer than that it was between 2,000 and 12,000 years old.
That surprised the crew. VIN suggested that the door didn’t open due to being extremely old, and that the mechanism was rusted or just not working, but 2,000 years old? That was impossible.
The chemistry specialists said they would have more information in a few weeks, but they needed to do more tests. One did state that the same metal found on the asteroid and Mars, appeared to have been made at the same time by the same people. That interested Boris and VIN. It looked like the two caverns had been made by the same extraterrestrial group.
Then the senior chemist shocked them to the core with his tests. He believed that the metal had been produced on Earth. One could have heard a pin drop in the cafeteria. The whole crew looked at him in disbelief.
“Well that fits in with a dream I had the other night,” VIN commented. “I dreamed about chariots, cavemen and old prehistoric wall paintings.” Nobody added to that.
VIN tried to rid his subconscious of the weird dreams he was having. Since finding the first cavern, he had been troubled by nightly dreams. They weren’t the same, although many times he saw himself as a Roman, or a Greek Olympiad, or even an African swordsman fighting what looked like Roman soldiers, but the theme was always the same. He hoped that when they finally got into the room these weird and colorful dreams would stop.
Suzi arrived with Mr. Rose, a happy smile on her face, and a container filled with a dozen of what appeared to be avocados.
“Remember the first tree we brought up here?” she asked the group. Not many could. “Well, it is an avocado tree from California, and was nearly mature enough to grow fruit when we brought it up. These are its first space crop. Actually, there are about 30 avocados ready for picking, I have brought a dozen up here, but avocados ripen only once they are picked, not on the tree. These will be ready to eat in a few days.”
“Interesting place our ship,” Ryan said, smiling. “What scientist wouldn’t be happy up here? In one second we go from a 2,000 year old mystery metal to nearly ripe, space-grown avocados from California. I’m sure Hotel California must also be around here somewhere!”
“A crazy place to be, Herr Ryan,” Martha Von Zimmer added, “but that is why we all came.”
The doctors were then invited to the meeting. Doctor Nancy was asked what she would need to determine the age of any extraterrestrials or humans, if any were found; she replied that between the medical and biology departments, they had everything they needed, except a body.
Now they just had to wait for the spider to do its part. Ryan made sure that oxygen and atmospheric air manufacture was at maximum aboard the ship, and Martha stated that a third visit to the Martian water oasis in the large crater would be necessary in the near future. Jonesy was given orders to return to the crater. At least 2,000 gallons of water were needed to supply the departments that were producing livable air for the new caverns; but no one knew how big they were.
Since they had five days before a return to Endeavor crater, there was time for a mission to the oasis.
Jonesy, Allen Saunders, Michael Pitt, VIN, Martha and Boris flew down 12 hours later in two shuttles and the mining craft in which they had returned from the Martian surface.
Orbiting the planet wa
s like getting a free ride. The computers were already well aligned with the planet and had set up orbital glide slopes and directions to wherever they wanted to go, and then released the craft from orbit at the right moment. Martha accompanied Michael Pitt, the only astronaut she said she trusted, and that let Jonesy, especially, off the hook.
Since the planet, or at least the area around the water basin, was entering the autumn season, it seemed that the winds and storms had taken a break from beating up the area. It was a beautiful sunny day when the computers showed the three craft to be exactly above the same landing zone they had used the last time. It looked totally different. Three feet of dust had to be cleared before the top of the white ice dome stood out from the flat red soil.
Once he had cleared the landing zone for three craft, Jonesy swept the area down to the water’s edge so that his partner didn’t have to dig for water. He tilted the craft at an angle, and used the thrusters on full power to blow mile-high clouds of dust away from the white mound and the water’s edge.
It took a full spacewalk of digging and moving soil, but VIN and the crew cleaned a three-foot wide area where they could see the clear life-saving liquid. They brought large buckets to collect the water and, with every scoop into the cold icy water, they emptied five gallons into a canister.
The build-crew, still aboard the mother ship, had devised a sled which was able to slide one full canister at a time to the mining craft, where Astermine’s arm lifted it into the cargo hold.
Even in the reduced gravity, the mining craft could not launch off the surface with more than sixteen of the water-filled canisters; eight canisters would have to be loaded aboard each of the shuttles.
The weather was perfect and it was hard to believe that they had ever encountered violent winds in the same place. Loading the water took a day longer than necessary. They nearly lost Martha Von Zimmer a couple of times; she walked farther out than Jonesy had given orders to go. One time VIN saved her from freezing to death; he stopped her within inches of walking into the cold water. The spacesuit would protect her, but if she slipped and disappeared underneath the surface, the suit would lose power and it would only be a matter of minutes before she froze to death.
The team arrived back a day late to find Ryan eager to get back down to the crater. Only SB-III was refueled and ready to go; the build-crew could unload the water from the other three, still dusty, craft. Jonesy piloted the third shuttle with VIN, Boris, and Ryan, as passengers, and 620 new glass panels as cargo They went straight back to the ledge on Endeavor crater on the Martian surface. Ryan told the crew on the way down that they had about 900 panels to go, and that they were down to three tons of Nano-Silicone.
The exterior chamber was beginning to look grand when they came in to land. The Rover Opportunity had moved several feet and seemed to be staring at a little, lone rock when they flew over it. VIN mentioned that the Rover did have a quiet and peaceful life. Ryan added that maybe they should take the camera part of the Rover into the cavern, and let Earth see what they had found. All countered that the images might not be believable, so far away.
The panels would complete the three sides of the outer chamber. Suzi told VIN that she was really looking forward to shuttling down several tons of top soil and composted waste, and turn her new greenhouse into a vegetable producing unit. One third of the new chamber was to be a vegetable and fruit garden.
Good news abounded when they exited the craft. The spider had suddenly stopped working thirteen hours earlier, and since nobody had been in there, nobody knew what was going on.
VIN, Ryan and Boris immediately entered the cavern once the tunnel seal had been pulled away. Boris mentioned that the atmospheric pressure had decreased since they had left, by a few millibars, but it was still better than when VIN had first tried to breathe. Nitrogen was the same, oxygen a little low, and helium registered at 0.9 percent on his air analyzer. It was even higher than the carbon dioxide in the shaft below the caverns.
One by one they climbed up the ladder. VIN immediately turned left and into the cavern with the broken door. The lights, on motion sensors, automatically switched on as he passed and he found the spider in dormant mode on the floor of the cavern, a round three-foot wide piece of the metal next to it.
VIN was quite surprised by what he could see inside the frame of the door behind the metal. The frame reminded him of his own legs, a very strong, very sophisticated metal skeleton. He looked carefully at the cross beams inside the four-foot wide, five-foot high, one-foot thick metal door frame. There was just enough room for him to squeeze through, without his suit on.
“It looks like I need to go in nearly naked,” VIN stated over the intercom. All three men were still dressed in full suits.
“Oxygen okay, nitrogen breathable, helium high, but not dangerous, temperature 56 degrees Fahrenheit. Funny, that is about the same temperature as normal underground on Earth. I think it’s okay for you to disrobe. I hope there aren’t any little green maidens in there,” Boris joked.
“Take my lamp with you, it looks dark in there,” added Ryan.
The two men helped VIN, first with his helmet. VIN inhaled the air. It tasted better, and this time he didn’t need to force it to his lungs. The pressure had increased to where he could nearly breathe normally. He removed his suit piece by piece. There were a dozen separate parts he needed to take off and he sat on the metal staircase pulling off the bottom parts. It would take 20 minutes to get dressed again before he could have his helmet screwed back on.
It was cold compared to the warmth of his suit, which he kept at 68 degrees (he could adjust the temperature at any time). The outside gauge on his suit registered 56 degrees in the cavern.
The novelty of getting out of his suit in open conditions, on a foreign planet, millions of miles from Earth, was compelling to VIN. There he was, dressing down to the long johns he preferred to wear under the suit. The thick underwear would wick away moisture, and worked well when he was working up a sweat in the suit.
“Hope I don’t scare any little green men in there with my long johns,” VIN said loudly to no one, as he peered into the blackness of the room behind the door; he hoped he was not heard by any foreign bodies.
He stood up; his legs felt strong and his body light in the lessor gravity, minus the additional 100 pounds the suit weighed. He jumped and his powerful metal legs propelled him upwards; he easily grabbed onto the upper walkway’s railing after he stopped himself from hitting the cavern’s metal roof 15 feet high. VIN knew that outside, and in these conditions, with full power, he could just about jump the 75 feet up to the cliff wall above the ledge. He thought he might try it sometime.
Both Ryan’s and Boris’ hearts nearly stopped when they saw VIN leap like a flea and nearly knock himself out on the high ceiling but they couldn’t say anything to him.
VIN, smiling, took the lamp offered to him and carefully he twisted and turned to fit through the inner door frame and, with his heart in his mouth, he stepped into the room behind the door. He stood up, wary of looking around. Instead, he scrutinized the door, trying to find some sort of opening mechanism. There certainly wasn’t one on the frame, so he examined the metal wall on either side.
As before, the wall was a sealed piece of metal. Maybe the battery could entice the door to open? Then he remembered that it was not safe for an unsuited human to be in the vicinity of the radioactive battery.
Boris had given him a one-foot square white board and a marker; America One had several of them. He quickly wrote that he needed power, and maybe longer extension cords could be connected to the plutonium-238 battery left in the cavern. It would be far away from where he was.
Ryan must have communicated over the intercom, as Boris passed the white board back saying that they were gathering extra electrical cables from the outside supply cylinders. VIN realized that he had a wait of about 30 minutes, so he gathered enough courage to look around. Nothing had attacked him from the rear, yet.
&n
bsp; Slowly the light played over the empty room. It wasn’t as large as the cavern. The room was small, had three solid walls and one piece of furniture; a four foot high fixture with a flat surface stood in the middle of the room. It looked like a restaurant kitchen work table covered in stainless steel. Or did it look like a morticians table in a morgue? VIN had been to a few morgues in his lifetime, and several hospital operating rooms, and this desolate room reminded him of those places. He tried to move the table but it was stuck to the floor. Since there was no monster attacking him, he moved closer to one of the walls. He looked carefully and for the first time saw hairline cracks in the solid covering. The cracks were rectangular, about an inch wide and four inches across. He swallowed hard when he realized what they could be; door handles of some sort.
He inspected the wall even closer and found twelve of these sections, three high and four across along the wall. Taking a deep breath he touched one and nearly jumped across the room, when a handle ejected out of the wall, a handle to a drawer in the wall.
The handle was the same color as the wall, but it began to glow red when it sprang out. It was small, a child could get her entire hand into the handle opening, and slowly he pushed two of his fingers into the small space between the wall and the handle and tried to open whatever it was.
Silently, a drawer slid open. His light was not high enough to see into the drawer but his heart nearly missed several beats as it opened. The drawer was long, over five feet long, and it was as if he was opening a drawer in a morgue. Trying to keep calm, he already knew what was in there and its condition from the red glowing handle. There was no power to the handle, at least none that he could see, and the red glow was a complete mystery as to how it worked.
