by T I WADE
The interior of the drawer was still dark. He slowly raised his lamp, and his personal warning signal sprang to life again as the hairs froze on the back of his neck; he was looking at a complete spacesuit of a vivid blue color, and inside it was, dust… dust which had certainly been a body of some sort at one time. He gazed carefully at his first alien. It had two arms and two legs. The suit had a helmet just like his, and VIN broke into a sweat.
The body, or pile of dust, or whatever was inside the helmet, was unrecognizable through the clear helmet visor. The dust inside the visor looked like a fire had burned inside the suit and the remains were nothing more than fine ash; fine wood ash from an old fire. Gingerly he touched the suit. The blueness of it reminded him of a surgical gown worn by medical staff. The suit held. VIN was sure that the suit would turn into dust, just like its occupant, but it didn’t. There were no markings on the suit, not even a flag, or any kind of insignia. His eyes looked down the body and he knew his dreams wouldn’t end today.
The alien’s suit looked less cumbersome than their suits. It was thin, more streamlined, and only the helmet with a clear visor looked like the helmet he wore. This helmet was silver and looked like it was made of the same material as the walls. Only the visor stared up at the ceiling.
The head of the alien was facing outwards, and VIN opened the drawer to its fullest. He was surprised that it was only five feet long. The whole space suit looked more like a kid’s suit than what would fit a fully grown six-foot astronaut.
He opened a second drawer. It was empty, as were the next five, their handles didn’t glow. This was definitely a morgue of some sort, and there were bodies missing. He opened all 12 drawers and found only two bodies. The second body looked shorter than the first body, only four feet tall from helmet to boots. The handle of the drawer containing the second body also glowed red.
He returned to Boris and Ryan looking through the hole and wrote on his white board; “Two alien bodies, dead, dust, a morgue.” Ryan gave the board back to VIN a few seconds later though the door. It read “Can you check the entire room? Power 10 minutes.”
VIN, a little more relaxed than when he started, began to check the opposite wall. Again there were twelve places where the small handles would jump out. He tried one in the middle on the bottom row and opened it. The insides were empty. He tried all 12 and found only one body. It was even smaller than the other two, about two-thirds the size, maybe three feet, six inches, wearing a full black space suit with, no insignia, and the silver helmet.
He could get the entire suit through the hole in the door, but was interrupted by noise from the door. Somebody was trying to get his attention.
He quickly looked around, his heart in his mouth, but it was only Boris showing him a black metal connector at the end of a long cable. He quickly moved over to the hand coming through the door. Ryan had the second connector, a red one, and VIN knew that the power of this battery would quickly fry him if they ever connected.
He placed the one connector directly on the framework of the door, and carefully received the second one from Ryan after receiving a set of half-inch thick stiff rubber gloves from Boris. Both Ryan and VIN made sure the second connector wouldn’t touch the steel framework on its way through.
With one connector already on the door, he pulled the coated cord through so that he had room to move. Carefully, he touched the second connector to the door. There was a loud explosion, smoke filled the air with the usual sparks and the door slid half an inch. He did it again and again until the door was a third open.
He warned the two men to stand back and carefully he connected the red connector to the door’s framework.
With the usual sparks, flashes and smoke the battery juiced the door, a tenth of a pound of plutonium-238 delivering 40 percent of the power it had.
The fireworks display was loud and noisy, but he let the connector remain. He needed to release the connector; it was starting to burn his rubber glove. The door moved again and suddenly the whole door slid sideward; he was just able to grab the second connector as the door tried to disappear into the wall. With the power off, it stopped, but not before two round flaps opened up in the wall in front of where the sliding door was disappearing. Boris sent word to shut down the power and the three men waited until Boris gave him the thumbs up sign that the power was off.
VIN disconnected the black connector, and then easily pushed the door the remaining way into the wall. The door was now easy to push and it disappeared as if it had never existed. Somehow, the solid metal could open or seal at will, once enough power was applied.
The open round flaps, four inches across, looked the same as he had seen in the cavern, except that one didn’t have a glass face, it looked like a power panel, a panel that could have something attached or connected to it. There were dozens of tiny holes inside the flap, it looked more like a computer terminal connector than a power socket, but he bet to himself that it would do the same thing.
Now Boris and Ryan could enter. Boris slipped him the white board telling him to get back into his suit. He had been in a dangerous situation for too long, and after this space walk, he would need to fly up to America One for a full medical checkup by the doctors.
Thirty minutes later VIN regained communication through his helmet and suggested that he take up the smallest space suit to be looked at by the experts in America One.
Ryan agreed; they had found aliens and they could take one with them. They had not opened too big an area that would need vital air, and the team would regroup and discuss how to go further. As head of security, VIN wanted to be sure that nobody would touch anything, and Ryan made the whole area off limits to everybody.
Carefully, he lifted the smallest body out of the drawer. It was light, weighing less than 10 pounds, even with the suit on. He wrapped it in a couple of blankets, brought in from the supply cylinders. The tunnel the spider dug was perfect for an empty canister to pass through and once he filled it with the suited ashes, and enough blankets to secure it, he helped the crew gently move it through the tunnel and into cavern where the battery was.
With Boris’ help he carefully exited the chamber, walked through the open doors of the outer chamber, and over to where Jonesy was waiting to take them up to the mother ship.
Ten hours later two excited doctors, Suzi, Martha Von Zimmer, Petra Bloem and several of the crew from the biology and chemistry departments, waited as the canister was carefully passed through the docking port. For the first time, America One had an alien aboard. What really surprised VIN was that Fritz was also there, weak and pale, but walking. Somehow, Petra and Martha had awakened the mind of the man he considered a good friend.
As carefully as they could, two men carried the canister up to the mid-level where the doctors would carefully open it inside the sterile room of the biology department.
VIN went up to his apartment. He was tired, had seen enough of aliens for one day, and dreamed about Atlantis, while his wife and others excitedly speculated about her husband’s findings.
“A small sample was cut away from the alien’s space suit,” Ryan reported to the flight crew assembled in the Bridge two days later. “The material is not too different than our own, but constructed differently, and much, much thinner. It seems to have a metallic texture to it and I would be surprised if the makeup of the suit is nothing other than our Nano-Silicone, but more refined, or shall I say, designed. The crew is working on a copy right now. The helmet has been removed. Kathy, my wife, is very excited, and is acting as my liaison between the sterile room and the Bridge.” As he said that his wife arrived with coffee and avocado sandwiches.
“Avocados off Suzi’s tree; the bread and all its ingredients, grown in our cubes and baked by Mr. Rose. I think it is definitely time for Mr. Rose to give me cooking lessons. The guy is a master of all trades!” smiled Kathy once she and a young helper handed out the steaming mugs of coffee. “I’m on cafeteria duty at the moment and Little Joe Morgan, here, actu
ally knows how to cook better than I do,” she said, patting the ten-year-old’s head.
Little Joe Morgan, one of the youngest children born on Earth, belonged to a family of two scientists, both in the biology department. He was one of five young boys aboard, and 13 girls, including all the children born before the flight, during the flight and while they were on the odyssey. The latest birth, only two days earlier, was a girl. Suzi was monitoring the three current pregnancies, with the next birth still a week away.
Ryan thanked his wife, and continued with the meeting. There wasn’t much more to say about the alien. It would take weeks before details of the body would be released.
“I believe that there must be more bodies somewhere in the underground chambers,” VIN said. “Why would they have nearly 50 morgue drawers if they only had three crew members? I believe there must be some in other areas that maybe didn’t make it to the morgue.”
“Or the three we found were already deceased and were awaiting transportation back to their planet,” suggested Boris. Everyone nodded at this suggestion, agreeing with it.
“The cavern on the little planet, Blue, heading to Jupiter looks the same,” added VIN. “Maybe we found the morgue by mistake. Maybe the rest of the crew were aboard the planet heading for Jupiter?”
“Well, since I haven’t been down there, and I have had a lot of time to contemplate other ideas, can I make a suggestion?” interjected Captain Pete. Ryan, the astronauts, and everyone else turned towards him. “This little round planet, asteroid, or piece of rock we now call Blue, travels in approximately the same orbit century after century. To my way of looking at this, and to add to what Ryan said, this planet could have been a transportation system, and also the resupply system for this Martian base, and maybe several others dotted around the solar system.”
“You are suggesting that these aliens came from one of the planets it frequents every 17 years or so?” Ryan asked.
“That seems a logical assumption to my scenario, until somebody comes up with one better,” replied the Captain. “This planet passes Earth, Mars, and Jupiter every second or third pass, and Saturn every four or five passes. That includes the mentioned planets, and all their moons, and that is a lot of moons.”
“So these aliens could have come from our own moon?” Jonesy asked intrigued at this idea.
“Correct, Jonesy,” the captain replied, “or from Earth itself, or Titan, Europa, or any of the dozens of moons around the larger planets. Or even Mars could have been their initial home and things here got too hot and the alien population emigrated in search of new places to live. I’m beginning to believe that they could have even come from our own planet hundreds of centuries ago.”
“But wouldn’t that show up in the history books?” VIN asked, his dreams coming back to him.
“Earth didn’t have history books 10,000 years ago,” replied Ryan, “it was before recorded time. “If they left around the time of Jesus, there might have been a story handed down and recorded in history books or the Bible; but, we only acquire knowledge about times that precede that through archeological digs and carbon dating. There is no way that we would ever know about a tribe, a modern human tribe, inventing nuclear bombs 50,000 or 100,000 years ago. Nor will future generations of humans find any of our current relics if we terminate ourselves on Earth, say 500,000 years in the future.
“So these aliens could be a human civilization from Earth that was never found, or never excavated?” VIN asked.
“Correct,” replied Ryan. “Think of the Romans, 2,000 years before modern civilization, or the Greeks maybe a 1,500 years before them. What do we have before the Greeks, say 5,000 years ago? We know hundreds of tribes lived on what is now American, European, Asian, and African soil. We found their relics and bones.
“Atlantis,” stated Jonesy, and everybody was suddenly silent, and looked at the person they often never took seriously.
“Why did you say Atlantis, Mr. Jones?’ Ryan asked. “Even he hadn’t thought about a myth that could only be a myth.
“Maybe these people are from Atlantis, knew their city was disappearing into the sea, and had the knowledge and capabilities to go somewhere else?”
“Not bad, Mr. Jones, not bad,” replied Ryan smiling. “I think Atlantis was about 3,000 years ago,” he suggested.
“Double that,” Boris corrected. “Mythology states Atlantis was sunk sometime between 9,000 and 3,500 years ago by Poseidon, a Greek God. The city was supposed to be attacking Greece, and Greece in those days was a very new nation. Mythology also states that the city was destroyed by an earthquake or a Tsunami, and its location could be one of a hundred places on Earth. As a scientist, I feel that Atlantis might stay a myth, but other civilizations could have existed, ones that left earth with no telltale details of ever existing.”
“I think we are so far away from the real facts that we are wasting our meeting time. I’m sure Frau Von Zimmer, the biologists, and the doctors will come back with totally different information,” Ryan continued. “Also, I like Mr. Jones’ theory of Atlantis, but I’m sure there were hundreds more that were never destroyed by Poseidon, a myth unto himself.”
With much thought still concentrated on early human civilizations, the meeting continued with VIN describing how he opened what looked like a power connection in the wall in the morgue. Ryan agreed that Igor, the real on-board expert in the field of electricity, should be taken down to work out how to connect power to the opening. Maybe it would open the next door, or portal into another world.
The final discussion was about hitching a ride to Jupiter on Blue. Who should stay on Mars, if anybody, and should they even be thinking of leaving the red planet where they had already found a new home?
For a whole hour, ideas were contributed for the next stage of the mission. Even Suzi and Martha were brought in to give their views of staying on Mars, or heading further afield. Both ladies had different ideas, and again, VIN was quite shocked to see Fritz Warner with them.
“So,” Igor contributed after additional discussion, “I joined this dream of Ryan’s to explore the solar system. I agree that we should develop a habitat on Mars and agree that several of our group, who really want to, stay behind. But, with new information about aliens and speculation about how they may have died, perhaps nobody should stay. We, aboard America One, cannot just zoom across the solar system and save lives on Mars when in need. If anything goes wrong on Mars, the crew could become isolated like these aliens. Of course we would leave behind a shuttle and a freighter or supply capsule. With these ‘lifeboats’ the crew could reach Earth. With America One, once we go further out into the solar system, we will cross boundaries of no return. So far we can get back in the emergency craft with supply capsules to Earth from as far as Saturn. But what happens if we are hit by a passing asteroid, or destroyed trying to get through the asteroid belt? Or attacked by something unknown or some of our craft or supply capsules are destroyed on a faraway moon? From here on, we are entering extremely dangerous territory. My feelings are, if it happened to these aliens, human or non-human, it could quite easily happen to us. I feel we should find out exactly what happened to these poor space travelers before we place ourselves on different planets. Who knows? It might be a freak of nature in the universe which destroyed them, and we could be walking straight into the same situation blindfolded. I also believe that since this is the very beginning of our odyssey, we should all stay together, as one, until we are experienced space travelers.”
The crew agreed completely with Igor. Even Ryan was surprised at the depth of his friend’s thinking. A born optimist, he never thought that too many disasters could be lurking out there, waiting for them. He only thought that getting through the asteroid belt was the one possible disaster to be beaten by the team.
Two days later, with the next shipment of glass panels, and fresh crew, VIN, Ryan and Boris returned with Igor, who was one of the most recent to go through spacewalk school. Igor had never wanted to spac
ewalk, but the thrill of seeing a new world down there inspired him to learn the art. Not including the children and babies, only five members of the entire crew had never spacewalked.
The scientific crew had not been idle since they had been in the mother ship. In addition to the continuous production of the Nano-Silicone glass panels and graphite rods, they also developed a smaller space suit to fit a child between the ages of eight and twelve; by the time they reached their teens they would fit into adult suits. A baby bubble space suit was also in design. In addition, the light-weight material worn by the alien was something new and exciting and several scientists were already trying to copy the design of the material.
As a scientist, this was the moment Igor had waited for his whole life: an opportunity to study new ways to enable survival using electric power, nuclear power, computers or whatever other sciences the aliens had mastered. The alien bodies were pure biology to Igor. It was their sciences that really interested him. He was the most knowledgeable person aboard ship in electronics, electricity, computers and astrophysics. Igor knew that down there in Alien Land, there were electronics never before seen by modern civilization. How could these space travelers have arrived on Mars without them?
The few days away revealed to the returning crew how hard the build crew worked on the ledge. Two of the three outer walls, and the double wall of the larger chamber were up, sealed and supplied with helium to compensate for the higher amounts of radioactivity charging through the Martian atmosphere. The Rover had moved two feet from its last position and was looking at another rock. It was surreal, VIN thought, to see the contrast of how much one set of humans was achieving compared to how little the other side was accomplishing.
It was time to find out how these aliens lived.
Chapter 5
Wow! Never seen that before!
For the umpteenth time, VIN was first through the tunnel to the ladder which would take him up to the alien cavern. This time there were four men behind him, Boris, Ryan, Igor and Vitalily. Igor had a computer laptop and electrical testers used on Earth. Sometimes the simplest devices worked. Vitalily dragged up the cables which had been connected to the nuclear battery, placed in the cavern below for safety.
