AMERICA ONE - Return To Earth (Book 4)

by T I WADE

  “The temperature is warming up slightly,” Ryan observed when he climbed through the docking port behind Kathy. Wearing coats over flight suits, the crew gathered together to discuss the possibilities of the “dome” above their new garden.

  Since Ryan’s last visit the temperature had risen 15 degrees, to the low fifties. Suzi said that she and Mr. Rose would spend the next few days planting spring vegetables. They were looking forward to their first crops in about 60 to 90 days, but they would be dissected and analyzed before they were served for dinner, if anything grew at all.

  Mr. Rose brought the light spectrum sensing equipment from the mother ship to conduct tests while he was on the planet. He and Suzi agreed that even though a day on the planet lasted only a few hours, as did night, it didn’t really matter if the dome collected the incoming rays from the distant sun and relayed them into the correct light spectrums for growth inside the dome.

  They thought this out after finding out how sophisticated these shields were, and how inside the domes Earth daylight was duplicated. They both thought that growing crops with the perfected spectrum of rays was the actual reason the aliens had made the domes glow blue. Everyone had noticed, VIN in particular, that the color inside the dome grew lighter, changing from deep blue to sky blue, as more and more atmosphere was introduced, and as the air inside was warmed up.

  He also wondered if this whole wonderland could just disappear; atmosphere, heat, and light at the flick of a switch, if the black box stopped working. VIN was not alone in hoping it wouldn’t.

  On Ryan’s next visit a month later, VIN tackled him about using the spider to cut through the door that couldn’t be opened. Ryan worried that opening the door might somehow ruin the ideal setting that was being established. Even Suzi opposed her husband opening the door.

  VIN had spent many hours with Igor and Fritz trying to figure out how to open the door to the secret room. The surface and cavern atmospheres were both livable, the docking port between them could seal at a moment’s notice, and the crew could survive in either location. The lone spider remained dormant in the rear cavern and VIN wanted to use it to cut a hole in the door frame, just it had done at the very beginning.

  The Forward Cavern was already empty of beds and equipment. Ever since the temperature had reached comfortable levels on the surface, the sleeping quarters were either in the Rear Cavern, or above ground. The central supply rooms, long emptied of anything alien to be tested, contained America One’s crew supplies. A thousand gallons of water had been brought down by Jonesy and Allen Saunders in the canisters to recycle through the bases’ new water system.

  The long-drop toilet never filled up, but did smell rank; fortunately, the air purifier close to its outer door removed most of the odors. The crew learned that if the toilet was off limits for two days out of every seven and they used a space toilet instead, the temperature in the toilet shaft froze enough to stop releasing odors.

  Temporary walls had been installed in the Rear Cavern to create six separate two-room apartments with doors. Although the walls of the units did not reach the ceiling, they still afforded some privacy to families or single people.

  One of the rooms, a sleeping area, was furnished with clothing cabinets, two chests of drawers, and one to four beds; the other room was furnished with one or two couches, and a light to read or work by. Pretty simple surroundings, but most crewmembers didn’t stay for more than ten days at a time.

  “What happens if the door you want to laser open leads to a massive underground area, and bleeds our entire atmosphere out of the caverns?” Ryan asked VIN during their next discussion. Suzi and Mr. Rose were proudly displaying their first space-grown cocoa/chocolate cake and drinks for the kids from their own plants aboard America One. The chocolate supplies from Earth were nearly gone; every day on this odyssey, something ran out, and something new was reaped or manufactured, which made the lives of the crew more comfortable.

  “We can close off the command room and the other two doors leading out of the central room, so that if that happens we are prepared,” replied VIN. “Also we could all sleep outside in the dome, something I‘m really looking forward to.”

  “A little hard to get a suntan at this distance,” Jonesy suggested.

  Finally, Ryan was persuaded to allow the spider to laser a hole in the door, but only VIN, Fritz, Igor, Boris and he, in full spacesuits, would be in the caverns.

  Unfortunately, scheduling a date to open the door had to be postponed longer than expected; scientists and non-scientists were beginning to arrive to look for more relics to analyze and inspect for more information. Other crew members were interested in testing Dr. Nancy Martin’s theory that living in an orbiting spaceship might be the reason only female babies were conceived.

  When the fourth group of ten-day vacationers arrived, it consisted of five married couples and no scientists. A good time, VIN thought, to take his family back to the mother ship for a ten-day break. He wanted a few days by the pool, and it would be quieter up there.

  Three months after Ryan agreed to open the door by laser, VIN and Fritz finally got started. VIN had been on DX2017 for close to a year. Suzi and Mars had returned on the last shuttle with perfectly grown crops that she and Mr. Rose had cultivated; carrots, onions, garlic, leeks and cabbage were to be deposited into the freezers aboard America One. The dome under the shield had surprised everybody, including Mr. Rose, with its growing capabilities, even with sunlight at half the strength of Earth. The first crops filled three canisters; enough greens for the crew for two or three months.

  In America One the food was frozen for longevity, a branch of science VIN was going to find out about when he entered the room protected by the unopened door.

  It took the spider several hours to cut the first hole through the metal. The metal on the door seemed stronger than any other in the cavern and had a current passing through it. The power to the walls was turned off to help the spider burn its way through.

  With the temperature at a sweet 66 degrees under the shield, it was a pleasure to sleep there in real beds brought down from the mother ship. The docking port between the above and underground units was activated; even though the atmosphere was plentiful underground, if a hole appeared in the seal of the wall, everything could change.

  Less than an hour after Ryan, Igor and Boris were notified that the first hole had been burned in the door they arrived aboard Astermine Two with six more air tanks. Together with the 30 air tanks stored in the caverns in case of emergency, there was enough air to equip another two caverns with atmospheric pressure.

  “Great news,” Fritz said when the three men came down to join those wearing full suits. Ryan was surprised to see VIN helmetless and breathing the cavern’s air. “Our suit sensors show an atmosphere on the other side, just a very cold atmosphere. The new alien atmosphere is extremely rich in helium and only its oxygen is low. I opened a bottle of pure oxygen and the oxygen levels should equalize as the hole-size grows, depending on the size of the other room. VIN wants to look through the hole with his helmet lamp once the hole is big enough.”

  With little to do, the team of five returned to the dome on the surface where they had the comfort of beds, cooking and drinking facilities, and a private space toilet. They helped each other out of their suits, unloaded the supplies from the front compartment of the mining ship, and then relaxed in chairs playing chess, or lying on the beds reading.

  “With the warmer temperature, the stars have nearly disappeared,” Igor noticed, lying on one of the beds, staring upwards, and trying to peer through the dome wall.

  “They began dimming weeks ago,” VIN said, “even long before Suzi and Mr. Rose went back up the last time. The lighter blue appeared when the temperature rose above 60 degrees. Now that the temperature has stabilized, we haven’t been able to see through the shield wall. Jonesy told me that it is the same when he comes through the wall to land. He can’t see anything inside until his cockpit slides through the
wall. It is opaque from outside, and he has to determine the ship’s exact landing position, so he doesn’t end up in Suzi’s vegetable beds, or the bathroom hut. Once he enters the dome he can’t see the area outside very well, even the tail of the aircraft.”

  “It seems that the wall is an exact copy of what we would see on a bright, sunny, humid day on Earth,” Ryan commented. In Nevada, the blue was deeper than this, but on the East Coast where it’s more humid, it looks just like this when there are clouds in the sky.”

  “I’m used to the shield around America One, it’s so transparent without an atmosphere compared to this wall,” added Igor.

  “I have looked through Captain Pete’s telescope on the Bridge on several occasions,” continued Ryan. “Every time I looked at this dome as we flew over, it seemed to get paler and paler in color, and I thought it was just my bad eyesight, or my eyes playing tricks on me. What made me realize that the color was changing was that before, we could view the ship inside the dome when it was down here. Lately we have only been able to see its tail inside the second shield.”

  “And that shield is still the old original deep blue color,” VIN added.

  “I bet the ancient people wanted the same type of blue sky they were used to in the Sahara,” VIN reasoned. “Other than the difference in gravity, which I don’t notice anymore, being in this shield is like a typical fall day on Earth. Not too hot, not too cold, just perfect.”

  “We should get the pool down here; I’m sure we would get suntans, if the light spectrum is the same as on Earth,” Ryan suggested.

  “Maybe they even filtered out the cancer causing rays,” VIN hoped.

  The next day, the hole had grown to the size of a tennis ball. The spider was hard at work, and VIN could just put his three fingers through the hole. He felt one metal rail, which reminded him of the first door they had burned open. The oxygen was still low, the bottle still half-full as he had turned off the valuable oxygen before he left the room the day before. Each time they entered or left the room, Igor had to turn on the power to open the door from the cavern into the room.

  Finally, after three days, the hole was as big as a basketball, and for the first time VIN could get his space helmet through the hole.

  He was utterly shocked at what he saw.

  “You won’t believe this, but I just stuck my head into what looks like a hospital operating room. No, it’s bigger than that.” Carefully, he turned his head to the right to see more with the beam of light coming from his helmet. “The same table as we found in the first room with cabinets. This room is completely sealed by the look of it; it’s about twenty feet by thirty feet. It has side tables along two walls, units that look like air tanks in one corner, and red glowing cabinet door handles, nine of them, on the third wall. Actually two are green, and one is blinking red. I can see what looks like operating tools, knives, scalpels, and other objects, like spoons, clamps, drills, and even three gas-type helmets hanging on wall pegs.”

  “Is there another doorway?” Ryan asked.

  “Negative, but if there is, it is safe and closed. What do your suit readouts show? Surely we can take off our suits, Ryan. It doesn’t look like we are in danger from this new room. It’s about two-thirds the size of one of the supply rooms and this room backs onto where the Forward Cavern is. This door is thinner than the last one. The frame is only about three inches thick and I can see what looks like a manual opening lever on the inside, like an emergency lever in a walk-in freezer. I bet this door can only be opened from inside if it is sealed. It is darn cold in here though, my arm is getting a layer of ice on it.”

  VIN then showed Fritz where to program the spider to cut so that he could get his arm in close enough to try the lever.

  After sleeping in the dome that night, the hole was rectangular enough for VIN to grab hold of the lever inside the door’s frame.

  The lever worked and the door, with the astronaut’s arm still in the hole, began to glide open. VIN was prepared for this after watching how quickly the other doors slid to the side and into door pockets in the wall. He pulled his arm out with only a second or two to spare before the door disappeared into the wall, broken hole and all. He was sure that his arm would have been sliced off if it was trapped inside. It was so close that he actually felt the ends of his fingers being pinched as he pulled out his arm with all the force his other arm could leverage against the sliding door.

  Feeling a little panicked at nearly losing his arm—he had already lost enough limbs in his life—VIN stared into the dark room, shouting at Igor to turn on the battery. Seconds later power was fed through the walls, the lights came on and the room in front of him lit up.

  He checked the sensors on his suit, and was glad for its warmth and protection. The temperature in the central room, which was 60 degrees before he opened the door, had decreased to minus 30 degrees within seconds. It must have been the same temperature in the room as it was in the vacuum of space, or close to it.

  “This room has atmosphere, but it is cold in here. Somehow this room doesn’t have heat, or is not meant to,” VIN reported over the intercom. Only Igor and he were in the room with the nuclear battery connected up inside the power room. Fritz and Ryan were in the cavern with the door closed and with the second battery as back up; Boris was in the shield really to call in the cavalry from above if communications were lost.

  For the first time in a long time, the hairs on the back of VIN’s neck were dancing like there was no tomorrow. There was something in this room, his sixth sense was sure of that.

  “There is something in here,” VIN stated.

  “Alive or dead?” Ryan asked.

  “The way my senses are jumping about I would say both. I see tanks, gas tanks larger than ours in the far corner of the room. There are tables, equipment like in an operating theatre. Ryan I think you should get Dr. Nancy down here before we go any further.”

  “How do you close the door if you can’t see the manual lever anymore?” Fritz asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know, but it is extremely cold in here. I think we need to at least close down the next door between the cavern and this area, and leave this place in darkness until a doctor can get down here ASAP.”

  “Dr. Martin, Dr. Nancy Martin, please go to the shuttle at the planet-loading bay immediately. You are wanted on the surface. Mr. Jones, Mr. Saunders, you are needed as crew at the planet-loading bay. All shuttle-loading crew, to the planet-loading bay. Departure of SB-III ASAP,” blared out Captain Pete’s voice on every intercom and communication device in every corner of the ship.

  Jonesy was on duty and was already on his way down to SB-III to check on a few improvements. Allen was in the cafeteria chatting up the person on duty to brew another pot of coffee.

  The two doctors looked at each other. They were going over records of childbirth aboard ship and recording the most recent birth of the newest baby girl the day before.

  “Martha, are you okay to run things up here?” shouted Dr. Rogers to his wife in the ward next door. “I want to see if I can get a ride down to DX2017 with Nancy. There must be an emergency down there.”

  “Sure, Martin, Mary and baby are fine, and I’m sure I can handle anything up here until you get back. Remember take a sweater, they say it’s cold down there. You too, Nancy,”

  “Nancy, grab the other side of the emergency canister. Let’s go!” commanded Dr. Rogers, and they grabbed the handles on each side of the aluminum airtight canister pre-packed for emergencies inside and outside the spaceship. It was their form of paramedic ambulance. The canister wasn’t light, nearly 80 pounds in the 50 percent reduced gravity of the mid-level, but both had practiced carrying the canister around the ship. Within ten minutes, it was being loaded into the forward cargo bay of SB-III, and they joined the two astronauts, in coats, not spacesuits, which saved them at least 30 minutes of dressing time.

  It just so happened that SB-III was at the new cargo-loading bay. She was always fueled and ready to go,
as were all of the spacecraft. She also was the only one of the three shuttles that still had its nuclear battery on board. The batteries from SB-I and SB-II were being used on the surface and two replacement batteries were being made aboard America One; they would use the two extra pounds of Plutonium-238 stored outside the craft, against the wall of the ship’s main external reactor on her underbelly.

  Within an hour of the call, the astronauts detached SB-III from her docking port and glided out of the cylinders to begin three orbits down to DX2017.

  Meanwhile, the first nuclear battery inside the central room had been closed down, and the crew were in the cavern going over what VIN had seen. Dr. Nancy was consulting from the shuttle on the intercom.

  “You say the temperature could have been as low as minus one hundred and seventy degrees in this new room?” Dr. Martin asked VIN. The crew, gathered around one of the two radios on the planet, were having a warming cup of hot chocolate in the cavern. The other radio was up in the shield.

  “Yes, it was really cold in there, as if deliberately. The walls are silver, the same metal, and lit up when the power was turned on, but the room must have been frozen beforehand,” VIN replied.

  “Could it be the room, or maybe an electrical malfunction, Igor?” Dr. Martin Rogers asked. He had received permission to join Dr. Nancy Martin.

  “Could be, but VIN said that there was breathable air in the room, although very old and stale. We could have breathed the air in there while freezing to death,” Igor replied.

  “The air mix was breathable, but there was a very high content of helium, and nitrogen, hovering just under lethal amounts,” added VIN. “Why would there be too much helium and nitrogen?”

  “Cryogenics!” both doctors shouted at once.

  “Yes, but we used cryogenics everyday down in Nevada refueling the rockets,” replied VIN still not sure where the doctors were going.

  “The MRI machine in America One uses cryogenics, we also use nitrogen freezing for our blood bank on America One,” responded Dr. Rogers.