Outpost

by Allan Baillie

  Cap moved the screen and scanned the rings. He found the lump, put the target on it and let the computers control the Tug. He split the screen, keeping the lump on the left and creating a view to the right of the Tug’s bow. The view moved slowly across the rings as little gas spurts sounded from inside the Tug. Then the jets stopped. The Tug was still, but the bow was nowhere near the lump.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ said Cap. ‘Nothing to do for a while.’

  ‘All right.’

  Dece knew the computer had measured the rings’ speed and calculated where the lump would be when the Tug arrived.

  The Tug moved slowly again, away from Ord, towards the first ring, and then one of the engines reversed the power. Dece’s seat clutched him throughout the surge. When it was over he looked at the larger rocks of ice adrift in the rings. The Tug was sliding beside the rings; it felt as though they were floating inside them. The dark rings, empty holes, and large white pieces of ice were all drifting away from the edges of the screen. It looked like a frozen polar sea from Cap’s Home.

  But then Dece noticed something else. He could still see the ice rubble, but he was looking through it to the red and yellow storm. The storm was doing something.

  ‘Are you looking forward to seeing your ship?’ Cap sat back from his panel.

  ‘Um …’ Dece was not sure. If it was a hunk of rock then that was that. Nothing to do but go back to Ord. They could pull it from the rings – that was easy. No worries. But what if … He shrugged.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Cap shook his head. ‘This should be your great adventure and you sound like you want to go home.’

  Dece turned to the edge of the screen to look at the lump, but it wasn’t there yet.

  ‘Maybe we should look at it on the screen?’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to run this ship, boy.’

  ‘Um.’ Dece stared at the white sea and said nothing.

  The silence was broken by Boss. A part of Cap’s panel winked. Cap touched it and a small corner of the screen displayed her face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  ‘We’re here, and we would be better if we didn’t have to gossip,’ Cap muttered.

  Boss jerked her head up. She was angry, but didn’t show it in her voice. ‘I can’t find Seps.’

  ‘What do you want me to do from here? Is her toy jet in the hangar? We should have locked it away.’

  ‘The Skimmer is still there. I’ve looked around the Quarter, the hangar, even in Telp. She is not here. And …’ Boss was breathing heavily. ‘Her light suit is gone.’

  ‘She wouldn’t go out with the geysers going. Not even she would do that,’ said Cap.

  ‘Could she have got into the Tug?’

  ‘Ridiculous!’

  ‘Um …’ Dece looked at Cap.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard a funny sound before …’

  Cap shook his head, but he was sighing. ‘All right, go and see. Stupid.’

  Dece thought he knew where Seps was, and moved quickly to the sleeping pods. She was climbing out of a pod as he got there.

  ‘You are in trouble,’ he said. He stared at her for a moment, thinking, I am glad that she is here – because she will get Cap’s anger instead of me. Lovely.

  Seps shrugged. ‘I know, but I am here.’

  Dece shook his head. ‘Mad.’ He looked at her. ‘How?’

  ‘I was keeping my light suit in my room and they didn’t notice. I got into the Tug very quick after you.’ Seps shrugged again. ‘Now I might as well bring on the shouting.’ She slid past Dece and headed towards the bridge.

  Cap seemed calm when he saw Seps. He looked at her like she was a bug and turned to Boss.

  ‘Yes, your idiot is here. And no, I am not turning back the Tug. That’s it.’

  10.

  The Mystery

  BOSS and Seps used the side screen to talk while Cap and Dece worked on the buttons and watched the lump.

  Dece heard phrases from Boss, like ‘trust’, ‘play games’, ‘how can I rely?’ Seps hung her head.

  Dece did feel sorry for Seps, but he was impressed by her sneaking into the Tug. He would have liked to sneak back to the Quarter if he could have. It was clear now why Cap hadn’t yelled much at Seps – Cap had known Boss would do the yelling. Cap finally stopped Boss when he decided he wanted to use all the screens for the lump.

  Seps looked at Dece with a weak smile and they turned their attention to the lump. They were closer to it, but it was still floating in the fragments of ice rings. The lump looked like a shadow in a mist.

  Boss clicked back on.

  Cap sighed. ‘Look, we have a job – ’

  ‘Control has contacted us.’

  ‘Ah. I thought they may. Quick, aren’t they? Well?’

  ‘They say that there is no – NO – ship in Cotal’s solar system. There is no one within ten light years, excluding us on Ord.’

  ‘Uh-huh. What do they say about any wrecks?’

  Boss looked at Cap’s face. ‘There are none.’

  ‘None.’

  ‘There were some disasters on the moon and planetary trips, and three ships blew up in the early days. And that was it. Apparently we got better.’ Boss watched Cap’s face.

  ‘Don’t worry, the Tug is not going to crash and take your brats. That’s it?’

  ‘Control asks are you sure that it is a vessel?’

  A broad smile appeared on Cap’s face, startling Dece. He had not seen that for months.

  ‘Well, that is why we are here, aren’t we?’ Cap said. ‘Tell them that we are investigating now.’

  ‘Be very care– ’

  Cap tapped his panel and Boss disappeared. He brought back the lump. His lips were twitching as he stared at it.

  ‘Hoo boy, what is that? They won’t ignore us anymore, ever. Now I ask you, is that a ship?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ shouted Seps.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dece said. ‘It’s a lump.’

  Seps snorted. ‘You wouldn’t know if a yellow alien nibbled at your nozzle.’

  Dece only stared at the lump.

  Cap nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right, boy. It’s nothing until we know definitely what it is. I am not telling Control anything yet. But, but, we could try to contact it again, couldn’t we?’ He touched the buttons and the computer babbled quietly. ‘We’re closer now. It may make the difference.’

  Dece smiled weakly at Cap. He was trying to be delicate. ‘Um …’

  ‘We could use the lights.’ Seps said.

  ‘Lights?’

  ‘On Tug.’

  Cap looked at Seps as if she had made a bad smell on his bridge.

  ‘We can flash the lights.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ Cap tapped a button. ‘You two watch for any light from the lump.’

  Dece tried to peer through the ice, but he couldn’t see past it – possibly because he didn’t want to. But he tried to adjust his eyes by looking into the red storm.

  And he saw that the storm had been building. The yellow centre was bigger and it looked angry. The different parts of the storm were spinning faster around the centre and two of them seemed to be ploughing into each other.

  ‘Anything?’ Cap said.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Seps. She sounded disappointed.

  ‘There is a big build-up in the storm,’ Dece said.

  ‘Don’t worry about that – look at the thing!’

  But there was no change. Not a peep from the computers, not a glimmer from the lump. Nothing at all.

  Dece covered his furtive smile.

  The Tug fired its jets and Dece saw the tiny gas spurts on the hull. The Tug slowed down. Cap took over from the computers and moved the Tug closer to the rings and lump till they were less than a kilometre away. But Dece wasn’t worried about that. No, no. It was just a dead rock.

  Seps squinting at it, said, ‘It’s big, isn’t it?’

  Cap grunted.

  ‘Bigger than ten Tug
s.’

  Cap swung the lights to the lump. ‘Maybe fifteen Tugs. Ah.’

  The lights from the Tug settled on one end of the Lump, revealing streaks of dust and many pockmarks.

  Dece looked at Cap, but didn’t say anything.

  Cap moved the lights slowly along the top and then stopped. There was a crater on the top, as if a meteorite had hit the lump, but it looked odd.

  It didn’t have much depth for a crater, no lip around it and it was a perfect circle. And there was something that looked like a frozen large insect perched on the edge.

  Cap zoomed in on the crater. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It is a ship.’

  Dece tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.

  11.

  Disaster

  THE large insect-looking thing on the edge was twisted and broken metal, but it was definitely designed for doing something. It seemed to be fishing in the crater.

  ‘It’s not much,’ Dece finally mumbled.

  ‘Boss says it’s the little things that matter,’ Seps said.

  ‘She’s not here.’ Cap tried to zoom in closer, but there were still large chunks of ice floating past and the computers became confused.

  ‘Tell her about the ship?’ Seps said.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Dece stared at the insect on the crater, slowly adjusting to the fact that the lump was a ship – not our people’s ship, an alien ship. He was thinking, At least it has not attacked us. Yet.

  Seps said, ‘There must have been something on that bent thing.’

  Cap nodded. ‘Normally the gadget that thing held would be folded into that hole, but it must have been knocked off. By the ice pieces? But why didn’t they pull the thing inside, and why haven’t they contacted us? When we’re just a kilometre away flashing lights all over the place! And there’s not a glimmer of light on that ship. Why not?

  Even the Tug has a few lights on the hull.’

  Dece breathed slowly. ‘They are dead.’ I hope, he thought.

  ‘I think so. A pity.’ Cap moved the lights along the ship, but a cluster of thick chunks floated past, obstructing their view. ‘This is stupid! I’m getting closer.’ He tapped his button, the gases hissed and the Tug drifted forwards.

  Soon Dece could see more small dents on the ship. For a moment, it looked like Cap was going to ram the Tug into it. But Cap simply let the computers take over once the Tug was almost touching it. Ice rocks clattered on the Tug’s hull, but they were light, so Dece tried to forget about them.

  There was no seam at all on the ship, as if it had been poured from a great bucket, but it was dirty. It looked to have originally been grey, the colour of the metal, but it was now smeared black with a touch of red and yellow. There were large symbols under the muck towards the stern, but Dece had never seen anything like them.

  It looked like someone had been scrawling onto the metal.

  Suddenly Cap roared with laughter.

  Dece and Seps looked at him with alarm.

  He shook his head. ‘I was thinking about Saphare and his dream of finding a microbe. What would he think if he saw this ship? This alien ship. Hey?’

  Dece thought Saphare would have been longing to see it all, but he would have been slow and methodical. He would get all the information from a distance; he would work out its length, judge how heavy it was, assess the metal of the ship’s hull, maybe try to look inside the hull. Then he would creep closer. Not like Cap’s charge.

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Yes, boy?’

  ‘Can we look inside the ship? With the computers, only with computers!’

  Cap screwed up his eyes as if he was about to shout at Dece, but his eyes shifted. ‘Don’t tell me what to do. I was about to do that.’

  He pushed a button, but the computers could not see into the ship’s hull. ‘Well, that’s it; the matter is too solid.’

  The Tug drifted towards the ship’s stern as the lights played over its hull. There was a slanting line in the metal, thick at the centre and narrow at the back where the engines were. There was no reason for the line, except to make the ship look nice. The engines didn’t look nice; they were just two square holes over a curved polished black area that looked like a great smile. The Tug was moving slowly across the closer square hole, which was big enough for the Tug to fit inside.

  If these engines start now the Tug will be obliterated, thought Dece.

  He jerked his eyes away and gasped.

  Seps looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s someone watching us.’

  ‘What?’ Cap looked at him.

  ‘In the black thing.’ He pointed.

  Cap played the lights over the black area and moved the Tug towards it. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  Dece shook his head. ‘No, it’s gone.’

  Cap looked at Seps. ‘Did you see it?’

  Seps looked at Dece and shrugged in apology.

  ‘See the rims of the engines’ exhaust pipes?’ said Cap. ‘They’re caked with ice. Those engines haven’t been used for many years. Nobody’s there.’

  Dece looked at the ice on the scarred metal and slowly nodded. ‘All right.’

  ‘The ship is dead. You saw the lights of the Tug scanning the ship. Nothing at all.’

  Seps said, ‘Do we tell Boss and Control what we found?’

  Cap shook his head. ‘You won’t let it go, will you? I have to work things out first. Like how it got here. That could be an ion engine; no it’s too old, too slow. No, I don’t know what this engine is.’

  ‘Um, what do you think is the purpose of the big black thing above the engines?’ Dece said.

  Cap shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s something to look out from. The Tug has a solid barrier at the bow because it has to get through clouds of dust and the odd meteorite, but there’s no barrier at the stern. It’s not needed. That black area is the ship’s stern so maybe that’s a lounge with a view out the back.’

  He turned the Tug to the ship’s other side, where ice pieces had clustered on the hull. The panels began to light up and numbers hit the bottom of the screens.

  ‘Um …’ Dece said.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Cap said.

  Seps smiled smugly at Dece.

  Dece tried to ignore the rattle of ice on the Tug’s shell and stared into the screen. ‘Hey, there’s a hole in the ship’s hull. A long one.’

  The hull was encased by large plates, but there was an opening in it.

  Cap moved the Tug quickly towards the hole, almost skimming across the plates, and the ice rocks crashed against the outside of the ship. He stopped in front of the hole.

  ‘That’s funny,’ Cap said.

  The hole was far bigger than the Tug, and there were markings around it. Cap moved the Tug’s lights into it, but there was nothing there apart from odd shapes on the walls.

  ‘This should be closed,’ Cap said. ‘And something was there.’

  Like a smaller ship with something to blast the Tug, thought Dece.

  ‘Cap!’ Seps called urgently and poked at the screen.

  There was a ragged, dark object in front of the hull that didn’t look like part of the ship.

  Cap nodded and moved the Tug towards it.

  ‘Oh,’ said Seps.

  ‘And that tells us everything,’ Cap said.

  Something had punched into the ship. Something big. The crater on the front of the hull was bigger than the other hole, and the ship was actually bent. There were crevices running from the crater towards the stern. The Tug crawled slowly to the edge of the crater and Dece looked down, saw dark decks tumbling down. And …

  Stars.

  ‘Look, look!’ But Seps was waving their attention away from the crater. To the rings.

  The ice rubble was colliding with itself, creating a wild rippling effect. The ice crashed against the ship and the massive hulk began to roll.

  Cap hissed, ‘We have to go!’ He waved an arm over his panel, the gas jets spurted and the engi
ne roared.

  But it was too late.

  Ice rippled over the ship, over the crater, over the Tug. Thousands of ice hunks battered its hull; billions of specks – now needles – attacked the engines, the gas jets, the cameras. One of the engines flamed out and the Tug turned towards the rolling ship.

  Dece’s seat gripped his body and the screen filled with metal shapes.

  The Tug crashed into the ship. It thudded and scraped along the ship’s entire length.

  When their bodies drifted apart, there was no sign of the Tug’s gas jets.

  12.

  The Leap

  THE computers had gone wild. Numbers raced across the screens and all the panels were a fire of crimson. Dece and Seps looked at Cap, but he was recoiling from the screens.

  We are going to die, Dece thought.

  Cap saw Dece’s face and flicked his eyes over to Seps. ‘All right, all right, it’s not all that bad.’ He wobbled his head. ‘Not all that bad.’ He had breathed the words softly, as if telling himself. He touched a couple of blazing squares, but they ignored him.

  The roar outside was fading and one of the screens started working again. There was a deep haze over the image, but something was coming through. Something moving slowly and on an angle.

  ‘It’s the ship,’ Seps said, shaking. ‘Very close.’

  ‘It’s going to hit us again,’ Dece said.

  Cap just banged on the panel.

  ‘Is it – ?’ said Dece.

  ‘I don’t know, boy! What do you want from me? There is power in the engines, but nothing in the jets. There is nothing I can do.’

  Dece stared at the pocked wall of the ship and waited for the crash, but it didn’t happen.

  ‘It’s not going to hit us,’ Seps said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Cap.

  The functioning screen cleared itself of speckles, and the numbers on the rest of the screens calmed down. Dece imagined thousands of nanorobots and microrobots like the one at the Peak, running around and fixing things.

  ‘I think it’s getting better,’ he said.

  Cap closed his eyes for a moment.

  ‘That huge ship and those pieces of ice rushing at us …’ Seps shook her head. ‘What happened?’