Alpha Centauri: The Return (T-Space Alpha Centauri Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “The Anderson-class landers were top-heavy with the fuel tanks empty,” Drake said. “They’d be secured with guy wires after landing. If there were a severe storm, and the lines pulled loose, it might tip. It looks more like they built something under it to keep it from tipping further.”

  “They’d also need access to the hatch,” said Vukovich. “It’s hard to tell in this image, but the ship looks partially disassembled.”

  “Probably for parts or materials after it fell. I hope nobody was injured when that happened.”

  “The damage would explain their radio silence. I doubt all the systems would have survived that fall intact. Maclaren’s a great engineer, but she can’t fix what she doesn’t have or can’t make the parts for.” On the original trip out, both Vukovich and Maclaren had been aboard the Anderson.

  “Any sign of people? It’s almost mid-morning.”

  “If they did spot us last night, they might have slept in. They were probably up late. But see there and there?” McFadyen pointed at dots a few pixels wide that seemed to be casting shadows. “I think those are people. They’re moving, anyway.”

  “Good,” said Drake. They were starting to pass beyond sight of the landing area. “Prepare a Dragonfly, I want it in atmosphere and within range of the Anderson on the next orbit.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A Dragonfly was a semi-autonomous drone a meter long which strongly resembled its namesake. Four thin, slightly flexible wings served as solar panels and also generated vortex-lift by vibrating. It was efficient in forward flight, but could also hover and dart sideways like a real dragonfly. An array of sensory gear in its “head” added to the resemblance, and it had a loudspeaker system and microphones so they could communicate with the survivors even if their own comm gear was non-functional. It was encapsulated in an “egg” for transit, which served as an aerobraking shield to slow it from orbit before peeling back in a manner designed to slow it to where the Dragonfly could deploy.

  It would be ejected from the Endeavour from something that might be regarded as suspiciously like a torpedo tube, if one were the suspicious sort. However, ejecting something at high speed in the opposite direction of your orbit was just a good way to slow it enough to de-orbit. The Endeavour had plenty of electrical power, so it made sense to use it. It was all right there in the official press release.

  Near the Anderson Landing Site

  The Dragonfly had deployed successfully and cruised toward what was left of the USS Anderson from the direction of the large granitic dome to its west. Sawyer had mentioned it, and included charts, in the beamed status reports the Endeavour had intercepted on its way here.

  By the time it reached the landing site, initially approaching at altitude, it was getting toward late afternoon. Drake wasn’t particularly trying to be stealthy, but it did mean that the Dragonfly was coming from sun-ward as it neared the camp.

  Aboard the Endeavour, anyone who didn’t have other duties was watching the Dragonfly’s feed. The outlying fields they had spotted from orbit were just that. Some had regular rows of what could only be crops. There were at least two people working the field, weeding or picking something. Another, larger fenced area held several grazing animals that looked more like deer than cows, but not exactly like either.

  The center of the camp, near the hull of the Anderson, was further off but they could make out a fire-pit, with what looked like somebody tending a low fire and a rack or spit on which something was being roasted. The real surprise, though, were three smaller versions of the adults, chasing each other in the clear area in the center of the camp.

  “Are those children?” Doctor McFadyen asked, the surprise obvious in her tone.

  Drake grinned at that. “You’re the doctor. What do you think?”

  “But, that shouldn’t...they look big and active enough to be two or three years old. Nobody should have gotten pregnant that early!”

  She was right. It wasn’t surprising that after just over four years, the contraceptive implants had worn off. What was surprising is they’d apparently worn off within a few months after the landing. “Something in the water?” Drake asked.

  “They would have tested for contaminants, surely,” McFadyen answered, taking him seriously. “Well, I’ll be checking everyone out anyway.”

  “This does complicate things a little,” Drake said. “But we’ll work around it.”

  The drone was now circling the camp at a thousand meters altitude. It was unlikely anyone below could hear it, although occasionally one or the other of the kids would glance up and around. They’d have to be looking at just the right spot to see it, though.

  “All right, take it down slowly. Keep a nice wide circle, nothing aggressive. We don’t want to freak them out any more than they’re going to be.”

  As the Dragonfly descended, one of the men was walking up from some structure near the river. It looked like they’d rigged up an aqueduct, and that might be the pump house. Drake didn’t recognize him, but he was sporting a full beard and longer hair than any of the crew had had when he left. Drake smiled. He looked like a castaway.

  There was a woman—was that Naomi Maclaren?—with an infant on her lap. She rose and handed the child to the man as he came up to her. By now they were both looking around as if searching for something. They could probably hear the Dragonfly’s wing buzz by now.

  Others were coming in from the field and the surrounding cabins to the central area. The toddlers had stopped their chasing game, and suddenly all were looking toward the drone.

  One of the other women—Doctor Singh, from her skin tone—started gathering the kids and herding them towards one of the cabins. Maclaren, and by now it was clear that it was her, began jogging toward the Anderson. Maybe to see if she could get the radio working? Drake wondered.

  The man, probably Doctor Finely, kept watching the drone as it circled to the downwind side of the central square, gesturing to the others to keep clear.

  “Looks like he’s keeping a landing zone clear. Go ahead and land, take it slowly.”

  “Roger that.”

  Chapter 30: Contact

  Observing Camp Anderson

  The Dragonfly’s microphones were smart enough to cancel the buzz of its wings, so the Endeavour crew could hear him when Finley said, “Keep an eye on it.”

  Drake wondered what he made of the drone. Although superficially similar, it had many differences from the drones they’d used on the first expedition.

  “Everybody clear back, stay out of its way!”

  Finley ran to the downwind end of the square, watching the drone approach.

  The pilot, Stanley, glided it in over the compound, crossing the edge of the square about two meters above the ground. He warped the Dragonfly wings, slowing it down and dropping, then just above the ground he flared, the wings whined briefly, and it set down almost vertically. He shut the wing motors off and reported. “Dragonfly is landed, sir.”

  They watched as Finley began to approach the drone, taking cautious footsteps and keeping his hands in view of the drone’s forward camera.

  “Smart man. He’s playing it safe, no hostile moves. We should have put markings on the drone,” said Drake.

  “Do you have a microphone on that thing?” Finely called out.

  “Go ahead and talk to him,” Drake told Stanley. You’re in the pilot’s seat.”

  Stanley nodded and keyed his mic. “Uh, indeed we do. It’s hard to tell through the beard. Is that Doctor Finley?”

  Finley’s posture, stiff and wary at first, suddenly relaxed. “It is! Who are you? Where are you?”

  “My name’s Jim Stanley. I’m in orbit above you in the Endeavour. Where is an appropriate place for us to land?”

  “Hang on, our engineer is back in the Anderson warming up the radio, we’ll have a better signal.�
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  “We haven’t been getting anything, your radio may be damaged. This works fine for now. So, landing?”

  Finley cocked his head, then looked around at the others, before turning back to the Dragonfly. “Hold on. I’ve never heard of Endeavour. You’re a new ship? What are your landing requirements, and your intentions?”

  “Intentions?” The pilot looked at Drake, as if wondering why this castaway was asking such a dumb question. “We’re here to rescue you of course.”

  “Okay. We can discuss your landing requirements, but first we need to decide if we’re going to give you permission to land.”

  “Say what? Permission to land? What are you—” the pilot broke off and turned to Drake again, turning his microphone off. “Uh, sir?”

  Drake had been taken aback too, but thought he knew what Finley might be getting at. He wondered if Sawyer had anything to do with it. “I’ll take it from here,” he said. He’d have to handle this carefully. Before he could say anything else, Finley’s voice came again.

  “Just a formality,” he said.

  Drake keyed his mic. “Get a lot of traffic, do you?” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. On the screen, Drake could see Sawyer making her way toward Finley and the drone. She leaned on a crutch, and limped slightly. What happened there? Drake wondered, feeling a twinge of guilt.

  “Sorry, we got off on the wrong foot,” Finley said. “We’re understandably a bit surprised to hear from anyone. It’s been quite a while.”

  “Understood,” Drake said. “There’s a clear area east of your compound, beyond what I assume is what’s left of the Anderson, near the river.” Now, how to best phrase this? “Is it okay if we do a vertical set-down there?”

  Finley glanced at Sawyer, who gave a slight nod. “Roger Endeavour, permission to land in the east field. Stay clear of the aqueduct, that took a lot of work to put up. And maintain a safe distance for your back spatter.”

  “Ah, okay. Roger that. We’ll be down in about forty minutes. Stand clear, we’ll send the drone over to our landing site.”

  “Roger.” Finley backed up and waved for the gathering crowd to do the same.

  Drake turned his microphone off. “Okay,” he told the pilot, “you heard. Take the Dragonfly to where we’re going to land the ship and then turn on its beacon.”

  “Aye sir.”

  The drone’s wings came up to speed again with a whine, then it lifted and moved forward a few meters in ground effect before climbing into the air. As it cleared the square, it banked toward the river.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Camp Anderson

  Finley watched it go as Sawyer came over to him. “What was that about permission to land?” she said, her voice low.

  “Oh, you heard that?”

  “I don’t miss much.”

  “Not that I’m not happy to see them, but this is our place now. I wanted some common courtesy. That, and... remember the ending to Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky?”

  “You mean when they finally get the wormhole reopened and obnoxious reporters were crawling all over the place?”

  “Yeah. It sounds like a silly thing to worry about when you put it like that. We’re hardly teenagers, and I doubt the Endeavour is full of reporters.”

  “Peter, I agree one hundred percent with what you did,” Sawyer said.

  “You do?”

  “Were you worried I’d think they’d have just left if you pissed them off?”

  Finley grinned sheepishly. “Okay, now that really does sound silly. But yeah, a bit.”

  “I don’t think they’d come all this way to be scared off that easily. But you did good. You set a precedent, and they went with it. It was hard to tell over that speaker, but I think that was Drake at the end there. You’re right, this is our place now, at least this little piece of it. We’ll see who wants to go back, but it’s going to be a bit of a shock for the kids.

  “We certainly could use some supplies,” she continued, “and I think we’d be happy to take in new settlers if that’s what’s going to happen. Personally, I hope it is. Everything I said back on the Heinlein is true, humanity needs to get out beyond the solar system, and these terraformed worlds are an unimaginable gift. I don’t know what or who from, but we’d be stupid to not take advantage of them.”

  “Sure, but what does that have to do with permission to land?”

  “It means that whether they realize it or not, they just accepted that we’re a sovereign body. I don’t remember all the details of the Outer Space Treaty, if it’s even still in effect, but something about nations not claiming bodies in outer space. Even our bases on the Moon are, in theory, open to other nations. We have an unwritten agreement where we all keep our noses out of each other’s business, within limits, but nobody can claim the Moon, or Mars, or Kakuloa, or here.”

  “But you just said...”

  “Ah, but we’re not claiming it for a nation on Earth. In fact, we represent quite a few of them—the US, Europe, Russia, India, Canada and maybe Australia depending on Naomi’s status. And we have kids who were born here. In the old days of sail, that nailed it. We’re settlers.”

  “I..., wow.” Clearly Sawyer had given this quite a bit of thought. In fact, even as far back as... “You’ve been thinking about this a long time, haven’t you? Since we lost the Xīng Huā?”

  She shook her head. “No. We didn’t even know the planets were terraformed then. I’m not that smart. It might have begun to occur to me sometime during our stay on Kakuloa, though.”

  “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re still not telling me?”

  “Because you’re a smart man, Doctor Finley. I’ve had a lot longer to think about that possible alien contact of mine than the rest of you. Let’s leave it at that for now. Meanwhile, we need to brief everyone, and prepare the kids for strangers. We’re going to have guests shortly.”

  Chapter 31: Endeavour Landing

  Camp Anderson

  “They ought to be visible by now,” Naomi Maclaren said, scanning the sky above them.

  “Yeah, I thought they were landing on this orb—” Finley’s reply was cut off by a distant BOOM-BOOM, like thunder.

  They turned in the direction of the sound, then followed a thin contrail forward until they saw the tiny white delta of the incoming Endeavour. The sound had been its sonic boom.

  “Didn’t they say, ‘vertical landing’?” wondered Tyrell aloud.

  “Well, we don’t have a runway, so they’ve either got tricks up their sleeves or things are about to get awkward.”

  The Anderson crew looked on in wonder as the ship slowed and leveled out about a thousand meters above the ground, flying in a wide arc around the clear area between the camp and the river. Then its nose pulled up slightly, and the craft descended, slowing to a hover twenty or thirty meters above the ground, as though checking its landing site. They saw landing gear doors open and legs deploy as the ship slowly dropped toward the surface. With a short billow of dust and steam, it settled belly first onto the field, as smooth as any helicopter landing, and the muted roar of the engines shut off. It was down.

  Spontaneously, the Anderson crew watching all broke into applause and cheers. The young children who’d been mostly watching from behind their parent’s legs weren’t sure what to make of it, but they started clapping and jumping up and down. This was clearly something to be excited about.

  Sawyer looked around at them, smiling. “All right, you all need to stay here for now. That ship will be hot, and we don’t know what else we might need to worry about.” She caught Tyrell’s eye. “Fred, you’re with me. Everyone else, stay back until further notice. Okay, let’s go say hello.”

  As they left the camp to hike the three hundred or so meters to the ship, Sawyer’s omni beeped. “Haven’t heard that in a while,” she sa
id as she paused to raise it to her lips. Walking with a crutch while using the omni was still a bit of an effort. “Sawyer here.”

  “Elizabeth! I’m glad to see you’re still alive, and your crew too from the looks of it. But I also see little ones. New recruits?”

  “Franklin Drake! Damn it’s good to hear your voice again. Are you on the ship? And what kept you?”

  “All in due time. Yes, I’m looking out the window at you. Sorry about the leg, I want to hear about that. Feel free to approach the ship, we let it cool some on the way down. We’ll have the hatch open by the time you get here.”

  “Roger that.”

  True to his word, a door on the side of the ship had opened and a boarding stair extended by the time Sawyer and Tyrell reached the ship. The grass under it wasn’t even very charred, although it had been flattened by the down-wash. Drake reached the open door just as Sawyer reached the bottom of the stairs and, supporting herself on her crutch and the stair rail, began to climb them.

  “I’ll come down,” Drake called.

  “I’m not going to try turning around on these bloody stairs. Give me a moment.” She reached the top of the stairs, just outside the airlock door. She stood straight, saluted, and said “Commodore. Request permission to come aboard.”

  Drake smiled and return the salute. “Certainly. I’ll give you all a full tour later, but welcome aboard.”

  “Hey,” Tyrell called after her, an amused tone in his voice, “don’t leave without us!”

  “Fred!” Drake said, taking Tyrell’s hand and shaking it. “Good to see you.”

  Sawyer had stopped at the inner airlock door, not really wanting to proceed further. The layout of the ship was certainly very different than the Heinlein or Anderson. She looked forward to hearing more about that. It was roomier, too. She ducked back out again.

  “I’m sure you and your crew would like to stretch their legs and get some air. There’s nothing very hazardous close to the camp, but we do have some kids. I don’t think they’re hazardous,” she smiled as she said this, “but they’ve never seen any other people except in pictures and vids. They’re going to be skittish until they get used to strangers. Might I suggest just a few of you at first? Other than that...” She stepped back out to the top of the stairs, and extended her arm in a sweeping gesture towards the old landing site. “Welcome to Planet Able and Camp Anderson.”