by Mark Wandrey
The Phoenix settled into orbit over the mountain situated at the center of the three energy signatures.
“Commencing sensor sweep,” Pip told them as he accessed the improved sensor pod the Rasa had installed before they’d left Remus.
Lilith grudgingly admitted that the one area her Kaatan fell short was its sensor and science capabilities. “We are a ship of the line,” she tersely replied to Pip's amusement. “The People utilized specially equipped scientific vessels, should the need arise.”
The sensors were the best that could be purchased in the Concordia without raising too much curiosity. They were geological sensors by design. Pip had done a little tweaking with the emitters to give them some more punch. Now he trained the systems at the mountain and let them have full power. The results were surprising.
“Nothing,” Kal'at said from his seat where he simultaneously reviewed the telemetry. “It is a volcanic mountain formed more than a billion years ago. The three energy readings appear to be thermal in nature. Possibly old core sample sites?”
Pip considered for a minute, letting the system run redundant scans up and down the spectrum. Everything matched the profiles. The planet was geologically dead, the core cold. Its composition didn't match Bellatrix, so that meant it was a wanderer, probably captured in the ancient days as the solar system was forming. Thinking of the solar system tickled something at the back of his mind. The computers installed in his skull worked at the orderly storage of his reorganized mind.
“This is wrong,” he said finally.
“I do not see what you mean,” Kal'at replied, pointing at the screens. “The data is conclusive.”
“Right, too conclusive. It is a textbook case, would you not say? Identical to a million small planets floating around the galaxy. Only one problem, this one is orbiting Bellatrix.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“There were similar moons in our home solar system. Some were around large gas giants. Those in close orbits were all extremely geologically active.”
“But this one is not.”
“Yes, but it should be. This moon is in far too low of an orbit, Bellatrix exerts massive tidal forces against it.”
Pip called up a program and quickly ascertained the numbers. Then he added in the crossing orbit of Remus and they became even more extreme as the lateral forces were added in. “This moon is being flexed like a lump of dough, yet there is no geological activity?”
“Maybe its structure is resisting those forces?”
“Maybe some moons would, but this one shouldn't. The primary composition is reading as obsidian base. The damn thing is basically a big glass ball. Tell me, what should we really be seeing?”
“Massive tidal fracturing, and probably a liquid core,” Kal'at conceded at last.
Pip nodded.
“Then what is this we see?” Kal'at asked.
“Subterfuge,” Pip concluded. “Take all the active sensors offline.
Kal'at manipulated the controls then nodded.
“Okay, let’s bring up the passive sensors. Slowly.”
For an hour they orbited the jet black surface of Romulus as Pip tested his conclusion. Finally he had enough to be sure. “Sensor echoes,” he said and showed Kal'at the data. “Two hundred of them equally spaced all over the planet.”
“A stealth network?” Kal'at was incredulous. “The cost and effort would be enormous.”
“Yes, and done long before we ever moved here.” With the stealth field mapped, Pip began to work at subverting its effects. More hours passed as they orbited and the real picture of Romulus began to emerge; a planet that was considerably more active in its core than the false images fed through the network made it appear. But not as active as the tidal data would suggest.
“Why is it still so stable?”
“I believe the tidal forces are being harnessed.” Pip punched some numbers into a program and got a result. “If I'm even close, then this suggests an energy surplus of seven times ten to the seventeenth annually. That is a hundred times more power than our planet uses.”
“One hundred and twenty two times, actually.”
“So much power! What is being done with it?”
“Let's find out, shall we?”
* * *
The shuttle settled to the basalt surface of Romulus without a sound. The moon's one-third gravity was more than enough to hold them steady against the shining ground. Pip observed the surrounding for a few minutes through the shuttle's various cameras. The landscape was pocked with craters and depressions around their landing spot. In those craters were pools of dust. The planetoid had no atmosphere.
To the port side, the land sloped upwards towards the distant peak of a low mountain. Lighting was stark. In a few hours, the sun was be eclipsed behind Bellatrix for hours.
“What is your decision?” Kal'at asked. The two soldiers and the pilot watched Pip with detached curiosity.
“This is your expedition,” Pip reminded him.
“And you're the expert,” Kal'at retorted.
“I suppose.” He stared at the monitors for another minute to buy some time. The energy signal was a dozen meters away. Nothing could be seen from where they sat. They'd have to go outside. “I really don't like this idea.”
The Rasa were halfway through donning their pressure suits before Pip even began removing his own from the locker in the rear of the cabin. Another human might easily recognize Pip's body language and realize just how unhappy he was at the prospect of going EVA. The Rasa just took it as unfamiliarity with the equipment and once they were finished suiting themselves and checking each other they moved in to speed Pip's suiting up.
Anyone on old Earth would think a member of the Chosen, whose stated mission involved traveling to far-flung corners of the galaxy, to be well versed and practiced at using a spacesuit. The truth was, the Chosen only owned a handful of the devices. The Portals made for safe, easy travel from world to world without ever being exposed to space.
On rare occasions, a Chosen scout would don a spacesuit to investigate a decompressed space station where a curious Portal was located, but Pip had never worn a pressure suit before three days ago. A quick trip to Steven’s Pass had given him the basics from a scout instructor.
“Damn it, I'm a scientist, not an astronaut.”
Two of the Rasa soldiers checking the connections on his backpack exchanged curious looks. The word ‘astronaut’ had no translation.
His instructor had told Pip how lucky he was. “These suits are a quantum leap over what we used on Earth,” the jovial elder scout had said. Pip had wanted to ask him how he’d gotten to be a gray-haired man and still have five black stars on his sleeve. “In the old days, NASA spacesuits weighed over seventy kilos and were so cumbersome that if you fell over in normal gravity it was impossible to get up without help.”
“How interesting,” Pip had said with little real interest. He was being shown slide after slide of schematics and procedures for donning and maintaining the suits, in addition to emergency procedures.
“Isn't it? There are actually Concordia units that are only forcefields! You can float around in space with nothing on but your birthday suit.”
“Excellent. Give me one of those and I'll be on my way.”
“I'd love to, only we don't have any.”
Pip had rolled his eyes and grumbled.
“And even if we did, once it’s turned on you become a big ball floating in space. They don't cling to your skin, it just makes a sphere of air around you. We think they were emergency life support modules for space stations. Wouldn’t be much help for exploring.”
The lesson ended with tables and figures describing in graphic detail, the effects of vacuum on the human body and just how little time he would have to live, should the suit be breached.
Still, as the last connection was made and the suit powered up, he did his best to stem the feelings of panic that began to bounce around the insides of his sizable
brain. At least it wasn't the damned Tactical Drive on the Kaatan. He would rather see how long he could live in a leaking spacesuit than go through that again with his computers turned on.
Over most of his body, the suit felt like an arctic survival suit. The backpack only weighed a couple kilos and really wasn't perceptible, especially in the light gravity. His right forearm held a specialized tablet to control the suit. The worst part was the helmet. It was nothing more than a moliplas bag that was forced into a fishbowl shape by atmospheric pressure.
Through his mind ran all the various stress and yield figures for moliplas, and that made it worse. Plus, once it was fully inflated, it was like he had no helmet at all. The old suits he'd seen pictures of were mostly metal with a window in front, severely restricting area of vision.
“These are much superior,” the instructor had told him.
Now, as the Rasa began depressurizing the Phoenix cabin, Pip could not agree less. He fought to keep from holding his breath as his heart pounded in his chest and the helmet became invisible. When the door opened and he was staring at unprotected space, he almost screamed.
The Rasa gleefully jumped from the doorway, bounding outside in the one-third gravity. They were natural acrobats and Romulus was an airless playground to them. All except Kal'at, who waited behind Pip and watched him with some apprehension. Unlike the soldiers, he'd spent enough time with humans to know that an incurious human was a not-normal human.
“We will be sure to keep you safe,” he assured pip over the suit radio. “The Rasa use spacesuits often because we go places almost no other species will go. We will be there if anything happens to you.”
“But who's going to take care of you if something goes wrong?” Pip wanted to ask. “I still think this is a bad idea,” Pip repeated and stepped out onto the airless world. A moment later the pilot, who was staying behind, closed the door and sealed them outside.
After a few minutes he was feeling better. His breathing had slowed, and the pounding on his temples had stopped. The suit had micro-miniature motors in its joints and tiny gravitic impellers in the backpack that helped counter the low gravity. “You can walk in zero gravity like normal,” Kal'at explained. “I walked three kilometers outside of a space station many years ago.”
Pip shuddered at the thought. He was only feeling more comfortable because the suit helped overcome the outlandishness of the situation. Ever considered hanging on the side of a space station, a billion kilometers of deep space above your head? Cold sweat dripped down his back and he forced himself to think about what interesting things they might find on Romulus.
Their destination was only a short distance from the shuttle, just out of view behind a series of tumbled boulders. As soon as they came around the rocks, the artificial nature of their destination became obvious.
Where the surrounding landscape was all natural rough rocks and fractured terrain, there was a perfectly symmetrical tower protruding a half dozen meters above the ground. Whoever built it had gone to the extreme measure of also coloring and texturing it to be a perfect match for the surface of Romulus. Considering it was such a small thing, it seemed to be taking camouflage way too far.
“Why this?” Pip wondered aloud. “On top of everything else? There is a massive active stealth network that defeats all but the most sensitive sensor arrays, and then they also visually camouflage the heat vents?”
“It does seem like a bit much,” Kal'at agreed, “at least on the surface.”
“No pun intended,” Pip mumbled below the level the suit mic would pick up, then louder. “Let’s get a better look.”
They examined the vent shaft, Pip and Kal'at using portable sensors to sniff the vented particles for any sign of what might be coming out of it. “It is ingeniously baffled,” Kal'at pointed out.
“Yes,” Pip agreed, “it was only luck that Lilith detected it at all. The shaft was probably venting at just the right moment.” As they spoke, the computer tablet Pip held in his gloved hand lit up and flashed. “It's venting now.”
“I see,” Kal'at said and observed his own computer. The two soldiers eyed the tower suspiciously, taking an unconscious step backwards. Both carried shock rifles tailored to their smaller stature. It was a point of pride for those Rasa soldiers who'd been assigned the impressive weapons, as testified by their presence in such a high-profile operation.
“Pretty clean,” Pip said after five minutes and the venting had ceased.
“But not entirely,” Kal'at pointed out.
“Right, a slight trace of ionizing radiation and some neutrons.”
“What does it tell you?”
Pip tried to reach up and scratch his head, but of course his hand bumped into the bulb of his helmet before it could reach his face. He shook his head and chuckled. “Well, if it was just harnessing the thermal dynamic energy there wouldn't be any neutrons.”
“Ionizing radiation and neutrons are byproducts of nuclear decay,” Kal'at said, reciting from basic physics.
“Yes. You get a little of it naturally in lots of common elements, but not like this. This is the leftover from a fusion reaction.”
Pip walked around the shaft, examining it closely. “This complicated baffle seems to be filtering more than just the heat, it’s also getting rid of most of the nuclear garbage too.”
“There is no sign of an entrance,” Kal'at spoke.
“It must be at one of the other shafts. Or another place entirely. How far to the next shaft?”
“Seven kilometers.”
Pip consulted the suit interface on the little arm mounted tablet and sighed. Of course the suit was good for many more hours. “Okay, let’s take a walk.”
* * *
The second shaft was identical to the first, all the way down to the readings the sensors recorded as it began to emit. “This is not working,” Kal'at said. “The entrance must be somewhere else.”
“I agree,” Pip said. “But there has to be an entrance.”
“Of course, but if it is shielded as well as these shafts, we could wander this planetoid for years before tripping over it.”
Pip couldn't argue with the logic, but he did have an idea. “There is one possibility.”
He consulted his computer and did a calculation before turning to examine the low mountain and then his suit’s oxygen reserve. “We're going to have to hurry though.”
Even though he regularly worked out now, his body had never completely recovered from the years of lying in a coma ward after his brain injury. Even with nano treatments and physical therapy, he'd never regained his earlier conditioning and stamina. Normally it didn't matter to him. He was more than fit enough to meet the minimum Chosen standards of service. His brain was his most powerful asset anyway. But hiking up the side of a mountain, on an airless moon, was when he missed his formerly fit and young body.
The top of the mountain wasn't defined by an obvious peak, only a leveling of the slope. Pip told his computer to begin scanning the area while he stood and tried to control his breathing. The suit’s computer was warning him that he was going through consumables far too quickly. He was still happy that in all the excitement, he had forgotten about his almost crippling agoraphobia. Then the scan finished. The results were less than he expected – and more, as well.
“Nothing obvious,” Kal'at spoke.
“No, it’s what isn’t obvious. There is a geometric shape in the rocks here.” He was still breathing hard as he walked the shape, bringing it into relief for the Rasa.
“An accidental formation?” asked one of the soldiers, the first time any of them had spoken. Until now Pip hadn’t been sure whether they were wearing translator pendants.
Pip shook his head. “With the Concordia, there are no accidents.” He took a small pinpoint sensor wand from his belt and attached the probe cable to the computer. Using a detail scan program, he began walking the same path.
“What are you looking for?” Kal'at asked.
“The do
orbell,” Pip answered, not really thinking of who he was talking to.
All three Rasa cocked their heads like mirror images of each other. The rocks formed a pentagram, and on one of the five sides, the sensors found a tiny electromagnetic reading. No more than you could expect from a pocket watch, or the residual leakage from a passive sensor.
“Gotcha,” he said and bent over. Like the rest of the illusion created to hide whatever was below them, a small rock was a perfectly shaped round knob. Shrugging, he reached down and pressed it. It slid neatly into the ground.
There was a slight shuddering of the ground under their feet and a pentagon-shaped section of the ground detached and began to descend. Pip didn't hesitate before stepping onto the newly appeared elevator as it started down. The three Rasa were less decisive.
“What are you doing?” Kal'at cried in dismay.
“What we came here for!”
“That did not include jumping down holes!” Kal'at watched as Pip shrugged and began to descend, cursing in his native language at the careless curiosity of the human species.
“What can be done?” one of the soldiers asked.
“Only one thing,” Kal'at replied.
Before the elevator had dropped too far, he stepped off and landed lightly next to Pip. The soldiers were even less sure than Kal'at had been. But when both of the beings they were charged to protect acted, they were left with no more discretion. They jumped off only a second after their leader. All four looked upwards at a steadily diminishing view of the equatorial sea of Bellatrix until a doorway slid across the shaft, sealing them in.
Chapter 14
