Solar Express

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  She’d also heard nothing from the Foundation, and that was troublesome, and there had been no further communication from the IAU, although that wasn’t exactly surprising. 2114 FQ5 had been classified, and now it was up to her and others to discover what it was … or was not.

  When a message from Chris finally did arrive, she immediately called it up and began to read.

  Alayna—

  I’ve been busy, but wanted you to know that I’m well and on station, so to speak, where I’ll be for the next several months. By now, even the news summaries I receive mention your discovery. I wouldn’t be surprised if every media outlet is rumoring it might just be the first indisputable evidence of alien life discovered by humanity, but since I don’t get any of the vidloids, I’m only guessing. They’re also probably speculating on the fact that both Noram and the Sinese have sent expeditions out to investigate. Before long, if your main optical array is trained on the object now … well, you’ll likely see.

  Main optical array? To see something as small as a spacecraft? He’s going to be there? “Marcel, when will we be able to get new observations on 2114 FQ5?” Alayna could have figured it out, but asking Marcel was faster.

  “November twenty-second.”

  “We’ll need observations then. Work the time in on every day when it’s observable.” She went back to the message.

  I’ll have to say that periods of alternating decel and weightlessness don’t do much for my sleep patterns, and it will be good to get back to a more regular routine, not that any routine off-Earth is ever exactly regular. For the next few months, I won’t be doing much piloting, more like station-keeping and programming various AI units. That’s what’s planned, anyway, but that could change. I’ll know more in a while.

  Alayna nodded. Another indication that Chris was where she thought he was.

  There’s not much else I can say at the moment so I’ll ask how things are coming on your solar multi-fractals. I hope you’ve either found more information or another approach that will prove more productive.

  I’m not as creative as I might otherwise be, but here’s another quote from Observations:

  Most politicians fall into two categories—those already bought, in one way or another, and those not worth the price. That truism, unhappily, also applies to all those in other occupations who achieved their positions through political expertise as opposed to subject matter or technical expertise.

  Alayna would have laughed, except that the quote was all too true. She’d already seen that in grad school and again in the Farside Foundation.

  I’d have to wonder if all intelligent species run a race between technical and scientific advances and the corresponding increase in political self-interest that becomes indistinguishable from species stupidity. That’s certainly been true of human beings. I suppose at some point, if we survive long enough, we’ll find out.

  There’s not much else to say at the moment, and since I can’t do anything else right now, I’m going to try to get some sleep before I do something stupid induced by fatigue.

  Until later.

  She reread the message, then frowned. He couldn’t have reached the object, not yet, not the way he had phrased his words, but the implication was that he was close. If he were closer when he’d sent the message, and it was just an asteroid, he would have said so, or at least hinted more strongly. And if it were more than that … there would have been hints.

  Are you reading too much into his messages?

  There was always that possibility, just as there was the very real and growing possibility that she would be unable to discover anything more about the source or mechanics of the solar multi-fractal mini-granulations. In the meantime, she needed to think about yet another way to deal with her own problem, since there wasn’t anything she could do to help Chris. And likely never had been.

  40

  RECON THREE

  9 NOVEMBER 2114

  Exhausted as he was, Tavoian didn’t sleep all that well—or long—waking at 0610 UTC, worrying about whether the AI rover and the cubesats were still functioning. He immediately asked, “Interrogative status of rover and cubesats.”

  ALL UNITS FUNCTIONING. DATA BEING RECEIVED.

  All that meant was that nothing had happened to the equipment, not whether the data and observations were useful or even related to the alien artifact. Tavoian took a squeezebottle of water and drank almost half of it before focusing on, first, the input from the solar panels. He nodded. They’d managed to meet Recon three’s needs and to recharge the aux power system’s energy storage units slightly. If he didn’t draw on the system too heavily for the next few days, that would work out, since each day would bring the artifact and the ship three million kays closer to the sun. More than that, since our inbound speed will increase second by second.

  He frowned, then asked the AI, “Have you had to use the drive to maintain station on the object?”

  AFFIRMATIVE.

  “We should be affected by the same gravitational forces as the object. Can you calculate our inbound speed?”

  SUCH CALCULATION WILL NOT BE COMPLETELY ACCURATE. CURRENT INBOUND VELOCITY IS APPROXIMATELY THIRTY-EIGHT KAYS PER SECOND.

  Even if the AI was off by a kay or two, the artifact was moving faster than the colonel’s experts had calculated. “Keep us in position as necessary.” Tavoian paused. “Can we orbit the object?”

  ORBITING IS NOT FEASIBLE. A STABLE ORBIT WOULD FALL WITHIN THE SWEEP OF THE OBJECT’S ROTATION.

  Tethering the ship to the object definitely wasn’t even theoretically possible because of the rotation. Tavoian decided to postpone that problem, and check on the rover and the cubesats.

  He began reviewing images—except the current view from the AI rover showed nothing. The last view displayed a slowly changing panorama of stars, with occasional sweeps across the alien artifact and, less often, views of Recon three. He quickly ran backward through the images, and gradually each view showed the artifact as larger, as if had left the surface of the object soon after the ISV had placed it there. “What’s the location of the rover?”

  ROVER IS ABOARD ISV. ISV IS DOCKED OUTSIDE MAIN LOCK.

  “What happened?”

  ROVER COULD NOT MAINTAIN POSITION ON ARTIFACT. ARTIFACT’S ROTATION PROPELLED IT TO A POSITION 803 METERS FROM THE CENTERLINE OF THE ARTIFACT. ISV WAS DISPATCHED TO RETRIEVE AND RECOVER ROVER.

  Rather than ask more questions, Tavoian went back to the beginning of the data and images gathered by the rover and began to watch. At first, nothing seemed to happen. The rover’s sensors just showed the flat green surface stretching away from it. Then, abruptly, it appeared to be floating across one of the open passageways, all of which appeared to be the same “height” as the rectangles, but only about three and a half meters wide, before hovering over the flat green surface of another. After a time, the rover moved again, this time away from the green side of the artifact, slowly moving increasingly farther from it as the artifact rotated. Tavoian studied the initial images once more … and then again.

  From what he could observe, the rover had simply slid off the top of the large rectangle on which the ISV had deposited it and then just been pushed away into space. The other thing was that there were gaps in the signals. A little more study revealed that the artifact blocked all transmissions that weren’t line of sight, and since it rotated, half the time, at least for the first several hours, there were gaps in reception, although the rover’s buffering capability meant that images and data had not been lost.

  Neither of those should have happened. The rover’s tracks were edged, yet it was as if the rover had been on polished ice, and Recon three had been close enough that the remotes should have relayed the data in real-time. You’ll need more remote repeaters all the way around the artifact. They’d also have to be repositioned frequently, Tavoian suspected.

  He went back over the images again, slowly, seeing more clearly the slightly rounded edges of the top of the dark green �
��walls” over which the AI rover had passed. On the other hand, the outer corners of the rectangles bordering the “passageways” looked to be knife-sharp, except at the very top, where they were also rounded.

  Tavoian called up the data to see if the rover’s sensors had registered anything about the material on which it had been placed. They didn’t. Apparently, the dark green material was hard, impermeable to electromagnetic waves, and possibly nonconducting. And very slippery … possibly even almost frictionless.

  Next, he called up the images from the cubesats. They revealed nothing except images of the artifact slowly rotating, the silver side glowing like it was almost independently illuminated and the dark green side black where not struck by the sun’s light.

  He immediately drafted a brief report and sent it off, then ate what passed for breakfast and cleaned up. The food did help, removing the last traces of a faint headache that he hadn’t realized that he’d even had. Then he checked his messages. There was only one. It was official, and the text wasn’t even remotely a surprise

  Tavoian, Christopher A.

  Major, NSC

  NSS-21/Recon Three

  OP-IMMEDIATE

  Sinese research probe/longliner ETA less than forty-eight hours. Begin immediate remote exploration of artifact if you have not already done so.

  Report all significant discoveries immediately.

  Tavoian sent a brief acknowledgment that he had begun remote exploration and that he would report any significant discoveries. There were no other messages. That wasn’t because there weren’t any, Tavoian thought, but because the colonel didn’t want him receiving anything that might distract him.

  Next he checked and opened the main lock and had the ISV enter. While the lock was pressurized and the ISV and rover warmed up, he began to program the small spy-eyes. When he finished that, he unpacked more remote signal repeaters and had the AI calculate optimum positioning for what he planned.

  Finally, he opened the inner lock. Even after an hour, the chill from the ISV blasted into the former passenger space where he had gathered the remote repeaters and ten smaller spy-eyes with their miniature thrusters, lights, and transmitters.

  Arranging the repeaters and the spy-eyes and then launching the ISV took another half hour. It was 0911 UTC by the time Tavoian had used the ISV to place the remote repeaters and then guided the ISV to a point along the top end of one of the green rectangles. Once there, he shifted his attention to the bottom sensor to study more closely the chamber beneath. He blinked and concentrated again on the images from all sources, then asked the AI, “Are the sides slanting away?”

  THE SPACE IS A HEXAGON.

  Tavoian looked again. It was indeed, except from the viewpoint of the ISV, it was a hexagon on its side. Then, abruptly, he understood. If the artifact had been part of a sphere, and the sphere had been rotated to obtain artificial gravity, then the section of the chamber through which he viewed the hexagon would have been a side wall, except during acceleration or deceleration. Unless they used some other form of propulsion. He studied the chamber once again. It was empty.

  For a moment, he couldn’t figure that out. Then he realized why. If the artifact had been pressurized, and it would have been for any life form, pressurized with something, then any chamber suddenly opened to space would have depressurized, releasing at least the majority of its contents. And given that the artifact was still rotating, and given the shape of the chamber, almost anything loose would have eventually worked its way out into space over time, and the artifact had been in space a long time.

  After all the time the artifact had been in space since whatever happened, Tavoian doubted that any room or chamber held atmosphere or the equivalent, but others might well hold objects, technological equipment … something. All he had to do was find a way into them.

  He also noted that the image wasn’t as sharp as it should be. “Why isn’t the image sharper?”

  THE IR COMPONENT IS LESS EFFECTIVE WHEN SCANNING THE GREEN MATERIAL.

  “Why?”

  THAT CANNOT BE DETERMINED.

  Tavoian thought for a moment. The ISV was using both a light beam and an IR beam. The light was obviously being reflected, but the IR beam was either being reflected uniformly or not at all. One way or another, there was no detectable differential. At least, the optics worked with visible light.

  He guided the ISV to the next open chamber, which was twice as large at the open end, but half as deep, essentially half a hexagon, one that had been cut in two. The next beyond that was like the first. A good hour later, Tavoian halted, realizing that he’d barely scratched the surface.

  He asked the AI, “Interrogative estimate of the number of rectangular objects visible on dark side of object.”

  NINE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE.

  His initial thought was that number was far too high, but the object was almost two thousand meters across, and that meant a surface area of more than three point one million square meters, and if each hexagon showed a rectangle on the end, the average area of each would be almost two hundred square meters … that would amount to fifteen thousand, allowing no space for passageways or whatever the separations between each hexagon might be.

  “Thank you,” he replied after a moment.

  He considered what he’d seen. All of the chambers whose sides had been sheared open were empty hexagons or, rather, parts of hexagons. The spaces between the ends of the hexagons were shafts, except that when the artifact had been part of a sphere—assuming it had been—those shafts would have been passageways. Again, assuming that it had been rotating to maintain artificial gravity. Several of the hexagonal chambers were separated by large brackets anchoring or supporting or maintaining separation between decks. The supports were elongated hexagons, also of the dark green material with hexagonal cutouts, rather than being solid.

  Tavoian stretched and found himself moving away from the control couch for a moment, until the loosely fastened restraint straps halted his motion. He took another swallow of water from the squeezebottle, squared himself before the controls, and guided the ISV back to the center of the dark side and eased it down the hexagonal shaft that measured fifty-eight point seven meters across. While the ISV lights could reach the sides of the shaft, Tavoian could not make out where it ended, although the instruments indicated that the bottom was less than a hundred meters away. The massive hexagons touched at their vertices but left open spaces above and below. Tavoian could make out what appeared to be more of the hexagonal supports in those spaces, again with hexagonal spaces cut out of the supports, but not what lay beyond.

  The bottom of the shaft was just that—a smooth hexagon of the dark green material, with no openings whatsoever. In addition, for the last fifty meters, there were no openings between the hexagons, just more of the solid green material, although to Tavoian, the filler material looked to be just a shade lighter.

  For a moment, Tavoian also wondered, Why hexagons? The obvious answer was that hexagons and squares were among the few polygons that fit together without wasted space, and hexagons fit even better within a sphere. But that was also an assumption.

  He returned the ISV to the top of the hexagonal center shaft, and then eased it over to the nearest “vertical” shaft, which he was convinced would have been a horizontal passageway. Then he gave the command for the first spy-eye and sent it down the angled shaft. While he had a smaller backup ISV, he wasn’t about to hazard either the main ISV or the backup, although it seemed like the most likely problems were either signal loss or thruster failure, rather than any threat from the artifact. But then, anything that built something this massive that has endured so long without obvious damage just might have a few surprises.

  The relayed image gave Tavoian the impression of walking down a wide and dimly lit corridor. After several moments, he had the spy-eye check one side of the passage and then the other. “Is there a difference in reflectivity or color in the sides?”

  EACH SIDE R
EFLECTS WHITE LIGHT IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAVELENGTH. ALL ARE VISUALLY GREEN.

  “Are the passageway wavelengths different from the outside wavelengths?”

  SURFACES WITH THE SAME ORIENTATIONS HAVE THE SAME REFLECTIVE PATTERNS.

  After about twenty meters the passageway split, with one shaft heading parallel to the outer dark surface of the artifact, and the other heading back, essentially reversing the angle of the first length. Tavoian halted the spy-eye. The intertwined passageways could go on forever. He hadn’t seen anything even hinting at entries to the hexagonal chambers. Then he shook his head. He’d been looking in the wrong place. What he’d thought of as the bulkheads or walls would have been the deck or overhead when the sphere rotated. He reversed the spy-eye and had it scan “above” and “below,” then told the AI, “Halt the spy-eye when there’s a change in color reflectivity.”

  The spy-eye traveled a little over ten meters and stopped.

  Tavoian studied all sides of the passageway. He didn’t see anything different. “Where is the color change?”

  AT NINETY DEGREES AND 180 DEGREES FROM THE CENTERLINE OF THE SPY-EYE.

  Effectively directly overhead and directly below. Tavoian repositioned the light and looked. He still couldn’t see anything. “Show the difference in false color on another display screen.”

  Another screen immediately appeared on the control wall, showing two images, each of which had a hexagonal light green shape, one directly overhead from the spy-eye, and another below it. Tavoian could not see any difference in the smoothness or the texture of the material, even when he positioned the spy-eye within centimeters of the surface. Nor was there any sign of a control mechanism.

  Tavoian had the spy-eye touch every section of the possible entry, then did the same around the edge of the entry. He didn’t expect anything to happen, and it didn’t. He tried aiming the spy-eye’s light at every point that might trigger a response, but that didn’t elicit any response.