by WADE, T I
Ryan nodded.
“What is this white dust? What is happening to our cavern roof?” asked Commander Joot, and for several minutes Ryan and Igor told the two Matts something they didn’t know, while VIN swept away the dust from the area the door was supposed to be.
“Don’t open the door, Elder Roo,” ordered Ryan when he saw Elder Roo close his eyes and begin to concentrate.
“Why not?” asked Commander Joot, looking at Ryan questioningly.
“The air in there is around 10,000 years old. It could be poisonous,” replied Ryan.
“Shall we get into our spacesuits?” Elder Roo asked.
“Actually, our suits are the only tools to analyze air we have with us. I believe that at least two of us dressed in spacesuits should go in first to test what is in there. Will there be light inside the cavern, Commander?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, it should be automatic when the door opens, or there is movement in there. The walls are the same as in all our bases: the silver glowing ‘Pop Gam’ we call the material.”
“Yes, I think we Homo sapiens are now calling it ‘Mattium,’” smiled Ryan at the commander. “A mix of platinum, cobalt, nickel, osmium, palladium, iridium, and a few others if I correctly remembered what our chemistry lab called it.” Commander Joot smiled; he got the joke, but Elder Roo didn’t.
VIN and Elder Roo ran back up the slope to help each other fit on their suits. There was nobody else to help them in the near empty base. The others were either refueling SB-II or doing other chores.
Within 30 minutes they returned. Walking down the dirt slope in a full suit reminded VIN of being on DX2014, when Maggie had first found the diamonds. She had walked down a slope much the same, just far shorter. VIN handed Ryan his mobile radio.
“You in there, Mr. Noble?” asked Ryan.
“Yes sir,” replied VIN, standing to attention. “All the flesh, metal, batteries, bones and brains of one Lieutenant VIN Noble, Marines, Force Recon, sir,” he said, saluting.
“It seems our men are ready for the unknown commander,” continued Ryan. “How do we open the door?” Commander Joot closed his eyes and his face became serious with concentration.
Suddenly came a sound of metal grating on metal, and slowly the door began to move. First the white solid door area lifted up nearly a foot. Ryan could see that it was being raised on arms beneath the door, hydraulics by the look of the two arms. The whole door, about four feet wide and six feet long, was thick, a whole foot thick. It had to be to be able to carry the hundreds of tons of sand that had sifted above it. The door slowly reached its apex and then began sliding over the rest of the roof.
Commander Joot had really cleaned this area while waiting for the two suits to return. Still, there was a screeching sound as metal grated on a few sand particles left.
The entire operation took a whole minute, and as the door stopped screeching, light could be seen brightening from inside the hole. The commander had opened the door with his mind.
“I know the three of you can mentally chat to one another, but I would still like to be in on the discussions,” asked Ryan.
“Sorry Ryan,” replied Joot. “I was telling the two youngsters that there are stairs leading down, three flights of eighteen stairs down exactly forty feet to the ground floor. Once they reach head level, I wanted a report from Elder Roo on what he could see. You said that the air could be dangerous, so I’m not sticking my head in there. You are right; the air coming up really smells bad.”
“Mr. Noble, go inside the cavern. I want a readout before the commander and I keel over. It certainly stinks.”
Elder Roo was held back by VIN, who entered first, walking down the small steps. He was used to them, as they were the same size as he had found in all the caverns so far. Even the same railings were there, and he was astounded by how big the underground cavern was when he could peer inside.
“Nitrogen levels, high and dangerous. I suggest you back away up the slope for 30 minutes or so. I can tell you what I find until the air clears. Low amounts of oxygen, a high helium level, although breathable for us. Carbon dioxide, extremely high, three times danger level. Carbon monoxide, zero. I suggest you stay far away until the airs have had a chance to mix. Elder Roo, let’s go.”
Ryan and Igor were already feeling dizzy from the bad air and they and the commander headed back up the slope.
“I hear you, Commander. I can only see two ships. One is in parts and looks like it might have been broken up for spares,” Ryan heard over the radio.
“Sorry Ryan, I had to know how many spaceships there were in there, and I’m breathing too hard to talk,” said the commander in gasps as they walked up the slope.
They reached the surface pulling poor Igor. He was still the weakest among them. All three breathed hard and sat on the old stairs leading up to the lip of the crater. They were certainly not as fit as they should be.
“Commander?” asked Ryan, once he could get his breath.
“Two ships instead of three, one is broken, one is missing. I believe it could be the Ruler’s ship that is missing. He must still be out there in space somewhere. I had a very slight feeling that there was somebody else on DX2017, but I could not speak to them. Maybe there was a new flight cavern made on our transport planet, and it was made after I was lost on Titan,” Commander Joot suggested.
“Funny, I had the same feeling,” added Elder Roo.
“Me too!” said VIN excitedly. “Commander Joot, for me it was strongest when you took off from DX2017, out of the cavern. I thought I could hear somebody mumbling, like in their sleep.”
“Impossible, as my Supreme Ruler must be very cold and asleep on the transport planet,” Commander Joot replied excitedly. “Maybe he was flying out to find us. Yes, I remember now. Before I left the Pig’s Snout for the last time, Supreme Ruler Pong designed a crew compartment for himself in one of the spacecraft for long periods of flight. Yes! Yes! It is all coming back to me. I have forgotten so much. Being here brings back memories.”
“It’s called old age,” remarked VIN from far below.
“Then your forgetfulness will begin shortly, Tall Metal Person,” joked Commander Joot. Ryan rolled his eyes at that one. Jonesy had certainly started something by giving the old man a sense of humor. “I think that maybe Ruler Pong finished his design and came out to find us. I think I visualized once three flight caverns on the transport planet, but I always thought it my imagination.”
“Or somebody was telling you telepathically?” suggested VIN.
“Yes, that’s it. Maybe Ruler Pong had a new system, something he was communicating with. Like your speaking and listening boxes.”
“Radios, like this?” asked Ryan holding out his mobile radio. “It could be possible that he had a telepathic recorded message going out to anybody looking for him.”
These days, for Ryan nothing was impossible. Nobody in his crew thought inside the box anymore.
“Tell me where you are and what you see,” said Joot.
“First of all, three gases still at danger levels but changing for the better,” continued VIN. “Apart for the two aircraft I can see the glowing walls all around us. The temperature in here has risen from 55 degrees to 61 degrees, so the outside air is coming in. It is bigger than an aircraft carrier’s hangar in here.”
“Hot air rises, so it could be some time before it is safe for us,” added Igor.
“I can see work benches and parts of spacecraft hanging on lines,” continued VIN. “There are several steel beds, and what looks like a kitchen or cooking area way off on the opposite side. Much of the area has mounds of dust like we found in the other caverns. Only metal skeletons remain. Also, Ryan, Igor, this level only covers about half of the crater area.”
“You are only seeing the aircraft cavern. There are still two floors beneath you twice as large,” added Joot.
“Better open them up, Commander,” Ryan suggested.
“They should be open. Elder Roo, walk to
the kitchen area. There should be an open door with a metal staircase. The staircase will have the same three flights of stairs to the next floor, and then a second exact door in front of you will lead to the third floor.”
“Where are the cryonic chambers, Commander?” asked Ryan.
“On the third, the lowest level,” was the reply.
“Mr. Noble, we have no doctors down here. We will have to leave that area until SB-III returns in a few days.”
“Copy that, boss. Commander, there is no door open where you suggested there might be one,” VIN replied.
“Maybe I have to get closer,” Commander Joot replied.
“I don’t think so, Commander; the air in here is still not safe,” VIN replied.
“Come on, Commander Joot; it seems we are not going in there unless dressed in spacesuits,” and he led the commander back to the control tent to suit up.
On the way out, the two men were halted by a radio message from Captain Pete. Now they were wearing suits, they could hear all the conversations going on.
“America One to Ground Control: the space above Earth is clear again. There have been no missiles or cube launches for several hours. Request new orders on blasting China. There are several very large fires down there hundreds of miles across; three cities seem to be a blaze and over one hundred military installations. Overall, we have fired 8,717 blasts from all four ships into that country. I’m a little worried about our laser weapons. They are heating up quicker and quicker, and all four of our plutonium blocks are overheating, over.”
“Shut them all down,” replied Ryan. “Get the new crewmembers aboard the mother ship dressed and housed. Resume firing on any country that sends up anything more than a hot air balloon, and Captain Pete, continue to warn all three countries until you get a confirmation that they have received the message. On your next pass take photos of China ablaze. Also photos of our destroyed airfield telling them that this attack was the reason for our reprisal on that country, plus the news that two hundred Russian troops are heading home. The United States has tried to kill me and my crew. Tell the world that tidbit of information as well, and that Astermine is at war with all three countries. Show the whole world, every country, and send the photos with your messages. It should make all the papers and news feeds worldwide, and tell everybody that all we want is to be left alone. Captain Pete, explain to every country that the Big Bad Three have failed to harm our ships or weapons whatsoever.”
Ryan had decided that the news about the fires in China and the attacks on his crew needed to be broadcast. There was little to no international communications with no satellites in space, so Ryan had decided to broaden the world’s knowledge of the atrocities against him.
Carefully and slowly, both men headed down the ramp. When it came to war, fighting, and hurting other humans, Commander Joot never said a word. It was out of his line of mental understanding, and he ignored the information going through his communications devices.
“VIN, Elder Roo, you still alive down there?” Ryan asked as they reached the open door.
“Roger, just sitting around waiting for you guys,” VIN replied.
“There isn’t much down here to see, but Commander Joot, it doesn’t feel that there is any life down here, even in the sleep rooms,” added Elder Roo.
Slowly and carefully the two men entered the cavern and, negotiating the stairs one by one, they finally reached ground level.
Ryan looked up for the first time to see the same sort of flight cavern they had found on the planets, except ten times bigger. It looked like a half-empty and desolate interior of a superstore. Only in one area where it looked like the spacecraft had been manufactured was there any sort of organization. All else was just piles of dust.
“I would assume that the atmosphere destroyed everything in here far more quickly than out in space.” suggested Ryan, looking around. “I’m sure the oxidization and atmospheric destruction of all equipment down here is many times worse than, say, on Mars, or the blue planet, Igor.”
“One hundred percent correct,” Igor replied through the intercom from the command center.
“I am hoping that Ruler Pong, or whoever was the last in command down here, had the idea to extract the atmosphere from the lower levels,” said Commander Joot.
“Could they do that?” Ryan asked.
“They could have, using the shields, but it would have killed anybody not in the sleeping chambers. Our suits weren’t made for vacuum.”
“I should have thought of using the shields,” replied Ryan. “Maybe that’s why the door didn’t open. Is there a manual door opener?”
“Yes,” replied the commander, “here,” and VIN recognized the same small panel next to the doors they had found once they got the hang of the systems in the other Matt bases where he had used the small mirrors.
“Better stand back,” suggested VIN as Joot opened the door.
As expected, a blue shield began to grow over the commander as it expanded out of the open door. He just stood there, and the growth of the shield stopped once he was half enveloped. His arm with all the air sensors was inside the shield, and he stepped inside to read them.
“You were right, Ryan. Somebody set up a shield, and inside it is much like space: no atmosphere whatsoever. Temperature is 56 degrees. Igor, how is that?” Commander Joot asked.
“Commander,” Igor responded after thinking hard about why the temperature was not freezing or at absolute zero. “Our idea of a vacuum up to now was a bit of space, only outside our Earth atmosphere, with nothing in it. Ever since we have studied your shields, the temperatures have differed to our locations. On Mars, the area inside the shield around America One was a few degrees warmer than when America One was orbiting Titan or Enceladus. As physics states, we don’t know of any examples of a perfect vacuum. Space beyond the Earth’s atmosphere isn’t a bad approximation to a perfect vacuum, but it is filled with solar wind particles, light from the sun, cosmic rays and cosmic microwave background radiation. It’s probably also filled with dark matter, which doesn’t interact with other stuff, except gravitationally, and possibly only through feeble and weak interactions, as well as with neutrinos. But to answer the question, I believe that the temperature inside a vacuum will become the same as the temperature of the area surrounding the vacuum, if there is anything surrounding the vacuum. Read up on Prevost’s exchange energy theory. A thermos flask holding hot soup will cool over time as the heat dissipates through its vacuum walls. The vacuum in a thermos flask is there to slow the dissipation of heat, it can’t halt it. The ground temperature of Earth is about 55 degrees. The chamber door you just opened most probably stopped any alternative temperatures from above ground changing the room’s inner temperature. If the shield could survive in, say, molten lava, then the vacuum inside the shield would correspond with the temperature of the lava around it.”
“Well answered, Igor,” commended Ryan. “I’m sure every scientist and physicist on Earth would agree, or argue your views until doomsday, but we still need to shut this shield down and allow fresh air in here. Commander?”
“I think so,” agreed Joot. “Anybody who is still alive in the sleeping chambers will die when they are opened if they don’t have an atmosphere to breathe, just like VIN and Elder Roo nearly died saving my life on Titan.”
“I understand. Commander, this is your home base: you give the orders down here,” Ryan replied.
“Whatever we find down here will be old,” Elder Roo added.
“Not if the equipment hadn’t had a chance to oxidize like on the flight level,” answered Igor.
“I think the best is to shut down the shields, salvage what we can, release any people who are down there, and close our home down. We Matts would have been long dead if you hadn’t found us,” replied the commander. “Thanks to you Homo sapiens, some of us see a new Earth, but we cannot live here anymore. There is no food and water. Thanks to you, Ryan, we returned, risking everything to gather its secr
ets. I believe we should close down all the shields and take them back to Mars. Do you know why we invented these shields in the first place?” The three shook their heads.
The crew walked into the power room where Ryan and VIN were excited to see five black boxes sitting inside. Commander Joot turned off all five boxes and slowly the shields began to decrease in size, sucking in air from outside. Ryan suggested that they wait a few hours and return without suits once it was safe to do so. The others agreed, and one by one they headed up both sets of stairs and back to the command tent.
“If you notice, this cavern is exactly ten times larger than the caverns you found on the planets,” said the commander once they had their helmets off and were relaxing. “In other words, each of those bases on the planets are exactly the same design as these caverns, just one tenth of the size. When I left for the last time, we had a population of only 1,000 Matts left living on Earth. Each level could accommodate 500 of our people. Before I was born, and when I was a young boy, many farmers lived outside in the fields around the crater. There is a corridor far too low for Mr. Jones to walk through, which leads to a door from the lowest level and thence outside of the crater, about halfway down. There in the fertile lands was a community living there, our Matt farmers, over 10,000 of them. They grew and grew in numbers and supplied the crater with food. There were many differences of opinion between the cavern Matts and the farming Matts. We designed equipment for farming for them, so they could farm. In return, they fed us. We inside were thinkers, designers and inventors. As the lake and river water dried up over about 100 years, many decided that they wanted to travel south and west, where the areas were still lush and green. Many families stayed to feed us and to bring us water, but the ground became drier and drier, and crops harder to grow, so they slowly left, but not before we had made ourselves self-sufficient inside the crater by limiting our numbers and gathering water when it was available from the river. We manufactured many water tanks for storage and grew crops inside the crater.”
