by H. G Ahedi
“Why?”
“It found a planet where the crew discovered prehistoric rocks and bones of a species we’ve never seen before.”
“Should we be taking other species’ remains?” Emmeline asked.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Aceline said dismissively. “They’re long gone, and I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Emmeline smiled. Nor had she until she’d felt the presence in Sector 1001.
“But something tells me you’re not here to talk about relics,” said Aceline.
“I am here to talk about this,” Emmeline said, handing over a pad. It contained the two patterns she had isolated from the plaque.
Aceline arched her eyebrows and tapped on the pad. “Fascinating,” she mumbled, walking away from Emmeline and over to her desk.
For the next ten minutes, Emmeline watched Aceline walk up and down the hall, humming and smiling to herself. She hoped Aceline would realize she was still in the lab.
“Where did you find this?” Aceline finally asked.
“In the northern mountains on Earth.”
“Really?”
Emmeline said nothing.
“Have you brought the original with you?”
“No.”
Aceline placed the pad on the desk and looked at the image as if memorizing it. “You want it translated?”
“Yes. I’ve looked through the computer, but it couldn’t interpret it. I think it’s something that wouldn’t be in a scientific database.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Aceline admitted. “These lines are interesting.”
Emmeline wasn’t sure. “I know you’re busy, and I hope this doesn’t take up too much of your time . . .”
“Ahh, I’ll do it.”
Emmeline was pleased and extended her hand.
“Why so formal? Come here, my dear.” Aceline stepped forward and hugged her.
Emmeline didn’t know how to react. Soon, they parted.
“Okay,” said Aceline. “Now I need to get home before I forget! Goodnight.”
One Week Later
Titan, Deck 1
Anastasia strolled through the corridors of Titan. Even though it was early in the morning, Titan was already buzzing with activity. Three big cargo ships were getting ready to leave the solar system, and Titan was their pit stop for supplies. Anastasia’s job was to make sure the ships got everything they needed for their long journeys. They were the first ships to head off to the Torus colony, which was twenty light-years away from Titan. The doors opened, and Anastasia entered the busy docking bay.
She watched as men, and women rushed across the large hall. Huge boxes were being moved by Automated Hovering Carriers (AHC). These were rectangular floating platforms designed to move the cargo from one place to another. She watched as six barrels of fuel floated just above the floor and slowly moved toward Docking Port 5. Satisfied that her people could do the job; she headed to the bridge.
A familiar voice called her from behind. “Good morning, Commander,” said Lieutenant Cyr Storm.
“Good morning. How are you today?”
“I’m good, thank you. Did you see my report?”
“Yes, I did. Excellent work.”
The doors to the elevator opened, and the women stepped in.
“Right. Thanks,” Cyr replied. “Are you sure you don’t want me to look into anything else?”
Anastasia regarded her. “Computer, stop elevator.” The elevator stopped. “What’s going on?” Anastasia asked lowly.
Cyr hesitated. “Titan is running . . . perfectly. It’s been a year now, and not even a transformer needs fixing. All systems are working perfectly.”
Anastasia smiled. “That’s a compliment to its engineer. You’ve taken good care of Titan.”
Cyr forced a smile. “There was some excitement last week,” she said. “We detected cosmic dust in the armory. There was a small hole in Titan’s hull. It was exciting, especially because my staff fought over the job. To keep them busy, I asked them to check all the systems to make sure the cosmic dust hadn’t done any more damage.”
“Excellent,” Anastasia commented wondering if finding holes was exciting.
“Commander, I need to tell you something. I’m going nuts.”
“Why?”
“There’s nothing to do,” Cyr said. “Everything is the same. Every day is the same. Titan is running so perfectly; I don’t have anything new to do.”
“You’ll find something.”
“More space dust?”
“I’m sure this is just temporary . . .”
Cyr shook her head. “No. It’s not. I haven’t told you the entire story. After my team finished cleaning up the space dust, I found myself hovering over a console. The tactical console. I wanted to fire a torpedo just to make sure it worked.”
Anastasia’s face hardened.
Cyr cleared her throat. “Freedom is planning another deep space mission in the next couple of weeks. They’re looking for an engineer. I’m thinking about taking the job.”
Anastasia felt as if the environmental systems had stopped working. The elevator felt warm, and her palms grew damp. “I see. Are you sure?”
“Lieutenant Baker is an excellent engineer,” Cyr said. “He’ll take good care of Titan. I’ll make sure he does.”
Anastasia did not smile.
“Please. Titan is fantastic, but there’s nothing more to do or learn here.”
“If that is what you want, Cyr, I will support your application,” Anastasia said woodenly.
“Thank you!” Cyr replied.
“Computer, resume,” Anastasia said, looking at the door. She gritted her teeth. She wasn’t happy to let Cyr go and fought the urge to ask her to stay. But then she asked herself if she was being fair. Because when she looked deep inside herself, she didn’t want to stay either.
Titan, Deck 1, Bridge
“Everything is ready to go, Commander,” said Adrian from the helm.
“Good,” said Anastasia. “Open the gates.”
They watched quietly as the three ships left the system. As the ships disappeared from view, Adrian secured the perimeter. “Commander, I’d like to run a diagnostic of the perimeter,” he said.
“Do it.” Anastasia watched the dead space, feeling sorry and sad. Not because they were going, but because she couldn’t.
Titan, Deck 2, Crystal Lab
As usual, Emmeline was the last to finish up. When she was done, she looked blankly at the screen.
The doors opened. “Ah, there you are.”
Emmeline jumped. She calmed down when she saw it was Aceline. “Hi.”
“Hello, how are you?”
Emmeline beamed, “I am well, thanks.”
“I’ll get straight to the point,” said Aceline. “I have studied the images of the plaque you gave me and also the data you collected. You didn’t find this piece of rock in the mountains,” She studied Emmeline’s face. “Darling, look. If you don’t want to tell me something, that’s your business, but this rock could be really ancient. Maybe centuries, even millennia old.”
“What?” demanded Emmeline. “You’re telling me this could be from the ice age? The stone age?”
“The ice age, I believe. We’ve recorded over five significant ice ages throughout our planet’s history, and the most recent one ended around eighteen thousand years ago. While many other species perished, humans adapted to the changing conditions by developing tools, hunting, building fires, and tribes. You see, my dear, there were no alphabets or languages at that time. Man didn’t even know how to speak.” She paused. “When there was no language, there were drawings. Doodles, you and I would say. But it was their way of communicating.”
“What are these doodles?” Emmeline asked, pointing towards the lines.
“It’s an interesting finding.” she said, “What do you think they are?”
Emmeline nudged her head, “They look like sunrays…”
“Yes… tha
t is what I thought. And I ran hundreds of algorithms to test this hypothesis. But then I started thinking… maybe it was something else… I got an idea when I heard Anastasia play the piano in her quarters.”
Emmeline raised a brow.
* * *
Stone made plaque (front)
* * *
“What if… this is a diagram of a musical instrument with three-level keys…”
Emmeline stood straight. She hadn’t thought about it that way. “What do you mean?”
“Usually, such drawings describe the sun, the moon, the mountains, and the rivers. Some are about animals. But these . . . these could be tunes.”
“Tunes?” Emmeline’s eyes widened.
“Exactly. Although early man was smart, he wasn’t smart enough to develop musical tunes and definitely didn’t have the skills to develop codes. They had music, but they didn’t know how to record it. Methods to record musical tunes were developed around the eleventh century.”
“Wow,” said Emmeline.
“Yes. Have you noticed the length of the lines?”
“Yes,”
“The shorter ones are 1.5 centimeters, the medium ones around 2 centimeters and the longest are about 2.9 centimeters. If you notice, it’s very faint but the medium-sized lines are a bit lighter than the color of the stone…”
“I noticed that… but thought it could be because it is old.”
“I agree. There are discolorations in several parts of the plaque. But let us assume that this is an instrument… that means the key to solve this could be a tune.”
Emmeline folded her arms, “There are too many possibilities.”
“Agreed. Then I remembered the seventeen indentations you mentioned, and you said it’s a constellation.”
“Yes. The Draco constellation.”
“Then let us assume that this musical tune doesn’t have over seventeen notes.”
Emmeline’s eyes widened.
“That narrows down the possibilities,” she said, handing over a pad. “I have recorded all the possible tunes and the only way to test them is to play them near the plaque.”
Emmeline stood feeling a bit dumb.
“We cannot know the tempo or the pitch of the tunes… but as I said, you won’t know until you test it.”
Emmeline looked through the list of tunes. “Thank you.” She felt so grateful. They were different, but Aceline had helped her without judging or questioning her.
“I should thank you! This thing had me baffled for a week, and I loved it! Let me know if you have something else this challenging. I’ll see you around, dearie!” Aceline said, turning to the door. Then she paused, looking hesitant. “You’re interested in the future. I’m interested in the past. If it’s not too much to ask, could you tell me where you found the plaque? I’d really like to study the actual thing.”
“As soon as I finish what I’m doing, I’ll hand it over to you,” Emmeline replied. “I’m really grateful for your help. I was going to give up.”
Aceline looked into her eyes. “You know that’s a lie. Women like you and me never give up.” Her lips spread into a wide smile. “I hope you have a tuning fork!”
Emmeline stood dumbfounded for a moment before she realized Aceline was joking.
Titan, Deck 1, Bridge
As the computer continued to run diagnostics, Adrian lost track of time. Today, he felt excited. Helping those ships depart had given him hope that one day, maybe, he could go on a mission. Titan was great, but four years was a long time. He was so consumed by his thoughts; he didn’t notice Evan sitting beside him.
“Hello there!”
“Ahh!” Adrian cried out. “What the . . .?”
“Yes, I am the ghost from your mythical . . .”
“Oh, shut up.”
“It’s midnight. Don’t you want to sleep?” Evan asked.
Adrian shrugged. “I have the next two days off. I thought it would be better if I completed the diagnostic. That way, I don’t have to worry about it.”
“You could leave it for me.”
“Nah, it’s okay.”
“Hey, what’s this?” Evan asked, tapping a few buttons on Adrian’s console.
“Don’t!”
“Oh, my Lord,” Evan said, looking at the video feed of the hangar deck. It was Delta. “Are you watching her?”
Astra had just returned after delivering another shipment from Vesta, one of the largest asteroids from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, currently a promising resource for mining platinum.
“Shush! No!” Adrian responded.
“You’re stalking her?”
“You don’t understand!” said Adrian. “I just wanted to make sure she returned safely. She took up the job of transporting miners from Earth to Vesta. That asteroid is unstable. I-I just wanted to make sure . . .”
“Adrian, you have to stop.”
“It’s not what you think. I’m just looking out for her.”
“You’ve been ‘looking out for her’ for as long as I can remember,” Evan said. “Time’s up! Either you ask her out or let her go.”
“I-I can’t,” Adrian said weakly. “I can’t ask her out.”
“Why not?”
“What if it ruins our friendship? I don’t want to take the risk.”
“Buddy, make your choice.”
Adrian’s face hardened, “Goodnight,” he said coldly.
Evan stood up. Just then, a loud beeping noise echoed on the bridge. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know. The diagnostic isn’t done yet,” Adrian said.
Evan took his station.
“It’s a signal,” said Adrian. “Something’s out there.”
“Out where?”
Adrian looked at him. “Beyond the perimeter.”
Titan, Deck 4, Emmeline’s quarters
Hours passed painfully, and Emmeline’s head began spinning. She had been playing the tunes, but all her efforts were in vain. The plaque sat silently on the table besides the pad which played one tune after another. Her annoyance grew, and she covered her ears with a pillow and put her feet on the table.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she muttered. Maybe it was all for nothing. Maybe Aceline was wrong. One can’t always be right. She should focus on her studies, on her training, and spending more time with Argon. Instead, she felt she was wasting her time listening to an out of tune orchestra.
A tune rang out, and she felt the table vibrate. She looked at the plaque and thought it emitted a glow. She paused the music and then played it again.
“Oh my god!”
As soon as the music died, the pad fell from her hands. She moved away as a bright yellow light began to emerge from the plaque. First, the grayish rock began to crack. Then it withered away until only a black plaque with a smooth surface remained. As if she had opened a closed book, pictures emerged. At first, Emmeline saw what looked like the sun, then three circles. Soon, the entire plaque was filled with symbols she had never seen before.
* * *
“What is this?” she wondered out loud.
Her communicator buzzed, but she didn’t want to look away. She was trying to understand what the plaque was telling her.
The communicator buzzed again. “Emmeline, this is Adrian.”
“Adrian, I’m busy.”
“I need you. There’s something beyond the perimeter. I think it’s an alien spacecraft.”
Emmeline froze.
“Emmeline?”
“Yes?”
“I need you in the Crystal Lab. Now!”
“Give me a minute!” She picked up the plaque, put it in the backpack, and returned it to the safe.
Titan, Deck 2, OBSERVATORY 1
Emmeline was puffing by the time she reached. She turned on the gamma-ray telescope and the thermal imaging system.
“Are you there yet?” asked Adrian through the intercom.
“I’m here. Transfer the coordinates.”
“Transferring coordinates.”
The large concave screen in front of her came to life. She stood on the console and began scanning.
“Have you tried hailing?” she asked.
“I have sent several hails; the ship is not responding.”
She didn’t answer him, and looked at the data.
“Emmeline,” said Anastasia. “What have you got?”
“Hold on.”
“Patch us through,” Adrian said. “I’m losing it. The ship is going off my sensors!”
“Okay. I’ve got it!”
The screen blurred for a few seconds, then cleared. She could see a vague long black craft.
“I’m patching the image through to the bridge.” Emmeline continued to tap on the panels. “Lieutenant, the reason it’s vanishing from your sensors is because it’s on the lower orbit of a gas giant approximately two light-years from our position.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“But we weren’t looking for it,” said Adrian. “How did Titan detect it?”
“I don’t . . .” Emmeline was about to reply when a small flash appeared from the ship. “Maybe that’s why. It just emitted some sort of energy blast . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s gone!” Adrian said. “I’ve lost it. Do you have it?”
“Hold on. I’m recalibrating the sensors.” Emmeline’s fingers danced on the panel. “Expanding search perimeters.” She turned on the gamma-ray spectrometer. Several minutes passed.
“Emmeline, try infrared spectrograph,” said Dr. Kent, entering the lab.
“Already on it,” Emmeline replied. “I’m also conducting all standard scans, including UV. Adjusting sensors,” she said.
“I will order the computer to take pictures using the telescopes so we can do a geospatial data analysis,” suggested Dr. Kent. He began working on a console.
“Understood.”
A few minutes passed.
“I’m having trouble keeping track of it. It’s disappearing from my sensors!” Emmeline cried out.
