StS6 Deep Space - Hidden Terror

by Laurence Dahners

  Since Lee’s trip was only twelve days each way with a few days on-site, Norm and the kids had stayed on Earth in order to keep the children’s school schedules from getting discombobulated.

  Having gotten everything into the luggage locker, Lee walked over and stepped into the human stasis booth. A crewman closed it.

  Lee took a breath, expecting to be on Ceres in a blink of stasis with the door of the booth immediately reopening. The blink happened, recognizable because Lee’s weight decreased. She immediately knew something had happened, because, though the gravity was less, it wasn’t right for Ceres. It should’ve dropped from the one-sixth gravity (0.165g) of the Moon to the 0.029g of Ceres. Instead, it only felt a little less than she’d been feeling on the moon. The booth’s door opened. It was no surprise to see she hadn’t, as expected, been destazed in the Ceres docking area. Instead, she saw she was in a destazer in what she thought was the crew area of the ship. Ah, she thought, I could be feeling the normal 0.143g acceleration of the Island-class fusion rocket. Which, after all, wouldn’t be too different from the 0.165 g on the Moon. A woman wearing a captain’s insignia was just outside the door, giving her a concerned look. Something bad’s happened, Lee realized with alarm, or they wouldn’t have destazed me in transit. “What is it?” she asked, heart sinking.

  “Radio message for you from Staze headquarters in Virginia.”

  “What’d it say?!” she asked, heart-stopping at the thought that, to destaze her for a radio message partway through the trip, something must’ve happened to Norm, Will, or Diane.

  “Sorry,” the woman said. “The message is encrypted so I don’t know anything beyond the fact that it’s marked highest-priority and the header requests you be brought out of stasis.”

  “Let me see it,” Lee said, looking to the captain’s hands for a tablet or other display. The woman’s hands were empty.

  Turning to lead Lee down the hall, the captain said, “I’ll take you to the comm shack. You can decrypt it there and send a reply if needed.”

  “How many light minutes for a message at present?”

  “About eleven minutes right now,” the captain said back over her shoulder.

  To keep from fretting excessively about the content of the message, Lee looked about her as they moved through the personnel area of the ship. Though she’d had a hand in designing the Island-class ships, and ridden in them on numerous occasions, she realized she’d never been awake during transit. It has more of an industrial feel than I’d expected, she thought. Of course, everything that could be made of vacuum Stade was, to reduce the mass of the ship—thereby reducing fuel consumption and increasing speed. Even if the passengers never see these halls because they’re in stasis, she thought, I think we should’ve put more effort into making it homey for the crew.

  After a moment, she thought, On the other hand, even the crew spends most of their time in stasis. Maybe homey would’ve been a waste.

  The captain stopped in front of a small compartment Lee recognized designating the “communication center” back when they were drawing up plans. She said, “This is the comm shack, Ms. Lee. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll show you how to access your message.”

  A couple of minutes later, Lee started reading a long dispatch from Kaem—long because of how difficult two-way communication was with an eleven-minute radio transit. Therefore, it was normal to send a long message containing everything you thought the other person needed to know. This, in hopes they could answer without asking questions that would require another twenty-two-minute round trip.

  Lee,

  Sorry to bring you out of stasis partway to Ceres but we have an issue and the ship you’re in is one of the few craft in the solar system that’s well-positioned to help with it. President Del Rio has asked whether you and Captain Massey would be willing to help. I’m contacting you first so that no one, not even Massey, need know if you decide to say no.

  The issue is that some amateur comet searchers have detected three large and one small light-emitting objects out beyond Saturn. At first, they assumed the objects were unusually bright cometary fragments. However, when some of the bigger observatories set out to evaluate their orbits, they found the object’s velocities were greater than 0.5 percent of light speed. They’re on decelerating trajectories that will intersect Saturn. The objects aren’t as large as expected from the amount of light we’re detecting. This appears to be because most of the light is from the exhaust of the rockets that’re responsible for the deceleration. Spectroscopy shows the exhaust is mostly high-temperature hydrogen with some helium and traces of other gasses. Since there is little water and the estimated temperatures are above 13,000⁰C, it isn’t a chemical rocket. In fact, at that temperature, we think it’s powered by a gaseous-core fission-reactor using hydrogen and helium as reaction mass. There isn’t enough helium to suspect a fusion drive.

  In any case, the ships aren’t human unless there’s a completely unknown faction of humans out there somewhere. They appear to have arrived from interstellar space in the direction of Epsilon Eridani, but Tau Ceti, Sirius, and several red dwarf stars are in somewhat the same direction.

  Messages scientists have previously designed for communication with extra-terrestrials have been dug up and sent to the ships over a variety of radio frequencies. There have been no responses as of yet, not even a repeat back to indicate the aliens understand they’ve received a message.

  We, therefore, have no indication of their intent. Some insist that ships capable of crossing interstellar distances must be from societies so advanced that they have to be peaceful. Others proclaim that the only prudent course is to assume they are inimical.

  Because their exhaust plumes are facing us, we have poor imaging and are certainly unable to determine whether they might bear weapons. Based on the size of the exhaust plumes and their rates of deceleration, the three larger ships mass between 5,000 and 10,000 tonnes, far bigger than any of our spacecraft.

  In order to assess their nature and intent, Phoenix, the just-completed four-motor, City-class spacecraft has launched in the direction of Saturn. Because of its high acceleration, it will only take about twelve days to reach the area and come to a stop. If the aliens do not maneuver to match or avoid its trajectory, they will then have to accelerate back toward the inner system to match courses. Phoenix is armed, though not as powerfully as some would like. It’s staffed by a UN Diplomat, Rene Lasalle of France, and crewed by members of the US Space Force commanded by Brigadier General Henry Martin.

  We’re contacting you and the SC Maui in hopes you might be willing to divert from your trip to Ceres toward that Saturn rendezvous. This is on the hopefully remote chance that Phoenix might need some assistance should problems develop. Because SC Maui has already accelerated to about 760 km/sec, on a trajectory only seven degrees from an ideal plot to reach Saturn, you could reach the vicinity of Phoenix’s meeting with the aliens in eighteen days (if Maui continues accelerating for another six days to reach 1,488 km/sec, then decelerates for a little less than twelve days). We’ve checked, and according to your flight plan, Maui has enough p-B fuel to make the trip and return with a few tons to spare (plenty to spare if you accelerate and decelerate for shorter portions of the return trip).

  We are prepping another Island-class ship, SC Key West, which will leave the moon later today and could arrive at Saturn in twenty-four days. It will also be armed and staffed with Space Force personnel. A third, SC Santa Catalina, should leave tomorrow.

  Space Force has requested that Staze undertake a crash program to complete Laredo, the first of their purpose-built fighting ships and Staze is complying with this request. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely we can complete Laredo and get her space-worthy in less than six months. In addition, as you know, she was designed with an eye toward policing rather than actual warfighting, so Laredo may not be that useful if it comes to an all-out battle. Space Force has submitted preliminary ideas for an actual warcraft that we’ve begun
to look at, but it couldn’t possibly be available in less than a year—more likely several years.

  We are uncertain what, if anything, you might be asked to do, because we have no idea what might happen. However, after extensive discussion, the conclusion is that having another ship there as soon as possible is only prudent. No one would expect you to participate in any military engagement, but should we need observation of events, or, God forbid, tracking of debris or rescue of personnel; or perhaps something completely unanticipated, it seems sensible to have you there—if you’re willing.

  Personally, I’d feel better if we had someone with your judgment on site.

  On the other hand, we’re very aware that you didn’t sign up for this, that you have a husband and children who depend on you, that if something bad happens it’s unlikely you’ll be able to help much, and that it might place you and Maui at significant unrecognized risk. You might be able to ameliorate that risk (if you recognized an oncoming danger) by putting Maui in stasis for a few hours, days, weeks, or months, to let the danger pass, but it’s conceivable that, in the face of alien technology, that might not work. If you don’t feel comfortable taking on this endeavor, please decline to do so. No one will think less of you. In fact, no one but myself and President Del Rio will be aware of the request.

  By our estimates, you have a couple of hours to decide before Maui would normally turn over to begin its deceleration to Ceres, but you should confirm that with your captain.

  Please let us know your decision ASAP so we can figure it into our planning.

  Kaem

  Lee looked up and found herself the focus of Captain Massey’s worried eyes. For a moment she worried Massey had somehow read the message from Kaem. Then she realized that Massey was simply worried about Lee, who must have—since she’d had to be destazed midway to Ceres—presumably received bad news. In fact, she’s probably wondering why anyone would be brought out halfway to Ceres. Even if I’d received news requiring an immediate return home, we’d still have to decelerate and couldn’t start back the other way until we reached a stop, at which point we’d almost be at Ceres anyway.

  Lee studied Massey a moment, wishing she knew the woman. Thinking she needed to get this underway, she said, “Captain Massey, this is a rather momentous message. Instead of trying to explain what’s going on, I think it’ll be easier if I just let you read the message yourself.”

  Lee stood and scooted to the side so Massey could move to the chair in front of the screen.

  Massey moved into position but stayed standing, not uncommon in such low gravity. She leaned forward to read. About the time Lee thought Massey would have reached the second paragraph, though, she seemed to deflate. “Aliens?!” she breathed, as she slowly sank into the chair.

  Lee didn’t respond, just waited for Massey to finish reading.

  A few minutes later Massey turned to look wide-eyed up at Lee. “What do you want to do?” she asked in a near whisper.

  Lee shrugged. “I want to go. But not if you or your crew don’t.”

  Massey gave her a crooked smile. “I used to think making first contact would be a great adventure. Now I find myself suffering rectal cramps.”

  Lee smiled back, “I know what you mean. You want me to tell them I don’t want to do it? No need for anyone to ever learn you knew what was in the message.”

  “Oh, no,” Massey said with a snort. “I respect my younger self enough to take her on this journey. I’ll go start the ship’s AI working on new orbital parameters.”

  Lee put a hand on Massey’s shoulder, “Not till we’ve destazed your crew and let them weigh in. I don’t want to do this unless everyone’s willing.”

  While Massey went to destaze the rest of the crew, Lee sent Kaem a holding message, telling him that she was thinking about it.

  ~~~

  Everyone in the crew said they wanted to go for it. Most were young and excited to do it. Lee had the impression that Ray Jones, the first officer, was putting on a brave face to cover apprehension he didn’t want to show, but when she caught him in private and tried to give him another chance to back out, he insisted that he wanted to go.

  Lee sent another message to Kaem, saying that she, the captain, and the crew were all committed to going, having them all sign off on the message to limit the number of transmissions that had to go back and forth. She asked for the specifics regarding the alien’s trajectories, further analysis of what they might do, suggestions for the parameters of their course, and recommendations as to where they should aim to arrive in the Saturn system or this side of it. Since web searches out there were inordinately clumsy due to the time delay, she also requested literature on what sober, thoughtful people who’d considered first contact at some length thought might happen. Especially how to initiate communication channels.

  Without waiting for any of that information, the excited Massey went off to start the nav computer working on the astrogation for the possible course changes.

  While Lee waited for a message back from Kaem, she started making lists of things to consider:

  Why would aliens travel across interstellar space? The costs in time and resources seem so daunting it’s hard to imagine why they would do it. Certainly not for trade since transporting anything back to the home system had to be far more costly than its value.

  Could these aliens have ships that could jump from the periphery of one solar system to another? She’d read some science fiction that had ships jumping from the periphery of one system to another, perhaps through wormholes. If so, could that make interstellar trade viable?

  How to communicate with the aliens if they never respond to radio.

  What if we end up fighting? What weapons might they have? What could we improvise? What is the Space Force crew of SC Phoenix carrying?

  She sat back looking at the first bullet point on her list. Why the hell would aliens cross interstellar space to start a war? she wondered. And wondered some more. She couldn’t imagine a reason why. Unless it’s easy for them to do it and they want some resource we have but they don’t. And, of course, if transporting it back home is cheap for them. Or they so desperately need that resource that it makes the expense worth it.

  But all of the elements should be present in huge quantities in any solar system, and if you have the elements, you should be able to create any molecules…

  And, if they could jump from the middle of one solar system to the middle of another, why hadn’t they done it this time? And if they could only jump from the periphery of one system to the periphery of another, she couldn’t imagine a resource valuable enough to even transport it to the periphery of the system where they could jump. Maybe, she thought, something rare. Something that they could transport in small quantities and it’d still be worth it. Something they’re running out of that they desperately need, uranium perhaps, since they use fission power. Perhaps uranium’s become so valuable to them that they do find it worthwhile to jump from the periphery of one system to another?

  Lee was still puzzling over this when they got a message back from Earth with expressions of appreciation from President Del Rio. The message contained suggested orbital mechanics for their trip. Then a big data download of material on alien contact started. Lee felt amused to see it included some science fiction stories that’d imagined such contact. After she considered it, she decided it wasn’t so crazy to read a novel about how some people had envisioned such contact might occur, good or bad.

  She’d been thinking she’d go back into stasis but decided she needed to spend the trip reading all those materials.

  And, she thought, I’d better write to Norm and the kids. Kaem had warned her that word of the aliens was leaking, so the government was working on how to release the news. She hoped it’d be better if her husband and kids got word of what she was doing from her, rather than wondering. Though, just because I’d prefer to know if I were them, doesn’t mean they’d feel the same, she thought worriedly.

  ***


  AP White House, Washington, DC—At a press conference today President Del Rio confirmed the rumors that amateur astronomers had detected alien spacecraft entering the periphery of our solar system. They appear to have arrived from interstellar space and to be on a trajectory that will take them to Saturn. As their four ships are currently slowing, it’s assumed that their goal is the ringed planet rather than Earth itself.

  “There is little else to tell you at this time,” Del Rio said. “Their place of origin is unknown, though the closest star similar to ours on that side of our Solar System is Epsilon Eridani. We’re making intense efforts to contact the alien ships, but as yet have not received a response. Diplomatic personnel are on their way to the Saturn region to observe and hopefully meet with the aliens.

  “We have no reason to believe they mean us harm but are preparing in case they do. We are working with the UN and our allies to coordinate our responses. It is our fondest hope that they come in peace and that aliens and humans might work together to the betterment of both species.

  “We have no idea what they’re like because of their lack of communication and because their ships are still too far away to determine anything of their nature as yet.”

  Del Rio did not answer any of the questions shouted by reporters at the meeting but did promise that further information would be forthcoming as it came available.

  Diddiq came back out of hibernation two and a half months later. He decided he didn’t feel as bad as he had after the last hibernation. Before the last time, he’d been in hibernation for two long periods interrupted by an hour or so to talk to Rabaq. He decided it was easier to wake all the way up, spending a few days awake and eating normally, than to wake all the way, force down a big meal of hibernation food, then go right back under. Normally, during hibernation, you ate a little bit of hibernation food occasionally in a subconscious fashion—without fully waking. Just enough to maintain your vastly-slowed metabolism. Diddiq decided that was less stressful to his system than waking, consciously eating a large meal, and then going right back down.