Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (46 page)

“Yes, he did Lieutenant, yes, he did,” Colonel Pierce replied. “Operations, this is Colonel Pierce, are you seeing any changes in the beacon or any new contacts?”

“Negative sir,” came the reply.  “No changes.”

Colonel Pierce pressed the ships intercom relay. “This is Colonel Pierce, all crew but operations stations may stand down.”

“Lieutenant, you have the con, I am dropping down to operations.  You may spin up the habitat ring.”  As Colonel Pierce dropped down to operations he heard the spin warning alarm.  He grabbed a handhold as the ring containing operations, the mess deck, and sleeping compartments started slowly spinning so that there was about a third of a G in artificial gravity.  He had to close his eyes for a moment to clear the vertigo that was always felt when first experiencing the simulated gravity caused by centrifugal force.  The older you got the harder it was to adjust to this, he thought as he fought a wave of nausea.

Finally, after several minutes, it seemed his stomach and the vestibular structures of his inner ear calmed down.  He climbed down the ladder and walked over to the seat occupied by Lieutenant Allan Greco.  “That was some damned good piloting and a fantastic landing Lieutenant. At first, I thought you were coming down a little too hard.”

The Lieutenant grinned at him. “You and me both sir!  I am getting ready to deploy instruments now with your permission.”

Colonel Pierce nodded his permission as another wave of nausea swept him.  “Damn this spin,” he thought to himself, as he sat down beside the Lieutenant.

Down on the planet’s surface the landing pod raised several antennae, a communication dish and an instrument arm with an imaging camera.  The monitor on the desktop to the Lieutenants right came to life with a vista of the landing site.  He panned the camera one hundred and eighty degrees in one direction and then the other direction.

“There is nothing much to see from here, sir.  The ground looks sort of like the soil in Alaska during the Tundra melt in summer.  I bet the ground is soft down to six inches or so and then still frozen solid like permafrost below that.  It will probably take months or even years for it to thaw out completely.  I am transmitting atmospheric readings to the computer and on to mission control on Alpha.  Wind is about three knots from the southwest.  If I am correct, we are just under a kilometer from the artifact site.  I would like to deploy the air ship sir and do the initial recon of the area around the artifact site while we still have good daylight.”

“Go ahead, Lieutenant.  Notify me when it is ready to launch.  I hate to admit it, but I need to get something for this vertigo.  I never had this problem with the centrifugal gravity when I was younger.   I am going down to the mess deck.  Call me before you launch.”

…

At JPL headquarters Peter, Mike, and most of the Elpis Probe team were mesmerized in front of a large wall monitor that was showing the live feed being relayed from the David Honstein back to Alpha Station and then down to JPL Headquarters in Houston.  Although a couple of the staff members were old enough to remember photos from the Mars Rovers about twenty years ago, for most of them this was totally new.  Mars was a cold dead world.  Elpis seemed alive.  Although the ground was barren grayish brown dirt with scattered rocks, it was evident that there was an atmosphere above the lander in the sky. Low lying clouds could be seen moving past overhead and the distant vista of low rolling hills was hazy with humidity.

Robby spoke up excitedly.  “If you put grass on those hills it would look just like the plains country up in the Montana and North Dakota region.”

“The shame of it is, is that it looks totally sterile,” said Mike Banscott.  “You wonder if the planet was left totally alone, how long it would take for life to evolve there and cover those hills.  How many millions of years I wonder?”

Peter grinned, “Maybe not that long.  If we can get a manned expedition there on the ground we can analyze the soil and water, maybe we can speed the process up.  If the soil and atmosphere could support life, we could easily terraform the planet.  Who knows, in a couple of hundred years it could be as habitable as Earth.  How would you like to be one of the first colonists there?  Imagine it, starting a new life on a totally virgin planet.  I wonder if we could do it without screwing it up like we have large parts of Earth?”

“It won’t be us,” said Mike, “Maybe our children or grandchildren.”

“Look,” Robby pointed out. “They are deploying the airship.  Now, we should really be in for a show.”

…

On board the David Honstein, all the off watch crew members were crammed into the operations deck behind Colonel Pierce and Lieutenant Allan Greco watching the video feeds from the probe on the planet’s surface.  At the Lieutenant's command, a platform shelf was sliding out of the landing pod’s body.  He was monitoring the process from the deployed camera arm on the lander body.  The platform slid out about ten feet and stopped. On the platform was what appeared to be a large folded up piece of aluminized cloth.

“The airship platform is extended.  I am ready to inflate and launch the airship, Colonel.  Be aware that once I launch we have limited operational time and range on the airship.  It can do about two hours at full throttle with all instruments deployed and operating.  At half throttle I can possibly stretch it to six hours.  A lot of it depends on the wind and our direction of travel against the wind.  At the moment wind is out of the southwest at three to four knots with rare gusts up to eight knots.  The airship can do a maximum of ten knots at full throttle.”

Colonel Pierce nodded.  “Very well Lieutenant, take her up and head for the artifact site.  She is your baby.”

“Here we go, inflating the airship” intoned the Lieutenant.  The camera on the lander pod showed the bundle of cloth starting to expand and unfold.  As pure helium gas was released into the air bladder of the small airship it took shape until a small oval airship about four meters long and two meters wide took shape.  It slowly rose into the air above the lander pod.  Below the air bag a two meter long capsule deployed an antenna, a video camera, and two small arms with bulbs on the end of them.  As they watched, the two bulbs started spinning and two collapsible propellers opened up.  The airship started moving away from the lander pod.  “Airship is activated, switching to its video feed.”

The airship rose and started circling the lander that was now about fifty meters below it. “I have positive control of the airship,” said Lieutenant Greco.  “There is about a three second signal delay between my orders and the ship responding.” The view from the airship swiveled until they could see the landing pod sitting on the ground below it.

“I am changing course for the artifact site. I am moving at one third throttle and letting the wind help push the airship that way.  I am climbing to two hundred meters.”  The view from the airship showed the barren ground moving by below it at about five knots.  There were rolling hills in front of the airship.

  After it had traveled over the first hill Colonel Pierce spoke up. “Bear to the left a little.  What is that over on that hill side?”  As the Lieutenant turned the airship and closed on the object it quickly became apparent it was the lander wing that had ejected the landing pod.  It had gone about one thousand meters after the separation and crashed into the ground as planned.

“There is nothing to look at but the lander wing sir, so I am changing back on course to the artifact site. The airship is fighting the wind a little now.  I am throttling up to fifty percent power.”  After several minutes of barren landscape the Lieutenant spoke up. “Target site should be just over this next hill.” 

…

As the airship floated over the last hill, its destination lay spread out before it.  The people assembled in the JPL briefing room took in a collective breath as the airship came to a hover.  There, below and about sixty meters in front of it, was one of the most significant historical events in human history.  There in front of the airship, was proof that mankind was not the only intelligent species in the universe.  Although vaguely familiar in shape and function, there was no doubt that what they were seeing was not constructed by human hands.

The room was quiet until Peter spoke up for all of them. “This is absolutely amazing. I have dreamed of this for all of my life.”  The others in the room just nodded.

The airship started moving again as it slowly circled the site about fifty meters out and thirty meters in altitude.  There were two large semi-domes that each had one side that was completely flat.  The two domes were covered with some type of iridescent material that seemed to drink in the light and reflect it at the same time.  The flat sides appeared to contain a large multisided iris type feature.  The two smaller domes were facing another larger dome that was slightly different. Instead of a one flat side like the smaller ones, it had a small blockhouse like structure attached to one side that also appeared to have an iris type feature in its side.  While the smaller domes were about twenty five meters in diameter, the larger structure was about seventy five meters across.  The large dome had a very short squat lattice tower on it with multiple protrusions.

Sitting beside the large dome was what was easily recognized as an alien equivalent of a snow cat, or possibly a bulldozer.  It had six large tracks, three on each side.  The main body was cylindrical with a clear dome on top toward what had to be the front of the vehicle.  There was a large excavation blade lying on the ground between it and
the large dome. On the front of the vehicle there were what appeared to be some sort of folded manipulators.  As the rear of the vehicle came into view of the slowly circling airship, another smaller version of the iris features could be seen at the very rear of the tracked vehicle.

When the airship cleared the far side of the larger dome there was another gasp from the assembled personnel.   There in front of them was a space craft.  It was shaped as a sort of a flat elongated disc.  Again, there appeared to be a clear dome on the top and toward the front of it.  There were large bulbous features toward the rear side that could only be propulsion units of some type.  The ship had three massive landing legs extended.  The front leg had sunk into the soil and the ship was in a somewhat forward tilted position.  It was nearly one hundred meters long only and about half as wide.  Robby Tully spoke for all of them. “Damn, would you look at that?”  Then the whole group broke out into excited discussion.

…

On the David Honstein the crew sat mesmerized as the airship started another slow orbit of the site.  “The beacon has not changed and there is no other electromagnetic activity detected.  Everything looks deserted,” said Lieutenant Allan Greco as he controlled the airship.

Colonel Pierce spoke up. “Quick impressions anyone?”

Specialist Nunn spoke up. “I think the small domes are some sort of storage building.  The iris looking things we are seeing are probably what they use for doors.  A bulldozer is a bulldozer no matter who makes it I guess.  The large dome is obviously the main facility and that is probably a sensor array on top of the superstructure.  The space ship is obviously just that.”

Lieutenant Jason Greco spoke from up from the control deck over the intercom.  “It looks as if the landing gear of that ship is sinking into the ground as it thaws.  It looks as if it landed vertically when the ground was frozen.  There are no signs of any excavation for a runway.  The only excavation is around the buildings themselves.”

One of the engineering techs spoke up. “I would be willing to bet that the shiny coating on the smaller domes is some sort of solar cell.  It covers everything but the flat door side, if those iris things are the doors.”

“I bet the square feature on the larger dome is an airlock,” volunteered another crewman.

“I agree with all of that,” said Colonel Pierce.  “Lieutenant, try and bring the airship down just above those clear bubbles on the excavator, then one on the ship and zoom in the imager as much as you can.”

They all strained to see in the bubbles as the airship hovered.  The bubbles were some sort of clear transparent material but unfortunately it seemed that recently blown dust and some rain had made a muddy mess of them and it was very hard to see through them.  “Crap,” said Lieutenant Allan Greco.  “You cannot quite make out any controls or seats or anything.  There is some sort of control panels there but I cannot get a better picture.”

“Take the ship back up to about fifty meters Lieutenant. Circle the area and try and get close up images of everything there is, especially that ship.  I am going to talk to Earth and see how they want to proceed,” ordered Colonel Pierce.

…

Back at NASA and JPL Headquarters Mike Banscott had his entire group of department heads that were security cleared for the mission in front of him in a hastily convened meeting.  “All right, listen up.  You have all seen the images being relayed by the Honstein.  The clock is ticking on the airships batteries and they have about six hours of daylight left at the sight.  What do we want them to do?”

There was some quick discussion and a few heated exchanges, finally the lead climatologist spoke up. “Send the airship to the coast if it can make it.  We want a close up view of the coast line and ocean.  We have seen all we can see from the air at the artifact site.  Any information we can get on the planet’s soil and water will be very useful and we will get more information from the robot at the artifact site later.  This will be our only chance of looking at the water along the coast for years.”