18:21 (Universal Time)
Tuesday, December 18, 2317
Main conference room, A.M.S. KOSTROMA
Low orbit over dwarf planet Eris
Mireille Cartier had one question for Tina Forster as she entered at a near run the ship’s main conference room, where another dozen scientists and ship’s officers were already sitting around the table, conversing excitedly among themselves.
‘’Are we sure that what our geological team found is indeed a spaceship, Captain Forster?’’
Tina, who had been discussing with Steven Barrie, gave her a cautious look.
‘’Not one hundred percent certain, but anything else would surprise me at this point. However, I believe that we should delay any announcement back to Callisto until we know more about what we found.’’
‘’Hum, I would tend to agree with you on that.’’ Replied the chief astronomer of Eris Station. Heads around the table nodded at that, telling her that everyone seemed to agree on that point. ‘’So, what do we know up to now on that probable spaceship?’’
‘’Our geological team on the spot has by now composed a fairly good radar picture of the object embedded 200 meters under the surface ice of Eris. Here it is on the wall viewing screen.’’
The participants to the meeting turned their heads to look at the giant flat screen on the wall behind Tina Forster, where the picture of an object was now visible.
‘’It looks like a giant mushroom.’’ Remarked Oleg Ulianov, the chief planetologist of Eris Station. His choice of words brought a faint smile on Tina’s face.
‘’The analogy is actually quite accurate. I can tell you right away that it isn’t some sort of meteorite or asteroid: radar scans show that it is made of metal, not rock. Its shape is also too regular and well cut to be anything but an artificial construct. As for being some ancient Earth spaceship that somehow came all the way to Eris, a search of our historical archives told us that the only known spacecraft to approach Eris was the automated exploration probe KUYPER TWO, which skimmed by Eris 104 years ago before being lost in space. As for being a recent human ship, that is also a non-starter: no ship ever built in the Solar System has this shape and size.’’
‘’Did the KUYPER TWO probe signal the magnetic anomaly that led us to this ship?’’ Asked Doctor Wei Ming, one of the planetologists that were travelling as passengers on the KOSTROMA. Tina shook her head at that.
‘’No! In fact, the probe was only able to make a limited number of observations before flying out into deep space: it suffered some major malfunctions before getting to Eris and its magnetometer was not working.’’
‘’So, we don’t know how long this…object has been on Eris?’’
‘’No, but there are a few facts that could tell us things about it. First, it apparently sank into the ice at the vertical, tail first, which suggests that it landed smoothly instead of crashing at an angle. Second, there is no evident damage visible on our radar scans, something that points to a controlled landing. Finally, the fact that it sank so deep in the ice, even though it didn’t crash on Eris, may be due to the hot exhaust of some kind of rocket engine, which melted the ice as it landed.’’
‘’But, if that ship really made a controlled landing, then why didn’t its crew at least try to dig itself out of the ice?’’ Objected Dana Durning. Steven Barrie, the astronomer who had pushed the leading theory about the structure of Eris, took on himself to answer the ship’s navigator.
‘’If this is indeed an alien ship and if it is propelled by some sort of rocket engine, then it may very well have landed under the control of a computer acting according to preprogrammed directives. Let me explain: any ship propulsion other than some sort of faster than light drive would mean that any interstellar travel would take decades or even centuries. In that case, you would have the choice of either putting the crew in hibernation, or of building a generation ship, where people would live and die while reproducing themselves. To be viable, a generation ship needs to be truly enormous, with a size at least equal to the KOSTROMA. However, that object is much smaller than our own ship. I would thus tend to think that the crew of this ship is in hibernation mode and may even be still alive, although frozen asleep.’’
Everyone around the table gave him stunned looks, with Mireille Cartier speaking next in a near whisper.
‘’So, we could be facing a possible first contact situation. This could possibly turn into the most important moment ever in human history. We can’t afford any mistake here.’’
‘’I fully agree with you on that, Doctor Cartier.’’ Said Tina Forster, her face somber. ‘’We will thus proceed with extreme caution from now on. One thing that I am resolved to avoid at all cost is a misunderstanding that would end in violence. I thus am ordering that no weapons be carried anywhere near this unknown ship, or inside it. Our first task will obviously be to free that ship from its ice tomb, so that we could study it and find a way to enter it without damaging it.’’
‘’What about our original mission to establish a station on Eris, Captain?’’ Asked Oleg Ulianov.
‘’It is still on, along with our exploration of Eris, Doctor Ulianov. Our embarked space construction crew will however start digging out that ship while our exploration and geological teams are studying further this dwarf planet to establish the ideal spot for our research station. We will decide on further steps once we have that ship freed from the ice.’’
‘’That sounds like a logical plan to me.’’ Said Ulianov. ‘’I’m ready to follow it.’’
Seeing that everyone around the table seemed to agree with that, Tina nodded her head.
‘’Then, we will proceed accordingly, ladies and gentlemen. Mister Stennis, you may tell your workers that their paid vacation is over.’’
15:09 (Universal Time)
Thursday, December 20, 2317
240 meters under the surface of Eris
‘’Pedro, get that ice drill to dig an horizontal ring tunnel around the ship at the 250 meter level.’’
‘’Right away, Boss!’’
Jake Stennis watched closely as part of his workers, led by Pedro Montes, started drilling down an oblique tunnel from the level they were on. Drilling was actually a misleading term in this case, since they were using digging machines specially designed to work in ice, be it water ice, methane ice or any other type of ice. Those machines basically used heating heads that melted the ice, with the liquids and vapors then pumped out to the surface via heated hoses. Jake Stennis had been doing and directing this kind of work for over twenty years now all over the Solar System, on the icy moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as well as on Pluto and on dozens of asteroids. Eris was in fact the third dwarf planet he was working on, Jake having built space habitats on Ceres and Pluto in the past. Nearly every Spacer living in fixed installations did so in habitats buried under the ice of their host worlds, with that thick layer of ice protecting them from space radiations and from small meteor strikes. Only things like surface access points, craft landing pads and observation towers normally projected above the surface. Hundreds of millions of humans already lived in such space habitats and, with the recent war with Earth over, Jake anticipated another boom in space construction to house all the people who wanted to escape their depleted, polluted and overpopulated countries of origin on Earth.
Twelve minutes later, one of the workers using a small, portable ice digger to scrape clean of ice the surface of the alien ship already dug out called him, making Jake hurry to the female technician. He didn’t have to ask Lena Iskander why she had called him to her, as it became fully obvious to him at once: free of its coating of methane ice, the metallic hull of the alien ship now showed a series of painted symbols. They clearly stood out, being painted white on the light gray of the hull plating and with each symbol being about two meter tall. Jake felt blood rush to his brain as he looked at the alien inscriptions, which looked like nothing he had seen before.
‘’My god! Lena, you just discovered the first alien writing to be seen by humans. Let me film this, so that I can send a picture to the KOSTROMA.’’
As he positioned himself in order to be able to film the inscriptions with his spacesuit’s helmet camera, he switched to the working frequency of the KOSTROMA and spoke in his radio microphone fixed inside his helmet, near his mouth.
‘’KOSTROMA, this is Stennis speaking. We have just uncovered some inscriptions on the hull of the alien spaceship. I am going to send you a video via my helmet camera.’’
Even though the communications technician on the cargo ship did his best to control his excitement at that announcement, it still showed in his voice.
‘’Alien inscriptions? I will link you up at once to the Captain. Hold on!’’
The voice of Tina Forster effectively came on the radio fifteen seconds later.
‘’Mister Stennis, this is Captain Forster. I have Doctor Cartier with me. You can send your video feed now.’’
‘’Here it is, Captain!’’
There was a heavy silence for many seconds as Jake slowly swept his camera along the five alien symbols. Tina Forster finally spoke, emotion evident in her tone.
‘’This could very well be the name of this ship. We can now tell Callisto with absolute certainty that we found an alien ship that came from outside the Solar System. Have you found any other inscriptions up to now, Mister Stennis?’’
‘’Not yet! However, we have uncovered only a small part of the hull of that ship up to now and…’’
A near shout on the frequency used by his workers then resonated in his left earphone.
‘’Boss, I think that we just found some sort of access point while we were approaching the 250 meter level.’’
‘’I’m coming!’’ Said at once Jake, who then relayed that information to Tina Forster as he hurried to the short tunnel going down at an angle of twenty degrees that had been freshly dug by Pedro Montes’ team. He arrived beside Pedro’s digging team a minute later, noticing at once the large, round depression now visible on the hull of the ship. A worker was still busy cleaning up the ice over part of it but it definitely looked like some sort of hatch with a diameter of maybe 180 centimeters. All the while, Jake left his helmet camera on, so that people on the KOSTROMA could see what he saw now.
‘’Captain Forster, we have here something that looks furiously like an access hatch to me. I am going to check for any opening mechanism once this part of the hull will be completely cleaned of its ice coating.’’
‘’Understood, Mister Stennis. However, even if you find such a mechanism, do not try to open this hatch: we are going to assemble a specialized team that will deal with the job of exploring that ship. It will also give us the time to study those alien symbols. Hopefully, there will be more such symbols around this hatch you found.’’
‘’I think that your wish is being granted right now, Captain: one of my technicians is just now uncovering something to the left side of the presumed hatch. Hold on!’’
Under the excited eyes of Jake and of his workers, what looked like instructions to open the hatch gradually appeared as the portable ice drill did its work around the round depression. Jake’s heart jumped inside his chest when he saw some kind of panel appear, situated just above the inscriptions.
‘’Captain, I am now filming what appears to be an access mechanism panel and its opening instructions. Are you seeing this now?’’
‘’Yes, we are, Mister Stennis. The exploration team should be at your location in forty minutes. In the meantime, continue your digging around this ship.’’
‘’Understood! Stennis, out!’’ Replied the construction foreman before switching to the frequency of his workers. ‘’Okay, guys, keep digging around that ship, but don’t attempt to enter it: a special team will be here soon to deal with this access hatch.’’
Realizing that they were engaged in a work that would truly make history, his men and women redoubled their efforts, anxious to see what would be found inside.
Less than one hour later, a six person team led by Tina Forster herself arrived in the ice tunnel, followed by technicians carrying a portable emergency airlock. Jake Stennis nodded his head with approval on seeing the foldable airlock: such airlocks were designed to be able to fit over access doors and hull openings in order to be able to rescue Spacers trapped in a pressurized compartment surrounded by vacuum. In this case, since they didn’t know if there was a residual atmosphere of some sort inside the alien ship, the airlock would prevent any spill into the vacuum of Eris and would also allow the exploration team to keep the alien access hatch opened, avoiding the possibility of the exploration team ending up trapped inside the ship if the hatch closed back by itself. One of the technicians was in fact carrying a thick, heavy steel jack meant to block a door or hatch in the open position. Taking one step back, Jake pointed the presumed opening mechanism cover to Tina.
‘’Here is the cover and inscriptions, Captain.’’
‘’Thank you, Mister Stennis. Let’s first put in place our portable airlock over this hatch before touching anything, though. Okay, guys, deploy the airlock!’’
Working quickly, the five technicians took only six minutes to install the airlock over the access hatch and its opening mechanism panel and to secure it in place with electro-magnets. Once that was done, Tina looked at one of her team members, Jim Lowell, who was the KOSTROMA’s second engineer.
‘’Me and you will enter the airlock first, Jim. I will let you figure out how to open this hatch.’’
‘’Understood, Tina.’’ Replied Lowell, whose heart was beating fast: he could very well become the first human ever to enter an alien ship. Carrying a toolbox in one gloved hand, he walked in the airlock ahead of Tina, who entered and closed the inner airtight door of the airlock, securing it and then signaling through one of the windows of the airlock to one technician.
‘’Alright, pressurize the inner airlock now!’’
With their helmet cameras on and with Anwar Duharto, one of the ship’s sensors and communications specialists, filming through the window of the airlock, Lowell started studying visually the panel cover and its inscriptions.
‘’Hmmm! Even though this is clearly alien to us, this indeed looks to me like an emergency access hatch of the sort crewmembers would use to exit the ship to effect emergency repairs on the outer hull. If whoever designed this followed the same philosophy than us about emergency cases, this should be designed to be opened manually, even without ship power.’’
‘’What about any inner door? Our own airlock inner doors are designed not to open if the airlock is in vacuum.’’
‘’Which is where our airlock may indeed prove handy, Tina. I see some kind of small lever on the hatch, which is probably meant to open it. I’m going to try it.’’
Inserting two gloved fingers in the recess of the panel containing the lever, Lowell pressed on it and was rewarded by seeing the lever go down and the access panel pop partially open, probably thanks to some spring mechanism.
‘’Bingo! It seems that those aliens believe in simplicity. I’m starting to like them already.’’
Opening fully the panel, which was mounted on hinges, he found inside a thirty centimeter-deep recess with two large buttons, one large lever and a small hand wheel, as well as more alien inscriptions. The engineer then stepped aside to let Tina look inside the recess.
‘’It looks to me like one lever meant to lock and unlock the hatch, with the hand wheel meant to manually open the hatch. The two buttons are probably meant to operate the hatch when the ship is powered.’’
‘’That would make sense, Jim. Let’s try the buttons first.’’
To Tina’s disappointment, pushing the first button, a blue one, produced nothing. Waiting a few seconds, she then pressed the other button, a red one. Again, nothing happened and no noise was heard.
‘’Damn! It looks like this ship is dead in terms of power. I will now try the manual levers.’’
Taking hold of the handle-like lever first, which was tilted to one side, Tina pushed it in the opposite direction. She had to put some significant strength in her effort before the lever moved with a noise of rusted out metal.
‘’Hell, it sounds like this thing may not have been lubricated in centuries or even millenniums.’’
‘’It could very well be the case if this ship truly came from another star system on rocket power alone, Tina.’’
‘’Well, let’s hope that this wheel can still be turned. I will let your muscles work on this, though.’’
The big, Titan-born engineer smiled and stepped forward, grabbing the wheel’s handle and turning it clockwise first. It didn’t budge one bit, making him grunt.
‘’Either it is stuck, or I am turning in the wrong direction. Trying counter-clockwise now.’’
A smile appeared on his face when the wheel started turning nearly at once after some resistance.
‘’I think that we are in business, Tina.’’
Tina, who was watching closely the hatch as Lowell was turning the wheel, suddenly felt elation fill her.
‘’IT’S MOVING! KEEP TURNING, JIM!’’
Under their expectant eyes, the hatch started opening slowly towards the inside, while a faint hiss of air escaping from inside could be heard through their spacesuits’ microphones.
‘’This thing is mounted on inside hinges.’’ Said Lowell while continuing to turn the wheel. ‘’It was probably designed to stay firmly closed if the inside is pressurized and the outside is in vacuum.’’
‘’You are probably right. From what I can see now of the hatch’s frame, the outer hull seems fairly thick, being at least five centimeter thick. I can now see the inside of some sort of compartment big enough for six people in spacesuits… YES! There is a hatch visible opposite the exit hatch. The inside was pressurized when we opened it and there seemed to have been little difference in pressure between the inside of this ship and our inner airlock. Let me analyze the air content of that ship…’’
After over a minute of watching her portable atmosphere analyzer, Tina nodded her head, pleased.
‘’Even when taking in account the air that had been inside our inner airlock, the air in this ship seems compatible with us. The oxygen content is richer and there is a surprising portion of helium and other rare gases in it, while the ship pressure was nominally around 1.15 atmospheres.’’
‘’It sounds like the atmosphere one would find on a planet with a heavier gravity than Earth.’’ Said Doctor Maria Perez on the radio, making Tina nod her head again.
‘’True! Join us inside with the rest of the team. I am going to put in place our steel jack and block this hatch in the opened position.’’
Cycling through the airlock the other four members of the exploration team took six minutes, ample time for Tina to position their steel jack and block the ship’s outer hatch. Jim Lowell used that time to go inside the ship’s airlock and study the opening mechanism of the outer hatch, as well as the inner hatch giving access to the inside of the alien ship. The low ceiling of the airlock became immediately evident to him, with the top of his spacesuit helmet nearly scraping against it.
‘’The aliens who built this ship must be much shorter than us on average: the height clearance is no more than two meters. Yet, the width of the inner hatch suggests that they are at least as wide as us.’’
‘’Again, something to be expected from a race living on a high gravity planet.’’ Said Maria Perez. ‘’I hope that the artificial gravity inside will not be prohibitively strong.’’
‘’Well, right now there is none.’’ Replied Tina. ‘’We are sticking to the floor strictly thanks to our magnetized boot soles. I can’t hear any functioning machinery either. This ship seems to be truly dead in terms of power.’’
‘’Let’s hope that the occupants are not dead as well: it would be a pity for them to travel on such a long trip and die within reach of us.’’
‘’A pity indeed! Let’s see if we can open this inner hatch and gain access to the inside of the ship.’’
It took only one minute of examination for Lowell to smile in satisfaction.
‘’These aliens certainly seem to believe in the K.I.S.S. principle: this hatch can be manually opened from our side.’’
‘’The K.I.S.S. principle? What’s that?’’ Asked Maria Perez, making the engineer chuckle.
‘’Come on, Maria! You don’t know about it? It means ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’: one of the most important principles in engineering.’’
‘’Oh!’’ Simply said Maria, making Tina giggle.
‘’Learning new things is never wasted time. Let’s see if this hatch mechanism still works.’’
Remembering to turn counter-clockwise, Tina used both of her hands to turn the hand wheel of the hatch. To her relief, it started turning at once with little effort. After three full rotations, she was able to push open the hatch, revealing a dark compartment beyond. She used her helmet lamp to look around inside, her heart beating faster now.
‘’It looks like some kind of locker room, which would be logical to find next to an airlock. I am…’’
Her sudden gasp and interrupted sentence made Lowell and the others tense at once.
‘’What is it, Tina?’’
‘’There are three spacesuits hanging in one corner: alien spacesuits.’’
‘’Let me see!’’ Said Maria Perez, at once excited. ‘’They could tell us a lot about those aliens.’’
Entering the dark room first, Tina then pointed the spacesuits to Maria, who approached them with near scientific reverence.
‘’These aliens must indeed be quite short, although stocky, if I can go by these spacesuits. Their average height seems to be around 150 centimeters. They have two arms ending in hands with four digits: three fingers and an opposing thumb. The two legs of these suits however denote a quite peculiar anatomy: those aliens apparently have Z-like legs, a bit like chicken legs but with an extra joint at the junction with the feet. It is harder to say about the feet themselves: the boots look like fins to me and may be designed to distribute weight over a large surface.’’
‘’All this is prime information.’’ Said Tina in a sober voice. ‘’Anwar, take close-ups of these suits and retransmit them to the KOSTROMA. Jim, can you assess the technological level of those aliens from these suits?’’
‘’It certainly is worth a try, Tina. Give me a few minutes.’’
‘’Take all your time, Jim: this ship may be the most important find in the history of Humanity and we will take all the time needed to study it properly.’’
As Jim Lowell and Karl Grundig, the KOSTROMA’s head life support engineer, started studying the alien spacesuits, Tina swept her helmet lamp around the locker room, examining every detail of it. Realizing that they had left the inner hatch of the airlock open, Tina went to close it out of long-established Spacer reflex: a ship’s hatch was meant to be closed when not in use, in order to avoid a catastrophe in case of a hull breach and explosive decompression. Since Anwar Duharto had placed signal repeaters both inside the airlock and in the locker room, closing that hatch was not likely to cut them off from the KOSTROMA. Besides, Tina didn’t want to risk any accidental damage to this alien ship, especially with the fate of its crew still unknown.
Jim Lowell spoke to Tina on the radio a few minutes later, sounding quite excited.
‘’I have completed my initial examination of those suits, Tina. We will still need to bring one such suit to our ship for more in-depth study, but I can say that their technology, while different to a point, appears quite similar to ours in terms of level and capability.’’
‘’Let’s hope that their language will prove to be decipherable. I am dying to learn more about those aliens.’’
‘’Please don’t use the word ‘dying’, Tina.’’ Said Vincent Reed, the ship’s head computer engineer and last member of the exploration team. ‘’It reminds me of the space horror movie I watched three days ago. In it, some kind of alien monster roamed the inside of a ship, ripping to pieces the crewmembers it met.’’
‘’Thanks a lot for bringing this up right now, Vince!’’ Grumbled Maria Perez, making the others chuckle at the exchange. Tina then became serious again.
‘’Well, we won’t learn more about this ship if we stay in this locker room. Let’s find the bridge or engine room of this ship. Our best bet is to go towards the central core. I will lead.’’
Using the sole hatch of the compartment leading inside the ship, Tina and her team stepped inside a long, wide corridor that was totally dark. Sweeping her helmet lamp around, Tina saw that large doors were spaced regularly along the two sides of the corridor. Walking slowly down the corridor, towards the core of the ship, she soon stopped in front of one of the side doors and examined it.
‘’It is a sliding door. I can’t see any manual opening mechanism.’’
Just to make sure, she pressed on what seemed to be the button meant to open the door, without results. She couldn’t help feel a mix of disappointment and frustration then.
‘’Until we somehow restore power to this ship, I am afraid that many parts of it will be inaccessible to us. I would hate to have to cut through these doors just to gain access. God knows what could be on the other side of this door.’’
‘’Well, it won’t be living aliens, if the ambient temperature inside there is the same than in this corridor.’’ Replied Maria Perez. ‘’The temperature in this hallway is only minus 221 degrees Celsius, about the same as on the surface of Eris. Apparently, the inside of this ship has not been heated for decades, if not for centuries. This does not bode well for the fate of its crew.’’
‘’I am starting to think the same, Maria. It would be a true shame for these aliens to travel all the way to the Solar System, only to die once on Eris. Let’s continue towards the core.’’
Resuming her walk, Tina counted 130 paces before arriving at a sort of central rotunda. A large central shaft with a diameter of maybe ten meters sported a number of sliding doors, probably for elevator cabins.
‘’The general design of this ship is a bit reminiscent of that of our own KOSTROMA. With luck, there should be some sort of emergency stairwell. Look for manual hatches!’’
Splitting in two groups of three, they turned around the central shaft, checking for hatches. Jim Lowell’s trio was the first to find one.
‘’Tina, I have a hatch with manual opening wheel here.’’
Tina and her own group joined up with him in a hurry, arriving as Lowell was turning the hand wheel of the hatch. They all anxiously looked inside the darkened space beyond the hatch, with Tina’s heart jumping in her chest when her helmet lamp illuminated the foot of a spiral staircase.
‘’This must be meant to be used by maintenance and repair crews in case of a power failure. It looks like it is going both down and up. We’re in business!’’
‘’Which way do we go now, Tina?’’ Asked Lowell. ‘’It would be faster if we split up in two now, with one group going up and the other going down.’’
‘’I agree! Besides, I don’t see what kind of threat this dead ship could be to us. You go down with Karl and Anwar. I will go up with Vincent and Maria. Just make sure to place radio repeaters at intervals to keep in contact.’’
‘’Got it!’’
With Vincent Reed and Maria Perez at her back, Tina started climbing the wide stairs, helped by the negligible gravity felt on Eris and in the ship. Exiting the stairwell repeatedly at each level, they found the next eleven levels to be identical to the one they had come through on entering the ship, with six corridors radiating from the core on each level and with similar sliding doors along their sides. Nowhere did they see any lit light or other sign of a powered system on those levels. Things however changed when they stepped outside of the stairwell on the twelfth floor up. While everything was still dark on that level, a number of steel hatches with opening hand wheels lined the outer wall of the rotunda, something that raised Tina’s hopes at once. Stopping for a moment, she activated her helmet’s radio microphone.
‘’Jim, this is Tina. I am now twelve levels up from our entry point and this floor seems to be different, with manual hatches instead of powered sliding doors. How are you doing on your part?’’
‘’I have gone down eleven levels up to now and found them all to be s