Chapter 5
Exploration
It was a frustration to everyone that it took so long to get into their EVA suits, at long last the six that made up the investigation team were ready and each checked the others suits. There was room for two in the air-lock and Blake with Jo accepted the honour of going out first, once in the lock Blake pressed the dual function button that both extended the retractable steps that had been installed as a modification, and started the vacuum pump that took the air out of the lock. The steps purred as they descended outside, and as the pump evacuated the air the sound faded. The light above the hatch changed from green to red and Blake operated the lever to open the hatch, but the hatch didn’t move, he tried again but the hatch-cover would not budge. Pressing the intercom he explained the problem. “Josh, the hatch-cover is jammed.”
“Hold on, I’ll check it,” there was a few seconds of silence before the Captain returned, “The hatch shows no problem here, so . . . just a minute, I don’t believe that.”
“What’s up,” asked Blake.
“The sensor panel shows air outside, must be a malfunction.”
“Maybe not,” said Blake, “I’ll re-pressurise the air-lock and try the hatch again, we’ve got our EVAs on so we’ll be OK.” Blake hit the button again and the air returned, he tried the hatch again and it swung open.
Blake cranked the steeps back down by hand and they descended onto the floor of the hangar. They both removed their helmets and put them back into the hatch, just as Charlie, Laura and the rest climbed down. Charlie looked around and said “Good Lord, there’s gravity.”
“Charlie,” said Blake, “you have magnetic boots.”
“Oh yea,” said Charlie and looked around for something to check his theory, he didn’t have afar to look as Blake and Jo’s helmets were floating inside the hatch. They decided to leave the air-lock open but keep their suits on for the initial exploration. About twenty meters away were a number of hatches, or doorways, in the back wall, over each was a display that constantly changed, the characters looked the same as the one on the hull. Jo said that if it was an early form of Hebrew the characters may be numbers, however each display showed different characters. Captain Flynn came through the air-lock followed by the other members of the team; Angelo was to stay in Atlantis, as emergency coordinator. Flynn thought that they should first examine the hanger bay, so they set off to see what they could find. The lighting came from flat panels in the roof that adequately lit the area but did not dazzle when you looked directly at them. The floor was obviously metal, steel of some magnetic alloy, on the floor were engraved marks, lines and symbols, feint but definite, the Captain thought they resembled those at an airport. Jo suggested that they might resemble the lines and symbols on the Nazca Plateau, the ancient petroglyphs in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. High on one curved wall there were indications that windows may exist, although because of the lighting one could not be sure as they were dark and difficult to judge. Along one section of the right-hand side there were sections that that looked like movable panels and along the adjacent wall were what looked like power sockets of some kind.
An hour later they had inspected almost the entire bay and most were keen to see what was behind the hatches in the far wall. They held an impromptu meeting to discuss how they should proceed. After some discussion and disagreement it was decided that they should investigate only one of the hatches at a time, so that the group stayed together in case of problems. As the mission leader Bake elected himself the first to enter and would return to report initial impressions. The group crossed to a central doorway and gathered around, Blake saw that there were no handles or hatch locks, but centrally mounted was a plate that looked different to the hatch material. He stretched out a hand to touch the plate and the hatch was immediately illuminated from the surround, he touched the plate and a message appeared on the hatch cover, in the same characters as the ones they had discovered already, “Any idea what that says Jo,” he asked.
Jo looked and took out her tablet, flicked through a few screens and scanned the writing, “According to this it says something about hand prints or palm impressions.”
“Maybe it’s like some of the hand-locks we have at home,” said Blake, “where you have to place your whole hand on the scanner to get in, and one step on from fingerprints.” Blake placed his hand on the plate, there was a slight hiss and the hatch sank inwards and upwards, he looked around at the group, and Jo gave his arm a squeeze before her husband stepped into the hatch. The inside of the hatch was roomy, would have accommodated some ten or twelve people, and in the right wall was a blue button, like that on an elevator on Earth. Blake pressed the blue button and held his breath, the outer door closed and there was movement, but he wasn’t sure in which direction after about ninety seconds the movement stopped and the other door opened. What greeted Blake took the breath from his lungs, turned it into a hurricane, and then tried to stuff it back into his mouth. His jaw, once more hung down for the second time.
What he saw his brain would not accept, he was in a town of some sort, the outside of the hatch door was ornate and on it was mounted an identical plate to the one on the hatch in the hangar bay. Around him were buildings, some that looked like multi-story apartment blocks, but they looked as if they were made of pure crystal and the light reflected from their walls. ‘Light’, thought Blake, who then looked up; above him seemed to be a single light source that resembled our Sun, both in apparent size and light intensity, but around it was some form of structure. Blake was stood on what seemed like a stone path and on each side was green manicured grass, he bent over to feel it and it actually felt like soft, lush meadow-grass. He picked a couple of blades as samples, but they immediately shrivelled in his hand and as he watched several new blades grew back where he had plucked the samples. As he let go of the, now brown, grass they fell to the ground, and he realised that here there really was gravity, he switched off his magnetic boots and nothing happened, he didn’t start to float, he just stayed where he was. Blake was so fascinated he forgot the other members of the group left waiting somewhere beyond the hatch. He started to approach the nearest building, the walls were smooth as frosted glass but not cold to the touch, there were no visible joints anywhere, the building was empty and seemed unused. ‘Where were these aliens’, thought Blake, the place seems deserted, he selected a path or narrow roadway that came directly back to the hatch and set off at a run. He wanted to see how large the village, or town, or city was, he estimated that he had run for about half a mile when he came to the end of the buildings and before him spread out as far as he could see was agricultural land with another town in the distance. It was only then that Blake realised the true extent of this world within a spacecraft.
Here there were ploughed fields and fields with some unknown crop growing; here there were trees and bushes some with brightly coloured flowers. The verges of the roadway also grew coloured flowers of orange, blue and yellow blooms. The only thing missing was a blue sky, because behind the light source it was just a very light grey, but then he noticed that between the ground and the light there were clouds, very Earth-like clouds. Although these clouds occasionally covered the light the temperature did not alter, Blake guessed at a comfortable twenty-five degrees. In the far distance he could see a very tall crystal spire that towered higher than any of the other buildings in this town or the one in the distance. It was then that Blake remembered the others who were waiting in the hangar, and he turned and trotted back to the hatch, he looked at his watch and realised he had been gone over a half hour. He reached the hatch and placed his hand on the plate, to his relief the door opened and he stepped inside, pressed the blue button and the elevator started to move again. As the hangar door opened he was greeted by Jo’s “Oh thank God,” who then scolded him with, “where the heck have you been, do you know how long we have been stood here?”
“Sorry,” said Blake, “I just got carried away.”
“What did I say,” said Jo to the others, and turning back to Blake, “come on then, what in there?”
“I am not going to attempt to tell you, you just need to see it for yourselves,” answered Blake. “Come on it’s quite safe, as far as I know, see for yourselves.”
All nine people entered the elevator, and Blake once more pressed the blue button, and the room again started to move.
The ornate door opened and they all piled out, and one at a time they all froze where they stood, mouths open gazing at the spectacle before them. Maybe minutes passed before the first person spoke, which one might know, was Charlie, ”No wonder you were so long fellah, I don’t think that I would have come back yet.”
“This is incredible,” said Jo. Everyone concurred with mumbled agreements. “How much have you explored Blake,” she asked.
“Only here, that building there and down that road,” answered Blake, “the town stretched in that direction for about a half mile and then it's agricultural land and another village, way off.”
“This is going to take some exploring,” stated Captain Flynn.
“That is, how do you say, an under statement,” said Conrad.
“Has anyone noticed the light source,” asked Blake. Immediately the group’s heads tilted up and he heard another gasp.
“How is this possible,” asked Charlie with a rhetorical question, “from here that looks like a fusion reaction going on up there, inside a structure, people, we may have discovered our first Dyson Sphere.”
“Our what,” asked Jo.
“I’ll explain later,” said Charlie.
They set off in different directions as the Captain shouted, “Meet back here in one hour, and keep in touch, switch on you suit to suit radios; Angelo, please monitor all transmissions and record.”
“Aye skipper, monitor and record” sounded the voice of Angelo over each radio receiver.
Jo and Blake, holding hands went off to the left of the elevator and around every corner were wonders in building, made from the same material, some were in different colours and some shone like rainbows. They saw one building that emitted a pale blue hew, then they opened the door and went in; it was a two story building and the ground floor was furnished with couches and modernistic chairs, a pop-up table that folded up from the floor. There was no carpet but the floor felt soft to the tread, there was a ventilation system that blew softly with fresh air that smelt fresher than anything they had ever encountered. The upstairs was also furnished, a bed and more chairs; Jo tried the bed and found that it was just about the most comfortable bed she had ever laid on.
“All we need now,” said Blake, is a family of alien bears to discover us here.” Jo laughed and jumped off the bed.
“Where are these aliens anyway, there’s no sign of habitation, everything looks brand-new.” Jo said.
“I know,” said Blake, “that’s the question, why this enormous ship with no one to populate it, there’s no bodies, as there would have been if they’d been taken ill and died.”
“What if that's what happened,” suggested Jo, “but all the bodies have been cleaned up by some system of the ship?”
“I guess that's a possibility, but there is absolutely nothing of them left behind, you'd expect a garment or a cup, or something. There is no sign that anyone has ever been here, except for the ready ploughed fields outside the town.”
“What! Ploughed fields,” exclaimed Jo.
“Yea, half a mile down the road opposite the elevator,” answered Blake, “we need to find the command centre, if there is anywhere on this tub that will be manned, sorry aliened, it will be the command centre, this thing didn’t get here on its own.”
“Or did it,” mused Jo, more to herself than her husband.
Laura and Charlie, who seemed to be forming a relationship over the past weeks, teamed up together, and Captain Flynn, Conrad and John formed another team and set off down the road toward the fields where Blake had previously explored. Within fifteen minutes, walking at the Captain’s brisk pace, they arrived at the edge of the town, and stopped to look around. “Looks a good way to the next village,” observed Flynn, “I don’t think we can make it and back in an hour.”
“Not even at you pace,” commented Conrad.
“What’s in these sheds here,” asked John, veering off to the right, he found no door, but to one side there was another hand-plate, like the ones on the hatch. Placing his hand on the plate the whole front of the small building seemed to scroll upward, Wow, that’s clever,” he said, which attracted the other two.
“What haft you found,” asked Conrad.
“Looks like it’s a garage, with some sort of vehicle in it,” said the Captain.
John was already in the driving seat trying to find how to switch the vehicle on, as there were no windows in the building it was difficult to see, so he switched on his suit’s work beam. There was just a sort of joy-stick on the dash, tentatively he pushed the stubby stick fully forward, at once the vehicle jumped forward at an alarming speed, but seemed to stop on its own before it hit the Captain and Conrad. “Cute, auto stop at obstacles,” declared John, “very safety minded these aliens.”
“Does it have a charge meter,” asked Flynn.
“Negative, just this joystick, no brakes or anything,” answered John, “shall we chance taking it for a spin?”
“Why not,” said Flynn, “as long as we don’t go too far we can always walk back, come on out John.”
As John edged the buggy forward, fully out of its garage, he instinctively looked behind him, just in time to see another identical looking vehicle rise from the floor, “Hey, did you see that,” he called.
“Ja,” said Conrad, “we seem to have solved ze transport problem.”
“Did you hear that everyone,” the Captain said into his microphone, “plenty of buggies here to travel around in, we will bring this one back to the hatch, later.”
There was a jumbled chorus of “Roger that,” mixed with a ,“OK,” from Charlie and a, “Great” from one of the females.
“Everyone, can we stick to radio protocols as per training please,” scolded Flynn.
The two jumped in the buggy with John, there were seats for six people, and John turned right toward the next town. The buggy was surprisingly fast and in seven minutes they entered the little town. On their way they passed fields, some ready ploughed and others had crops growing, John thought one field held a crop of what he thought looked like sweet-corn, and another had a perfect crop of corn, ready for harvesting. “I don’t get this,” said John, “it’s just like a duplicate Earth, how long have those crops been growing there?”
“Who knows,” said Flynn, we’ll get to that when we find the aliens or the command centre.”
The town was similar to the first but in some way different. There were more of the garage-type buildings at the boundary and the buildings were simpler and mostly single storied. In the fields were more of the garages, and larger ones that looked like barns. They decided to push further on toward a crystal spire that over shadowed the land. They drove through the village, and passed through more fields of crops and ploughed fields. It took them another fifteen minutes to reach a point on the crest of a low hill where they had a good view of the structure, and the beauty took their breath away. The crystal spire was at least the height of the tallest building on Earth, and shone with a ethereal gleam of very pale blue light. Before it laid a silvery lake surrounded with manicured lawns, flowering bushes and trees, with meandering paths, the one thing missing was people. “That may be the command centre,” said the captain, “but it’s time to return to meet up with the others now, we will return tomorrow.”
Charlie and Laura set off to find the centre of the town, the walked past hundreds of buildings that all looked like houses or dwellings. After about a ten minute walk they came to a broad square, in the centre was a fountain and the square was liberally scattered with seats, “Why does this alien craft remind me so much of Earth,” asked Charlie.
“I was thinking the same,” replied Laura, “shouldn’t we test that water?”
“Good idea,” and they walked to the fountain, Charlie rummaged in his satchel and brought out a small pad of papers one of which he dipped into the liquid.
“Yes, it’s water all right, and perfectly safe to drink,” declared Charlie, “I’ll take a sample.”
They walked to the perimeter path to look at the buildings facing the square, they were all singel story and were open fronted like market stalls, some small and some quite large ones. “Shops,” declared Laura,”shame they’re not stocked,”
“Hmm, but that poses a question of why are they here at all,” asked Charlie, It’s just like they are up for rent.”
“The aliens want to let them out to someone,” said Laura, “do you think this is some sort of baited trap?”
“That, my dear was exactly what I have started to think about, it’s just too good and perfect to be true, and you know what they say, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Who ever built this certainly studied Earth closely,” said Laura, “everything seems to be made for humans and for Earth-dwelling humans.”
“Time we were getting back to the hatch Laura, time’s nearly up.”
The three groups met up at the hatch and Charlie started examining the buggy, he retrieved another instrument from his satchel and touched the bodywork with a probe. After examining it he thought for a second and said, “It seems that this whole body is some form of battery, and if I am not mistaken, it draws its charge from that fusion reactor up there that acts as the Sun.”
“We will need to get one of these back to Earth to be back-engineered,” said the Captain.
“If we can find a way of getting it out,” said Blake, “it sure won’t fit through there,” he said indicating the hatch to the elevator.”
“Is it just me, or has the light level dropped over the last twenty minutes,” said Flynn.
“Yes it has,” said Charlie, “look there’s a shutter covering up their mini-star.”
Back in the shuttle the girls busied themselves preparing the NASA provisions, and John produced eight heads of sweet-corn that they had picked on the return journey, “Nothing like fresh corn,” he said, “just microwave it for a couple of minutes, and get that spread out, not like butter but it will do.”
“Well there’s some amazing tech out there that could benefit Earth no end,” said Blake.
“That’s if we can get it out,” commented Charlie, and he shared his fears about it being a trap.
“To what purpose,” asked Blake.
“Maybe to populate another genetically failing planet,” suggested Conrad, “like these ‘Greys’ that people report abducting people.”
“You’re not a conspiracy theorist are you, Conrad,” said the Captain, with a smirk on his face.
“Nicht, I am just making the suggestion, this ship may be from ze future.”
“Why would they go to all this trouble if they could just fly around grabbing people,” asked Jo.
“That’s true,” said John, “what it must have taken to design and build this ship, it’s more than just an abduction trap.”
“I sent all the video from your explorations, back to Houston and so we have Director Atherton Bennet on video link in sixteen minutes,” warned Angelo.
“OK, thanks for that number one,” said the Captain.
“We are not on the Starship Enterprise, Sir,” laughed Angelo.
“Tell me about this sphere thing Charlie,” asked Jo.
“Ah yes the Dyson Sphere, it has been theorised for several decades that an advanced civilisation could possibly build, with the right technology, a sort of cage around its star, and obtain almost limitless energy, which it transmits the energy to the planets in an energy stream. We thought that we’d found one back in the early two-thousands but it was found not to be so, I don’t remember the details.”
“Pretty cool,” responded Jo.
“Not exactly 'cool' Jo,” laughed Charlie, “that thing up there is almost the temperature of the Sun, if it wasn't constricted like that it would burn us and everything here to a crisp. Here we just see the mini-star through that slot, and It revolved to shut off the light during the simulated night, I guess. The energy from that must be incredible, which is what must power the whole ship. Inside the shuttering there must be millions of energy receptors that take the energy to where it's needed.”
A few minutes later the radio sprang to life, “Houston to 'Mission Reaper', come in.” Angelo left the table and pushed off toward the communications station.
“Receiving you Houston control,” answered Angelo, “go ahead.”
About ten seconds passed and the radio announced, “I am patching you through to Washington Reaper, stand by.”
Seconds later Atherton appeared on the video screen, with Doug behind him, “Congratulations on achieving target people,” said Atherton, “I’ve watched you video-send, what are your feelings so far,” he asked.
The team each enthusiastically expressed their impressions of the initial exploration, Charlie extolled in raptures about the energy system, the fusion mini-star and the remote charging buggies, the water supply and his fears about it being a trap. Jo updated them on the written language situation and how they may be able to translate much of the signage, and that the ship was called “The Return’. This was done with several interruptions from Laura. The Captain and John told about their feelings that the large spire was 'possibly' the control centre, to which Doug replied, “Don’t forget the size of that ship, it would be a happy circumstance if you found the CC so easily, we have done some calculations here the area you are exploring is at least thirteen and a half million square miles in surface area, that’s from the telemetry you obtained on approach.”
“Wow, that a lot of squares,” exclaimed Flynn, “Earth’s land surface area is about fifty-seven and a half million square miles, if I remember right.”
“Near enough,” said Doug, I know what you’re thinking, but Earth has huge areas that are not settled, like the deserts, Polar Regions, etc.”
“Could we get the whole population on Earth in here,” asked Blake.
“No, but we calculate that it could take a good portion,” answered Doug, “looking at your video, there are large areas of agricultural land, so if what we have seen is average then it could support about two-billion people.”
“Out of eight point eight billion, said Flynn.
“As I said I know what you are thinking,” said Doug, “that it could be used as a life-boat if the worst ever happens, but it will not hold the whole population, so we discounted that.”
Everyone gave their first impressions of the first day’s exploration, and Atherton finally asked, “