The departure was calmly anti-climatic after the endless preparations and disaster drills up till then.
Once they broke orbit, Yolanda set the ship spinning fast enough to mimic a perceptible gravity and she worked out their speed, velocity and trajectory with the captain.
The rapidly spinning cylinder offered enough private space that all four of them could enjoy a respite from each other and avoid the 'cabin fever' of the old days. Chen watched the VR screen with his typical seriousness while Yolanda kept tabs on their position. Isfaheem and Muogo both had little to do during the trip except study, which they both did extensively. Muogo became especially interested in the astral-positioning that Yolanda worked on, and often tried her patience with his endless questions.
True to form, the Hsinchu engine sped them at fantastic velocity towards the icy world shortly after it crossed inside Neptune's orbit. In the olden days, they would likely have stared in wonder at the vacuum of space and the sights of the few planets along their path. By now though, the solar system was becoming as familiar to them as Antarctica for most Earth residents. The ride out now was just a long journey to a much greater adventure.
In a time that would've astounded Yuri Gagarin, they flew above Neptune's orbit and towards the edge of the Kuiper belt. The anticipation was beginning to reach a feverish pitch as they rose high above the ecliptic towards Pluto. The cheers were loud and sincere when Yolanda announced that they would arrive within the next 24 hours.
Despite being intimately familiar with the tiny system, they all watched open-mouthed as the twin worlds grew steadily larger on the screen. Soon they were able to discern the chimney, and eventually they could even make out the faint rectangles on the surface.
Yolanda worked closely with Chen to put them in a stable orbit while they looked for an appropriate landing spot. This wasn't difficult as there were few craters and the surface bore more resemblance to an Oklahoma plain then to a lunar expanse. The landing was surprisingly smooth given how much energy had been poured into reaching this moment.
The minute their ship was stabilized and the outriggers secured, Chen began delegating tasks for everyone starting with the assembly of the limo. The squat cylinder would be their main defense against the near-zero kelvin temperatures outside. All three of them felt more then a little put off by the constantly repeated safety warnings. Yolanda dealt with it by repeating the mantra 'coldest spot in the inhabited solar system' which in itself awed her.
“I know that everyone feels as excited as me to get out there and see what we can learn from these structures. But I need to insist that nobody remain outside for more then 70 minutes. The suits may have two hours of oxygen, but the insulating systems aren't guaranteed for more then 90 minutes and your lungs will freeze long before you run out of air. Most importantly, I insist that none of you...and I repeat not one person leaves this ship alone. If you don't have someone to accompany you, let me know and I'll watch your back. Once the limo is assembled, we'll put together the IEVs and you'll be able to go play.
Of course everyone wanted to go see the plaque in person and take more detailed pictures of it, even though humanity had been poring over the symbols for over a century. Isfaheem and Chen took an ion digger and excavated around the base of the chimney. He found that the perfectly smooth material extended well below the surface, which was to be expected, but the plaque yielded no new information. It was formed out of a material totally unknown and impervious to any impact. This was obviously how such a structure could have survived the countless meteorite impacts and vast temperature changes of the Plutonian surface.
Once the limo was ready, Muogo went out with Yolanda to look for any other linguistic clues. They spent 15 hours exploring before coming back with nothing more then a few samples from the castle and a piece from what had resembled a girder. Isfaheem's analysis of the latter showed that it was made of an iron alloy, though one as yet undiscovered. The material of which the castle and the other rectangles were made of was exactly the same as that used for the chimney. After the cursory look at the girder, Isfaheem's hours of testing on the unknown rock bordered on the obsessive.
Yolanda watched as the he and the captain stared at it like children examining a bug.
“Mr. Chen this is without question, the most monumental discovery in the history of geology. This stuff is at least twice as hard as diamond but with a structure more like shale. I cannot for the life of me imagine how they carved something like this.”
“Isfaheem, were you able to find any marks on it which could be considered artificial?”
The man turned away briefly from his magnifying lamp. “I'm sorry to say that there isn't a single mark or scratch that I could say is definitively artificial.”
“Amazing. And yet they manipulated this strange rock into the largest structure on the whole planet.”