Solar Express (46 page)

Do take care.

When she finished and sent off the message, Alayna took a deep breath. She couldn't still have said why, but she'd felt that an out-and-out screaming warning—GET AWAY FROM THE ARTIFACT SOON!—wouldn't have been welcome, and might not have gotten through to Chris, since it had been clear that all messages to and from him were being read.

Since there wasn't anything else that she could do, not that would have much effect, she went through her morning checks, including going to the aeroponics room early, and then checking on the pressure in the cargo lock to see how the seal repairs she'd made were holding up.

After that, she forced her thoughts back to her own problem. She'd gone back and checked to see if there were any instances of the “regular-shaped” mini-granulations, but even Marcel's careful scanning had revealed exactly one possibility in the latest observations, and it also appeared to be another affect of the mini-granulation's impingement on the flux lines bordering the edges of two regular granulations—again. Could it be that most of those only showed up during the times of the solar maximum? Why only then? What might that reveal, if anything, about the multi-fractal mini-granulations?

Once again, the words she'd thought had vanished, at least for a while, were going through her head:

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there.

Thinking about what wasn't there, her thoughts drifted back to the artifact, and some of the observations Chris had passed on. It wasn't pitted or scarred anywhere. It had circles on the hull that, again, couldn't be explained in any traditional fashion, and then there was the damned reflectivity shift, indicating that the artifact was now absorbing the higher energy wavelengths. Another form of solar power? Working after tens of centuries, if not longer?

Could something—the alien equivalent of an AI?—still be functioning? Or was it just an intelligent material response, something engineered to work no matter what? Either way, the artifact worried her.

You can't do any more now.

She wrenched her concentration back to her own solar difficulties, hoping that her message wouldn't be unduly delayed and that the message within the message was clear to Chris and didn't scream out too loudly to those reading it before Chris did.

 

62

T
HE
N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES

25 N
OVEMBER
2114

[O
TTAWA
] Last night, after acrimonious debate during a rare Saturday session, in a close vote of 73–71, the Noram Senate approved a supplemental appropriations bill for the Department of Off-Earth Affairs, clearing the legislation for President Yates's signature. The vote was heralded as a victory for the Administration, but foreshadows more bitter infighting over funding in the continuing lame-duck session, despite the looming threat of possible military action by the Sinese Federation against the Indian-UAAS alliance. The vote would not have occurred if President Yates had not called the Senate into session to deal with military issues related to the Sinese/Indian escalation. Conservative Party chair Edward Spalin declared that the loss of three seats in the election earlier this month would not change the calculus of the fight over next year's budget. “The people are tired of their tax dollars being poured into space when so much remains undone here on Earth.”

“Pouring money down a rat-hole to perpetuate a global hoax.” That was how Senator Riccardo Castenada (CP-NY) characterized the Administration's funding request. He also released documents that purported to show that Space Service officials authorized the Noram manned expedition to investigate the “nonexistent alien artifact” termed the Solar Express, using funds appropriated for other purposes. Castenada's amendment to censure DOEA Secretary Luvalle was defeated on a straight party-line vote of 80–65. Castenada reiterated his contention that the Solar Express was not only a hoax, but a fraud designed to funnel government funds to the military-space combine at the expense of urgent domestic needs.

Senator Craig Savage (CP-ID) attempted to amend the bill to require all funds used for DOEA procurement be spent in North America. That attempt was ruled nongermane by Vice President Saint-Denis, despite a protest by Senator Castenada.

When Senator Kim Greywinter [D-ALB] observed that events had proved Castenada, referred to as the “individual representing New York,” had been wrong about the Sinese probe to the Solar Express and the subsequent Sinese manned expedition, Castenada replied, “I don't care if the Sinese pour billions down their rat-hole; that doesn't mean we should.”

Castenada was investigated earlier this year by the Noram Inspector-General's office in regard to charges that he revealed classified DOEA material to the media after the Administration failed to provide additional disaster relief to New York City. That investigation was closed without comment by the Inspector General.

In related developments, EC Chancellor Rumikov, recently returned to Vienna, again called on both Noram and the Sinese Federation to share fully any scientific information recovered from missions to investigate the Solar Express. He called their present failure to do so deplorable.

Sinese Minister for Space Wong Mengyi let it be known through ministry officials that it was absurd to think that the Sinese research vessel investigating the Solar Express was a hurriedly converted space warship, since the Sinese refused to be the first to militarize outer space, unlike others who had already engaged in covert militarization …

The Yates Administration declined to comment on the veiled Sinese charges about covert militarization. There was no word about whether the President would request additional funds for the Department of Defense to deal with the current international crisis.

 

63

R
ECON
T
HREE

25 N
OVEMBER
2114

Early Sunday morning, Tavoian checked the CO2 levels again, up more than slightly to one point nine percent, more than one percent over the recommended SMAC of point seven percent for missions exceeding seven days, but CO2 levels had been bouncing between one point seven and one point eight for several days, depending on his level of activity. They were up especially after he'd exercised, but the atmosphere system seemed to be handling the CO2 adequately, if not outstandingly. There was also the continued loss of reserve air, now down to twenty percent, because of all the repairs and equipment refittings requiring use of the lock.

What can you do except worry. Besides, you'll be leaving in a few days.
Still, almost a thirty percent increase in a day was something to watch. He knew that the SMAC levels were protective, and that people had survived at higher levels, but that above three percent over several days, there were definite, if minor, adverse impacts, and above five percent the effects were worse. Above seven percent … He didn't want to go there.

There were worse things than an elevated CO2 level. At least, he could breathe without ripping his lungs out, unlike his mother. He didn't like thinking about that, or that Kit was alone with their parents. Not totally alone, but she'd had to deal with so much already. He'd tried to be encouraging, sympathetic, and caring in his last message back to her, but the fact was that he wouldn't have been able to go Earthside even if he'd been on Donovan Base. All that didn't make him feel any better.

He turned from the environmental indicators, considering how much he wanted to use the ISV and the spy-eyes, since his stock of thruster propellant was down to twenty-eight percent. Then he frowned and asked, “When will we reach the orbit of Mercury? Using the averaged orbit figure of fifty-eight million kays?”

AT PRESENT ESTIMATED VELOCITIES, RECON THREE WILL REACH A POINT FIFTY-EIGHT MILLION KAYS FROM THE SUN AT 0721 UTC ON NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH.

That was days earlier than anyone had calculated—except Alayna. A wry smile appeared and vanished.
With three days left, thruster propellant isn't going to be a concern.
It also meant that Tavoian needed to think through what else he could do, what else he and his remotes could possibly discover.

Over the past two days, he had deployed the ISV and the larger spy-eyes to the other four points of the imaginary hexagon where he thought there might be additional other passageways leading to the “drive” chamber. The results had been less than he'd hoped for. One more spy-eye had vanished, but at three of the points, there had been passageways leading in the direction of the drive chamber. Each of those passageways had ended in a closed passage, apparently where the entry to the drive chamber should have been. None of the long passageways had shown any indication of an entry to a possible ship launching bay. The fourth point, although it had been the second investigated, might also have led to the drive chambers, except at a point corresponding to where the other passageways began, there was a solid bulkhead. Whether that meant that there was a passageway, or nothing at all, was impossible to tell.

Tavoian felt as though he were spinning his wheels, figuratively as well as literally, on the smooth, almost-frictionless surfaces of the artifact. He also had the feeling that the Sinese were running into the same problem. From what he could tell, they also hadn't come up with much, for all the spy-eyes and remotes that swarmed over the artifact. There certainly hadn't been any concentration of space-sleds, spy-eyes, or remotes in any one locale.

After studying the map that the AI had constructed, Tavoian began to prepare one ISV, a rover, some signal repeaters, and the fiber-optic spooling device to investigate areas that neither he nor the Sinese had yet looked into.

Shortly after he'd dispatched that ISV, losing more atmosphere in the process, while he was studying the monitors, especially the one focused on the larger Sinese ship, he observed two of the sleds or tugs moving slowly toward the artifact, one towing a large assembly, the other tethered to the assembly and following. The slowness of movement suggested to Tavoian that the equipment—whatever it was—was fairly massive, and that the second sled was there to decelerate that substantial mass so that it would not smash into the artifact.

“Didn't they have that assembly out yesterday, trying to test or cut through the hull?” Tavoian already knew. His question was rhetorical. So far as he and the ship's AI had determined, the Sinese had had no success.
So why are they trying it on the dark material? Or are they trying something different?

Because he couldn't get that good a view of what the Sinese were doing, Tavoian decided to send out the remaining ISV and a pair of spy-eyes to see what the Sinese were trying, especially since he had had both ISVs investigating passageways when the Sinese had used the laser assembly earlier, and the only images had been from Recon three and not particularly clear. The Sinese had been observing his investigations, and it only seemed fair that he should be able to observe theirs, if from a discreet distance. He wasn't about to hazard the ISV by getting as close as the ten meters that the Sinese spy-eyes had been to his remotes. Depending on the Sinese reaction, or lack thereof, he might ease one of the spy-eyes closer.

He had to hurry to ready the second ISV and spy-eyes, but the Sinese were moving so deliberately that they were still positioning the assembly when the ISV moved out of Recon three's lock and toward the alien artifact. Tavoian halted the ISV roughly a hundred meters from the artifact. From there he dispatched the spy-eyes, as he sat before Recon three's controls and took in the views from both spy-eyes and the ISV. He spread the spy-eyes to each side and halted them around twenty meters from the space-sleds.

Two figures in white spacesuits were working with the large assembly, trying to position it and maintain that position over the slowly rotating artifact. The view from the nearer spy-eye strongly suggested that what it viewed was a high-energy laser, one that had to be powered by a linked chain of supercapacitors. And it was aimed at a center of one of the rectangular sides of a hexagon—which doubtless was an entry point. Tavoian was more than sure that the Sinese had discovered what he had about entries to the hexagonal chambers. The two sleds moved farther apart, the assembly held between them on a cable, with perhaps ten meters separating each sled from the assembly.

Tavoian frowned.
That much distance between them? Are the idiots really going to aim a high-powered laser at that entry point?

He had scarcely thought those words when energy seemed to flare from the artifact back at the Sinese laser. The images from both spy-eyes blanked. Then the rear of the entire Sinese assembly exploded.

Tavoian immediately had the ISV scanner focus on one sled and then the other. Each of the men piloting a sled seemed to be unhurt, although the shattered and fused laser assembly was hurtling away from the artifact and passed within fifty meters of the ISV.

Neither spy-eye resumed transmitting images.

“Can you control the spy-eyes?”

NEGATIVE. NO RESPONSE TO COMMANDS.

Without an AI rover on board the ISV, there was no way Tavoian could immediately recover the incapacitated spy-eyes. So he eased the ISV back, setting it on a return course to Recon three, then checked on the other ISV, well over five hundred meters away. All indicators were normal. “Can you determine what happened?” He had his own ideas, but the AI had direct access to all sensors, which recorded the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

THE SINESE ACTIVATED A UV LASER. THE MATERIAL REFLECTED IT BACK AND AMPLIFIED IT. THE BEAM SPREAD. THE HEAT EXPLODED THE SUPERCAPACITORS.

For a moment Tavoian wondered. Then he shook his head. He almost laughed, except it was a wonder the two Sinese hadn't been killed. With the change in the hull's reflectivity, the silver material simply had absorbed all the laser's energy when the Sinese had used the laser on the hull the day before. But the dark material had done exactly what the single thread had done when Tavoian had used a laser to cut it … except the Sinese had used a far higher powered laser.