Hidden within the labyrinthine installation were bays that held two completed large shuttles, plus another still under construction and a pair of smaller craft. The large shuttles were 16 meters long by 10 wide, blunt arrowheads with lifting body shapes. Between their shape and hull material they were inherently stealthy, very difficult to spot using conventional radar. Each could carry 42 passengers in a 2-2-2 first class seating arrangement within a 6 meter wide cabin. Alternatively, the seats could be collapsed into the deck, resulting in a 10 by 6 by 2.5 meter cargo area.
A rear stairway could be lowered for passenger loading from the runway underneath the craft, similar to the airstair arrangement on some old Boeing 727s. When docked flush against the hull of the Peggy Sue, the same stairway extended into a purpose built airlock on the spaceship’s upper deck. The windscreen of the flight deck and the entire top of the passenger compartment, from armrest height upward, was constructed much like the nose of the Peggy Sue—large sweeping transparent panels framed by thin silver strips where the panels met. Under normal conditions the panels in the passenger area were kept opaque, but they could be turned transparent in an instant, providing a breathtaking overhead view. Those who experienced the ride to or from orbit with the cabin in transparent mode described the experience as Disnyesque.
Each smaller shuttle, referred to as a pinnace or Captain’s launch, was built on a similar planform shrunk down to a 10 meter length. With a cabin area roughly equivalent to a corporate jet, they could carry eight with a crew of two. Both types of shuttle were equipped with small fusion reactors, gravitonic drive and acceleration compensating deck gravity generators. Full coverage repulsor arrays were mounted to ward off space junk—a real problem near the incredibly trashy lower Earth orbits—plus the repulsors could turn away small arms fire if the occasion warranted.
Though the Peggy Sue was fully capable of landing on Earth, doing so and then returning to space required a great expenditure of energy. Even running on muon catalyzed fusion power, such a wasteful use of energy was expensive. Besides, bringing the whole ship to the planet’s surface to embark or disembark passengers and supplies offended TK’s engineering sensibilities. When the Peggy Sue quietly made orbit a few days ago, instead of landing at Parker’s Station—an event that might not have escaped notice—it was one of the large shuttles that flew up to meet the returning starship, bringing up new additions to her crew and ferrying much of the existing crew planetside for some well deserved R&R.
Among those crew members were Rajiv Gupta and former ISS astronaut Hiroyuki “Yuki” Saito. Since returning to Earth they had been working feverishly on plans to improve the efficiency and output of a number of the ship’s systems. Aiding in their efforts was the estimable Dr. Schmitt and a gaggle of engineers. The other thing the returning scientists concentrated on was an effort to recruit more scientists to the project. Hence Rajiv’s call to Dr. Piscopia.
“Well it looks like she will be coming to the conference in Melbourne after all.” Rajiv smiled at his colleagues. He had checked the preregistration for the conference, or more precisely he had one of the staff computer hackers do it for him. Elena was not on the registration list, prompting the phone call. “And I do believe that she is interested.”
“Und how do you know that, Rajiv?” asked Dieter. Dr. Dieter Schmitt was a tall man, close to two meters, thin with pale icy blue eyes. Stooped shoulders, sharp features and a prominent nose topped by a shock of untamed black hair gave the chemist a markedly vulture like appearance.
“She was not planning to attend the conference, or at least was unregistered. But she immediately decided to attend when I mentioned we might have some interesting work for her.”
“That’s great, Rajiv,” said TK, “I hope we have as much luck with the others on the list.”
“Rajiv, my friend. All of this secret project work has rubbed off on you,” said Yuki, smiling to show that the remark was intended in jest. “Dr. Piscopia will be an excellent addition to our group if she accepts the offer.”
“Yes, her reputation is outstanding and though I don’t know her all that well, she seems to be an adventurous type. And as we both know, a thirst for adventure is a definite asset on board the Peggy Sue.”
“Bah, most of my friends would gladly battle space aliens for a chance to travel among the stars,” Dieter scoffed. “But then they are mostly physical scientists. Let’s see how good a reception Ludmilla gets when she calls Olaf.”
Sickbay Office, Peggy Sue, Earth Orbit
Dr. Ludmilla Tropsha, formerly of the Russian Federation Air Force and ROSCOSMOS, was sitting in her office in Peggy Sue’s medical section. She had been putting off calling her friend and colleague, Dr. Olaf Gunderson, since the ship made orbit. Ludmilla had known Gunderson for more than a decade. He was a large man with shaggy dark hair and a bushy beard, reflective of his Norwegian ancestry. No doubt, a thousand years ago, some of his ancestors sailed the Baltic and North Sea raiding any village they came across. Olaf, however, was generations removed from pillaging Vikings. Directly descended from Wisconsin farming stock he was one of the gentlest souls Ludmilla had ever met.
He was also a world renown evolutionary biologist, with a reputation for challenging convention. An iconoclast who took endless delight in debunking consensus science and those who would not, or could not, think outside conventional theories. One of the things he was adamant about was that the accepted evolutionary story of
Homo sapiens
was total bunk. If there was anybody on the planet below who would welcome the news that humans had been genetically manipulated by ancient alien visitors, it would be Professor Gunderson.
Well, here goes nothing,
Ludmilla said to herself and placed a call to his university office number. On the fifth ring someone picked up. “Hello? Gunderson here.”
“Olaf? Hello, this is Ludmilla Tropsha.”
“Oh really? You are supposed to be dead,” came the reply, slightly delayed by the satellite link. That delay was just enough to throw off the normal rhythm of conversation and they both tried to speak at once.
“If this is a joke it is in bad taste,” Gunderson said on the second try. “But I’ll be damned if you don’t sound like Ludmilla.”
“That’s because I am Ludmilla,” Dr. Tropsha snapped, instantly regretting her quick temper. “Olaf, what is that American saying? ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”
“Well, I’ll take this call as preliminary evidence that you are still among the living, but I’m not going to tell anybody else without more solid proof. They said you were going to die on the ISS when that big solar storm arrived month before last,” Olaf paused to chew on his mustache, a habit long established when he was deep in thought. “And then there was something about a mysterious spacecraft and an explosion on the Moon. For someone supposedly dead twice over you sound quite alive. Wait a minute…tell me about your husband.”
“My ex-husband is Yuri Tropsha, I divorced him ten years ago,” she replied, somewhat miffed that asking about her ex was the best test he could devise to establish her identity. “That information proves nothing, it is a matter of public record that anyone could have looked up. Better to have asked about the conference in Stockholm four years ago when you passed out from drinking too much beer at the reception and several of us had to carry you to your room.”
“Now that is the Ludmilla Tropsha I know,” came the chuckling reply. “You always have had a very high standard for evidence.”
“Now that we have established my continued existence, I need to talk with you about something,” Ludmilla replied. “I know you have a more open mind than most, so you may be more willing to believe what I am about to tell you than I was when I first heard it.”
“Wait a minute, before you start telling me any tall tales, where are you? The last known location I have for you was in Low Earth Orbit.”
“Olaf, I don’t want to stay on the line any longer than necessary, for reasons that will become clear later. But to answer your question, I am once again in Earth orbit, though a bit higher up than the ISS. I have been to the Moon and to another star system. I have samples of tissue taken from alien organisms.” Ludmilla paused to be sure he had not hung up on her.
“OK, go ahead,” came Olaf’s cautious reply.
“I am still on board the ‘mystery’ spaceship, which is called the Peggy Sue. I have seen things that a few months ago I would never have believed, so I can understand if you find what I am saying farfetched.” Again Ludmilla paused. Now she understood how Jack felt the first time he had tried to explain all this to her.
Jack, my love, I owe you yet another apology.
Swallowing hard, she continued, “Olaf, I have information that implies humans were genetically modified by an outside party, and that our evolution was altered to suit their purposes.”
Silence.
“Olaf? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here.” A pause. “And you say you can prove this?”
“I can show you the records of the experiments, detailing the modifications made and when—the records go back 4 million years. I’m not experienced in evolutionary genetics to judge the veracity of the records. That is why I am calling you, I would like you to come and examine the ‘proof’ before we tell others about it…”
* * * * *
At the receptionist’s desk outside Dr. Gunderson’s office, his teaching assistant, Kimberly Lawson, was listening on the extension phone. While it was not Kim’s habit to spy on her boss, when she heard “you are supposed to be dead” through the open office door curiosity got the better of her. This was her second year of grad school and her first as Dr. Gunderson’s assistant, a job that mainly consisted of grading papers and keeping his calendar up to date.
Before the supposedly dead caller hung up, Kim overheard Gunderson agree to take a trip to Australia to meet with her. Carefully hanging up the extension she quickly shuffled a pile of homework papers and acted like she was busy grading them. Dr. Gunderson stuck his head out of his office and said, “Kim, I’m going to need a flight to Adelaide, Australia. And a hotel near the University of Adelaide.”
“Yes, Professor,” Kim replied, looking up from her papers innocently. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes, I’ll need a rental car,” then adding, “I will need to call Dr. Mary Sun and let her know I’m coming.”
It would look suspicious to travel all that way and not stop in on a colleague,
he thought.
I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this sneaking around stuff.
“What should I put on your calendar, Professor?” Kim asked, “and who will be covering your classes?”
Damn! I hadn’t thought about that.
“Put that I’m going to Kangaroo Island to have a look at some interesting genetic divergence among western grey kangaroos. I’ll get Dr. Phillips to cover, she owes me for last semester. You can teach the undergraduate section, and thanks for reminding me.”
Kim is a good girl, I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Yes, Professor.” Kim turned to the computer on her desk and began checking flights to Australia.
I don’t know what this is all about,
she thought, smiling a private smile,
but I’m not going to be left behind. Daddy never checks the charges on the credit card he gave me to come to graduate school and besides, I’ve always wanted to go to Australia.
Shuttle Dock, Third Deck, Peggy Sue
Lt. Curtis had Chief Zackly send the assembled Marines up the companionway from the lower deck to the third deck shuttle airlock. Third deck was seldom visited by the crew with the exception of Melissa Hamilton, the ship’s horticulturist. Most of the space on the ship’s highest deck was taken up by equipment bays and more of the hydroponic gardens that seemed to be wedged in nooks and crannies all over the vessel.
The Peggy Sue’s hasty initial departure left neither the time to wait for the shuttles to be completed, nor would they have been useful on that hectic jaunt to Beta Comae. Lurking in Earth orbit and needing to move personnel around the globe changed that outlook—this was precisely what the shuttles were intended for. Now that the shuttle craft were operational, the third deck would see a lot more traffic.
The ship could carry a pair of shuttles, which docked back to back atop the Peggy Sue’s hull. Amidships there were a pair of airlocks built specifically to mate with the underside of either sized shuttle. Once in place, a docking collar is extended to seal around the shuttle’s built in stairway. After a good seal is confirmed the shuttle’s airstair is lowered into the airlock providing access.
After climbed up the three decks to the open airlock, the Marines were ushered into the large shuttle’s passenger compartment. Bobby Danner, one of the ship’s helmsmen, was forward at the shuttle’s controls, and Lt. Curtis was standing at the front of the passenger compartment to instruct the boarding Marines. “Please move forward and find a seat, as you can see there is plenty of room.”
Not fully recovered from his terrible injuries, suffered when the ship launched suddenly nearly two months ago, Lt. Ernest Merryweather was slightly out of breath from the climb and feeling pains in his limbs. This, along with the fact that he spent most of the mission unconscious in sickbay, put him in a cranky mood. He felt like a teenager who passed out early at a party and missed all of the fun, only to awake with a hangover in time for parental punishment. “You’re not planning on flinging us around the cabin on launch again are you?” he groused.
The ship’s initial takeoff had subjected all of those on board to significant gee-forces, which caused injuries to half of the Marines and several of the crew. This was because the deck gravity system could not be calibrated while in Earth’s gravity well. Once in orbit, the final gravitonic circuitry was grown and the system became operational. The system not only provided adjustable gravity throughout the ship, it compensated for acceleration imposed by the vessel’s movement.