“Really, Kq*zt? I didn't know that.”
“You are still young, Gx!pk, and have much to learn.”
“So you keep telling me. Hey, the first ship—the smaller one that entered the system from the path to the parent stars—has left the second planet and is heading away from the sun. Maybe they will come to visit.”
“Hmm, you may be right. This bears watching.”
Chapter 10
New Mecca
After spending several weeks in orbit, waiting for the settlement to be established, Shadi and Dorri were anxious to set foot on their new world. The trip down to the surface was rather anticlimactic; they sat in front of pallets of freight, in the shuttle's spartan passenger section, for more than an hour and then deplaned down a lowered airstair. A warm breeze greeted them as they stepped onto the sandy ground of their new home for the first time.
A couple of kilometers away was a collection of white domes, houses and other buildings constructed by the men spraying foam concrete over inflated forms. It did look a bit like a typical middle-eastern village from a distance and Imam Mustafa rather grandly named the settlement New Mecca. The area around the burgeoning village had been seeded by robot helicopter drones more than a week ago and warm-season C4 grasses—genetically enhanced blue grama, buffalo grass, and bluestems—were just starting to send up green shoots. Once ground cover was established the area would be over-seeded with C3 grasses, more palatable to livestock.
“Hurry girls, it looks like there is rain coming,” shouted Mother Manijeh. “We must herd the sheep to their enclosure on the edge of the village.”
Manijeh was right, off to the east was a line of clouds with darkness beneath them, suggesting showers in progress. Reliable rainfall was essential to establishing grasslands where the settlers eventually hoped to graze their live stock. The planet's slight axial tilt did not provide much seasonal variation and its equatorial regions tended more to having two yearly rainy seasons. The location of the settlement had been selected with the local weather pattern in mind. Far to the east lay an inland sea that provided the moisture to drive afternoon showers in both spring and fall.
“Come on, Dorri,” Shadi said, heading toward the rear shuttle ramp where the sheep were being offloaded. “If some of the sheep run away we will have to go fetch them.”
“I don't think they will run far,” her sister answered, “my legs feel like they are made of stone.”
“Now you know why I made you exercise on the ship. The other girls made fun of us, sitting on their rears more and more as the shipboard gravity increased. Now they will suffer for being so lazy.”
It was true. Several of the other girls were having a hard time walking in the combination of heavy gravity and sandy soil. Mother Manijeh urged them on, shouting: “
Yella habibaati! Imshi!
”
Dorri and Shadi soon had the small flock of sheep headed toward the village as a breeze kicked up the sand and the smell of approaching rain filled the air. Wrapping their head scarfs across their faces they urged their wooly charges toward the paddock that awaited their arrival. Straggling behind the bleating sheep came the rest of the young girls and the scolding Manijeh.
No doubt about it
, thought Shadi,
this is not going to be an easy life...
* * * * *
That evening, with the new arrivals installed in their living quarters and the livestock watered and bedded down, Shadi and Dorri sat on the low wall surrounding the animal enclosure. Both were exhausted from their labors and they watched the red sun sink slowly in the west without speaking. As the sunset faded to black an uncountable number of stars appeared in the sky, undiminished by city lights or air pollution.
“I am so tired,” said Dorri, “I wish we had never come to this place. The days are so long and the gravity pulls at us like it wishes to drag us under.”
“Hush, little star,” her sister said. “This was our first day—it will get easier with time. Just look at the stars coming out.”
“The sunset was pretty and the stars are so clear,” Dorri agreed.
“Night hides a world but reveals a Universe,” said Shadi in Farsi.
“Mother used to say that,” said Dorri, looking at her sister with the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
“Yes, she did. It is an old Persian saying,” Shadi agreed, putting her arm around her sister's shoulders and giving her a reassuring hug. “Remember this is a big, empty world and there will be new things to do tomorrow—just be thankful that there doesn't appear to be anything dangerous on our new planet.”
Off to the west, the afternoon rainstorm had climbed into the far mountain range, visible on the horizon. Piling up against the escarpment that masked the continent's interior, the storm's clouds expressed their displeasure at being blocked by sending lightning to wreathe the offending peaks. Watching the distant fireworks, Shadi could not shake the feeling that there was more to this strange empty world than met the eye.
Bridge, Peggy Sue
The Peggy Sue spent four leisurely weeks visiting the other two planets orbiting within GJ667C's habitable zone. Nothing of real interest was found:
f
was smaller than
c
, with only twice Earth's mass and a Mars like atmosphere, while
e
was nearly as big as the inner planet but with an unbreathable atmosphere they had already encountered more closely than desired. Now, the Peggy Sue was on course to rendezvous with the planet furthest from the star.
Captain and crew were not expecting to find alien life on the outermost planet, a gas giant close to 100 times the mass of Earth. Billy Ray told everyone that he just wanted to do a thorough job surveying their first star system, but in reality, he was reluctant to abandon the colonists to their fate. While it was true that nothing untoward had happened as the three sets of settlers began raising villages and seeding the virgin ground, the mystery of the empty planet nagged at the Captain's mind.
There's still no sign of life on the second planet, I guess that's a good sign. I still can't figure out how you can wipe a planet clean of life and leave the surface and atmosphere undamaged. Maybe the inhabitants were robots or something, and there never was any organic life. Yeah, and 10,000 years ago they just decided to pack up and move away—now I'm starting to sound like Bobby.
“We are entering the planet's gravitational well, Captain,” reported Nigel Lewis from the helm, interrupting Billy Ray's thoughts.
“Maneuver for a high orbit, Mr. Lewis,” the Captain ordered.
“Captain, the planet ahead has a number of satellites,” said Mizuki from the navigation station. “None is overly large or interesting, though there are several in retrograde orbits.”
“Really? It looks like you have found your retrograde moons without having to go to Triton after all.”
“Yes, and radar returns from one of them indicates that it is a sizable metallic object, made mostly of nickle-iron, roughly 300 km in diameter. But it seems to have insufficient mass for its size and composition.”
“You mean it's an anomaly?”
“Yes, Captain. Might I suggest we establish a retrograde orbit ourselves and send a shuttle to investigate?”
“I think that's a splendid idea, Dr. Ogawa,” Billy Ray replied. “This is the first remotely exciting thing to come along in almost a month.”
Engineering Spaces, Peggy Sue
As the ship maneuvered to enter a retrograde orbit around the gas giant Capt. Vincent decided to pay a visit to the engineering crew in the aft of the ship. Chief Engineer Arin Baldursson and his artificers had their quarters in the rear of the ship, close to the drives and reactors that were in their care. Also located aft of the main cargo hold were cold storage, the polar bear quarters and the ship's machine shop.
In older days, when ships sailed upon the seas and not the vacuum of space, navy vessels had well equipped machine shops, capable of turning out replacement components for onboard equipment. In the age of sail they carried woodworking tools, during the age of steam metalworking was required. On the Peggy Sue the equipment to be maintained was likely to be a muon catalyzed fusion reactor, a segment of deck gravity generation grid or an antimatter containment vessel. And while there was still call for metalwork it was most likely to be handled by a 3D printer or 5-axis CNC milling machine inside a fabrication unit.
More often repairs meant dealing with circuitry: superconducting pathways grown by nanites, holographic storage devices, or quantum computational arrays. Sometimes, even old fashioned semiconductors and electronics were needed, but usually repair work involved advanced technology scavenged from T'aafhal sources. The ancient and alien T'aafhal had fought epic battles against the forces of the Dark Lords four million years ago and then vanished, but not before taking a hand in the evolution of life on Earth.
Those with access to the memory stores found among recovered T'aafhal artifacts knew that both humans and polar bears had been pushed toward sentience by those meddlesome aliens. Human scientists had only scratched the surface of the T'aafhal archives, enough to build starships and advanced weapons, but most T'aafhal technology remained beyond human ken. Most of their technology truly was indistinguishable from magic.
Peggy Sue's engineers were called upon to fabricate and repair the mysterious devices that drove the ship between the stars, slipping in and out of alternate dimensions that human physicists had only guessed existed. Their work was as much art as it was science. Naturally, they were the best people on board to divine the purpose of the alien devices recovered from the strange dead planet.
“Well Captain, this equipment is certainly intriguing,” said Chief Engineer Baldursson, motioning to the pile of alien devices spread across the repair shop's main tables. At various places wires and probes connected test equipment to the items being examined. Where some of the wires attached to the alien equipment half melted joins, typical of nanite fusing, could be seen.
“Are you getting any closer to figuring out what this stuff does, Arin?”
“Well, Skipper, we think it's some kind of recording system, capable of capturing both sight and sound. But we don't know what it hooked up to for input. Young Michaels here has managed to cobble up some interface circuitry for it.”
“And what have you discovered, Mr. Michaels?”
The engineer's mate practically came to attention when addressed by the ship's captain. The engineering staff pretty much kept to themselves in the aft part of the ship, not mingling with the rest of the crew and certainly not conversing with the Captain on a daily basis.
“Uh, well Sir, it looks like this stuff is made from 3D semiconductors, sort of like the most advanced stuff we were working on before the alien attack on Earth.”
“So we could be dealing with a home entertainment system or an alien PlayStation?”
“It's possible, Sir. But the technology isn't based on simple electronics, it uses spintronics,” the nervous tech continued. “The circuits use both the electrons' spins and their associated magnetic moments, not just fundamental electronic charge like our semiconductor devices do. The technology is quite advanced, spins are not only manipulated by magnetic fields, but electrical fields as well.”
“Yer saying that these critters were more advanced than us?”
“At least in this area they were. Of course they were not anywhere near the level of the T'aafhal.” There was a growing trend among human engineers and even scientists to hold the long vanished T'aafhal in almost worshipful reverence. For some reason he couldn't quite identify, this annoyed Billy Ray.
“So this group of aliens was on par with us, if not a little ahead, technology wise.”
“Yes, Skipper, I would agree with that statement. But we have been making good progress decoding the data stored inside this memory unit here,” Arin interjected, motioning to a large device festooned with thin wires that led to a rack of lab equipment. That equipment was sprinkled with tiny flashing LEDs and several screens displayed dancing green waveforms.
“In fact, Sir, we think we have recovered a snippet of the last thing it recorded,” Michaels said, pride in their accomplishment overcoming fear of the Captain.
“Really? That's very impressive. Can I see it?”
“Sure, Captain!” Michaels threw a bunch of switches and then nodded in the direction of a large screen on the lab bulkhead. Swirls of colored light danced across the screen, coalescing into a blurry picture.
It looked like the view out of a large arched window opening. Outside were green trees similar to weeping willows, a field of red flowers and a number of white curved shapes that could have been buildings. The picture dissolved into a shower of pixelated color.
“Hmm,” Billy Ray said, “I'm assuming there is more of this stored in the device.”
“Yes, Skipper,” Arin said, “we've been working on cleaning up the video before dumping the rest of the entry.”
Sensing the engineers were a bit disappointed by his reaction, Billy Ray quickly added, “it looks like y'all are doing a bang up job of figuring this stuff out, well done. Carry on, Chief Engineer.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper,” Arin replied, smiling for the first time since the Captain had invaded his domain.
“You too, Mr. Michaels, keep up the good work.” With that Billy Ray exited the lab and headed forward, his mind already lost in thought.
That clip was awfully short but it plainly showed trees and flowers, which verifies that the second planet was once a living world. The big question remains what killed it?
Mizuki & Bobby's Quarters
Bobby and Mizuki retired to their quarters to grab some shuteye in anticipation of exploring the strange porous moon the next day. Mizuki had been worn to a frazzle, riding herd on the science section's expeditions planet side and subsequent efforts to analyze the samples they collected. Her significant other had put in even more time ferrying personnel between the ship and the planet, but had been able to catch up on his sleep deficit during the survey passes of the habitable zone's other planets.