“I’m guessing it’s nearly a kilometer loop,” Joseph said.
Facing Joseph, Raul said, “If you can get me home, I’ll bet a plate of roast beef that it’s all ponds and beached Builders the whole way around.”
“I’ll take your bet. Because they are noncommunicative, understanding their space may be the only opportunity to understand them,” Aki said.
“So, how many Builders have we passed so far?” Raul asked his sensor array.
>
“Assume, just for kicks, an even distribution of Builders in the liveable areas of the ship. What’s the crew complement?”
<
APPROXIMATELY
940
ENTITIES>
After about forty minutes, they noticed their own footprints ahead of them and the fiberoptic cable running down from the branches. Their mapping system also indicated they had returned to their starting point.
Joseph had counted a total of 847 Builders.
“What do we do now? Is there anything more to this ship than a cattle ranch?” Raul asked.
Aki would have reminded him to keep his cool again, but a message arrived from UNSDF Fleet Headquarters.
PERFORM ULTRASOUND SCAN.>
The three looked at each other, wondering what would happen when they actually touched a Builder.
ACT IV: JULY 31, 2041
9:00 PM GMT
“
HEY, ALICE, GOOD
kitty or snake. Why doesn’t she purr or hiss or something?” Raul asked, reaching out to the closest of four Builders. He had named them Alice, Betty, Catherine, and Diane, even though they had not yet determined whether or not the Builders had genders.
Alice was of average size and was selected because a light brown patch on its back made Alice easy to differentiate from the other Builders. Aki and Joseph guarded Raul as he placed his handheld scanner on Alice’s back. He slid the scanner down the upper part of Alice’s body, and the results were displayed on the helmet monitors. Other than minor twitches, the creature lay still with its eyes closed during the entire process.
“They have spines. That looks like a heart with two ventricles. Three sacks behind the mouth cavity. Stomachs? Pair of lungs. Do you notice anything that might be vocal cords? Wait a minute, is that
metal
?
”
Aki spotted a rod about five centimeters long in the spinal cord behind the chest. A muscle fiber extended from one end of the rod. The other end of the rod connected directly to the spinal cord.
“There’s one here, too, in the lower body,” Joseph said. “Another in the head.”
The skull was spherical with two holes for eye sockets. It had a brain similar to a human’s but the structure was not hemispherical. The rod in the head went to the top of the skull, ending just below the skin.
“The two upper ones are connected to the spine and the brain. It must be some kind of bio-integrated neural implant. My guess is that they’re being monitored or controlled—maybe both. Maybe that’s why they’re ignoring us,” Raul said.
“For what purpose?” Joseph asked.
“Probably because they’re being transported. What if they’re just cargo, no more intelligent than a herd of cattle? The rod implants keep them sedated during the journey to ensure that they survive. The ship’s programmed to take care of their environment.”
“Possible, but if the ship’s environmental control system is that advanced, it does not make sense that the ship would allow us to enter and interact with these creatures without intervening to protect them,” Aki said.
“Chalk that up as another unsolved Builder mystery for now. I could scan another one, but we know we’ll see the same result,” Raul said.
Aki wondered what it would take to provoke a response from them. “How long does one of these things live? If the ship was en route for six hundred years, these must be the descendants of the original bunch. It would be easier and safer to just send fertilized eggs that they could incubate just before the arrival. Given what they’re capable of, that would be child’s play,” she said.
“Why not just send the DNA? Since their nanobots can build almost anything, they could grow them from DNA samples once they arrived.” None of the explanations made sense to Aki. There had to be a reason for the live transport of these beings, even if their minds were being controlled by technology. The Builders, Aki was convinced, were rational actors engaging in goal-oriented behaviors. “Their consciousness must serve some purpose during the voyage,” Aki said.
“Then maybe we’re looking at the meat locker. These must not be the Builders,” Raul said.
“If that is true, who eats them? This habitat looks too meticulously designed to be a cattle pen,” Aki said.
“Maybe they taste better when they live in luxury,” Raul said.
“Sprawled in the water like a Roman bath, my guess is that they are intelligent but so deep in thought they do not notice us.” Aki meant to continue her musing but a warning appeared on their monitors.
>
“Somebody’s standing on our cable,” Raul said. He was trying a joke, but his fear was evident in his voice once again.
>
“The cable was severed at the first segment, back at the airlock,” Raul said.
“How?” Aki asked.
“No idea. That cable can withstand four tons of force.”
Panic shot through Aki’s body. “Let’s get there, see what’s going on.”
Moving quickly, they used their mapping system to retrace their steps through the forest and back to the entrance of the holding pen environment. Climbing the tether, they found the closest end of the first cable. It was still connected to the second cable and showed no abnormalities.
“Must be farther up,” Raul said.
They followed the cable back toward the hexagonal cells. Below the hole Joseph had cut in the hull, they found the severed cable next to a puddle of gray liquid. The hole was no longer there. Where their door had been was a different shade of gray than the surrounding area, but the wall had been regrown.
“It’s like the nanotech fur. It grew back to seal the hole,” Raul said. Aki could not help but notice the horror in his voice.
“Contact Team to
Phalanx
. Do you read? Igor?” Joseph said into the wireless communication system. After a full two minutes, there was still no reply.
“With the plasma torch outside in the airlock, the only chance for escape will be when the graser hits. Which is going to do a lot more than just cut a hole,” Raul said. He held his hand in front of his helmet. “At least we’re not melting, d-d-despite contact with the outer surface of the hull. It must not possess the same c-c-orrosive property the Vert-Ring ha-has.”
Aki noticed the stammer that had become more and more evident as Raul had kept speaking. “Back to the beach, follow me,” she said. “The only chance we have is explaining our situation to the Builders.”
“W-what if they aren’t the Builders?” Raul asked. Through his glass, his face had gone pale.
“I insist you follow my lead and go with my assumption. Come on.”
Joseph too seemed concerned and a bit lost. Aki glanced up at her own monitor and saw that time was running out. The graser would be fired in less than three hours.
WHEN THE CABLE
had been cut, the observation cameras had detected the movement of the portable airlock. The airlock was flung from the spinning Torus, revealing that the entrance hole had been sealed. The equipment that had been taped to the ship’s surface sank into the hull without a trace.
As soon as Igor realized that the communications line had been cut, he switched on the emergency wireless communicator and sent an automated call that was programmed to repeat until it was answered. The only message that appeared was the error that the connection had dropped at the first node, indicating that the disruption had severed communication.
Igor also sent a message to the rest of the fleet and UNSDF Headquarters:
Portable airlock destroyed, equipment inside disintegrated, and entry hole in the hull sealed. Request immediate instructions on how to proceed with rescue operation for extracting Contact Team.
Igor knew all too well that there was nothing that he or the rest of the fleet could do. Even the closest ship was far enough away that it would take two and a half minutes for his message to reach them. There was no ship close enough to be able to deliver the plasma torch they would need to cut a new hole for a rescue. Even if a ship were closer, the
Phalanx
, along with the Builders’ ship, was still traveling at ninety kilometers per second, making docking and delivery impossible. The UNSDF had not built or deployed any other
Remora
-class craft.
“Aida, see if you can come up with how we can hack into that hull. Double-check that we’re out of plasma torches.”
“The spare equipment kit that had the second plasma torch was taped to the side and just vanished, but I’ll double check, just to be sure.”
Igor admonished himself for agreeing that the extra equipment should go with the away team. With the portable airlock as their base camp, all the spare tools had been stored there. At the time, it had seemed like the emergency supplies should be close at hand.
“Anything else on board that could produce intense heat? What about the engine?” Igor asked.
“Once we cut through, we would irradiate the interior. They would never make it out, even in their space suits. Besides, with the rotational speed of the Torus, we wouldn’t be able to target one spot long enough for us to burn through,” Aida said. Igor heard her clinical detachment and the sadness underneath.
They discussed modifying the communications laser but realized that it would not be enough even if they could maximize the beam’s concentration. It was designed for carrying a communications signal, not for slicing through metal.
“If only we had some sort of explosive,” Igor said out loud to himself.
One of the committee members had said that the Builders’ technology, so far beyond human knowledge that it seemed like magic, was most likely advanced enough to detect whether or not the
Phalanx
had any weapons on board. Many people had opposed the idea of the Contact Team, criticizing the ship’s enormous budget. Some felt that the prohibitive expense of an extra ship could compromise the attack on the Builders. To mitigate the concern, since its mission was solely to attempt a first contact, a series of compromises had determined that the
Phalanx
would carry no weapons in order to best express the peaceful intentions of Aki’s mission.
Igor wished Raul had stayed behind on the
Phalanx
because Raul might have been able to have Natalia explain the situation to the Builders. It was upsetting. Igor searched through Raul’s files for some sort of documentation that explained how the AI worked but soon realized that, without Raul, it would be impossible for Natalia to communicate with the Builders in a way that was comprehensible to humans.
Knowing that he had to relocate the
Phalanx
to a safer spot so it would be clear of the attack, Igor watched the last few seconds of the countdown tick away.
“Time’s up. We have to leave now to guarantee that we’re clear of the blast zone.”
“And just leave them?” Aida asked. “I know it’s what we’re trained to do. Can we live with ourselves?”
“We don’t have a choice. If the ship isn’t destroyed by the graser, we can come back and attempt another rendezvous. Aki had to leave one behind and came back into space knowing the risk. Even if we didn’t have enough fuel to get back to Earth on our own, a gravitational assist from Mercury would get us there eventually as long as our supplies held out.” Igor began the thruster sequence required to take them a safe distance away from the Builders. Once the
Phalanx
was pointed away from the alien vessel, the NERVA III engines fired, carrying the
Phalanx
away from the Builders’ trajectory toward Mercury.
ACT VI: AUGUST 1, 2041
12:05 AM
AKI WAS CERTAIN
that the
Phalanx
had left. She could not confirm the departure from inside the alien vessel, but the deadline had passed. Remaining this close to the Builders’ ship with the graser looming would be pure suicide. It would have been wrong for the
Phalanx
to remain. Knowing they were on their own, Aki, Joseph, and Raul had a new sense of purpose. Because the graser would fire in less than forty minutes, they were determined to push for solutions until they ran out of time.
They returned to the first black pool. Alice and her three companions were still lounging on the shore. Aki had her crew make every attempt to get Alice to respond to their presence. They petted and rubbed the creature’s hands, face, and belly, and tried stimulating her with different permutations of light and sound. Eventually, Aki had even instructed Joseph to punch Alice several times, yet the Builder had shown no reaction whatsoever. Sometime after they had finished their attempts, Alice rose from the beach, soaked briefly in the dark liquid, then crawled back onto the shore. It was unclear whether their actions had registered with her at all.