Chapter 30: Investigation
Daria waited patiently as Darren and Anton brought the Explorer close to the derelict ship. It at least felt like it took as long to move the past 1,000 m (3300 ft) as it did to get to Uranus from Mars. She could tell from her clock that was not the case. Still, the transit to Uranus was just over 2 hours and the final maneuvering took a half hour. At very slow speed they were using the shielding to push debris and bodies out of the way as they closed in to the other ship.
Darren parked their craft about 100 m (330 ft) from the other ship. Then he put the exterior lights on to illuminate the craft. Daria looked at the ugly jagged material of the wreck in her viewer. The light dissipated somewhere inside the other craft. She could see bits of floating debris and a couple of bodies, which appeared to be in space suits. This was a scene she surely would not forget.
"Deploy the probe," Anton ordered.
Darren complied. There was an audible 'clank' as the probe was released from the outer hull and began to spool out the 2,000 m (6,600 ft) of optical fiber connected to it.
Anton continued, "Nelson, you have control of the probe."
"Roger Anton," replied Nelson.
"Remember, look for anchor points and watch out for jagged pieces that could cut the fiber."
"Yes Anton."
Nelson guided the probe through the jagged hole in the hull and turned its lights on. The view inside the wreck was stark. There were clearly signs of fire, of explosions, and there were fallen pieces of what looked like the ship's structure. Bodies, though not exactly human, showed the clear markings of decompression. Death had come quickly to many, but not all. In the vacuum and cold of space there had not been any decay of the bodies even though they had been dead a thousand years. Another thing Daria had noticed is that there was no sign of any power active on the ship. This was hardly surprising given the massive damage and its age.
Nelson guided the probe in the general direction of where the bridge was known to be located. Marcipor had given them a general idea of where major places and systems were located on the ship. However, he did not have details. But, some information was better than none. At various points along the route Nelson took samples.
It took about three hours for Nelson to maneuver the probe to a point near where they expected to find the bridge. Daria notice at that point only about 20% of the fiber optic cable had been used. Progress had stopped, however, since they ran into a closed hatch. The probe was not equipped to get through such a barrier.
Anton spoke, "Darren, Nelson, Shamus, and I will get our spacesuits on and prepare to go outside. Tom, you have the con and you will need to keep an eye on the probe. Once we have the hatch open I want you to move the probe forward to see what is beyond it. If there appears to be pressure, then we will have to set up a temporary barrier and airlock. If we run into trouble it will be up to Tom and Daria to get us out of there."
About 20 minutes later the four men were outside of the Explorer and following the path of the fiber to find the spot where the probe had encountered the closed hatch.
Anton led the group. Darren brought up the rear and made certain the fiber was intact. Along the way Nelson took several images for engineering analysis. Shamus took several samples for chemical analysis.
"I tell you, Shamus," Nelson remarked. "I don't think this ship was hit by a piece of space junk! What I am seeing looks like the failure was internal. My first reaction upon looking at the hull and what I see inside is that there was explosion, followed by a fire. I think the decompression was what put out the fire."
Shamus replied, "Well, the chemical analysis will tell us if the fire just stopped due to lack of oxygen or if it was stopped by some fire suppression system. Any chemical they used for fire suppression will certainly leave a trace!"
It took them another 45 minutes to reach the probe's location. There they saw the probe stopped in space about midway between the deck and the ceiling. Anton had everyone adjust their person-to-person frequencies to be the same as the probe's, surmising that they were deep enough in the ship that no one would outside the immediate area around the ship would pick up any transmission.
"Daria, can you hear me?" Anton said.
"Yes," Daria replied. "Have the others test communications as well." Each did. Now Daria could hear all of their conversations. She set the recording system to save each person as a separate track, though she would also hear all tracks simultaneously.
Considerable discussion ensued over the next step and how to gain access to the closed compartment. Shamus stepped forward and placed a sensor on the door. He commented, "There seems to be a heat source behind this door. It is substantially warmer than the bulkheads behind us."
Anton said simply, "Bring the 12 mm (½ in) drill. We will drill through, insert the stick probe and see what is inside."
The next hour was spend carefully drilling through the door. They did not want to drill through any mechanism which might make it more difficult to open the thing once they knew what was behind it. Darren stood by to insert the probe once they were through.
"Alright," Anton said. "We seem to be getting some gas venting. Give me the bug and then Darren insert the probe."
'The Bug' was a 10 mm (0.4 in) cylinder pushed into the hole. It was pushed on through by the probe. Once through it deployed six legs for mobility. It included a camera, plus temperature, and pressure sensors. It also collected gas samples and sent the raw data to the probe for analysis.
Darren looked at the display in his helmet. Reading the results he said, "Temperature inside is 2 degrees C (36 F), pressure is 900 mbars, atmosphere is 22% oxygen and 70% nitrogen. The rest looks like helium. It is certainly breathable, but I would recommend we stay in our suits, since we have no idea about pathogens."
"Set up the temporary airlock and we can then open this door," Anton ordered.
The group unpacked and began installing the flexible materials that would seal the area and form an airlock. While they were doing that Anton spent his time examining the mechanism and how they might actually gain access. It took the better part of an hour to set up the airlock. At this point, however, they did not pressurize the area.
While the group outside the door was working, Daria was watching the feed from the 'bug.' The room was very dark, but not totally dark. There were at least three blue lights glowing. Two were on top of one another. The infrared display showed that the room was filled with equipment, but there were no lights or displays illuminated. As the 'bug' moved around the room it showed that there was writing on various surfaces. There was writing near the three blue lights and the lights were just bright enough that Daria could download images of the text to the computer.
"Shamus," Daria called over the communications link.
He replied, "I am a little busy right now with this airlock. Can we talk later."
"OK. But, I wanted you to know that I have a translation of the writing. It doesn't seem to make much sense though."
"I'll tell you when I can look at it. Shamus out."
Anton called, "Tom, we are coming back. I want to top off all of our consumables and get Daria. This door is going to require her and her cutting torch to open."
"Roger," Tom said. "We will get you topped up and Daria ready to go when you get back here."
Muting her communications link, Daria deadpanned to Tom, "Great. I don't like zero gravity and now I will have to go out and work in it. If humanity was meant to be in zero gravity we would have been born in space."
All Tom could do was laugh.
30.2
Daria floated in front of the closed hatch door. She lowered the solar shield on her helmet and started her torch. The electric arc slowly cut through the metal. Daria was a bit surprised that even though she was using an 11,000 degree C arc the process was going slowly. Clearly this metal was designed to take some very significant heat. If this was the ship's bridge, then it was well protected.
It had taken nearly a half-hour to cut through the door. It was now clearly loose. Of course they had secured it so that the pressure inside would not simply blow the door open as it came loose. Daria's cutting had also been done in the vacuum of space, since providing oxygen while cutting might have caused a fire. Given that this ship seemed to have at least partially burned, they did not want to provide any new opportunities to start a new fire.
Darren opened the tank that has sufficient air in it to pressurize the outer area they created. Shamus monitored the pressure. They wanted to try and exactly match the 900 mbar pressure inside. The gas mixtures might not be the same, but they were most likely close enough.
"We are at pressure," Shamus stated matter-of-factly.
"Good," Anton replied. "Now open the door and let us see what we have inside. Getting access has taken so much time, I am impatient to see what is inside."
"You're welcome," Daria deadpanned.
The four explorers moved carefully into the room. Darren and Shamus carried lights to illuminate the space. The lights proved unnecessary, however, since bright lighting came on once they were inside. Still, the space was cramped.
Daria exclaimed, "Well, at least something works in here! I am surprised the power source is still good after all these centuries. When I was viewing the feed from the 'bug' there were some blue lights off to the right."
Darren commented, "There is certainly plenty of equipment in here and several things that appear to be displays of some type. However, everything is either off or there is simply no power to operate it. I guess that is hardly surprising."
Anton walked off to the right with Shamus in tow. They quickly came to the space with the blue lights. He and Shamus started examining the wall which was divided into rectangles. Each rectangle clearly had two lights, which also seemed to be buttons. Of the sixteen rectangles, only three still had a blue lighted button. The others were dark.
"Daria, come over here," Anton stated. "I need your translations."
Daria walked over and looked at the wall. She quickly pulled up the translations and displayed them in her visor, She then shared them with Anton and Shamus.
"This is interesting," Shamus remarked. "These seem to be hierarchical positions." Pointing to a dark rectangle he said, "This one says 'deputy' on it. Of course we do not completely understand their ship's hierarchy. I didn't request that level of detail from Marcipor."
Darren arrived and commented, "Well, I guess we simply need to deal with the age old question: Do we press one of these buttons?"
"If we look at human literature," Daria deadpanned,"Pushing one of the buttons could result in nothing happening, some monster being released, or our own hideous deaths. Most likely the latter."
Smiling inside his helmet Anton exclaimed, "Daria, are you sure you are not at least part Russian?"
"Sorry, Anton," she replied. "German and English with maybe some Czech thrown in. Not to mention American by birth and upbringing."
"Pity. With your boundless optimism you would make a good Russian."
"Why Anton, have you been learning sarcasm from me?"
Anton chuckled, "No Daria. I am simply a realist. What is it you say? 'Being paranoid doesn't mean they aren't all out to get you.' Or something like that."
"Close enough, Anton."
Anton's tone turned very serious. "I am pressing this button here. Hopefully it will not result in our hideous deaths."
Anton reached out and pressed the glowing blue button on the lowest of the still active rectangles. The group waited.
The light in the blue button started blinking. In about 30 seconds the color changed from blue to white and one of three other lights came on. It took another minute before the second light came on and then about two minutes later the third. The group could only stand around and watch. Other than lights blinking and coming on, nothing else seemed to happen. There were no sounds associated with the actions.
Suddenly, a hiss of gas was heard and the rectangle fell open. A container slid from the opening. When the group peered down into it they were amazed.
30.3
The being laying there in the box had its eyes wide open and was breathing. It was clearly one of the aliens that had produced Marcipor and this ship. It was clothed in what Daria would call a green jumpsuit. She wondered, 'Were jumpsuits alien technology?'
Shamus stepped up and said in the alien's language, "We are here to help you. What is your name?"
The best way Daria could describe his response was that he said his name was 'Arnisan.' She ran the name through her database Marsipor had provided. 'Arnisan' came back as a somewhat unusual name for males of this species. The meaning of the name was 'detail oriented.' It was also the name of an ancient line of rulers in their civilization. She could not tell if the look on Arnisan's face was one of relief, puzzlement, or sheer terror.
Arnison said something to Shamus. Shamus replied, "A thousand Earth years."
Arnison shook his head. Then he started to get out of the container. Shamus and Anton assisted him.
Once standing Arnison looked around. Then he looked at the wall. He just stood for a moment and then leaned against it with his hands spread out. His body shuddered several times. Then he said something.
Shamus translated for the group, "He said, 'They are all dead. Only two remain." Then Shamus turned to the alien and said, "We can rescue you and the others. We will take you to our colony back on Mars."
After Shamus made his statement Arnison turned to him and said, "Thank you." Then Arnison reached out and pressed the two remaining lighted buttons." The waking sequence began for each.