“We’ll have to wait for somebody to find the Forscher to be sure,” he said. “But whatever the breakdown was, it probably killed Kobayashi and Trelawney.” Fudoki Kobayashi had been the pilot. Jake shook his head. “Terrible way to die.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t end it,” said Hutch. “He could have walked out of the airlock.”
“I suspect he kept hoping somebody would come. He’d sent out a distress call.”
“I guess so. But he must have known nobody would hear it for a long time.”
“Maybe. Still, he was an actor. Maybe he didn’t really understand how big it is out here. He gets here in a few days. You kind of lose the feel for the size of everything. Or maybe he didn’t know it wasn’t a hypercomm. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now.”
Maybe, she thought, he just wasn’t inclined to give up.
Something had become stuck to one of the storage cabinets in the rear of the vehicle. It looked like a notebook. Hutch removed it, opened it, touched the keypad. Nothing happened. “I think it needs charging.”
“We’ll take it back with us.”
“What do we do about Simmons?”
“Leave him where he is. Let the pros take care of it.” He took a last look around. Shook his head. “Nothing more for us to do here.”
They crossed back to the Copperhead, and Jake called the Patrol to let them know what he’d found. They thanked us and said they already had a unit underway.
“Good,” said Jake.
“You’ll stay on the scene, right? Give us a signal to track?”
“We’ll be here. Copperhead out.”
Hutch connected the notebook to a power source. And began paging through.
“What’s it say?” asked Jake.
She frowned at it, scrolled through to the last entries: Whoever reads this: Get to Talios III by the last week of November. And, the last line: Guess we bombed.
Jake leaned down, closer to the screen. “What’s he talking about?”
Hutch started paging back. “Give me a minute. It sounds as if they were running an experiment of some kind.”
“Whatever,” said Jake. “It’s irrelevant now. That November is long gone.”
It didn’t take long to find what they were talking about. Simmons had been enjoying a quiet hour, reading the comic novel Last Man Out, which was not at all the kind of book she’d have expected in his case. The voices of Trelawney and Kobayashi were just barely audible on the bridge. Then, in Simmons’ words, everything came apart. There was a loud bang, screams, and darkness.
“Probably a power surge,” Jake said. “It would have knocked everything offline. Including the AI.”
When Simmons got to Trelawney and Kobayashi, they were both dead on the bridge. Electrocuted. The backup lights had come on, and fortunately the system had maintained life support. But other than that—
The hypercomm system either didn’t come back online or Simmons didn’t know how to operate it manually. Normally, all that’s necessary is to give an instruction to the AI, but the AI was down. Simmons decided his best chance was to use the shuttle radio, and send out a distress call in case anybody was nearby. So he got into the shuttle and launched.
He’d planned to return to the ship after sending the code six. As if things could not have gotten worse, the launch doors closed behind him and wouldn’t reopen.
It was hopeless. The last pages were filled with messages left for his two ex-wives, for his kids, and for friends and colleagues. There was no sign of self-pity. Frustration, yes. But if he was frightened, he didn’t leave any of it on the record. Incredibly, he remained the action hero so many had come to admire. Except this time it didn’t end happily.
Get to Talios by the last week of November.
Guess we bombed.
Benny broke into her thoughts: “I think,” he said, “There’s more in the notebook. About November.”
“What’s that?” Hutch asked.
“In the Talios system, they encountered an interstellar vehicle.”
“Too bad it wasn’t around when they broke down,” said Jake.
“You misunderstand me, Captain. It doesn’t seem to have been one of ours.”
Jake and Hutch sat quietly while Benny explained. “They were walking around on the fourth planet admiring the scenery when their AI alerted them that they weren’t alone. She told them there was a spacecraft in the area that did not fit any known configuration. And that it was approaching.”
“My God,” said Jake.
“Do you want me to put the pertinent sections onscreen?”
“Yes,” he said. “Please.”
The vehicle had been considerably larger than the Forscher. It was enormous. Probably two miles long, its hull black and smooth. They could see illuminated ports, including an area that had to be the bridge. We ran for the shuttle, Simmons wrote. Ten minutes after we got back inside the ship they were on the radio. Strange-sounding voices. Not human. Nothing like us. We said hello to them, and I’ll admit I used the friendliest tone I could come up with. They answered. One of them did. Don’t know what it said. Though it wasn’t hard to guess.
“You know,” said Jake, “there should be a complete record of this on the Forscher. Pictures, the radio transmissions, everything. We’re going to have to find the ship.”
“That won’t be easy out here,” said Hutch.
She kept her eyes on the screen, reading Simmons’ narrative. During the course of the first day, the AI’s learned to communicate with each other. Greetings went back and forth. The alien vessel was an explorer from a distant place. Trelawney, apparently beside himself with exhilaration, pointed out to the aliens that Forscher also meant ‘explorer.’
They got a quick reply: “There is little to do out here other than explore.”
The aliens had a sense of humor. And another question came from them: “Would you allow us to visit your home world?”
Nobody on board the Forscher thought that would be a good idea. There was no way to know their intentions. Above our grade level, Simmons commented. They didn’t dare reveal Earth’s location.
The visitors replied: “We understand.”
When Trelawney asked where they were from, they also showed reluctance, and would say only that they’d crossed the galaxy. “We have come a great distance.”
And the biologist gave the same response. “We understand.”
They talked for several days. Simmons and Trelawney both visited the alien vehicle. Apparently, Kobayashi passed on the opportunity. Several of the aliens came aboard the Forscher, after the pilot had arranged a trigger that would overload and blow the drive unit if a problem developed.
“He doesn’t say what they looked like,” said Hutch.
Jake shrugged. “The AI probably has all kinds of pictures. I wonder,” he continued, “if that’s what created the problem going home? Rigging the ship to explode, just in case? When he disconnected, Kobayashi may have overlooked something.”
“Could you do that to us?” asked Hutch. “Rig us to explode?”
“It wouldn’t be that hard.”
After a week of exchanges, it ended. The aliens were moving on. “But,” Trelawney told the aliens, “we should arrange to meet again. Maybe, given some time, we can get permission to invite you to come to the home system. Though, to be honest, I think that may be unlikely. I suspect there would be political issues. But we have people who would very much like to meet you.”
Simmons quoted one of the aliens: “We would like that.”