“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. “Poor son of a bitch. Die out here, like this.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t end it,” said Priscilla. “He could have walked out of the air lock.”
“I suspect he kept hoping somebody would come. He’d sent out a distress call.”
“I guess so, Jake. But he must have known nobody would hear it for a long time.”
“Maybe. But he was an actor. Maybe he didn’t really understand how big it is out here. He got here in a few days. When that happens, 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. Priscilla 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?”
“We’ll put him in the deep freeze.” He released the restraints and took a last look around. Pulled the body free, which was of course easy in the zero gravity. “Nothing more for us to do here. Let’s go home.”
They crossed back to the Copperhead, and Priscilla called in the report. Then she 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. “I guess they did.”
“Get to Talios by November? You think they were running an experiment of some kind?”
“Whatever,” said Jake. “It’s irrelevant now. That would be November nine years ago.”
* * *
“BENNY, SHOW US anything that deals with what happened to the ship.”
He put it on-screen: Simmons described the moment: He 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. The voices of Trelawney and Kobayashi were just barely audible on the bridge. Then, in Simmons’s words, Everything came apart. There was a loud bang, screams, and darkness.
“Probably a power surge,” Jake said. “It would have knocked everything off-line. 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, of course, life support had been maintained. 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 also. Simmons decided his best chance was to use the shuttle radio, send out a distress call in case anybody was nearby, then come back and try to figure out how to work the hypercomm. But he thought the hull would reduce significantly the strength of the radio signal. So he got into the shuttle and launched.
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, “I’ve discovered what he’s referring to. About November.”
“And what’s that?” she 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 PRISCILLA sat frozen while Benny explained. “They were on the surface, doing fieldwork, 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 on-screen?”
The vehicle had been considerably larger than the Forscher. It was enormous. Probably three kilometers 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. But we responded. We said hello, 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 Priscilla.
She kept her eyes on the screen: During the course of the first day, the AIs learned to communicate with each other. Greetings back and forth. The alien vessel was an explorer from a distant place. Trelawney, apparently beside himself with exhilaration, pointed out 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: “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 the intentions of the visitors. 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—which was to say everything—if a problem developed. “He doesn’t say what they looked like,” said Priscilla.
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 Priscilla. “Rig us to explode?”
“It wouldn’t be that hard.”
After a week, it ended. The aliens were moving on. But, said Trelawney, 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 problems. But we have people who would very much want to meet you. It would be a start.