Stars Rain Down (5 page)

Marcus felt a pang of guilt. He'd hardly felt them at all since they left Earth orbit, but now they were coming back with a vengeance. He decided it was finally time. "Listen... can I come clean about something?"

"You've been cheating at cards, Marc. Buy me a steak when we get back home, and I'll think nothing of it."

Why did everyone always think he was a cheater? "No, no... About the mission."

Just then, the intercom lit up and produced a tone in F-sharp. "Commander needed on bridge. We've arrived at Waypoint Lambda-Five."

"Roger that, bridge. On my way." He flashed a toothy smile at Marcus and said, "Whatever you wanted to tell me can wait for later."

"Probably not," Marcus muttered, but the ship's commander was already through the door. He had no choice but to follow.

The bridge was like the rest of the Shackleton but about three centimeters more spacious, every surface covered with a dizzying array of switches, dials, readouts and other things Marcus had no business touching. It was also the only part of the vessel with a view outside, which was presently filled with a vast field of asteroids looming in the dark.

Faulkland climbed into the captain's chair and strapped himself in. The rest of the bridge crew were already at their stations and fastened down with five point harnesses. "Take a seat, Doctor." The last word had a sarcastic sting to it, as it always did. "You don't want to be floating free during this."

The commander grabbed a black handset, pressed the button on its side, and the F-sharp tone rang out again. As he spoke, his voice echoed through the halls. "Attention all crew and passengers. We are now preparing for final deceleration before entering the asteroid field. Find a suitable harness and strap yourself down, or you'll want to see your chiropractor afterward."

Marcus clicked his belt, and his eyes were suddenly filled with those asteroids. He picked through them trying to find his target, wondering if she might be visible from this distance, but it was no use. Zebra-One was still too far off to identify... if she was visible at all.

"Alright, that's long enough. Mr. Macek, bring us about one-eighty counter vector."

"Roger," Macek called back. As soon as the word was out of his mouth, the ship began to spin along its axis and the view of the asteroid belt slid away from Marcus' hungry gaze.

"Maneuver complete, Commander."

Faulkland tapped his personal display and scratched his beard, then looked up and said, "Sixty-percent thrust for 326 seconds, on my mark." The room was silent as a tomb while waiting, and Marcus imagined the commander was stalling just for drama's sake.

"Mark!" Faulkland barked.

Then it began. The Shackleton was filled with a roar as its engines magnetically accelerated ions into space. The sound was shocking at first, but it was so constant and pervasive that Marcus numbed to it quickly. He was reminded of a field-trip to a hydro-electric dam in the fifth grade. He'd been impressed enough by the massive structure itself, but the trip became transcendental when he stood beside the dam's thundering outlet and began to understand not only the billion tonnes of water held on the other side, but also the nearly unimaginable force contained within them.

Now he was in the depths of space imagining that dam's immense strength at his back, pushing against the Shackleton's momentum. He started to wonder how the ship's reactor compared to the dam, but abandoned the math after a moment. Better to enjoy the ride, he thought, so he relaxed and stared out through the thick polycarbonate panes.

The force pressing him into his seat was equal to Earth's gravity, and with a little imagination, he was lying on the ground back home, watching the glittering night sky. During an earthquake. Next to a waterfall.

The engines' fearsome thrust lasted for just under six minutes, and then cut out as abruptly as it had begun. The sudden lack of noise left Marcus feeling hollow and reverent, like sitting in a church as the bells finished ringing.

The ship came back around and its windows were again filled with a field of charcoal black stones stretching into the distance. They were nearer now, close enough that their size could truly be appreciated. As Marcus stared on in amazement, he wondered how humbling that view might be to the people who built the Foundation's empty cathedral.

"Not very," he mumbled, only to realize he was talking to himself again.

Faulkland glanced over at him. "Come again, Doctor?"

Marcus looked a little sheepish. "Nothing, Commander. My internal monologue slipped out."

At the start of the voyage, a comment like that would've been followed by an uncomfortable silence, but Faulkland had grown accustomed to the Gypsies' eccentricities after five months in close proximity. He nodded and said, "Understood. A view like this is liable to shake the best of us."

The commander took another moment to admire the view, then grabbed the microphone and announced that it was once again safe to move about the ship.

With the very talented Mr. Macek at the controls, The Shackleton slipped into the asteroid belt like a surgeon's scalpel, using only the lightest thrusts to carve a path to their objective. The passing asteroids grew to even more fantastic proportions as the ship progressed, many dwarfing the largest mountains on Earth.

Rao entered the bridge compartment and found a spot at Marcus' side. A glance at his face revealed a scientist in rapture, suddenly closer to the subject of his research than he'd ever thought possible. He was the first in his field to view these asteroids with the naked eye, and Marcus thought he could hear Rao's heart thumping madly in his chest.

Faulkland indulged the eager scientist and asked, "Would you care to tell us what we're looking at, Doctor Rao?"

"Of course," Rao replied. Without skipping a beat, he moved closer to the windows and started pointing out asteroids the way a tour guide introduces animals in his zoo. "These are largely C-Type asteroids, composed of silicates, sulfides..."

Then, 228 days after Marcus made his presentation at the Foundation headquarters, after a half-hour of Rao's excited lecturing on the composition of rocks, the Shackleton Expedition finally arrived at Zebra-One.

As the Shackleton Explorer approached its destination, there was nothing ahead of it but empty space. The atmosphere on the bridge had been peppered with excitement and discovery a moment before, but it was now thick with confusion.

Then the ship passed through... something. It was like a thin film or the surface of a liquid, and there was suddenly something massive out in front of them, so large that it filled the entire viewport and made all the nearby asteroids seem minuscule by comparison. The object was long and thin like a cannon, and Marcus knew from his studies that it stretched more than thirteen kilometers from end-to-end, with a secondary structure attached to its hip that, while shorter, was still more than eight kilometers long.

Seeing it for the first time in person, the sheer scale of Zebra-One left Marcus dumbstruck.

The air of discovery rushed back into the bridge, electrified with total astonishment. Minutes passed before anyone could muster the ability to speak.

Faulkland was the first. He furrowed his brow, pursed his lips, and said, "Ms. Park, bring up the survey image of Zebra-One."

She looked to Marcus questioningly, and he nodded his assent. An instant later, the image Marcus had presented to the GAF appeared at the front of the bridge, right beside the viewport where the real thing was visible. The object in the picture was of the right dimensions, but with a glistening exterior that was black like obsidian, and ringed by a series of vertical ridges. The real Zebra-One was entirely different, a greenish and iridescent surface half caked in sediment, bristling with tiny spires that at once evoked Roman architecture and insect anatomy.

Faulkland looked back and forth between the reality outside the window and the holographic fake. On his face, Marcus recognized the look of a man who had just been cheated at cards. "Doctor Donovan. I believe you wanted to come clean about something?"

"I did, Commander."

The beleaguered commander ran a hand through his greasy hair, past veins that were starting to throb on his forehead. "Now would be an excellent time. What the hell am I looking at?"

Marcus unbuckled himself and floated out to the front of the bridge, taking up station beside the projection. "Park, please bring up the original."

The image of his fictional asteroid was replaced with the final scan from Copernicus. "Commander, this is Zebra-One, an object of unknown origin which my team and I have been researching for the past seven years. We haven't been able to determine what she is exactly... but I don't think she's from our neck of the woods."

Rao, awkward and nervous, said, "Wait, it's not metallic hydrogen? I must have been mistaken." It was somewhere between a weak lie and a bad joke.

A growl rumbled deep in Faulkland's throat. "I don't appreciate being lied to, Donovan. You're telling me this is what? Some kind of alien craft?"

"Maybe, or maybe the alien itself. We couldn't be sure from Earth, so we're here."

Faulkland's arms were crossed and he stared straight through the massive object. His breathing was slow and methodical. "They never would have approved that mission," he finally said. "The windbags would've destroyed your data, and you along with it. Made sure you couldn't get a job teaching grade school science in Siberia. You're a real son of a bitch, Donovan."

"Thanks... I think."

Faulkland unbuckled his harness and pushed off into the middle of the bridge, eyes still fastened on the viewport. "I know I should be furious right now, but fuck... this is really something, isn't it?"

Marcus drifted over to meet him, and then turned and pointed out at Zebra-One. His pose mimicked every painting of an explorer discovering a lost city. "It's a promise waiting to be fulfilled. And where would you prefer to find your name in the history books, Alex? By some manned mission to Jupiter, or next to
first contact with extraterrestrial life?
"

"Yeah," was all Faulkland said. Then he woke from his stupor. "Shen, prepare a status update for Bangalore. Tell them we've arrived at Zebra-One and will begin initial survey within the hour." He gave Marcus a knowing nod.

"That might be a problem, sir," Mason Shen said in consternation. He was working furiously at his station. "I've lost contact with Earth, sir."

"Solar flare?" Faulkland asked.

"No, sir. The forecast is spotless, and solar radiation is within tolerance. Signal just went dead about five minutes ago, and I haven't picked up a thing since. I'm still receiving a carrier signal from Mars, though."

"Strange. Probably nothing. Relay through Mars until we can re-establish contact."

"Aye aye."

Faulkland turned back to Marcus. "So what now, Doctor?"

Marcus had years worth of plans ready to unfold. "This is our first glance up her skirt, and I'd like to make a few passes along the length of her. Get the lay of the land. With any luck, we might get some insight into how that camouflage works. After that, we go out to meet her in person. Rao's team identified a number of structures called
irises,
which we suspect to be air-locks, or else some kind of unknown organ. Either way, our investigations should start there. Iris Charlie on the starboard side of the main hull appears to be the most accessible."

"How many times have you rehearsed that speech?"

"Thousands," Marcus replied. Then he noticed something about Faulkland's demeanor that he couldn't immediately put into words. "You're coming along," he said incredulously.

Faulkland had a smile as wide as the stars. "Wild horses couldn't stop me."

"Isn't that kind of reckless?"

"If we weren't a little reckless, Doctor Donovan, we wouldn't be space cowboys."

Marcus Donovan reflected on that and decided that truer words had never been spoken.

***

Copernicus Observatory was dark. Its generator was off-line for routine maintenance, and during this part of the station's orbit, the sun was completely hidden behind the Earth, leaving the distant stars the only remaining source of light.

Nils Jansen was floating near the main power console, idly looking over a wiring diagram with a flashlight. He had a skin-tight pressure suit on, minus the helmet which dangled from his hip by a lanyard. The inside of the station was reasonably comfortable still, and he hated the damned contraption. It made him feel claustrophobic, and he didn't plan to put it on until the station's air started to taste foul.

Other than Jansen, the spherical control center was totally deserted. He belonged to a three-man skeleton crew left aboard the station while Bangalore controlled it from the ground; research teams occasionally came through, but in the mean time, Jansen and the other two technicians kept the seats warm, made sure the place didn't fall apart, and tried not to kill one another.

That last part could be really tricky.

It wasn't Jansen's dream job by any stretch of the imagination, but the salary was alright, it was easy work, and he accrued enough leave to visit his family every few months. And he knew it could be worse; he could be hurtling through space on some dumb alien hunt.

He flicked his headset on. "Marco?"

There was another moment of silence, then his earpiece crackled to life. "Polo."

Jansen groaned. "When are you gonna give up that lame, tired ass joke?"

"Three seconds after you start addressing me properly."

"Fine," Jansen said. "Technician Jansen to Technician Esquivel: Are you done yet? I wanna turn the power back on. Over."

"Nope. Two blown fuses at Junction D7. I just sent Hopkins off to get replacements."

Jansen looked down at the crinkly wiring diagram and found Junction D7, then started looking for the nearest storage locker. He found it a hundred meters away. "You sent Hop? He'll take a week."

"He's getting faster," Marco said hopefully.

Jansen shook his head. "No, he's not."