~~~~~~~~~~
"While you were cleaning yourself up, I thought that, as I’m here, I ought to give the equipment a quick check-over, and found a transmission on a frequency we don’t use. I haven’t had a chance to find out more yet. Maybe we could have a look into it together?"
"Happy to be of help."
"OK, thanks. I just brought up the diagnostic software on the computer and it found the signal. It’s very weak, though. As there’s no sign of any kind of a break-in to the base, I can only assume that the signal is coming from the surface of the ‘roid. We’ll need a couple of highly directional receivers that will receive only on the transmitter’s frequency and have their sensitivity increased as we get nearer to the source. The signal is on 1,957.5 Megahertz. There should be something we can rustle up. It’s not as if we’re short of electronics in here" smiled Billy, as he moved across to his workbench.
As Will looked on, unable to assist, Billy started to build a collection of assorted test equipment, circuit boards and electronics components on the work bench from various parts of the room. "OK. I’ve found a receiver I can use but it doesn’t work on the signal’s frequency, plus gathered together some other bits and bobs so I can build a receive converter that will change the signal frequency so that the receiver can work with it. It won’t look pretty but it should do the job. Once I’ve built one converter, I should be able to copy the circuit fairly easily. While I get to work on this, fancy making us another coffee? It’s going to take a while and I’m starting to get thirsty."
By the time Will returned with two hot mugs of coffee, Billy had made a good start on putting together his modified receiver. The smell of a hot soldering iron and melted solder filled the air near to Billy.
"You seem to be making good progress" said Will, as he put one of the mugs on the bench near to Billy, before he sat down to Billy’s left.
"It’s been a while since I had to do anything like this but it seems to be coming back to me better than I thought. I might be able to give it a quick try in about ten minutes. While I’m working on this, could you have a look around and see if you can find another receiver? We’re going to need one each when we get outside."
Twenty minutes later, he sat back, looking pleased with himself. "The moment of truth" he said, plugging the working prototype into the nearby portable power pack. To both their relief, it seemed to come to life.
"Let’s see what we have." Despite making various adjustments with the volume control and the receive frequency, all they could hear was a sort of an electrical burble. "Looks like it might be scrambled in some way. Let’s see whether we can do something with it" he muttered, moving to the computer keyboard and switching on the computer screen. He opened a program and tried a few of the modes that the company routinely used to transmit information. None worked.
"Hmm, they’re not using any of the usual stuff. I wonder if they’re using anything a bit unusual" he said, looking to see if he could try any of the old modes that had stopped being used by commercial services. All of a sudden, the screen started to show a stream of images, although they didn’t make much sense. "Hah! Progress, nearly there. They seem to be using a mode used commercially but abandoned decades ago. It’s using vestigial sideband to modulate the signal."
The images were now clear and were flashing through at a very high speed. "Right, nearly there. Let’s see if I can slow it down so that we can see what’s being transmitted."
After pressing a few keys on the keyboard, Will and Billy were able to see a stream of images on the screen.
"Why on earth are they collecting this information? It’s all freely available anyway" said Will, surprised by what he was seeing.
"No idea but we need to know where the transmitter is for this thing. Now you’ve find another receiver, I just need to knock up another receive converter" said Billy, rising from his seat "That way, we can start to work out why it’s of use to anyone. Before I do, do feel up to going outside with me to check it out?"
"Now I’ve had some food and something to drink, I’m feeling much better, thanks."
Half an hour later, the second receiver was built and both devices boxed and ready to be used outside.
"You’ll need to suit up. There’s a spare suit in the storeroom that you can use. It won’t be a great fit but it will be about right."
Will collected the suit and put it on. It was a slightly different design to the one he was used to, so Billy helped him, to make sure it was fully sealed and that he could breathe properly.
Once they were both ready, they left the communications building and moved over to the collection of antennas and parabolic dishes used by the company to receive and retransmit the signals across space.
"The signal may be pretty hard to find unless we get quite close to the transmitter. The best way to hide it is to use an antenna hidden amongst our regular dishes, so we’ll start over there. It will need a clear view of wherever the signal is being broadcast to and should look newer than the rest of the stuff out here" said Will.
"I agree. I would expect it to be highly directional, so we’re looking either for a long beam antenna or a dish that looks different to the usual ones on the asteroid" responded Billy, as they reached the antenna "farm".
"I suggest we split up and look at different areas, otherwise this will take ages" suggested Will.
"OK, no problem. I’ll go down this way, if you want to carry on a little way."
As they walked carefully through the collection of dishes and antennas, Will was surprised how different it seemed to the area outside Commbase 3.
About twenty minutes later, Will called Billy. "I think I’ve found it. There’s a strong signal here on 1957 Megs and looks completely out of place. Unlike the rest, it seems to have a few external cables. All of the company’s are put inside trunking to protect them. The mechanism for moving it looks different, as well."
"I’ll be there in a moment" replied Billy, who had been starting to wonder if they were ever going to find what they were looking for but realising, from Will’s words, that they might have had some luck.
When he arrived at Will’s side, he bent down and looked closely at the antenna and equipment Will was examining. "That’s odd. There’s writing on the side that’s unfamiliar. All the stuff the company uses has markings in English. I don’t recognise this" said Billy, pointing to the label in question. There was a white label with the words "Farita en Hispanujo" written on it, in red capital letters.
"That’s not a language I’ve ever come across" said Will.
"Me neither, even though we use stuff from all over the known universe" agreed Billy. "I wonder what it means. At the moment, I’m more concerned where this is currently transmitting, so we can work out where the signal is going" taking careful measurements of the direction the antenna was currently pointing. "Now I know where to look, we need to go back inside so I can see if there’s anything I can pull out of the computer to see what there might be in the way of its signal."
As they returned to the communications centre door, Will asked "I wonder what that language is and what it means."
"Same here. Once I know the location of the other end of the signal, I’ll contact my HQ and let them know something odd’s going on here. I’ll give them all the information I can, so that the Head of Operations can decide what to do next. Don’t worry, your presence won’t be mentioned."
Once they were back inside the building, they removed their helmets and moved to the computer terminal, where Billy entered the details from his measurements. A few seconds later, a detailed three-dimensional image of the local solar system was displayed, with a narrow cone overlaid upon it, with its point at the asteroid and broadening out as it went into the distance.
"Well, well, well. I should have realised, judging from the direction of the antenna" exclaimed Billy. "It seems to be pointed at Astraeus 5, the outermost planet of the system. It’s a dead, barren planet and no-one has found a use for it yet, so i
t’s uninhabited. It’s only about 5,000 kilometres across, so it’s pretty small. There was a long debate as to whether it was big enough to call it a planet but once it was discovered that it only goes around the sun, rather than another body, it was agreed that it was the only suitable category for it. At the moment, it’s only about 250,000 kilometres from here, so there is no real loss of signal strength to speak of, making it easy to transmit a large amount of data there without noticeable losses. It moves quite slowly around the sun, so pointing an antenna at it is a fairly safe bet"
"It’s odd. I’ve been to this asteroid loads of times and have never been anywhere near that planet, which we call Zeon 5. Is there any way of being any more precise as to where it will be on Astraeus 5? A diameter of 5,000 kilometres still gives us a large area to search for the receiver" asked Will.
"I have a small laser light source I sometimes use when I’m aligning dishes and other stuff that I can use to narrow it down a bit. While there will be a small amount of dissipation because of the distance, it won’t be much, as there’s no atmosphere for the light to go through. Unfortunately, the receivers will pick up the signal over quite a large area when we get there, which won’t limit the search enough to make them useful but they’re probably worth taking anyway, so we can listen in as we go. The surface of the planet is almost totally flat, apart from a few small craters caused by space debris, so when we get fairly close, I can use our zoom camera to look at the surface to get an idea, programme the details into the ship’s navigator and that will get us fairly close to the receiver. That’s the best I can do, though, so we’ll need to use our eyes after that" replied Billy.
"What about a heat sensor? The receiver might give off a little bit of heat that can be detected when we get fairly close to the planet."
"It’s unlikely that there will be enough heat generated by the receiver but you never know, I suppose. The receiver will need to do something with the info it’s getting, so there may be enough kit to give off some heat. As it’s relative to the background, it might just be enough if I set the receiver to be on high sensitivity. Good idea. At the same time, I’ll link it to an infra-red camera system, which will let us look at the surface, rather than just rely on the detector."
With that, Billy felt he had enough information to call his control back on Columbus. He asked Will to stay where he was, so that he wouldn’t be in view of the camera, then moved over to the communicator. He pressed the call button and the monitor display changed from the company logo to the middle-aged face of the senior operator, Joe Willmore.
"Hi Joe. There IS something weird going on. Someone has fixed a small transmitter and a beam antenna outside pointing to Astraeus 5. The odd thing is, all it seems to be doing is sending routine entertainment broadcast streams there. There seems to have been no attempt to intercept any private messages, which is a bit odd in the circumstances but that would require knowledge of the encryption methods we use, so might be beyond the technical knowledge of whoever fixed up the transmitter. I took some video recordings and they’ll be with you in a few seconds. It could be a hermit who’s set up on Astraeus but it all seems a little odd. Just to add to the strangeness, one of the bits of equipment on the surface has a label on it with writing on it in a language I’ve never come across before. Have a look at the video and photos I’m sending you. Any suggestions as to what you want me to do?"
"Hi Billy. That DOES sound odd." He hit a few buttons on the computer keyboard, "The photos are here. Give me a couple of minutes to give me a chance to have a look at them, and I’ll call you back."
A few minutes later, there was a chime from the communicator speaker.
"Hi Joe. What do you reckon?" asked Billy.
"I agree. It’s most unusual. What I can’t understand is why they’re only streaming freely available stuff and aren’t trying to get hold of anything confidential. Maybe they were in a rush and didn’t have the time. I have fed the words on that label into the main computer here and it translated into "Made in Spain". Apparently, the language is one that surfaced in the late 1800’s on Earth, called Esperanto but it’s evolved over the years. The original idea was to have a common language to create harmony between different creeds and nationalities. Eventually, several million people used the language across the planet but it never became the main language in any country. While it still has users on Earth, there are only a few other users in other systems. What I really don’t understand is how the part got onto ‘Roid 2. As far as I know, all the planets that use the language are purely agrarian or mining and don’t produce electronic goods. I suggest that you go over to Astraeus 5 and see what’s at the other end of the signal path. I’ve called the cops and asked them to meet you over there, so expect a call from them soon. Are you OK with that?"
"Fine by me. I’ll get over there and have a look. I need to cobble together a few bits of kit, so I can have some hope of pinning down exactly where the signal is going to."
"OK, whatever you need. The cops will take a few hours to get there anyway, as they’re currently in Sector 3, near to ‘Roid 1. Joe out."
"Billy out."
Billy turned to Will and said "Let’s see what we can rustle up so we can narrow down our destination. Some of it will already be on my ship, so we only need a few of the more obscure items from here." With that, he gave a list of things that he thought they would need to Will.
Once they had everything Billy could think of, he said "We’d better get out of here. Before we do, can I take a holo-image of us both, for my collection? It’s a hobby of mine.
"I’d like to do the same, if that’s OK" replied Will.
"Yeah, sure.”
When they left the comm building, they carried the items they had collected and placed them next to Billy’s ship, then returned to the out-of-place communications antenna where Billy attached a small laser light to the main arm, and made sure it was pointing in the correct direction, as well as he could. They then went back to Billy’s ship and carefully put the items they had left alongside it on board. As a two-seater Clarion class transport vehicle, accommodation on board would cause no hardship for either of them.
As they left the asteroid, Will took a good look around, to see what the base looked like. "I can’t get over how similar this place is to my Commbase 3. There are some small differences, such as the shape of the building. Also, in my case, the roof is red and the walls are white, unlike this one. The size and location of the antennas is also different but there’s no doubt that this is the same lump of rock. This ship is very different to my ship. Much more spacious and streamlined. It makes mine look positively overweight. Mine’s more like a big box with a cab at the front."
Two hours later, they had set up the various receivers and detectors they felt they needed ready to help them when they arrived at Astraeus 5 and were most of the way to the small planet, when Billy said "Security are only expecting me so, if they ask, I’ll introduce you as my cousin and say that you’re on your way to work on Tharl in the Pinnacle system, setting up a new comm setup. When we eventually get back to Columbus, I’ll introduce you to Kate and Peter."
"Who are Kate and Peter?" asked Will.
"My wife and seven year old son. She was Kate Brown until we married just over 8 years ago"
"Wow, you’re married with a son. I remember dating a Kathy Brown but it only lasted a few months before we split up. She wasn’t happy that I spent so much time in space. While I lived with someone for a few years and have dated a few women since, I’m currently single."
"That sounds like the Kate I married! She wasn’t happy at first but we had a long chat about it and she came round to the fact that the job paid well and by being married we would get decent quarters on Columbus, although she would like us to move back to Ohio when we can. For now, we go down once every month, in accordance with station requirements, to make sure our muscles and bones don’t deteriorate in the lower gravitation of the station. As a matter of interest, who did you
live with?"
"Her name’s Becky Williams. She works in the spaceport admin section on Shackleton. We lived together for about five years but split up last year. No kids, though, which made it simpler when we did break up."
"I remember a Rebecca Williams. If I remember rightly, she was a bottle brunette, of average height. Always wore jeans and a tee shirt, even to formal occasions. A bit of a tomboy, to say the least. We were close friends at college but we never dated" responded Billy.
"Yep, that sounds like her but she didn’t dye her hair, as far as I know. While I saw Becky around at college, we didn’t move in the same circle of friends at that stage. I met her at a party about six years ago and we just sort of clicked, if you know what I mean. It’s amazing, isn’t it? We’re both essentially the same person and do a similar job and have had similar lives but some small decision means they’re different. Some of the differences are quite small, like our chosen profession and others, like you marrying Kate, have taken us in a different direction.
"OK, now we’re as ready as we can be for when we get to Astraus 5 I’ve set the autopilot, we’d better get you into something more suitable for after we land. We need to get you out of those coveralls, as they could invite unwanted attention from security, never mind when we finally get back to Columbus, unless you’re wearing something suitable underneath?" asked Billy.
"Unfortunately, I don’t tend to wear much other than a tee shirt and underwear under the coveralls, so will need to borrow some of your clothes. Fortunately, we’re the same size as each other so that anything of yours should fit me, assuming you have anything to spare."
On hearing this, Billy said "In that case, we’d better see what there is in my locker, then" as he left his seat and turned towards the rear of the ship.
They were able to find a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, which would help make Will feel more in keeping with his new surroundings. The company logo on his tee shirt would definitely have attracted attention from Security, assuming they met face to face. By the time they had found the clothes, it was almost time to start looking for the receiver on Astraeus 5, so Billy left Will to get changed and returned to the cockpit, so that he could start to get things ready for when they were close enough to start their search of the planet.
When Will joined Billy a few minutes later, Billy explained what he had done in Will’s absence. "I’ve turned the detector and receiver on, and checked we’re still following the line of the laser light by ejecting a small amount of water, so that the light can illuminate it. I’ve also switched on the infra red and the heat detector, in readiness for when we get closer. In about five minutes, we’ll be close enough to start looking visually and keeping an eye on the sensors."
"Is there anything in particular you want me to do or will we both try to see what turns up?"
"Since it’s likely to be like looking for a needle in a haystack, it would be best if we both work on the same thing. The detectors will chime if they detect anything unusual but they will need to be fairly close to whatever we’re looking for to react."
As they approached the small planet, Billy and Will looked out of the ship’s main port with the infra red and the heat sensor immediately to its left. The low light, this far from the system’s sun, meant that the details were far from clear. What was apparent, however, was that the surface was almost totally featureless, with surprisingly few craters considering the absence of an atmosphere. It reminded Will of Mercury, in the original solar system, although it was going to be a lot colder than it would be on Mercury this far away from the sun. Even though he knew it was being optimistic, Billy decided to start to search where the computer advised was where the laser they had been following seemed to be pointed. However, there was nothing that either of them could see that didn’t look as if it belonged there. Neither was surprised, as the radio signal would cover a wide area from where the laser pointed, even assuming that Billy had attached it to the antenna properly. Having covered the most optimistic option, Billy decided to cover the likely area in successive sweeps of the ship, first going north, relative to the ecliptic, flying at around one kilometre above the surface. They hoped that they weren’t too high to see what they were seeking but were concerned that, if they were too low, they could take what would feel like forever to cover the area.
After what seemed like an eternity later, when both Billy and Will were beginning to wonder whether they would ever get to find anything, Will spotted something on the lower edge of the infra-red image monitor screen. "What’s that?" he asked.
"Let’s take a closer look" replied Billy, as he steered the ship in the direction of the bright spot on the monitor. As they closed in on the brighter part of the image, they moved closer to the surface and were rewarded by being able to identify a rectangular shape about one metre square.
Billy switched on the external lights and was able to see that there was also an antenna next to the rectangle, pointing back to ‘Roid 2.
"Looks like we’ve found it. I’m going to land so we can get a good look at it. Better suit up" said Billy.