Once inside the ring, crewmembers guided them along the up-curving corridor and told them to hold onto the handgrips. When they were suitably orientated, the ring began to slide its way around the ship, gradually pushing the outer walls of the ring, the floor, up through the soles of their geckos. Once 1/6th Earth Standard Gravity was achieved, the passengers began to let go of the grips and pad along the corridor, looking for empty bunks, knowing that the closer the V3 got to Trevon, which exerted 9/10th ESG, the more punishing the rotation would become. They had around 20 hours to get used to it, and most of them had already decided to do that in their sleep.
By the time the V3 arrived at the jump point, some 15 minutes after leaving the Station, the crew had completed their pre-ftl checks, and their guests had settled in.
Commander Ferris looked around the command cabin one final time, giving his helmsman and second-in-command the opportunity to find a last minute glitch. There was none.
He gave the order to jump.
There was a ripple fore and aft, the hull appeared to gleam, wet and shiny, and Scat and the Trevons were gone from Prebos.
As Commander Ryan Xin waited for Petroff in the administration offices, his deputy, Thomas Williams, walked him through the sensor data.
‘So it’s definitely not a natural obstacle? Not an asteroid?’ he asked
‘No, Ryan,’ Williams answered.
‘A local craft? A piece of space junk?’
‘I thought of that. No. No record at all. Nothing’s been reported missing.’
Petroff cut in as he arrived:
‘What’s its status?’
‘It’s dumb, sir,’ Williams replied, straightening up, ‘although we detect some weak and intermittent signalling. It might be shielded if it’s manmade and combat capable—or was combat-capable.’
‘Understood, but what of the anomaly surrounding it?’
‘There’s no explanation for it right now, but then we’ve not had much time to analyse it, and we aren’t getting much back from our sensors—its absorption is almost 100%. What we do know is, it’s awful big, and it has no mass. The craft, junk, probe, or whatever it is, appears to be dead centre. It’s the only thing in the anomaly that is reflecting anything at all.’
Petroff was as puzzled as both Xin and Williams.
No one on Trevon was capable of building long-range ships and no one used shuttles to reach this far out into space, even within this system.
The anomaly had drawn their attention to it.
It was almost 15000 kilometres in diameter. One instant it was there, the next it was gone; blinking in and out, blacking out all the stars beyond it.
And despite Williams searching the net for a comparable anomaly since its discovery, nothing had yet popped up that was remotely similar.
‘Is the Venture Raider ready, Ryan?’ Petroff asked.
‘It is, Jack,’ Xin confirmed. ‘We have a full flight crew and two security detachments aboard. And enough fuel for 200 hours at 2.5 light years per hour. The anomaly is only three AU away so there’s plenty of reserve.’
‘What about the SG who conducted the initial scan?’ Petroff asked, referring to the StarGazer operator who discovered the anomaly when validating the V3’s flight request.
‘He’s been told to stay “Mum” until you speak to him.’ Williams replied.
‘Is the V3 clear?’
Petroff had been the one to suggest pushing the L-M V3 along a different course. It was an afterthought. The new course had taken only a few minutes to predict and, although he had told Ferris the obstacle was in one of the channels on the way to Trevon, that wasn’t strictly true: Petroff just wanted the V3 well out of sensor range by the time it dropped back into space so the Raider could check the anomaly on the “QT”.
Williams checked his graf.
‘Yes, sir, it is. It jumped a few seconds ago. It won’t sense anything. Do you want the back-up SG to track this thing from the Station?’
Xin broke in before Petroff could answer:
‘Yes, it would help,’ he counselled. ‘No one need know. It makes sense to keep an extra pair of eyes on it for when you get in close. We can secure the data locally.’
Petroff saw an opportunity: he suspected he might be more comfortable working with the less confident Williams on this trip.
‘I agree, Ryan—so long as the data is secured locally. You stay here to keep everything under lock and key. And make sure the locals don’t take advantage of our absence.’
Xin nodded, waiting for Petroff to give his final orders.
‘OK, then,’ Petroff began. ‘Thomas, arrange for the spare SG to be set up down here and I’ll meet you on board the Raider in 30 minutes. We leave as soon as Ryan has set it up and given us the all clear.
‘Abel is to take us halfway to this thing on the first jump.’
24
In the hours after he had first sought Marvin’s wise counsel, Scat had stared at the low ceiling of his bunk waiting for everything to sink in. That was a couple of days ago, and it had not truly done that then, but now, as the V3 made its way to the first buoy along the designated channel to Trevon, he could let his mind settle. As it did, he tried to put what he knew into context.
Given what he had learned of Pierce’s death, his “deal” with Petroff, and the fluidity of everything, he was now doubly concerned that Marvin honour his confidence. Scat had no idea where Marvin stood although he suspected that, on an intellectual level, he would sympathise with the secessionists.
Scat did not think it mattered that people were pissed, disgruntled, or even looking for a greater share of the voice: power was always shifting from one centre to the next—it was in the nature of things. But if the authorities did not handle the situation well—and there were already signs of that—then the jostling and positioning could give way to a very real war, just as it had on Earth during the scramble for its remaining resources.
And did anyone know how to conduct a war in space? Just how do two planets, or solar systems, separated by 117 light years, slug it out? He tried to imagine it, but couldn’t.
It was crazy.
Could the Outer-Rim planets genuinely hope to achieve truly meaningful independence from Earth?
He could not guess at an answer. Most of the Outer-Rim planets were still in the early stages of development and were barely adequate hosts for their current populations. They needed Earth, almost as much as Earth needed them, even if the New Worlds were to start trading among themselves.
Then there were the needs and wishes of the corporations that had funded the majority of the New World developments. Most were Earth-incorporated, long embedded into the power structures there. The profit motive was a strong and influential factor, and that meant things might not flow along a predictable path.
As he stared at the cabin ceiling, it dawned on him that he was probably witnessing, first hand, and for the second time, another transformational shift in the affairs of man.
Whereas the Resource Wars had been all about Earth’s remaining resources, the next conflict was likely to be all about the resources man had yet to discover. Yes, they might cloak it as a struggle for local government by local people, but it was a land grab, nevertheless. A land grab on a scale so vast, it had no historical comparison.
Change was inevitable. The distances involved would complicate the process of change. It would get messy: messy enough to hit Scat’s bottom line—what little there was of it.
Pierce’s “suicide” had been a complication in an otherwise routine security operation. It was an inconvenience, no more than that, but in Petroff’s experience, it was always best to eliminate that kind of threat early on. Lynthax could thank him later or not at all—on this occasion it did not matter.
He had already done a lot worse in his 10 years as Director of Security. He was constantly doing the jobs for the board of directors that they could not do for themselves, and he had lost count of the number of times he
had cleaned up after their brattish, privileged children. His files—his “Hoover” files as he called them—were filled with such indiscretions and he was getting quite adept at turning a week’s worth of cover-up work into a decade’s worth of favours. Sadly, his files were not quite the hammer he needed to crack that final glass ceiling: he did not yet have all the votes he needed to join that most exalted of Lynthax families—the board of directors—but he was working on it.
This thing, though, was a far-from-routine matter and had come from well out of left field, being both unexpected and potentially more destabilising than the current upheavals around the Outer-Rim.
Petroff had yet to articulate his thoughts on the matter, and guessed that neither Xin nor Williams wanted to discuss it either, for fear of it becoming a matter of record.
The anomaly couldn’t be man-made. It was either a natural phenomenon or …
He caught himself before he could finish the thought.
I’m not going there. It complicates everything.
The first rule of space exploration, the Law of First Contact, was abundantly clear: it forbade any unapproved contact with a species that has the capacity for space travel. The immediate action in such a situation is to high-tail-it-the-Hell-out-of-Dodge—at maximum light speed and to the maximum limit of sensor range—away from Earth. Even if it did take forever to work out where one ended up, and even longer to find the way home again, one was never to interact with it, and one was never, ever, to show them the way to a human world. Obviously, no one expected anything good to come of a chance encounter with a potentially superior life form.
But although Petroff enforced the rules, he did not always abide by them. He liked to push things until he was standing over the red line. After all, what was the point in possessing such power and privilege if you could not use it, and sometimes abuse it?
In any case, in the history of manned space flight, no one had ever before come into contact with anything more intelligent than the bugs and lower-order mammals of the New Worlds. More importantly, he had no proof, to this point, that they were indeed approaching an alien craft, or that the anomaly was anything but natural.
So, the net can’t offer a comparable natural likeness. What of it?
Space was full of firsts in that field.
In any case, they had to check it out. He couldn’t just leave it there, so close to the Outer-Rim.
On reflection, the events unfolding within the human universe were challenging, but predictable. In situations such as these—rebellions, insurrections and revolutions—the changes they brought about often disturbed the order of things, but were then absorbed. Life went on. The rich and privileged learned to deal with the new dynamic and stayed rich and privileged.
But, should he be right about this thing, then …
He was still wondering about how well Earth would cope, when the Venture Raider dropped out of ftl.
25
Abel called up the command cabin screen while the crew ran system checks and readied the frigate to jump again. Petroff had been very clear: he wanted the capacity to jump clear within minutes of arrival, but for the next eight minutes or so, no matter what was ahead of them, they were exposed and vulnerable.
The screen flickered and then burst light around the darkened cabin. Faces suddenly came into view. There was nothing to see at first, just a blur of stars. The SG operator got to work, adjusting the resolution and magnification.
Then there it was.
Ahead and slightly above them was a black space where the anomaly cut a void through the starry backdrop. Then it was gone, and there it was again. It was still blinking. Its position had not changed. Nor had its size.
From his observer’s couch at the back of the cabin, Petroff glanced over at Williams and then back to the screen.
‘The craft?’ he asked.
‘Still there, sir.’
‘Good. Abel, how long before we can slip in closer?’
Abel’s Number Two, the Raider’s Second-in-Command, threw up eight fingers.
‘Eight minutes, Jack,’ Abel replied.
‘OK. What are we learning from the SG?’
The SG operator looked up at the cabin screen, then down to his console before turning to face Petroff.
‘Still no reflection, sir. We can’t detect the stars beyond the anomaly when it blinks on. It’s as though they just disappear. The vessel remains in view throughout. It doesn’t go anywhere.’
‘Any radiation?’
‘None from the anomaly. Some from the vessel, though it’s weak: its main power source must have died quite some time ago. However, what radiation there is does tend to spike along with the blink rate. It’s higher when the stars blink out.’
Petroff nodded and then turned to Williams.
‘Williams, what are you seeing?’
‘Similar, sir. Emissions are volatile, sir. There’s no pattern to them. They’re random and weak. What we can see is coming from the craft, not the void.’
‘OK, thank you. Abel! Half the distance again when we’re ready to jump.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Abel ordered his Number Two to power down all the non-essential systems and then he sent his crew back to main stations.
In the hold at the rear of the ship, while the officers had pondered their next move, troopers, specialist technicians, and fire and medical teams had been hard at work. Everything was now ready. The in-system tug was free of its zero gravity moorings, ready to launch rearwards from the number two port deck. The explosive bolts holding the frigate’s life capsules in place were primed. Two detachments of troopers now sat in separate shuttles, ready to board the unidentified craft, should there be a need. And the medical team had powered up the life support airbeds and purged the re-pressurisation chamber of stale air.
For the first time since its decommissioning by the Inner-Rim Forces two years before, the newly christened Venture Raider, formerly the IRF Singapore was ready for action.
Abel counted down the last few seconds. He then looked up.
‘Take her in, helmsman,’ he ordered. ‘SG, watch for a response.’
‘Aye, sir.’
And the frigate disappeared from space as it jumped again.
26
The SG’s voice sounded a pitch too high and his words were rushed:
‘It isn’t two-dimensional, sir. It’s a sphere.’
‘How do you know?’ Abel asked. ‘It doesn’t emit anything. We can’t get a read on it.’
‘There’s nothing between us and the craft, sir. It’s a complete blank. The readings, I mean. No particles, no radiation—nothing. We should be picking up more noise in the space between the craft and us, but we’re not. It means the anomaly is closer than the craft. It can only be a sphere.’
‘How far are we from the surface of this “sphere”?’
They had been closing on the anomaly in ftl hops, shortening the distance each time by around a half.
‘Perhaps 20,000 kilometres, sir. We’re only 27,500 kilometres from the craft.’
‘Very good, SG. Sir?’ Abel called across to Petroff who was in consultation with Williams. ‘I advise we launch the tug from here then back off. We can come in again for it as and when it exits the void. She’s a range of 300,000 kilometres. It’ll do.’
‘OK, Abel. Get it done.’
The small, snub-nosed tug pushed off as the Venture Raider backed away off under impulse power to a distance of 50,000 kilometres from the spherical void, keeping its sensors trained on the craft at its centre. By the time the frigate had come to a full stop, the tug was passing from recognized, radiated space and into nothing. Within seconds, its communications with the Venture Raider turned to mush. But Abel was a competent commander, and he had planned for such an event: the tug continued its pre-programmed journey under automatic pilot.
The tug scanned the craft as it made its approach, recording the craft’s emissions each time the void blinked. When i
t closed to within 2000 kilometres, it changed direction and circled around it. After it had completed a circuit, it returned to the void’s outer-limits and re-entered recognisable space.
Once it was clear the tug was returning unharmed, the Venture Raider closed in and allowed it to dock.
‘Number Two, check the tug’s systems,’ Abel ordered.
‘Aye, sir.’ The Number Two nodded to the SG who passed his hand through a 3-D screen to touch various parts of the tug’s schematic.
Petroff made his way across the floor to stand beside the Number Two, hands on the back of the SG’s chair.
The SG looked up at the ship’s Number Two, and then noticed Petroff:
‘Er, sir? Sirs?’
‘Yes—what have you got?’ Petroff asked.
‘The tug picked up 5,023 emissions from the craft, all of the same strength and type. This time there was no randomness, they’re regular and quite strong.’
‘OK, good. See if you can interpret them,’ the Number Two replied, chivvying him along with his hands, quietly adding: ‘Get it done quickly, lad!’
The SG got to work.
‘So it can speak!’ Petroff said loudly for all to hear. ‘But I wonder what it says?’
The SG looked up at the Number Two again:
‘They are the same emission, sir. At least it’s the same strength, wavelength and duration … but it’s not a recognisable SOS … or an identifier. Actually, sir, they match the blink rate of the void.’
‘A command, do you think, sir?’ Williams asked.
‘Perhaps,’ Petroff mused. ‘SG, what is the time-lag between emission and blink?’
‘It’s almost instantaneous, sir. Virtually no lag.’
‘For the record then, what comes first, emission or blink?’ Petroff asked, giving the SG a playful evil eye.
‘The emission, sir. But not so’s you’d notice.’
‘Thank you, SG. Keep working on its meaning. Williams, Abel, may we speak privately?’
Both men joined Petroff in a briefing room that was separated from the command cabin by a large transparent star map representing their current sector of space. Points of light in the map highlighted all the known stars in this section of the galaxy: some of them were bright white; others light blue; a few of them were red. What remained were a dark brown. A large number of stars appeared connected to others by thin lines of light: they were binaries.