* * * * *
They were only a few minutes from landing at Mars Base when an update came in. It was terse: No reply. Explosions observed. Video upon landing. Ship schedule terminated. Status uncertain.
He had barely had time to begin digesting the new information when Deidre announced, “The Fifth Wheel to Mars Base. The Fifth— Yes sir, landing sequence initiation in thirty seconds.” She turned to Ed and said, “Brace yourself, Ed. This is going to be a bit rough.”
He nodded without paying attention, but when the torque of the ship’s maneuvers nearly sent him flying across the bridge, he grabbed hold of the console and clenched his teeth. The ordeal didn’t last long – perhaps half a minute – and then they settled to the ground.
“All right, Ed,” Deidre said. “The airlock’s cycling. Time for you to go.”
He gulped, nodded, and rose to his feet on shaky knees. “Thanks,” he said, taking a deep breath and making his way to the airlock. Once through, there was a scooter waiting for him.
“Hop on Ed,” Toby Arnstaadt said. “I’ll fill you in on the way to the briefing room.”
Ed stepped onto the low platform and gripped the handles. “What’s with that last update, Toby. It said there were explosions.…”
Toby nodded. “Yes. On the asteroid. The ship’s still orbiting her. You’ll have to see them. We know it’s a message, but we don’t know what it means. Here,” he said, tapping a code into the scooter’s console. “Check out what she did.”
Ed watched, raising his eyebrow as The Junket fired the engines and moved several kilometers from the asteroid and stopped. “That,” Toby said, “was not pre-programmed. It’s manual. She’s cancelled out the pre-programmed route.”
“No,” Ed said quietly. “That means.…”
Toby nodded. “Yes. She can’t finish her survey, and she’s going to risk a blind shot to Mars Base. Keep watching.”
Ed did, and when the explosions started, he tensed considerably. “How?”
“Alex thinks she’s using the buoys. They have explosive charges to plant them into the iron core. But the oxygen and fuel,” he shook his head. “We’re not sure how much she used. We’re assuming she kept enough in reserve for a return trip, but we don’t know how much leeway she gave herself.”
“At least we know she’s alive,” Ed said, “and The Junket is still space-worthy.”
“We’re counting on that.”
“What about a bullet ship?” Ed asked.
“No time,” Toby said. “Even our most favorable estimates on her oxygen supply won’t last long enough to get one ready and send it out.”
“So, what am I here for?”
“We’re almost to the lab,” he said. “It’s at the end of that next tunnel. Those explosions – we think it’s a message, something more than ‘I’m alive!’, but we can’t figure out what it is. What do you think?”
Ed replayed the sequence of explosions, but nothing came to him. “Perhaps if I saw it on a larger screen?”
“You will,” Toby assured him. “We’re here,” he added, bringing the scooter to a stop. “Now, the reason you’re here is simple. We need your ingenuity and your knowledge of Lilith. We need to know what she’ll do, and, more importantly, what she can do. You’re going to help us find a way to bring her back without being able to communicate with her.”
The door opened and a cacophony of voices scattered down the hallway. Someone inside looked up, and Toby nodded. The man – wiry, red-haired, tall – came over and ushered them inside. “Mr. Granger,” he said as he led him to the table. “I’m Miggs. I’ll forgo introductions for the others for now. We need your help.”
Ed pointed at the large computer screen and asked, “Can I see the explosions? Close up?”
Miggs snapped his fingers and said, “Millie—”
She bent to the console and a few moments later, the first explosion flared across the face of the asteroid. It faded out, and when the asteroid’s rotation brought it back into view, the second explosion – more like a flare, this time, as if it were a dud fizzling out – lingering until the face of the asteroid disappeared. The rest of the explosions – some short and powerful, others long and fizzling – followed suit until, after the seventeenth one, it fell into silence.
“Well?” The wiry man said, “Any thoughts?”
“It’s a pattern of some sort,” Ed said.
“We know. But what pattern?”
Ed frowned. What would Lilith do? he asked himself. What could Lilith do? Lilith was a generalist. She knew a little about a lot of things, like any good commander does. But her first love was navigation. Her second love was him. She was competent in the basic sciences – chemistry, physics, astrophysics, propulsion – the type of things she needed to know if something happened to her crew. But she was far from an expert in any of them and seldom cared about theory. She was practical. She was hands-on. Sometimes she was rash, but when she was, it usually worked out well. Intuitive. A bit reckless.
“She knows something,” he said. “This is not a desperate act.”
“What?” Miggs said.
“She has a plan,” Ed said. “That is a message, and we need to figure out what it is. She’s trying to tell us what she needs from us. We have to figure that out.”
“All right,” Miggs said. “Keep talking.”
Ed tilted his head. “Lil is intuitive, decisive. Once she overrode the programming, her mind was set on that being the best course of action. Something is wrong enough with The Junket to prevent her from making it through the rest of her pre-programmed sequence. But when she took that little jaunt, she was showing us that she could still maneuver and that The Junket could fly. The explosions are partly intended to get our attention so that we know she’s still at that asteroid, but there’s more to it than that. If all she wanted was our attention, one big explosion would have been more effective.”
“All right,” Miggs said. “Amber, alert the computer bay that we’re going to need time on short notice. Once we figure this out, they’ll have to program her route to the nearest safe port.”
“How long has it been since she set them off?” Ed asked, suddenly.
“With the time lag, about two hours,” a large-boned brunette said from a console in the corner. “We’ve been trying to contact her ever since Ceres sent us word about the accident, but she’s not responding.”
“She’s waiting,” Ed added. “We’re supposed to do something, and she’s waiting for us to do it. She’s an excellent navigator, and she would have risked returning on her own if the situation was bad enough.” He frowned and looked at the brunette. “What did you say?”
“It’s been about two hours.”
“No, after that.”
“We’ve been trying to contact her ever since Ceres—”
“How?” Ed demanded.
“By laser, of course.”
Ed shook his head. “No, no, I mean, what messages have you sent her?”
She frowned. “We’ve been requesting a response. It’s set on a ten minute repeater.”
Ed nodded. “What, exactly, is the message?”
“Well,” she said. It’s almost time for it to be sent, if you want to hear it.”
“Yes,” he said, moving quickly to her side.
“It’s a simple request—”
“Shh,” Ed said. “Play it for me. I want to hear exactly what it says.”
“All right,” she said, punching in the codes to interrupt the repeater and turn the volume up. “Here it is: Mars Base to The Junket. We are aware of the accident and are working the problem from our side. If you are receiving this message, please respond.”
Ed listened, and when it finished, he motioned for it to be repeated. When it finished, he started laughing – loudly and enthusiastically – and the room fell quiet, save for the echoes.