Creation node, p.24
Creation Node, page 24
‘Very well.’ Doria sounded strained. ‘I’ll go with you. If you’ll allow it, Commander Caspar. That’s a wise judgement.’
And then Caspar sighed. ‘I hope so. But all this after we have rescued the lost, tended the injured, and mourned the dead.’
Vasta nodded gravely. ‘Of course.’
Fabio wriggled and stretched in his survival bubble, and looked up at his father. ‘Are we there yet, Dad?’
25
Caspar, no diplomat himself, was never quite sure how Vasta pulled it off. But her recommendations stuck.
It took five days to gather the scattered dead, from within the stricken ship and outside it. To prepare the bodies to be dispatched across the Solar System, down the gravity gradients towards Earth and elsewhere. To repair the damage to the Cronus which, though lethal and dramatic, was ultimately superficial.
Five days’ more preparation, and the rebuilt ship was launched at last – although with final repairs continuing inside and outside the wounded vessel.
And then, five years after the Aquila disaster, five years after departing from Saturn, and eleven years after Planet Nine’s discovery by a Conserver crew, the Earth ship Cronus slid into orbit around the anomaly.
Year 11
AD 2266
26
On the arrival of the Cronus at Nine, its five-year journey from Saturn complete, by agreement with the Shadow crew the Cronus passengers and crew were held in orbit around Nine for a few more days while final details of quarantine requirements were thrashed out.
“Thrashed out” – as far as Caspar was concerned, it was a delay partly because of setting up of quarantine protocols and so forth, but also because of a good deal of antler-locking over control of the event between himself and Hild Kanigel, the evidently super-competent captain of the Shadow. Polite antler-locking, but antler-locking even so.
And on reflection, Caspar thought he would have been just as prickly over the arrival of strangers to his exploratory camp, if he had been in Hild’s shoes. But at least it gave him time to sight-see.
On his last full day, having completed a last shipboard briefing with Elizabeth Vasta for download to Earth, Caspar stood with her at one of the ship’s larger picture windows – a remnant feature of the days before Nine, when Cronus had still been a mixture of interplanetary freighter and luxury liner, before its refitting for this extraordinary venture out of the inner Solar System altogether.
And it was only by looking through one of these great portals that Caspar felt he could get the scale of all this. Even if all he could make out of Nine itself was a sharp-edged grey-dark circle, barely illuminated by the light of the distant Sun.
‘Not much to see,’ he muttered. ‘For a quasi-planet three times the size of Earth.’
Vasta drifted over to his side, moving confidently and easily after so long in space, her surface pack in her hand, ready for the final descent.
‘And ten times the mass, remember,’ she said. ‘Maybe not much to see. Unlike true planets, nothing to sense, except for its simple, huge presence. And I doubt very much it can be compared to a true planet, save for the mass, the size … A featureless ball – though not quite so featureless now, given the bits of human clutter the crew of the Shadow took down with them, the shelters they improvised …’
In response to her words, anticipating instructions, screens with close-up inserts, supporting the view through the big window, showed a scattering of interconnected bubble shelters, differing in size, set out irregularly on the surface. Most of the domes had lamps of some kind to make their presence stand out on the black surface. Looking like an improvised village, it was evidently a colony that had evolved rather than been planned.
‘It looks – brave,’ Vasta said. ‘Doesn’t it? Humans challenging the unknown. Umm, domesticating it.’ And she touched the black pearl at her neck.
Caspar was distracted. Mildly irritated, as he often was, by her growing habit of touching the pendant, apparently unconsciously. He had no idea what the bit of jewellery meant to her. It wasn’t even particularly attractive …
She said now, ‘And it is evidently not a planet at all, whatever it is. But it’s not a black hole either. Not any more. Something else. Featureless save for that Hawking radiation, and the creature they called Feathers.’ She glanced at him. ‘I imagine you know what comes next? The planned experiment, which they’ve held off until we’ve arrived, is to reflect back more of the data the Shadow people detected in the Hawking radiation as they did before, but this time with a message from us constructed within. Something simple, I’m told – they’re guessing that even dot-dash variations in intensity might be enough. Just evidence of structure, of intelligent modification – proof that it’s not just a plain reflection. That might be message enough. Well, I’ve agreed it’s the next obvious thing for us to try – once we’ve landed, and got the encounter stuff with the Shadow crew out of the way.’
He had to laugh at that. ‘Now you sound like a true scientist. All the sense of wonder beaten out of you. “Encounter stuff”, including Feathers, you mean? Meeting the alien?’
She smiled, self-deprecating. ‘One must try to be objective. But, yes, the alien – and some believe she is the key to all this – or at least to our understanding of it— all this, as our world is being transformed through this contact. We walk in ancient dreams …’
A soft chime rang through the ship.
She smiled. ‘Anyhow, I hope we won’t be disappointed. Time to go?’
Caspar was back in ship’s captain mode. ‘Time to go. That’s the call for preparation for the landing. So, as you know, we go down in groups. We don’t want to overwhelm the Shadow crew, with them having been alone with all this for eleven years already. You’re in the first party, of course.’
‘Damn right I am. I can’t wait – and I’m not alone in that. And not alone in being touched, already changed, by this event from afar …’
That was true, Caspar reflected, as he shut down screens with touches, and led Vasta out of the lounge. Maybe this strange incursion at the edge of the Solar System was already changing mindsets. Even changing attitudes, revising alliances.
The Conservers, of course, had shared the news of their first cautious discovery from the beginning. Even the Lunar Consortium were cooperating now, once they had got over their tantrum at the launch from Saturn – and Earth itself, still a very divided society, increasingly battered by the quasar fall-out, was pulling together in the face of this strangeness. Yes, despite the destructive scramble that had accompanied the launch of this new fusion-powered version of Cronus from Saturn – and despite some disruption, such as among reviving religious groups – after five long years the various broad factions in human society, including those represented aboard Cronus, it seemed to him, were now working together to meet this strange challenge.
Vasta seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
‘It’s an old dream, you know. To meet the alien. Or nightmare. But one hope always buried in that dream was that maybe in the presence of some external entity, friendly or hostile, humans might finally recognise our own fundamental unity.’ Her smile was dazzling. ‘It’s wonderful, really – all of it, isn’t it? Save for what that damn quasar is doing to the Earth … And all happening in our lifetimes.’
Suddenly he saw why she did her job. Beyond the monster bureaucracies she must have to navigate, the sheer wondrous joy of discovery must still come breaking through. Even if all this was mostly someone else’s discovery. And even if the responsibility that came with this particular job was huge.
He smiled back. ‘Let’s go see what’s down there.’
27
Caspar, using his commander’s prerogative, had selected and announced the members of the first landing crew some days before.
Just five of them for this first expedition, it had been decided, the names determined after consultation with Hild Kanigel, captain of the Shadow – as well as Elizabeth Vasta. Starting with Caspar himself, despite some grumbling from those left behind. He justified this, to himself and others, by the need for somebody in command to get acquainted with the situation as soon as possible.
And in terms of authority, he had to take Vasta herself down, as the most senior terrestrial on board, no less than the science adviser to Earth’s global administration. And at the other end of the seniority scale, Doria Bohm was brought down to represent her lunar background – she was officially a vice coordinator of that community. And, you never knew, Caspar thought, it might even be healthy to have somebody along who was looking to exploit stuff, rather than treasure it, open-mouthed, as a gift from some kind of multidimensional god.
John Smith had to be there, as the most senior of the very few Conservers aboard the Cronus – and the Shadow had after all been a Conserver mission.
That was four. The fifth was Fabio, Caspar’s son, now fifteen years old – and still playing chess with John Smith. Fabio who, in the end, after the Aquila crash, Caspar couldn’t bear to leave behind.
Caspar knew he was accused of favouritism over this selection by, well, by just about everybody else of the Cronus crew and passengers who weren’t going down this time. But they would get their chance. And what had inspired Caspar to bring Fabio down early genuinely wasn’t favouritism – or anyhow, not that alone. It had been footage, shown to him by Hild Kanigel by way of preparation for the visit, of the creature called Feathers, and Salma – exotic alien and youngest member of the Shadow crew – playing some kind of netball-like game under their dome, and with Feathers apparently beating Salma hands-down.
Among the team down on Nine, and among analysts on Earth and elsewhere, there was a lot of debate about Feathers’ actual age, let alone her equivalent in terms of human maturity. One thing everybody agreed on was that Feathers liked to play: she liked lively, physical games, running, chasing, throwing and catching, making stuff, and she needed companions of her own age, so to speak, or at least her apparent rough equivalent in human terms.
And while Salma, youngest of the Shadow crew, was doing a great job, eleven years on from the discovery of Nine by the Shadow crew, she was thirty-one years old. Hence, Fabio.
Well, Caspar had made his decision about the landing party for good or ill, and would brook no arguments.
And when the appointed hour arrived, the five squeezed aboard a space-to-surface shuttle: a craft that had once ferried passengers and materiel around the human colonies at Saturn, now, with Caspar himself at the controls, descending to Planet Nine.
28
In their years here the Shadow crew had set up a scatter of bubble-tent shelters, all grouped, Caspar learned, around the very first landing site. For safety’s sake these were spread reasonably widely apart, but most had fabric tunnels interconnecting them. And there was an element of design that he could recognise immediately. The tunnel network had been designed, or evolved, to provide long stretches for the creature called Feathers to run, and lots of corners for her to escape to and assemble the heaps of junk she seemed to like to collect.
This was a habitat for humans, heavily improvised as a habitat for their guest alien. It looked like a heap of garbage. But he thought he could recognise at first glance the intelligence and patience that had gone into it all.
One of the larger, central tents had a brilliant red cross on its roof, its purpose unmistakable. And this was where Hild Kanigel, captain of the Shadow, had directed the Cronus ferry to land, near the medical centre.
Once down, the Cronus party, all suited up, scrambled out of their lander’s airlock and made their way obediently to that red-cross tent. After a few steps Caspar was feeling his weight – and more, given that Nine’s gravity was a little higher than Earth’s. It was always the way after long-stay missions in zero gravity, including his time at the Saturn hub. No matter how much you hit the centrifuge and weight machines you always lost condition.
On their entry into the tent, through a fabric-walled airlock, Hild Kanigel herself was waiting. Masked. Wearing a nametag she probably hadn’t had to wear for many years.
Wordlessly, she directed her guests through a tunnel of fabric, within which some sort of disinfectant, Caspar guessed, was sprayed over them, followed by a vigorous drying by blowers.
At the far side of the tunnel, they were free at last to break open their suits – but then had to submit to bot-administered injections, and to breathe into bot-held filters, all before they could be regarded as clean, inside and out.
Hild walked through all this with them. And, as soon as they had all finally got out of their helmets and gloves, Hild shook Caspar’s hand.
And then John Smith’s in turn, quite warmly. ‘Advocate Smith. We never met before. But I’m so pleased a fellow Conserver has been able to make it out here.’
Smith looked frail and tired – he was seventy-six now, evidently a little overwhelmed, and not a natural space traveller, Caspar knew – but he rose to the occasion. ‘And I’m honoured to be here. I can immediately see you’ve done remarkably well.’
‘Seconded,’ Caspar said to Hild. ‘Both in terms of your survival and your handling of – well, whatever the hell this is.’
‘We’ve done our best.’ Hild, slim but tough-looking, grey-blonde hair cut short, looked neither pleased nor offended by the tributes. ‘And I appreciate your not griping about our quarantine set-up, which is one way we’ve striven to survive. Come, walk with me.’
The shelter was crowded, Caspar saw, once inside, with a couple of the Shadow crew and various bots going about their tasks. There were bunk beds, supply heaps, what looked like medical technology, all obviously scavenged from the Shadow.
And as soon as they walked in, an evidently young woman – in a jumpsuit that looked a little too small for her – came running up, grabbed Fabio by the hand, and pulled him away. ‘Fabio, right? Come on. We’ve been waiting for you …’
This must be Salma. Slim, dark – and a black pendant at her neck that caught Caspar’s eye. A lens, it seemed, not a sphere like Vasta’s, but still an odd similarity.
Fabio looked back at his father. Caspar made ‘go ahead’ gestures, and Fabio turned and ran off with Salma.
‘So,’ Caspar said to Hild, ‘that’s in fact why I brought down Fabio. I figured, as you have some equivalent of a kid down here, I should bring another kid …’
Hild smiled, warmly enough. ‘Good thinking. Looks like it’s going to work out, doesn’t it? Come over, sit, talk. Get used to the place.’ She led the way to a table with chairs, ship-issue fold-out furniture. ‘And watch out for the slightly higher gravity – higher than Earth. It’s deceptive; you don’t notice it but it wears you down gradually.’
Caspar followed her lead, sat, and watched the rest of his crew. John Smith, who had barely said a word, had followed Hild and joined them at the table, apparently relieved to take the weight off his own elderly frame in the higher gravity.
But before Vasta and Doria could sit they were approached by a woman who Hild quietly introduced as Meriel Breen, apparently officially life-support specialist aboard the Shadow, but covering medical support also.
And Meriel, Doria and Vasta immediately seemed distracted by each other. Without a glance around, they stayed gathered in their own little huddle and made for another table. Apparently they were discussing something quite intensely. They even kept touching their own and each other’s collar and neck.
Hild stared. ‘What are those three up to, can you see?’
Caspar had good pilot’s vision. ‘I think they are … comparing pendants? Meriel looks like she has hers on a chain, dangling inside her coverall, right? She just pulled it out. Yes, a pendant. A black stone – it’s like Salma’s, which I just saw. Elizabeth has that black pearl. Oh, and Doria has something similar. I remember now; she’s worn it all the time, but generally inside her top …’
‘Pendants? Why that, of all topics of conversation in this situation? There’s certainly no mystery about Salma’s and Meriel’s. They are lens-shaped – identical. Made of some kind of rare mineral. Black onyx, a kind of silicate, if I remember. Salma’s mother had two of them – gifts from relatives on Earth. When she died, she willed one to Salma, and the other to Meriel. It was to make Salma feel like she had a bond with Meriel, I think. And with Earth being where the stone came from, maybe she’d feel less … less orphaned. But the others …’
‘From this distance the others look pretty similar too.’ He struggled to remember. ‘I know Doria’s is from the Moon; she has a kind of lens of lunar obsidian. Volcanic glass. And Elizabeth’s is a black pearl. From Earth, obviously. Hm. Odd coincidence. They do look similar from a distance … Hild, why the hell are we talking about pendants?’
She shrugged. ‘Because they are? Vasta has sent some virtual projections out here, as you know. I think maybe they noticed the pendant coincidence then. But what it might mean, given a feathered biped and a galaxy-core explosion …’
They shared a look. Something funny going on.
He suspected they were both too rational to want to pursue that line of thought any further. Not to mention too busy. Tacitly, they dropped the subject.
‘So,’ Hild said at length. ‘Here we are. Sorry to have to put you through the quarantining. And sorry it’s kind of slapdash. Everything about this operation has been improvised since we got here. But I think we’ve made it work. We are Conservers. We habitually live in small, isolated colonies and spacecraft – very isolated. We are hardened recyclers – were before we got here. And we know all about contamination and quarantine. Sorry about that.’
‘No apology necessary. I’d have done the same – about the quarantine on the way in, I mean. Look, I commanded an outpost at Saturn. We didn’t want to pick up any fresh bugs from visitors from Earth either, so we were always stern about such protocols. The Cronus passengers will tell you as much.’
