In the backs of their minds, each crewmember wondered what the aliens would look like. Where had they come from? What were they doing here? Would they be pleased to discover another advanced race? And lastly, where were they now?
There was no indication anything was aboard the alien craft. Although Nadine had hailed the ship countless times since first contact, all emissions from the alien ship had ceased. For two hours, the Magellan circled and probed with its sensors, recording everything. At the end of the two hours there was still no indication of life.
"Maybe it's all automated," suggested Doris.
Bonner frowned. "I don't think so. The open bay suggests something was there."
"Maybe its shuttle is automated as well."
"Could be," said Fagen, "but I don't think we'll know for sure unless we go over and look for ourselves."
"You mean EVA?" asked Nadine.
"Mm-huh."
"Well, don't look at me. I'm not going over there. I didn't sign up for
any of that EVA shit. It ain't in my job description."
"Nobody's saying you have to, Nadine." Fagen turned to Harry.
"What do you say, Harry? Are you up to it?"
Harry looked back at the Corporation commander and smiled. Was he up to it? He'd never been more ready. The prospect of being the first human to meet an alien intelligence was overwhelming. It was what Harry had hoped for. A dream come true. In his excitement, he almost forgot about Kathleen.
Chapter 19
Doris faced Fagen in the privacy of his cabin. "I have just as much right to be the first as you or Mr. Irons. I have my qualifications! I've earned it!"
"Easy, Doris, easy. You'll get your chance. I want you to monitor the EVA. If we need help, you may have to go outside. If all goes well, I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to make a trip over. Being first is not everything."
"It's the only thing," Doris said pointedly. "You're only doing this because you want to be first. Isn't that true?"
Fagen shrugged. "Doris, you know as well as I that one of us must remain on the Magellan at all times. Corporation rules."
"Then you stay. Come on, Edward, you're not letting me perform my job. You led the survey team to the surface, now let me lead this expedition. It's my turn!"
"There are no turns, Doris. I make the decisions here."
"Well, if that's the case, the Foundation is going to be very interested to hear my version of how you lost one of your crew on the first and only trip to the planet's surface."
It sounded all too familiar to Fagen. "I told you, that depends on the shuttle." She stood before him, unyielding. Finally, he relented. "All right, Doris. If you want to go so badly, then go. Take Irons with you."
Doris visibly relaxed. "I'd rather take Bonner."
"Irons, not Bonner."
"Okay. No problem." Without thanking him, she turned away. Fagen called and she stopped at the door.
"Don't think I changed my mind because of your threat. I'm letting you go because you're right. It's your turn. Just make sure your recorders are going. If you're able to gain entry, turn off your transmitters. We might accidentally trip a circuit over there."
Doris smugly nodded. This time, she said thanks.
*
Harry and Doris looked like backpacking teddy bears in their EVA suits. The backpacks contained oxygen, water, propellant for air jets, and assorted holders for instruments and extra gear. Twin joysticks were situated at the ends of both right and left arm assemblies.
Doris tried to maintain a business-like approach to the task, but her enthusiasm betrayed her. Bonner gave her a thumbs-up gesture as she punched the buttons that opened the airlock. The hatch slid open exposing open space, and not a hundred meters away, the alien ship. It remained unchanged. The alien hanger bay was open, empty, and inviting.
*
Fagen and the others watched from the bridge as Doris and Harry exited the Magellan and floated to the alien spacecraft.
The radio cracked with Doris' voice. "Audio check."
Bonner spoke into his headset microphone. "Read you fivers."
"Visuals?" Harry asked.
"One hundred per cent."
From his console Fagen saw whatever Harry saw by means of a small camera attached to Harry's helmet. In case of a malfunction, Doris had a back-up attached to her helmet. At the moment Harry's camera was focused on the alien ship and its open hanger bay.
They were now close enough to see details. Bright lights illuminated the interior, but nothing moved. Slowly, almost casually, they floated into the gaping bay. There was nothing to prevent their entry. Harry wondered how difficult it would be to actually gain entry into the craft.
"Edward, are you picking this up?" Doris said into her intercom.
"That's affirmative. Any signs a smaller craft may have been in there? A lander?"
"There does seem to be something like docking cleats..."
Harry interrupted. "Whoa, look at this." He floated just to the left of the sunken area in the bulkhead, where he'd surmised the airlock control panel was. The protuberances certainly looked like buttons.
"Doris, see this group of ridges here and this thing beside it?"
"Yeah," she said, "looks like..."
"Airlock controls, right?"
It was a simple choice of finding the right button. There were only three, two small and one large. In a failsafe system, there could only be one choice: it would be the only button that worked. Open the door, close the door, equalize pressure, and open the inner door. There just weren't too many other methods of engineering an airlock.
*
Back on the ship Fagen and Bonner arrived at the same conclusion. Bonner voiced his concerns.
"But should we let them enter the craft? We don't have an invitation. They have no way of analyzing the atmosphere once they're inside. They'll have to keep their environment suits on."
Fagen considered the problem and spoke into his mike. "Doris, did you hear Bill?"
"Affirmative."
"Looks like nobody's home. What do you want to do?"
She looked through her faceplate at Harry. Harry raised a thumb and indicated his readiness. This was it, no one was in the mood to turn back.
"We're going inside."
Harry turned back to the panel and pushed the largest button. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't what happened. In the center of the circular indentation, a spot appeared and, in a spiral motion, it rapidly grew in size until it abruptly stopped at the edges of the two and a half meter circle. The entire process took no more than two seconds.
"Bingo," said Harry, turning and motioning for Doris to enter first. She switched on her helmet light and entered an empty chamber. Harry followed. On the interior bulkhead, they found controls identical to those outside.
The airlock was small with barely enough room for the two of them. The small space revealed nothing besides another circular indentation at the opposite end.
"Radio check," Doris requested.
The reply came back slightly broken by static. "...breaking up...re-contact...twenty minutes or...coming...over."
"Roger, every twenty minutes." said Doris.
When the outer airlock door shut, Harry felt another surge of excitement. What mysteries lay beyond the airlock? How different could it be from the Magellan? For one thing, it might contain aliens. Real aliens, not something dreamed up in the mind of a movie director. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.
At Doris' signal, he punched the large button on the interior access panel. They both heard air being pumped into the small room. Unexpectedly, Harry grew heavy; somehow, a gravitational field was being generated. After a short pause, the interior hatch responded, opening in the same way as the outer hatch, from the inside out, like a chemical process instead of a mechanical action.
The interior of the ship was dark, dimly lit by odd humps in the bulkheads. Awkward in their EVA suits, they stepped out of the airlock into what looked lik
e an equipment room but the equipment was entirely beyond their ken. Held to the grey bulkheads with straps that seemed to grow from the walls were large boxes, their purpose not readily apparent. Doris inspected them while Harry went to an open hatchway. Beyond was a dim, featureless corridor. The emptiness of the craft was eerie. Harry felt goose-bumps jumping up and down his back.
Neither of them felt like talking aloud. Harry beckoned Doris to join him. His voice inside his helmet came out in a whisper, "Shall we take a walk?" He pointed down the corridor. There were no severe angles in the construction. The corridor was rounded and seamless with walls made from the same material as everything else they'd seen.
"After you," she replied and Harry led the way. They edged up the tube until they reached a dead end with another sunken place in the bulkhead. As before, to the left was a series of buttons. Unlike the airlock controls, this one had more buttons. Harry studied it in the dim light as Doris looked overhead, inspecting the light source.
"This really looks odd. Maybe it's a chemical light." She turned toward Harry. "Let's see what's behind this hatch."
"I'm working on it," Harry murmured.
One button looked good enough to take a chance.
"Here we go..."
He punched the button and the portal opened up. Simultaneously, they looked inside. He couldn't be sure, but he instinctively thought they'd found the control room. With a sinking heart, Harry realized it could be a robotic ship. There would be no exchange of greetings if that was the case.
There were no furnishings within the space other than what Harry took to be three small chairs set into the floor. Harry gazed up and noted it was roomy. A long, curving console stretched across one side. The chairs were arranged in front of it. Like the corridors, no part of the room had sharp edges. Everything was curved. Other than the long console, there was no distinction between floor, walls, and ceiling. What appeared to be instrument panels filled the surfaces. Some were marked with the alien symbology, many weren't. Harry slowly turned around, allowing his camera to record everything he saw. The curving console was the most interesting thing in the room. Harry clumsily walked to it.
On it were buttons and switches as well as things that could only be described as monitors. The monitors showed nothing; they were blank and unlit. At intervals along the console, indicators flickered revealing power activity. Perhaps the most interesting thing were the chairs that were set up before the console. Although they didn't look like chairs, Harry thought of them as such. There were only three and they seemed to have no other function than to provide a pedestal for sitting. The bottoms of the seats were small and rounded. Harry noted they were too small for a human rump.
The absence of the occupants was conspicuous. "I wonder where they are?" Harry muttered.
"Probably on the surface of the planet. Have you got shots of everything?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Okay, good." She pointed to a hatch in the ceiling, apparently the only other way off the bridge. "Let's see what's behind that hatch."
This time, Harry quickly located the correct button and pressed it. Silently, the hatch slid open, revealing a dimly lit room beyond. Faint light came from bulges in the wall. Doris entered first and floated to the nearest bulge.
She leaned closer for a better look. Over the bulge, the wall was opaque. Light flickered as if something moved inside. What looked like tiny, ridged seams ran the length of the bulge from floor to ceiling. An excreted mucus oozed from the fissures. Harry stood behind, cautiously watching.
"What is that?"
Inside her suit, Doris shrugged.
As they watched, more mucus oozed and the seam slowly began to part. Harry put a hand on Doris' shoulder and another on the opposite wall to steady himself. The slimy stuff clung to his gloved hand. For a moment he silently looked at the mucilaginous material sticking to his glove.
He stretched out his hand so Doris could see the material on his glove, but she didn't see. Her eyes were on the opening seam in the wall. She drew away and watched with growing horror.
An appendage with joints like a human arm snaked its way out of the seam, the sticky resin covering it. With a three-fingered, taloned hand, it gripped the side of the seam and began to pull itself through as if in birth. Doris tried to scramble back but only succeeded in pinning Harry between herself and the opposite bulkhead. The creature was halfway out and stared at them with three large unblinking eyes.
The large, sloping, bullet-shaped head turned in Harry's direction and it worked its odd, mandibled lower jaw. As they stared, the creature opened its mouth and screamed in a high pitched shriek.
Without any further warning, it burst from the wall and landed on top of Doris. She reacted immediately and easily threw the creature aside. It was less than average size for a human and Doris was a strong woman, it was no problem for her. It quickly jumped to the control panel, pressed a button, and squeezed through another seam as Harry and Doris gaped at its retreating form.
For a moment, they lay in the darkened corridor, breathing heavily. The entire incident had taken no more than a few seconds.
"Are you all right?" Doris asked.
Harry checked himself. "Yeah, I'm fine. Magellan, did you pick that up?" There was no reply.
Doris looked at him, "Let's get out of here."
"You don't have to ask me twice," he said as he led the way back up the corridor. Doris rose and started to follow. Upon hearing a sucking sound from behind, she hesitated, then turned to look. The creature, or something else, was coming back out.
In the darkened hallway, she cried out and Harry stopped. He turned in time to see Doris impaled on the taloned arm of a different sort of creature. It was much larger than the first and, although the basic body structure was similar, this creature looked much hardier and fiercer. Hard, shiny plates covered its rounded frame, its long, dangling arms ended in three-inch talons. It seemed to have no eyes, only a darkened window atop its round body. As it moved, the plates shifted, looking something like medieval body armor. Harry stared in horror as he watched the creature pull Doris from its talons.
The thing looked directly at Harry and hissed loudly, then it took Doris by the head and dragged her limp body along as it made its escape in the opposite direction.
Harry, heart beating wildly, crossed the bridge and fairly flew through the door that led to the airlock.
*
Back on the Magellan, the crew had no idea anything was wrong. Signals from Harry and Doris had proved to be useless after entrance into the alien ship. Radio contact was likewise interfered with by the composition of the alien ship and the strong fields it generated. Fagen and the others were unaware an incident had occurred until the moment Harry emerged from the bay.
"There he is," said Nadine. In the monitors, they saw a lone figure exit the airlock. It had been eighteen minutes since Doris and Harry had entered the alien ship.
"Something's wrong," Bonner said as he watched the figure move away from the airlock. "There's only one of them. Who is it?"
"It's Irons," said Parker. "Where's Doris?"
Fagen leaned forward. "Harry, this is Fagen. Are you all right?"
The loudspeaker cracked with Harry's voice.
"Uh, we've got an emergency here."
"What's the problem, Harry?
A second passed before Harry answered. "Encounter with hostile alien. I'm headed back."
Nadine spoke, "How about Doris?"
Harry's reply came slowly. "I don't think she's alive."
In the monitors, Harry floated toward the Magellan. Behind him, the lit alien shuttle bay suddenly went dark.
"Whoops," said Bonner, "there goes the welcoming light."
Fagen unstrapped himself and floated free. "Bill, you've got the bridge. I'm going to help." Fagen departed and went below to don his environment suit. Before he had the chance, Harry reached the Magellan's airlock.
The commander waited as the air recycled and pre
ssure was equalized. Disinfectants clouded the room, washing Harry's suit free from any nasty little alien microbes. When the door opened, Harry stood in front of Fagen. All he could think to say was "There was nothing I could do."
Very calmly, Fagen asked what happened to Doris. Harry took a breath and told him.
"Are you sure she was dead?"
"Man, she was impaled. Run through. She was dead all right. You can look at the recording and see for yourself."
Harry undid his bindings and shrugged off his backpack. He had a problem with one of the straps and suddenly his tension and frustration boiled over. Pulling at a buckle, the strap finally came free and Harry threw it across the room.
Fagen calmly watched. "What's the problem, Harry?"
Harry faced the commander. "What's the matter? We've lost two people already and I don't know why. I thought I knew what this was all about, but I don't."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why don't you tell me?"
"I don't understand."
"I think you do. You knew where we were headed. You've been here before, haven't you, Fagen?"
"What are you saying?"
"Oh, come off it. Somehow you manipulated the navigations and brought us here. Blane told me about the new coordinates. I saw the star map in your compartment."
"Blane is out of his mind and since when is a star map an indictment?"
"Oh, I see," snapped Harry, "you just happened to be interested in the Carina cluster, Miaplacidus, in particular. And where did you come up with the coordinates for this system? Did you just pull 'em out of your hat? Pretty lucky guess is what I'd call it. A little too lucky, if you ask me."
"I don't deny that I've been looking at maps of the Carina system, but it was only after we got here. Now whatever Blane has told you needs to be taken lightly. Blane himself doesn't know what he's talking about. He's in pretty bad shape. You saw him, you talked to him. You think he's all there?"
It made sense. Harry began to feel uncomfortable. Perhaps he had jumped to conclusions. Fagen saw Harry's growing uneasiness.
"It's okay, Harry. A lot has happened. We're all under a great deal of stress. You've performed well, but you need some rest."