“Should they land?” Henrietta asked.
“Hey, I didn’t come all this way just to hover!” Stiles replied. “I’ll touch down gently and lift back up immediately. If it doesn’t grow—or something—I’ll set us down for sure.”
Stiles slowly brought the shuttle down until it barely scrapped the surface. They were now about ten feet away from cube, which from their vantage point looked like a settler’s small homestead, but hewn from solid rock. Stiles allowed the shuttle to settle on the planet for a brief moment before gingerly lifting up again.
“No reaction,” Stiles reported, “so, we’re going down.” He reached over and flipped the attitude jets again for descent, bringing the craft to a permanent landing.
“Whoa! Did you see a flash of light?” Jimmy asked.
“I didn’t see anything,” Stiles replied. “You’re seeing things again.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Peter called out, “Jimmy’s seen things most of us missed the first time around.”
“Yeah, right; light from a chunk of rock.” Stiles shut down the engine and secured the shuttle. “Come on, Jimmy, let’s go look at your lighthouse.”
“I’m not so sure that’s wise,” Jimmy suggested.
Stiles unbuckled his seat and swung around to the exit hatch. “You misunderstood. That wasn’t a request.”
Stiles cycled the door open and stepped out. Jimmy followed like a mouse. The two boys walked cautiously over the low-gravity planet, swinging wide around the shuttle. Stiles turned on his lighted helmet-cam and swung it around his craft for an inspection. The area appeared to be pristine. Gaining confidence, they began walking more briskly toward the central cube.
“Looks bigger from out here,” Jimmy observed. Stiles did not make any jokes about Jimmy’s size this time. As the two boys approached, they inspected the object from a distance. “Is that a horizontal line on it, about four feet up? Maybe a ridge or depression? Not sure I saw that before.”
“Gentlemen,” Perry cautioned, “you are still beyond the 9.3086-foot distance zone. I would advise extreme caution before crossing that line.” Perry moved the IR spot in front of the cube to show them the point of demarcation. “We cannot be sure what it will do if it is triggered again, especially with the two of you so near.”
Both boys stood there, unmoving, on the bleak landscape. “Well, go on, Jimmy; take a look,” Stiles suggested.
“Gee, that’s so kind of you to offer.” Obviously, Jimmy was trying to decide when he had drawn the shorter straw.
“Well,” Stiles replied, “Let me put it to you this way. Let’s assume I went in and something happens to me. Seeing I’m the only one who can fly us back, do you think you could rescue me if I went in and something went wrong?”
“Rats. I hate it when you’re right.” Jimmy shrugged and stepped over the red dot like it was a physical barrier. He waited a moment to see if the structure lit up again. The hunk of rock just stared back. Cautiously, Jimmy continued on. He got to within a foot of the cube and studied the surface, craning his neck to take in every detail.
“Pretty much looks like rock,” Jimmy confirmed. “There’s some kind of gap on it, though. Looks like someone took a string and cut right through it, but the top didn’t fall down.” He squatted down and peered directly into the two-inch-wide notch. “I wonder how the top stays suspended.” He shone his light into the slash, running it back and forth along the seam. “Looks pitch black in there.”
“What do you see?” Ali asked.
“Nothin’ but black,” Jimmy replied. “No reflection at all. It’s like it has no end in there. Being only ten feet wide, you’d think I’d see my light reflected on the opposite sidewall. But nothing ….” Jimmy reached his hand forward.
“Don’t touch it!” Stiles cautioned.
Jimmy ignored the order and probed into the cube’s indentation with the gloved fingers of his left hand. He stiffened immediately and began to convulse as though a million volts of electricity were passing through his body.
“Jimmy!” Stiles yelled.
“Ohmygod!” Henrietta cried. “What just happened?”
Jimmy began laughing. “Just kidding ….” He pulled his hand away from the rock and turned around, like he was ready to have his holo taken at some cheap tourist attraction.
“Dallas, you little piece of crap,” Stiles scolded him. “I should kill you.”
“You should have seen your face. That was definitely worth the price of coming down with you.” Jimmy giggled again. “So what do we do now?”
“Perry,” Peter asked, “did you get any telemetry from them after Jimmy’s little stunt?”
“Yes, I did. As Jimmy indicated, there is an absence of substance within the cube. It is as though it is completely hollow, although the insides are not like normal space.”
“What do you mean,” Ali asked.
“Normal space,” Perry continued, “even the vacuum of outer space, is full of molecules; especially in this gas-rich region within the nebular clouds. Inside the cube, however, is a perfect void. Not a single molecule is within. There are no mechanisms, hatches, or switches I can detect. If one were to compare the volume of space inside the cube to the volume represented by the outer walls, one would determine that the walls are molecularly thin. In contradiction to the evidence, however, the cube has a density equal to it being a solid cube of ferrosilite.
“By the way, Jimmy,” Perry continued, “that was a fantastic joke.”
“Thank you,” Jimmy replied.
“You mean,” Ali summarized, “ninety–two tons of rock materialized out of thin air, which actually isn’t there at all; snapped our picture, or did whatever it did, while Stiles wasn’t looking; and is less than paper thin, but as massive as if it were solid rock.”
“As strange as it sounds, I cannot fault anything you just said,” Perry replied.
“So, beyond Jimmy’s propensity to make a ship laugh, what have we learned from all this?” Stiles asked.
“If I were prone to guess,” Perry stated, “I would surmise this is a ‘Hunter’s Trip-Trap,’ designed to notify the owner of anyone passing by. It might be a way of monitoring for the presence of intelligent life.”
“Or, designed to monitor the movement of enemies,” Stiles suggested.
“That is equally likely,” Perry concluded, “given that we know absolutely nothing about it, the beings who may have built it, or the region of space we currently occupy.”
“Could it be Wasatti?” Jimmy asked.
“That is highly unlikely,” Perry said. “They have not exhibited anything of this technological level.”
“Can we afford to wait around and see what it does?” Peter asked. “Maybe it’s a link to a time portal, or something.”
Peter wondered if this device could bring them home, maybe even go back in time to before the Vega battle occurred and change history somehow. The options were limitless. Then again, it might be the entryway to someone’s hell, or the devourer of all matter. Again, the options were unlimited.
“Your supposition of time travel is highly speculative, and most unlikely,” Perry stated. “And because of our lack of food, I would not recommend staying here more than a few hours or until the consumption of the air in Stiles and Jimmy’s suits forces them to leave. We could, however, leave a remote transmitter here to monitor whatever it might do. At the very least, we could obtain data from it until we jump out of this sector.”
“I got another idea,” Jimmy suggested. “Wait just a sec.” Jimmy trotted to the shuttle and disappeared inside the craft for a minute or two. As fast as he disappeared, he trotted back to the monolith and peeked inside its groove. “Here goes nothing,” he said, throwing something in.
“What was that?” Stiles asked.
“A memcube. It’s the only thing I could find off hand.” Jimmy looked inside the structure again to see if he could find the computer storage cube he just threw in. “Well, it’s not in there, as far as I
can see. Somehow, I didn’t think I’d find it.”
“What was on it?” Ali asked.
“It was a copy of my translator software. If anyone’s in there, it will be a key to our language. We’ll at least be able to talk to them if they ever find us. Plus, I was curious what would happen to anything thrown in there.”
“Next time, tell us before you try anything,” Peter suggested. “No telling who might be monitoring that thing.”
“Well, if Null-Grav gets to try something ….” Stiles walked into the shuttle. He returned with one of the Wasatti weapons in his arms and took aim. “Step back, Null-Grav.”
“I would advise against doing that, Captain Essen,” Perry cautioned. “Our final recorded action against an unknown civilization should not be one of vandalism. I am not sure that would leave a good impression.”
“But I’ve wanted to try this sucker out since we got it. And I was reluctant to try it on the ship until we knew what it could do. There’s nothing else to shoot at around here.”
“Hey, wait a minute; maybe I can help,” Jimmy offered. He ran back to the shuttle a second time.
While he was away, Stiles practiced aiming down the barrel. He swung it around as if he were in a tense firefight. “I always fantasized about shooting you, Null-Grav, but I’m not sure this is the place.”
Jimmy returned with a remote sensor. He stripped off the protective case and set the instrument aside. He then picked up the empty case and placed it just inside the 9.3-foot monitoring zone of the cube, but off to one side. “There’s a target for ya.” He stepped back behind Stiles. “Shoot away.”
Stiles carefully took aim and squeezed the trigger. A concentrated sphere of white energy burst from the muzzle and vaporized the case, spitting droplets of molten metal throughout the area. One side of the monolith was laminated with a new metal skin.
“Cool,” Jimmy exclaimed.
“Yeah, it was,” Stiles remarked, “but enough playing.” He set aside the rifle and pointed the sensor at the monolith. They set up a second sensor on the opposite side of the cube.
“You guys getting readings from the sensors up there?” Stiles asked.
“Affirmative,” Perry replied. “We are receiving full signal from both.”
“Okay; nothing else we can do here, I guess,” Stiles observed. “Come on, Null-Grav, let’s go.”
They climbed back aboard the shuttle and closed the hatch. Stiles and Jimmy took their seats in the cockpit. “Is it doing anything yet?” Stiles asked.
“No, Captain Essen,” Perry replied. “It is just as still as when we first detected it.”
“Yeah, well … sayonara, whoever you are,” Stiles offered. He ramped-up the engines and took off. Jimmy craned his neck, looking down at the cube until they were too far away to see it.
By the time Stiles established orbit, Perry reported that the cube disappeared. No one saw it leave; it simply was there one instant and gone the next. In its place, the planet’s surface was as smooth as the surroundings. To make matters worse, Perry could not even detect a crack or seam anywhere along its former footprint. Once Perry reported his observations, or lack thereof, the crew was totally baffled.
At Henrietta’s suggestion, Perry ran a full suite of diagnostics. Every parameter they checked—chemical, thermal, isotopic, and even rates of cosmic ray strikes—had shown no variation between the two regions. It was as if they had imagined the whole episode. They all knew it happened, but had no explanation of what it could have been.
One thing was certain, though—from now on they would always be looking behind their backs, checking to see if the Monolith Builders were on their tail.
CHAPTER 15
Antares Star System – Habitable Zone
Stiles and Jimmy slept most of the day after they got back from the cube on Planet Nu. They effortlessly brought the shuttle back to the hangar, reviewed some of the video images of the monolith, and immediately went to their beds like zombies. No one disturbed them for almost two days.
The crew was nearing the end of the day and was no further toward a solution about the strange alien mechanism. They knew nothing, but did decide on a name for it; they dubbed it the Nu Outpost. Jimmy made a joke about it being completely different from any “Old” Outpost that only produced groans, except from Perry. Apparently, the ship became his number one fan and Jimmy soaked up the notoriety. It was rare that anyone asked his opinion, and the ship was full of questions about humor and the value of double entendres.
The crew gathered in the galley for the evening meal. Stiles and Jimmy were still exhausted from their planetary adventure, and Peter—although recovering—was drained from his therapy with one more day to go. Henrietta was still nursing a major case of the blues for no apparent reason. Only Ali seemed normal, and somewhat in a good mood; if one could call it that.
“Well,” Peter offered wearily, “we’ve sure come a long way.”
Henrietta raised her water bulb in toast. “Sure. Here’s to sixteen wonderful days on an exotic cruise with all of my friends—all my friends,” she emphasized. “Two weeks and two days of utter bliss!” She took a pull from her bulb. “But who’s counting.” Glancing at the stale water she continued, “M’mm, more bland water. And celebrating in real style …. Huh, ‘celebrating with Stiles, with style’ … or is that ‘in style, with Stiles?’ ”
“Henry, you must be losing your mind,” Stiles observed. “You’re not making any sense.” Stiles hollowly turned back to his dinner.
Perry broke in on their conversation, “Actually, Captain Essen, her use of similar-sounding words—although not quite synonyms—was quite creative, given the context; especially considering her veiled implications of comparing the pleasure of your company to that of stale water.”
Henrietta ignored the ship’s comments and just shrugged, “Yeah, Stiles, I actually think I might just be slipping beyond the edge of reason. I’m considering my lifetime with four of the most eligible bachelors in the whole universe; well, maybe the galaxy. Wait … make that five bachelors; I almost forgot Perry.”
“Thank you,” Perry joyously replied.
“Remind me someday to explain sarcasm to you,” Henrietta told the ship.
“Ugh,” Ali complained, “why bother.” He seemed to be catching what everyone else had.
“What’s wrong now?” Jimmy asked.
“What else; this food tastes like cardboard. If it didn’t taste so bad, I’d complain about how little there was.”
“You could stand to loose some fat,” Stiles observed.
Ali just stared between Stiles and his meager plate of food. He looked like he was ready to respond, but settled instead on pushing the yellowish mush from one side of his plate to the other.
“What Captain Essen just said is correct,” Perry observed. “You are not technically ‘grossly obese,’ but you are—”
Henrietta rose up from her chair, determined to silence the ill-mannered ship, “Privacy, please!”
Perry hummed as if he were hurt, “Complying.” Dead silence filled the galley. All the boys stared at their plates.
Henrietta scratched her nose, looking up at the ceiling and wondering why things were unraveling so badly. “Here it’s been a week since I took over medical, and I swore I’d get us all back on a regular exercise schedule. But no, just like before; one day after another. And what have I done? Made Peter more ill, is all.”
“Oh, Arietta; I’m getting better ….” Peter weakly replied.
“Yeah right.” Henrietta bit back the harsh reply she had considered. “Yeah,” she continued more softly.
She brought her plate to the ’cycler and stuffed it in, trying to hide her anger. Looking around for something to do, she began rearranging the counters, tidying up the small mess they had let accumulate. Her chore ended too quickly so she moved on to the nearby cupboards. After some cursory reshuffling, she began rummaging through them more closely.
“Some of Ruben’s snacks are
gone ….”
“What?” Stiles asked.
“The snacks,” Henrietta replied in concern. “About half of them are missing.” She finished looking through the cupboards. “Did anyone move them?”
Everyone shook their heads. There were about five pounds of various treats—sweets, salty snacks, and shrink-wrapped baked goods full of artificial preservatives. Some of it was used for Stiles’ birthday cake but as far as Henrietta knew, they did not touch it since. Obviously, though, someone had.
“Well, the food didn’t just walk away,” Henrietta stated.
“Maybe you were mistaken what was there before,” Peter suggested.
Stiles barged in next to Henrietta and looked inside. “No, she’s right. At least two fistfuls of stuff are gone. We got ourselves a thief in our midst.”
“Wasn’t me,” Henrietta complained.
“Me either,” Jimmy added quickly.
Peter looked around, “Hey, I’ve been too sick lately to even think about eating ….”
Stiles turned around malevolently, “Well, who’s fat enough around here to hide the evidence?”
Ali looked at Peter with pleading in his eyes. Finding no comfort there, he turned to Henrietta, and then to Jimmy. “Guys, I didn’t steal anything. I—”
“And I got some land outside for sale,” Stiles added. “Henrietta, can you put a lock on those cabinets from your medical supplies?”
“Yeah ….”
“Then do it,” Stiles replied. “And you keep the key; if anything else turns up missing, we’ll know who did it.” Stiles looked up at the ceiling, “Return to monitoring mode.”
Without missing a beat, Perry continued talking, “Well, if you’d rather I not discuss—”
“Perry,” Stiles ordered, “I want you to monitor everything that happens in this galley. I want a full accounting of everything everyone eats, until further notice. And all privacy privileges are revoked in this galley. I want around-the-clock monitoring here.”
“Understood,” Perry replied.
Stiles stared daggers at Ali. “And if I catch the one stealing food from the rest of us—I swear—I will throw him out the airlock.”