Starfire Page 34

  “Shadow? What shadow?”

  Gavril hesitated. “I guess there’s no harm in discussing it now. The matter has been considered a secret over the last week as we studied Europa during our approach. We saw a dark stain here. We’ve landed directly in the middle of it, hoping it was significant.”

  Lev stopped and turned toward Gavril. “A stain? What do you mean? Like one of those rust spots that dot the surface?”

  “No. This is different. The discoloration is grayish-black and appears to be under the ice.”

  “You’re telling me there’s something under us? Right now? And these fools landed on top of it?”

  “Well, that’s their hope. They were quite excited. It’s like the Artifact we found under the ice on Earth, but much, much larger. With luck, we’ll reach it and find something that will make this trip worthwhile.”

  Lev nodded, thinking hard. He unslung his rifle and walked with greater caution. As they circled the ship, he no longer looked at it. Instead, he watched the open landscape. Gavril puttered about, shining his light on the hull and taking video which he sent to the ship’s server. He conversed with the crew. Lev gathered that the damage was significant, but not devastating.

  “We’re going to have to repair these tanks before we can lift off again,” Gavril said. “We’ll have to get a welder out here to patch it. The tank will rupture if we try to fly home like this.”

  “What’s in that tank?” Lev asked without looking at him.

  “Fresh water, sewage. It’s a reprocesser, I believe. I’d have to check the plan—”

  “Don’t bother. Just fix it.”

  “They’re sending a team soon. Is there something wrong?”

  “Yes, there’s something wrong...I don’t like it out here.”

  Chapter 56

  Europa far orbit, Aboard Starfire

  Starlight

  Colonel Dyson had called for a lockdown as the ship made its approach to Europa. Everyone was in their seats and strapped in, even though the engines themselves were idling.

  Chief Engineer Linscott was nervous but trying not to let the others around her in on the fact.

  “What’s wrong?” Perez asked her in a soft voice.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, I know you better than that.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Dyson made me shut the engines down to an idling state—the way they were before we left Earth.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  She glanced over at him. He always could get her to talk about anything. She supposed that’s what had made him a good detective back home.

  “They didn’t want the Russians to detect us. I’m sure that’s it.”

  “They? You mean Sandeep and Dyson?”

  “Yes, and whoever is calling the shots back on Earth. Maybe Clayworth and her team. They’re afraid that the Russians will detect our approaching energy output. Even though this ship doesn’t emit exhaust due to the EM-Drive, the ship still heats up and radiates more energy when the drive is active.”

  “So, we’re sneaking up on them, is that it?”

  “Yes, supposedly.”

  “And you’re worried you won’t be able to get the reaction going again steadily?”

  “Yes. But it’s silly, in a way. That’s why I didn’t object. In order to land on Europa, we have to bring the ship to a standstill. We might as well try it out here in space first. It puts me on the spot, though.”

  Perez nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad I’m not the engineer. All a detective has to do is figure out what someone did wrong last week. You have to figure everything out in advance—and you have to be right.”

  She nodded. He did seem to grasp the nature of her anxiety. If they all died on this trip, the odds were good that it would be due to a failure on her part.

  A ticking sound began about an hour later and increased in frequency until everyone was looking around in alarm. Red lights flickered, then stayed on. Alarms sounded, and an automated voice urged them all to seek safety.

  “Radiation storm?” Perez asked.

  “Yes,” Jackie said, “but worse than the usual. We have to get into the safety pod. Our suits won’t be enough to stop it.”

  All over the ship, people unbuckled their harnesses and hurried toward the lead-lined pods. During flight, they’d rarely been used. The outer shell of the ship was thick enough to withstand the worst bombardment Jupiter should be able to put out.

  “Sandeep,” Dyson said as she arrived. “We have to keep someone at the helm. I’ll put on the thickest radiation suit I find and take the first watch.”

  Sandeep stared at her for a second. Jackie watched his face. Did he want to approve of Dyson's sacrifice? If the radiation became too extreme, even with a lead-lined suit, she would be getting a dose. The ship was being hit with gusts of up to a thousand rads.

  “No,” Sandeep said. “You and I will watch the instrumentation from here. If there’s a failure, I’ll send the co-pilot.”

  Dyson’s lips were a firm line, but she nodded her head. Jackie could tell she understood a good decision when she heard it, even if she didn’t like it. If someone had to be sent to permanently damage their own cellular structure, that person should be the more expendable of the two pilots.

  The co-pilot said nothing, but Jackie thought he looked a little pale.

  “Sir?” Jackie said, getting the attention of both Sandeep and Dyson. The radiation pod was cramped with people, as it always was. The only good thing about these dangerous conditions was the destruction of diseases all around the ship. Bacteria were dying outside the pod, baking in the radioactive storm.

  “What is it, engineer?” Dyson asked, again usurping Sandeep’s authority.

  Jackie looked from one face to the other but finally settled on Sandeep’s. “Something’s wrong. This radiation storm is stronger than usual, and its source is all wrong.”

  “Explain, please,” Sandeep requested.

  “Look,” she said, working with a diagram she laid out on the big touch-table in the center of the pod. An image of Jupiter, Europa, and about ten of the other major moons in the system all appeared. She tapped Jupiter, which utterly dwarfed the rest, looking like a basketball being circled by pebbles.

  As Jackie worked, the system image changed. A curved bag appeared around Jupiter, looping out to encompass various moons.

  “This is Jupiter’s magnetosphere,” she explained. “Earth has one too, but it’s not so big and powerful. This is where our ship is now, coming close to Jupiter. We’re inside the magnetosphere, which serves to protect the innermost moons from the harshest radiation. Europa is outside that zone.”

  “I’m not getting the significance of all this, Linscott,” Dyson said.

  Jackie blinked at her rudeness. The woman hadn’t even let her finish. “The point is this: we shouldn’t be getting hit by this level of radiation. This is more than Europa gets, more charged ionized particles than any of these bodies get under normal circumstances.”

  Sandeep tapped Europa. The image zoomed in. “How long until we arrive?”

  “Just over ten hours,” Jackie said. “We’re gliding in under inertia, angled just right to be captured by the moon’s gravity. We’ll slide into orbit without having to engage the drive again.”

  “Where did the Russians land?”

  “We’re not sure. But the logical spot is here, near this crater. But sir, let’s get back to the radiation anomaly.”

  “Why? Is the anomaly a danger to the ship or the crew?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not at present levels. But it shouldn't be hitting us at all. Not such a steady level of it, anyway.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dyson said. “Are you telling me the Russians are doing it?”

  Jackie looked at her, startled. “That’s very unlikely. I don’t see any evidence—”

  “You just said it’s off the chart. That Jupiter’s magnetosphere should be protecting us—but it isn’t.”

  “T
hat’s true.”

  Dyson straightened and crossed her arms. “All right then, what’s your theory for what’s causing it?”

  “Well, it could be a solar flare.”

  “This far out from the Sun? Earth would have been fried by such an ejection, and none of our reports from NASA mentioned it.”

  “All right, a Jupiter-flare then. The Jupiter system is rather similar to the Solar System, just on a smaller scale. The—”

  “It’s the Russians,” Dyson said, turning toward Sandeep, who was watching the two women closely. “It’s got to be. They sent a massive radiation signal up from the Arctic, remember? How did they generate that?”

  “The Artifact did it, not the Russians.”

  “Ah, but who is using the Artifact? The Russians. Let’s admit to ourselves that they have tech at least equivalent to our own. Who knows what else they might have discovered? Maybe they can see this ship as easily as we see a prop plane on airport radar.”

  Jackie frowned. She didn’t know what to think. Dyson was being emphatic, but she had a point.

  “The radiation is probably too steady to be a natural flare,” she admitted. “Every minute that passes decreases the odds of a natural fluctuation being the source. It would be uneven in power, waxing and waning. This is too steady and does appear to be artificially generated.”

  Dyson nodded. “We have to take action.”

  “What do you suggest?” Sandeep asked.

  “Let’s turn the drive back on. Let’s dodge and weave. Space is too big for this to be an accident. They’ve probably spotted us. Maybe they’re lining us up for a killer strike.”

  “If we do that, we’ll become instantly identifiable,” Jackie said. “We’ll give the Russians our exact position and confirm that we’re a ship under power, not a rock. This ship was built for stealthy approaches to planets, that much is clear. We look like a floating chunk of ice and stone right now, just like a billion other lumps of matter in this star system. If we fire up the drive again—well, it would be like lighting up a beacon. A big ‘I’m here’ sign.”

  Sandeep looked from one woman to the other, uncertain. “Let’s wait,” he said. “Maybe they’re lighting us up just to check us out, to find out what we are. What if they noticed us and are trying to ascertain what’s approaching the planet? If we turn the drive back on now, we’ll give ourselves away.”

  Dyson made a sound of disgust. Jackie frowned in concentration. She really didn’t know what to think.

  A fourth person, who’d been listening in all along, stepped forward. It was Dr. Goody. He looked worried, as worried as any of them.

  “There’s another possibility,” he said. “If I may speak, Captain?”

  Sandeep nodded.

  “What if this signal isn’t from the Russians at all? What if it isn’t natural? Then there can only be one logical source.”

  They looked at Edwin blankly.

  “The builders of this ship,” he said in a quiet voice. “The creatures who constructed this vessel—they have to be somewhere. Perhaps they’re calling out to it. Perhaps they’re querying us, pinging us—whatever.”

  They all stared at him for a second. Finally, Dyson smiled. “You’ve got to be kidding, right? ET is pinging us after more than a century of lying on ice, dormant? Let me explain what really happened, good Doctor Goody. There were aliens involved—at least some think so, I think the ship could have been automated—but in any regard it came here from another star system over a century back. They haven’t been sitting on their claws for all these years out here on this ice-ball, hoping we’ll drive their ship back to them like some kind of interstellar salvage crew.”

  Edwin shrugged and retreated from the group. “I still maintain there are three possibilities. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Regardless of the source of this radiation,” Sandeep said, “we’re going to Europa. That is our mission. Maintain course, speed and silence. Let’s glide in a like a rock and see what happens when we get closer.”

  Chapter 57

  Europa Ice Cap

  Starlight

  To Lev, it seemed to take forever for the welders to get their kit outside and haul it around to their position. Twice during that long interval the ground shifted under them.

  “This whole planet is unstable,” he complained. “Was that an earthquake?”

  “No, not exactly,” Gavril said. “Look there, on the horizon where Jupiter just went down.”

  Lev peered into the deepening darkness. At this point, there was little other than starlight to see by. The starlight was brilliant in comparison to Earth, because the atmosphere was quite thin, but it was still difficult to see.

  “Looks like a geyser.”

  “It’s water vapor. Steam plumes are continuously erupting around the planet and can shoot all the way up into space if they have enough pressure.”

  “That’s what’s making the ice shift under our feet.”

  “Maybe. But more likely it’s a natural tidal shift. Jupiter is like a giant gravity well. It exerts a thousand times the force that our moon exerts upon our oceans. The ice is always heaving up and cracking, venting.”

  “Wonderful. We could be sucked down and engulfed at any moment.”

  Gavril shrugged. “That is a possibility. Does it frighten you?”

  Lev turned to face the smaller man. “It worries me, as it would mean I failed my mission.”

  “I see.”

  At last, the welders showed up. There were three of them, and their cart came on a sled. They pulled it like dogs, but it slid over the ice easily due to the low gravity.

  A few minutes later, they had their masks on and brilliant blue-white light bathed Lev’s back. They’d offered to turn up the opacity of his visor, but he’d declined. Instead, he stood staring out at the open ice with his rifle clenched in both his hands.

  He knew the others were amused by him. He was a paranoid kook to them. A humorously misplaced soldier in the middle of a scientific mission. He didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t care that they were certain he’d seen nothing. He watched the horizon closely, eyes darting ceaselessly.

  There! There it was again! A flicker of gray on the blue-black ice. A hint of a reflection. An unnatural rolling motion no man or beast he’d ever encountered could make.

  He positioned the rifle, remembering to set the end of it on his shoulder, with the curved stock hooking under his arm. He swung his weapon—but the movement was gone.

  “What are you doing?” Gavril asked.

  “Shut up and work your tools,” Lev replied. “I think the light is attracting attention.”

  A slight, scoffing laugh came up from the group. Gavril stood curiously nearby, watching.

  Lev gritted his teeth, calculating. He’d been a fine hunter in his youth in the Urals. He’d learned then to lead elusive prey. To target the spot where it was about to emerge, rather than the spot where it had just vanished.

  He squeezed the trigger until it was a hair from firing.

  “I don’t see anything—” began Gavril.

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re aiming at a mound of crusted ice. There’s no way that—”

  The gun went off. The back-blast was greater than Lev had expected. A white flash and a puff of smoke gushed toward the welding team.

  The team cursed him, but Lev fired three more times. Each round punched into the mound of ice.

  “There’s nothing there, man!” Gavril said.

  Lev trotted forward, his boots crunching on ice. He thought he’d done it. He felt fairly certain he’d scored a hit.

  Gavril followed him, and when the two rounded the mound of ice, they found nothing but a ridge of ice with holes punched through it.

  “See?” Gavril said. “Nothing.”

  “Turn on that light of yours. Switch to ultraviolet.”

  Grumbling, the engineer did as he asked. The moment he shined the bluish glow over the area—splatters of glimmering yel
low-green appeared.

  “What’s that?” Gavril demanded.

  “You’re the nerd. You tell me.”

  The man knelt and fingered a sample. “It’s warmer than the surrounding ice. I’d say it’s ammonia, something like that. Frozen now, but recently so.”

  “Take a sample and give it to the biologists.”

  Gavril passed the sample on, and then he stood, facing Lev.

  “Do you think you hit something?” he asked Lev.

  “What do you think?”

  “I…I think it’s possible.”

  “Then take the sample inside. Report it and confirm it.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I will look for the thing that bled here. If it is badly wounded, I might find the body.”

  Gavril nodded. “I was wrong,” he said, looking at the blood—if that’s what it was. “I didn’t want to believe.”

  “It’s all right,” Lev told him. “No one wants to believe the unbelievable.”

  Gavril handed his light over to Lev. “Here,” he said, “take this. You can track the blood with it.” Then he bounced away in an odd gait.

  Left alone on the ice, somehow Lev was less confident. He’d thought the welders and Gavril were annoying. They scoffed and considered him half-mad. But now that he was alone in the cold dark, he found that he missed their companionship.

  There were no tracks—not exactly. What he found were marks, curved half-circular marks that laced the snow here and there. It took him a few minutes to realize what they were.

  “Of course,” he said aloud to himself. The creature wouldn’t leave tracks in the snow as might a wolf on Earth. It could leap ten meters or more. Each track would be found far from the last.

  With this in mind, he cast about more widely. He found what he was looking for. The creature—if it was a creature—had been hit. It then ran across the ice in great bounds. It hadn’t left more than a dozen prints over a hundred meter span.

  The tracks stopped then, and Lev was at a loss until he found a dark circular region. He was one step from walking right into it.

  A puff of vapor alerted him. A release of gas misted over his faceplate, then crystallized white until he rubbed it away.