Cold Eyes (First Contact), page 16
“They fart,” Dali says. “They’re propelled by farts!”
“Yes.”
“Well, all I can say is, eight-year-old kids all over Earth are going to love this thing!”
Kari laughs. “I guess they are.”
“They really are like whales,” Sandy says, sharing another image. “Look at how they move in pods well off the coast.”
Kari says, “I haven’t seen any of the large ones within a hundred kilometers of land. Also, they don’t seem to go deeper. Seems they like that temperate zone circling the edge of the ocean’s heat dome. There are a few smaller pods in near the shore, but the really big ones drift well away from land.”
Helios says, “Beautiful.”
“I think they’re avoiding the storms,” Kari says. “The worst weather tends to be over land, so they stay well offshore, in calmer skies.”
Another few orbits pass. Dali floats free of his seat. He stares out the window at the massive planet as it races by beneath him. Clouds drift past hundreds of kilometers below him in his tiny spacecraft.
At times, it feels like the Ranger is coming in too low. The lowest the altimeter reads is 134 kilometers, but each time he rounds the dark side, he feels as though his spacecraft is going to spiral into the atmosphere.
Sandy timed the Ranger’s perigee, or point of closest approach, so it occurs above the transition zone from night to day. This allows the crew to see the land circling the ocean. As the craft races over the ice on the night side of Bee, dipping ever lower, Dali has a sense the world is getting bigger. Mountains loom as dawn breaks, but once the spacecraft passes out over the ocean, the Ranger gains altitude again.
“Okay, Dali,” Kari says over the radio. “We’ve got good spectroscopy and electron imaging coming in from the samples you’ve collected. I’m seeing shapes reminiscent of diatoms on Earth, but they’re fragmented and torn. That high in the atmosphere, they’re being ravaged by starlight.”
“That’s not good, huh?” he says.
“We’ve picked up evidence of life but nothing alive. There are DNA-like structures, but I need more examples to be sure.”
“DNA?” Dali says. “I thought DNA would be unique to Earth.”
“DNA’s a chemical hard drive,” Kari says. “That’s all. By itself, DNA is irrelevant. It’s the coding sequence within DNA that’s important—and any repeating structure that holds information will do. I’m detecting a lot of polynucleotides in these samples. It’s not an exact match for terrestrial DNA, but damn, it’s close. It seems they’ve evolved to use a similar gene coding mechanism.”
“Ah, okay,” Dali says, unsure where this conversation’s going. The point about needing more samples, though, sounds ominous.
“Helios and I would like to drop you into a lower orbit, but Sandy disagrees. We want to put the logic to you and give you the deciding vote.”
There it is.
Even though the crew on the Magellan have imagery of the cockpit within the Ranger, Dali feels as though he should face the screen when talking to them. He swings down into his seat and pulls the harness over his shoulders.
“What are we talking about?” he asks.
“We want to descend to a perigee of a hundred kilometers and then one at ninety.”
“Sounds risky.”
“The Ranger is up for it,” Helios says. “As your apogee is still out around seven hundred kilometers, we have plenty of margin to play with. We can power you out of there in a heartbeat. Turn on the gas, and you’re screaming out of there like a bat out of hell!”
Kari says, “You’re currently passing through the thermosphere. If we can graze the mesosphere, we should pick up viable organisms.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Kari says. “You don’t want more detail?”
“No. I’m good to go.”
“Dali?” Sandy says. She knows him all too well. Dali’s not one to make a snap decision. She knows his weaknesses. Indecision comes naturally and is normally compounded by discussion. The more they tell him, the more questions he’ll ask, and the more doubts will creep in. Dali wants to do the right thing by the team, and that means being decisive.
“This is a science mission, right?” he says, knowing Sandy will be scrutinizing not just his words but any inflection in his voice and his facial expressions. “We’ve come all this way—twelve light-years. It doesn’t make sense to stop a few kilometers from our target. Let’s science this bad boy!”
“You got it,” Helios says. “We’ve got a minor burn to perform at apogee in about fifteen minutes. That’ll drop you down lower on your next orbit.”
“Okay.”
One-word answers are a giveaway for Sandy, but Dali notes she’s quiet. She knows him well enough to realize he hates this, but for him, it’s a matter of duty.
Helios says, “Bee is going to look awfully big in the window, but don’t worry. At a hundred kilometers, 99% of the atmosphere is still below you. You really are just skimming the edge.”
“Good to know.”
“Thank you,” Kari says. There’s no doubt in Dali’s mind that were she sitting here, she would have performed this maneuver long ago. Dali’s a little nervous, but Helios is right. It’s all about the physics. His motion over the past few orbits has been like a metronome, regular and consistent.
“All right, let’s do this,” Sandy says. “I want a full diagnostic sweep of the Ranger. Let’s double-check our systems before sending him in any lower.”
“Copy that,” Helios says.
Dali tightens the straps over his shoulder. He doesn’t need to. The thrusters on the Ranger are gentle. They build to a peak rather than throwing him back in his seat.
His favorite point in orbit is apogee, when he’s farthest from the planet. He feels safe out there. Besides, he gets a magnificent view of the ocean on one side of the cockpit and the eerie red glow of Luyten’s Star on the other. At that point, he’s sailing between two behemoths, gliding silently through the darkness.
Dali sits in the cockpit, tapping his gloved fingers. How long has it been? Eighteen hours can’t pass quick enough. When he gets back to the Magellan, he’s going to head straight to the torus and crash on the bed. Ah, to feel gravity again—even if it’s artificial.
The first pass goes without a hitch at 101 km in altitude.
“This is really good,” Kari says, bringing up more imagery as the Ranger heads back out into space. Dali’s not dumb. She’s trying to distract him. And she’s doing a great job of that.
“Look at the cities and buildings,” she says. “Coming in lower and changing the angle means we’re able to build 3D virtual models. I’m getting a clear distinction between industrial areas in the dark region and farming communities on the fringe of the sea. The architecture in those cities is crazy. Look at those spires. They’ve got to be easily a kilometer in height. How are they pulling that off?”
“What age do you think they’re in?” Dali asks.
“Well past the industrial,” Kari says. “I’m detecting CFCs in the atmospheric collection unit. There’s nitrogen dioxide, so they’re probably using some kind of combustion engine somewhere. We’ve got ozone mixed in there as well. If anything, they might be using that to try to warm the planet.”
“All right,” Helios says as Bee falls away behind Dali and the Ranger. “We’re going to perform a small burn to take you down to ninety kilometers. It’ll be a single pass, and we’ll bring you home.”
“How?” Dali asks, not wanting to sound nervous. He needs some assurance about what’s happening next. A decimal place has dropped from his proposed lowest altitude. It’s arbitrary and symbolic, but still unnerving.
“After this pass, we’re going to hit the thrusters again up at apogee. That’ll circularize your orbit. From there, we’ll stabilize you at around five hundred kilometers.”
“So no more hula hoop?” Dali asks.
“A nice, wide circle,” Sandy says. “Nice and high.”
“High sounds good. And from there?”
“From there,” Kari says. “We bring you back and start trawling through the samples in detail.”
“I like it,” Dali says.
Silence
Coming in low across the night side of Bee, Dali is calm. Lightning crackles in the dark clouds looming over the mountains. He’s still out above the massive ice sheet, but he can see neon blue flashes rippling through the clouds ahead. Bee looks close. Too close. Dali feels as though the planet is going to scrape the paint on the Ranger.
“Three minutes until closest approach,” Helios says. “Then we’ll bring you home. We estimate perigee at 87 kilometers.”
After seventeen hours of drudgery, Dali is upbeat. “Sounds good to me.”
“Oh,” Helios says. “Kari wants to coin the terms apobee and peribee for orbits around Bee.”
Dali’s confused. Are they asking for his permission? How would he know what’s appropriate? Humanities and orbital mechanics couldn’t be more different.
“Ah, cool,” he says, trying to sound non-committal.
Communication with the Magellan has been strained. It sounds like that was an attempt at being lighthearted. Their orbits don’t align. There are times where the planet lies between them, cutting off radio contact. In those moments, Dali feels abandoned. It’s refreshing to hear Helios talking him through the final pass. The Ranger is so close it’s hugging the atmosphere.
Dali hasn’t had to do anything for over an hour. Every system has worked flawlessly, even the collection exchange. Helios talks him through the approach.
“Array deployed. Picking up a little hull ionization.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Sandy says before Dali can ask.
Helios says, “Bee’s putting on one heck of a light show.”
Sandy says, “You’ve got front row seats down there.”
Dali’s a bystander. They’re doing both the flying and the talking.
Dozens of lightning flashes illuminate the clouds. Rather than breaking toward the mountains, they crisscross the massive storm. Jagged lines span hundreds of kilometers in fractions of a second. Eerie blue trails wind their way around billowing cloud columns. They cut through darkened cloud banks and reemerge, continuing on, clambering across the ethereal storm. If Dali didn’t know better, he’d swear the gods were battling the titans down there. Thunderheads rise over the mountain range. Massive cumulonimbus clouds reach into the upper atmosphere, but they’re still well below the path of the Ranger.
Dawn breaks. Distant sunlight pierces the clouds. The atmosphere takes on a blood-red hue.
“Red sky in the morning,” Dali mumbles, trying to remember an old rhyme.
“Say again?” Sandy asks.
“Nothing.”
The vast ocean opens out before him as the Ranger passes over the mountains. Tiny clouds dot the distant horizon. It’s a beautiful day down there. It’s always a beautiful day down there.
Dali feels a slight bump, something he hasn’t felt during any other pass. He’s distracted by the way the Ranger rocks. He looks around the cabin, worried. That wasn’t the engines kicking in. They’re not due to fire to circularize his orbit until he reaches apogee or apobee or whatever. That felt different. It’s as though something struck the hull. At first, he doesn’t notice the instruments in front of him. They’ve gone dark. Dali assumes the shadows within the cockpit are merely the result of his eyes adjusting to the piercing morning light.
Helios said three minutes till closest approach.
It’s been more than three minutes.
Why hasn’t he said anything? Normally, Helios is precise in his commentary, even if there’s no action to be taken. His comments are as regular and predictable as a grandfather clock striking the hour.
The Ranger is already swinging back toward its distant apogee well out beyond Bee. It’ll take a while to get there, but Dali can already see the planet beginning to fall away beneath him as it has so many times before.
“Did the collection array work?” he asks, curious about the bump he felt, wondering if something went wrong. “Do we need to make another pass?”
There’s no reply.
“Sandy?”
“Helios?”
“Kari?”
His heart beats a little faster.
“Anyone?”
The smell of burnt rubber seeps through the air. Dali unclips his harness and drifts from his seat, turning his back on the cockpit window. The rear of the craft is in darkness. With the light of a distant sun reflecting off the ocean, he hadn’t noticed, but he’s lost power—all power.
“Umm, guys?” he says into the microphone on his Snoopy cap.
The one thing Dali hasn’t experienced in space before is silence—complete and utter silence. Three words fall from his lips as the realization hits.
“No life support.”
Although he’s suited up, he’s not wearing his helmet or gloves. He figured they’re only for an emergency or going out into the vacuum. Even though Sandy insisted on having him wear his helmet, there was no way he was lugging that around for eighteen hours. He stowed it on the bulkhead using a Velcro strap. His gloves are in a pouch on his leg. Now, though, he can’t get them on fast enough.
Dali fumbles with the locking ring on his helmet. Thick gloves make everything more difficult. He should have donned his helmet first. He’s panicking. It’s not like the air around him is going to disappear. There’s plenty of breathable air within the cabin. Facts, though, are meaningless in the face of fear.
“Don’t panic,” he mumbles to himself. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
Dali slows himself, seats his helmet properly, twists and locks it in place. With a calm motion, he pulls the visor down, sealing himself in his high-tech cocoon. The flight suit he’s wearing has a slimline backpack for emergency life support. It’s barely two inches thick, so it’s comfortable when sitting in the cockpit seat. It’s good for twelve hours of air and electrical power. He brings the suit online. It’s a relief to see the backlit controls glowing softly on his arm.
There’s a flicker of light at the rear of the craft.
“Hey, good news,” he says to no one other than himself. “Not everything’s dead.”
Dali turns on the spotlights on the side of his helmet and pushes off the hull. The hatch to the engine bay is open. Smoke drifts idly through the air in thin wisps.
“Maybe not good news,” he says as he sees a fire flickering in the darkness.
The sight of a fire in weightlessness is mesmerizing. Blobs of burning plastic float through the air. Rather than flames, there’s a ball of seemingly incandescent light glowing in front of a red control panel. The flame is yellow with a blue tinge. It’s the size and shape of a basketball. For a moment, Dali stares at it, wondering if it really is a fire or perhaps something else. It seems to breathe, surging in and out as though it’s alive. The ball of flame shimmers like a ghost. Dali grabs a fire extinguisher from the wall and douses the panel with a thick, gooey foam.
“Fire’s out,” he says as though someone’s listening. “Disaster averted. I’m all good down here. How about you guys?”
Nothing.
As much as he wants to be brave, he’s not. Silence passes him by, ignoring him and his crippled spaceship.
“Where the hell are you guys?”
Dali clips the extinguisher back onto the wall. Regardless of how tempting it is to discard it and leave it floating around, it’s better he knows where it is in case the fire restarts.
He uses a cloth to wipe away the foam and get a good look at the engine controls. The main panel has melted. Wires have fused together. Burnt circuit boards smolder. The odd spark kicks between electrical components.
“Yeah, that’s not good.”
Dali uses a pair of pliers to carefully remove the board, unplugging the power cable. After cleaning up, he drifts back into the cockpit.
“Ah, it would be really nice to hear from you guys about now—real reassuring.”
Bee retreats in the distance. Already, the planet has receded. It feels good to put some distance between himself and the alien world. It’ll be short-lived. In roughly an hour, he’ll swing back toward Bee as the Ranger follows its crazy hula-hoop orbit. He was supposed to circularize his orbit well above the planet, but his engines have failed to ignite. Is that what caused the fire? No, he’s sure the fire started while he was passing over the mountains. Something hit his craft, but what? Lightning?
“Hello?” he says, talking to the darkness, but he’s calm. With the fire out, there’s no immediate danger. Time is on his side.
Each orbit takes roughly two hours to complete. The Magellan is out there somewhere. The crew will be scrambling to make contact. Dali’s half-expecting to see the starship drop down in front of him, just like it did out by the asteroid.
Another hour passes. The silence torments him.
Dali tries opening panels within the cockpit, looking for—what? Maybe there’s a set of fuses? Perhaps there’s a big old red Start button? Maybe there’s a wardrobe leading to Narnia?
The Ranger swings back around behind the planet and into the shadows. The alien sun sets. He’s bored, which is a peculiar position to be in when stranded in orbit. There’s nothing he can do but wait on the Magellan. He’s not panicking. He can’t. Panicking won’t help. Sandy’s on her way—of that, he’s convinced. She won’t abandon him.
The ice sheet looms large in his window. For the most part, it’s featureless. Occasionally, a mountain range breaks through the massive glacier. A crater dominates one region to the north, but the level of ice on either side of the crater wall suggests it’s ancient. A meteorite must have plunged through the atmosphere and into the surface, vaporizing the ice. At the time, it would have seemed as though that fiery impact altered everything. Now, though, it’s barely distinguishable from the ice sheet as a whole.
Dawn breaks again on the horizon.
Lightning tears through the clouds.
Dali gets nervous. He watches as the storm passes tens of thousands of meters beneath his crippled spacecraft. Flashes of light cut through the cloud banks. Nothing happens. Once again, he soars out over the open ocean in silence.
