ECHELON'S END(C)
BOOK 8
Perils Of The Gulf
BY
E. ROBERT DUNN
PROLOGUE:
The planet Aidennia had been home. On it, everyone that the crew of the podship Pioneer Pod 4 had loved, everyone they had known, everyone they had heard of, every Aidennian who ever was had lived out their lives there. The aggregate of joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religious ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant. Every young couple in love, every siress and sire, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every celebrity, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in terran history had lived there on that mote of dust suspended in the sunbeam of Pintarus 19.
Aidennia had been a very small stage in the vast cosmic arena. Some of the rivers of bloods spilled by all its generals and emperors, so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
The planet Aidennia. A lone speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In its obscurity, in all the vastness there was no hint that help would come elsewhere to save them from themselves. The explored sections of the galaxy had worlds known only, so far, to harbor life. There had been nowhere else to migrate their species. All the hatreds between races, classes, and religions, all came to a head. The war was global and awful. It was finally the war to end all wars. Few survived after the holocaust, but those that had realized that if there were another one it would be their end. A civilization based originally on military supremacy fostered the luxury of culture to grow.
Utopia. Unity between planets followed. Exploration beyond began. The first visitations to the Outer Rim brought the urge to settle on what was found. Aidennia had made its stand with its allies toward colonization.
They were not alone.
The Taurons released their distaste for trespass. The endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they were to kill fervent, their hatreds.
Aidennia’s pale point of light challenged their posturings, their imagined self-importance, and the delusion that they had some privileged position in the Universe.
Colonial survivors had evaded the carnage. Marooned in their high-tech wain on an unbeknighted speck. The Pioneer Pod 4 was spaceborne, once again plunging into uncharted Space. After weeks of uneventful flight, the Aidennians voyage interrupted as Pod 4 abducted while en-route back to the remnants of The System by the slipstreams of a gravity well. The Aidennians found themselves in orbit around a world that was peaceful, lush, a near paradise; it had all the markings of a bio-experimental laboratory. Another Saarien podship and one of its crew discovered. Eden turned to terror when an alien eugenics project was unveiled.
The flight deck of the Pioneer Pod 4 had pulsed with suppressed uncertainty. The bowport had held the tableau of a destabilizing hyperspace field. Seated before this vista the Aidennians had desperately tried to come to resolution over the escalating problem at hand. Escape to the Systemite planet of Sheey had suddenly lost its entire splendor when the ravages of the Tauron Occupation revealed. Moreover, what seemed to be the Aidennians' final battle took them full-circle with the begetters of their odyssey. The Taurons had found the Aidennian survivors.
The Occupation of the System was not enough to satiate the hunger of the saurian empire and once again, it sent out squadrons to eliminate the only remnants of Aidennia. With little option, the pioneering refugees had to face a new reality that no longer involved being part of the System...
“Dystopia”
CHAPTER ONE:
The vacuum of Space, well documented as being silent; however, the Void the podship Pioneer Pod 4 trekked was suddenly chatting with interstellar ‘noise’. As if to concur with Commander Capel Perezsire’s recent log entry of “… six hundred and forty rotates since launch…” commenting on such an anomaly, over the saucer-shaped vessel’s communication PA came a series of roars, whistler notes, hisses, even oohs and ahhs.
All were indicators of something dynamic ahead on the podship’s flight path. The commander exited the stateroom after making his status report and made his way round to the utility deck’s lift cage.
The elevator platform leveled with the upper deck. Capel Perezsire moved from the quarterdeck and took a stride forward down the small steps onto the operations pit toward the command apse.
“Report,” he requested of the on-duty crew.
“Long-range sensors confirm a magnetosphere-like object,” said Lieutenant Retho Capelsire. The male studied his readouts at the astrogator console as his swift fingers brought up hologram after holographic display. “The object has tripped our primary and secondary sweeps.”
For the most part, familiar static filled the concealed speakers of the flight deck; but every now and then, the crew could hear what sounded like a rising or falling tone. To a more experienced ear, the audio spasms that consisted of peckings and crashing had a more scientific meaning.
“Helm, lock in a course to intercept, maximum Factor.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Retho as his slim fingers plied the circular console. “Course laid in.”
“Initiate.”
Major Nicraan Matasire who occupied the pilot flight chair nodded and made the appropriate touches on his flight board. The background din of the podship’s sound envelope wavered a few octaves up the audio scale. Simultaneously, the bowport was shimmering with accelerated velocity.
Out the forward view a time-matter distortion, which the Pioneer Pod 4 had created, morphed the distant starslight into strange elongated shapes. As the podship drew deeper and deeper into the hyperspace vortex, the starscape altered in a rush of light strobes before settling back into the homeostasis of hyperspace.
Satisfied with the podship’s progress, Perezsire turned to glance at Lieutenant Commander Jor Dansire at the tactical station. “Keep an eye on the source as our approach narrows.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the deep-voiced Maddi
Capel Perezsire stroked his smooth chin and smiled. “Just when I thought this rotate was going to be a slow one. What is our ETA at the phenomenon?”
“Three point six macronodes,” answered Nicraan. He sat intently in the command apse’s recessed pilot chair. His fingers manipulating the flight boards before him.
Before the pilot and the command consoles in the apse was the flight deck’s sectional bowport; centered was a blob of light on the distant starscape. The secret of the alien radio signals soon to be revealed.
“We are approaching the source of the audio disturbances,” Retho said as he conjured up a long-range visual on the astrogator’s bowl. “The object ranges four hundred and fifty million mets long, buzzing with electrically-charged particles.”
“As we get within a safe distance, slow to one-quarter sublight,” Perezsire ordered.
“Aye, sir,” came Matasire as he tabbed in the instructions to his piloting computer.
Both the navigation and helm subsystems started to make prim adjustments to the podship’s velocity and trajectory. The astrogator and the bowport also made changes to their views. On the bowl-shaped presentation platform of the astrogator there came a holographic morphing bubble of broken rainbows, while out the main view a polychromatic windsock seemed to billow in solar winds.
The transparent object had one rounded section facing ‘away’ in one direction, while a ‘tail’ flowed out the other. Yet it was not a benign phenomenon; it was stellarly active.
From the engineering station flightdeck fore-port, the podship’s syntheform turned to its superior and reported, “The stellar object is generating up to ten million amps of electrical current.”
“Use caution on approach,” Perezsire said. “That’s one hellu’va powerplant.”
“Aye, sir,” Matasire replied with a nod, adjusting the podship’s propulsion drivers.
The bowport showed the starscape adjusting itself to a more static view. The elongated illumination of hyperspace quickly settled down into a more familiar splattering of pinpoints of lights. The anomaly that had drawn the podship and its crew to this vector was shimmering, coalescing, and glowing soft around its edges across the entire length of the command apse’s bowport.
Resembling a polychromatic cellophane bag caught in a breeze, the misshapened aberrancy immediately became the center of attention for the entire crew. The magnetic ‘coelenterate’ filled the sectional frame as if viewed within a panoramic aquarium. Its structure appeared soft, gelatinous; especially with its umbrella-like body and long, trailing ‘tentacles’. The anomaly’s ‘skin’ appeared covered in chromatophores, which enable the gossamer cloud to change color; a shimmer that resembled oil on water.
“What do you make of it?” asked Perezsire of his science officer.
From the quarterdeck’s science station, its operator Lieutenant Commander Moela Darasiress was studying the spatial anomaly with intuitive interest. Her light-projected monitors were crowded with real-time data that her beautiful eyes locked onto and set her fantastic mind whirling off with algorithms and mathematical calculations.
“It has all the earmarkings of being either a magnetic vacuole or a singularity remnant,” she said, her smooth forehead wrinkled with puzzlement.
“Please explain.”
“Whenever a singularity forms after the collapse of some stars, in their wake is sometimes left an …electromagnetic or gravity well residue as the singularity shrinks over eons as Space tries to return to equilibrium.”
“What’s the difference between the two?” asked Medical Commander Dara Lidasiress from her quarterdeck life sciences station.
“A magnetic vacuole is the last best attempt of a singularity to maintain itself,” Moela said. “Whereas, the singularity remnant is what is left after matter is infinitely compressed to an infinitesimal volume causing the space-time point to collapse in upon itself. Like a scab, but in the fabric of Space,” she explained. Her trim fingers were working while she spoke, instructing her science computer to manifest an illustration to her narrative. “It’s a way for Nature to maintain a balance. Imagine the surface of a lake settling, following the penetration of a pebble. What we are witnessing is the ripple affect of a tear in space-time between space-normal and hyperspace.”
The commander’s keen eyesight caught the change on the science monitors and studied the displays’ depictions. The holograms underwent a pictorial timeline that was in tandem to Moela’s description.
“The conductivity is giving off visual auroras,” she said, “as the charged particles leak and crash into a pocket atmosphere; it glows. They measure up to twelve hundred mets across.”
The ghostly curtains of charged particles were in reality over a thousand times more powerful than any planetary cousins. Moreover, true to Moela’s report, the kaleidoscopic roiling bubble of energy filled the entire regional ‘sky’.
“Current measurements have these auroras’ moving at lightning speed,” added BeeTee as it stepped to the EVS station, “at ten thousand mets per node.”
“So where is all that noise coming from?” asked Dara.
“This magnetic anomaly is a monster,” the automaton replied. Turning to the environmental console’s holosets, the ambient Void presented in three-dimensional splendor. An animated display called out to all hands as BeeTee said, “And, it roars. It’s speaking to us right now.”
Hearing enough, the commander gave the signal to kill the loop. As the cacophony of animalistic discord died into silence, “Let’s take all precautions,” he said, moving away from the quarterdeck and toward the command apse. “Yellow Alert. Shields to maximum.”
As Matasire went to comply with the commander’s order, Moela was shouting out a warning that came heartbeats too late. “Noooo! Belay that order…” she yelled, pure horror gracing her elfin beauty.
Without warning, an arcing, zigzagging column of pure electrical energy reached out from the misshapened bubble and made contact with the podship’s protective flight shields. White light brightened the bowport. Every crewmember felt it like a body blow. Damage control telltales spread like a red rash on the engineering console’s presentation membrane.
“Shields down fifty percent!” shouted Dansire. “Anticoncussion dampeners and gravitational grids are failing. I am losing control. None of the overrides are working!”
As the Pioneer 4 recoiled from the contact’s shock wave, a klaxon sounded, piercing the calm of the flight deck. The siren added a harmonic of doom to the situation.
“Red Alert!” boomed Perezsire as he staggered, then fell as the entire podship shook to another giant’s blow. “Evasive sequence beta one three. Report on shields and weaponry.”
A second ‘lightning’ bolt had reached out from the magnetic orb and touched the podship’s wounded protective force fields. The decks of the Pioneer 4 shook to their gamma-wielded rivets. Lights flickered and winked out; spot fires glowed on the engineering station, waveguide circuitry was overloaded. Heat dampener sprayed sending up clouds of foul-smelling fog. The crew not seated was flat on the deck holding on in a sliding smash.
“Shields down to thirty-six percent,” reported Jor after stabilizing himself before the railing integrated tactical console. “Weapon systems are one hundred percent. Some power fluctuations, but minimal damage to crucial systems. However, we cannot sustain another hit.”
Moela had left her station and was careening in to reach past Matasire, hitting the shield-deactivating icon. There was no time to unravel any more of it. From the commander’s perspective, Moela would not have countermanded his order without some good reason. Perezsire’s mind reeled along with the rocking of the deck; time felt askew.
“Weapons systems down!” shouted Dansire. “Shields buckling.”
The instant the podship’s protective bulb of force field energy scaled back, the plasma arcs released their grip of the Pioneer 4. Sparkles of red and then white flame slammed into the podship’s forward deflector fields, jarring the entire saucer, as if in one last try at its destruction.
When the echoing blast died, everyone scrambled to their stations and began doing shipwide diagnostics by the book. Perezsire ignored the sparks that were all around him from various consoles and the acrid smoke that drifted through the air.
“We’re out of it!” Nicraan’s relieved shout resounded over the sudden-quiet flight deck.
“Auxiliary power!” Capel ordered. “All stations report!”
The stillness of the flight deck was temporary as the magna-panels responded to the crew’s instructions to initialize all reserve systems. The stifled background din was quickly enveloped in the familiar singsong symphony of the podship’s computers and accented by the winking of accompanying indicators. One by one, the darkened control consoles breathed life back into their instrumentation panels. The once dark astrogator flickered with hyperactivity; holographic displays whirling in representation of the external situation.
“Helm control restored, sir,” called Retho.
“Back us off!” Perezsire yelled moving to stand behind the pilot chair.
Matasire was already on it. He got the Pioneer 4 moving from a dead stop in surprisingly quick time. The bowport showed his efforts. The electrical anomaly quickly shrank away. Quickly the bubbly windsock was once again a remote light streak against the starmap.
"We have audio contact with Engineering. Video systems gone,” Dansire called out.
"Service Section. Lost all power,” BeeTee reported. “Operating on emergency systems.”
“Life Support,” Dara called out. “Overload in two units. Assemblages sealed off. No leaks. Sufficiently operational to maintain breathable internal environment.”
“Nicraan, Jor, check the podship. All systems to made fully operational – top priority,” Capel ordered of his two senior officers before looking over his shoulder at the flight deck’s cybernaut, adding, “BeeTee, ensure our environment.” Perezsire then turned to face his science officer, waiting; his face was impassive, showing no indication of feeling either contrite or concerned. “Explanation, Moela. Why was my maximum shields order countermanded?”
Moela looked over her shoulder; she was cool and polite as she explained, “Sir, the Pioneer’s redesign increases deflector and shield power by channeling it through the main engines. When we maximized the shield harmonics, it effectively increased their piezo-conductivity and thus attracted the charged electrical particles to arc out of the spatial anomaly’s magnetic envelope. If the harmonics had not been changed, the energy potential in those plasma arcs would have torn the podship apart.”
It was not what Perezsire had expected. He felt chagrined with the realization of what Moela had done. “Then you acted properly, of course.”
“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” said Moela.
“You saved the ship,” said Perezsire. “Damage report?”
Jor Dansire approached the commander with a hand-held data pad. “I have preliminary information,” he said. “Since the engineering systems are the source for our shield power, it would appear the damage was targeted at the engineering systems and was restricted by emergency containment fields from spreading to other shipwide systems. All flight deck engineering command functions have been automatically routed to auxiliary control belowdeck – not that the systems there are in any better shape.”
Perezsire frowned and looked at the bowport, which was comfortingly blank of phenomenon. “What is our position now?”
“We are moving away from our previous position at a speed of Factor 2.1,” Retho replied. “With the Pioneer’s current status, that’s the best speed we can achieve. There is a fault in our hyperplasmic drive. I’ll have to power it down within fifteen macronodes or risk a core breech.”
“Stand down from Red Alert,” Capel Perezsire ordered. “Retho, begin scanning for any habitable planet, just in case we have to set down to initiate repairs.”
“Aye, sir,” the lieutenant acknowledged, all the while setting the astrogator’s pallet of hypersensitive gear to work.
After a moment, the noise and flashing legends and lights stopped, but Perezsire still felt like a sapient on high alert. He took a deep breath. He gazed at the mess that was his beloved flight deck and heaved a sigh.
“As soon as we get on our feet, I want a full report on our situation and forecast on repairs,” he added.
“Yes, sir,” Dansire took a deep breath.
A sudden, violent shaking began to rock the flight deck.
“What the duce is going on…”
Perezsire’s mouth fell slack as though he were trying to speak. His words drowned out in a cacophony of shrieks and screams of terror that came from the podship’s crew.
Dara shrank away in fear as the bulkheads and deck continued to shake; her console jumped beneath her violently. The furniture and instruments throughout the flight deck seemed to tilt and run together, and she lost her orientation and crumpled to the floor. From somewhere among the chaotic scene Moela loomed over her, staggering about. Screaming and shouting, the science officer finally fell out of her view.
All around, everyone had become trembling, blurred outlines.
Not only the flight deck was vibrating; the entire podship was. It was shaking apart. It seemed on the verge of breaking up. The deck seemed to spin upside down.
“All personnel assume emergency positions. All personnel assume emergency positions," advised the onboard computer.
Out the bowport, the myriad of stars and galaxies seemed to be shivering. Dara’s lips quivered a little as she stared out the forward view. Retho looked stunned. Moela defied even this disaster to crack her pose of sophisticated indifference. Jor swallowed and stared. Nicraan clamped his jaws tightly, but he had both hands clenched to his flight chair armrests to hide their convulsive movements. Capel’s studied calm was less than convincing. BeeTee paused in its calculations as if in shock. As the crew watched with horrified, pleading expressions on their faces, the view shimmered out of existence.
"What the Novice is going on?" cried out Matasire.
The black pad vanished and the ubiquitous stars that it held blazed out, filling the sectional port with a fierce, mocking brilliance.
* * *
.
A gentle pre-dawn wind flowed out of the northwest atmospheric processors, making the local temperature nearly perfect weather. Consul Maarten Con observed the weather updates for the Arkab IV terra-formed biosphere under his charge. The reports displayed on the command status board above his desk in the Hub.
The Hub was the colonial biosphere’s main paramilitary command center and was housed three stories underground. The Consul’s desk rested on a glassed-in balcony overlooking the main Strategic High Command, or SHC, operations post, and two floors further down, directly below and in front of Con’s balcony, was the Hub’s personnel who could put him in communication with any section of the cityscape located directly above the command center. If needed, they could launch enough defensive firepower to destroy any hostile.
Consul Maarten Con was bored; he subconsciously rubbed the vertical crease in the center of his forehead. He was on a routine inspection of the facility. Typical of most males of Arkaban descent, his dark skinned countenance had a similarly strong, angular face, and eyes that carried a similar proud defiance. His dark suit beautifully tailored to his slender, muscular frame.
Since the planet Arkab IV was on the outskirts of nowhere, very little happened to threaten the outpost of sentiency. The recorded history of Arkab began when the Eltanin navigator Taíno Con happened upon a planet in the region of the Arkab System’s boundary that later came to be known as the Triptych Draconis Expanse. Although the terrene’s atmosphere was breathable it was maniacal; having severity due to an eccentric planetary orbit. The worldscape was uninhabited by any higher lifeforms. Taino Con promptly claimed the sphere for the Draconis Commission, and named it Arkab IV.
The Draconis Commission had originated on the planet Eltanin (of the star Alpha Draconis), and consisted mainly of various groups of reptilian-like species, but mammalian-dominate worlds had joined, too, some forcefully, some willingly. It’s most important members based in the solar groups of Alpha Draconis, Epsilon Bootes, Zeta II Reticuli, Polaris, Rigel, Bellatrix, Alpha Aurigae, and Ursa Major. The outbreak of political revolution on Eltanin had a powerful effect on the Arkab IV colony. Its fledgling existence was promptly forgotten in light of the havoc the war had on the Draconis Commission societies; making the small terra-forming biosphere outpost suddenly independent.
Under the guidance of the then Consul led to a period of relative stability and prosperity that flourished to the present. That was over two centuries ago; with only a recent hint of restlessness from a small faction itching for exploration beyond the protective hard light arc of the colony’s protective hemispheric dome.
* * *
The incident seemed to vanish with extraordinary speed.
When the crew of the Pioneer 4 was all awake and active again, they were a rather draggled group. The navigator Retho Capelsire was most nearly normal while Capel Perezsire the podship’s commander looked as he felt, as if pulled through a knothole. Moela Darasiress tried to defy exhaustion as she defied all dangers. Lieutenant Commander Jor Dansire was withdrawn and remote. Nicraan Matasire tiredly collaborated with BeeTee and tried to make calculations. Dara Lidasiress looked restless and frightened.
"What hit us?" asked Dara uneasily.
"We'll find out. As soon as we have time," Perezsire said, checking his charges. “Alright, everybody. Back to your stations."
“How long before you can restore full power?" Nicraan asked the Pioneer 4’s environmental expert.
"I'll give you a time as soon as I locate the source of the trouble, Major," BeeTee replied, looking over its chromed shoulder pad at the pilot. If its voice could have sounded frustrated, then its fixed visage would have altered to match it.
"What's our position?" Capel Perezsire asked of the podship’s navigator.
“Unknown,” Retho sighed. The astrogator station’s presentation bowl remained empty; paralleling the view out the bowport.
Beyond the Pioneer 4’s hull, there was nothing but darkness.
There was no atmosphere, no light, and no stars. There was no galaxy. The Pioneer 4 appeared to be nowhere that anybody could describe or easily imagine.
After righting itself from its emergence into a wrinkle in space-time, the crew settled into their roles on the flight deck to assess their current situation. For the umpteen millionth time Major Nicraan Matasire surveyed the instruments before him in the command apse. None registered anything outside the podship. The only displays giving readings other than zero were those that told of the steady drain on the little podship’s stored power to keep its interior lighted and to cancel out the butter cold of emptiness outside. There was absolutely nothing outside the podship’s hull—or so said the instruments in the act of saying nothing.
Commander Capel Perezsire was beside the major and labored over the communicator. He tried this wavelength. Silence. He tired another. Nothing. He went from one end to another end of the electromagnetic spectrum. There should be, or had to be, radiation of some sort in any real space. Just as there should be stars, quasars, pulsars, and all manner of signal-emitting bodies. Saying nothing in particular but proving that there was something if not someone out between the stars.
Nevertheless, again… there were no stars.
The podship could have been in the moment before creation, when nothing of any kind yet made, except the Pioneer Pod 4. Alternatively, it could have been in the moment after the end of universe, when everything destroyed, except for Pod 4.
“Brace yourselves,” warned Matasire. “Switching to reserve fuel cells for firing check. I am going to try a short blast at maximum thrust.”
Nicraan reached forward and touched the emergency drive control. It should have given the podship a dead-ahead thrust of three gravities. It should have thrust Matasire, Capel, the crew, and the podship’s cybernaut savagely against their seat backs.
It did nothing.
“No response,” Retho stated the obvious.
“That cannot be good,” the pilot quipped.
There was not even a stirring or a change in the feel of being in the Pioneer 4 in this unbelievable absence of everything but the podship itself. One felt as if outside the podship’s hull there was not even a place it had left and another where it situated.
The emergency drive did not work; yet, it drew power. Matasire flipped it off. The power-drain indicator went back to reporting only the energy used to keep the lights illuminated and the podship itself from dropping to that absence of temperature that is zero Kelvin.
Perezsire turned off the communicator and clipped the earpiece back in the proper place.
“Nothing?” asked Nicraan.
“Less than that,” said Perezsire. He seemed to shiver a little in his co-pilot’s seat.
Matasire said nothing. His eyes travelled yet again over the rows of instrument indicators. They lingered a moment at the proximity indicator. It had not moved--- or if it had, then it had ceased to register now.
The Pioneer 4 had instruments that reported almost anything one could want to know about one’s surroundings in the podship’s usual field of operation. It was a hyperlight vessel, re-designed to carry crew and cargo between stars. Those in the Pioneer 4 now knew something about what it could do, but they still did not know where it was. They did know, though, that it included the incredible and quite impossible apparent absence of stars, moons, planets, galaxies, and all the rest of a reasonable cosmos.
There was a scraping sound behind the two pilots. Dara Lidasiress, the podship’s medic, clung to the back of her spouse’s flight seat. She was pale. She searched Perezsire’s face as he turned to her.
“Isn’t it about time for--- something to happen?” she asked uneasily.
“It’s long past that time,” said Capel. “Maybe we should complain to somebody about it.”
His tone of voice--- which he could control--- did not match his expression, which he could not. Dara moistened her lips.
“We were in something like this before,” she said, “when we first—first—“
“Kidnapped,” said Matasire. His tone denied the tenseness of his expression. “Where we were abducted while en-route back to the System. Coerced from our flight path to a planet that I, for one, didn’t like much better than this.”
The Pioneer 4 taken to a most improbable location. It was not easy for those aboard the little podship to believe even the events they remembered. It was not reasonable that it should suddenly find the stars had disappeared and its drive useless and its occupants helpless to do anything at all about their situation.
It was even less reasonable that ultimately that same podship restored to normal space, which was normal only in Space. The stars were strange, and the sun was unfamiliar, and a strange world had floated before them within the small podship’s range of action. It was even strange that it had made a landing there. However, when the landing was complete the impossible things began to happen. The air was breathable. The world was arid and barren; verging on sterile. It was a place in need of rejuvenation. Nevertheless, it was all real.
Now Dara looked despairing. Her eyes sought out Capel.
“Before,” she protested, “it didn’t stay like this so long!”
Perezsire shrugged. “I’m afraid we can’t do anything about that,” he said. “We still don’t’ know that we’re lost. We have no reason to despair. Not yet!”
“You’re the optimist among us,” quipped Nicraan.
“I’m not optimistic,” Capel said firmly.
Dara still held fast to the frame of the co-pilot’s seat. She looked unhappily at its occupant. She said nothing. Perezsire shrugged and turned away.
From the astrogator, Retho Capelsire snapped out a change. “Instruments registering,” he called.
“What registered?” Perezsire demanded, looking over his own flight board.
“Proximity indicator,” said Retho. He pointed, with a hand that shook despite himself.
The proximity indicator did register. It indicated the direction of something outside the podship. If its reading were a true one, the Pioneer 4 was not alone. There was a universe. There was something else in it. It could be as small as the podship itself, and very close, or something colossal farther away.
There still was no light outside.
The direction of the registering object slowly changed. It could have been, of course, that the Pioneer 4 turned. Yet, that had not occurred to anybody. There was no more visible light beyond the podship than atmosphere. The bowport was infinitely black. There was no tremor, no quiver, no feeling of turning or of any other change. All but three of the instrument board indicators before Capel and Nicraan still read zero. One of the exceptions told how much power remained in the storage units. A second read off the amount of power used to keep the lumen count and the temperature bearable. The third was the proximity indicator. It said that there was something, some object, in a direction that was not quite dead ahead, but slightly to starboard.
It moved.
Nicraan said between set teeth, “If we pass that thing and leave it behind…”
“Maybe we need to pass it,” said Perezsire. “Unless you know more than I do…”
The indicator’s display quivered ever so slightly.
BeeTee spoke up. “Proximity object is moving starboard. Pioneer 4 is passing it, Commander.”
“We’re passing it!” Jor Dansire announced between tightly tensed lips.
“We’re being carried by the singularity,” said Perezsire shortly. “Like a ship with its engines stopped, carried by an ocean current. That is us! It does not matter which way our bow points. We may be going ahead. Also, we could be moving backward—if we are moving at all. If we are, we’re being carried.”
“We should be driving!” Dansire insisted.
“We should do something!” chimed in Moela.
“Try the communicator again,” said Perezsire.
Matasire moved jerkily, but he got down the earpiece and turned on the telecaster. His hands, trembling a little, moved this control and that. Capel watched the instrument board.
Suddenly, Nicraan panted, “Static! Faint static! Very faint!”
Perezsire said nothing. He actually was doing one of the most difficult of all possible things for a normal male. There was nothing to be prepared for when something could be done. He examined all the instruments, one by one. His eyes went back to the proximity indicator. Nicraan was staring at it.
“It’s stronger!” the pilot said agitatedly. “It’s getting nearer!”
“We’ve got to do something,” Moela insisted, moving closer to the command apse from her station at the quarterdeck science console.
“Jor, try the altimeter again. The radar one,” Perezsire ordered.
This was not the instrument to record air density as a measure of height. This one sent out pulses—very strong pulses---of microwave frequency. If the pulses struck anything, they should reflect back. The instrument should detect and time them. It should report how far away the reflecting object was located. Very far away indeed and still be reported.
There was a flash of light out the bowport. It did not come from anywhere. It did not show anything. The bowport filled with brilliance from the fraction of a micronode. It came into the command apse and lighted everything with an incredible brightness. Then it vanished again. The bowport was black once again.
“What was that?” demanded Retho.
“Light,” said Perezsire, and then was silent. After a moment he spoke again, with the detachment he forced upon himself, “It could be the radar pulses reflected back from something, so stepped up in frequency by our speed that they’re turned into light.”
“Which, of course, is contrary to all sorts of natural laws,” interjected BeeTee.
“There are special conditions when natural laws show up in forms we don’t recognize,” Moela said. “In theory, what I just said is nonsense. However, what has happened to us is nonsense, too. I did not say I believed radar pulses stepped up to appear as light. But I wouldn’t have believed we’d be in our present situation.”
The state of things in the Pioneer 4 continued to be exactly as before. The only thing changed was that something had happened a little while ago.
“A warp in space-time,” said BeeTee, “may change the properties of Space where it exists. If it does, we cannot say that there is a limiting speed for light in a spatial warp. It may be altogether different. It may change.”
“We just don’t know,” Retho acknowledged.
Matasire licked his lips. Then he said, “Whatever the proximity indicator is registering—it’s getting nearer!”
The digits of the instrument still advanced from zero, but its rate of progression had changed. The difference, what it meant, Capel and Matasire could tell. The ‘thing’ reported was closer. The Pioneer 4 seemed utterly still, but it was not. It seemed to be utterly isolated in nothingness, save for this one indication to the contrary. It seemed—but whatever appeared to be true as patently preposterous.
Quite suddenly, there was a crash of static. Violent enough to have burned out the concealed speakers around the command apse. There was again a return to absolute eventlessness, in which nothing happened, nothing could happen, and the only change of any kind and on any scale was the faster and lesser quivering of the proximity indicator’s read-out. It acted as a compass needle does when a magnet approaches it.
Without the least preliminary symptom, the stars reappeared all about. As if the podship had broken through some impalpable membrane, the Pioneer 4 abruptly moved through a reasonable universe. The podship powered down from hyperspace and began to plow through space-normal toward a detected solar group at maximum sublight speed.
Space seemed to slow down, as the rushing starscape became glimmering beads. Preliminary scans revealed it to have an estimated thirteen small, mostly unremarkable, undistinguished, unexplored planets.
“We are coming out of hyperspace,” reported Nicraan.
“Shields up,” ordered Perezsire. “Initiate standard safeguards.”
“Shields up,” answered Jor. “Safeguards initiated.”
“Full stop. Initiate full sensor and scanner sweeps.”
The crew echoed back respectively their commander’s directives. Two glaring, flaming disks almost nearby sprouted prominences and showed swirling sunspots. The spots were storms of unthinkable violence on the stars’ blinding bright surfaces.
The look of things outside the bowport changed. Sunslight came in, and the disks of brightness moved across the deck and the chairs and then the ceiling. The Pioneer 4 was tumbling slowly as it sped on.
The podship crew had come across Beta Sagittarii (β Sgr, β Sagittarii) a binary star group shared by two star systems, β¹ Sagittarii and β² Sagittarii. Both stars orbited each other at an average distance of 3300 astronomical units. Their catalogue numbers more commonly referred to both stars: Beta-A Sagittarii was called HR 7337, and Beta-B Sagittarii called HD 181454. Extrasolar planets confirmed to orbit HD 181454 in highly elliptical orbits.
One such world was the only ‘habitable’ planet in the binary group. The whitish planet looked bleached of life as it filled both the astrogator bowl and the bowport. Because of its orbit’s high eccentricity, the planet's distance from its star varied from 0.03 to 0.88 AU. At apoapsis, it would receive an insolation similar to that of Aidennia, while at periapsis the insolation would be around 800 times greater. This resulted in extreme temperature variations: observations made when its star eclipsed the planet revealed that the temperature rose from 800 K (500 °C / 1000 °nH) to 1500 K (1200 °C / 2200 °nH) in just six nodes around periastron.
Retho Capelsire, a nimble expert in Muay Thai fighting and the crew’s astrogation expert, stood for his duty stint by the circular astrogator console. For now, the holographic display bowl showed the specks of light also represented framed in the command deck’s bowport.
The astrogator trilled and it had its operator rushing to answer the call. The bowl-shaped presentation plinth re-activated at his touch. Force fields molded light into circular images that the crew watching quickly recognized as a magnified solar group. A few precise touches on the display’s light icons had the presentation zooming to show a small spinning planet. Its surface smudged blurry in shades of sickly yellow. Nitrogen and oxygen dominated its atmosphere, and the sand that covered it had been ground and blasted from its crust by eons of corrosive, high-velocity winds.
“Sensors have detected a hypospace tether leading from the magnetic anomaly we just encountered to a specific point in this local star cluster.” The astrogator hummed once again, and Retho reported, “Long-range scanners have confirmed a new solar group within our flight path as the terminal end of the hypospace tether. A possible habitable planet is now under scanner and sensor surveillance!” Retho said. The astrogator trilled and he added, “Long-range sensors reveal nothing abnormal on the planet.”
The podship’s databanks were humming as immediate information about the planet flooded the Pioneer 4’s artificial intelligence blades. For all intent and purpose, the planet was preliminarily looking like a place where one would not expect to find life. Retho adjusted the astrogator’s view to a detailed display of the planet, including weather and atmospheric conditions.
If the crew of the podship were lucky, this time their expectations of finding a friendly port-of-call met. At the beginning of this voyage, there had been expectations from the crew that their quest for their races’ planet of origin would be relatively short and easy. Now, several months later, they felt trapped in a journey that was boring, unending, and impossible.
So far, all along their trek lifeless planets abounded. Since leaving the familiar world of Sheey, the crew had inspected fifteen barren planets. Despite the Sheeyan upgrades to the podship, it still had a basic design based on being a shuttle rather than a long-range transporter.
Initially, the Pioneer 4 had traveled past worlds at least superficially documented by previous research teams, but the podship now had begun to go farther afield, to places seldom if ever visited by crewed System Spacecorps craft. The computer search Retho Capelsire had done on the approaching new solar group turned up no official records; not even an ancient survey of an automated probe. This was not surprising to Retho considering how off-scope and monumentally uninteresting the small solar group was reporting in to be.
Retho displayed the podship’s scanner-sensor data as a corner overlay on the holographic astrogator bowl and added a companion block of the information collected on the way in. The data showed nineteen planets: thirteen small, rocky inner ones; three gas giants; three outer eccentrics.
“I believe podship scans are returning positive with some form of intelligent life existing on one of the inner planets,” Retho reported. “I’m having them probe deeper to confirm the presence of a self-contained population center.”
“Continue your scans,” Commander Capel Perezsire, the crew’s leader with qualities of bravery and fearlessness, instructed the astrogator operator. “Report when you have more definitive data.”
The podship was suddenly pulsing with suppressed excitement. The crew exchanged sober glances. Experience told them the natives’ response to their hail could be bad or it could be good. The panoramic bowport held a miniaturized version of what the astrogator bowl cupped in its holographic palm. A world and its hazel planetscape might be supporting a conglomerate biosphere city-state.
“Situation report,” Perezsire said to Lieutenant Commander Jor Dansire.
The hyperplasmic engineer sat forward on his workstool and adjusted a loose lock of ebon hair that covered his eyes. “It doesn’t look good. I have made an extensive list of the degradation, and you can access it on the computer. The bottom line is this – the affect those electrical outbursts had on the podship’s engineering subsystems is too extensive for us to repair by ourselves. We have to find a plasmic-capable civilization and put in for repairs. That would be my recommendation.”
“What about the podship’s ReGen capabilities?”
“The regeneration propagators were severely damaged; especially in the Engineering ligatures,” Dansire shook his head. “If they weren’t affected, it would only be a matter of a rotate powered down in order for the Pioneer to revivify. However, with the ReGen sequencers essentially burnt out, our options have dwindled down to asking outsiders’ for assistance.”
Perezsire felt a headache coming on behind his temporal lobe. “How long will that take?”
“Two or three rotates at best,” said Jor. “Then we’ll need a few rotates of test flights. To be safe, we had best count on a week. This is a major repair, at least its only one section of the ship.”
The commander nodded and turned to Major Nicraan Matasire.
“It seems we have no alternative but to seek out a safe port and make repairs,” the handsome pilot responded to his superior’s gaze.
“Plus rest and relaxation,” put in Dara Lidasiress, a leader in space medicine and surgery as well as psychiatry in addition to dentistry and so much medically more. “Everyone on this podship needs a shore leave, so I’m not disappointed that we have to land for a week... or more.”
Retho had been using grid references and making rapid calculations. His voice was flat with disbelief, “I’ve located what appears to be a cityplex. Fifty kiloretems long. Two kiloretems diameter.”
Perezsire said, “A hundred square kiloretems. Now that’s an impressive city state.”
“Let’s hope the people are hyperplasmic capable,” Moela Darasiress beamed from her quarterdeck station as she checked her console’s data screens.
“And that they have decent recreational facilities,” Dara said. “Especially museums.”
“Don’t forget the adequate repair facilities,” Capel retorted, a fleeting smile was on his face as he mused at the others’ priorities.
“I’m getting more positive feedback from sensors,” Retho said as the lightgrid on the astrogator presented drop-down displays with indepth cultural information. “There are faint detections of hyperplasmic signatures as well as indications of other similar technologies.”
On all available holosets and within the astrogator’s presentation dish the distant planet was on a slow roll that brought the biosphere and all its structural features into vision. All of the crew was staring intently at a superdome affixed to the lumbering orb.
“It’s a domed city,” Dara remarked.
The biosphere resembled a gargantuan vivarium. Subsidiary geodesic arcades attached under the protective hard-light construct hemisphere to a secondary elliptical dome area that was lit more brightly than the rest. At intervals fanning out of the central cityscape, resembling spokes, were stubby tubular members of some transparent material ending in mammoth tubiform-shaped structures with blank, seemingly sold walls. Dotting the outlying countryside were small geodesic domes that could have housed technicians and monitoring gear.
The podship scaled down to the size of a gnat roaming over a field of glass grass stalks.
Beyond the biosphere’s circumference lay the indigenous landscape. To the naked uneducated eye, the whole of the planet seemed tolerable; quite contrary to the data flickering up for review on the science stations.
“Atmosphere still reads breathable. The eccentric orbit of the planet would make living conditions on the surface beyond hostile, though,” Dara reported from her quarterdeck station.
On all available presentation screens, a holographic representation of what the physician reported was up for interpretation. The planet’s orbital path did not lie in the same plane as the planets in its solar group, but was inclined at an angle of 17°. Its orbit was also more oval-shaped, or elliptical, than those of the other planets. That meant that sometimes the world was a lot nearer to its sun than at other times.
Due to seasonal changes in surface ices, the planet’s permafrost warmed slightly and sublimed. Wind speeds at the surface were generally low but could reach nearly 320 kr/n; when the weather was dry, huge cyclones of dust could tear apart the landscape. The poles covered in ice caps and there were intense snowstorms.
“Sensors have detected the remnants of seven continental plates and the evaporated beds of five oceans,” Moela chimed in. “The citadel is situation in the shallow depression of an ancient impact crater in the southern hemisphere. Having a stable climate under the protective dome, life has extended beyond the city limits into small bergs and hamlets. I have confirmation of conifer forests and fern prairies. It’s hard to imagine that such a lifeless rock harbors a class-M atmosphere, but it has a low dew point and underground streams that keep moisture flowing despite the lack of real oceans.”
“Intelligent life sign readings are reaching approximately four thousand,” Dara added, looking up from her active console’s holo-displays.
“The domed complex hemisphere is of photokinetic construction. Of hard light technology,” Moela reported.
“Hard light?” Dara asked.
“Yes,” Moela said.
“What is that?”
“It is the process of creating physical objects from a light source.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Photons behave like atoms, correlating with each other to produce a single oscillating system.” Moela quickly explained. “As some of the photons leak into the surrounding environment, the oscillations slow and at a critical point start producing quantum divergent behavior. In other words, the correlated photons can be in two states at once. Light effectively behaves like a particle in the sense that two photons can interact very strongly.”
“Easy for you to say,” chuckled Dara.
Surrounding the main metropolis limits and under some of the outlying small geodesic domes were patchy fields of pasture and crop land as well as stands of forest framed by a crescent of jagged onyx mountains overlooking a freshwater lake and its riparian off-shoots complete with an elongated beach. The multi-leveled arced and interconnected sleek lines of travellator rails and automated walkways neatly connected all. The spidery tangle of waterways and construction truly gave the biosphere the appearance of an ‘island city’.
“It is bordered on the north by a northern fork of the lake’s main river,” Retho commented on the logical symmetry of the metropolitan design, “to the south, the boundaries are made up of a southern fork in the same main river as it wraps around westwardly. The eastern terminus of the city limits extends back toward the foothills of the crescent mountain range.”
“What about parkland design?” asked Dara
“Sensors are detecting a 9.3-acre recreational facility complete with a boardwalk for nature observation, a pet park, and a boat ramp for watercraft entry on the city’s western boundary,” Retho said as he looked up from the astrogator’s reporting topographic display.
“Make first contact,” Perezsire said.
Major Matasire reached toward the command console’s communication display and initiated the podship’s friendship hailing frequency. A few moments passed before a disembodied response came back.
The Consul’s confidante was Abettor Macaria Cen, a lovely, statuesque young female with a light-skinned comely appearance belied by her somberly businesslike presence. Her blonde tresses immaculately pulled back from her subtle forehead crease into a tight, molded bun. She entered the small balcony with purpose and sidled up beside the politician with more than just military familiarity.
“Consul,” she needlessly whispered, “we have an unidentified signal coming from out-system.”
“What does the signal say?”
“It emanates from an intelligent life form that has identified itself as an Aidennian,” the stoic female reported. “It is part of a crew onboard a spacer called the Pioneer.”
“It has been cleared as being Eltanin?”
“Yes, sir.”
Consul Maarten Con exhaled, not even conscious he had been holding his breath. Without taking his eyes off the far wall with its active monitors, he asked, “What do these Aidennians want of us?”
“Permission to land has been asked of us.”
“Any hostile intent been identified?”
“None. They appear to be as benign as their request.” The Abettor shifted momentarily in her stance before adding, “They have also requested friendship and an exchange in cultural ideals as well as technical materials.”
“Do we have a species type on them?”
“Yes, Consul,” Macaria Cen did a quick consultation with a hand-held tablet, reading aloud, “Central Processor confirms that their life type conforms to 45OX294H.” Looking back at her superior, she added, “All preliminary analysis indicates a cell structure and metabolism ninety-one point seven percent of Arkaban norm; albeit there are minor differences in blood chemistry and brain pattern.”
The Consul was thoughtful for a moment, and then the corners of his lips curved upward as a twinkle sparkled in his already shining eyes. “Permission granted,” he eventually said. “Retard defense shield counterforce one hundred milja. Give them coordinates for ingress via the southern cryosphere corridor. Monitor their progress as they penetrate the dome. Until we know more about them, treat them as an X-Factor.”
“Yes, Consul,” the Abettor made her exit swiftly.
Macaria Cen made her way down the spiral staircase, her boot heels making determined strikes on the polished deck all the way to the operations pit below. She strode without preamble over to a command station where she relayed the Consul’s orders to an awaiting technician.
On the boards that made up the facing wall, a plot line formed from an orbital flight. Below the real-time image, a timer was counting down from native numerics for 26:00. The projected path of the alien visitors’ was red dotted and the spaced line led from the spacer’s position over the planet’s southern pole up to a large circle in the biosphere’s northern block.
Millions of stars now surrounded Pioneer 4. Billions. Trillions. They were very beautiful. Presently the podship ceased to move away from the star Beta-B Sagittarii. Then it began to move toward the inhabited world near which the spatial singularity had released it. It went on past the planet’s edge. It was very close, and gravitation—the pull of the planet on something almost touching its air—changed its course.
The podship’s main computer clattered urgently. On the command flight panel a holographic printout was projected. Lieutenant Commander Jor Dansire who was a hyperplasmic engineer with unparalleled hacking abilities and hand-eye coordination that aided him as the crew’s strategic tactical and tech support – lending him also to be an expertise in weaponry and deadly accuracy as the crew’s artillery expert, turned to face the pilot chair to one side. “I have entry coordinates from the cityplex controller,” he said.
“Bring us in,” Perezsire breathed.
Major Nicraan Matasire, the team’s formidable warrior who possessed brains and brawn as well as great hunting skills that made him an ideal special-operations officer in addition to his flight engineering duties, touched a line of pressure-sensitive icons. The flight computer sorted the data for course corrections. “Course computed and programmed,” he said. “We will touchdown in four macronodes.”
The subtle background cacophony of computer processing and engine noise seemed to surge as the podship clawed into a new sector of the starmap. Out the bowport, the starfield shifted as the distant orb grew in the center view rapidly.
Nicraan Matasire swung the control of the Pioneer 4’s steering unit. There were minute drive-cells that thrusted the bow up and down, in flight. Others turned it to port or starboard. Those cells operated equally well in a hundred-thousand-retem level or in denser air.
Now on orbital approach, Retho watched the astrogator’s holographic display intently, willing the ugly little planet to be the one they were looking for. He had had enough of this trip. There was too little work and too much time with nothing to do. It encouraged paranoia and depression, which he had been feeling with distressing intensity on this leg of their voyage. On occasion, he even wondered if his being here were due to something twisted with the Fates.
He knew the idea was foolish
Moreover, whenever he needed reassurance that the path he and his fellow clan were on was one worth venturing, all he had to do was talk to his sire: Commander Capel Perezsire. The commander was soft-spoken and easygoing; if the rotates stretching into weeks stretching into months of fruitless searching troubled him, he did not show the stress. He was the ultimate role-model…
The onboard computers relayed course data; there was work for all hands. Retho relaxed. He concentrated on a refined tracking ploy that brought the distant biosphere closer as Pioneer 4 ate up the distance between them. The pale planet loomed ever closer, taking up most of the bowport. A vast, pure-browny surface. It was the lighted portion of the planet.
Capel stared at the dark tertiary color. It was unbelievable. It was part of a monstrous globe. But there were no seas in sight. No continents. No sign of anything that a planet in bright sunshine should show. It looked like an unthinkably huge area of sand.
Perezsire knew it instants later when his eyes focused properly. He saw the shadows of sand-clad mountains cast upon duned plateaus. He took up position behind the podship’s two pilots.
“Search for optimal orbit and re-entry,” Perezsire said.
“Standard orbit, sir,” Jor Dansire replied as he entered commands on his co-pilot’s board and nodded with satisfaction as the navicomp searched swiftly through all the possibilities -- it computed an orbit that would decay into the proper deorbital trajectory. “Computer is reading data from the planet as fast as it can.”
“What do we have on the surface scan?” asked Perezsire.
“No change, sir,” Moela reported.
“Take us down.”
The Pioneer 4 hurtled toward the very center of the yellowness. The proximity indicator no longer quivered. Its digits pointed straight ahead. The little podship plunged toward the thousands of square mets of sand and grit. It was desperately, terribly close. Pioneer 4 rushed forward, with nobody feeling any sensation of speed, but with the mountain ranges increasingly visible as they swelled in size.
“Report,” Macaria Cen ordered the tracking operative.
“We have visual,” the technician said, anticipating the next instruction from his superior by touching visual icons on the light-board before him.
As the communication screens flicked over to a close-up of the approaching alien craft, a second technician added, “Spacecraft is descending with air speed approximately Mach 2.6; slowing rapidly.” Touching a few specific icons, she added, “Spacecraft appears oriented properly for touchdown with low G-stress.”
The view of the alien spacecraft changed again. The city’s dome was morphing at its apex. A third technician narrated what the communication projectors presented, he said, “Receptor binding and formation of a phago-cup confirmed. Pinching-off and formation of a discreet phagosome airlock confirmed. Active transport has safely allowed penetration of the photokinetic membrane.”
“As soon as the phagosome lock dissolves, have aerial droids follow that spacecraft down to landing,” Macaria Cen instructed, “Stand by to direct recovery team to location.”
“Affirmative.”
On the main communication projectors, the spacecraft screamed in for a touchdown off the main cityscape’s center from re-entry over the planet’s southern pole. Suddenly Consul Maarten Con felt very calm as a siren blared through the Hub; red lights flashed. Leaning forward on the desk, he touched an icon specifically marked in local script as EO (Emergency Orders). His throat was dry as he spoke in his unemotional command voice. “All units, this is Consul Maarten Con. This is no drill. Red Tocsin. I say again, Red Tocsin. Banshee fighter squads on standby. Prepare reception committee for incoming foreigners.” He nodded down at the operatives that were staring up at him. They began feeding the authentication codes that would confirm his orders.
Across the domed biosphere personnel responded. Within moments of the alert status, the unscheduled spacecraft was screaming in with its ailerons and air brakes popping while it circled in for a touchdown just off the colony’s main city block.
Consul Maarten Con and his lieutenant were already on the move before the saucer-shaped spacer’s three-point landing gear touched solidity. The incident had scared the Consul, he would admit now that it was over. In all his time as leader over the biosphere metropolis, on Arkab IV, he had been through plenty of alerts, but this was the first real one he had commanded. He said a short novena that it would be the last. There would not be many survivors if the visitors proved malevolent.
Forming a ring around the tarmac were troopers in protective suits; a team of sharpshooters with stunners and anesthetic gas guns. All precautions taken were in place. With just a simple gesture from the Consul one of two things would happen: an all-out hostile confrontation or a peaceful stand-down.
From the starboard landing strut’s well a hatch opened. Figures stepped out. The astronauts wore space gear: black pressure uniforms complete with matching utility belts and boots. Despite the shock of having alien beings on their natal soil, it was reassuring to the Arkaban party to see that they at least shared some genetic kinship to their own sapient lineage.
As the Aidennians made their way down the landing strut’s built-in steps in the early morning light, they entered a vast terminal and craned their necks to take in the entire geodesic ceiling, which had to be at least a kiloretem high. Stars shimmered beyond the ceiling, and meteors streaked across the dome in alarmingly close proximity; a moment later, a pale-ringed moon swept across the starscape surrounding them.
Playing his part, Consul Maarten Con came forward with Macaria Cen in tow. He gestured a nonverbal greeting with his arm extended. “Welcome,” he said, “to Arkab Four, and Azule Maart.”