Beyond the Event Horizon Episode One, Page 3

compact, but so much the better. The bigger the ship, the more room there would be in the cabins. They were facing a long flight, and he didn't fancy spending it in a space the size of a broom cupboard.

  The space flight proceeded smoothly, and the shuttle seemed to be floating on clouds. It was apparent from the screen that the ship receiving them had already opened its cargo compartment ready for their arrival. The shuttle flew into it with its engines idling and landed softly on the stamped steel floor. After its legs had been clamped in magnetic traps, the shuttle switched off its engines and opened its exit door.

  The side cushions deflated, and Steve immediately felt his body floating in his seat, rocking from side to side in the conditions of weightlessness. He unlocked and raised his seat's security bar and released the straps. Instinctively putting his feet on the floor to get out of his seat, his body began to float up at once. He managed to grab something and stop himself just in time before he hit his head on the ceiling. This was not his first experience of weightlessness, but he still hadn't been in it very often, so his movements were rather clumsy; he had none of Kimble's automatic reflexes.

  "Take the magnetic soles from under your seat," Kimble told the team.

  Leaving the shuttle and looking round, Steve finally realised why the ship was so big. Half the capacious cargo compartment was filled with various containers covered with camouflage-coloured tarpaulin. He chuckled at his own thoughts: when mankind first discovered radio waves, transmitters and receivers were the size of a large trunk, whereas today they could fit into a pinhead. It was the same with gravity waves, though they were more complicated. Dozens of containers of cumbersome equipment were needed to register them. Maybe a hundred years from now, they too would be reduced to the size of a pinhead.

  Walking in magnetic soles was tiring, at least for Steve, but perhaps they just took some getting used to. The floors, walls and ceiling of most of the ship's compartments were covered in magnetic material. The soles only had to be close to them and they would grip at once, holding the body firmly in place. They automatically adjusted the power of adhesion depending on the load, and switched off as soon as they registered a neural pulse in the muscles of the foot trying to take the next step.

  After walking with heavy tread to the exit, which left them very short of breath, the team reached the lock separating the cargo compartment from the compartments with artificial gravity. The lock was in the form of a large-diameter tube divided into sectors, each of which rotated at different rates. The further they were from the weightlessness compartments, the quicker they rotated.

  The principle for creating artificial gravity was quite simple. Part of the ship, which included the command compartment, living compartment and some technical compartments, rotated constantly round its own axis. Centrifugal force created acceleration, which in turn created artificial gravity indistinguishable from the natural kind.

  This design made it possible to change the artificial gravity inside quite easily; the rotation of the wheel just had to be speeded up or slowed down. For long flights, the doctors recommended Earth gravity, but to extend the life span of the rotation mechanism, it was often reduced to the level of that on Mars or even the Moon when there were no people on board.

  Now the ring was almost at rest, creating only minimum gravity, approximately the same as on the Moon. The ship had recently left the servicing dock and been taken by the AI into low orbit to receive the team. There was no sense in wasting the ring's life span on creating artificial gravity. Energy isn't free, after all.

  Lunar gravity wasn't particularly comfortable, but was sufficient to keep objects from flying chaotically around in the ship. They stayed were they were put. There is a rule in space, however, that in weightlessness, and in a ship of sufficient size, no matter how thoroughly you fix objects in place, there will always be something floating about, hitting everything it can. Another rule is that the heavier this object is, the more likely it is to hit something fragile, while a third rule dictates that this something fragile will be either an important sensor monitor or the last bottle of the very best wine or spirits.

  Kimble seemed to know his way around the ship. He was the first to pass through the gravity lock, before helping the others.

  "I expect you all in the conference room in 20 minutes," he said, when the last expedition member had successfully passed through the lock. "Any questions?"

  There were no questions, and the team members dispersed to their cabins. Steve called up a map of the living accommodation on his tablet and lifted his bag from the floor. It was pleasantly easy to carry a heavy bag in a weak field of gravity, but you had to remember that it still had the same inertia. If inexperienced, lifting, lowering, throwing or catching it could give you a nasty bump or a sprained joint. Unaccustomed gravity is a tricky thing.

  "Attention, gravity increase in 30 seconds," warned the voice of the ship's AI, as Steve was on the way to his cabin. The AI had detected that there were people on board, so had decided to make them more comfortable by bringing the gravity up to Earth level. The bag Steve was carrying became heavier.

  Once again, he was the last to enter the conference room. Kimble switched on a small holographic projector which stood in the middle of the table, and signalled to the computer to dim the lighting.

  "We all know the aim of our expedition, but that is not the whole story. What you are about to learn is classified 'Top Secret'. No kidding."

  The captain picked up his tablet from the table and read aloud the text on its screen.

  "All information entrusted to or acquired by those present from this moment on is a state secret and must not be divulged to third parties without written permission from a higher authority. Any violation of this rule is punishable by a long term of imprisonment. This directive has no time limit."

  Kimble looked up from his tablet at the team, for most of whom this turn of events was unexpected.

  "I am asking the ship's computer to record the reading of this directive, and each member of the team to confirm by a biometric scan that it has been read and understood."

  The captain passed his tablet round the circle, so that everyone could leave his or her biometric signature. When the tablet was given back to him a few minutes later, he transferred the data to the ship's computer and turned to Steve.

  "You have the floor."

  Steve stood up so that they could see him better.

  "Yes, thank you..." he said hesitantly, and then fell silent. In such situations it is always hard to decide where to begin.

  "About two months ago the telescope on which I was working at university detected a small asteroid on a direct course for Earth. At first it was observed by the computer automatically, but when its trajectory became too strange, it notified me.

  "Our attention was drawn to the fact that it was moving with acceleration. On this basis, we initially took the calculation of its trajectory to be an error. After all, the distance was considerable for an object of that size, but it soon accelerated to sub-light speed. It then performed a few tricks, but those are just details. The main thing is that it soon became clear we were not dealing with an asteroid at all, but with a spaceship. A ship built by a non-human civilisation."

  The team members exchanged looks. Steve continued.

  "When there was no longer any doubt that it was such a ship, the military were brought in. A project codenamed 'Dawn' was started. Its aim was to make contact with the extraterrestrial civilisation.

  "The best scientists on the planet took part in 'Dawn', and you have to hand it to them, they fulfilled their task excellently. They solved the technical problems of the first contact within a few days. After that, they entered into a dialogue."

  "So they do exist then?" came a question from somewhere on the left.

  "They do indeed," replied Steve.

  "Did they say where they came from?"

  "Er, no. That was one of the first questions we asked them. They replied that they didn't know."<
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  "How could they not know?"

  Steve spread his hands.

  "I don't know. Perhaps they experienced the collapse of their own civilisation, and knowledge of their home planet was lost. There were many questions the incomer did not answer."

  "How old is their civilisation?"

  "According to them, about a million Earth years."

  Someone whistled.

  "Really! We must seem like Neanderthals to them..."

  "Very likely. As far as technology is concerned, they are way ahead of us."

  "If they've been around so long, they must surely have spread out across space, right?"

  "Yes. They told us that quite openly. The nearest star system to where their civilisation is present is the system of the star Gliese 581."

  "And where is that?"

  "In space terms, quite near. It's one of the nearest stars to the Sun."

  "OK, so what have we agreed on?"

  "Unfortunately, we haven't agreed on anything."

  "How can that be? What did they want from us?" Questions were coming in one after another.

  "We don't know that either."

  "Not much of a result, is it?"

  "That's true, unfortunately."

  Steve was turning his head in all directions. He could hardly keep up with the questions.

  "So how did it all end?"

  "After its appearance, the incomer did not approach Earth too closely. It probably didn't want to make us nervous. It decelerated when it got to