Salvation

Our lounge dominated the middle section, fitted with luxurious reclining chairs. Everyone settled down in there as the drivers went forward to the cab. A couple of stewards came in and asked us if we wanted any food or drink. It was all slightly surreal. I’ve seen old videos that included plane flights and traveling on the Orient Express. For a moment I could believe the portal to Nkya had actually transported us into the twentieth century. This was traveling in history.

I have to admit, there was a degree of elegance to it. If it wasn’t so ridiculously time consuming, I could probably get used to it.

“We’re sealing up in two minutes,” Sutton Castro announced over the PA.

Sandjay splashed the garage airlock schematic, showing me both doors closing and undergoing pre-start pressure tests. I didn’t ask for it, but Sandjay was an adaptive altme, about as smart as an old G6Turing, so it can pretty much anticipate what I want and need to know. The biometrics my medical peripheries were reading would’ve revealed rising heart rate, a small adrenaline flush, and raised skin temperature. All its core algorithms would interpret that as one thing: anxiety rising. So Sandjay did what it could to reassure me, and showed me lots of systems working smoothly.

The garage dome pumped its atmosphere away. “Access the vehicle net,” I whispered soundlessly. The peripheral fibers riding alongside my vocal cord nerves picked up the impulses, and Sandjay coupled to the Trail Ranger’s net. “Give me an external camera feed.”

I closed my eyes and watched the image splash. In front of the Trail Ranger, the big garage door was opening, slowly hinging up.

It was dark outside. Gray sky lidded a rust-brown rock plain. A fine dust suspended in the super-thin atmosphere gave everything a hazy quality. Yet I could see tiny zephyrs twirling along across the metamorphic mesa, sucking up spirals of sand. Spectacularly sharp mountains shredded the eastern horizon. The sight was entrancing. Virgin land, desolate and alien.

The Trail Ranger rolled forward. I could feel the movement, the slight rise and fall of the suspension pistons as if we were a yacht sailing over mildly choppy waters. Then the tires were biting into the loose regolith, churning up big fantails.

I opened my eyes, and Sandjay canceled the camera feed. Yuri, Callum, and Alik were all doing the same thing as I was, watching the images coming from the Trail Ranger’s net, while Kandara and the three aides had chosen to stand, pressed up against the long windows, seeing the landscape for real. I guess that’s a comment on age.

It wasn’t long before the base camp domes were white splinters on the horizon. The Trail Ranger was purring along at fifty kilometers an hour, with the occasional lurch as we rolled over a ridge. Sutton and Bee were following a line of marker posts that the original science rover had dropped every four kilometers to mark the route, their scarlet strobes flashing bright against the sullen rock.

The stewards came around again, taking drink orders. I asked for a hot chocolate. Most of the others had something alcoholic.

“Right,” Alik said. “We’re out of range from base camp, and I can’t access solnet. What the fuck is out there?”

I glanced at Yuri, who nodded. “I can give you the initial team’s report,” I said, ordering Sandjay to release the files for them.

Everyone sat down, closing their eyes to survey the data.

“A spaceship?” Callum blurted in astonishment. “You’re taking the piss.”

“I wish we were,” Yuri said. “It’s a spaceship, all right.”

“How long has it been here?” Alik asked.

“Preliminary estimate: thirty-two years.”

“And it’s intact?”

“Reasonably. It didn’t crash, though there is some hard-landing damage.”

“I’m surprised by the size,” Eldlund said. “I’d expect a starship to be bigger.”

“The drive—if that’s what it is—doesn’t use reaction mass. We believe it has exotic matter components.”

“A wormhole generator?” Callum asked sharply.

“Currently unknown. Hopefully, the science team will have some results for us when we arrive. They’ve had a week’s lead on us.”

“And there’s no sign of whoever built it?” Kandara said thoughtfully.

Yuri and I exchanged a glance.

“No,” I said. “However, some of the…cargo is intact. Well, preserved, anyway.”

“Cargo?” She frowned. “What’s the file number?”

“There’s no file on the cargo,” Yuri said. “Alpha Defense ruled that we absolutely cannot afford a security breach on that one.”

“Something worse than an alien starship?” Callum said. “This should be good.”

“So…?” Kandara narrowed her eyes.

I took a breath. “There are several biomechanical units on board which can only be classed as hibernation chambers, or modules that…ah fuck it, you’ll see. Whatever: They contained humans.”

“You are shitting me,” Alik growled.

“Again, no,” Yuri said. “Somebody took humans from Earth thirty-two years ago and flew them out here. The implications are not good.”

I smiled at Kandara. “Still think we’re paranoid?”

She glared back at me.