Ancient Birthright (45 page)

Saigg watched Beldon’s eyes flick to his air tank display. There was nothing they could do if the engineers couldn’t get the environmental system back on line.

The three stood talking next to one of the three ships when they noted the entire hangar become hazy. A fine particulate had begun to fall.

“Is this dust?” Saigg held out a gloved hand.

“No. Look. As soon as it touches something, it disappears, Striker told the other two. “I think its snow or moisture. The engineers must have gotten the atmosphere controls back online and started pressurizing the hangar. The air is expanding to fill the vacuum and the moisture in it is turning to snow from the cold of expansion.”

Saigg noted the relieved looks on the faces of the two humans. “Let’s head over to the airlock and see if we have enough pressure so the controls work normally.”

The pressure in the hangar continued to rise, and the haze thickened before it disappeared altogether, but now all surfaces were taking on a shiny appearance. Beldon stopped the electric car on one of the charging stations, and the three walked the remainder of the distance to the airlock. “I wonder if this is the first time it’s ever snowed on the Moon?”

Saigg checked his air supply. The indicator no longer counted down, it was increasing as his suit pulled oxygen out of the thin atmosphere of the hanger to recharge his air tank.

Part way to the airlock Saigg said, “Have you guys noticed that the floor is beginning to look like a mirror.”

Beldon and Striker studied their surroundings for a second then Striker said, “Step carefully; I think it’s an ice coating.”

“What do you mean an ‘ice coating’?” Saigg asked as his feet went in two directions at once, and he ended up on his face.”

Beldon and Striker couldn’t hold in the laughs caused by the scene of Saigg encountering the unfamiliar lack of traction on ice for the first time. His spectacular face plant was straight out of a silent movie, but at one-sixth gravity, there was little danger of his being hurt.

“The air pumped into the hangar has a certain amount of moisture in it. That’s what caused the snow and haze. Now that the pressure has built to the point that the air coming in is no longer expanding to fill a vacuum, the moisture is remaining in the air until it touches a surface below the freezing point. This hangar has been soaking at a temperature of hundreds of degrees below freezing for millions of years,” Striker said. “Every surface that comes in contact with the air is going to be covered in ice until it warms above the freezing point of water.”

“How long will it take to warm up an area this large?” Saigg used his hands and tail to regain his feet.

“That depends on what the builders designed into the structure,” Striker said.

“Look at the floor,” Beldon pointed to the open floor space in the middle of the hangar. A grid of lines was beginning to appear in the high gloss of the ice on the floor, and little wisps of vapor rose over the center of the grid lines.

“This might not take very long at all. It looks like the builders put radiant heat bands under the floor,” Striker said. “The surface of the walls and floor will warm up pretty quickly but the machines and vehicles will take a much longer time. Especially the enclosed ones like those ships across the hangar. They’re insulated to protect the occupants in space. So unless we can get them open to warm up the insides, we will have to use our spacesuits when we enter them.”

“Let’s take another try at getting the airlock working,” Saigg said.

The airlock control panel now showed normal air pressure in the hangar and a vacuum in the airlock chamber. They were able to open and close the outer airlock door normally and cycle through the pressurization and depressurization of the airlock.

Beldon and Striker cracked their helmet seals.

“Cold, but breathable.” Beldon said.

“PTO, this is Saigg. The airlock is operational. You can resume moving equipment but be careful. The hangar floor is covered in ice and will be slippery.”

“Thank you for the warning about the ice. All but one of us will be suited up in a few minutes. We’ll begin moving the remainder of the supplies and equipment into the hangar as soon as possible,” was the transmitted reply.

“A lot of the displays in the main reactor control room were killed from the lack of air. You will need to begin growing replacements as quickly as you can,” Saigg said.

“Yes, sir. As soon as the load-pod is empty, I will move most of the personnel items into it to make room for growth units in the PTOs. I’ll get as many display units and computers started as the PTOs can handle. But, it will be several weeks before they are mature,” The casroo engineer explained. “There are fifteen display units in the equipment being loaded on the trailer but only six computer controllers.”

An hour later, the airlock cycled and the tractor with Tuuan driving and Dantee and Reedn sitting beside her, pulled into the hangar with the overloaded trailer. The other space-suited crewmembers followed behind it.

Saigg, Beldon, and Striker greeted the three exuberant children then did a combined report on their impressions and observations.

“Everything is extremely cold,” Saigg warned. “Make sure you leave your spacesuits on until things have had a chance to warm up. It’s cold enough in here to cause severe cold-burns if you touch something with bare flesh.”

“We call it frostbite.” Beldon said.

Saigg’s spacesuit temperature indicator showed that the air outside of his suit was still well below freezing, but coming up slowly. “Dantee, I want you to take Reedn and Tuuan over to those craft parked along the wall. Work together to figure out how to open them.”

Tuuan took off at a hopping run for the electric car nearest to them. “I get to drive,” she yelled.

“Watch out for the slippery floor...,” Saigg called too late. Tuuan landed on her tail and butt with her legs sticking straight out in front of her.

She stood up and gave Saigg a look that silently said, “You could have warned me sooner,” as she carefully climbed into the driver’s seat, drove the car off the charging station and stopped. Dantee and Reedn climbed into the passenger seats, and they were off.

Beldon asked Saigg, “How long do you think it will take them to get the ships open?”

“I would guess that by the time we get to another vehicle and drive over there, we will have to pry them out of the first one.”

“There are three of them. I think we may have to pry them out of all three,” Striker said.

It turned out Striker was right. By the time they drove over, all three ships had open hatches with boarding steps extended. One of the adults headed for each access hatch and joined the child inside.

“Dad, look at this ship. It makes our PTOs seem like—relics,” Reedn said.

The interior of the ship was as beautiful as the exterior. The frost-covered gold walls flowed together without sharp corners. Reedn managed to activate several of the main control positions. Large view screens showed a three-hundred-sixty degree view of the hangar. The display and control surfaces integrated directly into the bulkheads without seam or obvious transition. Reedn sat on the only couch in the large open cabin. “The displays and controls are all video displays, so they can be placed anywhere in the ship. Try it, Dad.”

“You have the only couch, I can’t believe the designers didn’t allow for more crew and passengers.”

“Just tell the ship what you want,” Reedn said with a superior smirk on his little face.

Saigg looked at his son as if he didn’t believe him then shrugged. “I’d like a couch near the wall at my left,” Saigg said in Common, and then looked back at Reedn to see if he had been pulling his leg. When he glanced back at the open cabin a couch had appeared near his left hand.

“It’s all voice controlled. That’s how we got in. I just said ‘Open hatch’ and it opened. Take a seat and face the wall. Now tell it you want to see engine status,” Reedn told him.

“Display engine status,” Saigg said to the wall. A large section of wall changed to a display showing a schematic of an unfamiliar engine while readouts and text indicated the status of all components. Everything indicated operational and ready for launch, with the exception of a flashing warning that the hatch was open and another warning dealing with fuel levels.

“Display maximum range of this craft and time to get there in current human units,” Saigg commanded. The display changed and showed a graphic of the solar system and the surrounding stars. A small information icon flashed next to each depicted celestial body. Saigg reached out and touched the icon near Earth. A window opened that gave the current distance and a travel time of just under an hour. Saigg touched the icon next to Mars. The widow displayed the information for a trip to Mars with an ETA of a little over four hours.
Zagit this thing must really be fast.

Once more, he reached out and touched the object at the very edge of the screen. The window showed a star system called Anjuu at a distance of a little over sixty light years. The ETA was six days.

Ten light years per day, unbelievable.

One additional line of text appeared below the ETA. “All fuel will be expended at the termination of this mission. Refueling will be required to continue operations with this craft.”

“What are the fuel requirements to fully refuel this type of craft?” Saigg asked.

A window opened on the display that listed ten items and the quantities necessary to refuel. “Are the items required available in this installation?”

The window displaying the needed elements changed and eight of the ten were marked as “Yes.”

“Where can the other two elements be found?” The window changed again, and “Unknown, Earth reserves of these elements depleted,” displayed after the two lines marked “No.”

“Display current fuel status.” The window again changed, and the eight elements available on the Moon showed a value that equated to one-hundred percent full. The two missing elements showed a value of zero.

That’s why these three ships are still here. They ran out of fuel for them.

Saigg radioed the casroo engineer working in the hangar and asked him to come to the ship.

A few minutes later, the engineer arrived. His eyes almost popped out of his head as his gaze flicked from one display to the next.

“Engineer Daluu, do you recognize the elements listed?”

Daluu studied the screen for several minutes than explained, “All of these except the last two are fairly common. The last two are very rare elements on Earth, and only found in very small quantities. They are extremely hard to extract. If this display is correct, all supplies of these elements have been found and used in the past. If that is the case, it’s lucky for us that they are among the elements we brought along for trade on the
Universe Explorer
.”

“We have these two elements available?”

“Yes, sir. Both are very plentiful on Danuaa 3.”

“Engineer Daluu, contact your counterpart on the PTO and tell him what we need. Have him contact the
UE
and ask them to send a supply of these two elements to us as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll take care of it, but we brought along a few pounds of each of these elements just in case they were needed for something in the installation. They’re in the supplies sitting on the trailer. With the quantities indicated, we can fully fuel two of the ships or partially fuel all three.”

“Let’s partially fuel all three then. How much of each element do we have on the
Universe Explorer
?” Saigg asked.

“I believe around fifty tons of each.”

“Tons?”

“Yes Sir. There are pure veins of this stuff on Danuaa 3.”

“Thank you, Daluu.”

“I’ll bring the elements right over.” Daluu left the ship, and Saigg turned to find out how they went about refueling this craft.

“Display refueling procedure for missing fuel elements,” Saigg told the ship.

The display in front of him showed a panel on top of the ship opening and powders being introduced to hoppers in the opening. The forward hopper was marked with one of the chemical symbols and the aft hopper with the other. “Prepare to refuel two expended elements,” Saigg commanded the ship.

Daluu returned with two small bags of finely ground minerals. Each was marked with its chemical identity. Saigg showed Daluu the refueling display and the three of them climbed out of the hatch to find a series of steps indented into the side of the ship. They climbed to the top, and found the refueling hatch already open. So as not to release a dust cloud, Daluu slowly and carefully poured a third of each bag into the correct hopper and resealed the bags.

Saigg and Reedn reentered the ship while Daluu continued to the next ship in line.

“Refueling complete, close the refueling hatch,” Saigg ordered. The external view once again showed the skin of the ship to be unmarked. “Display maximum range of this craft with current fuel load.”

The display showed a circle that extended about two-thirds of the way to the edge of the previously displayed maximum range map or about forty light years.

“Were spaceships of different designs equipped with similar engine technology?”

The display in front of Saigg shifted and now showed eleven different ships with the largest designated as a large personnel transport ship that could hold thousands of souls.

“What were these ship designs used for?”

“This design that you are currently in is a small personnel or cargo carrier, while those of increasing size were designed for exploration, cargo transport, personnel transport, and asteroid mining,” the ship replied.

“Were other colony ships like the
Universe Explorer
launched?”

“No other ship of the
Universe Explorer
’s design was ever launched. When no confirmation on the success of The
Universe Explorer
’s mission was received, the exploration of the galaxy was suspended until a little over sixty-five million years ago when a large swarm of space debris was discovered on a collision course with Earth. Ships were built using the same engine technology used on this ship. Earth was partially evacuated using all available ships and fuel. The fleet escaped the incoming debris and waited to determine the effect the impacts would have on Earth. It was ascertained that Earth would undergo a severe climate shift for an extended period, and that most, if not all life on Earth would perish due to decreased temperatures. The ship’s Command Primes decided to send portions of the fleet to distant stars that had planetary systems. They hoped that at least some of the refugees from Earth would survive. No ship has ever returned to Earth until the
Universe Explorer
arrived in system,” explained a disembodied voice.