The Solar Sea (16 page)

"Valles Marineris,” said Nagamine. “The Valley of the Mariners. The Grand Canyon of Earth would fit into one of this canyon's tributaries."

"I'll say.” Myra whistled long and low. She turned and looked out the other side where the canyon wall was more visible. “Look at the rock layers over there! That must be billions of years of geological history."

"She's got a point,” said Nagamine. “We should turn on the wing cameras and get some video."

"Be my guest,” said Jefferson. “Dr. Lee. Please sit down and put on your harness. I'm going to take us a little lower into the canyon."

As Myra sat down in her seat, Jefferson pushed the joystick forward and plunged the shuttle downward. Enormous buttes jutted up from the canyon floor. The canyon wall, like that of Earth's Grand Canyon, was painted in many different shades, from the red of the surface to light yellow to black.

"Is that green rock over there or some kind of vegetation?” asked Dr. Nagamine, pointing.

"Fog bank,” said Jefferson, but not in response to the astronomer's question. Ahead of the shuttle, fog filled the canyon from wall to wall. Jefferson pulled back on the joystick and rose above the fog, flying over the lip of the canyon. Below them, the white water vapor billowed and made shapes like fairy castles.

"It's like the palace of Deja Thoris from the Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” said Neb O'Connell.

"Indeed it is,” mused the captain. With a look at the control panel's clock, he sighed. “I'm afraid the party's over. We need to get back to
Aristarchus
if we don't want to be stranded here."

"Like being marooned on a desert island.” Lisa sighed. “Sounds kind of romantic."

"It would be at that,” said Jefferson. “At least until tomorrow when the emergency rations ran out.” With that, the captain pulled the joystick back, taking the shuttle skyward.

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Making Discoveries

Back aboard the
Aristarchus
, Myra Lee's lack of sleep the night before caught up with her. Exhausted, she pulled off the space suit and placed it carefully in its locker, then pulled on her uniform coveralls. She started to walk toward her quarters when she remembered the strange coin she'd brought back from Mars. She retrieved it from the spacesuit and put it in the pocket of her coveralls. Stepping out of the women's locker room, she saw the too-happy, too-awake faces of Jonathan Jefferson and Dr. Nagamine, both already in their coveralls.

"Congratulations, Dr. Lee,” said Nagamine. “I think that was quite a successful landing, even if it was too brief."

Myra yawned and shook both the captain's hand and Nagamine's.

"Care for some dinner, Dr. Lee?” asked Jefferson. He moved from one foot to the other, even though the dark circles forming under his eyes betrayed how tired he was.

Myra shook her head. “Not right now.” She rubbed her eyes. “I'm afraid I need to go get some sleep."

"Yes, do,” said the captain. “What are your plans for that coin Neb and Lisa found?"

"First thing we need to figure out is where it came from.” She yawned again and then muttered an apology.

Jefferson waved the apology aside. “I'd like to show it to Pilot and Captain Freeman—Daryl LaRue for that matter. Between them, they have some experience with different coins and, for that matter, different spaceship components. Maybe one of them might recognize it."

"Be my guest.” Myra handed Jefferson the coin, then trudged off to her quarters.

In command and control, Pilot sat at his console, checking and rechecking calculations. He looked up at Natalie Freeman and smiled. “Everything looks good. We're on course for Jupiter. I think we even gained a little more speed than I'd originally estimated. At this point, I'd say we should be at the asteroid belt in about a month and a half, and to Jupiter in just over a year."

Natalie Freeman looked over to the astrosciences station where no one was currently on duty. “Let's set up extra watches on the external sensors. I want to make sure someone's on duty there twenty-four hours a day until we get through the asteroids."

"We have automated alarms,” protested Pilot.

"Automated alarms are no substitute for someone watching the sensors who can take immediate action if we run into something unexpected.” Freeman wore a worried frown. As she stepped back to the central console, Captain Jefferson strode onto the deck. “Well, well, well, don't we look proud of ourselves,” she teased.

Pilot reached out and shook Jefferson's hand. “Well done, Captain! I'm looking forward to seeing the video from your foray. It sounds like quite a success."

"Indeed.” Jefferson clapped his hands together. “We even found a bit of a mystery.” He reached into his pocket and retrieved the coin and handed it to Pilot. “What do you make of this?"

Pilot narrowed his eyes and looked at the coin. “I've never seen anything like it. The writing isn't at all familiar.” Then he held it up to the light. Rainbow patterns appeared along the surface of the coin. “If I didn't know better, I'd say it looks like a data disk of some kind."

"You mean like a CD or a DVD?” Freeman inclined her head and stepped up for a closer look.

Pilot handed her the coin. “Exactly."

She held it up and looked at it. “What about this writing? It looks like it's on both sides. Wouldn't a data disk only have writing on the top?"

Pilot shrugged. “Not necessarily. It would depend on a lot of things, like the type of reader and whether the writing is actually transparent at the light frequencies that are needed to read the data."

"That assumes this is a data disk at all,” said Jefferson.

"Where did you find it?” asked Pilot.

Jefferson told them how Neb had found the disk buried in the sand on Olympus Mons.

"No Earth spacecraft that I know have ever tried a landing up there,” said Pilot. “At least until your landing this morning."

Freeman took another look at the disk and the writing on its surface. A little shiver ran up her spine at the mere possibility the disk came from anywhere but Earth. She handed it back to Pilot. “Well, if it is a data disk, maybe the thing to do is try to read it. Maybe it'll have some answers about where it came from."

"If it's from Earth, that should be pretty easy. If not.... “Pilot's voice caught in his throat. He held the disk up in the light again. “Reading this may be easier said than done."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” said Jefferson with a wink.

Two days after returning from Mars, Lisa entered her quarters and logged into her email. Most of the mail was junk, but she smiled when she saw that she had a video from her little sister Mika. Lisa tapped the control on her keyboard and Mika appeared life-size and smiling on the wall of her room. The image was so realistic that Lisa thought she could almost walk right into her sister's bedroom and pick up one of the stuffed animals.

"Hey, big sister,” said Mika, “we just saw some of the pictures you guys sent back from Mars. Wow!” She paused and shook her head. “Imagine that! My big sister on Mars. I am
so
jealous!"

Lisa smiled to herself. Indeed it seemed strange to think about. Mika was always the one who climbed over things and dug in the dirt while Lisa played quietly with dolls or read. Of course, Lisa often pretended her dolls were pirates on the high seas or explorers of some kind. She returned her attention to the message.

"So, what's this that Mom tells me? She says you have a boyfriend!” Lisa felt color rise to her cheeks. “When you send a message back, you have to tell me all about him ... or better yet, send a picture.

"Also, I wanted to let you know, I got accepted to State. I am so excited. I can't wait to start packing.” Lisa looked up at her sister again as though it were the first time. She pulled up the calendar program and shook her head, having a hard time believing so much time had passed.

Mika fell silent for a moment and shuffled her feet. “I hate to admit this, sis, but I really miss you. You be careful out there. I want you home in one piece. Send me a message soon, okay?"

With that, Mika's image vanished from the wall. Lisa smiled as she thought about home. She went to the refrigerator and retrieved a glass of tea, then sat on the edge of the bed and thought of the message she would send back to her sister.

Pilot first tried to read the Martian disk using the data readers on
Aristarchus'
computers. The disk wasn't a standard size and there was no spindle hole, so he had Daryl LaRue manufacture an adapter. Even with an adapter, none of the software recognized it as a data disk. He downloaded a data decryption tool from Quinn Corp that was supposed to read disks manufactured anywhere in the world. He had no luck with that, either.

Over the course of the following month, Pilot assembled a makeshift optical bench in the
Ares
lander bay. He borrowed two of the spare communications lasers from ship's stores along with a scanning target. He asked Daryl to machine some clamps and a tabletop to hold it all. Then he began the painstaking process of shooting the laser and sensing the reflections to see if he detected any indications of data on the disk.

At one point, he looked at the coin-shaped disk and thought about the family business. His father would only see value in the project if there were potential profit. Pilot was too caught up in solving the mystery to care about much else. He wondered if his father had ever been so intrigued by something to feel that way.

As Pilot worked, speculation about the disk ran rampant through the crew. Vanda Berko and Angus MacDonald were convinced the disk was an alien artifact and even hung a star chart in the galley and started a pool, taking guesses of which star the aliens were from. The more skeptical people, such as Dr. Nagamine, thought it was simply a glass-like volcanic rock, polished to a high shine by the fierce Martian winds and the ‘writing’ was merely a series of scratches.

Dr. Nagamine, who shared Pilot's joy of learning in spite of his skepticism, started cataloging all of the photos and recordings that were made on the Martian surface, leaving Neb O'Connell to spend somewhat longer shifts in C-and-C. In spite of Pilot's assurances that they would have no problem traversing the asteroid belt, O'Connell scanned for rocks or debris that might be in their path well before the ship actually entered the belt. Over time, he became aware that Lisa was also spending more time on duty, even though her job didn't require it. He was glad for the company. She often brought coffee or cookies from the kitchen to share.

Though pleased with his trip to the Martian surface, Captain Jefferson already looked forward to the trip into the Jovian atmosphere. He was well aware that there would be no surface to land on, but just the idea of being one of the first humans to fly through Jupiter's atmosphere was exciting. He spent what off-watch time he could afford aboard the
Zeus I
shuttle-lander, running simulations. He'd felt a little sluggish handling the
Ares
in Martian orbit and in the atmosphere. He knew in some regions of Jupiter, the winds were far more violent than those they faced in the small Martian storm.

Myra Lee heard no more from her colleagues on Earth and began to despair they had run into a dead end on the whale communication project. She sent an email burst to Earth asking Cristof and Harmer if they'd learned anything new. In their return message, she learned they suspected the phrases, “the cycle continues” and “the cycle resumes” were a regular part of the whale songs. Working on that assumption, they thought they could pick up other instances of those words in the extended songs. However, it wasn't enough yet to attempt a complete translation.

Knowing Pilot was engaged in a project that kept him away from both the central hub and his quarters—where he rarely spent time anyway—Natalie Freeman decided to continue her investigation into his background and the reason he wanted to get to Saturn. She started her investigation in his quarters. Looking in the closet, she found several pairs of coveralls and boots. There were also some nice items of clothing—fine shirts and tailored slacks that she suspected were beyond the means of most Quinn Corp engineers. She wondered if Thomas Alonzo came from a wealthy family. If so, perhaps that implied a corporate alliance between the Quinns and Alonzo's family, which might provide a clue.

She moved on to Pilot's desk. Inside one of the drawers, she found a report binder. Opening the first page, she read the title “
Lunar Chronotons: An Important New Resource by Thomas Alonzo
.” As she thumbed through the report, she heard someone walking out in the corridor. Quickly, she put the report back in the drawer and ducked into the closet just as the door opened. Pilot crossed the room and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door part way. Quietly, Freeman slipped out of the closet and sneaked to the door.

Once out, she went to her own quarters and dropped into her chair. That had been closer than she'd liked. Taking a few deep breaths, she went to her own bathroom, got a glass of water, then went back to the chair, bringing up a computer information screen. She did a search on the word ‘chronoton.’ The computer came back with no results, but it did ask if she'd made a spelling error and meant something else. It presented her with a list of options, including chronos, chronograph, and chronology. She chose ‘chronos.’ The computer informed her it was the Greek word for time. Unless she was reaching too far, Natalie Freeman realized Thomas Alonzo had discovered something about the nature of time while on the Moon. However, she wasn't quite sure what that had to do with Saturn.

Later that afternoon, Freeman took her shift at the command console and surfed the web, hoping to find a connection between the time particles, Quinn Corp, and Thomas Alonzo. The web was sluggish because of the transmission time to Earth. She would send a command, then peruse shipboard status reports while waiting for data to upload to the ship's computer.

She found a website that talked about the history of Quinn Corp. Mostly, it discussed Jerome Quinn's younger days and his invention of quinitite—the strong but lightweight plastic ideal for computer boards. Quinitite actually helped to dissipate static charges, meaning that computer chips were far less susceptible to being destroyed by someone's touch. Being strong and lightweight meant it was also ideal for the solar sails.