Habilitation, page 3
"And what about you Professor? What most interests you about tomorrow?"
It was Angela. I shared my eye contact between Angela and Cutter as I spoke, only because I knew it would please her. My whole life seemed to revolve around making Angela happy, but it didn't bug me at all.
"I am interested to find out if any theories may be proved through this technology but to be honest I do not know what to expect. We have not been given much information but based the photos I have seen there will be a lot to document that may provide insight into further advancing our own technology." It was a generic answer but true all the same. The information provided had been scarce and so there was very little for me to be excited for.
"And you Angela? What most interests you about our explorations tomorrow?"
"I suppose just the potential that all this means. My greatest hope is the possibility of sentient beings somewhere out in the galaxy. Though the original crew found no life forms the fact that these chambers remain means that perhaps elsewhere on the planet they still live."
I had not thought of that and found myself also curious and hopeful that perhaps humans were not alone in the universe.
The morning came surprisingly quickly and I was up and eating before the night shift guards had retired and I watched the sunrise through the large shielded windows. The smoky blue sky slowly began to lighten as Abraxus broke above the brown mountains off in the distance, skewing the shades of blue to a light purple and back again. I was just finishing my readymade breakfast when everyone else began to trickle in. As they all sat down and began to scoop mush from their bowls Captain Anderson came and stood before the windows, the brown wasteland spreading out behind him.
"If I can have everyone's attention. In thirty minutes we will meet in the locker room to suit up. The All-Terrain Vehicles have been set up to take us to the entry of the chambers. Once we arrive we will stay together for the initial exploration of the main chambers. Today is only about the main chamber which houses the bulk of the technology. The following days after that will allow you to split into teams and further explore the mountain. The helmet cams will record everything you see and say throughout the exploration for use later on. This exploration will require extensive documentation so every night you will fill out a report upon your return. While you are beneath the mountain Staff Sergeant Nichols will be in command of all units. You will listen to him if not in direct communication with me. Any questions?"
The room remained quiet and the Captain left and I scooped up my bowl and chucked it into the bin before heading to the locker room with Angela. I began to suit up as Staff Sergeant Nichols went over the day’s schedule.
"Our biosuits contain five hours of oxygen. This gives us time to explore the main chamber for three hours. The ATVs hold six each. Lane, Professor, Mishin and Cal. You're with me in ATV Red. Petrie, Cutter, Sodder and Meta, you're in blue with Officer Morgan. Longdale, Corvus, Brian and Astro are in yellow with Officer Hall. Mill and Strata head for green with Officer Scott. These will be your assigned ATVs and leaders for the entirety of the expedition. Double check your suits, time to head out."
Outside the biodome the wind was whipping across the plain, stirring up the dust and making it hard to see. The planet was dark and foggy and though it was muffled by my helmet I could hear the wind howling through the rocky outcrops. I found the red one, a massive machine with tank like tracks, thick metal plating painted over with red scales and wide windows with the blue shimmering of a plasma shield around them. Staff Sergeant Nichols opened the door and we climbed up. Angela and I found the two seats in the middle while Cal and his aide Derek Mishin climbed into the back. Angela pulled the seat belts off the back of the chair and down across my chest, then the two straps on either side of my seat for my waist. She showed me how to slip them all into the circular clip and lock them in. Nichols shut the door and climbed into the driver’s seat followed by an armed soldier whose name I did not know. The ATV started up and a few minutes later we were rumbling across the landscape.
The dashboard of the vehicle was covered in electronic dials and meters. There was elevation, outside atmospheric content, engine temperature, cabin temperature, exterior temperature, direction based on the biodome, distance from the biodome and more. It looked almost as complicated as the bridge of The Onyx.
The mountain grew steadily before us as we approached. The ground began to rise before us but the craft had no trouble climbing as it became steeper. The minutes ticked by as we climbed, the mountain shot upwards and we were forced to cut sideways across it and switchback upwards. Finally we rumbled to a stop before large metal doors the same dull brown as the rest of the mountain. Nichols stopped the vehicle, “Seal up your suits.” I turned my air back on and sealed the neck piece. The armed soldier I did not know climbed out. Sliding up the door on a keypad he pulled out a device and inserted a cable into an auxiliary input. Using the device he overrode the alien technology, a green light flashed and the large doors hissed open. The lights of the ATV illuminated an endless passage. We jerked into gear and we were rolling forward again as the soldier remained behind.
We traveled over two miles into the mountain before we came to a large chamber. The ATVs rumbled around in a circle and lined up facing the exit before coming to a halt. Nichols turned the machine off and opened the doors for us to climb out. We stood before the door to the main chamber as Nichols pulled out his own keypad and plugged it into the auxiliary port of the alien technology. A series of tones sounded in the quiet morning air as the device hacked the lock, then a beep as all four lights on the panel went green one after the other. Tumblers clicked and the doors hissed open into a room larger than any skyscraper I had seen on earth.
Chapter 5: Of A90
I gazed in wonder all around me and stepped into the circular room. There were multiple levels working their way upwards open to the air with balconies looking down, four lifts on opposite sides of the room. The two lights on my helmet reflected all the dust floating in protest of our sudden trespassing. It was dark, only the dull blue glow of the key pads and emergency lighting on the floors, more floors than I could count that disappeared upwards into darkness. Consoles were everywhere, rectangular grey panels with flat dark screens. Some mounted on table tops that sat six feet off the ground; others flush to the brown wall.
I was the first to step forwards, my curiosity outweighing every other emotion. Metal stairs clanked beneath my boots as I entered the center. Consoles were all around with large, deep chairs eaten away by time. A layer of dust covered everything, a grey clingy material. Strange symbols covered the key pads but I knew all of them.
Behind me the soldiers were unfolding step ladders and handing them off to each of us. I was overwhelmed with the choices, confused of what was expected but I took a ladder and stepped up to see the table top, Angela climbed her own ladder beside me. I brushed the dust off a screen and hit the power button. The screen came to life and began running diagnostics. Around me the others were turning their own computers on. A few seconds later the diagnostics were complete. Blue symbols filled the black screen.
"A log file." I pressed the screen lightly and the log opened. Dates and times filled the screen. I opened the last one.
"What does it mean?" Angela was staring in wonder, her pale skin made paler by the blue light.
"Communication with…"
"Professor?"
"I'm sorry. I can't pronounce this. But communication with a ship was lost. This," I pointed to the particular symbol that represented the ship's call sign, "is the name of the ship. These are the co-ordinates of its last known location and destination." I pulled out my datapad and accessed a star map. Translating the alien language I input the co-ordinates.
"The ship's destination was a solar system three hundred light years from here. Expected time of arrival was four hundred and fifty rotations from this date here." The dates meant nothing to me since we did not know how their society chose to calculate time. It could have been fifty earth years ago or two hundred.
I went back and opened another. It was the same thing repeated, only a different ship. One by one I went through all of them, "There's hundreds of entries. This one here is the same. The lead ship again, only this is a report from one day earlier with their co-ordinates and a green status."
"Green status?"
"All good. The ship is still functioning fine. This one here has a repair update," I scrolled quickly down to the first entry, "It looks like the ships left Kepler approximately thirty rotations before contact was lost."
"Can you download it? We should bring this back to the biodome to analyze later. For now we need to keep exploring." I furrowed my brows together. There was an excitement in her voice and I knew why. The species that lived here had propulsion technology advanced enough to travel three hundred light years in a short amount of time. Not only were they sentient but their technology was beyond the scope originally conceived.
"I think I can." I left the logs behind and accessed the system. A few minutes later I had found the alien's equivalent to a server and router. The trouble was getting their computer to talk to mine without understanding their computer language. I made the assumption they used ASCII like we did and started from there. As my fingers moved across the touch screen I found the answers coming to my mind without effort. It felt strange, perhaps the cloning process kept left over memories from the original. Whoever my original was he had been very deft with computers.
Opening a command prompt and a text file I wrote a quick batch file to translate the alien’s computer language into ASCII so that files were now transferrable. It took a couple of hours but was still faster than I had anticipated. Running the batch file I pasted all the files over to my datapad using their wireless technology. Thirty seconds later the logs were in my datapad and I moved on to the console beside me.
"I'd be interested in locating their energy source."
"Later Professor. One chamber at a time."
The next console was a monitoring station for the software of a single ship. The next was for hardware. One by one I went around the circle. Thirty ships in all, sixty consoles devoted to monitoring the software and hardware systems. Then there were the consoles for communication, for telemetry, environmental, it went on and on but all the information provided was of little use in actually understanding the technology the ships had contained. I downloaded everything to bring back to the biodome and our three hours were up. We filed back into the ATVs, returned and watched Kepler's equivalent of a sunset through the glass of the biodome's roof. The same as the sunrise had been only on the opposite edge of the world. A streak of phosphorescent purple smeared through the thick clouds, becoming dark blue as it got closer to the mountain range before finally disappearing. An impenetrable blackness set in all around, I felt cold even though I knew the biodome’s temperature was strictly regulated and I hugged myself as I left the central room.
My datapad was uploaded to the ship’s servers, the biodome’s as well, and wiped to allow more room for the next day. On my own I sought out Captain Anderson.
"Yes Professor?"
It felt strange that he knew my name, "Are we only to go to the chambers once every rotation?"
"By rotation you mean day I'm assuming. Yes. That is the plan. There is a lot of analyzing to do. You should be working on that now actually."
"Yes, sir. I know. But it seems like there are so many chambers to explore, wouldn't it be better to gather the data and analyze it later, as opposed to wasting our time and oxygen on analyzing something that could be done from earth. Their energy supply has lasted hundreds of years and that technology would be a huge asset to Earth."
"You may be right Professor. I will neither confirm nor deny it. But I have my orders, and so do you. A great discovery by the way."
"What's that sir?"
"Those ships. I'm sending a team in to explore the passageways and radius around the mountain. If those ships were launched from Kepler 84C perhaps we can find their launch bay. Maybe there's one or two left we can get our hands on."
I only nodded in response, aware that I would get no further in my quest to discover their energy source. I left for my desk and sat down to begin reading through the data I had gathered. There were no new discoveries, nothing to learn. Just scheduled updates from the various systems of thirty different ships. The only peculiarity I found was that the destinations of the ships were spread out, and they had all left on the same day. I shared this with Angela who said she would pass it along but it meant very little in and of itself.
The night passed by as I made my way through the logs. All of them were system normal until eventually communication was lost. I left with only a hundred or so to go through and went to sleep.
I opened the sketch application on my datapad and began to make my way through the wiring and components of the consoles. I had spent an hour searching through the database and had downloaded some schematics but decided that seeing for myself with the real thing would be better while I had the opportunity. I made my way through the computer, piece by piece. Nichols had allowed me to disassemble a single computer after we had downloaded a copy of the entire hard-drive. I photo documented the components as I pieced them apart. Scans indicated their atomic make up as I compared it to the modern day earth technology that I had studied. As I pulled the motherboard out of its compartment I eyed the sphere of components, chips and wires, completely unlike our own two dimensional square CPUs. I smiled at the first technological discovery made thus far, for me at least, I was unsure of the others progress as they worked at their own sections farther up.
Our time was almost up but I still wanted to see the energy source that had been powering this facility for over one hundred and thirty cycles around Abraxus. I pulled the layout of the chambers up onto my datapad and went through the scans. Far into the depths was a large cavern still only half the size of the main one. Directly beside it was a smaller room with high electromagnetic readings. The lifts would take me down as far as I needed. I could be there and back in less than an hour and didn’t see any reason why I should be denied.
"Staff Sergeant Nichols." I found him on the third level.
"Yes Professor?"
"I think I've found the power station. I would like permission to find it. The fact that it's been running unattended for so long, it could be the breakthrough that I believe Captain Anderson is looking for."
"Show me,” I pulled it up on the map and showed him, "Not today, Professor. We need to clear it with the Captain first."
I was frustrated. A feeling I was unused to. I sought Angela out, "I am done for the day. I want to return to the biodome." She looked at her wrist pad.
"We still have twenty minutes left." Her brows furrowed in confusion.
"I am upset."
"I can see that but we are here to do a job."
"That's what I'm trying to do. The discoveries here are mediocre. I have discovered the assembly and make of their computer systems. I am confident I can create documents for their recreation on earth. What I need now is their power source."
I was getting more upset and Angela grabbed my arm. That made me angry but I held back and stepped away from her. She let me go.
I opened my mouth and hesitated, "I need to talk to you. Later, in private." I had almost broken a promise to her in that moment. The words I wanted to say I had promised I would not so instead I walked away and stared at my datapad for twenty minutes until the rendezvous was called and I found myself back in the red ATV.
"What did you want to tell me?" Angela was treading lightly now that we were alone. My frustration had left me now and I was unsure if I wanted to tell her or not. I was sitting at my desk translating the computer console schematics when she approached me.
"Maybe later. I have a lot of work to do. We are here to do a job after all."
That stopped her. She paused a moment and thought.
"You are getting much better at this whole human interaction thing Professor. I believe that was your first insult."
"I did not mean it that way. I am sorry."
"It's fine. You're right. We have a lot to do."
I was unsure exactly what Angela had to do that took up so much of her time but did not remark upon it. Staff Sergeant Nichols was approaching and I quickly looked back to my computer screen as Angela returned to her desk.
"Congratulations Professor."
"I am confused?"
"I talked with Captain Anderson. He says if you believe you have far more to gain by finding the power station then you are free to break off from the main group tomorrow."
I smiled, "Thank you."
The lift jittered downwards through the lower levels. Angela stood beside me, Staff Sergeant Nichols beside her. On the lowest level we came to a rough halt. Nichols shifted his gun to his other hand and pulled the doors open. Even standing at six feet tall plus the height of his biosuit’s helmet he cleared the doors in the facility with several feet to spare above him. The hallway was short with two doors on opposite sides. One led to the massive room that was unexplored as of yet and the other held the smaller room that I believed to be the power station.
The door swished open and I smiled in triumph. It was the power room; I held a multi-meter out in my hand and followed the thick black cords strung around the walls leading into shafts. In the center was a large shaft of metal. Thick grey tubes ran in one side and out the opposite, disappearing into the mountain.
"What is it?" Nichols circled the room.
"I have no idea." I went for the nearest console and began to search through it, "Angela. Come look at this." Much to my dismay Nichols joined me as well at the console.
"Is it the power source?"
"Yes. It's... it's amazing. It holds antimatter."
