‘Geosynchronous orbit over the main complex,’ said Anna, pointing out to Chi the group of six buildings at the end of the frozen lake.’
Tosh floated onto the bridge and strapped himself loosely to his couch. His console came to life and he set various transmission controls.
‘Hello, Stroya, Tosh here, come in please,’ he said, then to the rest of us, ‘There might be a wait. We’ve been away for months.’
He repeated the transmission every thirty minutes, but still no response.
‘Are they still broadcasting their music from the other location?’ I asked.
Tosh fiddled with his console and a rather haunting and discordant melody boomed into the ship, deafening us all. ‘Sorry,’ Tosh said. ‘Had the gain turned fully up.’ He quickly reduced the volume.
‘I suppose it’s possible Stroya isn’t there any longer,’ said Bill, slapping his ears and poking his fingers into them.
Tosh frowned. ‘Yes, possible.’ He repeated his transmission but also left the other frequency running at a low background level. The broadcasts were very similar to those we’d first heard during the original visit.
‘That’s two hours. You’d think someone would have been listening out for us,’ said Tosh.
At that instant, a reply was received, ‘Derginomic est layeld dra estoglonich, digrinolem. Egrollom,’ came out of the speaker.
‘It’s a male voice and in their language,’ said Tosh.
‘Did you learn any?’ Chi asked.
‘A few words,’ said Tosh, ‘but not enough to understand that message. Egrollom is their word for over.’
He picked up the microphone again. ‘Stroya. This is Tosh. Egrollom.’
‘Cohelian. Stroya bromoch igi vlorach. Deogrim veraldy Stroya. Egrollom.’
‘Sounds like some sort of answer,’ said Bill. ‘Maybe Stroya died.’
‘No. “Vlorach” is “away”. She might be somewhere else,’ said Tosh, ‘but you’d think there would be someone there who learned some of our language after all of that communication.’
‘There is another possibility,’ I said. Tosh looked around inquisitively.
‘Maybe this is not the same universe after all. Perhaps the entiroverse switched us on that last journey to Earth and the Heradians in this universe never made contact.’
Almost two days passed before we heard Stroya’s unmistakable voice, ‘Zergo, est layeld dra estoglonich. Egrollom.’
‘Stroya! It’s Tosh, over.’
‘Yistil Stroya. Beraton, Tosh? Indrobin edo, Tosh. Arbud layeld dra estoglonich. Egrollom,’ she replied.
‘I think you’re right, Mark,’ said Tosh. ‘It’s the same girl, but she appears to have no recollection of our last contact.’
‘Do you still have the original recordings, Tosh?’ asked Bill.
‘Of course, I do, but, damn it all, we’ll need to start from scratch.’
‘You can omit the bulk of the mathematical sequence transmissions,’ I said.
‘Yistil Stroya. Arbud layeld dra estoglonich. Beraton Tosh? Indrobin edo, Tosh. Egrollom,’ Stroya repeated.
I watched Tosh’s fingers flying over the controls on his console, eventually, he hit a green button and we could hear the transmissions beginning. The education process was underway. It had taken four weeks on the last occasion, we hoped it might be a little faster this time as Tosh was editing some of the early material which had not been understood but did not cause the later conversations to be less comprehensive. All we could do now was wait.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The education was going well. After two weeks, Stroya and a male Heradian called Gurd had grown to be reasonably proficient. Tosh had been able to explain about the entiroverse – or, at least, its rudimentary existence – and the reason for our arrival on this second occasion.
‘There’s a flat area about two hundred metres north-east of their complex,’ said Anna.
‘You reckon you can land the vitamin tank on that spot?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Anna, ‘but Tosh needs to make it absolutely clear that there could be poison gases hanging around the tank which will need to be allowed to purge naturally before they lower it to its side and open the container end.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘We’ve made it this far. Let’s not poison them at the eleventh hour.’
We all listened as Tosh, using simple English, began the lengthy explanation of what the Heradians needed to do with the vitamin tank. He also sent diagrams and video which had been prepared on Earth showing exactly how the tank had to be toppled and opened. Again, I have not used Stroya and Gurd’s pidgin English in this record of our encounter.
‘Ha-ha. You look strange. Little hair, coloured skins and only two arms,’ said Stroya.
‘Yes,’ Tosh agreed and laughed. ‘You look strange to us too. We can’t imagine having four arms.’
‘Can’t imagine having two missing,’ said Gurd.
‘Do you understand what you have to do to open the tank?’ asked Tosh.
‘We do. It’s wonderful for you to provide help. We were dying. Send it as soon as you can. Many of us have awful sores on our skin from the poor diet,’ said Stroya.
‘We’ll let you know the moment it has begun its descent.’ Tosh turned to Anna and Chi and said, ‘Do your stuff, girls.’
‘We need to get the orbit back down to about two-fifty miles, first,’ said Anna. ‘Tell them we’ll be going in and out of radio contact.’
We strapped ourselves into our couches as Spirit began to descend from the geosynchronous orbit to a height more in keeping with Earth’s ISS.
Using the Celestron attached to a monitor we could now zero-in quite well to the Heradian complex, although, of course, in this lower orbit, we passed over the site quite quickly. The computer kept the telescope on the target for as long as possible during each orbit.
‘Separating the vitamin tank,’ said Chi, and we watched the huge orange structure drifting away from beneath the Spirit’s fuselage.
‘Two thousand metres,’ said Anna.
Chi applied some thrust and the tank was orientated so that it was pointing away from our direction of travel.
‘Three thousand metres,’ said Anna. ‘Checking location data.’
‘Ready,’ said Chi.
‘On a count of thirty, we’ll be in position,’ said Anna.
The rest of us watched the monitors as the countdown proceeded.
‘Three, two, one, zero,’ said Anna.
‘Firing retro jets,’ said Chi.
The effect was almost instantly obvious. The tank was slowing its orbiting speed and beginning to fall towards the surface of Arctur. Two minutes later it was almost out of sight and Chi said, ‘Cutting retros. Rotating direction of travel. Heat shield deployed.’
Through binoculars, I watched the tank turn tail so that the top of it was now pointing in the direction of travel. The inflatable heat shield was deployed and, through binoculars, I could just make out the flanges opening to protect the legs before it vanished around the curvature of the planet.
‘Hello, Stroya,’ said Tosh.
‘Here.’
‘The tank is on the way. It’ll be approaching touchdown when we’re back in communication.’
‘Okay that,’ our alien friend said.
Now the heat shield would be burning away as it protected the tank’s surface. It was agonising not to be able to see what was happening.
‘Sixty-two minutes to signal recovery,’ said Anna as the monitor on the tank flickered and died.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The screen came back to life. We were watching the descent via the external onboard cameras. The flanges and tile protection of the tank had sloughed off during the deceleration. The surface was clearly visible.
‘Fifteen thousand metres,’ said Chi.
‘Stroya. Tosh here. Over.’
‘Receiving you.’
‘Fifteen thousand metres. You might be able to see it,’ he said.
‘Yes. Gurd is outside with the others. He says they can just see it.’
‘Good. Keep clear of the landing site.’
‘Will do, Tosh.’
‘I can see the target,’ said Anna. ‘They’ve marked it with a large black cross. There! Look!’
The image swayed in the monitor, but each time it came back to the landing site we could see the marker.
‘Why’s it swinging so violently?’ asked Bill.
‘Strong crosswinds,’ said Chi.
‘They’re all right at the surface,’ said Anna. ‘Two thousand metres.’
‘It’s wonderful, Tosh! I can see it too,’ said a very excited Stroya.
‘Spot on target,’ said Anna. ‘One thousand metres.’
‘Legs deploying,’ said Chi and we watched the framework coming out around the landing jets on the monitor.
‘One hundred metres,’ said Anna. ‘Surface wind almost zero.’
The last few metres disappeared rapidly, then the tank seemed to hover for a few seconds and settled gently on to the ice plain.
‘It’s down!’ yelled Stroya.
‘Touchdown,’ said Anna, almost simultaneously.
Through the Celestron, we could see the Heradians slowly approaching the tank.
‘Remind them about the gases,’ I said.
Tosh warned Stroya and we could see that they’d stopped about a hundred metres from the ship.
Knowing how desperate they were for the vitamins on board, they were remarkably patient. We can only imagine what they were feeling. An entire species about to die out in a few short decades, marooned on a world upon which they were never prepared to survive independently. I suppose, from the humankind point of view, it would be as if some virus had wiped out life on Earth. Any people left in colonies on the moon or Mars would be doomed to slow, relentlessly worsening diseases from the lack of proper nutrients, unable to be grown in Moonbase or Martian domes. Probably the worst aspect would be knowing that there was no possible hope of rescue. What we were achieving on Arctur, must be the equivalent of a miracle in their eyes.
On each orbit, we could see figures like flies buzzing around the tank. Following our instructions, they toppled it to the ground and then got access to the cargo. Cameras in the doors and storage area showed us close-ups of our friends and their fierce-looking faces but otherwise humanlike movements. We were enthralled to watch their four arms working to open and unload the boxes of every vitamin we could think of. One area was packed with frozen vegetables and protein which they loaded onto motorised pallets which were hurried off to their complex. Containers of electronics, computers and other equipment came next, Stroya turning a camera onto herself and shouting at Tosh, ‘It’s me, it’s me, Tosh!’ in absolute delight.
Different from the males – the only image which we had from the sculpture on Herade – Stroya had a shorter less angular face and the featherlike hair was much longer, flowing over her clothing. The left side of her forehead had a circular wound, similar to an oversized smallpox sore. I wondered if this was caused by the vitamin deficiencies.
One surprise was colour. Previously we’d only had the images of the sculpture on Herade and monochrome images they’d sent to us as part of our early communication. Now, however, we were seeing our friends in full colour. We couldn’t see their bodies, of course, but their heads displayed a variety of bright hues. Stroya’s feathery covering was bright blue with yellow highlights. Some of the others showed red, purple, green and orange feathers. Were they natural, or was it some bizarre makeup being used?
The final section of the hull was packed with seeds of all the most common vegetables our scientists had been able to think of. The basis for fast-growing crops. We already knew from our first visit that they’d had underground cultivation areas, so, with the seeds and some water, they were good to go.
Back on Earth, the boffins were trying to work out how to get them back into space, but first, we needed their ideas for destroying the weed on their home planet. To that end, we had provided them with two small rockets which could send samples up to us. We’d safely seal them into our storage lockers and take them back to the biologists on Earth to examine alongside the plant samples we’d already taken from Haven.