Elena was the last of her crew to wake. Uzoma was there when Elena’s pod slid open and she sat up, gasping, a cocktail of strange drugs coursing through her, making everything shimmer and effervesce at the edges. She thought of grizzly bears, and how they awoke from hibernation, hungry and furious and dripping with ice. An alarm howled shrilly elsewhere in the ship but then abruptly cut off, and Elena’s ears rang with silence.
“Are we there?” Elena said.
Uzoma’s impassive face gave nothing away. “No. We have encountered an… anomaly. A structure.”
The drugs that jumpstarted Elena’s cognition spared her from any dull moment of incomprehension. “An alien structure?”
Uzoma sniffed. They were a physicist and, more importantly, an empiricist. Their only god was data. “I draw no conclusions. Perhaps the structure is of human origin. We have no idea what might have changed in terms of Earthly technology during our voyage. We have been traveling for nearly five hundred years. It is possible humankind developed sufficiently advanced modes of space travel to reach this part of the galaxy before we did.”
“Aren’t we going something like ten percent the speed of light? How did we encounter anything without being vaporized by the impact?”
“I… do not know. We stopped, and abruptly, but without damage to the Anjou. I can only theorize that some technological force capable of manipulating inertia was involved.”
Elena took that in, then put it aside for the moment, because there were more pressing concerns. “Where are the others?”
“Gathered in the cargo hold. The alarms woke Robin, who tasked me to wake the rest of you. You were the last.”
Elena undid the straps in the pod and gave herself a little push, floating up out of the chamber, then shoved off toward the door leading to the corridor.
The Anjou wasn’t exactly roomy – it was mostly engines and cargo and cold storage – but the rest of the crew were squeezed in near the biological samples, all floating in a cluster around something unseen.
“It’s fucking aliens.” Bristles of wild blond hair stuck up all over Hans’s head. “You think people made that thing?”
“May I see?” Elena said.
Sebastien (oh, Sebastien) looked up and raised one wry eyebrow, but it was Ibn who moved aside, letting her take his place so she could see the oversized tablet in Robin’s hands. Robin was the oldest of them, her hair unapologetically gray and short, on her third career (finance, environmental law, ecological engineering). She was officially their captain, though there wasn’t much captaining to do. Usually. “What do you think, Elena?” she said.
The screen displayed a high-res image of an organic-looking structure made of crisscrossing branches and tubes and tunnels and arches, floating silvery-gray against the blackness of space. “It looks like a cast of the interior structure of a rat’s lung,” she said.
“Ever see one of those sculptures people make by filling an anthill with molten lead and then digging it up after the metal solidifies, so it’s a three-dimensional map of tunnels laid out by bug-logic?” Hans gestured at the screen. “Those sculptures look just like that. Except that thing is as big as a city.”
Think how big the bugs must be, Elena thought. (It was a thought that made her shudder later, when she remembered it to Callie.)
There was nothing in the image to provide a sense of scale, so Elena said, “A city? Are we talking Milwaukee or are we talking London?”
Robin zoomed in on one of the tubular branches. “That bit there? Is the size of a skyscraper, maybe eighty stories high. This thing is an astonishing feat of engineering. It must be hundreds of miles of tunnels – assuming those things are tunnels.” She glared at Hans. “But we don’t know that it’s alien. We knew there was a chance, on a five-century voyage, that technology on Earth would outpace us and make us obsolete.”
“Earth is long gone,” Hans said. “Before we left, we’d gone so far past the tipping point nothing could save us but an act of God, and I’m an atheist – sorry, Ibn.”
“It is not my place to forgive you,” Ibn said. “While I do not share your pessimism about our homeworld, I agree with your assessment. If humans made this object… they are so different from the humans we knew that I fear we would not recognize them as our kin.”
“Right,” Elena said. “So when do we go over there and take a look?”
“We’re still considering our options,” Robin said.
“What, are we just going to fly away? Call this an unscheduled pit stop and get back on the space-road? Is that even an option?”
Uzoma said, “We are approximately a hundred years short of our expected arrival at Gliese 3293 C. Most of our fuel is gone, and it would take weeks of constant acceleration to return to our maximum survivable velocity. The ship was not designed to stop and start again, so the possibility of catastrophic system failure is increased.” They paused. “The issue is moot, however. We are locked out of most of the ship’s systems.”
“Our shit got hacked,” Hans said bluntly.
“We have to check this thing out.” Sebastien had drifted away from the cluster to float somehow elegantly against a bank of biological samples, and Elena felt her usual flutter of lust at the sight of him. Long and lean and sweet-tempered, he was an expert in social psychology and urban planning, and was also a competent software engineer. Everyone on this ship had multiple specialties. Elena did biology, chemistry, and agriculture: the wet stuff. Sebastien had been her best friend during their training, showing genuine interest in her work, sitting up late at night with her talking about what they were giving up to go on this journey, and he’d inspired her with his grand visions: they were going to save humanity, create a new and more equal society, take advantage of this grand chance of a do-over to do things right.
They’d stayed up late the night before their departure, talking about the wonder and possibility of life under another star, and only a sense of professionalism had kept Elena from doing more than gazing at him hungrily. They hadn’t made any explicit plans or promises, both too aware they might not even survive the journey, but they’d agreed to continue their conversations and friendship when they reached their destination. Elena had certainly fantasized that when they woke up, they would explore their relationship further, in the light of a new sun, and maybe even consummate that relationship on a new world. Their first time could be the first time for the whole planet. That appealed to her secret romantic side more than she liked to admit.
She hadn’t expected to wake up here, now, in such strange circumstances – but it was still a thrill to see him.
Sebastien gestured toward the great void outside. “Either our very advanced descendants built that structure, or we’re about to make first contact with aliens.”
“We might die,” Robin said. “Just making that clear.”
Elena stopped looking at Sebastien and started looking at the problem. “The probability of our survival was always low. The entire Goldilocks project is based on an r strategy, not a K one, after all.”
Hans raised one of his bushy eyebrows. “Come again?”
“There are two contrasting survival strategies for life.” That was an oversimplification, but Elena had spent enough time as a professor that she could embrace oversimplification for illustrative purposes. “Creatures that adhere to a K strategy, like humans, have very few offspring, and invest a lot of resources in making sure those offspring survive. The other option is the r strategy – think rats or spiders. They have lots of offspring, with minimal parental involvement, but there are so many, some of them will probably survive.”
“Scatter your seeds, and though some will find only stony soil, and die, others will find fertile soil, and thrive,” Ibn said. “As in the Christian parable of the sower.”
“I thought that was a science fiction novel,” Hans muttered.
Elena ignored him. “Right. We’re the seeds, scattered on the wind. Most of us will fall on worthless rocks, but a few will land where they can grow. The odds were always against us. Even if we reach our destination, it might be uninhabitable for any number of reasons.” She nodded her head toward the viewscreen. “But this… it’s a sure thing. It’s huge, it’s important, and it’s right here. We can explore it, and if it’s alien, we can send a message back to Earth, and do a definitive service for our people.”
Hans made a sour face. “Ha. There’s no Earth left to get the message, and it would take forever to get there anyway.”
Uzoma shook their head. “Not forever. Not even an appreciable fraction of forever. We could aim a tight beam–”
“All right,” Robin said. “This isn’t a democracy, and mission-critical decisions are delegated to me, but this is beyond anything we ever expected to have to deal with, so, all in favor of sending a small exploratory–”
“The ship is moving toward the station.” Uzoma inclined their head toward the screen. “Or else the station is moving toward us, but that seems less likely.”
“Moving how?” Robin jabbed at the screen. “We are moving, very slowly, just a few meters per second, but we’re not generating any thrust, and there’s not… there’s no tow line, there’s no, I don’t know, tractor beam…”
“No visible one, anyway,” Uzoma said. “Someone in there can control inertia well enough to make our ship decelerate rapidly from a tenth of the speed of light to a full stop without doing any damage to us in the process. If they can accomplish that, drawing us near would be trivial.”
Sebastien stepped closer to Elena. She was profoundly aware of his presence, which was ridiculous in their current circumstances, but bodies and brains reacted strangely to stress sometimes, and hers was clearly urging her to try and reproduce before she died. Stupid bodies. “I guess our faction wins,” he said. “Exploration it is. I never expected to meet aliens. I wonder what they’re like?”
“An aperture is opening in the structure.” Uzoma’s tone was as matter-of-fact as always. Just reporting data.
They all looked at the screen. An irregular, roughly oval hole was opening up in the side of one of the skyscraper-sized portions of the structure, right down at the end of a branch, on the edge of the vastness. “It looks like the metal is flowing away, not like a door opening,” Elena said.
Hans scowled. “No reason to believe it’s metal at all. Our sensors can’t tell us a damn thing about it. We’ve got a nose full of surveying equipment, and as far as it’s concerned, that thing out there is basically invisible. It absorbs everything we throw at it.”
There was no perceptible sense of movement, but the aperture got bigger and bigger on the screen, until the edges vanished entirely and the screen went black. Robin flicked through various external camera views, but they all showed darkness.
Hans consulted his handheld tablet, presumably full of useless sensor data. He was the ship’s chief engineer and fixer-of-broken-things. “We’re inside the structure, whatever it is. The sensors think there’s a lot of empty space and a few solid objects in here with us. Let there be light.” He swiped at the screen and the ship’s external lights came on, shining into the darkness.
They all looked at the view on Robin’s screen, but even the lights revealed little beyond some lattice-like structures that could have been metal struts or girders. Hans hmmed. “Are those cranes and gantries, maybe? Could this be some kind of ship-building facility?”
There was a thump as the ship settled down on some kind of surface – and then another thump as they all dropped the short distance to the floor. Uzoma made a noise that was almost a whimper. “There is gravity. I… cannot explain why there is gravity.”
Sebastien bounced up and down on his heels. “A little less than one G, I think. This big anthill isn’t spinning, and it’s hard to imagine something this size could accelerate fast enough for this to be thrust gravity already, though if they can control inertia, who knows? Artificial gravity. That’s interesting.”
“We should look around,” Elena said.
Robin gave a definitive nod. “All right. Let’s assess the situation. Ibn, you and Hans are with me.”
“I will comply,” Ibn said, “but why have I been selected?”
“You’re a surveyor,” Robin said. “We’re surveying.”
“I am primarily a geologist.”
“Then keep your eyes open for interesting rocks. I’m also taking you because you know how to shoot. Hans, I guess you get to open that stupid weapons locker after all.” They had a small cache of weapons in case they landed on a planet with hostile wildlife, though they’d considered the odds of that drastically low. It was far more likely they would die from hostile microorganisms or equipment failure. “Let’s suit up and see what’s happening out there. Sebastien, Uzoma, and Elena, you stay on board. We’ll keep in radio contact.”
“I’d like to go outside to play, please,” Sebastien said.
“You’re my second in command, Sebastien. If whatever we find out there proves unfriendly, and we don’t come back, you’re in charge.”
“Heavy lies the head that wears the crown,” he murmured.
“Uzoma, see if you can send a transmission through the walls of… whatever this place is. Let Earth know we found something.”
Uzoma nodded and left the room at a brisk walk, which was as close to frantic as Elena had ever seen them.
“What about me?” Elena said.
“I’m sticking with the members of the crew who have military experience for this first foray. If it seems safe, you can come out soon, and if we encounter anything that seems alive, we’ll definitely want your assessment.”
Elena didn’t pout, because that would be unprofessional, but she couldn’t stop herself from sighing. “All right. Please keep your helmet cams on and streaming.”
“Not to be overly psychological about all this,” Sebastien said, “but if you go out there with guns, prepared for hostility, you might find just that.”
“I’m aware of the risks,” Robin said. “But I’m not about to explore a possibly alien space station with nothing but flashlights.” She handed Elena the tablet. “We’ll stream our video here.” She left the cargo hold, followed by Hans and Ibn, who gave them a grave nod farewell as he passed.
Sebastien sat down on a crate. “Shall we sit back and enjoy the show?”
“How can you be so calm?”
“Like you said, our odds of survival were always low. I didn’t really expect to wake up again after I went into cryosleep, and then I did, to do my days of solo duty on the ship, but every time I went back into cold storage I expected it to be the last time. All this is just bonus existence, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, it’s interesting. This place, this station, this object, whatever it is… I’ve always been fascinated by projects on such huge scales. The coordination and organization and effort involved always dazzles me.”
Elena snorted, looking into the dim view on the screen. “It’s definitely dazzling.”
He patted the crate beside him, and she sat. They looked at the screen together as the others suited up and their helmet feeds came online. Hans was handing out some surprisingly low-tech guns: a pistol for Robin, a shotgun for himself, and an automatic rifle for Ibn, who’d been a sniper in the water wars.
Elena said, “You’d think we’d have fancy lasers or plasma blasters or something. The future is a disappointment.”
“Simple ballistic guns are easy to repair and service, and it’s not even hard to cast extra ammunition, with the fabricators we have. Plasma is notoriously hard to make from scratch.”
“All right, can you hear us?” Robin said.
“We can indeed,” Sebastien said.
“We were ready to explore unknown and dangerous terrain, but we didn’t expect to start with the inside of a giant anthill, so we’ll see how this goes.”
Hans was uncharacteristically silent as they opened the airlock, and Ibn characteristically so. The screen was divided into quadrants: three squares for the helmet feeds, and one rotating through the ship’s external cameras. Three figures in environment suits appeared on that fourth screen, moving in close formation, and Sebastien stabbed the quadrant with his forefinger to keep it from rotating away from that view. The suits had lights on their helmets and on the arms, and the crew shone them around in various directions, moving with military precision and grace. The views through their helmet cams were just indistinct washes of brightness, and darkness, and shapes.
“Looks like some kind of hangar,” Robin said. “Lots of big equipment. Cranes, hooks, nozzles… no sign of anything moving, though–”
The ship abruptly shuddered, clattering against the hangar floor, and Sebastien and Elena exchanged a glance. The ship rose into the air rapidly, the external camera feed showing the figures receding below, the helmet feeds showing the ship receding above. Hans cursed, and Ibn muttered a prayer, and Robin shouted, “Sebastien, are you all right?”
“Apart from being dragged into the sky? Yes.” His voice betrayed either fear or excitement or both.
“It looks like some kind of claw grabbed the Anjou and… Wait, there’s light, are those sparks?”
Elena leaned toward the screen, frowning at the view from the helmet cams far below. It was hard to see through such distant cameras, but it looked like the Anjou had been pulled up into some kind of docking cradle, and now robotic arms were sliding and ratcheting around… and tearing chunks off the ship, and cutting at the hull with white-hot torches, showering sparks. The distant squeal and shriek of metal made Elena and Sebastien huddle closer together.
“Who the hell’s doing that?” Robin said. “Where’s the control center?”
“Might not be one,” Hans said. “It could be some kind of automatic repair system.”
“I– ” Robin said, and then the hangar flooded with light, and they all saw the alien.