Chapter Nine

 

Cramer and Mona climbed into one of the taxis, checked communications with the ship, then, satisfied with the systems check, depressurized the taxi bay and exited silently with the repulsion drive. She piloted the taxi as he kept quiet. He snuck a glance at her, her face a picture of concentration, yet she was relaxed and confident in piloting the craft through a cloudless sky. Her long blonde hair continued to fascinate him, along with the cherry lips, lips he secretly labeled as kissable.

He returned his attention to the instrument panel, a maze of switches, buttons, indicator bulbs, meters, and a scope. From their high orbit they circled the planet once in their approach to the giant antennas. The dark side of the planet, as viewed by infrared, looked desolate with patches of desert appearing among otherwise verdant areas. Their horizontal flight took them lower until the giant dish antennas peeked over the horizon just ahead. Mona brought the taxi to a gentle landing at the base of one of the antennas.

Cramer activated the taxi doors, which swung out and up, followed by a noticeable hiss as the little craft’s interior equalized with the planet’s atmosphere. Right away, he could detect the oxygen-rich atmosphere. He felt less stress in his lungs when he breathed. He took deep gulps of the air, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the sensation of new strength.

As they stepped out on a concrete apron he and Mona craned their necks to look at the full height of the closest antenna. The marvelous structure of complex girders was placed in a swiveling pattern around a huge track, pointing to the sky. They reminded him of some of the antenna arrays on Earth. Block buildings perched in the distance.

“Let’s check out that building over there, Joe.” Mona pointed a gloved hand.

Their taxi instruments did not detect any residual radiation, but as they approached the building at the base of the dish antenna he could see fried bus cables coming from the building to the antenna. As they approached the building’s door, he feared they’d find alien bodies inside. A land vehicle sat near the door. Shaped like half a football, its shell nearly hid the wheels beneath. He stared at the dash and tried to start it, but to no avail.

“They must be humanoid, although smaller than we are.” He ran his hand over the vinyl seat, which looked suitable for a ten-year-old.

As Cramer and Mona approached the door of the building, he noted the low doorknob and short door. They ducked to enter. He inwardly groaned at several skeletons either seated or lying on the floor, all small of stature.

“This is sad. A freak astronomical event wiped out an entire race,” he said. He sighed, gazing at the bodies that had been active, intelligent, teeming with life ten years ago, now lifeless. Sorrow washed over him as he stood near a seated figure, its boney digits still grasping a dusty panel knob.

Mona examined the instrument console markings and documents scattered on a nearby table.

“Look at this.” She bent over the table and picked up a chart. Cramer moved to her side and stared at a mixture of English and alien markings on the chart.

“It’s a listing of the transmissions to and from Earth,” she continued.

“Seems like they figured out our language. This column indicates when the transmissions occurred, labeled as years in our language, and this column is apparently in their own language.” He jabbed a finger at the strange markings in the last column.

“The dates are eight and six tenths years apart and reference these binders that contain the messages sent and received,” she said, picking up one of the binders and leafing through it. “Well, Witherspoon obviously didn’t just say hello to them, or did they just say hello to us?”

He scanned the last entry on the chart and found the booklet that corresponded to that entry. He leafed through it. “Hey. See this? The medical information regarding what they could do for Witherspoon is here. Fortunately, our language and theirs are side by side. Now if only we can find the medical machinery this is referring to.”

“That’s why we’re here, but I would like to find some hydrogen fuel too,” she said.

“Well, so would I. Let’s hope we can do both in less than a month.”

A thick volume lay on a separate table. They both spotted it at the same time. Mona reached it first, opened the cover page, then frowned. Cramer stared over her shoulder. Page after page, the scientists wrote only in their native tongue, not a hint of English.

He turned to Mona. “Do you suppose Lila could take what cross reference we have between our languages and do a translation for the rest of their writings?”

“It’s worth a try,” she answered.

He gathered up several documents, both those with side by side text of alien and Earth language, and strictly alien documents. He went to the taxi, called Lila, then faxed the appropriate pages to her. She seemed hopeful she could arrive at a translation and perhaps even build a translator in case they encountered any aliens who survived.

They walked between the other antenna buildings and only found fried computers, no corpses or significant documents. The detector Mona wielded confirmed there was no information in the data storage devices. Arriving back at their taxi they gazed in the direction of what might be a city some distance away. The taxi’s radio crackled to life.

Lila sounded distressed as she said, “I’m detecting a storm heading your way.”

“Where? It’s as clear as can be here,” he answered. He focused intently at the sky, seeing only the double suns overhead and a small star, the brown dwarf, near the horizon. The whitish blue atmosphere looked serene enough.

“Look at the farthest antenna,” she said, pointing.

He jerked his head, following her arm and finger. Lightning sparks swarmed all over that antenna, the static discharges loud, piercing. Finely divided dust lifted from the concrete and swirled in a circular pattern, menacing, violent. It moved from one antenna structure to the next in a matter of a few seconds. A charge on his skin lifted the hairs on his arms straight up. He spotted a discharge bolt heading straight for Mona.

He dove between her and the jagged, searing shaft. She dropped from the swirling wind, and the discharge swarmed over him, a wide beam instead of a pinpoint strike. Despite the wide dispersal intense heat covered for a second, and he tasted the pungent odor of ozone. He fell, choked on the sickly sweet gas, then hit his head on the concrete. He didn’t see Mona before he lost consciousness.

~ * ~

Cramer tried to get up. The landscape swam in a circle. Easing himself back down, he grimaced from the bruises and scrapes over his body. His head throbbed, outdoing all other pain. He slowly turned his head and noted the absence of the brown dwarf in the sky. The twin suns hovered near the horizon. Now he lay on soft ground and tall grass which was good against his scraped back.

He could see no sign of Mona, the taxi, the antenna buildings, or a city. No wind rustled the leaves, no birds sang; only the ever present ringing in his ears interrupted the eerie silence of his surroundings. He looked at his portable radio—smashed, missing buttons, scratched plastic case.

Walking was painful; his flight coveralls were smudged, some blood showing through the knees. He felt his left elbow, wrenched in pain, then carefully unzipped the sleeve to look. Bruises dotted and scrapes slashed their way from just above his wrist to the elbow. Miraculously, his right arm escaped injury. He supposed the swirling wind had deposited him in the middle of this field. Judging from the suns’ positions he started in a direction he hoped would bring him back to the antenna buildings. He limped, toppling from side to side.

The tall grass tugged at his boots, threatening to trip him every step. Hunger and thirst ravished his body. His injuries wore him out. He followed the tall grass areas leveled from the wind. The flattened grass reminded him of ancient photos he’d seen of crop circles on Earth. He gazed into the blue sky, not knowing which direction the solar system may be. He chastised himself over and over for not being cunning enough to get himself out of this predicament and pleaded with Cindy to forgive him for allowing himself to be abducted and then not finding a way to escape in time. He stumbled on.

Sirius and Sirius B escorting each other, dipped below the horizon and darkness dropped like a curtain. The lone planet rotated with speed, giving short days and nights. He went to the edge of the leveled grass, parted the nearby standing blades, and dropped to his knees, his side, then his back. The grass closed partially above him. The planet’s hot daylight gave way to a shivering night. Despite the cold, sleep came fast.

He awoke in full Sirius light, dwelling on his wretched frame of mind. It took a toll on him. He thought back to the many space exploration tasks he’d undertaken, many with Floyd and more recently with Mona. He didn’t have a wimpy bone in his body. Did it take someone else to shore him up? No. He went on solo missions, many dangerous ones, and braved the hazards. These concepts only served to drive him deeper into depression, yet it helped to enumerate them in his mind. Hydrogen fuel, the healing of Witherspoon, the operation of the huge star ship, Quest, by three persons, low on supplies and components, facing the Oort Cloud once more—all amounted to insurmountable odds. Cramer needed to rededicate himself and put his energy into conquering all those path blockers so he could get back to see Cindy.

A structure appeared before him. He couldn’t believe what he saw—a concrete head complete with a hat, but with no face. With hesitant steps, he approached it. The round concrete shaft, probably for ventilation and fitted with a hat perhaps to prevent any rubbish, rain, or other unwanted material from dropping into it, descended into the dark depths of the planet. A light breeze of cool air washed out. The old Cramer would check this out.

He stuck his head under the baffle and stared at the coarse, metallic sides leading into the dark depths. The air was refreshing and hinted of something mixed in. He couldn’t quite identify it. Where did the shaft go? Should he continue to look for Mona and bring her back here so they could investigate it together?

He gazed around and saw no landmarks nearby to help him locate this structure again. Mona might be injured and unable to do much, but given her abilities from previous missions, she seemed to always survive. Regardless of his scrapes and bruises, he prepared to check it out.

He placed his hand against the rough surface, deciding he could apply enough pressure to gain a hold. The small opening would prevent him from falling straight down without some part of his body catching and stopping his descent. He judged he could bend his knees a bit and apply some friction with his boot soles, bent elbows, and hand pressure. He tried to put his painful scrapes out of his mind. Surely there must be some technological surroundings at the bottom of the shaft.

He put his legs in first. Contorting his body past the baffle did the trick, but not without pain in his sore joints and scraped skin. He strained to change his arm positions and decided the best place his hands could get a good grip would be by his side.

He started his descent, looking up occasionally to judge his progress as the light grew dimmer. At first, he suffered no claustrophobia, but the deeper he went and the darker it became, he lost his smugness about that. He couldn’t help grunting from the aggravation of his injuries during the descent, but he kept going. The light above faded to a gray memory as he slipped downward.

The foreign odor, stronger now, jarred his memory. Camphor. He noted a faint glow below. With every inch of descent, the light grew stronger. He tucked his chin and tried to tip his head downward. His forehead touched the shaft wall. Finally, he began to make out some detail below. His ventilation shaft ended in the ceiling of a room. He couldn’t make out anything except the floor, directly below which seemed to be marble or some shiny slate. He stopped when his feet detected the edge of the shaft opening.

Could he survive the fall to the floor? Again, he strained to see what lay below. He thought he could glimpse something near the shaft, just out of his line of sight. With care, he pulled his knees up as much as he could and inched lower, afraid he might drop through before he intended. He hoped to be in a position to grab the structure when he did; his life depended on precise timing.

He pressed his hands against the shaft wall with all his might and lowered his knees. When his knees cleared the end of the shaft, he lost his hold. As he plunged downward and his head cleared the shaft, he spotted a horizontal support beam. He shot his hands out in an upward motion and clamped them onto the square beam. His body swung as he secured his grip. He contorted sideways and hooked one leg over the beam. Managing to hoist himself on top of the narrow beam, he surveyed his surroundings. The well-lit room must mean survivors.

He thanked the Lord he hadn’t fallen to the floor far below. A latticework of girders, of different sizes and shapes, scattered across the ceiling here and there. Cramer scanned the ceiling as far as he could see but didn’t spot a way down. He crawled along his girder, his scrapes and bruises still plaguing him, toward a huge structure that ran at right angles.

Once there he stood up handily and surveyed his surroundings below. Electronic consoles lined a wall, again appearing shorter in height, but they sat mute. The major support beam he stood on led to opposite walls some distance away in both directions. He squinted at the closest wall and spotted a beam leading to the floor. Walking in that direction, grabbing diagonal trusses for balance, he soon reached the beam that angled to the floor. Constructed like the I-beams found on Earth, he trusted his grip and agility to hold onto the vertical beam and slide to the floor.

He tried not to look down. He positioned himself then grasped the horizontal beam with both hands, slid to the vertical one then began his descent, leaving safety behind. The process took a long time, and he was convinced his hands wouldn’t stand it anymore, when he finally touched the floor. Worn out, he sank down and sat there for a while. The camphor odor revived him a bit.

He stood up, walked to the short consoles, then looked at the strange markings above each switch, knob, variable resistor, or mute readouts. Fortunately, he saw no corpses sitting in chairs, their skinless heads in a horrid eternal smile. Behind the cabinets a flexible conduit went through the floor, neatly positioned. Earth could learn a lot with their unruly wires, cables, or other electronic devices. The people of Sirius obviously didn’t throw something together in haste just to see if it worked. He admired their meticulous care, confidence, efficiency, and conservatism in how they constructed electronic equipment.

He followed his nose to the source of camphor, or whatever odorous aromatic compound it was. The scent led him to a louvered door. He opened it, only to be greeted by another door which seemed more secure and tight fitting. When he opened that one, he heard a pressurized hiss. The chamber’s construction was an enclosed cubicle with a single lamp in the ceiling. Yet another door faced him, but before he reached for the knob the overhead lamp changed from white to yellow.

He shielded his eyes, recognizing a sodium yellow illumination. Sodium emitted its characteristic yellow radiation, something he’d seen demonstrated on Earth in his college freshman chemistry class. A blue glow from the walls followed. Cramer noticed his skin felt like it was crawling with a million centipedes. A sterilization chamber came to his mind, one necessary for entering a very sensitive environment.

The yellow light changed back to white, and the blue glow went out. He heard a metallic click in front of him. Trying the knob, he twisted it and pushed, again creating the brief puff of equalizing pressure. He gasped at the contents of the glowing room before him.

Something like a CT scan instrument from Earth occupied the center of the room, with a glassed-in chamber instead of the narrow, exposed bed for the patient. That sight took a back seat when he saw what lined the walls. Several aliens lay in their own enclosed chambers. Electronic controls in black crinkle metal chassis sat under each chamber. An elaborate plumbing network fed each one via solenoid valves.

Cramer approached. The subtle differences in the aliens’ facial features distinguished them one from the other despite their similar height and weight. Naked, with ashen colored bodies and heads large in proportion, they seemed asleep, each with huge eyes closed; they appeared to have no jawbone. He moved closer to one unit and looked at the boney ribbed chest. In haste, he reversed and caught his breath. The chest rose and fell with an easy cadence of breath. He went to each one in turn, ten in all, and noted the same effect. The solenoids clicked, and gas hissed, startling him. All ten chambers operated in unison, the rush of gas stopping when another solenoid slammed home.

He strolled around the large room. Vertical chambers connected to various electronic hardware, tubing carrying liquid, and wire leads terminating in pads as well as different apparatuses and accessories associated with the treatment chambers. He hoped Witherspoon could be treated there and hydrogen fuel might be available too.

The door he entered through opened behind him. That sent cold chills over his body. He whirled to face an alien pointing a hand weapon at him. Before Cramer could say anything, the weapon belched a red beam. The shaft of light hit him, then enclosed his whole body with a glow that shocked him.

He fell to the floor, his conscious state giving way to a black mist falling on his alert state, his battle to stay awake failing.

~ * ~

Cramer’s awareness started with a floating sensation in a dark room then gave way to a dimly lit existence. An image formed in front of his face. The vision coalesced into a lovely face framed by long blonde hair. Mona.

“Joe, are you okay?”

“Mona, am I glad to see your beautiful face.”

“Well, it seems I’ve got your tail out of a wringer once again,” she said, smiling.

“Where am I?”

“In what appears to be a detention room near the entrance to this complex. You’ve been gone ten days.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Whatever hit you must have packed quite a wallop. I’ve been back to the ship and have a translator that will read alien text and interpret spoken language from them as well as change our speech into their language.”

“An alien used a hand weapon on me. Must have been a beamer. He caught me in their sterile medical lab,” he said.

“You found their treatment center?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I could find it again.”

He got up, but his legs threatened to buckle under his weight. Mona steadied him. Alert now, on an impulse, he encircled he with his arms and drew her close. “I’m glad to see you and know you’re all right.”

She planted one of her hands in the middle of his back. “Thanks to you for taking that lightning bolt, but there’s time for this later. We must find that med lab and meet them,” she said as he released her.

He tried to regain his composure. “Of course. I entered a ventilation shaft some distance from the place where the storm hit. The tall grass was flattened by the wind.”

“Trouble is the grass was mashed down in all directions from the antenna complex.”

“It was in the direction of the suns’ rising,” he replied.

“I found this entrance in the city,” she said, making a head motion to signify the direction. “Lila provided a grid map of the area. We can find the med center with that.”

“This underground complex must be a labyrinth of tunnels, rooms, and equipment areas. I’m sure there are many aliens who survived their planet’s trip through the radiation zone. Besides the guard, there were ten others in life support chambers.”

“Follow me. I want to show you something.” She went toward the door.

He trailed behind her, a bit steadier on his feet. She walked ahead down a short corridor and stopped at a railing, waiting for him to catch up. She leaned on the railing and looked down. He came to her side and followed her gaze.

He tried to take it all in. It seemed bottomless, with complex machinery lining the huge circular opening down as far as the eye could see. Far below at intervals, walkways and access doors spanned the chasm of machines.

“This must have taken generations in the aliens’ lives to build,” he said, reverence and respect creeping into his voice.

“The best minds of Earth couldn’t begin to understand all this,” she said.

He turned around and sank to the floor, his back resting on the railing. He put his hand on his stomach.

“I suspect you’re hungry and thirsty.” She took her bulky backpack off and fished through it.

“Am I ever.” Cramer held his head in his hands. She passed him space rations and a bottle of orange juice.

“That beamer weapon must have held you in some kind of suspension, otherwise you would’ve been too weak to stand after ten days without food.” She slid to the floor beside him.

He forced himself to eat and drink.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said. He refrained from spilling much more.

“Oh, I think you’ve done okay without me in the past.”

“Much better with you. We’ve been through a lot together. Have I said that before? No matter. It deserves to be said again.”

“Would you say that of Lila? She seems to support you at the right time.”

“True. Her responses are perfectly timed. It seems odd anybody could know exactly when and where to do that. Really, I prefer your…sorry, I’m getting too personal again. Best I focus on our two objectives—curing Witherspoon and getting hydrogen.”

“Someone is coming,” Mona said, reaching to turn on the translator.