On the arrival of the Cronus at Nine, its five-year journey from Saturn complete, by agreement with the Shadow crew the Cronus passengers and crew were held in orbit around Nine for a few more days while final details of quarantine requirements were thrashed out.
“Thrashed out” – as far as Caspar was concerned, it was a delay partly because of setting up of quarantine protocols and so forth, but also because of a good deal of antler-locking over control of the event between himself and Hild Kanigel, the evidently super-competent captain of the Shadow. Polite antler-locking, but antler-locking even so.
And on reflection, Caspar thought he would have been just as prickly over the arrival of strangers to his exploratory camp, if he had been in Hild’s shoes. But at least it gave him time to sight-see.
On his last full day, having completed a last shipboard briefing with Elizabeth Vasta for download to Earth, Caspar stood with her at one of the ship’s larger picture windows – a remnant feature of the days before Nine, when Cronus had still been a mixture of interplanetary freighter and luxury liner, before its refitting for this extraordinary venture out of the inner Solar System altogether.
And it was only by looking through one of these great portals that Caspar felt he could get the scale of all this. Even if all he could make out of Nine itself was a sharp-edged grey-dark circle, barely illuminated by the light of the distant Sun.
‘Not much to see,’ he muttered. ‘For a quasi-planet three times the size of Earth.’
Vasta drifted over to his side, moving confidently and easily after so long in space, her surface pack in her hand, ready for the final descent.
‘And ten times the mass, remember,’ she said. ‘Maybe not much to see. Unlike true planets, nothing to sense, except for its simple, huge presence. And I doubt very much it can be compared to a true planet, save for the mass, the size … A featureless ball – though not quite so featureless now, given the bits of human clutter the crew of the Shadow took down with them, the shelters they improvised …’
In response to her words, anticipating instructions, screens with close-up inserts, supporting the view through the big window, showed a scattering of interconnected bubble shelters, differing in size, set out irregularly on the surface. Most of the domes had lamps of some kind to make their presence stand out on the black surface. Looking like an improvised village, it was evidently a colony that had evolved rather than been planned.
‘It looks – brave,’ Vasta said. ‘Doesn’t it? Humans challenging the unknown. Umm, domesticating it.’ And she touched the black pearl at her neck.
Caspar was distracted. Mildly irritated, as he often was, by her growing habit of touching the pendant, apparently unconsciously. He had no idea what the bit of jewellery meant to her. It wasn’t even particularly attractive …
She said now, ‘And it is evidently not a planet at all, whatever it is. But it’s not a black hole either. Not any more. Something else. Featureless save for that Hawking radiation, and the creature they called Feathers.’ She glanced at him. ‘I imagine you know what comes next? The planned experiment, which they’ve held off until we’ve arrived, is to reflect back more of the data the Shadow people detected in the Hawking radiation as they did before, but this time with a message from us constructed within. Something simple, I’m told – they’re guessing that even dot-dash variations in intensity might be enough. Just evidence of structure, of intelligent modification – proof that it’s not just a plain reflection. That might be message enough. Well, I’ve agreed it’s the next obvious thing for us to try – once we’ve landed, and got the encounter stuff with the Shadow crew out of the way.’
He had to laugh at that. ‘Now you sound like a true scientist. All the sense of wonder beaten out of you. “Encounter stuff”, including Feathers, you mean? Meeting the alien?’
She smiled, self-deprecating. ‘One must try to be objective. But, yes, the alien – and some believe she is the key to all this – or at least to our understanding of it— all this, as our world is being transformed through this contact. We walk in ancient dreams …’
A soft chime rang through the ship.
She smiled. ‘Anyhow, I hope we won’t be disappointed. Time to go?’
Caspar was back in ship’s captain mode. ‘Time to go. That’s the call for preparation for the landing. So, as you know, we go down in groups. We don’t want to overwhelm the Shadow crew, with them having been alone with all this for eleven years already. You’re in the first party, of course.’
‘Damn right I am. I can’t wait – and I’m not alone in that. And not alone in being touched, already changed, by this event from afar …’
That was true, Caspar reflected, as he shut down screens with touches, and led Vasta out of the lounge. Maybe this strange incursion at the edge of the Solar System was already changing mindsets. Even changing attitudes, revising alliances.
The Conservers, of course, had shared the news of their first cautious discovery from the beginning. Even the Lunar Consortium were cooperating now, once they had got over their tantrum at the launch from Saturn – and Earth itself, still a very divided society, increasingly battered by the quasar fall-out, was pulling together in the face of this strangeness. Yes, despite the destructive scramble that had accompanied the launch of this new fusion-powered version of Cronus from Saturn – and despite some disruption, such as among reviving religious groups – after five long years the various broad factions in human society, including those represented aboard Cronus, it seemed to him, were now working together to meet this strange challenge.
Vasta seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
‘It’s an old dream, you know. To meet the alien. Or nightmare. But one hope always buried in that dream was that maybe in the presence of some external entity, friendly or hostile, humans might finally recognise our own fundamental unity.’ Her smile was dazzling. ‘It’s wonderful, really – all of it, isn’t it? Save for what that damn quasar is doing to the Earth … And all happening in our lifetimes.’
Suddenly he saw why she did her job. Beyond the monster bureaucracies she must have to navigate, the sheer wondrous joy of discovery must still come breaking through. Even if all this was mostly someone else’s discovery. And even if the responsibility that came with this particular job was huge.
He smiled back. ‘Let’s go see what’s down there.’