Because someone had suggested it, Gunter Tifft had made inquiries of the line marine that followed him around like a hungry, stray dog spying food. Or a cat stalking a wounded rabbit.
He had never met Lady Moirrey Kermode in the flesh, only heard the wild speculations about the woman. Was she really a ninja-super-agent?
The big space of Firehawk’s engineering lab had seemed to swallow her up when she joined him. Two of the ship’s engineers were handy to answer questions, but had been instructed to remain silent and observe, until addressed. Apparently, they lived in awe or fear of the woman.
In person, she was tiny. A meter and a half tall. Less than fifty kilograms. Raven-black hair. Slender.
It was the eyes that gave away who she was. Somewhere between hazel and blue, depending on the light. Looking through him right now like she had x-rays for vision.
More legend.
“Thank you for joining me, Lady Moirrey,” Gunter said carefully to a woman who had helped defeat an Empire. “The Grand Admiral appreciates your assistance in this matter.”
This was a thing, resting between them on an engineering table. A squat, metal box not quite a meter on a side. Not quite a cube, but close enough to count. A container in brittle, black metal.
The treasure on the asteroid, once the assault team had secured it and brought it back for the engineers on Firehawk to be stumped by, once they started inspecting it.
“So what’s ya gots and hows kin I halp?” the woman chirped at him.
Gunter had to replay the phrase in his head to translate it, once he realized she was still speaking English to him. It had sounded almost Chinese in intonation.
“When we arrived, Firehawk picked up a transmission signal,” Gunter replied. “Intermittent to us, but that was a result of it resting on an asteroid that was tumbling, relative to our location. We captured it, disabled it, and retrieved it. Everyone on this crew has been unable to identify it. Firehawk has engineers, but not scientists. The best they might be able to do is dismantle it, so the Grand Admiral suggested I ask you first.”
Somehow, Gunter wasn’t surprised that this woman reached into a pocket on her thigh and pulled out a…call it a tool, whatever the hell it was.
“Ooh,” she grinned. “Best kinds o’secrets. No’ armed?”
Armed?
Ah. Dangerous. A bomb, perhaps? The first thing the assault team had verified, before they brought aboard their shuttle.
“No, sir,” Gunter said. “Ma’am. Power supply. Transmitter. And something one of our engineers called a black box, whatever that means.”
“Rights,” she leaned forward and just touched the casing with her bare hand. “And you ha’no opened her to peeks?”
Pause. Translate.
“No, Lady Moirrey,” Gunter finally comprehended her words. “We scanned it, but the metal was…radiation-welded? Was that the right term?”
“Close-nuff,” she grinned up at him. “Solar wind, long-nuff. Charge builds up, moves molecules. Takes forever, though. Makes this old.”
“How old?” he asked, suddenly concerned.
In response, the woman engineer rapped the casing with a knuckle, and then tapped it with the tool in her right hand. It made an oddly-hollow thunk unlike anything Gunter could remember ever hearing.
She shrugged and continued to touch the device, leaning this way and that.
At one point, he thought she might actually climb atop the table, until she found a switch that lowered the surface nearly to the deck.
Something caught her eye as he watched, utterly lost. Gunter glanced at the other two men, but they weren’t any better. One actually shrugged silently.
“’Ere we goes,” she said, standing with her toes on the tabletop and hunched over the top of the box. She paused and looked around before pointing at the closer of the two engineers.
“You,” she ordered, suddenly sharp with her vocabulary. “Get me a cotton rag, a liter of pure water, and a towel. Now.”
The man jumped and ran. Lady Moirrey leaned over and looked at the device from very close.
She might have sniffed it. Maybe he just imagined that.
The go-fer engineer returned with the requested items, placing them next to her, but not returning to his previous spot by the wall.
Gunter watched her wet the cotton rag with some of the water, and then rub it softly across the top of the device. Satisfied, she repeated it, using about half of the water.
Gunk accumulated on the rag as she worked. At one point, Lady Moirrey even looked up at him and winked.
Gunter kept his silence. And his distance.
Eventually, she took the towel and wiped everything down, tossing it over her shoulder for anyone in range to catch. Gunter could see a design of some sort, perhaps a logo, along with writing etched into the metal.
“Huh,” she announced, standing.
Not that it made that much difference in how she appeared, being shoulder-high on him, even if she was on her toes.
“Needs ta cracks it op’n,” she continued. “But yu gots an antique here. Ain’t see’d the likes, but heard tales.”
“Please pardon my ignorance, Lady Kermode,” Gunter said carefully. “What is it?”
“Asteroid mining beacon,” she replied, tapping it. “Tags a claim, broadcasts a signal fer anyone close by. Lets you navigate by it. Establishes legal ownership, but I doubt the rightful heir’s like to come back and argue fer his claim these days. Even if’n you’s now technically a claim-jumper.”
“Why not?” Gunter asked carefully.
In response, she reached down and touched some of the writing he had seen.
“This beacon was placed on October 20, 1153 Union of Man,” she said.
Gunter tried to do the math in his head, but history had never been his strong suit.
“When was that?” he asked, feeling mortified to show such weakness in front of a woman.
“Five thousand, three hundred, and twenty-nine years ago, Lieutenant Commander Tifft,” Lady Moirrey got formal, all of a sudden. “Twenty-two centuries before Earth was destroyed in the Concordancy War. I would suggest you deliver it to the Imperial Institute of Mines when you’re done with it. You can’t build something this durable today, but they should be able to mimic it. Otherwise, I might take it upon myself to completely dismantle the device and catalog it.”
Gunter paused, and then decided to test his luck. He straightened, almost to attention.
“Lady Moirrey Kermode,” he intoned formally. “I have been instructed by the Grand Admiral himself to solve this mystery. As a Ritter of the Imperial Household, you would be doing a service for the entire Empire if you were to perform a careful, scientific study of this machine.”
Her face got concerned, like she thought he was playing some joke on her, but it cleared up quickly.
“Dinna have time,” she replied. “Take months ’n’yer leavin’ in days.”
True, they were scheduled to return to St. Legier in short order.
But his orders had been both extremely specific, and crafted with the necessary latitude.
“I can have it delivered to you aboard Auberon forthwith,” he added.
From the way her face changed, Gunter was concerned for a moment that the woman was about to kiss him. He relaxed to a nice parade rest, which had the benefit of moving him back half a step.
Just in case she was about to attack him.
“Dones,” she chirped. “Will lets ya knows. Is good?”
“It is,” Gunter said. “Thank you.”
And like a storm, she was gone.
Gunter turned to the closest engineer and tapped the clean spot.
“I want full reproductions of that, including silicon casts if you can,” he ordered the man. “Then deliver it to zu Kermode with all attendant courtesies. If you are nice, she might include your names in the seminal, scientific paper she’s likely to write on this device.”
Gunter stepped out of their way as their own storm erupted.
Fifty-three centuries, just floating in the dark, announcing itself to the galaxy.
What had that beacon seen?