| "Joseph, come over here and
check this out!" said Gloria. "Is
this what I think it is?"
Gloria and Joseph were members of an advanced landing team
that had been dispatched to Sierra, a newly discovered moon
of Uranus, to search the landscape for any signs of past or
present life forms. Another landing team would be arriving
in just over 6 months to assist them in their work. There
were 6 members of the advanced landing team and everyone had
their specific duties. Bill and Sue was busy
constructing the team's new living quarters in this barren
frozen world. Frank and Judy was working on extracting
oxygen from the permafrost that surrounded their new home
with a gadget developed by the National Space Travel Agency
back on Earth. Gloria and Joseph were experienced planetary
archeologists and had worked many years digging through
ancient ruins on many exotic worlds.
"What do
you make of it", Gloria asked Joseph, expecting a big sigh
of relief.
"It looks
like a piece of ancient pottery, but resembles Platinum.
Let's take the sample back to camp so we can examine it in
more detail", Joseph said as he reached for the interesting
piece of alien material. One thing was for sure, this didn't
look like something designed by mother nature. There must
have been an intelligent being responsible for this tiny
piece of indescribable material.
They made their way
back to the base camp where they had a small analyzer and
some other basic lab equipment. Frank and Judy had taken a
small tracked vehicle to a nearby ice glacier to take
measurements on the oxygen contents to determine the best
location for the oxygen generators. The plan was to set up a
small oxygen/water generating station there to support the
base camp until a more permanent base could be established.
They were expected to be back to the base camp before dark.
"Run the
specimen through the analyzer and let's see what we have",
said Joseph to Gloria. Meanwhile he was surfing through the
computer banks researching all the data bases for ancient
artifacts. Even though he couldn't identify the material of
the alien artifact, he felt as though he had seen a similar
artifact many years ago while working a dig in a remote
Central American jungle.
Bill and
Sue were busy constructing temporary living quarters from a
maze of plastic pipe and a special radiation blocking
plastic film that would cover the pipe Skelton. Bill
noticed that Joseph and Gloria had returned abruptly from
their scheduled all day dig a short distance from the base
camp. It was imperative that they completed the temporary
housing before sundown as the temperatures would be -100
degrees below zero in a few short hours. The success of the
entire expedition depended on Bill and Sue being able to
quickly construct the temp quarters. Eventually they
would carve out blocks of ice from the frozen permafrost to
build more permanent individual living quarters for the
entire team but for now the solar tents would have to keep
them warm and protect them from the dangerous radiation. The
moon Sierra did have a light atmosphere but would not
support humans without supplemental oxygen. The plan was to
pipe oxygen and water from the generators to the solar
tents. The process would take several days to complete.
"I hope
everything is ok", Bill said to Sue as he drew the plastic
tarp tightly over the pipe framing and secured it with
special fasteners. "They were not due back at the base
camp for several hours. We're almost finished with the solar
tent. Maybe we should go back to camp and see what's up".
Bill said to Sue as she was finishing up inside the solar
tents installing a small portable nuclear heater.
"Let's
finish up with the solar tent first." Sue replied. We're
going to have a real problem if the tent is not completed by
sundown." Sue continued the finishing touches inside
the tent without even glancing back at the base camp. Bill
also reconsidered after reflecting for a moment on the
projections the Earth scientists had made regarding the
night temperatures on Sierra.
Frank and Judy had just completed the initial setup of the
oxygen generators when they received a message from base
camp requesting that they return to the base camp
immediately. Although the oxygen generators were necessary
for their long term survival on this strange new world, it
was the solar tents that had to be completed before
nightfall. They had enough oxygen to make it for
several days. They figured Bill and Sue must be having a
problem with the newly designed solar tent so they headed
back to the base camp.
"Joseph.
Come look at this!" Gloria said with noticeable
excitement in her voice. Joseph was examining some images on
his laptop computer screen that resembled the alien
artifact.
"This
thing has an unidentified molecular structure. The
elements in this specimen are not native to this moon or
this solar system. I'm not sure what to make of it."
Gloria sounded to Joseph. "There's little chance of
contamination considering we're trillions of miles from
Earth." It had been Joseph and Gloria's lifetime dream
to discover a trace of alien life on a new world, but they
had expected to spend months, even years before uncovering
undeniable evidence. They had discovered this artifact
within a couple hours of landing for the first time.
In the years
leading up to this distant interplanetary expedition to the
end of the solar system, many artificial satellites had been
sent from Earth to orbit Sierra and build an extensive data
base on the moon's surface, mineral makeup, gases and
possible landing sites. Maybe one of the orbiting
satellites had crash landed on this barren world and through
a unique combination of heat and cold had changed the
molecular composition on a small piece of the craft that lay
before them. Surely intelligent life had not existed on this
world before they landed recently. Could this small artifact
have come from their own spaceship as it landed earlier that
day? Did the 3 year flight through the vacuum of space
and time somehow affect the molecular Chemistry of their own
ship. Its true this mission to the outer limits of their
solar system was the longest flight man had ever undertaken.
Earlier satellites sent into deep space had never returned
to Earth for analysis so no one really knew how space and
time could affect a ship on a interplanetary mission.
Scientists knew the effects of space travel on the human
body and had prepared them by injecting microscopic medical
robots into their bodies prior to the mission liftoff. The
bots would fight off and kill any disease at the molecular
level. They also had a very demanding daily workout routine
to offset muscle loss, but what about the spaceship.
Had anyone considered how the ship might be affected?
Nightfall was closing
in on this lonely world at the end of the solar system. The
temperature continued to drop as the Earth based scientists
had predicted. The six explorers were cuddled up in the
solar tent being warmed by the small atomic heater as they
looked at a night sky that had never looked so
beautiful before. Everyone pondered with questions about the
alien artifact but it would be hours before the
communications with the data they had send back to Earth
would be received. Many more hours before they would receive
a response. They wondered how the scientists back on earth
would evaluate the data they had forwarded them. Perhaps
they would have some reasonable explanations for the alien
artifact. They planned on doing a complete analysis of the
landing probe in the morning to see if their theory that
space and time had modified the spaceship's molecular
structure, but for now all was good. Tonight they were
warm, the night sky was intoxicating and they were with
friends.
Joseph and Gloria, also
known by Mat and Francis, Ken and Lynda, Fred and Marsha and
many other names looked at each other and grinned. Tonight
they would be joining their true friends and family. They
had spent decades looking for the alien artifact. They had
been sent to recover the alien artifact by the extragalactic
counsel almost 100 years ago. Now they had finally recovered
it and sent the data to their home race in another Galaxy.
Tonight their race would return to collect the alien
artifact and take them back home.
As the night grew
darker the Sierra landing team huddled in the solar tent,
excited at the idea they may have just discovered the first
remnants of intelligent life in the solar system. They were
unaware that they were about as close to alien intelligent
life at this moment in the solar tent as the human race
would be for centuries.
The
End
(c) Copyrighted 2009
by
www.cybersci-fi.com
Another Science
Fiction Short Story By Roy Fuller below:
"Maldor
Prime, New Eden" -
Visit another world where settler's have ventured to find an
escape from everything they dislike about the Earth. They
discover something far beyond anything they imagined on this
desolate world.
Roy Fuller, Short Story Science Fiction Writer
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