Supernal

Chapter 4

7:20 pm Thursday, 21st June 2029

Orbiting Construction Facility (OCF)

A little over six hours later Toby pulled himself through the docking tunnel and into the OCF's airlock. He closed his eyes as UVC lamps came on for several seconds before the internal doors slid open and he pushed himself forward, trying not to appear a complete idiot as he performed an involuntary somersault.

A young guy with a short beard and a wide grin was waiting for him, hanging on to one of many grab handles bolted to the structure. The surfaces were all white. It reminded Toby of a bathroom in an old folk's home.

"Dr Jardine. Your first time in zero gravity I presume?" the man laughed. "How are you feeling?"

"Sick," Toby admitted as the man caught him by the sleeve to halt his motion.

"Yeah, it gets you like that at first. You'll feel better when we get into the accommodation module and have something to eat. We've got gravity there and its freeze-dried lamb stew for dinner. You're just in time."

Toby gulped at the thought of lamb stew.

"Thanks for that, I really appreciate the offer. But it's a bit early for dinner isn't it?"

"Early? It's seven-thirty. We're running a few hours ahead of Kennedy. The boss is in the cargo hold unloading some spares from the Dragon so he asked me to meet you. I'm Rob Stevens, comms geek turned hotshot signal tracker."

"Aha! Does that mean you've found out where the message came from?"

"Well, I already had a rough idea of the coordinates, and when we put that together with Charlie Lee's theories we came up with only one logical location. We're pretty sure we're on the mark."

"How can you be sure? There are a lot of planets out there."

"Because it's the only reason we can come up with for the ETs to ask for Charlie to be here, but we'll fill you in at the briefing later tonight. We can't talk about it here. The boss is worried the walls might have ears."

#

Rob's prediction proved correct. Half an hour in artificial gravity and Toby was feeling fine and making up for missing his lunch. He had discovered that the OCF ran on Co-ordinated Universal Time which was four hours ahead of Florida time. His six-hour trip had used up ten precious hours.

The lamb stew was surprisingly good and he met the other two members of the team when they came to the crew room to eat.

The project director, Howard Summers, returned from the cargo hold and announced that the Dragon had undocked and was on its way back to Earth. He had used a robotic arm to unload a new oxygen control unit. He looked like a tough ex-marine. His iron-grey hair was buzz-cut and he had a way of squinting at you intensely through gimlet eyes. Toby found out afterwards that he hated wearing his spectacles. Toby hadn't been sure how to address Summers. After all, as the president's spouse, he was officially the 'First Gentleman'. He'd had a quiet word, and Summers told him that if anyone called him that, or 'First Man' he would break their legs. He insisted everyone just call him 'Summers'.

Dr Charlotte Lee introduced herself as 'Charlie' and was the antithesis of a university professor. She was tiny and darted around the crew room making sure everyone had enough to eat and drink. Her energy seemed boundless and she never stopped talking. Toby couldn't imagine her controlling a group of boisterous undergraduates until she reprimanded Rob for leaving his disposable food carton on the table when he got up to go check for any messages from NASA. Cowed, he returned and pushed it into the waste compactor. He winked and mouthed the words 'tiger momma' as he left.

#

Toby had started to ask questions over dinner but had been silenced by a glare from Summers.

"We don't discuss anything about this project outside the SBR," he said emphatically. "We're meeting at 10 pm to go over what we know, and how we plan to proceed."

That was all Summers would say. From his meeting with the president, Toby knew SBR was the acronym for a secure briefing room. Security was obviously taken very seriously on the Mars Colony Project.

#

All four were in the briefing room in good time and Summers began by explaining to Toby that the reason for their caution was not because they thought the OCF might be electronically bugged, it was in case their visitors had long-range listening devices aboard their vessel. Until they knew more about who they were, why they had come and what they wanted, it was a case of 'paranoia rules, okay?'.

"You've had no communication since they arrived?" Toby asked.

"None," Summers shook his head. "Just like their message said. But tomorrow is the 22nd, so I'm assuming that anytime after midnight we'll get a knock on the airlock door."

"You're joking, right? Seriously, how will we know when they're coming?"

"We can either keep a permanent watch on their spacecraft to see if it moves or just wait till the docking system tells us. Anything that locks on to our docking ring will set off flashing lights and annoyingly loud alerts all over the OCF."

"I vote we set up a watch rota on the spacecraft," Rob proposed. "At least that way we might get a few hours of shuteye. Otherwise, we're going to be biting our nails all night waiting for the alarms."

"I agree," Summers said. "I'll hand out some pagers and sort out a rota when we're finished here, but I think we're in for a long night whichever way we play it."

#

Once that was decided, Summers suggested they bring Toby up to speed with what they knew, or suspected, to date.

"It's all just conjecture at the moment," he admitted, "but it's all we've got. Rob, you might as well start with your signal tracking data."

"Not much to tell really," Rob began. "When I picked up the transmission I assumed it was some joker on Earth who had cracked our encrypted radio channel. We use MELPe digital radio that's supposed to be secure. I went to the boss and advised him to request a change to the encryption codes, and then I forgot about it for a couple of hours.

The transmissions are recorded automatically and at the end of my shift I was going to move it to the trash folder but I thought it would be fun to see if I could find out where it had been broadcast. We have several rotating antennas so we can extrapolate the direction of a signal by measuring the strength according to the angle of each antenna."

He paused and looked at the blank look on Toby's face.

"It's not really as complicated as it sounds when you know how."

"Remember I'm only a biologist," Toby reminded him.

"Okay ... to cut a long story short, I expected to track the signal to an area on Earth so I would know roughly what country it was from, but I found it came from completely the opposite direction. Somewhere between Mercury and the Sun. That's when I went back to the boss and told him there was a possibility the message was genuine."

"It just so happened," Summers added, "that I had a personal call to my wife on our encoded sat phone arranged for that evening. I'm not confident that the sat phone is totally secure but I managed to convey the gist of the situation without giving away any details. I sent her a copy of the recording on the next shuttle. She decided to take it seriously, and the rest you know."

"I still don't understand how the signal could have come from the direction of Mercury. Are there any space probes out there that could have sent it?"

"No, I checked the NASA data for all probes still in our solar system and there's nothing anywhere near that area. But Dr Lee has a theory that might hold some water."

Summers indicated that Charlie should tell her part of the story.

"What do you know about Goldilocks?" she began.