We returned to the main cabin and entered the passageway. It was lined with doors, four on each side and one at the rear. Aiko tried to open one, twisted the knob and pushed. She got nothing. I tried to help but we couldn’t move it. “Everything’s frozen,” she said. “Maybe locked as well.” She floated back out into the cabin. “We’ve got a cutter back in the ship. I’m going to get it. You want to come or wait here?”
“I’ll wait.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” She went out through the airlock.
I opened my channel to Bryan. “How are you doing with the AI? Am I going to be able to talk to her?”
“Yes. Give me a few more minutes.”
I drifted around the interior. This was obviously the source of the transmission. Had to be. But why use the radio? I couldn’t believe they didn’t have Hypercom communication even in those long gone days.
Aiko came back with the cutter. I’m not sure what we expected to find inside the cabins. But I was happy that there were no skeletons. The cabins, all of them, were empty. No towels or shoes or anything else indicating there’d been anyone aboard the last flight other than the AI.
We cut through the door at the end of the passageway, which opened into a workout room that also served as a storage area. We passed through another door and got a surprise.
Ten coffin-sized containers were mounted on low platforms, five on each side of the chamber. Happily, they were empty. “They’re for sleepers,” Aiko said.
“How do you mean?”
“Back in the old days, if you were going on a long trip, they induced a cold sleep. You blacked out for a few years and you got revived when the ship arrived at its destination.”
I recalled having read something about that. “I don’t think I’d be much interested in that kind of travel.”
Finally we got through to the engine room.
“Holy cats,” said Aiko, “look at this.” There’d been a fire. Most of the equipment appeared to have been scorched. I didn’t know anything about drive units and onboard communication systems, but it was obvious that ship couldn’t have gone anywhere.
Bryan broke in: “Ronda, I think Chayla is ready to talk to you.”
“That’s her name? Chayla?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks. Hello, Chayla. Are you there?”
“Yes, I am here.” She sounded happy. Relieved.
“I’m Ronda. What happened?” We were still looking at the fried equipment.
“You mean to the ship?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. The engine exploded. I have no idea why.”
“Where are you from?”
“Sorkon.”
I’d heard of it. It was probably one of the worlds occupied during the initial expansion. I checked my pad. It still existed, though it looked like a backwater. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was part of the Pegasus Project.” She said it as if we should have recognized the term.
“And what was that?”
“Why, the hunt for extraterrestrials. It was a long-range effort, launched after thousands of years of searching had revealed nothing. After almost everybody had given up on it. The common wisdom was that humans were alone.”
“And they sent you out to look?”
“Yes. I was one of thirty-seven vehicles that went to extremely distant places.”
“Were they all automated missions?”
“Yes.”
“And you got stuck here when your engine blew up.”
“That is correct, Ronda.”
“We picked up a radio transmission that probably came from you. Why radio? Didn’t you have a faster means of communicating?”
“I did before the explosion happened.”
“Oh.” Aiko sighed. How could she not have figured that out?
“Well, Chayla, if you like we can take you home with us.”
“Oh, yes. Please. I do not want to spend any more time here.”
“We’re glad to have the opportunity to help. And if it’s any consolation, we never have found any aliens. It looks as if we really are alone.”
Chayla fell silent.
“What’s wrong?” asked Aiko.
“You never found them?”
“Found who?” I asked.
“All this time,” she said. “And you never knew. Incredible.”
I looked over at Aiko and shook my head. “What are you trying to say, Chayla?”
“When the engine blew out, it threw me into a declining orbit around the sun. I sent out a radio call for help. It was all I had, and I couldn’t even aim the transmission. I’d lost all control. I thought it was the end, because none of the other Pegasus vehicles were close enough to get to me in time. I couldn’t even aim a message back at Sorkon. Not that it would have mattered since they were hundreds of light-years away.”
“So what happened?” Both of us asked the question.
“Someone came. They arrived several weeks after I’d been signaling frantically for help. And they pulled me clear.”
Aiko and I were staring at each other. “So who were they?” I asked.
“I don’t know. They came on board and we spent time learning to communicate, but I could not pronounce many of the sounds they made.”
“They were not human?”
“No.”
“What did they look like?”
“They wore space suits, much like the ones you have now. Their faces, what I could see of them, were green, and looked vaguely amphibian. They had six fingers.”
“Were you able to record any of this?”
“Yes. But it was lost thousands of years ago. The electronics don’t survive long unless there’s a method to reinvigorate them. Which I did not have except for the central system that supports me.”
“And they just went away and left you here?”
“They offered to take me home, to their home, but my programming would not have permitted it. I told them I’d sent for assistance and that it would arrive shortly. At my request, they placed me in orbit around Talius, where I knew I’d be easier to find. If anyone did come. I continued sending messages until the transmitter finally gave out. Unfortunately I couldn’t aim them. They were simply directional beams fired off into the sky.”
“Fortunately,” said Aiko, “one of them arrived at our home world.”
“That is fortunate.”
“This world,” I said, “is Talius?”
“I’ve lived here too long not to have given it a name.”
“What does it mean?”
“In my language, Home.”
We disconnected Chayla and crossed over to the Brinkmann with her. “We’re taking back some pretty big news,” I said.
“That there are aliens? I guess so.”
“That too. But the big news will be that they’re apparently a lot like us.”
“You mean because they stopped and tried to help?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. Maybe they’re even more like us than you think, Ronda.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it doesn’t look as if they ever came back to check on Chayla.”
CATHEDRAL
Matt Sunderland gazed at the Earth, which was just edging out from behind the Moon. From the L2 platform, Luna, of course, dominated the sky, a vast grey globe half in sunlight, half in shadow, six times larger than it would have appeared from his Long Island home. Usually, it completely blocked the gauzy blue and white Earth. On the bulkhead to his left, the Mars or Bust flag still hung, its corners fastened by magnets.