“This is a new one on me,” said Harmer, the chemist. “We can’t make a spectroscopic analysis because the stuff refuses to burn. At this stage I can’t even say for sure that it’s a metal. We’re just wasting our time down here.”
“Tell Kraemer to bring them up,” Garamond said to Napier. “Is there any point in firing the main ionizing gun against it?”
“None at all,” put in Denise Serra, the Chief Physicist. “If a valency cutter at a range of one centimetre achieved nothing there’s no point in hosing energy all over it from this distance.” Garamond nodded. “Okay. Let’s pool our ideas. We’ve acquired a little more information, although most of it is negative, and I’d like to have your thoughts on whether the sphere is a natural object or an artifact.”
“It’s an artifact,” Denise Serra said immediately, with characteristic firmness. “Its sphericity is perfect and the surface is smooth to limits of below one micron. Nature doesn’t operate that way — at least, not on the astronomical scale.” She glanced a challenge at Yamoto.
“I have to agree,” Yamoto said. “I’ve been avoiding the idea, but I can’t conceive of any natural mechanism which would produce that thing out there. However, that doesn’t mean I can see how it was constructed by intelligent beings. It’s just too much.” He shook his head dispiritedly. The haggardness of his face showed that he had been losing a lot of sleep.
O’Hagan, the Chief Science Officer, who was a stickler for protocol, cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “Our difficulties arise from the fact that the Bissendorf is an exploration vessel and very little more. The correct procedure now would be to send a tachyon signal back to Earth and get a properly equipped expedition out here.” His severe grey gaze held steadily on Garamond’s face.
“That’s outside the scope of the present discussion,” Napier said.
Garamond shook his head. “No, it isn’t. Gentlemen, and lady, Mister O’Hagan has put into words something which must have been on all your minds since the beginning of this mission. It can’t have been difficult for you to work out for yourselves that I’m in trouble with Starflight House. In fact, it’s personal trouble with Elizabeth Lindstrom — and I think you all know what that means. I’m not going to give you any more details, simply because I don’t want you to be involved any more than you are at present.
“Perhaps it is enough to say that this has to be my last voyage as a Starflight commander, and I want this year in full.”
O’Hagan looked pained, but he held his ground doggedly. “I’m sure I’m speaking for all the other section heads when I say that we feel the utmost personal loyalty to Captain Garamond, and that our feelings aren’t affected by the circumstances surrounding the start of this voyage. Had it turned out to be a normal, uneventful mission I, for one, wouldn’t have considered questioning its legality — but the fact remains that we have made the most important discovery since Terranova and Sagania, and I feel it should be reported to Earth without delay.”
“I disagree,” Napier said coldly. “Starflight House didn’t direct the Bissendorf to this point in space. The sphere was discovered because Captain Garamond acted independently to check out a personally-held theory. We’ll hand it over to Starflight, as a bonus they didn’t earn, at the end of the mission’s scheduled span of one year.”
O’Hagan gave a humourless smile. “I still feel…”
Napier jumped to his feet. “What do you mean when you say you feel, Mister O’Hagan? Don’t you think with your brain like the rest of us? Does the fact that you feel these things turn them into something for which you have no personal responsibility?”
“That’s enough,” Garamond said.
“I just want O’Hagan to stand over his words.”
“I said…”
“Gentlemen, I withdraw my remarks,” O’Hagan interrupted, staring fixedly at his notepad. “It wasn’t my intention to divert the discussion away from the main topic. Now, we seem agreed that the sphere is of artificial origin — so what is its purpose?” He raised his eyes and scanned the assembled officers.
There was a lengthy silence.
“Defence?” Denise Serra’s round face mirrored her doubts. “Is there a planet inside?”
“There might be a planet on the far side of the sun which hasn’t shown up much on our gravitic readings.” Yamoto said. “But if we had the technology to produce that sphere, could there be an enemy so powerful that we would have to cower behind a shield?”
“Supposing it was a case of ‘Stop the galaxy, I want to get off’? Maybe the builders were pacifists and felt the need to hide. They made a pretty good job of concealing a star.”
“I hope that isn’t the answer,” Yamoto said gloomily. “If they needed to hide…”
“This is getting too speculative,” Garamond put in. “The immediate practical question is, does it have an entrance? Can we get inside? Let’s have your thoughts on that.”
Yamoto stroked his wispy beard. “If there is an entrance, it ought to be on the equator so that ships could hold their positions over it just by going into a parking orbit the way we did.”
“So you suggest doing a circuit of the sphere in the equatorial plane?”
“Yes — in the opposite direction to its rotation. That way we would get the advantage of its seventy thousand kilometres an hour equatorial rotation and cut down on our own G-forces.”
“That’s decided then,” Garamond said. “We’ll turn around as soon as Kraemer and his team are on board. I hope we’ll recognize an entrance if we find one.”
Three duty periods later he was asleep beside Aileen when his personal communicator buzzed him into wakefulness.
“Garamond here,” he said quietly, trying not to disturb his wife.
“Sorry to disturb you, Vance,” Napier said, “but I think we’re going to reach an entrance to the sphere in a couple of hours from now.”
“What?” Garamond sat upright, aware of deceleration forces. ”How could you tell?“
“Well, we can’t be certain, but it’s the most likely explanation for the echoes we’re picking up on the long-range radar.”
“What sort of echoes?”
“A lot of them, Vance. There’s a fleet of about three thousand ships in parking orbit, dead ahead of us.”
six
The ships were invisible to the naked eye, yet on the detector screens on board the Bissendorf they appeared as a glowing swarm, numerous as stars in a dense cluster. High-resolution radar, aided by other forms of sensory apparatus, revealed them to be of many different sizes and shapes, a vast and variegated armada poised above one point on the enigmatic sphere.
“You could have told me they weren’t Starflight ships,” Garamond said, easing himself into his seat in central control, his eyes fixed on the forward screens.
“Sorry, Vance — it didn’t occur to me.” Napier handed Garamond a bulb of hot coffee. “As soon as I saw the lack of standard formations I knew they couldn’t be Starflight vessels. The silhouettes and estimated masses produced by the computers confirmed it — none of the ships in that bunch can be identified by type.”
Second Officer Gunther gave a quiet laugh. “That was a pretty nervy moment up here.”
Garamond smiled in sympathy. “I guess it was.”
“Then we realized we were looking at a collection of hulks.”