Comm spoke up. “Confirming that, sir. It’s a radiation storm alert.” All over the Nixon, except in the shielded engineering module, warning lights and bells were going off, while the computer system’s voice instructed personnel in the unshielded sections to immediately go to their nearest hidey-hole.
“We’re ten AU from the sun. It has to be one hell of a big solar event for us to notice it way out here. Why hasn’t space weather sent us an alert?” The Earth-orbit monitoring stations had near-instantaneous response times. They couldn’t beat the initial X-ray burst to the Nixon, but their warning should have arrived by now.
“Sir?” Albers Janssen was at the science station.
“Go ahead, Albers.”
“I don’t think it was the sun. The directional data says the burst came from the general direction of the alien depot. That’s well off the sun line. Also, the burst was too short for a solar flare or coronal mass ejection.” Janssen peered closely at the time plots. “Make that two short bursts, close together. A small one and then a much bigger one.” He switched his attention to the spectral plot. “Aw fuck. The main spikes are gamma, not X-ray—511 keV. That was an antimatter detonation.”
Fang-Castro hurried onto the bridge: “What happened?”
“We think the Chinese may have triggered off an antimatter explosion,” Francisco said.
“Oh, no. Can we see them?”
Navigation: “No. We’d have line of sight, but the edge of the ring is in the way. We should have visual in… eight minutes.”
Cui turned as the air-lock door behind her closed: she didn’t know why it had done that.
Suddenly feeling alone in the universe, she called the Celestial Odyssey: “Sir: What happened? Something is happening here.”
Zhang came back: “Cui, evacuate your crew immediately. Duan’s crew apparently set off an antimatter explosion and the ants are beginning to cluster between us and the planetoid. We need you back here, until we can reassess our status.”
“Yes, sir. The crew is out of touch at the moment—immediately after the flash, the air-lock doors closed, separating me from the crew. There is no… Wait one…”
In front of her, the air-lock doors were opening again: inside the lock, she saw her entire crew.
“What happened?” she asked Wong. She kept the relay open to Zhang.
“We’ve been ordered out of the planetoid. Narcissus told us we have to leave. I have vid, sending now.”
The vid popped up on a display screen.
Narcissus said, “There has been damage to the depot. Containment Module 7251 was disrupted. Members of your species intercepted one of the antimatter transport units while it was docking with the containment module. It appears that they tried to disable the unit, leading to a failure of its isolation vessel. The vessel contained 2.5 grams of antimatter. That explosion, in such close proximity to the containment module, caused it to fail as well, resulting in a larger explosion. Sanctions apply. Access to this depot and my database are denied, effective immediately.”
Wong tried to shift blame, to keep the planetoid open: “We didn’t do this. It was an action by another ship, not authorized by us.”
Narcissus said, “Sanctions automatically apply to all vessels of a species. You have five Earth minutes to collect your equipment, secure your suits, and vacate this room. In five minutes the security system will discontinue life support, evacuating the atmosphere and ceasing illumination and thermal regulation. In six minutes, further countermeasures will be taken.”
Wong asked, “What countermeasures?”
“I do not have that information. That information is available only to the security AI.”
Wong had heard enough. To the crew, he called, “You heard it, everybody. Get it together and let’s get out. Narcissus, for how long are the sanctions in effect?”
“Physical damage to a depot is a very serious security breach. Fortunately, Containment Facility 7251 was almost empty. The damage was limited to its destruction, so suspension of all depot privileges will only be in effect for one hundred and forty-four Earth years. Life-support services will end in four minutes. Further countermeasures begin in five.”
Wong said, “People, into the air lock. Don’t start cycling yet.” And, “Narcissus, why didn’t your security system prevent this kind of tampering?” The AI had indicated the depot’s defensive capabilities were superior to human technology. There should have been a specific warning, he thought.
“If an unauthorized ship or one of unknown origin had attempted to access the containment facilities, the security system would have instituted protective measures. This was not a ship of unknown origin. It was one of your species’ ships. Once I informed the security system that you had been given the safety protocols and basic operating instructions for using this depot, your status was changed to authorized. There was no a priori reason to believe that you would not follow the safety protocols, considering the hazards to you and the depot and the penalties that could incur. By the time the data stream indicated that a safety was being breached, there was too little time for security units to arrive before containment failed. Life-support services will end in four minutes.”
Wong tried one more time. “Narcissus, the first ship did not convey the safety information to us. We did not know about the safety protocols.”
“I would not know that, nor would the security system. It is in the interest of every species to make sure that none of its ships interfere with the depot’s functioning, to avoid sanctions. Life-support services will end in two minutes. Further countermeasure begin in three.”
There was no point arguing with the answer-bot. The team finished stowing their gear, secured their suits, and Wong entered the air lock and the interior air-lock door closed. The space-side door opened, and they found Cui hanging in space, just outside.
Cui saw herself on the vid, and killed it. “We don’t know what range Narcy was talking about when he said, ‘further countermeasures.’ We need to get back to the ship. Everybody into the shuttle.”
Another minute and they were gone.
“Admiral Fang-Castro, Mr. Crow wishes to speak to you. Shall I put him through?”
She said, “No, not at the moment. Wait—tell him to join me in the conference room in ten minutes. And Hannegan, Clover, Martinez, Barnes, and Darlington. I want them there, too. Tell Darlington we’re going to have a conference, we’ll want a direct link to Earth.”
Fang-Castro spent ten minutes assessing the situation from the bridge. The Celestial Odyssey was right where it had been and a tug was headed back toward it from the planetoid. There was no sign of the larger shuttle.
Francisco said, “They were messing with one of those storage units and it blew. That’s why we got two pulses. I bet they tried to grab one of the bees, and something happened—could have been a self-destruct mechanism to keep that from happening—and that took out a second storage unit.”
“What’s our radiation status?”
“We’re fine. They may not be, depending on how close they were to the explosion.”
“Any other damage?”
“No.”
“Comm, call Zhang.”
A moment later Comm said, “Admiral, they acknowledged the call and declined it.”
“Might be too busy to talk to us,” Francisco said.
“Or too angry,” Fang-Castro said. “Comm, reach out to them every half hour or so. If they answer, put it through to me. I’ll be in the conference room. I want everything that happened since the blast, including the blast, encrypted and forwarded to Earth. I want that done immediately, with a top-priority tag on it.”