"Here's what we have," Tia said before Alex could respond. She sent Pol duplicates of their best guesses. "As you can see, we have narrowed it down to three really good prospects. Only one of those has a record of sentient ruins, so that's the one we think is the most likely. I wish they'd logged something besides just 'presence of structures,' but there it is."
"Survey," Pol said succinctly. "Get lots of burnout cases in Survey. Well, what can you expect, going planet-hopping for months on end, dropping satellites, with nothing but an AI to keep you company? Sometimes surprised they don't go buggy, all things considered. I would."
Pol seemed much more convivial than Tia recalled him ever being, and completely happy with his brawn, and Chria had that relaxed look of a brawn with the perfect partner. But still, Chria had been an odd one, and Military and Central Security didn't let their brainships swap brawns without overwhelming reasons. Was Pol happy?
"Pol," Tia sent only to him, "did you get a good one?"
Pol laughed, replying the same way. "The best! I wouldn't trade off Chria or Neil for any combo in the Service. We three-up over here, you know, it's a double-brawn and brain setup; it's a fail-safe because we're armed. Chria's the senior officer, and Neil's the gunnery-mate, but Neil's been studying, and now he can double her on anything, fully qualified. That's not usually the case, from what I hear."
"Why didn't he get his own brainship, then?" she asked, puzzled. "If he's fully qualified, shouldn't he get a promotion?"
"Who can figure softies?" Pol said dismissively. "He and Chria share a cabin. Maybe it's hormonal. How about you? You were saying you planned to be pretty picky about your brawns. Did they rush you, or did you get a good one?"
There were a hundred things she could have said. Many of which could have gotten her in a world of trouble if she answered as enthusiastically as she would have liked. "Oh, Alex will do, when he's not shoving his face into chairs." she replied as lightly as she could. Pol laughed and made a few softie jokes while Alex and Chria tied up all the loose ends that needed to be dealt with.
They were the only ship permitted to leave Presley space. Chria hadn't been joking when she'd said that there was going to be a thorough examination of everything going on out here. On the other hand, not having to contend with other traffic was rather nice, all things considered.
Now if only they had a Singularity Drive.
Nevermind, she told herself, as she accelerated to hyper, we can manage without it. I just hope we don't have any more 'help' from the opposition.
This place didn't even have a name yet, just a chart designation. Epsilon Delta 177.3.3. Pol had called it right on the nose. Whoever had charted this place must have been a burnout case, or he would have at least tried to name it. That was one of the few perks of a Survey mission; most people took advantage of it.
It certainly had all the earmarks of the kind of place they were looking for; eccentric tilt, heavy cloud cover that spoke of rain or snow or both. But as Tia decelerated into the inner system, she suddenly knew that they had hit paydirt without ever coming close enough to do a surface scan.
There should have been a Survey satellite in orbit around their hot little prospect. This was a Terra-type planet; even with an eccentric tilt, eventually someone was going to want to claim it. The satellite should have been up there collecting data on planet three, on the entire system, and on random comings and goings within the system, if any. It should have been broadcasting warnings to incoming ships about the system's status, charted but unexplored, under bio-quarantine until checked out, possibly dangerous, native sentients unknown, landing prohibited.
The satellite was either missing or silent.
"Accidents do happen," Alex said cautiously, as Tia came in closer, decelerating steadily, and prepared to make orbit. "Sometimes those babies break."
She made a sound of disbelief. "Not often. And what are the odds? It should at least be giving us the navigational bleep, and there's nothing, nothing at all." She scanned for the satellite as she picked her orbital path, hoping to pick something up.
"Oh, Tia. Look at that rotation, that orbit! It could have gotten knocked out of the sky by something." he began.
"Could have, but wasn't. I've got it, Alex," she said with glee. "I found it! And it's deader than a burned out glow-tube."
She matched orbits with the errant satellite, coming alongside for a closer look. It was about half her size, so there was no question of bringing it inside, but as she circled it like a curious fish, there was one thing quite obvious.
Nothing was externally wrong with it.
"No sign of collision, and it wasn't shot at," Alex observed, and sighed. "No signs of a fire or explosion inside, either. You've tried reactivating it, I suppose?"
"It's not answering," she said firmly. "Guess what? You get to take a walk."
He muttered something under his breath and went after his pressure-suit. After the past few days in transition, his face had begun to heal, turning from black, blue and purple to a kind of dirty green and yellow.
She presumed that the rest of him was in about the same shape, but he was obviously feeling rather sorry for himself.
Do I snap at him, or do I kind of tease him along? she wondered. He hadn't been in a particularly good mood since the call from Chria. Was it that he was still in pain? Or was it something else entirely? There were so many signals of softperson body language that she'd never had a chance to learn, but there had been something going on during that interview, not precisely between Alex and Chria, though. More like, going on with Alex, because of Chria.
Before she had a chance to make up her mind, he was at the airlock, suited up and tethered, and waiting for her to close the inner lock for him.
She berated herself for wool-gathering and cycled the lock, keeping an anxious eye on him while she scanned the rest of the area for unexpected, and probably unwelcome, visitors. It would be just our luck for the looters to show up right about now.
He jetted over to the access-hatch of the satellite and popped it without difficulty. Wait a moment, shouldn't he have had to unlock it?
"Tia, the access hatch was jimmied," he said, his breath rasping in the suit-mike as he worked, heaving the massive door over and locking it down. "You were right, green all the way. The satellite's been sabotaged. Pretty crude work; they just disconnected the solar cells from the instrument pack. It'll still make orbital corrections, but that's all. Don't know why they didn't just knock it out of the sky, unless they figured Survey has some kind of telltale on it, and they'd show up if it went down."
"What should we do?" she asked, uncertainly. "I know you can repair it, but should you? We need some of the information it can give us, but if you repair it, wouldn't they figure that Survey had been through? Or would they just not notice?"
"I don't want to reconnect the warn-off until we're ready to leave, or they'll definitely know someone's been eating their porridge," he replied slowly, as he floated half-in, half-out of the hatch. "If the satellite's telling them to take a hike as soon as they enter orbit, there won't be much doubt that someone from the authorities has been here. But you're right, and I not only want to know if someone shows up in orbit while we're down on the ground, I want the near-space scans it took before they shut it down, and I want it to keep scanning and recording. The question is, am I smart enough to make it do all that?"