The Torus was forty meters thick, giving it the same internal volume as three hundred jumbo jets or a small space colony. The interior volume of the Torus could contain an expansive amount of space difficult for three people to traverse in less than twenty hours. Considering how much larger the ship had originally been, it was likely that any remaining life-forms would be packed tightly, which raised Aki’s hopes because overcrowding implied that it wouldn’t take long for her crew to find one of the Torus’s passengers.
ACT III: JULY 25, 2041
THE PHALANX POINTED its bow toward where Mercury would be in nine days, then fired its booster rocket at full thrust. The Builders’ ship was already inside Mercurial orbit, quickly gaining on the Phalanx from thirty million kilometers off its stern. There was some concern that orienting the propellant stream from the Phalanx’s nuclear engine toward the Builders might be mistaken for an attack. Given the great distance that remained between the two ships, the risk was assessed as minimal. Musing on the process in her cocoon, Aki pictured the Phalanx receiving the baton in a relay race, running ahead in the same direction as the person handing off the baton, ensuring that both runners would be traveling at the same speed when the runners met. Since the Builders were seasoned spacefarers, the prediction was that the Builders would ascertain that the Phalanx was attempting a rendezvous.
With the Phalanx’s engines pointed at the Builders’ ship, the glare made maintaining visual contact with the vessel impossible. In place of visuals, all major observational equipment arrayed in local space and not blocked by the sun became critical, even though the information arrived intermittently. The alien vessel continued to show no change in trajectory or rate of deceleration.
Thirty hours later, when the booster engines had burned their liquid fuel, the boosters and their massive fuel tanks were released. Once the engines on the main body of the Phalanx were fired and the ship’s velocity increased, the Phalanx pulled past its jettisoned booster unit.
“Wave goodbye to the most expensive piece of equipment humanity has ever built,” mumbled Igor, who had helped design and build the booster. “I should celebrate that I didn’t screw up. Going outside and exposing myself to radiation to fix that complicated booster would be godawful. As long as the Builders don’t eat our ship and we don’t get blown up by our own weapons, we’ll survive another day.”
Despite his lapses into negativity, Aki knew that Igor felt a part of himself had been ejected along with the booster unit. He was a man who liked playing to an audience.
Two days later, amid the gas from the engine blast, a white light appeared as the glare of the Builders’ nuclear engine became visible. The light looked stationary to the naked eye but was actually approaching the Phalanx at a frightful speed. The Phalanx launched an unmanned hound to see what would happen when a probe approached the Builders’ ship. Three days later, when the distance between the two ships had diminished to a hundred thousand kilometers, the UNSS Phalanx turned around 180 degrees to face the approaching vessel head-on.
According to Igor, this maneuver was the biggest climax of the mission, save releasing the booster unit. Aki was surprised that the rendezvous and its potential outcome was less important to Igor than the vehicular maneuvers and the jettisoning of the boosters. As the 130-meter Phalanx made its about-face, the laser communications system—which had to remain pointing at four distinct locations in the inner solar system—and the thirty-seven high-gain antennae, the five deep-space telescopes, and several hundred sensors all needed to turn in sync in order to remain pointing at their respective targets. Despite attempts to avoid creating blind spots, some devices would need to be switched to auxiliary systems, many of which were located on the opposing side of the ship to provide fail-safes. Finally, once the half turn was complete, the two main engines were set to match the Builders’ deceleration of 1/100 of a G. For Igor, coordinating the dozens of elements essential to the maneuver was as exhilarating as singing a solo at Carnegie Hall.
“Rotation maneuver and deceleration synchronization complete, Commander,” Igor announced proudly. “A few minor glitches; nothing that impacts the mission.”
“Thank you, Igor. We could never have come this far without your skills and commitment to excellence,” Aki said.
“Only doing my job, Commander.”
“Well, to celebrate the completion of the operation, would you please announce our success to the world?”
“Me?”
“It would be a shame to let your sonorous voice go to waste,” Aki said.
Igor brought himself online with the communications network, cleared his throat and half-sang, in a rich baritone, “The UNSS Phalanx has completed rotation and deceleration synchronization. We will now enter the Contact Phase.”
THE PROBE HOUND had been retrofitted with the same corrosion-retarding paint as the ships. Approaching the Builders’ vessel, the probe fired its jets to slow down relative to its target. To avoid any misinterpretations of hostility, the hound’s jet nozzles were configured in a V-shape, pointing at slight angles away from its line of flight. Between the two jets was a square screen five meters across that displayed a series of messages using all frequencies of visible light and in infrared to cover the entire spectra of light emitted by the Builders’ home star.
The ETICC was betting all its chips on this last ditch effort of communication. By displaying video directly instead of encoding the images in pulse modulation, the ETICC hoped its message might finally be conveyed.
The camera mounted on the probe did not have as high a resolution as the one on the Phalanx, but the closer proximity of twenty thousand kilometers made up for the difference. On the morning of July 28, Aki was in her cocoon reading a report on UNSDF observations while keeping an eye on a live feed from the probe. It was still several hours before the probe was to arrive. An alarm sounded and the monitoring system displayed a message.
<CHANGE DETECTED IN ALIEN VESSEL>
Aki looked at the image from the probe. The nuclear pulse engine that had burned brightly in the center of the Torus was out. The engine area that had been masked by the blinding light of the blast was finally visible. It was an opening at least fifty meters across. The nuclear pulse engine used a bowl-shaped reflector with a focal point that emitted the energetic equivalent of a continuous series of detonations from small hydrogen bombs. This reflecting bowl made up most of the image that the probe’s camera could see. The dish was circumscribed with tiny protruding thorns that appeared to be a set of laser devices to contain and direct the destructive force generated by the explosions.
The opening began to close like an iris. While the size of the outer edge remained the same, the crimson color of the iris expanded inward, gradually taking on the shape of a half-sphere. The sunlight emanating from behind the right side of the vessel was partially blocked, creating a pattern of light and shadows on the area, giving it an eerie impression of depth. The iris continued to close until it was a tiny dark spot surrounded by crimson. To Aki, the image suggested the eye of a chameleon.