The Runaway Asteroid, Michael D. Cooper [mobi reader android TXT] 📗

"That might tell us something about the nature of the universe, Joe. I like to wonder about things like that."

"And look, these spacecraft have wings. They're not just for travel in the void; they're made for flight on a planet with an atmosphere."

Zip came over the joined the conversation. "If they helped us get from the warehouse area to this hangar, why aren't they helping us get into the spaceships?"

"Maybe there're only two of them-the two I saw last night," suggested Mark. "Maybe they're caretakers or something like that, and not spacemen. Maybe they don't know much more than we do how to get into these beauties."

"Well, whatever the reason, I guess we're on our own, at least for the time being."

"Looks like some sort of laser here," said Joe, picking up an object that resembled a flashlight. It had two dials on it with signs of calibration, and a button that was probably intended to activate it. "If it is a laser, and if these dials move the power from low to high, who knows which end is which?"

"Take it into the power plant and aim it at the floor. An instrument that small can't have too much power and won't hurt a half mile of solid iron. See what happens," suggested Mark.

Joe shrugged. "Okay." He went over to the door through which they had come a half hour before. He was back in a few minutes.

"It's a laser, all right. This dial here changes the intensity of the beam from low to high, and this one-well, watch. There's a barrel of powder over here. Talcum or something." He reached in, took a handful of the dust, and dropped it back into the barrel. A cloud of dust rose up. He activated the laser through it. A bright blue beam appeared. He turned a dial and the beam became a brilliant green.

"Lasers of different frequencies, all in one tool!" Mark exclaimed.

"Yeah, and it's got red too!"

"Lots of possibilities with this," said Zip. "I'll bet it can be used to open the spacecraft. The doors can't be only voice-activated, or they couldn't open the door in a vacuum. What else is there? Heat, magnetism, light? They used heat, body heat, on the panel back in the room where we were kept prisoner. Heat won't work in deep space. Let's try light. We've got the tool here."

The Starmen went back over to the spacecraft. Joe set the laser for blue light and ran the beam over the surface of the ship. For several minutes he tried various colors and intensities. When he set the laser for yellow light, there was a change in the surface of the ship.

"Ah!" said all three Starmen at once. The outline of a door appeared, with markings in several places. Joe experimented a little more, placing different intensities on the markings. In a moment he was rewarded. The door recessed a few inches into the ship, and slid aside with quiet efficiency. Joe immediately stepped through the portal.

The furnishings of the alien spacecraft were similar to what the
Starmen were familiar with, but the control panel was more challenging.
Some controls were obvious, since they were necessary for any
spacecraft; others were completely unfamiliar.

After about an hour of looking around, Joe sighed, "Gonna need more time, Zip."

"I know. We'll just have to dedicate ourselves to it until we feel confident enough to take the ship into space."

"I'm making some progress here," announced Mark. He was at a side panel near the navigation station. As he worked the keyboard, various schemata appeared in quick sequence. "I can't read anything, but it's obvious that these are engines. I can't recognize everything that's coming up, but most of it I can. See, here is a circuit diagram, and this part here can only be a reaction chamber. I think this ship might use cold fusion for power, but I can't know for sure until I can read this stuff, or see it in action."

"You figure it out, Mark, and I'll fly it," said Joe confidently.

"Well, this stuff is you boys' specialty," said Zip. "I've got to think ahead to the next problem. Assuming we can get this rig to fly, and assuming we can open the airlock, we've still got to escape the pirates. I doubt this ship is one of the invisible ones, and they'll have us spotted and speared in less then three minutes if we just fly out of here, saying, 'Thanks for the hospitality, sorry we have to leave so soon.'"

"You can figure it out, Zip! We'll get this grand machine ready!" Joe was enjoying the challenge. It was hard to keep him down.

After eight hours of work on the spacecraft and with dinner behind them, Joe said to Mark, "Let's go back into the power plant and see if we can't find some way to sabotage the system so that the pirates can't find us when we take off. You can bring up some files on those huge screens. Maybe we can even find some way to close down their whole operation."

"Sounds good to me," said Mark, picking up a glass of water. He took a sip and swished his mouth with it, then swallowed. "Best we can do without toothbrushes, I guess."

"If it were that easy," said Zip, "our hosts would probably have shut down the pirates long before this. After all, it's their plant and they know it better than anyone."

"You've got to be right, Zip, but I don't like sitting around. We've been in this room all day and I'm ready for a break. I really do like that huge plant. Man! Imagine a room ten miles long!"

The three Starmen descended the metal stairs and exited into the enormous plant. A few yards away was one of the large computer terminals. Mark went over to it and activated it.

"I can recognize a few things, now that I've been through so many of the files upstairs," he informed his partners. "This, I think, is the lighting system." He pressed a button. There was a loud "chunk" sound and the plant lit up brightly.

"Ow!" said the three Starmen and covered their eyes. They were not prepared for the sudden brightness. When they could tolerate the light, they looked above them. Without a word, Mark lay down on his back and just stared upward. Rank after rank of lights went up on the iron framework for nearly a mile. A ceiling the color of charcoal was barely visible, with what looked like rectangular viewports imbedded in it.

Joe and Zip remained standing and looked to their left. The lights blazed for about half a mile. Beyond that point was darkness.

"It will take a lifetime to learn everything there is to know about this place," said Mark dreamily.

"I think we'll be back someday," replied Zip. "What else can you do,
Mark?"

Mark got up and turned the lights off. It took nearly a minute for their eyes to adjust to the dimness. While Mark looked through file after file, Joe and Zip wandered through some of the iron latticework. They climbed spiral staircases for a level or two before descending again, and examined the connections of tubes, pipes, and circuits.

"I've got something!" called out Mark. The others ran to him. He pointed at the screen. "See, this is the main power generator. I can tell because of the coils over here and the way the circuits are connected. There are about eight of these; they must be spaced in a row a little over a mile apart. They can operate singly or in combination. But look! They don't just power the life-support systems-in fact, I haven't found that part at all yet. But these are thrust systems! Do you know what that means? This asteroid is a spacecraft! It's made to travel!"

"Can't be!" said Joe, flabbergasted

"It is. Look." Mark flipped past a few more files, pointing out the connections and the diagrams of chambers, coils, and energy field generators. "I'm just barely getting a glance at this stuff, of course, and I don't understand it all, but I have no doubt about what I've seen so far."

"Why don't you look for that life-support file and see if you can turn off the pirates' energy or something?" Joe suggested.

"No, Joe," said Zip. "As I said before, if it were a good idea, our hosts would probably have done it already. I think that whatever they're not doing, we shouldn't try to do. Remember, even St. George didn't want to fiddle with something he didn't understand."

"George is a real nice guy, Zip," said Joe, "but I still think he's breathed a little too much vacuum for his own good. You have to experiment in life, sometimes."

"I want to learn more about this power system! This is amazing!" rhapsodized Mark. "If I'm right, this button here will…" He pressed it. Almost at once a stream of paper began to feed out of a slot to the right of the terminal and fell down, sheet by sheet, into a gathering tray. Mark picked up the first sheet.

"It's printing out the diagrams of the thrust system. just like that.
You're right, Joe-this place is great!"

On the northeast edge of the massive area on the surface of Mars called the Mare Hadriacum, stood a complex of domes and cylinders. Made of metal and glass, it stood on an open plain about 35 degrees south of the equator and 85 degrees east of the central meridian. The complex was one of five atmosphere-generating plants on Mars, and the only one in the southern hemisphere. In a small crater nearby was the settlement of New Emmaus, with a population of about 12,500.

The long process of terraforming Mars had begun when a meteor shower struck the fourth planet in 2009, significantly raising the temperature of the atmosphere and altering the weather systems. With this jump start serendipitously provided by meteorites, Earth had hastened the process of making Mars livable by scattering the surface with spores and seeds, introducing desert-hardy animals, and establishing the five atmosphere-generating plants. Thanks to Earth's efforts, the planet's temperature had continued to rise. Eventually water had emerged from below ground and from the ice caps around the poles, and the air was gradually thickening.

Terraformation had been taking place for almost 150 years, and it would be at least another two centuries before it would be possible to live anywhere on Mars without a spacesuit. The atmosphere-generating plants were critical to the process. The plants themselves were automated, with all systems operated and monitored by robots, and the major centers of population on Mars were located in craters not far from each plant. The complexes were on the open surface of the planet rather than in craters, but the air they created flowed first into the nearest depressions in the surface, and it was here that most settlements were located.

The plant located in the southern hemisphere was the most remote, but had been filling the Mare Hadriacum, locally known as the Red Sea, for decades. This great depression was 2,500 miles in diameter. When much of the southern ice cap had melted, it filled the Red Sea with water up to about three-fourths capacity, making the region a delightful place for quiet living.

In the early morning of August 15, 2151, the cloudless sky was a brilliant violet, and the sun was rising like a bowl of molten gold. Marshal and Averette North, a retired couple, had climbed to the top of the crater wall to enjoy the sunrise. Six miles away was the atmosphere plant, gleaming in the newly-risen sun.

They were the only ones to see what happened next, but it happened so quickly that there was almost nothing to see. In the thin atmosphere, there was only a slight vapor trail and a short-lived but powerful whine; then with a dull, gut-churning thud a ball of black and orange flame slammed obliquely into the desert floor within a quarter of a mile of the atmosphere plant. An enormous wave of pinkish-ochre sand rose up in front of the impact site like a great wall. The shock wave quickly blew the wall of sand upward and outward, so that it sparkled like luminous rain until the sand particles became too scattered to be seen.

The shock wave struck the atmosphere plant and shoved it aside as if a giant, invisible hand were violently clearing a table of unwanted crockery. The crater wall where the Norths were standing rocked and heaved as if in an earthquake. The