Forever Curious, Part 2
Chapter 2: Spiral dogfights
Resistance is the first thing she experiences, as something is slowing down the pod that is also her extended exoskeleton, made of metamaterials. Noise immediately follows, does it have an atmosphere? While her sensors take samples for the spectrometers, the shape-shifting metamaterials of her exoskin quickly transform her sphere into something much more aerodynamic. Stretching from her fetus-like curl into a diver’s posture with arms out wide to accommodate the miniature airplane her pod’s become, her wings stretched very wide to provide sufficient lift, she keeps heading straight down, trying to maintain her speed.
Helium, pure helium, her equipment reads, with an atmospheric pressure of zero point three bar. At a frigid one hundred Kelvin, her hull’s metamaterials have switched to maximum insulation to preserve her heat reserves. It’s almost pitch dark and in order to avoid running into something she has to keep radar, lidar, and sonar running at full resolution. Until her sensors have finished their complete run of the spectrum. Thank dog, nearly uniform background radiation deep in the ultraviolet. Her light sensors adapt and there is a dim kind of visibility. Only two hundred meters deep and rather faint, but it’ll have to do. Anything better than true darkness, as there’s not even starlight in here.
She keeps heading straight at the center, which at this speed she should reach within half an hour. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, it’s not that easy. Within a few minutes both her sonar, lidar and radar detect a hard reflection, spherical in shape. A quick extrapolation reveals a sphere with a one-hundred-and-forty-four-point-five kilometer diameter. They’re in an outer layer between two shells.
It confirms the extremely classified information her people managed to extract—at great expense—from some of the known alien races. This ominous sphere has shells within its outer, impenetrable shell, and—hopefully accessible—layers within these shells. If the inter-shell spacing is regular, there should be seven equidistant shells each approximately twelve point three kilometers apart, with the inner one—let’s call it the Core—a sphere with a twenty-four-point-six kilometer diameter. Thus six layers—including from this one, content unknown—of twelve point three kilometers thick before one gets to the Core. If the spacing is indeed regular.
However, she just measured that this dark Helium layer is thirteen-point-seventy-five kilometers thick, which throws the equidistant idea out of the window. It probably won’t be the first surprise the Enigmatic Object throws at her.
The surface straight below isn’t a perfect sphere, though. There is a little ridge with a different reflection signature. It matches the characteristics of the strange matter ‘stopper’ at the South Pole of the outermost shell to a T, signifying that the opening of the second outermost shell will be at its opposite end—the South Pole—the long way around. This seems to confirm the alien info stating that the openings are at opposite ends: enter through the North Pole, exit through the South Pole, enter through the South Pole, exit through the North Pole, etcetera. The shortest way follows a longitude, unless the builders of this Enigmatic Object are playing a prank, and put the opening at a random spot.
The analytical half of Na-Yeli’s brain doesn’t think so. This construct is too—well, if not regular than—logical for the opening not to be at the other, hopefully, non-stoppered end. The personality beneath the right-side artistic hemisphere of her brain agrees. Now, which longitude? There are a near-infinite number of them, all the shortest way. In her computer implant—connecting her with the triple-redundant quantum computer distributed through the innermost layer of her exoskin—she throws a quantum dice and chooses one at random.
While there is a gravitational pull to the center, this layer—throughout its thirteen point seventy-five kilometers thickness between its two impenetrable shells—is not uniform in pressure and temperature. There are thermals that Na-Yeli tries to ride as much as possible because she never knows when she will really need her energy reserves. Since the gravitational pull measured by her instruments is only one-twentieth of Earth’s, even the faintest of updrafts can lift her, minimizing her energy expenditure. In the polar region, things appear to be quiet, and Na-Yeli seems to be the only intelligent, or even sentient, agent around. In order to save energy, Na-Yeli switches off her sonar and lidar and continues onwards, trusting her radar and line-of-sight in the dim ultraviolet.
The tranquility doesn’t last. When she crosses the 66th parallel, she has her first encounter. Rising above the globular horizon, an unknown number of UFOs are approaching. Barely big enough to register on her radar, too small to be counted quickly. A flock of ET birds? An alien swarm of autonomous machines? While their trajectory seems to be matching hers, it doesn’t feel interceptive. Thrusters and weapons at the ready, Na-Yeli waits, while telling her communication AI to transmit—what she hopes are—peaceful messages at select wavelengths. In the meantime, she sticks to her longitudinal route.
In the dim, ultraviolet reflection, there is a metallic sheen to the extraterrestrial flock, whose double rotors give them an insect-like appearance. Well, botswarm, Na-Yeli inadvertently calls them, do your worst. They match her course, then perform a few circles around her, the only exchange mutual observations. After which they seem to lose interest and head back to where they came from.
“Did you get any response?” She asks the communication AI.
—none whatsoever— it signals —boring—
The communication AI—and its two redundant copies—exist in a sentient mode as vague and unknown as the neural networks it’s based upon. That is, it has a kind of awareness—maybe even a rudimentary consciousness—but nobody knows exactly how it works. In practice, it churns with relish through alien algorithms, unutterable languages, and obscure grammar, but won’t touch emotion with a ten-foot pole. As such, it appears stand-offish and curt, but Na-Yeli doesn’t mind, as she has more than enough on her plate, already, such as the first life forms she encounters within the Enigmatic Object.
A quick peek-a-boo, Na-Yeli thinks, or a heads-up for the real welcoming committee? Apart from being deeply mysterious, the situation is also highly complex. Humanity is a Johnny-come-lately on the interstellar stage, and no one knows exactly how many previous alien races have accessed this ominous object. Let alone how many of these previous explorers have perished, returned, gone native, or have transformed in some way. Not to mention which—if any—of the ecosystems inside the Universe’s biggest mystery were native, to begin with.
We may be biting off way more than we can chew, Na-Yeli thinks, but damn us if we’re not going to try, anyway.
She continues her trek in eerie silence.
With its entrance/exit holes alternately at the North and South Poles, the alien edifice—humanity refers to it as ‘the Enigmatic Object’—not only has a strong electromagnetic field, but this field rotates very fast, as well. This field—widely known, as it is measurable outside it—is used by its explorers for harvesting energy, which is used to recharge their batteries. This recharging effect increases the closer an explorer is to the ‘equator’—the rotational plane or the plane of the ecliptic. Using this eliminates the need of bringing one’s own power supply—if one’s willing to take the chance—and the precious weight limit can be used for other equipment. Or weapons.
Quite suddenly, another flock of aliens is appearing—if the first flock appeared at a latitude that would, roughly speaking, equate with the polar circle on Earth, then these show up close to the Tropic of Cancer—who look quite a bit bigger, and more numerous than the first one. Her radar only picked them up at the last moment, suggesting they’re either impervious to radar, or have evolved stealth properties. They’re not unlike bats—mouse-like bodies with huge wings. Again, Na-Yeli tells the communication AI to try to make contact.
Their trajectory is very straightforward, they keep going right at her, with no sign of changing course. That’s crazy, do they want to smother her or suchlike? It does seem so, as their positioning becomes ever tighter so that the wings of the alien bats in front overlap those of the rows behind them, effectively creating a living, flying wall closing in on her. An alien bat-wall, of all things, a flying bat-mat.
“Any reaction?” Na-Yeli queries the communication AI.
—nothing I can discern— the communication AI signals (its words are projected at the bottom of Na-Yeli’s point-of-view, synchronized with its drone-like vocalization, reminding Na-Yeli it’s a weak AI rather than an actual human) —just a cacophony of high-frequency screeches that are barely discernible from chaos. probably mindless shrieks from a frantic flock—
They don’t react to any of her transmissions, neither do a few, carefully aimed light bombs hamper their advance in any way. If anything, the huge flashes of light seem to accelerate their approach. Na-Yeli starts an evading maneuver, trying to pass them on the right only to see that five more of these bat-mats are closing in on her from the top, bottom, left, right, and behind.
She was concentrating so much on the very first one approaching her so much that she completely overlooked the other ones. No room for a quick 180-degree turnaround, she’s almost surrounded. In subconscious strata, one of her personalities is cursing her over-analytic mind for providing too many distractions. Yet, the situation is not dire enough for it to rise to the fore.
Na-Yeli is committed to the right, and a squeeze-through between the forward and right bat-mat looks increasingly unlikely as they close formation. A barrage of light bombs. Unfortunately, these don’t seem to faze them. And the bat-mats keep closing in.
Na-Yeli’s run out of friendly options. With extreme reluctance, she fires two small torpedoes at the alien bats blocking her way. Both torpedoes hit their target almost dead center, and explode. The shockwaves rip the wings of the bats apart, and they fall, breaking the formation. Na-Yeli’s wings quickly swing backward as she and her craft squeeze through the opening they created.
Out of the trap, wings back in the optimum lift position, Na-Yeli takes a long, swooping curve to see if the six bat-mats are regrouping. To her bafflement, they do nothing of the kind but are diving after the alien bats she hit. With their wings in tatters, they spiral downwards in the light gravity towards the invisible yet foreboding shell below.
Are the rest trying to save their wounded kinsfolk? Or am I thinking too anthropocentric? Na-Yeli wonders. The previously highly-ordered bat-mats have broken their tight formation, and are now one big, chaotic swarm chasing their falling kin. Yet none of the healthy ones try to overtake their injured companions. They follow but keep a certain distance.
The torpedo-struck aliens—Na-Yeli can only hope that they’ve died, already—spiral down towards the invisible barrier. Flashes of light, almost blinding in this near-total dimness, follow—seconds later—by thin, metallic crackles that represent thunder in a cold, helium-gas environment as the remnants of the falling alien bats are spaghettified—their skin, flesh, and bones ripped apart by intense, singular forces—to their atomic constituents.
A feeding frenzy follows.
The alien bat swarm dives as close as they dare—while fighting for pole position—in order to harvest as much of the liberated atoms and energy as possible. It makes sense, Na-Yeli thinks, food has to come from somewhere. And there’s no reason why cannibalism should not develop in aliens, especially in an environment as cold and forbidding as this.
Then, realization strikes: I was meant to be that meal. She and her craft are much bigger than the average alien bat, and by smothering her in flight, they probably hoped she would be the one falling to her doom, and end up as their spaghettified snack.
Both the spaghettifying—she didn’t realize that so much energy and light would be released by the process—and the feeding frenzy of the bat swarms are a sight to behold. It becomes so vehement that she wouldn’t be surprised if a few other alien bats are—partially or totally—spaghettified in the fray. The atoms of the helium atmosphere don’t seem to spaghettify, though. They’re already loose atoms—no chemical bonds—and while they will get squeezed, they probably remain intact and then just bounce off.
She gets off with a warning, a stern one, at that. On a related note, she now thanks the foresight of her scientific team who brought up the idea of a dynamic-positioning balloon. When she’s resting or sleeping, she needs to stay atop the underlying shell and can turn part of her shape-shifting, metamaterial exoskeleton in a small vacuum balloon, keeping her aloft. I suppose all creatures in this helium layer will have found a way to ‘hover’ when resting, she thinks, talk about survival pressure.
Things remain quiet for a while as Na-Yeli makes good progress. By Earth reckoning, she’s about to cross the Tropic of Cancer. A blip appears on her radar, further south, heading in a westerly direction. Almost slant to my course, Na-Yeli thinks, let’s see if it keeps that heading.
As Na-Yeli comes closer, it does indeed. In the meantime, the blip grows into a blimp and further enlarges into a dirigible. Airships make so much sense in this environment, that Na-Yeli’s quite surprised to see the first one only now.
At this point, Na-Yeli must be within the dirigible’s radar range. Yet the dirigible shows no signs of seeing her, not accelerating nor slowing down, and keeping its heading. Na-Yeli is torn: should she ignore it and keep going south, or hail it and risk hostilities?
On the one hand, she has a mission. But that mission is pretty broadly defined, and ‘exploration’ features quite high in her mission statement. On the other hand, she can’t quite believe that every stranger she meets in here has to be hostile. That would make as much sense as expecting that each and every alien in here will treat her as an honored guest. Some will be hostile, some won’t. On top of that, it’s quite empty in here, and she wants to make the most of each encounter.
She’s made up her mind—she can resist everything except temptation, and mysteries are her greatest temptations—and heads for the dirigible. Neither does she want to surprise them, so she’s sending messages its way across a range of electromagnetic frequencies, sonar sound pulses, and lidar flashes. No reaction at all from the mysterious dirigible as she comes closer and closer.
She’s within ten meters of the—relatively large—airship and still no beep from the silent blimp. A rectangular bridge hangs on the bottom of the cigar-shaped airship. Its windows are dark. Na-Yeli flies as close to those windows as she can, but they only show her reflection. The dirigible seems abandoned and—for all purposes—dead.
Still, she’s got to know and makes an improvised hook that she can easily hang around one of the ropes that tie the bridge to the airship’s body. Once she’s tested if the connection is true, she retracts—transforms them into something more manageable—her wings, then hauls herself towards the door of the bridge. To her utter surprise, the door is not locked.
No gasses escape, nor are sucked in as she carefully opens the door, meaning the pressure in the bridge cabin is equal to that of this layer’s atmosphere. She goes in to find an unmanned bridge. She checks all other cabins but finds no signs of life. She hangs up a few makeshift floodlights and sets them to a low brightness as not to disturb her night vision. Then she recognizes the symbols on the bridge.
Swing Monkees, one of the most human-like aliens in this galaxy. Simian bodies with large brainpans. Their innate tendency to hang in the huge trees of their low gravity planet made them a natural fit for space travel, once the shielding problem was solved. If anything, Na-Yeli’d expect them to be much farther into the Enigmatic Object. Yet no signs of actual Swing Monkees in this ghost ship.
It’s a shame, as humanity and the Swing Monkees get along quite well, and she would have loved to exchange info and experiences. But in this dirigible, nobody’s home, except for a message, written with a red liquid, on the wall in front of her. It’s repeated—now that she knows where to look for—in other places on the walls, ceiling, and floor, albeit the same message with different phrasing. Roughly translated—she doesn’t even need the communication AI for that—they read:
“Don’t go South, for there is The Squad.”
“Those who try to cross The Squad will surely perish.”
“Abandon all hope, all ye who meet The Squad.”
Similar messages across the bridge and the crew cabins. The dirigible is abandoned, even if her air-powered autopilot is still working, stuck at maintaining a westerly heading, circling this layer for dog knows how long (she almost thought ‘for all eternity’, but that would be a bit too dramatic). No weapons or other equipment on board, so after a final check, Na-Yeli leaves the ghost ship, empty-handed.
She can’t quite put her finger on it, but it reminds her of something. Cherishing the enigma, she decides not to check similar cases in her database.
Author’s note: and so the adventure begins. Review quote:
“What happens when Star Wars meet Star Trek? Read FOREVER CURIOUS by Jetse de Vries . . . and boldly go where no one els has ever been before.”