Crisis on Altair 5
Chapter 4
by
Bob Shimer, StoryVent
"Don't get too close." Jeff warned. He looked at the instruments. "The energy readings are continuing to increase. I think this thing is absorbing radiation to get stronger."
"But what is it?" Asked Sam.
"I don't know but we've got to get it isolated." Jeff said.
"Beryllium!" exclaimed Karl. "That stops the Ytterbium radiation. Maybe that can isolate this thing."
Jeff keyed the communicator. "Chrispin!"
"Chrispin here." came the reply.
"We need a beryllium case, about a meter in diameter and about two meters long."
"We'll get Engineering on it right away." there was a short pause. "What have you found?"
"We don't know what it is but it is artificial and, from the looks of the rocks around it, its old. And it wasn't put here by humans!"
"We're sending a Clipper shuttle down with the case. They'll have to hover and lower it. There's no way to land."
"Send some handler equipment too. I don't think we want to touch this thing!"
While they were waiting for the clipper they moved around to get a look at it from all sides. There was no marks on the artifact anywhere. There seemed to be layers of dust on all but the sphere. That was clean and shinny.
"It looks like we can get close to get it free but stay clear of the sphere. Something cleaned it off recently and I think that it was the artifact itself."
They started digging around the artifact getting it free so they could load it in the case when it arrived. The more they dug it out the convinced they were that it was extremely old, thousands of years at least.
When the Clipper arrived and lowered the case, they were able use the handler to load the artifact into it. As they sealed the case up the energy readings dropped to zero.
The Clipper pulled the case holding the artifact up into the cargo hold and headed back to the Chrispin.
"We can use the generators again now." Karl said.
"Will they recover?" asked Sam.
"No." Karl replied. "We'll need to have new ytterbium cores sent from Earth. We'll need an inventory."
"We can do that." Sam said.
"Any generators that weren't all the way run done will still work but we should replace those cores also." Jeff added.
"We don't have many that still work. We can get along until we get new cores though.
Jeff keyed the communicator, "Chrispin, be careful of that thing. Don't let the seals on the case get broken. We don't know how powerful it is. It could do damage to the Chrispin."
"We'll be careful and put it in a stasis field when we get in on board. Do you have any idea of what it is?"
Karl spoke up, "I have an idea what it is. I think it is a beacon of some kind. It was powered by absorbing radiation. It ran out and was almost dead until the colonists supplied it the radiation it needed. That's why there's no natural radiation on this planet. That artifact used it all up."
"But that would mean its been here a very long time, a very long time, maybe a million years!"
"What kind of a beacon. And who put it here?" Laura asked.
"Karl looked at Laura. "I wish we knew. All we know is that someone, or something, was here a long, long time ago. And they had a very advanced technology. More advance in some areas the ours. We have nothing that can do what this thing did, or that could last that long."
"What are you going to do now?" Sam asked.
"We'll go in the direction of the beam it sent out."
"I wonder if there is anything still out there?" Laura said.
"I don't know." said Jeff. "But you and I have some catching up on the ride back. I'm sure we've got many stories to tell each other."
