The Long Sunset Read online

  They went back out into the corridor and continued on their way, pushing more doors without result. Eventually, they forced their way into another room and found identical accommodations. Then they reached another cross passageway. More symbols were on the walls, different from the first set. They stood, aiming their lamps in both directions until the light faded.

  Eventually, they came across a large compartment with no doors, filled with rows of tables and chairs. “A cafeteria, I guess,” said Wally.

  The chairs were locked in place, of course. “I wonder if there’s a menu here somewhere,” Derek said.

  Hutch was watching everything through Derek’s commlink, which meant she couldn’t actually see him except for an occasional arm or leg. But it was clear he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. He sounded simultaneously amazed and discouraged.

  “That thing has a lot of units,” said Beth.

  Derek was walking through the cafeteria. A long table crossed the far end. It was covered with display cases, where presumably food would have been available. A few of the cases contained trays that might not have been wiped completely clean. But whatever had been on them was now nothing more than dark smears and frozen clumps.

  They left the cafeteria and continued in the same direction deeper into the ship. Within a few minutes, they came upon connecting ramps to the decks above and below. Wally and Derek walked over to them, took the up ramp, and found themselves in an identical world lined with doors. Passageways intersected just a few steps ahead. The doors were, as expected, frozen. And someone had drawn a flower on one of the walls. It was barely visible, a mere shading, having lost whatever color it might once have had. There were two blossoms, and it reached only about belt-high, as if it had been done by a child.

  Derek stood in front of it, aiming his commlink at it. “Wouldn’t want them to miss this,” he said. Then they moved on toward another intersection, where they stopped and looked at long lines of doors in both directions.

  “Which way?” asked Wally.

  “Careful, guys,” said Hutch. “You don’t want to get lost over there.”

  “No problem, Priscilla.” Wally was laughing at her. How could she possibly think he could be that dumb?

  They broke into another room. It was identical with the others, except that there were pieces of clothing lying against one bulkhead. They were frozen to it. Whoever had left them had simply tossed them aside. The clothes had presumably followed the tumble of the ship until finally they stuck to the bulkheads. “No buttons or zippers,” said Wally, tearing one of them away for a brief examination.

  Minutes later they came across a corridor unlike the others. The doors on one side were imprinted with symbols that resembled a five-pointed star inside a half-circle, and on the other with triangles. They forced one open and were surprised to discover that all the doors on that side opened into a single area. One wall was lined with large shower stalls, much larger than would have been needed to accommodate either Derek or Wally. Another section was devoted to booths that concealed toilets. As a whole, it was a considerably larger accommodation than one would have found in a human washroom.

  Beth laughed. “Looks as if we all share an appreciation for privacy.”

  • • •

  They arrived at another ramp, which went in both directions. “It might be a good idea to go back down,” said Wally. “Where the open hatch is.”

  Hutch, still listening, broke in. “You’ve got about an hour’s air left. You guys might want to think about coming back.”

  “Yeah,” said Derek. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  • • •

  Hutch would have liked to see the bridge, assuming there was one, but it was probably a four-kilometer walk from where Derek was. She stopped paying close attention to them once they’d started back. But a few minutes later, both of them started asking where the hell they were. That was her signal to get into a pressure suit. “You guys lost?” she asked.

  “No,” said Derek. “We’re trying to find the cafeteria.”

  That didn’t reassure her. The cafeteria was on the way back. If they didn’t know where it was, they had a problem.

  Great.

  Ken had been listening too. “You going after them?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You and Beth stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She climbed into a suit, pulled on an oxygen tank and a go-pack, and added two more oxygen tanks. The alien vehicle had rolled away, and the side with the open hatch was no longer visible. “Barry,” she said, “line us up as best you can.” She went back to the bridge.

  Barry maneuvered the Eiferman into a position from which the airlock would face the open hatch. “You’ll have about eight minutes before you lose it,” he said.

  Hutch grabbed the extra tanks, slipped into the airlock, and depressurized. She was still listening to the conversation between Derek and Wally.

  “Where is the damned thing?” said Derek.

  “I was sure it was in this corridor.”

  “Doesn’t look like it. Let’s back up. Check that other one back there. I think we got turned around.”

  “The problem with this place is everything looks the same.”

  Air pressure went to zero. Hutch opened up the hatch and looked across a significant stretch of void at the giant ship, which literally blocked off the sky. The entry hatch Derek and Wally had used was visible, angling closer. “Barry, be careful. We don’t want a collision.”

  “I need you to get moving, Captain.”

  She pushed off and activated the jet. “Derek,” she said, “on my way. Maybe best is to stay where you are till I get there.”

  “We can manage this, Priscilla,” he said. “All we need right now is for you to come over and get lost.”

  “Too late, Derek.” She descended to the hull, landing within a few meters of the open hatch. She went inside, turned on her lamp, and saw the circle with the strike through it, and the coiled snake. Okay. The room they’d broken into showed up straight down the corridor.

  A left turn took her to the cafeteria. Derek and Wally were still lost, still debating over which way to go. “Guys,” she said, “I’m at the ramp. The first one. You have your lights on, right?”

  “Of course we do, Priscilla.” Derek didn’t sound happy.

  “How’s your air?”

  “Getting a little low.” Wally again.

  “All right. I’ve got a couple of tanks with me. Have you seen any corridors that curve?”

  “What difference does that make?” asked Derek.

  “Please answer the question.”

  “No. Everything runs in a straight line.”

  “Okay. Wherever you are now, I need you to stop moving around. You’re still on the deck with the open hatch, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been moving more or less in the same direction? Is there any chance you turned around and passed the area where the cafeteria was located?”

  “No, we turned around once or twice, but I don’t think we went back that far.”

  “Okay. Look around you and find the nearest place where a corridor crosses the one you’re in.”

  “We just passed one.”

  “Good. Go back to it. When you get there, stop. Then give me a few minutes. When I tell you, aim your lamps in all four directions.”

  Intersections appeared at regular intervals, in each case about a two-minute walk. She stopped at one just as Derek’s voice came back on. “We’re here, Priscilla.”

  “Good.” She turned off her own lamp. “Now shine your lights for me. Both directions, in both passageways.”

  Everything stayed dark.

  “Okay. Stay where you are. Give me a couple of minutes and I should be able to find you.”

  “Priscilla,” said Derek, “I don’t think we have time for this.”

  “Stay with it. We’ll be okay.” She passed an open door as sh
e hurried along the corridor. That would be the room with the garments on the bulkhead. She arrived at the next intersection. But again the corridor was dark.

  Her major concern was that they’d wandered in a reverse direction without realizing it. That they were on the far side of the vehicle. But it was hard to believe they’d gotten completely turned around and not noticed. The next intersection was again dark.

  She needed two more cross passageways before she saw lights. She responded with a loud “Yes!” and showed them her lamp.

  “Hi, Hutch,” said Wally. “We are glad to see you.”

  • • •

  They switched out Wally’s tank on the way back. Derek commented that it was surprisingly easy to get lost in the vehicle. “We should have been more careful, Priscilla. I’m glad you were available.” She knew, inside the helmet, he was smiling.

  “So, what do you make of all this, Derek?” she asked as they arrived back in the Eiferman and began climbing out of their suits.

  He laid his helmet on one of the chairs in the passenger cabin. “Well, one thing’s confirmed.”

  “And that is?”

  “There was an advanced civilization out here. And they scrambled—at least some of them did—to get away from the black hole.”

  Ken looked skeptical. “That thing would have been able to carry a lot of passengers. But it was adrift. You think they actually got clear? Some of them?”

  “I hope so,” said Derek.

  “It’s interesting to do the math,” Hutch said.

  “What math is that?” asked Wally.

  “How many levels does it have? The transport?”

  Derek and Wally gazed at each other. “We only went to two.”

  “If Barry has the numbers right, it has eight. Each level will have approximately a million rooms.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Two occupants in a room. Eight levels. How many passengers can you move with that kind of capacity?”

  “None,” said Wally. “Not without thrusters.”

  “Wally, you have a high-tech civilization living in the Calliope system. They knew for a long time the black hole was coming.”

  “So,” said Ken, “what’s your point?”

  “They developed a technology specifically for moving people.”

  “But there’s no drive unit,” said Wally.

  “The drive units were separate from the transport vehicles. Maybe it was more practical that way.”

  Derek nodded. “Makes sense. They might not have had time, or maybe even the resources, to manufacture a fleet of transports and equip them with an interstellar drive. So, you leave off the drive. Just produce an oversized carrier that can take millions of passengers. You connect it to something with a drive unit that can take them to a nearby star, deliver the passengers, and bring the carrier back for more. They probably used magnetics to lock the carrier to a ship.”

  Wally shook his head. “The ship better have one hell of a drive unit.”

  “So, why’s this one floating out here?” said Beth.

  “They were done with it. Maybe the evacuation got a bit hectic toward the end and they had to jettison it. You’ll notice that we didn’t find any bodies.”

  “That’s true,” said Ken. “I guess they got everybody off and just didn’t need it anymore. I hope so.”

  Derek looked pleased. “I think we can assume they got at least some of their people clear. They’d have needed a Goldilocks world, and they’d have had to choose the closest one they could find. It might not be too hard to find.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Wally.

  “If we could locate the place, we might be able to go to say hello.”

  “Oh yes,” said Beth, “President Proctor would just love that.”

  “Well, I’m not talking about literally doing it. Though if it were up to me, I’d love to drop by and congratulate them. Whatever, I think we have an obligation to find out, if we can, who they were and where they went.”

  “So, what are you suggesting?”

  “They were trying to move a planetary population. So, they couldn’t have gone far.” He looked around. “Anyone object?”

  Derek Blanchard, Extract from Notebook, Intended for Autobiography

  I’ve always thought there was nothing in my life I wanted more than to share a lunch with members of an advanced species. That’s not going to happen, I guess. But at least, I’d very much like to get a look at the kind of world they’d select for themselves. The ice world is going to become one of the great cosmic mysteries. Did they survive? Eventually, we are going to have to track down what really happened. We can do it now, or we can leave it for someone else.

  —Wednesday, April 9, 2256

  19.

  In a world that is usually boring when it is not painful, intelligence can be measured as a capacity to find amusement, or at least distraction.

  —Gregory MacAllister, “Options,” Baltimore Sun, February 2, 2249

  It’s not that difficult,” Hutch told Beth, who’d come onto the bridge and was sitting beside her. “They’d have been looking for an F, G, or K class star. As close as possible. With a planet in the habitable zone.”

  “I’ve got that,” said Beth. “But you said the disadvantage of the Locarno is that it only works effectively when we know how far the target is. Right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “If we start guessing how far these stars are, aren’t we going to run out of fuel?”

  “We would if we did it that way.”

  “So what way are we going to do it?”

  “We’ll measure the distance to the candidate stars.”

  Beth looked out at the sky. “Exactly how do we do that?”

  “It’s not hard. We do a parallax.”

  She smiled. “Sounds intriguing.”

  “At the moment, Barry’s using the telescope to do a spectral analysis of every star we can see. That’ll narrow them down to the ones that could support a living world. The F, G, and K types. Once we have that, we’ll do the parallax.”

  “Which is what?”

  “We measure how much a star’s position shifts when we look at it from two different locations. Back in the old days, they measured a star’s angle and waited six months for the Earth to get to the other side of the sun. That moved the observer three hundred million kilometers. Then they did a second measurement to determine how much the star’s angle had changed. The more distant the star, the less the change.”

  Wally frowned. “We don’t have the resources to hang out here for another six months.”

  “Of course not. We’re not riding the Earth. We’ve got the Eiferman. Give us some time. When Barry’s finished with his measurements, we’ll do a jump, a light-year or two, and make another set of observations. That’ll allow us to figure out which ones are close enough to have been likely destinations for whoever lived on that frozen world.”

  • • •

  In fact, they had thirty-one candidates by midafternoon. Derek ordered the jump, and Hutch took them forward one light-year. Barry then determined the ranges, and Derek worked out a schedule.

  Their first choice turned out to be a binary; a pair of stars orbiting each other. “I should have told Barry to rule out any binaries,” Derek said. “I assumed he knew that wouldn’t work for a stable system.”

  The second selection had, as far as they could determine, no planets, at least none within a habitable range. The third, however, revealed a world in the middle of the habitable zone, and it was filled with life. Broad continents were overrun with large, lumbering lizards and flexible plants that seized and clung to whatever smaller creatures got within range. “They certainly wouldn’t have come here,” said Beth.

  Hutch and Derek were on the bridge; the others were seated on the front porch, watching telescopic images on the display: close-ups of a bird with a huge beak and claws patrolling a beach, and a giant worm attacking a colony of insects.

/>   “Okay,” said Derek. “Let’s move on.”

  Hutch was happy to leave. “Barry,” she said, “get ready to head for Number Four.” She warned everybody in the cabin.

  “Something I should point out,” said Barry. “Number Four is directly in the path of the black hole.”

  “That eliminates Four,” said Hutch. “No way they’d have evacuated there.”

  “Barry,” said Derek, “would we be going out of our way to travel to Four?”

  “No, sir. Not much.”

  “How much?”

  “Approximately a day.”

  “If no one objects, why don’t we take a look?”

  Derek Blanchard, Extract from Notebook, Intended for Autobiography

  I should have noticed Four was in the path of that thing when I was putting together the schedule. Getting old, I guess. In any case, I probably would have checked it out anyhow. Who knows what might be there?

  —Saturday, April 12, 2256

  20.

  Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

  Healthy, free, the world before me,

  The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

  —Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road,” 1856

  Number Four had a world in the zone. And, to everyone’s distress, there were small clusters of lights on its night side. “It’s quiet,” Barry said. “We aren’t acquiring any radio transmissions.” A cratered moon hung in the sky, about half the size of Luna. As they drew nearer and were able to see the sunlit side, they discovered it was an ocean world. No continents were visible, only occasional island chains, mostly covered with green vegetation. It had polar ice caps. And large white clouds drifted through the sky. Then Barry was back: “I have located an oceangoing vessel.” He put it on the display. It could have been a freighter out of the nineteenth century. Three smokestacks left a trail behind it. Crates were piled fore and aft.

  “There’s something moving on the deck,” said Barry, “but I can’t get enough magnification to make out what it is. Other than it’s wearing gray clothes. Or maybe it is gray.”