Jack McDevitt: Cauldron

“Look, François.” She was trying to sound reasonable. “We can probably find a hatch or port or something. We can get in, take a quick look around, and clear out.” She was already opening the storage locker and grabbing for air tanks and an e-suit.

“No,” said Ben. “Absolutely not.”

Tolya looked frantic. “I’ll go, too.” All the women on the flight were deranged. “What do you want to do,” she demanded, “just give up?”

François wanted to remind her she was only a student. Not here to give directions to anybody. But Ben took care of it with an icy look. “Forget it,” he said. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Twenty minutes won’t be enough time.”

“He’s right,” said François.

Ben was a bit too daunting for her, so Tolya turned on François. “What the hell do you know about it? What are we going to do? Just stand by and watch the idiot cloud blow that thing up? Spend the rest of our lives wondering what it might have been?”

It was tumbling. Slowly.

“ I wonder how old it is? ” Leah checked Ben’s air tanks. “ You’re all set. ”

They were in the airlock, carrying lasers and tool belts, ready to go. Eagle and Tolya had wanted to go along, too, but fortunately there were only three e-suits on board, and nobody got to use the captain’s. It was a violation of regulations.

“You guys go over,” said François, “cut your way in, take a quick look, and get back here.”

“ Don’t worry, ” said Ben.

“Look, Ben, so you know: There really isn’t time to do this, and I’m not going to put the ship at risk. When it gets close, I’m clearing out. Whether you two are back or not.”

“ Understood, ” said Ben.

“ Goddam it. ” Leah shook her head. “ You worry too much, François. ”

He saw no advantage to the design of the object. The cubes seemed to be connected in a totally random fashion. Purely aesthetic, he thought. Somebody’s idea of art.

He looked at the rear view. The black patch was growing, systematically blocking out stars.

“ Hatch locations, ” said Bill, marking four sites on the display. François picked one that allowed easy access from the Jenkins and maneuvered alongside. It was located on one of the smaller cubes, on the outer rim of the cluster. It was less than average size, but it was larger than the Jenkins . He eased in as closely as he could, lined up the hatch with the ship’s air lock, and instructed Bill to hold the position. “Okay,” he told Ben.

His navigation lights played off the surface of the object. It was battered. Corroded. It had been there a long time.

Ben opened the outer hatch. “ It’s pretty worn, ” he said.

“You’ve got seventeen minutes to be back here,” François said. “Okay? Seventeen minutes and we take off. Whether you’re on board or not.”

“ Don’t worry, ” said Leah. “ Just keep the door open. ”

Right.

An imager picked them up as they left the ship. Followed them across the few meters of open space to the hatch. Whoever’d used it had been about the same size as humans. Which meant Ben would have a hard time squeezing through.

“ Incredible, ” said Leah. She was examining the hull, which was pocked and scored. “ Cosmic rays. It is ancient. ”

“ How old do you think? ” asked Ben.

Bill sighed. “ Use the scanner, Ben. Get me the hull’s composition, and I might be able to give you an answer. ”

Ben wasn’t sure which of the devices he carried with him was the scanner. He hadn’t used one before, but Leah knew. She activated hers and ran it across the damage.

“ Good, ” said Bill. “ Give me a minute. ”

Ben made an effort to open the hatch. There was a press panel, but it didn’t react. Leah put her scanner back in her belt and produced a laser. She activated it and started cutting. “ This is a disaster, ” she said. “ What were the odds of finding something like this? And then to have it sitting right in front of that goddam avalanche back there? ”

Ben drew his own laser out of his harness, but François cautioned him not to use it. Two relatively inexperienced people cutting away was a sure formula for disaster. So he stayed back. Leah needed only minutes to cut through. She pushed a wedge of metal into space, put the instrument away, and stepped inside the ship.

“Turn on the recorder,” François told her.

Each wore an imager on the right breast pocket. The auxiliary monitor came to life, and François was looking down a dark corridor, illuminated by their headlamps. Shadows everywhere. The bulkhead looked rough and washed-out. Whatever materials had originally lined it had disintegrated. The overhead was so low that even Leah couldn’t stand up straight.

Something was moving slowly down the bulkhead. Ben saw it, and the picture jumped.

“What is it?” asked François.

Dust. A hand, Leah’s, scooped some of it up, held the light against it.

“ Scan it, ” said Bill. Leah complied. The AI’s electronics murmured softly. “ Organics, ” he said.

“ You’re saying this was one of the crew? ”

“Probably,” said François. “Or maybe they kept plants on board.”

“ I wonder what happened here? ” said Ben.

After a long silence, Bill said, “ I’ve got the results on the cosmic ray damage. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve double-checked the numbers. The object appears to be 1.2 billion years old. ”

Ben made a noise as if he were in pain. “ That can’t be right, ” he said.

“ I’ve made no error. ”

“ Son of a bitch. François, we’ve got to save this thing. ”

“If you can think of a way, I’ll be happy to make it happen.”

Leah broke in: “ There’s something on the wall here. Engraving of some kind. Feel this, Ben. ”

He put his fingertips against the bulkhead. Then he produced a knife and scraped away some dust.

“ Careful, ” she said.

François couldn’t make out anything.

“ There is something here. It’s filled in. ”

Leah moved to her right. “ More here. ” She ran her fingers down the bulkhead, top to bottom. “ Not symbols, ” she said. “ More like a curving line. ”

“Nine minutes,” said François.

“ For God’s sake, François. Give us a break. ”

“What do you want me to do, Ben?” He was having trouble keeping the anger out of his voice. Did they think he wouldn’t have saved the thing if he could? Did they think he didn’t care?

He listened while they tried to get a better look at the bulkhead. The object was tumbling slowly as it moved, and the dust had been crawling around inside it all this time. It would have long since wedded itself to any apertures, openings, lines, anything on the bulkheads. “It’s hopeless,” François said.

It wasn’t going well. He heard mostly invective, aimed at the dust, occasionally at the omega. “ Can’t be sure of anything, ” Leah said. She looked around. A few pieces of metal were bolted into the connecting bulkhead.

“ Might have been cabinets, ” said Ben, “ or shelves, or an instrument panel of some sort. ”

“Better start back,” said François.

“ We can’t just give up. ” Ben sounded desperate. He literally stabbed the bulkhead. “We may never find anything again as old as this is. ”

“Before the dinosaurs,” said François.