Chapter 1 wrote:Many people expected mankind’s first contact with intelligent aliens to be much more dramatic than it was. Indeed, for a long time, most people believed the pictures to be a hoax, some shoddy image manipulation set up by a hacker interrupting the probe’s telemetry, though the continued performance of the probe over the next years converted most people. After another two probes confirmed the existence of the chasm, one launched by the European Space agency in 2006, and another launched by NASA in 2008, no one doubted it.
The existence of alien life was to most people a matter of supreme indifference. There were of course, problems for many religions, however they usually simply explained it away as ‘the creator’ not restricting his works to earth. The most profound effect of the discovery was the formation of the United Nations Space Agency in 2011.
The UNSA was formed to represent all of humanity, rather than individual nations, though some nations did retain their own space programs, if for nothing more than commercial launches, manned space flight eventually all fell under the control of the UNSA.
The UNSA sent a continuous stream of probes to Mimas, none of them ever sent many signals beyond the intense magnetic field that seemed to exist at the surface. It was established that they still functioned, but that communications through the magnetic field were impossible.
It was in June 2048 that President Breland – nth president of the United States, - still the leading nation in the UNSA – announced the mission. Public approval had been muted, few people honestly wanting to disturb whatever life there was there. ‘After all, they didn’t care to visit us, why should we visit them?’ were the responses.
The mission went ahead anyway, the SS Clarke left earth in ’49, carrying a six-nation crew on a six-year mission.
Commander John Newton unstrapped himself from his sleeping bag. It was the big day at last. Half Climbing half swimming up to the Control centre – an easier task since the deceleration had ceased, but made up for in the endless hours that needed to be spent exercising to preserve the crew’s bodies.
The great orb of Saturn filled the screen labelled ‘forward’ though it actually showed the rear of the ship at the moment as its drives were now pointing in the direction of travel.
The ship had no windows as such, given that they would be a serious radiation risk. Instead, all of the optics were external and relayed through to the ship. Embedded into one of the panels were two clocks, One showing time until the beginning of the next engine burn, and the other showing the schedules time until orbit of Midas. Both were now below twelve hours.
For him this was undoubtedly the greatest achievement of his life, and the source of his greatest fears. With a conscious effort he suppressed thoughts about how horribly wrong this could go and concentrated on the mission.
“Thank you Stace,” he said to the woman sitting, looking rather bored in front of the main panel, not that she had any less interest in the mission than himself, but sitting watch was a very boring job – and one that everyone got about twice per week.
He took her place, easing into the padded chair and strapping himself down to keep him in the chair. He could see the blip representing the survey module already orbiting the moon. That at least was reassuring. It meant that they should have no difficulty-entering orbit to rendezvous with it, and in turn the return module should be able to do the same next month.
They were now travelling at around thirty six thousand meters per second, a four hour burn would be required to reduce their relative velocity to zero meters per second, then they would begin the rendezvous.
An hour later the crew were bracing themselves for the return of gravity, a phantom of it at least. Most of them were lying on the floor, where they would handle the shock best. Those who were not were the pilot/commander, navigator and chief engineer, whose duties kept them in the control room.
“Apertures at 70 % dilation.” said the engineer, a thin Indian man.
“Stand by all stations” said the commander, and he pressed the master control button on the console.
The stomach churning return to one-quarter gravity caused alarming noises as the liquids in the tanks slopped around to the new down.
Hours later they docked with the ‘survey module’ – the ship was sent in three parts. The survey module was the least important. It could be destroyed, and the only result would be mission failure. The SM was sent ahead of the command module and the return module to test the procedures first.
When it arrived at Saturn the survey module took up a high orbit, which allowed the command module to dock with it at it’s perigee.
Newton was the first through the hatch into the SM, it was basically a box with an engine, and an airlock. The SM however, contained all the useful scientific equipment.
Right now, Newton, and Doctor Tsing were running tests on the 200-millimetre reflector telescope. It was to be pointed at the moon for their initial approach.
The doctor gave a slight cry of delight “I think we have it” he said.
Newton looked at the screen, and there before him was an image of the moon, slowly growing as the ship came closer.
They could see the ominous pit, much more intimidating in person than on sterile photographs and telemetry. Who could have built such a pit, hundreds of kilometres deep, and why would they have done it?
The machine mind of the moon awoke for only the third time in a millennium something had again come. It performed the usual scan for life forms, and was rewarded with something more complex than the bacteria of the last probe. Life had evolved on the third planet just as predicted.
They must be brought into the moon for examination.