“No. However, two of the smaller fusion tubes are still functioning, so there is power. And as far as we can tell, the nutrient organ system that supports the brain was undamaged before it froze. We’re theorizing the brain must have been alive to pilot the ship from when it fell out of the wormhole to Nkya, then died sometime after the landing. Cause of death unknown, but we’re thinking one of the first systems that failed was the life-support heating.”
“A brain this size couldn’t work out how to fix a heating circuit?” Callum said skeptically. “Bollocks.”
“It depends on what else was damaged by the landing. And this is where our alien’s biology starts to get really interesting. We sampled the brain cells, of course. The genetic molecule has a similar functionality to Kcells.”
“Shit, this is an
“I said similar. My team is telling me this is a lot more sophisticated than Olyix biogenetics. All the traits this alien molecule contains seem to be equally valid. There is no equivalent to the junk chromosome we have in human DNA, which effectively gives every cell the ability to become any type of cell required by the designer. It’s like a super stem cell; any function can be switched on by the correct chemical activant code. As long as you have a valid pattern, you can build yourself whatever you want. In this case they chose to build a brain.”
“Christ almighty!”
“It gets better. Some of the tanks on board are full of these cells in neutral mode. All dead now, of course.”
“Enough,” Alik snapped. “What about the fucking crew? Where are their bodies?”
“There aren’t any,” Lankin said. “None that we’ve found, anyway.”
“Hell, man, that makes no sense,” Callum said. “Okay, I get this isn’t how we’d design a spaceship, for a start I have serious problems with the lack of redundancy. But if the brain didn’t need a crew, why are there all these compartments?”
“Our working theory is that the brain simply builds itself whatever crew it needs out of the cells in the tanks, like biological Turing remotes. Our major onboard investigation is now focusing on the equipment that the tanks fed, which we’re assuming is some kind of biomechanical womb. When the ship crashed here, something in that mechanism broke down. The brain couldn’t build itself anything that could repair the other systems.”
“No,” Alik said bluntly. “That’s wrong. You said the hatch was open when you got here, right?”
“Yes.”
“That implies something left the ship after it arrived. The brain had no reason to open it otherwise. Some kind of mobile thinking alien was on board. Have you searched the surrounding area?”
“Right now there are over fifteen hundred drones outside, looking for any trace of activity that’s taken place on the surface. So far they’ve covered just over a thousand square kilometers. There’s nothing, not a dint that looks like a footprint—or hoofprint, claw mark, or tentacle squiggle—no line that could be some kind of wheel track, or a blast pit from a rocket exhaust. Nothing! If an alien left this ship, it flew off into the sky without touching the ground.”
“If it’d been rescued, they wouldn’t have left the distress beacon on,” Callum said.
“We’re dealing with alien psychology,” Eldlund said. “You can’t make assumptions like that.”
“If they were rescued, why leave the cargo behind?” Lankin countered.
“Speaking of which,” Yuri said, “I want to see them next.”
“Of course.”
The cargo section was the largest aft compartment, another cylinder, wider than the “bridge.” This one was divided up into four levels. The walkways were a lot narrower to accommodate the hibernation pods. Several medical technicians were occupied examining the alien apparatus and the sensors that were probing their secrets.
“No atmosphere,” Lankin said. “But the power has remained on for the hibernation systems.”
“Lucky for them,” Kandara said.
“Depends on your point of view,” Lankin muttered.
The corridor had brought us out onto the compartment’s second level. I glanced around at the hibernation pods, which were bulky sarcophagi with a smooth, curving, transparent front. They were all dark and cold, unoccupied.
“These look like something a human designed,” Loi said.
“They’re designed to accommodate humans,” Lankin told him, “which is providing you with a visual bias. But I can assure you the components are of alien manufacture. Whoever made the ship produced them. You’ll see why on the next level.”
One by one we followed him up the rope ladder that had been rigged to connect the walkways.
“How did the hypothetical crew get up and down?” Eldlund muttered as he swung about.
“The compartments are all positioned at right angles to the assumed direction of flight,” Lankin said. “So our conclusion was that there is no acceleration force while it flies along the inside of the wormhole, and that the docks at both ends are in free-fall.”