Chapter 18: Tomb Ship

MOM is a big ship, even just the half we live in. The alien ship dwarfs MOM. It’s enormous. MOM is in orbit around the blue water world, slightly higher than and creeping up on the PLUS craft. We’re going to bump.

While it’s a logical certainty, somewhere on the PLUS ship is some sort of door or several, we can’t see one. The PLUS ship looks like a long cigar shaped icicle. Using ice as insulation and repairable collision absorption material was as obvious a choice for the PLUS engineers as for our own.

Docking is always a controlled slow speed collision. We intend to dock the two huge vessels. Once we are locked together using part of our gravity drive as a clamp, we will melt some ice and spray the water on the connection, refreezing around the join. Building a thick scab of ice where the two vessels touch, then tunneling through the ice cofferdam created. Our intent is to penetrate the PLUS hull, and explore the contents. The mood aboard MOM is like Christmas eve. Our big present is waiting to be opened.

The alien apparently has died. At any rate, stopped communicating.

Even though we might not be of any assistance to the PLUS, we still need to get aboard the alien ship.

Using the space-plane as a standby rescue craft, it’s been launched just in case something or someone is ejected and needs recovering. Aboard the Space-Plane is myself as pilot, with the ever present JoAnn in my head, then little Brenda, Brenda’s mom Linda, and Maarta.

Flotsam is still in Cryo and in an out-of-body state. Brenda claims to see and communicate with Flotsam, and serves as our liaison.

A fine spray of ice crystals explodes from the contact point when the collision occurs. The comet head we used as a ram and front bumper during our voyage, is now being welded to the alien with a fresh deposit of ice.

Watching the sealing process and the invisible internal burrowing, is boring. Be alert. Remain alert! Might be pressure inside the PLUS hull, that blows everything apart. Paying strict attention. Why doesn’t someone give us a status report?

“JoAnn? Any updates? Rats.”

MEETING OF THE GRAND DAMES

The PLUS ship is a huge disappointment. It’s a colony ship, similar to ours. Loaded with zillions of frozen tadpoles. Their species requires a saline sea. All the water in this system, both planets, is fresh water, no salt anywhere, apparently none. The pilot has indeed expired, but we dare not open the cryo capsule to see what the adult creature looks like. Danger of infection or who knows what lurks inside we would wish we hadn’t disturbed.

Our wisest members are deciding, if we should just leave the PLUS ship here in orbit, or aim it some direction and give it a kick-start?

Our own technology appears to be better than the PLUS, so the only thing we might be able to salvage is some astronomical data, star-charts and such. First we’d need to learn the language and writing. If writing is how they record data.

Their gravity drives are inferior, but some units are undamaged. Might be worth saving, salvaging for use in constructing low class inter-system freight transports.

Well, the decision from on high is final, do nothing regarding the PLUS ship. Seal it back up, leave it unmolested. Maybe some PLUS folk will come looking for it some day. Best not to need tomake apologies and excuses in such a situation.

Space-Plane has Milly aboard and we dropped off Brenda and Linda on MOM. We’re headed for the green twin planet, for an aerial reconnaissance of the jungle planet. My hope is, nothing too boring or too exciting is the outcome.

We have learned one thing, answered one burning question. We aren’t alone in the Universe. Life exists elsewhere. Maybe right here on the green planet. That is a stupid surmise. I exists. Vegetation is life, there’s plenty of it, and maybe there’s fauna hiding in the flora?