Moonbase

By WillFlyForFood — Copyright © 2018 by J.C. Gunn

​Captain Colin McKenzie of the starship Richard P. Feynman continued the pre-landing briefing. "Okay crew this is the plan. We are in a low orbit of the bravo moon of Tau Ceti-2. As everyone can see from the monitors at their stations, that structure below us is a moon base and a big one. It makes our Luna-1 look like a kid's toy model... And it's old, real old. Richard estimates it's soumething on the order of four hundred million years old. So this is mostly an archaeological expedition."

​He looked at the eager faces of the bridge crew and continued. "So here's what we're gonna' do. Myself, Lieutenant Hansen, Colonel Jones, Doctor Scott, Communications Technician Dark Cloud and Colonel Chen will take the Bravo pod to the surface. Lieutenant Hansen will pilot and I will co-pilot. Commander Green, you are in Command in my absence."

​"Aye, sir."

​"D, if everything goes as planned, we'll be back in twelve hours. If we need assistance, we'll call you, but priority number one is to get the ship home. Got it!"

​His Second answered. "Yes, sir!"

​"Keep the Alpha lander on warm standby if needed, but remember it's your only remaining life boat. Anderson and Morales are on RESCAP alert as required. If something below goes to shit, do not lose my ship, understand that Mister?"

​"Aye, sir."

​Colin then looked to Doctor Scott and said. "Okay Doc, go ahead with the plan."

​Robert pressed a key at his station and the best image they had of the moon base appeared on the main viewer. "Our initial survey will be to find a safe landing site. We'll make an initial reconnaissance flyby and then go from there in accordance with Fleet protocol AE–1C. Richard, please give us the results of your initial findings on ship wide."

​"Yes, Doctor. The moon TC-2B has some similarities to Luna. It like Earth's moon was formed in the collision between TC-2 and some unknown planetesimal. It reformed in a tidally locked orbit some four billion years ago. It is an airless body made of lighter elements, mostly silica, aluminum, lithium, andoxygen. It has no significant magnetic field. The surface gravity is three-tenths standard. The core appears to be small and cold and there is no measurable seismic or tectonic activity."

​"Thank you, Richard, what about the base or bases as I should say."

​"Indeed Doctor, this appears to be the largest and most well preserved of at least twenty large moon bases. All seem to be arranged in the same general scheme. A central circular hub with spoke-like structures leading to five axial landing pads. Approximately fifty kilometers from each base are massive structures which appear to be landing areas for extremely large spacecraft."

​Richard continued. "The pads are all two point two kilometers on a side and are made of an unknown material."

​Colin shook his head a bit and said. "Thank you, Richard. Please configure your sensors for a holo cam channel on each EVA suit, and before Doctor Scott asks, please dedicate commchannel ten so that you and he can carry on a running conversation."

​Robert rolled his eyes and Mynah hugged him a bit and laughed. She asked Colin. "How did you know he would want that Captain?"

​"It's my ship; I'm supposed to know everything. And besides, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Richard can talk to sixty-four people at any one time."

​With a fake hurt feelings tone, the AI responded. "It's one twenty-eight now sir since the memory upgrade."

​Colin then laughed. "I know that Richard, I was just testing to see if you were paying attention."

​"Yes humor, again. I will have to keep working on that."

​About an hour, later six people entered the small landing pod and strapped into their stations. They were all in hard EVA suits. The pod had two forward crew stations and six passenger seats. With two vacant seats, the pod felt only slightly less claustrophobic to its occupants.

​Lieutenant Hansen keyed the comm system and said. "Feynman, Bravo pod powered up and ready for departure."

​Over the comm circuit, Commander Green's voice responded. "Bravo, you are cleared for departure."

​The pod silently lifted off the spotlessly clean deck plates of the Feynman's cramped landing bay and slowly departed through the lower hatch. Lieutenant Hansen deftly maneuvered the small pod away from the ship. As soon as he was clear, he fired the thrusters to put some distance between the pod and the ship. At just over one kilometer away, he fired the main engine to establish a descent vector to the ancient alien moon base.

​At an altitude of one kilometer and about three minutes before a landing decision had to be made, the small pod slowed its descent rate. Colin looked at his instruments and asked. "How's the fuel, Lieutenant?"

​"Good sir, better than we thought. You and the Doc have about two hundred seconds to pick a spot before we're an abort for fuel."

​"Continue descent profile Mister Hansen. Doc what do you think, the one we planned or that next pad counterclockwise?"

​Colin pointed both to the display and out the pod's main viewport to the landing sites. Another display showed a diagram of the moon base. The landing pads were labeled alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon in clockwise order. Thinking quickly Robert said. "No, alpha looks to have some kind of damage, and the causeway or tunnel from the main base to delta looks to be collapsed, do you see there?"

​"Yeah, I do now."

​Robert then said quickly. "Captain, Lieutenant my recommendation is the beta pad on the sunward side."

​Colin responded with renewed confidence. "Okay Lieutenant you heard the man. Put us down just like we did in the simulation. If the surface starts to give way on touchdown immediately abort and we'll go home."

​"Aye sir, got it."

​Lieutenant Hansen started his landing checklist. "Okay Co, velocity, distance, and fuel to abort every fifteen seconds."

​"Aye pilot. Altitude 800 meters, velocity 50 meters per second and decreasing, fuel 120 seconds, mark! 500 meters now, down 30 meters per second, fuel 90 seconds."

​A few seconds later, Lt Hansen cross-checked his instruments and then looked out both the forward and footwellviewports. "Picking up some dust, stability aug on auto."

​Colin responded crisply. "12 meters, velocity 2.5 meters per second."

​"Vision now obscured, going instruments only."

​"Radar altitude 4 meters, down 2 meters per second...strut one contact...strut three contact."

​With a slight left to right wobble, the pod settled gently on the surface of the ancient base.

Lt Hansen started breathing again as he said. "Engine shutdown."

​"Nice job, Lieutenant."

​"Thanks, boss, it's not every day you get to land on a place like this. Definitely, one that's going in my logbook with a star!"

​The last time the landing pad had been used, the ancestors of humans were barely more advanced than pond scum andprokaryotic bacteria.

​As Lieutenant Hansen proceeded with the landing pod shutdown checklist, Colin called up to Mama. "Feynman, we are on the ground safe and sound. Fuel at 55%. We'll start EVA in 20 minutes."

​Darius' relieved voice answered a few seconds later. "Good to have you on the ground Bravo, guys up here were getting a little blue, we can breathe again."

​"Thanks, D, my sentiments exactly."

​Fifteen minutes later, the group of six humans exited the small flimsy pod and stepped onto the alien landing pad. Doctor Scott immediately noticed a centimeter or two of a very fine dust. He scraped it with his boot and noticed the underlying structure was a smooth and consisted of an unknown whitish-gray substance. He keyed the comm to his private channel with Richard and said. "Richard I'm seeing approximately two centimeters of micro-meteorite dust. Based on the current rate of deposition, what is your estimate for the last time this was used?"

​A few seconds later the voice of Richard answered. "Consistent with the other evidence Doctor, approximately three hundred ninety million standard years since this pad was in a clean condition."

​"Okay thanks Richard, we'll see what the rest of this place looks like."

​The group walked over toward the edge of the landing pad nearest to what appeared to be an access causeway to the main base. There were obvious windows along the side of the causeway and on the walls of the main base itself. At the edge of the landing pad a series of terraces, almost like steps led their way to the surface. Colin looked around and announced on the group's common comm channel. "Okay, folks let's carefully make our way down to the surface and see if we can find the door."

​As the group helped each other carefully negotiate the terraces down the fifty meters or so to the surface, it became evident that the windows or ports were all open to the vacuum.

​"Captain?"

​"Go ahead Doc."

​"Doesn't look like we'll need to look for a door, after all, look at that biggest window, it's wide-open. The glass or whatever was there is completely gone, we can walk right in."

​"Very well Doc, you may have the honors."

​Robert stepped across the dusty surface to the edge of the base. Lt Hansen gave him a leg up to the top of the one-meterhigh ledge. Robert looked up at the pure white ice-coveredglobe of the planet Tau Ceti Two and wondered to himself where did the people that built this place go? He then turned on his helmet light and stepped through the opening.​

​Robert carefully stepped into what he perceived as a long hallway, it reminded him of the tunnel from the waiting area to the launch pits at the Mohave spaceport. It was dark, silent and dusty. Even with no atmosphere, every step disturbed the dust and debris on the floor of the tunnel. Behind Robert, Colin entered the window and looked around in awe. He was followed in trail by Li Chen, Technician Dark Cloud and the rest of the landing party. As the last one in, and second-in-command, Lieutenant Hansen called up to the Feynman. "We're entering the structure now. Beta site, west wall. Will try to maintain comms through the pod's relay. If we lose you, the next mandatory call will be in one hundred twenty minutes."

​Commander Green answered through the static. "Acknowledged. Be careful in there!"

​As the landing party advanced down the long narrow tunnel-like passage, they walked through a series of light and dark areas between each of the missing windows along the 500-meter long corridor. One side of the floor was simply the same dust covered whitish–gray material as the walls; the other side of the corridor had a series of metal plates and rollers built into the structure of the floor. There were also metal posts and something resembling a handrail to one side of the metal tracks. It looked to Robert like the remains of a people mover or some sort of moving walkway. Every 100 meters or so, bare wires and metal brackets were mounted high up on the wall. As they got to the end of the passageway, it opened into an enormous room. "Holy shit!" Exclaimed Lieutenant Hansen. "You could fit the entire ship in here."

​Robert laughed and said. "Indeed Lieutenant and ten or twelve basketball courts."

​High above the floor of the 50-meter high room weredozens of circular skylights and like the windows, they too were open to vacuum. The floor of the immense room consisted of row after row of T-shaped metal shapes about one-third of a meter high. The immense wall opposite the corridor had the same arrangement of bare wires and metal brackets. Against one wall of the room were series of metal counters about one meter high. Behind the counters, the now familiar wires and brackets were attached to the wall. There also a series of what appeared to be door sized openings behind the counters.

​At that point, Colin asked Doctor Scott on the common channel. "Well, Doc, what do you think?"

​Scott hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Captain, I have a hypothesis. Why don't we just test it with our unbiased observer?" He looked at the red-suited Colonel Chen and asked. "Li, what does this structure remind you of?"

​Chen thought a moment to himself. I won't be giving up any state secrets if I answer, and besides, I'm 12 light years from the Committee for State Security. He also couldn't help but admit: I think I'm starting to like these people.

​"Doctor Scott, it reminds me eerily of the Shanghai airport, the lines and crowds there are... Well, you can imagine."

​"Thank you, Colonel, that's exactly what this is, an embarkation terminal."

​Lieutenant Hansen, may have overestimated his lowly position a bit when he asked abruptly. "But who were they, and where were they going?"

​"Good question Lieutenant. Let's think about it."

​After a few seconds, Scott pointed up to the skylights. "Okay L-T look up through the skylight and tell me what you see?"

​Everyone in the group looked up through the open holes in the structure. What they saw was the waxing crescent of the planet Tau Ceti Two. The Alpha moon was just visible crossing the dark shadow of the terminator on the surface of the shiny white planet.

​"Well sir, I see the planet."

​"Okay, describe it to me as if I wasn't here with you."

​The Lieutenant did not know what to make of this game, he felt a bit like a first-year student at the Academy. The usually confident Hansen then answered hesitatingly. "Well Doc, I see the planet and the smaller of the two moons."

​Scott chuckled and said. "So...just like the view from Luna of our blue Earth?"

​"Yes sir, except..." He pointed with his gloved hand. "This one is white, pure white."

​"Why's that?"

​At that point Mick interrupted. "'Cause it's frozen solid, a giant ice ball!"

​Scott began again as if he was lecturing his students back home. "Okay, here are the things we know. The star is old and has been cooling for hundreds of millions of years. We know that the people who lived on Tau Ceti Two had space elevators and that they built at least twenty enormous moon bases with over one hundred total landing pads and then there are those massive landing fields outside of each base. I think that we can be pretty sure that no one is living on that ice ball as Colonel Jones described it. Looks to me like they had an orderly evacuation of the planet."

​Lieutenant Hansen then asked. "But how long would it take to evacuate an entire planetary population?"

​Doctor Scott did some quick mental math before answering. "Well if we tried it with Earth's current population; at ten thousand people a day it would take about three hundred years."

​Scott again gestured to the planet and went on. "I'll wager they probably did their best to reduce their birthrate over the years prior to the evacuation. There were probably also some people who refused to leave, so it's possible they completed the entire project in one hundred years or so. I'm guessing that they took the elevators to orbit, and then boarded transport ships which landed on the pads like the one we used. They then came down that long corridor to this; Colonel Chen has it exactly right this is like a humongous airport waiting room."

​Mick laughed over the common frequency. "Did you just say humongous Doc?"

​"I did, seems to fit this place. Anyway, they waited here and then I'm guessing that those hatches lead to some sort of sub shuttle to those larger landing pads on the outskirts of each of the bases. There, they boarded large transport ships to take them..."

​Colin interjected. "Take them where Doc?"

​Scott shook his helmeted head. "That's what we have to figure out Captain."

​Mick looked around the huge room and finally said what was really on his mind. "Doc, there is one thing about this place, this facility that puzzles me."

​"What's that Mister Jones?"

​Mick pointed at the missing windows, various metal brackets, and bare wires. "Why did they strip the place like this, take out all of the windows and everything else?"

​Now it was Scott's turn to laugh. "They didn't Mick, it was all here, at least for a few million years and then all of the plastics and composites slowly evaporated, just out-gassed into their component organic compounds and drifted into the vacuum of space. All that's left is metal and this..." He tapped his boot on the floor. "Whatever it is, they made it to last!"

​The landing party continued exploring the huge room. They didn't find anything particularly interesting until Technician Dark Cloud shined his high-intensity light on a bas-relief mural on the wall of one of the smaller corridors adjacent to the large room. The normally stoic Dark Cloud had a bit of excitement in his voice. "Captain, Doctor take a look at this."

​The group convened and stared with amazement. The wall mural showed a collage of various seemingly unassociated scenes running along the wall from right to left. Under each panel were series of characters which were not quite pictographs and not quite an alphabet. ​Doctor Scott said over the commsystem. "Richard are you still with us?"

​"Yes Doctor, your signal is weak but readable."

​"Got it, I'm sending you a series of images. See if you can make any sense of it."

​"Yes Doctor, receiving now, they are quite interesting."

​The group spread out and looked at the various panels of the mural-like sculpture. Dark Cloud intently studied the panel on the far right which showed what appeared to be various alien creatures, landscapes and city scenes.

​"Is it art?" Asked Mick.

​Robert answered. "Yes and no, it reminds me of the Bayeux tapestry, you know 1066, Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror and Halley's comet?"

​Colin gestured to the sculpture. "Exactly, art that tells a story."

​Dark Cloud then spoke again softly. "Doctor, perhaps not just art but more of a totem."

​"Yes, go ahead. I think you're onto something."

​"I've studied all of the languages of the first peoples of North America in addition to my ancestral Navajo. The first thing a totem must show is which tribe or clan built it and then it tells their story."

​He pointed to the two panels on the far right. "This is a shoreline with water, waves and this creature is some kind of amphibian. The panel next to it shows clouds, wind, trees and a flying creature. The symbol here is very similar to the Mayan glyph for water and this one resembles the Navajo symbol for air or wind. Next to these two are two identical characters."

​Li Chen interrupted. "Those pictographs are very much like the archaic Chinese symbols for man or person."

​Doctor Scott shined his light on the panel. "Okay, if I follow that logic, let's see if we can read the story from right to left. In the beginning were the people of the sea and the people of the air. First, they were apart and then they live together in cities..." He shined a bright light on the panel which showed an obvious city and then went on. "Then the two peoples left the cities and went back to the land for a time." He pointed to the second to last panel and said. "I'm pretty sure this is a depiction of that space elevator we found a few days ago." He went on with the story. "And then the two peoples built a space elevatorand then the