Cleanup

Captain James Sidler sat on the observation deck, staring out at the cloud. The Explorer-class vessel was making its first pass around the anomaly, the fifty-two members that made up the rest of the crew doing all the usual spectrograms and positional scans, but he preferred to down sit here with a nice cup of green tea and watch in peace.

With the cryostasis chambers now built-in to every long haul ship, it seemed every moment of wakefulness was full of activity. One minute they were preparing for launch, making final checks on course headings and making sure valves and checks for the freezers were all in working order. And then the next they were here, at their destination, with scans to make and data to analyse, sending it back until command sent the next orders. And then they were back in the freezer again for the cycle to restart.

Space exploration was supposed to be fun, wasn’t it? Finding new planets and new species, sneaking around virgin space and trying to not get caught by any alien super-beings that didn’t appreciate being spied on. But alas, this gig wasn’t all it was supposed to be.

As the ship rounded the dust cloud the hazy shape morphed and warped, every angle giving new shape to the collection of rocks. It was quite beautiful, like one of those 3D sculptures that wiggles and jiggles with the wind or to the tune of sensors, controlled by a computer and bent into shape by pulleys and servos. It was a feat of engineering, but nowhere near as impressive—or quiet—as a dust ball floating in space. Now there was some real beauty.

A soft bleep sounded in James’ ear, indicating an incoming transmission. He reached up a lazy hand and tapped on his earlobe, allowing the call through.

“What is it?” he muttered.

“So— Sorry to disturb you,” said a quiet man, a nervous quiver in his voice. “We’ve found some really weird… er… stuff?”

Sidler sighed. Wayne, the new guy on this voyage, still found it hard to string a sentence together in the presence of the higher-ranking officers on board. While the journey out here had taken a little more than a year, he’d only been awake on the ship for a day, tops. Which meant he was still very much green.

“Weird how?” Sidler asked.

“Weird like… like a… space… termite mound!” Wayne said. The simile was pronounced with confidence at having come up with a description that might make some sense.

Sidler sighed, again. “Just tell me what it is, man. Spit it out, would you?” His voice was kind but firm. It was only the kid’s second day, after all.

“Oh. Yes sir.”

The word grated on James, sending a shiver up his spine and making him wince. He was in the army once, but that was a long time ago. “Sidler will do, if you please.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry…”

A pause hung in the air, a quiet static floating over the otherwise silent transmission.

“Have you forgotten what it was you were talking about, boy?”

“No! No, sir— Er, Sidler!” Wayne spluttered. “Excuse me. It’s… about the cloud.”

“Okay,” Sidler muttered, patiently.

“Yeah. Well it seems to be alive?”

Alive? Sidler thought. “Alive how?”

“We’re… not entirely sure,” Wayne said. “There seems to be a small electromagnetic field around the whole formation. And the chunks kind of… jiggle from time to time. And they seem to be shrinking.”

Shrinking? He couldn’t see anything from here. The captain made a gesture to bring up a zoomed-in display window on the surface of the glass. It didn’t show much, with the ship moving at a constant rate; it was all a little blurry with the cameras shifting position from moment to moment.

“You see,” Wayne continued, “we think there must be some molecular reaction eating up the matter and releasing electrostatic energy.”

“Not if they’re just space rocks they aren’t,” Sidler breathed.

“Well, we were thinking it could be some new element not on the Periodic—”

“Nah. If it was that, then why would it still be here a year after we saw it from Earth? Wouldn’t it have eaten itself up by now?” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Send down the stills, would you?”.

“Oh. Right, sir…”

Sidler heard the snap of a salute on the other end of the connection and let a wry smile come to his face. Was he ever that fresh-faced?

He gazed out at the collection of rocks hanging silently in the dark. The spotlights of the ship could only illuminate small patches of the anomaly, the white circles of light sliding over the thousands of tiny formations. If the chunks really were shrinking, they could disappear within an hour of them arriving, and then they’d have nothing to go on. They had to figure this thing out, and fast, if they were to get anything out of this.

“And send out a probe while you’re at it, would you?” Sidler said. “We need a closer look at this.”

“On it, sir,” Wayne replied.

A new window opened on the glass of the observation deck, and still images began resolving as they loaded. James glanced at the first and it enlarged automatically, giving him a better idea of what he was looking at. Rocks. He examined the images one by one: more rocks, yet more rocks, and—oh look—a slightly larger rock. How wonderful.

“Have we got anything closer?”

“Not yet, sir. The second pass should give us more of an idea—”

“Well start the second pass now, then.” Sidler said. “It could all be gone by the time we finish our first orbit.”

“Oh. Of course, sir.” Wayne said. “I’m on it.”

The captain rubbed his face. No peace for the wicked, huh? he thought.

He made another gesture, swapping out the window to show him the realtime view from the probe. It slowly made its way to the cloud, its mechanical arms hanging in front of the camera, waiting to poke and pry. A timecode readout showed in the top-right corner: “i-53”; 53 seconds to intercept. He had time to kill.

Sidler took another sip of his tea. He leaned back and watched the phenomena, letting the realtime feed shrink and move to one side. The rocks continued their slow, amorphous shift as the ship slowly orbited around them. It was lit softly by the Explorer’s floodlights, being half a kilometer away. Now and then something in the rocks sparkled, light reflected by some substance clinging to the face of the rocks. It was quite beautiful, how it shone and winked. It reminded him of staring up at the trees back home, squinting at the light as it dappled through the autumn leaves.

Bringing up a new window with a flick of the wrist, Sidler brought up the stats they had found so far. From the gravitational readings and weight calculations, the rock formations were almost 100% pure carbon. But then why was it glinting in the light?

Most naturally-forming carbon rocks were dull grey, or even black. But these chunks glistened, almost as though there were diamond veins embedded into the rocks themselves, some shining through to the surface. But that kind of atomic structure needed thousands of years under high pressure. It was simply impossible for such a material to form in space. Maybe the readouts were incorrect. He’d have to schedule a recalibration when they got back home.

He glanced back at the view outside the window. The shape of the cloud seemed to coalesce now, slowly forming a more definite shape. It only looked like a couple of blobs, side by side, but it felt purposeful, as if the massive collection of dust and rocks had been shaped with an ice-cream scoop.

Bringing a hand up to his ear, his stroked its edge, hailing the crew in the main diagnostics area.

“Gregson reporting, sir,” came a gruff voice.

Another shudder. Gregson had served under him for 3 tours now; with tens of thousands of logged hours on the Explorer. The man knew Sidler’s name, but still stubbornly refused to go off-book for anyone.

“Sidler here,” the captain said, grudgingly. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind turning off those lights for a moment?”

“The lights? But why—”

“Just humour me, would you?”

“Well, I…”

Sidler sighed. They’d danced this dance so many times over the years. They both knew how it would end.

“That’s an order?”

“Yes, sir!” Gregson called enthusiastically, his voice clipping over the tiny speaker in the captain’s ear.

After a moment’s pause the lights switched off, the bulbs dimming as their meter-long elements cooled in the cold of space. He could see something now, a design etched in the cloud’s form, it’s face lit by the nearby sun, its hollowed-out innards hidden in shadow.

“Thanks, Gregson.” Sidler swiped at his ear once more, switching channels back to analytics. “Are you seeing this up there, Wayne?” he asked.

“Yeah…” the boy replied in hushed tones. “What is it?”

There were two distinct circles on the left and right, with a single line joining them. A single, smaller dot was also lit up in the middle of each circle. At the bottom edge of the left-hand circle, a line was drawn down, away from the circumference, and a similar line was drawn at the top of the circle to the right. The symbol was clear and brazen. This kind of clear design didn’t occur naturally, especially not in space.

“You’re recording this, right?” Sidler asked.

“Sure am, sir,” Wayne replied.

The captain tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. “This isn’t some kind of joke, is it? A hoax or something?”

The boy gave a nervous laugh. “Has to be… doesn’t it? There’s no way— Extraterrestrial life—”

“We’ve finally found it,” Sidler said, his voice hushed. “Evidence we’re not alone in the universe.”

Mankind had searched for centuries, looking for hard evidence that there was something out there. Had they really found them? Some fellow sentients to play with?

“Can you lift the design and re-render?” the captain said.

“Sure can…” Sidler heard the clicks and clacks of a keyboard in the background. “I’ve got it.” The design appeared on the window in front of the captain.

“Okay, now search our databases for anything similar,” Sidler said. “I know I’ve seen that symbol somewhere before…”

“On it.”

James took another sip of tea, still warm, thanks to the non-thermally-conductive material the mug was made of. There was something bothering him about the way the cloud sparkled here and there. What did it mean? He glanced back at the probe’s view once again. “I minus 21,” he mouthed. He was close enough to the chunks to have a better look now, and made a gesture to zoom in to the microscopic level, turning on the high-contrast setting.

There seemed to be bugs crawling about the surface of the rock, thousands of them crawling across the view. As the probe drew closer, more and more detail showed itself on-screen. Their backs had tiny ridges on them that seemed to flutter every few seconds, rippling the sea of microscopic creatures. Though they walked over each other constantly as one writhing mass, they seemed to move with purpose. There was a pattern to it.

A bleep sounded, and James tapped his ear. “Okay, I found something,” Wayne said. “But I’m not sure what it means…”

“Just send it over. I’ll take a look,” Sidler said, drawing another mouthful of tea and swishing it around.

A new window popped up in the centre of the window. It showed an encyclopedia entry, along with a single, large image. It showed a copper rectangle with all manner of diagrams, including a statuesque image of a man and woman standing naked to one side. What was this?

He glanced up at the title of the article: “Pioneer plaque.” He looked at the image again, and now noticed the two circles joined by a line. Back in the 70s, a couple of scientists came up with a way of introducing the human species to any extraterrestrial intelligence that may find the message. It included a diagram of hydrogen—that same symbol carved into the dust cloud—as well as a map of the solar system and some telemetry showing where it was in relation to the galaxy. It all looked like gobbledygook to James, but someone thought it was a good idea at the time. Could the anomaly be an homage to that message, sent all that time ago with the two Pioneer spacecraft?

He looked more closely at the hydrogen symbol, looking back and forth between the one lifted from the cloud. There were some minor differences in the original earth version. The lines poking out of the circles were arrows, both at the top of their respective circles, and the dots in each circle were also arrows, both pointing up. The science was beyond him, but the similarity was too much of a coincidence. Just as mankind had attempted to communicate through use of the mathematics of the hydrogen atom, so did this other, alien species.

This was monumental. This could change everything…

Sidler felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. But the sign—the monument they’d searched so many years to find—was shrinking, being eaten up by those microscopic creatures. He looked back at the probe’s view. Now attached to the rock, it was close enough to get a much better picture of whatever life form was crawling around on the rocks’ surfaces. He switched to an electromagnetic view of the rock.

“Woah…” he cooed. “Hey kid? I think we’ve got a problem.”

“What’s that?” Wayne said. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no. Just… hurry up with your analysis, okay?”

“Right… But may I ask why, sir?”

The captain took a deep breath. “Take a look at the probe’s EM view.”

“Okay.”

“Now zoom in to micro-level.”

“Right. Oh damn…” Wayne said. “What are they?”

“Machines? Nanites?” Sidler said. “They could be organic, but they’re giving off too much EM for that. Besides, you see that shimmer? Those things are made of metal.”

“I concur,” Wayne said. “It almost seems like they’re chewing up the carbon, then wriggling to the surface to simply eject it. But why—”

“To hide the evidence.”

“Sir?”

“Clearly, the sign was meant to be found, just as ours was hundreds of years ago,” the captain explained. “We probably would have found other signs sooner—maybe the fibonacci sequence or prime numbers—but, for whatever reason, whoever made these monuments to intelligent life changed their minds. And now, everything they laid out for us to see is being ground to dust.”

“Which is why we never found them. They didn’t want to be found. But why would they change their minds like that?”

“Who knows?” Sidler said with a shrug. “Maybe—”

“Sir. The carbon chunks. They’re shrinking.”

“They’re being eaten by nanites; they’ve been shrinking for the past hour.”

“No, sir. It’s nearly all—”

The captain stared out at the cloud, so thin and weak it was now just a glimmer of light against the blackness of space. And then, like sugar in coffee, it silently vanished. He glanced over at the probe feed. There was nothing there now, though there seemed to be shadows shifting and moving across the video. It was as if there was interference in the connection. But with the proximity, and with line of sight—

“Oh no,” Sidler breathed.

“What is it, captain?”

The captain zoomed the picture all the way out to reveal more tiny machines still squirming and quivering as they had done before. “The nanites,” Sidler said. “They’ve migrated to the probe.” The feed flickered, and went dead. They made short work of that.

“Great,” Wayne said. “There goes our insurance bonus.”

But it wasn’t just that. If they could move themselves through space—and clearly they could, if they’d reached the probe—they’d latch on to the hull of the ship. This space bucket was stacked with sensors, but the only defensive features was a thick hull that could withstand small meteor showers, nothing that could hope to fend off these near-invisible, microscopic machines. They’d never make it back before the Explorer, and everything inside, was ground to dust by the tiny machines. And even if they could somehow reach Earth or one of its colonies before the hull was turned to dust, the nanites would spread, chewing up any matter they could find until there was nothing left. These machines may have started out as a tool used to hide evidence there was life out there… but now they were a trap, a disease that destroyed anything it touched.

“Package the data and send it off as soon as you can,” the captain said urgently.

“But—”

“That’s an order, rookie!” He sounded like his drill sergeant. But there was no time to mess about.

He would never again see his empty flat. He would never again feel the ice cap melting heat of the sun on his face. He would never again see the beautiful blue gem of the Earth peering through a layer of polluted atmosphere.

Sidler tapped his other earlobe, cutting off his connection with the new guy and establishing a new one. “This is the captain speaking.” He could hear his voice echoing down the corridor outside the observation deck. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. The ship would go down with all hands. All he could do for his crew now was give them a quiet send-off. “All hands, prepare for stasis in one hour.”