“So far,” Harry said.
They entered the airlock, and Barnes closed the door. Air hissed loudly. Norman watched the water recede, down past his faceplate, then his waist, his knees; then to the floor. The hissing stopped, and they passed through another door, sealing it behind them.
Norman turned to the metal hull of the spaceship. The robot had been moved aside. Norman felt very much as if he were standing alongside a big jetliner-a curved metal surface, and a flush door. The metal was a dull gray, which gave it an ominous quality. Despite himself, Norman was nervous. Listening to the way the others were breathing, he sensed they were nervous, too.
“Okay?” Barnes said. “Everybody here?”
Edmunds said, “Wait for video, please, sir.”
“Okay. Waiting.”
They all lined up beside the door, but they still had their helmets on. It wasn’t going to be much of a picture, Norman thought.
Edmunds: “Tape is running.”
Ted: “I’d like to say a few words.”
Harry: “Jesus, Ted. Can’t you ever let up?”
Ted: “I think it’s important.”
Harry: “Go ahead, make your speech.”
Ted: “Hello. This is Ted Fielding, here at the door of the unknown spacecraft which has been discovered-”
Barnes: “Wait a minute, Ted. ‘Here at the door of the unknown spacecraft’ sounds like ‘here at the tomb of the unknown soldier.’ ”
Ted: “You don’t like it?”
Barnes: “Well, I think it has the wrong associations.”
Ted: “I thought you would like it.”
Beth: “Can we just get on with it, please?”
Ted: “Never mind.”
Harry: “What, are you going to pout now?”
Ted: “Never mind. We’ll do without any commentary on this historic moment.”
Harry: “Okay, fine. Let’s get it open.”
Ted: “I think everybody knows how I feel. I feel that we should have some brief remarks for posterity.”
Harry: “Well, make your goddamn remarks!”
Ted: “Listen, you son of a bitch, I’ve had about enough of your superior, know-it-all attitude-”
Barnes: “Stop tape, please.”
Edmunds: “Tape is stopped, sir.”
Barnes: “Let’s everyone settle down.”
Harry: “I consider all this ceremony utterly irrelevant.”
Ted: “Well, it’s not irrelevant; it’s appropriate.”
Barnes: “All right, I’ll do it. Roll the tape.”
Edmunds: “Tape is rolling.”
Barnes: “This is Captain Barnes. We are now about to open the hatch cover. Present with me on this historic occasion are Ted Fielding, Norman Johnson, Beth Halpern, and Harry Adams.”
Harry: “Why am I last?”
Barnes: “I did it left to right, Harry.”
Harry: “Isn’t it funny the only black man is named last?”
Barnes: “Harry, it’s left to right. The way we’re standing here.”
Harry: “And after the only woman. I’m a full professor, Beth is only an assistant professor.”
Beth: “Harry-”
Ted: “You know, Hal, perhaps we should be identified by our full titles and institutional affiliations-”
Harry: “-What’s wrong with alphabetical order-”
Barnes: “-That’s it! Forget it! No tape!”
Edmunds: “Tape is off, sir.”
Barnes: “Jesus Christ.”
He turned away from the group, shaking his helmeted head. He flipped up the metal plate, exposed the two buttons, and pushed one. A yellow light blinked “READY.”
“Everybody stay on internal air,” Barnes said.
They all continued to breathe from their tanks, in case the interior gases in the spacecraft were toxic.
“Everybody ready?”
“Ready.”
Barnes pushed the button marked “OPEN.”
A sign flashed: ADJUSTING ATMOSPHERE. Then, with a rumble, the door slid open sideways, just like an airplane door. For a moment Norman could see nothing but blackness beyond. They moved forward cautiously, shone their lights through the open door, saw girders, a complex of metal tubes.
“Check the air, Beth.”
Beth pulled the plunger on a small gas monitor in her hand. The readout screen glowed.
“Helium, oxygen, trace CO2 and water vapor. The right proportions. It’s pressurized atmosphere.”
“The ship adjusted its own atmosphere?”
“Looks like it.”
“Okay. One at a time.”
Barnes removed his helmet first, breathed the air. “It seems okay. Metallic, a slight tingle, but okay.” He took a few deep breaths, then nodded. The others removed their helmets, set them on the deck.
“That’s better.”
“Shall we go?”
“Why not?”
There was a brief hesitation, and then Beth stepped through quickly: “Ladies first.”
The others followed her. Norman glanced back, saw all their yellow helmets lying on the floor. Edmunds, holding the video camera to her eye, said, “Go ahead, Dr. Johnson.” Norman turned, and stepped into the spacecraft.
INTERIOR
They stood on a catwalk five feet wide, suspended high in the air. Norman shone his flashlight down: the beam glowed through forty feet of darkness before it splashed on the lower hull. Surrounding them, dimly visible in the darkness, was a dense network of struts and girders.
Beth said, “It’s like being in an oil refinery.” She shone her light on one steel beam. Stenciled was “AVR-09.” All the stenciling was in English.
“Most of what you see is structural,” Barnes said. “Cross-stress bracing for the outer hull. Gives tremendous support along all axes. The ship is very ruggedly built, as we suspected. Designed to take extraordinary stresses. There’s probably another hull further in.” Norman was reminded that Barnes had once been an aeronautical engineer.
“Not only that,” Harry said, shining his light on the outer hull. “Look at this-a layer of lead.”
“Radiation shield?”
“Must be. It’s six inches thick.”
“So this ship was built to handle a lot of radiation.”
“A hell of a lot,” Harry said.
There was a haze in the ship, and a faintly oily feel to the air. The metal girders seemed to be coated in oil, but when Norman touched them, the oil didn’t come off on his fingers. He realized that the metal itself had an unusual texture: it was slick and slightly soft to the touch, almost rubbery.
“Interesting,” Ted said. “Some kind of new material. We associate strength with hardness, but this metal-if it is metal-is both strong and soft. Materials technology has obviously advanced since our day.”
“Obviously,” Harry said.
“Well, it makes sense,” Ted said. “If you think of America fifty years ago as compared with today, one of the biggest changes is the great variety of plastics and ceramics we have now that were not even imagined back then…” Ted continued to talk, his voice echoing in the cavernous darkness. But Norman could hear the tension in his voice. Ted’s whistling in the dark, he thought.
They moved deeper into the ship. Norman felt dizzy to be so high in the gloom. They came to a branchpoint in the catwalk. It was hard to see with all the pipes and struts-like being in a forest of metal.
“Which way?”
Barnes had a wrist compass; it glowed green. “Go right.” They followed the network of catwalks for ten minutes more. Gradually Norman could see that Barnes was right: there was a central cylinder constructed within the outer cylinder, and held away from it by a dense arrangement of girders and supports. A spacecraft within a spacecraft.
“Why would they build the ship like this?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“The reasons must have been compelling,” Barnes said. “The power requirements for a double hull, with so much lead shielding… hard to imagine the engine you’d need to make something this big fly.”
After three or four minutes, they arrived at the door on the inner hull. It looked like the outer door.
“Breathers back on?”
“I don’t know. Can we risk it?”
Without waiting, Beth flipped up the panel of buttons, pressed “OPEN,” and the door rumbled open. More darkness beyond. They stepped through. Norman felt softness underfoot; he shined his light down on beige carpeting.