Genesis Earth by Joe Vasicek

Author:Joe Vasicek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, space opera, science fiction, first contact, spaceships, space elevator, space exploration, space adventure, planetary romance, wormholes, alien civilization, romantic space opera

* * * * *

“I don’t believe this,” I said. One of our probes sat just outside the forward window, not ten meters from the glass. Other than a few minor scratches, it didn’t look any different than it had when we’d launched it.

“It’s not responding to any of our transmissions,” said Terra. “I think it wants to dock. Should we—”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

“Why?”

“We have no idea what they’ve done to it.”

Terra gave me a funny look. “What could they have done?”

“Well, maybe they put a bomb on it.”

“Oh, come on,” Terra said, rolling her eyes. “Why would they take one of our own probes and put a bomb on it when they could have killed us a lot easier with their own technology?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“I’ve had bad feelings ever since we decided not to do the flyby,” said Terra. “We should never have come here when the object was here, but what the hell? It’s too late now.”

“Look, Terra, we’ve been over this. We need to—”

“I know, I know. I’m just saying. If we’ve come this far, we might as well go all the way. If that probe’s got any data on it, we’re going to want to recover it.”

She had a point. That didn’t make me any less uneasy, though. The probe seemed too much like bait.

“Can you scan it to make sure it has no foreign substances on board?”

“I can, but not without powering up the ship.”

I hesitated. The probe stared at us through the window, like an alien specter. Half of me wanted nothing to do with it, but the other half couldn’t leave it alone.

“Go for it,” I said, “but only the systems you need to do the scan. And do it slowly—no rapid power ups.” Nothing that could reasonably be interpreted as hostile.

“What about life support and the probe’s return docking bay?”

I thought for a second. “Yes,” I said, “but power up each system individually, and wait a minute between each one.”

“It’s going to take a while,” she said.

“That’s okay.” We’ve got as much time as they give us.

Terra turned to the computer but stopped before keying in the command. “If we’re powering up this much, we might as well power up the whole ship.”

“No,” I said. “Just what we need, nothing else.”

She gave me a strange look, but didn’t argue.

It took nearly half an hour before the Icarus was up and running. The fans in the ventilation shafts came online, followed a minute later by the bridge lights. A short while after, the indicator lights and other monitors flickered on. During all this time, the probe outside the window did nothing—nothing but stare at us, recording our movements, if that’s what it was doing. The alien ship was equally unresponsive.

“I’m scanning the probe now,” said Terra. Silence for a few moments. “It’s clean. Shall I give the retrieval signal?”

I drew in a deep breath. “Yes.”

The docking bays for the probes lay on the underside of the Icarus, between the living quarters and the power plant.

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