Lost Aeons

by Berl Cameron, Denis Hughes

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Few adventures in the annals of spatial conquest have aroused so much interest and speculation as the discovery, some ten years ago, of Cloris 2. Often described nowadays as a small, exotic world of infinite charm, Cloris 2 is regarded as an ideal holiday resort. It now boasts some of the best hotels and playgrounds in the universe, yet no so long ago it was deserted, peopled only by the ghosts of a long dead race. Belonging to a neighbouring galaxy, Cloris 2 was well outside the exploration range of the vessels of the time, and could only have been visited through a mischance, without hope of return. Such a chance was forced on a handful of people caught up in the mesh of an operation which began long in the past - they had no choice. The discovery of Cloris 2 is one of human courage and the hand of the unexpected, piracy, narrow escapes from alien defence and the ghosts of past tragedy.

Release date: May 31, 2018

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 149

Sample

So many varied and garbled stories have been told of the second “discovery” of Cloris 2 and its subsequent development that a number of people of widely differing interests recently badgered us repeatedly to put down an authentic account and so silence once and for all the misinformed tales which were at one time rife regarding that small, exotic world of peace and plenty. That request in itself may not appear to be such an arduous undertaking—especially for one like me who was in on the business from the beginning—yet the task of sifting the events which led up to it, and trying to correlate the many disjointed items of which the adventure was composed is rather more than I feel capable of doing. Were I a skilled historian it would probably seem a light piece of work, but at the same time I suppose it would be bound to turn out as a somewhat dry and factual account with little or no regard for the intensely important part played by the human element in its tender or ugly characteristics. And the human element did enter into it very strongly, perhaps to a greater extent than most people realised. So, in spite of a great many misgivings—and bolstered by a lot of encouragement from Marcia—I think the best thing I can do is to tell it as it actually happened, stage by stage from the beginning.

One of the hardest tasks in such a work is to decide from what exact point in time the beginning could be said to date. Certainly at no time were there any indications Station 4 would lead up to the extraordinary culmination whatever that our normal routine on Navigational Aid at which Cloris 2 became a part of the scheme of things. And yet there must have been such a point were we canny enough to see it and recognise it for what it was. Again the only course I can take is to fall back on telling things in their natural sequence.

NAS4—Navigational Aid Station 4, that is—was a bare and lonely place set to one side of the main trans-orbit route between Mars and Earth. Three of us manned it, doing a six-week tour of duty. There were four such teams relieving one another by turn, and believe me six weeks on the little floating island in space was quite sufficient for any man. Since the time of which I speak, just over ten years ago now, the old NAS system has been superseded by long range beaming beacons on the bigger satellite bodies of the planetary system, but in those days we hadn’t advanced very far and the task of sending out directional impulses to the ships then plying was confined to the floating NA stations, about six or seven of them in all.

A little information about these stations is essential, though many of the older generation will know it already. It is at the younger people, however, that this account is really aimed, and it is they who tend to dismiss the events of ten years ago as old history hardly worth studying. Therefore I feel bound to recap a little despite the danger of earning their smiles of superiority. It seems essential not to dismiss those earlier efforts made by men of brilliance who first planned the great space routes when the conquest of inter-planetary travel was at last accomplished. They may seem obsolete and slightly ridiculous now when we look back on them, but at the time they were as vital to safety in their own makeshift way as more modern systems have since shown themselves to be. To go back then, the NAS islands were little more than floating chambers, air locked against the vacuum of space, and equipped with directional radio and ultra transmitters sending out the vital beams by which vessels on the regular runs obtained their routine fixes. There was also equipment for recording and isolating various cosmic indications for re-transmission to Earth and the secondary base on Mars at the terminus of the freighter route. Mars had not then been developed to such an extent as it has been in recent years, and there were few ships plying on the route apart from the regular tramps and the odd executive. It is true that several parties were often engaged in exploring Mars and documenting what information they could glean from the ancient ruins discovered there. There had, at that time, been a number of valuable finds to record. Archeologists and others interested in the mystery of earlier Martian history were always agog whenever something new turned up, for it was plain that a whole fresh field of research was there to be discovered given time and the necessary keys. At the time of which I write those keys—in the form of ancient symbolic characters not unlike the runic script to be found on Earth—had recently been found. Knowledge had progressed to such an extent that a fairly comprehensive picture of the long-dead Martian culture was already being built up by patient study.

I mention this question of the ancient Martian culture for one reason only—it does have an important bearing on the sequence of events which were shortly to plunge my two companions and me into what later proved to be an adventure of the highest order. But that must come in its proper sequence.

We were in our fifth week of duty on NAS4, and all of us were looking forward to the arrival of the relief ship. There were Peter Barret, Ivan Senor and I, Jim Donelly, three men in a confined space cluttered with equipment and beginning to feel the strain of one another’s company. It was not a new sensation. Anyone who spends much time cooped up with his fellows will tell you the same, especially if he has had any space experience.

We worked in four hourly shifts, one being on duty while the other two amused themselves as best they could. Somewhat naturally the facilities were limited, and it was not until later on when greater thought was given to the leisure hours of such station teams that matters improved. At that time, however, we had to be content with books, cards and anything else we could think of to keep our minds occupied in off-duty periods. When I tell you—or remind you, perhaps I should say—that the NA stations were little more than thirty feet square by something like ten or twelve in depth you will understand better how constricted we were.

With only four days to go before the relief ship came to pick us up we were irritable and cantankerous, nervy and very bad-tempered with one another. I think we would have welcomed anything in the way of a diversion at that stage, but I sometimes wonder what we should have said if we’d known where it would land us when it did come—unexpectedly as so many of the great things in life do happen.

Peter Barret was writing a letter at the radio desk. He wore phones and occasionally glanced at the meters as he wrote. Peter was always writing letters. He was a tall young man with dark curly hair and a snub nose, pale brown eyes and a firm jaw. Usually he was quiet, but more than once I had seen him when his temper was roused and then the sparks really flew. Actually both Ivan and I liked him a lot, but right then we were all very edgy with boredom.

Ivan was playing solitaire with a very dog-eared pack of cards. He sat with his back to me and even the expression of the back of his head was surly, if you know what I mean.

I had a great respect for Ivan Senor. He was short and thick-set, very level-headed ordinarily, and a fine man to be with in a jam. But, like Peter and me, he was suffering from being shut up with his companions in quarters where privacy was always at a premium.

The time was 17.00 Earth time. I was lying on my bunk in one of our three little cubby-hole cabins. The door was open so that I could see into the main compartment. I was reading Frengal’s latest publication on the lost civilisation which had once peopled Mars. It was a subject that always fascinated me, one of which I never tired. On my last leave but one I had spent a considerable time wandering among the ruined cities alongside the Great Canal. Certainly the time had not been wasted, for I had found some fragments of substance which the archeologists had pounced on with plenty of appreciation. They were still trying to date the ruins on Mars, and it seemed that the fragments I bad picked up showed a good carbon dating reaction when subjected to the normal radio activity tests. I’d been told they were getting closer to the definite answer they wanted, and that much of their progress was thanks to my find. But that’s neither here nor there. I was reading Frengal’s stuff and enjoying it. Peter was writing; Ivan playing solitaire. Ivan sucked his teeth once or twice and I cursed him beneath my breath. There were a few irritating crackles from Peter’s notepaper and his pen had an annoying scratch at times.

I looked up from the book, across the main compartment to the big quartzite port-hole. Through it there was only the unchanging velvet of space to be seen, dotted here and there with the uncountable celestial bodies of the universe. It was a sight to sober a man no matter how many times he glimpsed it, for like nothing else it brought home to him the smallness of Man himself, his insignificance against this tremendous setting and background of limitless age.

The time buzzer went. It was my turn on duty in five minutes. Peter sat up straight, stretched his arms and yawned noisily.

“For God’s sake don’t start that din!” snapped Ivan. He made an angry gesture and swept his cards together savagely.

Peter looked over his shoulder with a scowl.

“I’ll make what noise I like!” he returned. “What about Jim, there, mumbling to himself! Doesn’t he get on your nerves? I’ll be damned glad when I get off this floating sausage and back to civilisation!”

Ivan started to say something else. I closed the book with a snap and swung my legs to the floor, preparing to join in the wrangle that was obviously about to develop. It’s odd, but even a minor quarrel can seem quite attractive at times!

Peter glared at me. “What are you butting in for?” he demanded.

“I haven’t said a word yet,” I told him curtly. “But I will if you like!”

Ivan laughed and growled something under his breath. Then: “Save your breath!” he said. “You’ll need it all for those long discussions about the ruins on Mars when you get back home. I dare say people think you’re darned clever, don’t they?” There was a sneer in his voice that I didn’t like.

“The fact that I’m interested in a subject which is plainly above your head,” I said, “doesn’t entitle you to talk like that. There’s nothing to be so smug about, Ivan, and I’ll ask you to mind your own damned business in future.”

He grinned in a goading fashion that made my blood boil.

“Listen to him!” he said. “The great archeologist in person, scratching about among the ruins of a lost civilisation that no one will ever unravel. Can you answer all the stock questions yet, Jim?”

I kept my temper with difficulty, not wishing to start a first class row between us. Deep down we were friends, and I knew it, just as Ivan knew it, and Peter. This was a childish affair, but it could grow into something bigger and more lasting if we weren’t careful.

Ivan went on: “Well, can you? What happened to the people who once lived on Mars? There aren’t any now, only a few skeletons. Where are they?”

“We shall find out in time, I’ve no doubt. Don’t let’s fight over this—it isn’t worth it.”

“I’m not fighting with anyone!” he retorted.

“Sounds as if you’re making a good shot at it!” said Peter slyly. “Jim, I don’t want to interrupt this interesting argument, but it’s your turn at listening watch. If you’ve no objection I’d like to turn in for a while.”

“Make the tea first,” said Ivan. “I did it last time.”

So we wrangled and niggled until we were all thoroughly sick of the sight of one another. It was absurd really of course, but it does happen. Cooped up, little incidents take on a disproportional importance, threatening to cause a serious split whereas under other circumstances no one would take the slightest notice of them. And so with us that day in NAS4.…

I took over from Peter Barret with barely a word, glad to see the back of him, glad to have something different to do for a few hours. He and Ivan fell to squabbling with irritating persistence but little real heart, and in the end Peter went to his cabin and turned in for some sleep. Comparative peace reigned for a good half hour.

It was shattered by an all-stations call from Information Base on Earth. The call came over the ultra with its usual accompaniment of cosmic crackle and surge, but I had no difficulty in getting it down.

Ivan pushed his card game aside and came over to stand behind me, curiosity overcoming animosity as it always did among us.

“Unidentified ship, eh?” he said, reading from the block on which I scribbled.

I nodded, throwing the switch for a verbal check back.

“NAS4 to IB,” I said. “Check back; here it comes: All ships and NA stations are requested to keep a lookout for a large vessel at present unidentified. The ship is thought to be out of control, or a derelict. She passed close to a liner on the Venusian run but made no reply to ultra calls. No clear description of the vessel is to hand, except that she is very large and of apparently unusual design. The latter information, however, may be due to spatial distortion which was interfering with screen reception. However, it is passed for what it is worth, and any further news of this vessel should be relayed to this base without delay. This is an all-station call and must be acted on as such. There may be danger to other shipping from this uknown craft. The last report of its location was in Sector Z of Zonal Area 9, heading on a course between Orbit 22 and Orbit 23. Course, however, co. . .