Deep in the heart of the Garden Wall a dim light flickered into life. Its creamy glow seeped stickily onto one of the sleeping capsules. A faint hiss escaped into the artificial atmosphere as the air-tight seal of the capsule was broken. Slowly, the lid started to swing upwards, powered gently by a near-silent hydraulics system.
The occupant was being revived after many years of deep slumber.
<=> <=> <=>
The computers on the bridge of the ship booted themselves up. They automatically ran environmental analysis routines to check everything was ripe for supporting human life.
Everything checked out okay.
The computers gave the final go-ahead for wake-up.
<=> <=> <=>
Eradani heard a sound. A buzzing sound in her ear. She stirred slightly, still on the very edge of deep sleep. She tried opening her eyes, but that didn’t seem to achieve much. She drifted back into the dream world, her head awash with visions of Rich Tea biscuits. She awoke with a start a few minutes later. This time, the buzzing seemed sharper, more clearly defined. The light shining on her began to bother her. She lifted her arm up to rub her eyes.
What time was it? Was it after eight? She hoped not, otherwise she’d be late for her breakfast. That’d be all she needed, three straight hours of physics lectures with no breakfast.
Hold on. What was that attached to her arm? A drip? Where was she? In hospital?
Blearily, she pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her eyelids felt extraordinarily heavy; how long had she been asleep?
She really hoped it wasn’t too late.
Shaking her head, she finally opened her eyes.
That was odd. No bedspread. That wasn’t like her. And what were all these tubes and wires?
She looked round to her left and right. She seemed to be in some sort of capsule. A concave, cockpit-shaped lid hovered above her head.
Eradani began to suspect she wasn’t in her old bed at university at all. She had a sneaking suspicion that she’d been kidnapped by aliens. Or maybe the FBI. They were well known for doing things like this.
Quickly, she disentangled herself from the capsule and jumped out into the room.
That’s odd. Why am I wearing what appears to be a flimsy lime green sheet? Very strange. More to the point, why am I floating about like this? And is that another capsule behind the one I just got out of? Is it? I’ll go and have a look. Oh, yes. It is another capsule. And that’s Denise.
Ah! Yes, of course!
The Garden Wall!
With zero precision, she zipped herself into one of the Levcro suits hanging on the wall and made her way, with excruciating meticulousness, to the bridge.
<=> <=> <=>
‘What’s the date?’ she muttered to herself. ‘Why haven’t these sodding computers got clocks on them?’ She flicked her finger across the screen and prodded the flashing icon that read: ‘Urgent message’.
It opened up a large window in the middle of the screen with fat, red text relaying a simple message:
Reminder - Barnard’s Star rendezvous in one year. If you would like another 6 months’ sleep, please select the snooze facility.
Eradani hit the snooze button and went back to bed.
<=> <=> <=>
Dr. Richter sat down at the dining room table. Denise had made them all a nice, unhealthy full English breakfast and was busy serving out the plates.
‘Mmm,’ he said, sniffing the air, ‘smells good.’
‘Well, I figured we might as well start the day off in style, seeing as it’s such a historic occasion,’ she said, setting down Richter’s greasy plate in front of him.
‘How right you are,’ he said, tucking into his first meal for, oh, quite a few hundred days. ‘I’ve got to admit, it really is most extraordinary.’
‘What, the breakfast?’ said Eradani, slicing into her sausage.
‘No,’ said Dr. Richter casually, ‘our situation as a whole. We’re about to arrive at Barnard’s Star. I mean, think about it. We have completed a six light-year journey across deepest interstellar space in a self-made spaceship that appears to defy all the traditional laws of physics. Somewhat of an achievement, I think.’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ agreed Eradani. ‘But I think the breakfast comes a pretty close second.’
‘I concur,’ said Dr. Richter, clinking his fork on the plate. ‘All credit to Denise, this is fantastic.’ He raised a glass of orange juice in salute.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said. ‘I thought I might be a bit rusty. Haven’t done any cooking for years.’
‘Haven’t done anything for years,’ the Captain pointed out.
‘Exactly,’ laughed Denise, thinking she’d just cracked a funny joke.
‘Excellent eggs,’ said Dr. Richter.
<=> <=> <=>
‘Right ascension?’ asked Dr. Richter, typing away at his bridge terminal.
‘Oh, yes, I can walk around just fine now,’ said Denise.
‘No, I mean, what is the right ascension of the Sun from here? It’s underneath the declination.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Denise, scouring down the list of information on her monitor. ‘Yes, here we are. Is it supposed to be in inches and feet?’
‘No, those are hours, minutes and seconds,’ he explained.
‘Of course,’ she said, slapping her forehead in stupidity, ‘I’m so silly at times. Okay, so we’ve got a right ascension of three hours, twelve minutes and ten seconds.’
‘Check,’ said Dr. Richter professionally.
‘Okay, but I’m sure I read it right,’ said Denise.
‘No, no, I mean “check” as in “got it”,’ he explained. This was all very hard work. Denise had no idea about astronomy, and getting information out of her was like getting puppies out of a rabbit.
‘Now, give me the declination of the Alpha Centauri system,’ he requested.
‘What’s that?’ said Denise.
‘It’s the astronomical equivalent of latitude,’ he explained.
‘No, no,’ persisted Denise, ‘I mean what’s that?’ She was pointing out of the window. The physicist followed her outstretched finger and saw a planet.
‘Oh, that’s just a planet,’ he said calmly.
Three seconds later he yelped, jumped out of his seat and ripped his way chaotically to the lounge to get Eradani and the Captain.
<=> <=> <=>
‘What do you mean, we’re in orbit?’ asked the Captain, settling down at his console. ‘Are you telling me that this ship found a planet all by itself and then automatically parked itself around it?’
‘Well, check it out for yourself,’ said Dr. Richter, violently jabbing the Captain’s screen. ‘See those figures? They can’t mean anything else. We’re definitely in orbit.’
Eradani was sitting in her command chair. She looked out of the window at the very slight curvature of the large blue alien planet beneath them - whatever planet it might be. It looked hospitable at least. It looked just like the Earth in fact. The continents were notably different, and there seemed to be occasional blemishes of extreme weather, but in the main it all seemed spookily familiar.
Oddly enough, and despite the obvious grandeur of the outlook, Eradani felt disappointingly underwhelmed. Maybe years of exposure to satellite imagery of the Earth coupled with this new world’s remarkable familiarity had dulled the potential impact of what was surely the single most remarkable sight any human being had ever witnessed.
‘Look,’ she eventually said to the two men, ‘it’s pretty clear that we’re in orbit. You only have to look out of the window to see that.’
Dr. Richter was inclined to agree.
‘The question is, of course, why?’ Eradani continued. ‘What if this was always part of the plan? What if there is a lot more to all this than we’ve been led to believe? What if... I don’t know, what if we’re caught up in the middle of something really big and dangerous?’
Dr. Richter continued to stare at the alien world. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know what to think. But I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’
Eradani tapped her fingers nervously on her console. ‘Well I do. If we look at it logically, and assume this is part of a grander plan, then the instigator of all this must have known that this planet was here. Which is far beyond the knowledge of any human being on Earth. And that’s really, really scary and it’s freaking me out a lot.’
‘I don‘t think we can say that for definite,’ said Dr. Richter. ‘There was every chance that a planet of some sort would exist here. It could have been an educated guess.’
‘Well, maybe. But is that really likely? It’s one hell of a coincidence that there just happens to be an Earth-like twin orbiting the first star mankind sends a ship to. I find that too far-fetched to believe. There’s something else going on here, some dastardly über-scheme that we are probably an unwitting party to.’
Dr. Richter looked at her seriously. ‘You mean we’re nothing but... puppets? Lambs to the slaughter?’
‘Possibly,’ shrugged Eradani. ‘Who knows?’ She put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. ‘So the question is: what do we do?’
Dr. Richter weighed up all the available evidence and failed to come up with an answer. ‘I don’t think we have much choice at the moment,’ he sighed. ‘What can we do other than just go with the flow?’
The crew sat in silence for a few moments looking at the incredible view; the first humans to set eyes on an alien world. As they watched a heavily cratered moon crept over the curve of the horizon, glowing faintly pink in the dim red light of the dwarf star that burned gently behind them.
‘No,’ announced the Captain suddenly, slamming his hand on his console. He stood up dramatically and strode purposefully before the window. ‘This is no good. We can do something, we can fight back. And we start by making damned sure we have every ounce of information at our fingertips. Dr. Richter, I want you and Eradani to do a full scan of that planet. I want to know if there’s any life, if it’s suitable for a surface expedition and if we can get back out of orbit. I want weather conditions, average temperature, a geographic and geological report, a complete tactical breakdown and gravitational estimates. Clear?’
‘Um, just one question,’ said Dr. Richter.
‘Yes?’
‘How do we do that?’
<=> <=> <=>
The Captain was doing some mid-air exercises when Eradani and Dr. Richter entered the lounge.
‘Well?’ he asked as he practised his breast stroke, albeit in the absence of any water.
‘It’s bad,’ said Eradani bluntly. She sat down on the settee and yanked her hair back down, so it was hanging towards the floor rather than sprouting out ahead of her.
‘The orbit we’re in...’ began Dr. Richter, but he trailed off.
‘Yes?’ prompted the Captain, now doing some toe-touching.
Dr. Richter shifted nervously from one foot to the other. ‘It’s not a real orbit, you see.’
The Captain stopped exercising. He expertly eased himself to the ground and stuck his feet to the floor. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Well, the situation is that the orbit won’t last. It’s decaying.’
‘Decaying? What do you mean decaying?’
‘We’re too close to the upper atmosphere of the planet. We’re caught in the drag and nothing we can do will stop us from entering it.’
‘Can’t we fire the engines?’
‘Nope. Computer won’t allow us access.’
The Captain’s face showed a brief flicker of concern, which Dr. Richter found unnerving. ‘Won’t allow you access? How can that be?’
‘We don’t know. We have been locked out of the system completely and have no control over anything. Whatever’s happening and whatever’s going to happen have been carefully choreographed by somebody. That’s about all we know. Except that we believe the navigation computers are executing a preset series of manoeuvres.’
‘Preset? But why? To do what?’
‘We don’t know exactly,’ said Eradani. ‘But it looks like we are locked into a re-entry pattern.’
The Captain stared at her in astonishment. ‘Re-entry? You mean we’re deliberately heading down onto that planet? Are you crazy? We don’t even know what’s down there! It might have an atmosphere like Venus. We might be crushed, fried, eroded away by acid and suffocated. All at the same time!’
‘We know, we know,’ said Eradani. ‘But there’s nothing we can do to prevent it. I think we have to resign ourselves to the fact that we’re going to be the first people to set foot on an alien planet.’