Free Forbidden the Stars by Valmore Daniels Page B

into the violets at Ground Zero—about 4,000 angstroms or less.”
    “Wave emissions increasing in pitch.” Johan Belcher looked up at Justine. “In about two hours it’ll reach a frequency too high for us to hear, but it might wreak some havoc with our communications.”
    “Noted.” Justine played the camera over the artifact, noting that it had already lightened in color. “Is there any kind of spectral analysis possible? Can we tell what this thing is made of?”
    Henrietta and Dale hunched over one of the monitors. Dale glanced over his shoulder. “It’s impossible to tell what Dis Pater is composed of. The element is uncharted. As well, we’re getting a reading on a second unknown element reacting with the artifact. Uncharted as well.”
    “Suppositions?”
    “If I were to make a guess I would say Dis Pater is made of an element that would have an atomic weight of about ten thousand, way off the charts. Carbon has about twelve, nitrogen fourteen, and even plutonium is about two-hundred forty-four. This stuff is way beyond our analytical abilities. As for the reactant, my best guess based on what this machine is reading, about half that: 5,000 or so.”
    “Incomprehensible,” muttered Henrietta.
    Dale shrugged. “It’s naive of us to believe there are only a hundred or so elements in the entire universe, man-made or not.”
    Justine was growing frustrated. She knew the scientific process was an exercise in patience, but she was a woman of action and it galled her to have to sit on her hands.
    “Speculations,” she addressed the group. “Solar flare? Electric cloud? Cosmic lightning? Someone must have a theory.”
    When no one answered immediately, Ekwan, his specialty intergalactic meteorology, shook his head. “I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it’s not.”
    “Well, that’s something.”
    “It’s not a solar flare, or solar wind. Solar wind, at best, has a velocity of about 500 kilometers per second, not the 299,792 kilometers per second light travels. A flare would not travel this far out from the sun.
    “An electrical cloud, as we’ve been calling them, is isolated in one location. They rarely travel more than a few hundred thousand kilometers, less than a gig.
    “We’ve got something that could possibly be coming from as far away as 5,500 gigs. If it is originating inside the solar system, then we are talking about something coming from the general vicinity of Mars or Jupiter. From outside, it’s possibly something to do with the Oort Cloud. Cosmic lightning is usually a side-effect of electrical clouds.”
    “Any other possibilities?”
    No one replied for a few moments, and then George shook his head. “It’s too early to know.”
    “Are we in any danger? Should we evacuate?”
    Again, there was no reply.
    Forced to make an executive decision, Justine said, “We don’t have enough time to lift off the planet, so if there’s a global effect, we’re done for no matter what. But if there is a local effect around the site, I want to be at least a dozen kilometers away at impact. At the very least, I don’t want to be here when it begins hailing. Thirty minutes before Ground Zero, we’ll return to the lander and monitor our instruments from there. Is everyone in concurrence?”
    One by one, the Science Team nodded their heads.
    Over the next few hours, Justine left them to their work, occasionally interrupting one person or another to make a statement to the AV camera for the benefit of Mission Control on Earth.
    *
    As the final hour approached, for the first time in her life, Justine started feeling claustrophobic. Out in the vastness of space, she felt as if the entire universe was closing in on her, choking her, squeezing the life out of her. The other members of the crew had tasks to occupy them, but all Justine had was her imagination. She never thought something like this might happen to her. Her interests in Pluto had been sentimental and academic; this