Free A Planned Improvisation by Jonathan Edward Feinstein

of normal conditions and then we start all over again. This schedule will continue for three days until we reach Neptune.”
    “Park!” Ronnie protested. “How the heck do you expect me to examine the probe under those conditions?”
    “Sorry for the bumpy ride, Ronnie,” Park apologized, “but the distress signal comes first. If you can’t check out the probe during the two hours of normal ship-board gravity, let it sit until after we get to Neptune. It’ll still be there, I imagine.”
    “Yes, sir,” Ronnie replied grumpily and turned to her people. “You heard the man. Let’s doubly secure the probe just in case we get our usual heroes’ welcome.”
    No one thrives on several days of high acceleration travel and sleeping under those conditions never refreshes, but Park’s crew rapidly adapted to the schedule, grabbing cat naps where they could and   even learning to nod off when strapped into their chairs so at any given moment only those on duty on the bridge were fully away until they were eight hours out and decelerating toward Proteus, Neptune’s second largest moon.
    “We can suspend the incidences of high gees for the rest of the approach,” Tina told Park. They wouldn’t get us there sooner in any case now.”
    “Good!” Park decided. “We’re all looking bleary-eyed. I’d prefer not having to issue pep-pills. Marisea, any response to our hails?”
    “No, Park,” Marisea responded. “All I hear is the distress beacon. We’re too far out to see where it’s coming from. Maybe a ship crashed on Proteus?”
    “Maybe,” Park replied. “If no one survived, it might explain why they aren’t talking to us.”
    Several hours later they were in orbit around Proteus. “Neptune is tremendous from here, isn’t it?” Marisea remarked.
    “Compared to Earth,” Iris replied, “it is tremendous from anywhere, but Proteus is so close to the planet it cannot been seen through Earth-bound telescopes and I see a small base down there, a mining colony maybe?”
    “If so, it isn’t registered with us,” Park told her. “Take us down, please, Tina. I’ll lead a party to investigate.”
    “Park, is that wise?” Iris asked seriously.
    “Probably not,” Park chuckled, “but someone has to do it and if this is a trap, I wouldn’t be any safer on the ship.”
    It was another hour before Park could lead a party into the small building that sat on the surface of Proteus. “No air in here,” Ronnie noted, checking her suit’s readings, “and it looks like whoever was here scrambled to get away as fast as possible.”
    There was furniture inside the building, but chairs had been toppled and there were dishes with vacuum-desiccated food still sitting on the table. There was a file cabinet, but someone had fired a laser or some other weapon into the contents and all that remained now were ashes.
    “Five hammocks in the sleeping quarters,” Iris reported over her radio, “but no sign anyone was mining here. So much for that theory. I think it was a listening post. As best I can estimate that alarm went off as we approached the probe.”
    “That makes sense to me,” Dannet added. “the Alliance regularly keeps that sort of eye on emerging cultures.”
    “Could be,” Park agreed. “If they were watching us, they would have heard the breakout noise but would have waited to be sure it was our probe making the noise and not just someone else’s ship passing through the system. Of course there was no reason to be coy with us. We’ve made no secret of the fact we were developing a star drive. The Alliance could have sent official observers to watch us working step-by-step.”
    “True enough,” Dannet agreed. “Technically you might be seen as an emerging culture, but the existence of the Alliance is no secret to you and this sort of post is more frequently placed in systems in which contact has not yet been made.”
    “But why advertise the fact they were here?” Sartena asked. “If they