Free Mission: Tomorrow - eARC by Bryan Thomas Schmidt Page A

carefully excise the specimen; they were shaking in anticipation and fear. She closed her eyes, trying a breathing exercise to settle her nerves, then opened them again, her gaze darting around vast darkness until it settled upon the familiar golden glow ofthe sun.
    The first Dreamtime story she had ever been told had been about how the Solar System, and the rest of the Universe, had come to be. Earth had been a featureless black disc until Pupperrimbul (one of the Nurrumbunguttias that had taken the form of a bird with a red patch) had cast an emu’s egg into the sky to create Gnowee , the sun. Eventually, all of the Nurrumbunguttias left Earth to form the many other bright lights across the cosmos; the smoke from their campfires forming the Warring, which was still visible from Earth as the Milky Way.
    That knowledge comforted Tyrille. She liked the thought that the spirits were surrounding her, guiding her, so when she eventually returned her gaze and concentration onto Voyager 1, her hands were much steadier. She felt much more grounded in her heart and mind.
    She used the laser setting of her “Screwdriver” to cut out a small a section of the side panel. She was careful to take a wide birth around the specimen, so as to not damage it, but also ensured she left as much paneling behind as possible to protect the probe’s vital instruments.
    Wary of allowing anything to touch the delicate-appearing crystalline structure—even a specimen bag—she made her way to the spacecraft, holding the panel segment gingerly in her open palm.
    I.R.I.S. met her at the open airlock, sealing the outer hatch after she had entered and then helping divest her of the equipment she wore about her body—tasks Tyrille usually completed on her own. She grinned. Sometimes she forgot how curious the robot could be. It was such a human affectation. “Would you like to see it, Iris?”
    The robot inclined its titanium head in acknowledgement, and after ascertaining permission, lifted the panel with very precise, very gentle movements, turning it this way and that to study the life-form’s construction.
    “It is beautiful,” I.R.I.S. stated, quite earnestly.
    Taken aback by the giving of a compliment, Tyrille could only nod.
    “The mathematical computations in its physical structure alone ensure physical perfection, but . . .”
    “Prepare for environment stabilization,” the ship’s computer interface intoned.
    Tyrille waited until oxygen levels reached breathable limits, and for the inner hatch door to automatically unseal, before she released the pressure lock on her helmet and pulled it free of her unruly close-cropped curls.
    Pushing off by her feet, she propelled her body through the zero gravity into the main compartment and started to search for a specimen container large enough to contain the excised panel piece. Not able to find the one she was seeking, she turned to ask I.R.I.S., to discover it had followed her into the main chamber, but was still transfixed by the specimen.
    The robot looked up at her. Eventually, “Shall we ask it what it wants?”
    Tyrille blinked, bemused. “It’s probably a data core of some kind. Why assume it can understand what we are saying?”
    “Why assume it does not? What am I, if not an interactive data core?”
    Tyrille blinked. The robot was right. She looked down at the specimen with new eyes. And more than a little suspicion. What is your purpose, pretty one?
    As if in response, the snowflake-like structure lifted off the panel segment and started spinning in the air, growing in size and luminosity, until it broke apart into many crystalline orbs that spun around each other, coalescing to form an angular head, then broad shoulders, a well-muscled torso, and . . . a tentacled tail.
    The alien was a merman?!
    Oh my. “G’day . . . Er, I mean, hello. Welcome.”
    The extraterrestrial’s shape solidified so she could clearly see the alien cast to his features. His long platinum white hair