Читать книгу Bieber's Finger - Craig Nybo - Страница 19

Chapter 11

A canopy of jungle trees shaded Chi and his little command from the blistering summer heat of the two suns. Mostly they traveled in silence. They had only been allowed enough time to issue short goodbyes to their families and friends before setting out just before first light. Only the sounds of their rakes scraping through the leaf-carpeted ground, over dust and pebbles, kept them company as they wended their way through the scrub and foliage, so thick that they had to take turns bushwhacking at point.

Winkle’s little receiver kept blinking and emitting short crackles. It indicated the party’s global positioning while tracking the extra-terrestrial ship’s beacon--a mayday signal the craft had emitted since crash-landing on Hull nearly 60 years ago. “We’re getting close,” Winkle said, taking the tracker out of one of his exoskeletal pockets and checking their bearings. “We’ll be there in less than an hour.”

“Why haven’t we known about this ship?” Gnasher asked. “Seems we might have benefited from exploring space.”

“We have known about it,” Winkle said. “At least in certain circles. It was my mentor, Abstel, who discovered it.”

All of the company knew of the legendary Abstel, even if they hadn’t met the old Ice Beetle before he died. Abstel had written a series of books entitled Light and Existence. His volumes outlined every pertinent thing in society from government to ethics to art to technology. It was by his tomes that the colony had thrived. Abstel had led many expeditions away from the colony into the jungles. On one such expedition, he had discovered the crashed ship.

Winkle had studied under Abstel as a young Ice Beetle. In time, Winkle had been permitted on a top secret exploratory detachment to study the crashed spacecraft in person. The old philosopher had told Winkle, “Someday I will be gone. This extra-terrestrial technology must not fall into the wrong hands. Keep it secret. Explore it. Learn it. Study it. But for the protection of your family and the rest of the colony, don’t speak of it.”

“We’re close now,” Winkle said, glancing at the screen of his tracker. “If we move quickly, we should make the ship in less than ten minutes.

The five of them clodded on, cutting a path through the jungle. When they came upon the ship, Chi, Winkle, Stig, and Goorn stopped cold in the majesty of its girth and advanced technology. The hulking space vehicle towered over them, all metal, all shapes, squares, triangles, circles, a conglomeration of symmetry, plastic, chrome, and glass. The Ice Beetles’ eyes widened in incomprehension.

Winkle approached the vessel, clicking off the tracker and dropping it into his exoskeletal pocket. He moved to the mammoth marvel of machinery and architecture. He rested one rake on its skin and turned to the others, an illustrious smile gracing his face. “My warrior friends, I present to you the source of so much of our technology, the discovery of the great Abstel, father of philosophy, politics, and science. I give you the secret of the Ice Beetles.” He patted the ship’s hull with his rake a couple of times.

Goorn looked up at the strange writing on the side of the ship, an odd pattern of curvy lines, dashes, and symbols. “What does it say?” she asked.

“It’s the name of the vessel. It’s called the USS Arlington.”

“What does that mean?” Goorn asked.

“It comes from a planet called Earth.”

Goorn tried to form the word with her mouth, Earth, so difficult to pronounce.

“Come aboard. I’ll show you around,” Winkle said. He moved to an airlock on the side of the ship. He raised a rake and punched a code into an on-board keypad, each button marked with one of the odd, curly symbols. The USS Arlington issued a hiss and a clunk. The airlock yawned open and a ramp unraveled down to the ground.