The Information Paradox

Chapter 6 - The Discovery [part2]

Kira then turned around to face the assembled group of admin types, company people and of course her friend Jim. She made sure that she was transmitting on the common band before announcing. "Okay, you have heard my opinion, but I think that regardless, we should proceed cautiously. I can get a one meter tunneling machine here in a standard day or so. We only have a couple of those and someone way above my pay grade is going to have to approve the requisition of the machine and the overtime before we proceed."

The man in the lead of the group was mine supervisor Administrator-1 Dassir. He was technically in charge of the operation for the company and he thought for a moment before speaking. "I think that Mine Tech Ko is the expert here and I believe that she has it right. We should proceed cautiously. I'm thinking that whatever is down here has been down here for a very long time. One of you in the back is an engineer correct?"

From the back of the group, Jim raised his gloved hand. "That would be me sir, Jim Miller from Power-Pro. I was asked to come down here and do a quick survey of you know, gas pressure, ice structure, radiation and such. Do you want me to press on or should I go back up to my section?"

The administrator paused before speaking. "Engineer Miller, this is Mine Tech-2 Ko. She is the one who, um, discovered this, whatever it is. She is the only one here qualified on this equipment."

Jim stepped forward and held out his suited hand to the shorter man. "Yes sir, full disclosure, Mine-Tech Ko and I are well acquainted with each other. We ah, share quarters and ah, run, um a small business topside in our spare time. Good to see you Ko what kind of trouble have you got into?"

Through her armored visor, she rolled her eyes, smiled and went on with the scene. "Same to you Engineer Tech-1 Miller, shall we carry on with our orders from Administrator Dassir?"

Kira and Jim stepped up to the machine and removed a multi-spectrum scan tool, two high-powered hand lights and an old-school pick and shovel. Kira gestured to the end of the main bore and announced over the common band. "Okay, Jim and I will carefully examine the ice face where the proximity alarms alerted. We'll take some readings and see what we see, but regardless we need to get one of the MK-2 machines down here, this three-meter tunnel rig is just too big.

Kira stepped a few meters forward to the work face and then she was out of sight of the main group, activated her private, encrypted, frequency. "J, are you reading me?"

"Five by five, K. What in the name of Mohammed and Buddha are you up to?"

Kira responded immediately. "Jim, this tunnel, this cavern that is, is old, I mean really old. Before these clowns get a clue as to what we have found here, I really want to get a look around, just you and me."

"Okay, but now? You said that there was at least a solid meter of ice before we can get to the cavern beyond."

From inside her helmet, Kira smiled and nodded. "Yes, that's what I said, but right here..."

Kira gestured with her hand light. "The ice is only a few centimeters thick at this spot. I'm going to punch through with my hammer and then we shall see what we see. Regardless, you and I will be the first to see it in I'm guessing about five hundred million years."

Jim thought but did not say what could possibly go wrong. Instead, he vocalized softly. "Okay Ki, lead on but do not get us killed, I kind of like you, you know."

"Me to you, and I'll do my best on the not getting killed part."

Over the main calm channel, Kira announced, "okay, Technician Miller and I will move forward to the exposed ice face, it looks a bit thinner, almost translucent with some sort of background light. I need all of you to stay back just in case it's not stable."

Kira turned to see the motley group of administration types back off a few meters. She then removed a small aluminum alloy hammer from her belt. She turned towards her friend and then moved forward to the ice face. Kira raised the tool. "Okay, here goes nothin'."

She softly hit the ice face at what she thought was its thinnest point. As her hammer impacted the ice, there was no sound through the airless atmosphere of the deep mine, but she felt the ice give way a bit. Kira swung a little bit harder and felt the ice crack. It took several more minutes of effort but she finally felt that she was almost through. Her efforts had also started to overtax the cooling system of her suit. "Jim, I'm getting a little hot here, need a break or she'll go red and shut down on me."

Jim stepped forward and took the tool from her outstretched glove. "Okay Ki, take a break and let me give it a shot."

Jim stepped closer to her to check the telltales on her suit, he frowned at the line of red indicators on the digital readout. He then removed a long braided stainless-steel line from his suit and plugged it into a receptacle on the cooling unit of her suit. "Here ya' go, Ki. Have some cryo on me should cool you right down."

As the supercooled liquid nitrogen flowed into the cooling unit on her backpack Kira began to cool off. "Thanks, Jim, you're up, but don't overdo it if ya' know what I mean."

Jim took the aluminum-handled, titanium-bladed ice-chipping tool from his friend. "No problem, I'll be reasonable Ms. Ko and not overheat my suit. Whatever has been here for a few bazillion years can certainly wait a few more minutes."

Jim stepped forward to the work face and saw where Kira had been chipping away. He adjusted the lighting on his helmet and could see through the nearly transparent wall of ice what she had seen. It was a thing, an artifact made by an intelligence. It was right beyond the wall of ice deep in a crater on the south pole of the moon and had probably been there for tens of thousands of years perhaps much longer. Jim keyed his comm system. "Okay, I'm where Miner Ko was working, let me give it a few more good hard whacks and I think we'll be through."

Jim swung the lunar aluminum hammer five or six more times before the ice started to crack for good. The first long crack went from left to right, the next from top to bottom. Jim took a couple of more good swings and the ice started to break away. Just like Kira, his suit temperature was moving from the green to the yellow. Unlike her exuberant work, he paused and rested a few moments to let the cooling unit catch up with his exertions. "Okay, looks good here. Let me give the rad on my suit a couple of ticks to catch up and then I think we'll be through."

From the back of the small group, Kira stepped forward. Through her faceplate, Jim could see her wicked smile and perfect teeth. She gestured to the readouts on her wrist unit. "I'm good to go J. It's out of the red and midway through the yellow. But don't worry, I'm just an observer for now. But when you're ready, please carry on. I wouldn't miss this, whatever it is for anything."

Jim smiled and swung the hammer a few more times with enthusiasm and finally broke through the wall of ice. He then poked his helmet into a cavern, a vast cavern. Jim touched the key on his wrist and turned his suit light to maximum. Not only was the sublunar cave large, there was something in it. Something that had been made by someone, and probably had been there a very. very long time. "Um, you guys should probably take a look at this. I'm pretty sure that this whatever it is was not made in the Boeing factory."

Kira was next to the small hole in the ice wall. She took one look around and whistled to herself. "Yeah, no shit!"