The Information Paradox

Chapter 7 - The Discovery [part 3]

Jim and Kira took in the strange object as the remaining members of the party made their way carefully through the rough hand-hewn hole in the ancient ice wall. Not caring what anyone heard on an open channel, Jim turned his hand light to max, narrowed the beam and shined it back and forth into the gloom. "K, this thing is big, I mean holy shit, at least two hundred meters, before, I don't know. It looks like the rest of the structure is melted into the ice."

Not only was the object large and apparently alien, but it was also severely damaged. The nearest portion of the object seemed to be mostly intact, the forward part which was buried deep into the ice was severely damaged. It was melted broken bent and otherwise disrupted from whatever it had been uncounted of years before.

She added her bright hand light to his set on the highest setting. "So, she asked. What do you think?"

Jim shrugged. "I think that we are both in big trouble, and some people back on earth are going to have to rewrite some of the history books."

"Well, what the hell? Let's go take a look Jim, don't you think that we have earned the right?"

"Sure thing Ki, but, um what do we tell these admin clowns from Topside?"

She shrugged, and even though he could not see the gesture, he understood her tone. "Right, they can come along if they want..." Kira chuckled and added, "... But it might be very dangerous."

Jim smiled and finished her sentence. "But, if they want to peer through and take a look whilst we explore a bit, we'll brave the unknown and give them all a full report ASAP."

"Exactly."

Jim smiled and gave her a wink and a trust-me smile. He tapped the common comm band. "Okay people, here is what Mine Tech-2 Ko and I have found. There is a large cavern in the ice with an even larger, ah, artifact of some kind, embedded in the ice. We don't know what it is for now or how long it has been down here. It almost looks organic, not mechanical. So, moving forward our plan is to slowly and carefully explore the first few meters of the other side of the opening into the ice cave in the object beyond. You can all watch on the vid link and then we'll decide what to do next."

Administrator Dassir unconsciously backed away a bit before answering on the common band. "Yes, please carry on and we'll await your report."

Jim and Kira ducked low, almost to a crawl to get through the jagged hole in the ice. The other side was as dark as dark could be. Through the near vacuum, some of the broken ice sublimated directly from solid to gas providing an eerie mist rising in the low gravity of the strangely smooth floor of the ice cavern. Kira looked down and then up. "Jim, the floor of this cavern is as smooth as the hockey rink in the Canadian sector."

He looked down and slowly moved his boot from left to right across the smooth surface. "Yeah, and the size of that wall or whatever it is is as high as the main crater wall."

"Yeah. No shit."

Jim then made doubly sure that their comms were set to the lowest power level and on their custom encryption setup. To anyone without the crypto key, it would sound like a low-level random quantum noise. Jim made a gesture to Kira with his second finger indicating the correct code key. She shrugged and tapped in the sequence. "What's up J? Why burn a code now?"

Inside his suit, Jim laughed before tapping the encrypt/low power key. "Ki, I'm pretty sure that this is the real thing. Just take a look at what's embedded in the ice. This object, this thing, ship or whatever was not built by the North Americans, Euros, Russians or even the old Chinese Communists."

Kira took another look around. "Yeah, and the same for ancient Egyptians, Atlanteans or anyone else. This thing was not built/grown by anyone from around here."

"And by here you mean?"

Kira nodded. "Yeah, the big not here. Like twenty light-years or more."

Jim gave a low whistle. "Right."

Kira then asked. "Okay then so what do we do now?"

Jim turned his hand light to max and shrugged. "We press on and see what we see."

"Right."

The two suited figures moved slowly and carefully from the small access hole leading from the ice mine towards the large/ancient object partially embedded and partially melted into the sublunar ice. As they got a bit closer to the object or ship as now Kira was sure that it was, she raised her suited glove in a halt gesture. "I just thought of something J. Let me take a rad reading. If this thing or its reactor is still hot, we might want to make a quick exit before we get a dose."

Jim nodded. "Sounds good, I checked the standard rad unit on my suit and so far, so good."

Kira laughed. "Right, but that unit only checks for the usual suspects. This one can even alert for a neutrino flux if it's high enough that is."

Kira removed a bulky sensor unit from her backpack and made several up and down and left and right motions with the sensor want. She studied the ratings for a moment. "So far, so good. No anomalous or toxic readings. But if this thing is right, and don't get me wrong, I got it at a, how shall we say, less than a reputable merchant. But if the neutron and positron flux are even close, there might be a big ol' hunk of antimatter somewhere close by."

Jim did a double take. "Antimatter. So, if we are still here and not having every molecule of our bodies simultaneously explode at the speed of light, I'm thinking that it is still contained in some sort of reactor or other."

"Roger that J. Let's press on, what could possibly go wrong."