Offspring Ch. 007

There were hundreds of images, some in colour, some black and white and some taken with an infrared camera. There was something about the infrared images that niggled me. I couldn't put my finger on it though. I was still trying to guess what it was when Arden rang. He proposed lunch in the officer's mess and a meeting in my office afterwards as I had promised. I hadn't noticed it was lunchtime already in all the excitement. I closed my computer down and went to join him.

"You are very absent minded today," said Arden half way through lunch.

"I received the original images of Okton4 today. There is something about the infrared ones that bothers me and I don't know what it is." I had barely said it when it hit me what was wrong.

"Oh fuck, if that isn't going to throw the shit in the fan," I exclaimed.

"What are you on about?" Arden was mystified.

"I'll show you when we get back to my office, " I said and left it at that.

I couldn't finish my meal. My appetite had completely disappeared. I waited until Arden had finished and we left without waiting for our coffee.

Back in the office I booted the computer and pulled up the image file.

I showed Arden the patches we thought were cities on the images.

"See here," I pointed to the screen, "this is no natural feature, this looks to me very much like a large air strip. Each of the big cities has one of them. See, here and here and here again."

Then I showed him the picture of the other hemisphere. There wasn't much to see except for a spot in the middle of the ocean.

"This is the spaceport, even at that distance you can make out some of its features."

"Yes, that's what it has to be, there is nothing else there except water."

"Now look at the infrared images of the same areas. The cities are barely visible, in fact if we didn't have the other pictures to compare we wouldn't recognise them."

"Yes, I see what you mean."

"Now look at the spaceport in the infrared. The blacker the image, the higher the temperature. Now if we look at it in the negative and the black becomes white it looks like a fucking glow worm in the middle of the ocean. That, my friend is its heat signature. Are you with me?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Can you now see where my problem is?"

"No, can't say I do."

"The cities have no heat signature and they should have one, a massive one by the size of these things."

"You are right, but what does it mean?"

"It means either the Oktonians have a technology no one has ever heard of, or the cities are deserted and have been for a long time."

"How are we going to find out for sure?"

"That my dear Arden is something the two of us are going to have to work out."

"Where would you even start?"

"We are going to start off with some good old fashioned detective work. Let's see what we've got so far and see where that will take us. What do we know about the Oktonians?"

"We know they have a superior technology. Just look at their space ships."

"Yes, that's what everybody thinks, but is it true?"

"The ships are there, they must have built them."

"All we ever see of their technology are their ships, The huge warships in space and the small freighters which pick up cargo here at the spaceport and shift it to wherever. No one is allowed near them. None of us has ever been inside one of their ships. Everything else we see here we supply. The materials handling equipment, the vehicles in the spaceport, even the security cameras, so you tell me. I haven't even seen a computer of Oktonian manufacture. They use ours. Bit strange, don't you think?"

"But they must have all that stuff. Maybe they want to keep their technology secret. They might be using a different approach they don't want us to see."

"Their freighters don't seem all that different from ours. At least the part that's visible. From the way they start, take off and land their engines behave and sound similar to ours. They can't even get it together to supply us with refined lithium. Besides, all the Oktonians I have seen so far don't seem to be all that bright."

"What are you saying"

"I'm saying the fact that a man can drive a bus doesn't prove he is capable of building one."

"But someone is building that stuff."

"Or was."

"Whaaaat?"

"Alright Arden, take the following scenario: A technically very advanced race colonises a planet. There are sentient indigenous creatures living on it already. They aren't terribly intelligent, but they can be trained to do some things. A master - slave type society evolves. That's not new. Has been done many times. Then some shit happens. Perhaps a virus gets out of a laboratory and the masters get killed, perhaps to a man. The virus doesn't affect the locals because they have a different metabolism. The masters might have even perished from some indigenous disease. Even that has happened before. All the machinery is still lying around and the slaves keep on using it. When one machine breaks down they grab another one. Has happened before too. It might be a long time before the remaining society collapses. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but it's possible. Maybe some of the masters have survived and are pulling the strings. Who knows?"

"I must say, when you put it like this, it has to be on the cards. It would explain why they won't allow us to look at anything of theirs."

"It could explain some things. Not everything. The semen collection for one doesn't fit into the picture. And where are the males? Why don't we get to see them? Why is this spaceport in the middle of the ocean and who built it? Why is Pumpernickel so important? Things like that."

"What do you want to do next?"

"I need to analyse the images. This is priority number one. I also need the reports I have asked for. Can you make a note please Arden? I want a list of what the Oktonians import for themselves. That would be total imports minus what is used by the spaceport. Figures for the last five years would be good. Add that to the lists I already gave you. That will give us enough to do for a while."

"And then what?"

"Then we collate all the data and see how they fit into the kind of model I have outlined. The data which don't fit the picture we'll set aside. Then we'll try to modify the model until all the pieces have a home. Is your engineer coming to see me tonight?"

"Yes. He calls himself Feng in honour of his Chinese ancestry. He'll be there at eight."

"Good. Shall we call it quits for today?"

"Suits me, I need to check on my office before I can go home anyway."