'City of Fresno'

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #152

Okay, the shuttle's Radar had found something with the direction, distance, relative speed and, yes, even the non-isotropic reflectivity, the 'twinkle', to fit my 'transit' model. Was it our target, though ? We agreed that 'Craterfield' lacked any discernible 'Anomaly' so, after notifying 'Fresno' of our logic and intentions, 'Speedbird' went in pursuit. Our wary journey took most of that day.

I suppose we'd become used to 'big' stuff: Iceteroids, moonlets and such. Creeping up on this elusive 'reflector' was weird. It wasn't until we were within about twenty kilometres that the shuttle's modest optics gave more than a few, slowly twinkling pixels. At a kilometre, we could make out a ragged, tripodal shape, slowly tumbling. Our approach gradually resolved that into what may have begun as a room corner, with three orthogonal frames or girders supporting two truncated panels. Now, it was about three metres on each edge

At our hundred metres stand-off, another detail became apparent: One of those short panels, book-ended by a sub-frame, was pierced by a snarl of service cabling and/or piping, both sides' exposed ends contorted like a basket of flash-frozen eels. I smiled. They would surely provide much useful data.

"Time to suit up," I stated. Secured for space, 'Big Mac' and I waited while the lock and hold were pumped down. After they opened, I rode the exo-suit's small Field Poles to within a dozen metres of our target. Although its rotational axis ran close to the 'apex', there was no convenient anchor point to grab, apply braking torque. And, although 'Big Mac' was armoured, I could not risk getting inside the tripod's swipe. So, I'd have to do this the hard way.

Like docking to a station's rotating port, I chose the least dangerous frame end. Tickling the 'Big Mac' Field Poles adjusted attitude and RPM until we matched. Now I could safely reach, clamp both suit gauntlets onto that frame. Slowly, very slowly, I let 'Big Mac' bleed off the rotation until we were 'halted' relative to 'Speedbird'.

I was glad it then took several minutes to deliver, coax our awkward catch into the waiting hold. I could tolerate having my wits whirled, but I didn't have to enjoy it. Certainly, this delay allowed my inner ears to fully recover. The hold closed, the first 180 milliBar of Nitrogen came in, the heaters began their slow work.

Now well lit, I could see how our catch had been assembled. Reinforced by doubler plates, main frames were through-bolted to shared corner brackets. Their bared ends showed where more had been torn away. Even these three surviving skeletal shapes stood some-what skew, wracked by disaster. Along each orthogonal frame, there were through-bolts and spreader plates, with a fair match to Jan's estimate of the hatch-way fringe's original spacing. Several bolts had retained a scrap of panel, most just hung loose. Parallel evolution: It some-what resembled the extruded aluminium alloy 'modular framing' I'd met at college.

The real prize, though, was that short panel's utilities' snarl. Each service duct was compression sealed into bulkhead fittings set through a multi-pierced doubler plate. On both sides of the divider, each and every pipe and cable carried an embossed metal label resembling the hatch-way's. Again, these had four lines of that Cuneiform font, perhaps the same language, certainly with visible differences in the sequences. As these short runs on both sides of the bulkhead were so clearly labelled, I'd hopes we could deduce much from them. The pipes, variously sized, all had flange ends. Two on the 'inside' of the 'tripod' and one 'outside' still mounted ring-clamped, quarter-turn isolator valves. A pair carried short labels, while the third had a torn stub. Two clearly co-axial, plus the three, four and 'many' cored cables clad in a range of insulation thicknesses and 'armour' sported splayed tails of silvery wire.

Slowly, as the hold temperature rose, more Nitrogen was bled in until we were back to near-ambient, air-suit compatible conditions. I spent the time doing an initial material survey with the 'Big Mac' sampling laser. The panels', doubler plates', nuts' and bolts' various magnesium alloys matched their counter-parts on the hatch-way. Further, the frames' and corner brackets' alloy matched those doubler plates'. To my surprise, all the wire, be it fine strands, coarse or chunky, was high-purity magnesium. Okay, the element had a conductivity about a third of copper's, some-what less than aluminium, but this was weird. Their polymer insulation was equally unsettling: My 'Big Mac' library, much more extensive than the sampler's mineral-rich default, found no match for this smörgåsbord of strange compounds. Nothing even came close. At least their elements were 'ordinary' rather than 'Trans-Uranic' exotica...

The pipe-work was stranger: Yet another magnesium alloy on the outside, each was lined by a sealing coat of magnesium oxide, perhaps anodised, then a layer of silica glass. This approach matched that of 'severe' chemical engineering, where glass alone was impracticable, where even the best hard-passivated stainless steel would not endure. But, and it was a seriously scary 'But', the combination seemed far, far too brittle for 'Rough Handling' applications. I doubted it would survive even mild flexure. And shocks ? Nah, these linings were sure to craze, fracture, shatter, expose bare metal: Be Not There !!

Already, I could be certain this magnesium-based hardware had no business in or even near our 'Human' 1000 milliBar, 40 % Humidity, 20 % Oxygen environment. And, yes, even our nominally 'inert' 80 % Nitrogen would support its combustion if ignited. Suddenly, I was glad our Gas Divers' side-catch included so much 'Noble' gas, all that Argon and Xenon. I'd expected such would be useful to 'purge' pipe-lines and tanks, 'shield' welding, but this undoubtedly 'Alien' tech would need it to survive...