RELIC

No-one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But scream they must have done. Looking through the wreck and seeing the strange bodies. They must have known they were going to die. It is hard to comprehend the fear of the certain knowledge that your world is failing and its ability to support life is disappearing.

This ancient spacecraft was no like anything we, here on Earth, have ever seen. When we think of journeying into that harsh vacuum environment we think of rigid stiff hard structures that are able to contain the atmosphere we need to survive. We think of auxiliary systems to heat and cool and scrub our air. We need a source of power to drive our artificial world, and we need rockets to move it around.

The Relic, as its discoverers named it, was nothing like our craft. Everything about it suggests that it was once a living organism. That it was made there is no doubt. The scientist argue that it could not of originated in the vacuum of space so it must have been born or created in a resource rich environment and subsequently launched into space.

So far the means of propulsion has not been confirmed however there are a series of intriguing nodules along the body of the vessel and the current theory is that giant solar sales grew from these nodules using radiated energy from suns. Of course with each revelation, whether accurate or not, comes the speculation. Perhaps this vessel died because it strayed too far away from available energy.

Of course the next conjecture to occupy the vivid imagination of science weirdos buffs and fans was whether the craft was salient. Was it conscience? Did it have self determination? This lead to moral discussions about what sort of creatures would lead the Relic to its own death. Of course this brought out committed animal welfare advocates. It was all premature and a little silly.

I am Dr. Alan Frost and I am leading the scientist team that has been flown up to the Relic to undertake a complete thorough survey. We all arrived five days ago so our investigation has really only just begun. Of course the first thing that the flyboys and engineers did was to seal the vessel. Basically they bubble wrapped the whole thing and filled it with air. Of course there were leaks surprisingly very few and each of these was plugged with a special expanding sealant compound. At first the whole thing was checked by the hour, but as the engineers became more confident the inspections were reduced to once a day.

My team are still wearing our spacesuits with only our heads and hands free. It is inconvenient but in the end a good compromise between effectiveness and safety. My team is small, a biologist Dr Horatio George, a genealogist Associate Professor Shannon Nelson, the world’s foremost ancient language expert Dr Nabil Cabal, and Professor Aiguo Hong, he is Chinese and is an archaeologist who specialises in origins of early life.

It was quite incredible to see this thing close up. We’d all seen the pictures sent back by those first men who discovered the Relic. Seeing it for real is something else. It is big one hundred and forty seven metres long and sixty three metres at it widest part. It’s shaped like an oven baked loaf of bread.

The skin appears to be made of fibrous cellulite material. When the first astronauts had arrived they found what appeared to be an atmosphere lock. Both sides of the lock were open to space. By the time we had arrive the engineers had attached a module that accepted our shuttles and allowed us to transfer inside. The module was our base we slept and cooked in it.

The first thing you notice when you arrive is the organic look of everything. There isn’t a straight edge or right angle anywhere. Imbedded into the structure are some sort of work stations although none of it looks as though you stand or sit there. The creatures must have lived with no gravity basically floating inside the living vessel.

We counted fourteen bodies. I can tell you I’ve seen nothing like these unfortunate creatures. Dr George proposed.” I think the craft form condition was sub-marina. It was filled with a life sustaining liquid.” He announced. “The closest classification I can think of for these creature is that they have some resemblances, they are like a seal.” He undertaken and external examination but not an autopsy. We were waiting on our laboratory module to be brought up. It had been decided quite sensibly I think that whoever came up from Earth to the Relic would stay until we were absolutely sure that no disease would be transferred back to our planet. None of the creatures wore any outer covering, no spacesuit or clothing.

Professor Nelson has been examining the genealogy of the structure. She shared her thoughts, “It is early days but at this point I can confirm that the vehicle appears to have been a living creature at some stage. It is interesting because the sequencing is so efficient.” She explains. Here on Earth our gene sequences have lots of ‘surplus’ code.” She does the air apostrophes. “The genes from the creatures are also messy but the genes from the ship are sort of well structured no messy surplus genes.”

It was Dr. Cabal who suggested. “I wonder if the genes are the same all over or if these different workstations have been grafted to the craft.” It was an excellent suggestion.

Professor Hong spoke in his very quiet manner. “I would be interested in see if we can find some form of storage. It occurs to me that perhaps this vehicle has been used to transport the seeds of our own life here on Earth. Perhaps this was a one way suicidal trip to colonise Earth.”

This sent us all scurrying over the vessel collecting samples. One section that Dr Cabal identified was left untouched. “See this section looks like a brain.” He mused. “It seems the have similar memory creases like our brains.” He and I started to work at building a containment structure around this section. The idea being if we could seal it in and immerse it in seawater then just maybe we could figure out how to access those memories.

In the meantime Professor Hong searched for any sign that this was a seed vessel intended to start life on the planet. We had just about completed our enclosing bubble when Dr. Nelson called a meeting. “Nabil was right.” She announced, “Each section I’ve sampled has it own unique genetic sequence. Each has been purposely created to perform a special function. For some reason the seperate modules are able to bind to the pod. We’d taken to referring the outer skin of the Relic as the pod. These clever creatures have overcome rejection. I have come to the conclusion that the pod and the sections are more closely resemble plants on Earth.”

“I think you suggestion is perhaps closely resembling of the truth.” Dr George always found a longer way to say anything. “I also have been conducting some detailed examination. Structurally these features of the craft seem somewhat closely resembling of plant life. They have fibre like internal structures that could be roots and a reasonable estimation at this time would suggest the nutrients and information likely passaged along these structure.”

A general discussion ensued when Dr. Gearge commented. “I think it will be safer to use pure water unless we can conduct a spectral analysis on the samples. It would be a shame if we used the wrong salts in the sea water and destroyed the information.”

In the end we built a stiff wire structure then glued a plastic membrane to the inside to form a bubble around the brain like structure. By this time our space wranglers had found a source of Ice that we would be able to melt and pour into our bubble.

It was fortunate that we were in zero gravity because the bubble held because it only needed to contain the water not bare its mass. Once in we evaluated the air and sealed it off. At first nothing much happen but slowly the brain expanded as it slowly absorbed the water. We got sick of watching and had moved on to other tasks.

After some time we could see the structure was indeed filling out it started to look a lot like a brain coral its convolutions becoming more pronounced as it grew. Eventually it stopped growing.

We had returned to our base module for the night. We were gathered together eating an evening meal and discussing the days findings. I had been musing about the purpose of the Relic. “I think that the whole thing is a seed pod.” I suggested. “I don’t think it was ever intended as a space craft but was deliberately built to seed the universe with life. I suspect that this hatch here.” pointing to the end where our module had been attached. “was a one use opening and that when the right conditions were found the creature initiated the explosion of its load towards Earth causing their own death.”

Professor Hong became very excited. “It makes sense. Perhaps these creatures measured the conditions on earth and were able to influence the seed load to match the environment.” He was set to continue the we heard a slow moan that seemed to be coming from the Relic. We climbed out of our module and into the pod. We hadn’t taken the time to put our suits back on.

The sound seemed to be coming form the brain inside the water bubble. As we watched the sound grew louder and more shrill. We moved toward the brain watching in disbelief as it twitched and moved.. “Oh my goodness.” Dr Nelson cried. “It is angry.”

“How do you know?” questioned Dr Cabal with a smart nasty tone. He seemed to resent her. I think he wanted his expertise to be the most important and so far we found nothing even closely resembling a language. There were no symbols or pictures. All his hopes were in what might be contained within the brain.

“You can hear it.” answered Dr Nelson. She had tears in its eyes. “It knows that its creators have sent it to its death and it is angry.”

The noise grew even louder until it was a sharp screech. Professor Hong observed in his quiet way “It is screaming in agony.”