Nimisha's Ship

"It's been there a long time," she murmured as they closed with the wreck. "How could anyone survive such a crash?"

"The ship was not designed for landing," Helm said. "It is also not equipped with either thrusters or vanes for atmospheric manoeuvring."

"Any life signs?" asked Doc.

Nimisha laughed at such optimism. "Hardly, if such dense vegetation has grown up on the avenue it plowed. Probably from the First Diaspora. Imagine being brave enough to go into space in that sort of contraption," she added with some admiration. "Please land, Helm, near the center of the ship. I see some sort of airlock in its side."

She dressed in appropriate skintight protective gear for a first walkabout. As the air had tested pure, she didn't require a breathing apparatus. Pure enough to breathe, but slightly tainted with an unfamiliar smell, she thought as she stepped out of the Fiver and onto the thick grassoid surface covering. Three steps into it, she was glad of the impregnability of her suit, for the "grass" was saw-toothed and managed to leave scratches on the tough material. What digestive equipment those shaggy creatures must have to graze on this, she reflected. She took samples of the obvious varieties growing about her and had to use the vibro blade to sever the blades and stems.

She tripped over the first skeleton, partially hidden in the vegetation and by the remains of its apparel.

"Human skeleton, clad in exceedingly durable clothing," she reported to Helm.

"Bring me a swatch of the material and a bone and I'll do a forensic and carbon-date it," Doc suggested. The longest finger bone was added to her pouch, along with a piece of the material, now so old it tore like paper.

"They must have set up some sort of a camp," she said. There was a clearing of sorts, evidently made by melting the ground into a semi-glaze that defied the grassoid's attempts at succession. There were oddments of metal scattered about, poking up from the dirt that had blown over them. The larger items she unearthed were crushed as if the grazers had put their big clumsy feet on them.

"Analysis suggests this ship was of a design used in the First Diaspora, with chemical fuel engines of the type typical of that period for planetary landing and takeoff," Helm informed her. "I have been able to distinguish sufficient of the faded insignia on the bow to determine that it belonged to a federation known as the United Nations of Earth. We are the twentieth ship to come through the wormhole."

"Thank you for that update on our position, Helm," she said with gentle irony. She had not programmed any humour into Helm, but sometimes he was inadvertently funny. Then she looked at the timeworn spaceship. "Poor guys," she said, shaking her head.

Gaining entrance to the ship was not a problem. A ramp or steps of some kind must originally have been used, but the centuries had allowed a buildup of windblown dirt and debris that reached to the lower lip of the hatch. There were exterior controls where any sensible designer would have put them, and since she was an even more sophisticated designer, it took only moments to open the airlock. She climbed in. The inner lock stood open, and as she neared it, she heard some sort of ventilation system begin to circulate the air inside.

"Not bad," she said. "Some power remains."

"Solar panels have been detected," Helm said.

"Why would they use solar panels if this wasn't a landing type craft?"

"There were many attempts at achieving the optimum use of many power sources-chemical, nuclear fusion, and solar power, both from generator panels and light sails-on early spacecraft,"

Helm said in the pedantic tone he assumed for his "science officer" role.

"Well, they did that right."

Nevertheless, the air was stale and still had an acrid stink that left a taste at the back of her throat of metals, old foodstuffs, human perspiration, and hydrocarbon hydraulic and lubricant fluids.

"One does have to air the place out every now and then," she said in her best imitation of her womb-mother.

"Repeat?" Helm asked, mystified.

"Don't bother," Doc said. "I'll explain it to him."

She went forward to where she expected to find the bridge. And did, though it was dark, since the forward screen had crashed right into the rock of the hillside and was now shards on the deck. She used her wrist light and found the appropriate toggle. She pushed it and faint illumination resulted-enough to see that the bridge was empty. She hadn't expected to see any bodies. The establishment of some sort of a base camp indicated there had been crash survivors enough to have suitably interred their dead. The big question was if any had survived long enough to establish a colony.

She tried to access the bridge log, but evidently the small source of power that circulated the air did not spark the computer systems into action.

She toured the ship and its cramped crew quarters with bunks stripped to the metal frames. Lockers had been emptied; dust had sifted in through the vents over the centuries that the ship had lain here. The galley, when she entered it, was also tidy, apart from dust. Again all useable items had been taken. The same could be said of any other transportable item or equipment that such a vessel would have carried. Well, if one were shipwrecked on an alien planet, one would certainly use whatever equipment was on hand. Only where had it-and its porters-gone? Would she find the descendants somewhere else? Had they regressed to a primitive state in the meantime? Certainly she had seen neither fires nor fossil fuel smoke to indicate any human settlement… so far, that is. The climate of the plateau and its position on the continent made it part of a temperate zone. Considering the new growth she had noticed on trees and shrubs, she had landed in this planet's vernal period. Part of the shagginess of the grazers might be due to shedding winter fur.