Outcasts of Gideon

There Goes Our Ride : Part 3

The silver haired woman leaned into the door, opening it for them. Behind her was a large cache of equipment lining the walls. Some of it was piled on – or placed beside – transport crates. In one corner of the space stood several tables. These supported what appeared to be lab equipment. As she worked her way toward that corner, she spoke over her shoulder. "How did you find us? We weren't even supposed to be on this godforsaken moon."

Dewey followed her. "I wish I could tell you that. I'm guessin' it was the alien thing. I've never been to this moon before."

The woman paused, staring into his eyes. "Never been to this moon?"

"No Ma'am."

She turned and began clearing space on a table. "My name is Catherine Daris. I'm a Doctor of Applied Physics. I work almost exclusively on Earth. We were investigating some images of a planet in the Schedar system. That's the reason we're here. It's also the reason we have this equipment with us."

A door opened along one wall and the young man emerged. He approached Doctor Daris as she motioned for Dewey to place the artifact on the table. Dewey complied, remaining close enough to protect it.

Kishan maneuvered himself close to the table. "Doctor Daris, you said you weren't supposed to be here."

"We came through the bubble on our way back to Earth, but our vessel was redirected here."

"When was that?" asked Quinton.

Doctor Daris stopped to look at the old man. She then took in the entire party. "I'm sorry, I'd love to know whom I'm speaking with."

The old man reached his hand toward her. "I am Quinton Séaghdha. I was once a scientist myself, many many years ago. I've called this godforsaken moon my home for some fifteen or so of those years."

"I didn't mean to offend you."

"No need to apologize. I asked about the timing of your visit for a reason. We've experienced several remarkable coincidences recently."

"We can add finding you to that list," said Kishan.

"Jimmy, how many days have we been here?"

"Is too many a good answer? It's at least three days."

"Does that help you any?"

Quinton stroked his beard. "It's still coincidental. I'm not sure if it's part of the same pattern. We probably require more data points."

The doctor nodded. She searched the room around her. "Jimmy, did we leave the Terahertz Imager on the ship?"

"No, I think that's here." Jimmy turned toward some crates. He scanned them, then moved to a few others. Working his way toward the door, he waved in the air as if to dismiss the crates he had already checked.

"Would you mind if we shut that door?" asked Kishan.

"I would rather we shut it," said Doctor Daris. "We have enough distractions already with the group of you here."

Jimmy pushed the door closed. Behind it was a sizable box. He grabbed it by its handles and lifted it from the floor. He placed the crate beside the table, then unlatched the top, revealing a device.

"The TI will enable us to see what's inside your little metal box." Doctor Daris cleared space on the table beside the alien artifact.

Jimmy and the Doctor spent several minutes setting up and testing the imager. Satisfied with it, Doctor Daris directed a small, hand-held mechanism toward the artifact. She waved the apparatus over and around the small object, looking puzzled. She returned to the imager, adjusted something on its small screen, then tried again.

"Is there something wrong?" asked Quinton.

Doctor Daris looked his way, then again inspected the apparatus in her hand. "From what I can tell, the imager is working properly. It sees the table. It sees itself. It even..." She waved the apparatus in their direction. "It even sees each of you. But it's telling me that your artifact isn't there."

Quinton's eyebrows raised. "This imager of yours doesn't see it?"

"It's like an ancient x-ray. We use it to look inside things. It can show us the internal components of a device, for example. Only, in this case, it doesn't even see the device."

"Will that be enough to get us to Earth?" asked Dewey.

Doctor Daris looked to her assistant. "How much space can we create on our ship?"