The Blue Sky mine was position exactly 12.8 light years away from Earth, circling a dead sun, a pulsar. Every second the pulsar completed an entire, elliptic, rotation about 6 times. Every second the Blue Sky mine collected 6 bursts of x-rays, 6 bursts of gamma rays, 6 bursts of radio waves, and so on down the spectrum, right into the miniscule tachyon light emissions. A Chinese astronomer once said, "A sugar cube of pulsar star-stuff would weigh the same as all humanity." Although not quite accurate, it gives a good idea of how dense a pulsar really is, about the same weight as our sun.
The Blue Sky mine was the biggest structure man had ever dared to construct, at a nice 67 kilometers across, the mine was huge, only 2 kilometers of the massive superstructure was squandered on humans, ant sized in comparison. In front of the mine a large collector dish grinned openly at the whirling fusion reactor, connected by a meter thick strand of adamantinum, the strongest metal alloy in all known space. The dish happily ate anything from dancing electrons to pulsating radio waves, except for the rare and highly valued tachyons. For these an enormous array of panels stretched outwards, gobbling up the odd particle that might spin by.
Blake always tried to think of the mine in terms of distance. If you thought about it in terms of height, it was a huge lump of super alloys connected by a minute strand, just waiting to spill down and crush you. If you thought about it in terms of size, it was an immense field of panels and tubes, immediately filling you with the worst case of agoraphobia possible. So all you could do was think of the mine simply in distance from you.
Blake held his hand up in a futile attempt to black the pulsating x-rays from his view, dropping the small wire splicer in the process. Blake swore silently and swiped at the shielded tool before it drifted lazily into deep space. He stabbed again at the wires fusing them together in small spark of radiation. Last one. Blake velcroed the spanner-like object to his suit and plugged into Blue Sky's Comm link.
"Blake here". All station communications had to be performed over an internal network, the radio noise from the pulsar prohibited any other form of chatter.
There was an audible thump at the other end, a yawn and a deep sigh "Mmm?"
"I've finished repairing panel control wires on panel..." Blake glanced over his bulky orange shoulder at the serial number printed clearly across the bottom of the panel, "...985789 AF12, permission to head on home. Sir?" Blake waited patiently for the reply.
"Wha... Oh sure, come on in." The comm clicked off and Blake was once again alone with pulsar Haskem, spinning out it's dead end career, supplying power to over 5 different colonies via microwave transmission. Blake would have loved to see Haskem, but to do so would have meant immediate and total blindness.
Blake sat down heavily next to his only real friend, the station's scientist, Dr. Ross McWest. "What's up Doc?" Ross grinned broadly back at Blake and took in his features for the millionth time. He was tall, as were most spacers, and muscly. A woolly mass of dark hair covered his scalp, while faint stubble sprouted from around his mouth. Blake had dark, confident eyes. He knew his job; he got it done, no horseplay. Out in deep space next to a 15-kilometer lump of certain death, even the slightest mistake could have you without an income, permanently.
"Ah, just the usual comm break downs." Ross swirled his coffee around several times. "We had a microwave transmitter failure yesterday, but you probably heard all about it, the CO's made a big hoo ha out of it, got everyone to stop work, stay in their quarters until it was fixed. Not like a few leaking microwaves would do anything to us Haskem hasn't already taken care of." Blake shook his head, slightly amused.
"I was out splicing wires all yesterday."
The scientist glanced up from his breakfast. "Fun, action and excitement, eh?"
Blake grinned and nodded sarcastically.
"So what was the story with those amazing wires you fixed, meteorites again? Had a few of those last week, lost 12 panels to stupid lumps of rock at near ultrasonic speeds."
Blake wished that that were all it was, stupid lumps of rock. He frowned.
"What Blake? Seen a speck of blue on Blue Sky?" Rather ironically there was no blue what so ever on the entire station, not in any shade or texture, not on any surface. The miners often made jokes about this.
"Heh. Wish I had, I'd be famous." Blake passed Dr Ross the tiny specks of black powder he had discovered all over the broken wire ends.
"Well well well, what have we here?" Ross looked questioningly up at Blake, sub vocalising the words, "Where'd you find it?"
"It was all over the wires, I scrapped it off, know what it is?"
"I'll check back with you after I've had a look, probably just a bit of solar dust." Dr Ross McWest gulped his cold coffee down in one quick swig and staggered off towards the laboratories, leaving Blake to sit by himself.
Blake drifted in from his routine rounds off sector 5, towards the opened airlock. The crew's section was not a pretty sight; it bore no windows. It was just a big ball of lead. Lead was found to be the only metal capable of resisting X-rays, the most dangerous of rays for Blue Sky. You only needed one burst off the dish and any unshielded section would be completely fried, just a slight hiss as people and metal melted into one, that's all it was.
Blake unsuited to find a very worried looking Doctor Ross approach him. He turned around with out saying a word and lead Blake straight to Blue Sky's miniature laboratory.
A whiff of cleaning agent assaulted Blake as he entered the immaculate little room; Ross led him to a microscope and motioned for Blake to look. Blake obliged. He was confronted with thousands of little scurrying lumps and dots, some had legs, others odd flipper like apparatuses. Blake looked up at the frowning Doctor.
"So... I'm looking at what exactly?" Ross spoke curtly, almost angrily
"Life, in one of the simplest forms, but life all the same." Blake gazed intently into the microscope once more trying hard to see something more. "Sorry Ross, I don't follow."
"This is a sample of the dust you found, on the wires." Blake's eyes widened, the gist of what Ross was implying now clear to him. Life. Life, from the pulsar.
So much for all those 1950's space novels, all humans had found in the way of life was an old animal bone, dated to 3 million years before humans rampaged their noisy life into existence. But this, it was life, life as in not dead yet. Ross seemed to read Blake's mind.
"Not dead yet but-" Ross pulled a new slide from the cluttered shelves, inserting it carefully into the microscope. "Now, this is the same stuff"
Blake peeked into the life of miniature aliens again. It was not teeming with action like last time, instead tiny bodies lay strewn about, a whirlwind of destruction had just passed through, it so it seemed. "What did you do? Give 'em a shot whisky?"
Ross's face did not register the joke. "This is the same stuff after it went through the scrubbers. Blue Sky catches half of everything that spins out of Haskem, right?" Blake nodded absently. "And everything that comes out of Haskem goes through the power scrubbers, right?" Blake nodded again, putting up with the Doctors 'this is how it goes' tone of voice.
"Well, this is the same life coming from the pulsar, after it's gone through the scrubbers. And how long will it be until we figure a way to collect all the pulses, eh?"
Blake shuddered. "You're telling me Blue Sky is killing those lill' critters?" Dr Ross nodded grimly.
"What do you think we can do about it?"
"I think we should inform the captain."
Blake snorted "What do you think she's gonna do? Shut down the station and head off home? I don't think so"
Dr. Ross hummed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "We should find out if any other pulsar stations are picking up these guys."
Four hours later Blake and the good Doctor Ross were suited up in the bulky orange space suits. Granted the air was disgusting and the annoying rattle of cooling systems was enough to drive you insane, but it beats breathing vacuum. Ross drifted carefully in front, remaining always in the x-ray shadow of the massive dish. Out of all communications, the ancient Morse code was most effective, since light was the fastest thing, flashing Morse across the universe was the fastest form of communications possible. For sending these messages, a super powered laser beam was used, but for receiving these messages, all you needed was an ordinary telescope. All pulsar mines had a sending and receiving station. Blue sky's comm station sat connected by a literally needle thin thread of adamantinum, as it needed to resist no forces what so ever, this was quite sufficient.
Blake opened the air lock, waving his arms in mock salute. Dr. Ross mimicked a bow (quite hard to do in a suit) and drifted in, grabbing the handrail as he went.
With in a few minutes they stood, Ross at the laser, Blake looking uninterestingly down the telescope's high magnification lens. The telescope was nothing out of the ordinary. A huge mirror sat at the bottom of the shallow, but wide, tube. Light would pour in, bounce off the mirror and onto the smaller re-direction mirror. The dish-shaped mirror at the bottom was specially designed to bounce any light directly to the re-direction mirror and through the lens, and into some onlookers' delicate human eyes, multiplied millions of times.
Ross looked over his shoulder and winked at Blake, who came pounding over.
"It's this one" Blake held a black cable under the Doctors nose. Ross grinned and promptly cut it neatly in half. "Now our little message won't be recorded on any system, or any file."
Blake motion for Ross to get to work. "You just cut off main power, within half an hour we will be small blocks of ice in an airless comm center, don't waste time."
"OK, all I have to do is Morse over my little message, to pulsar station, uh... Sunset, exactly 1 and a half light weeks away." Blake nodded and continued to peer aimlessly into the telescope.
Ross cried triumphantly and shut off the laser. "All done, lets get the hell out of here, it's startin' to get chilly" And indeed it was, at only half a degree above zero, Blake's breath was forming little ice crystals all over his stubble. "I've respliced the cable, oxygen and heat should be restored soon enough." The pair suited up and began the short journey back to their cabins.
A knock sounded firmly on Blake's door, he hoped up from his bed and opened it to reveal the grinning Doctor Ross. "Time we hoped off our bums and got that message back from Sunset" Blake nodded concurrence, soon they would be once again in the small comm lab.
Ross drifted confidently once again towards the comm lab with Blake following on behind, a small beeping filled Blake's helmet. "The message is incoming in exactly 4 minutes, we'd better hurry up". They pair shot over as fast as they could, not willing to let their message be recorded anywhere other then their heads. Ross unsuited as soon as he could, Blake following closely.
A hiss of air signified they were level pressure wise to the comm center. Blake stepped out calmly and made for the telescope, already locked on the incoming light beam.
The captain stood up from behind the bulkhead causing Blake to stop in his tracks. Ross followed silently up behind, they waited side by side, dreading the captains reply to their presence.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She silently demanded an answer.
"I am Technician Blake Carthy, and this is Dr. Ross McWest" The captain stayed silent.
"We are receiving a message from pulsar station Sunset" The captain circled Blake.
"Receiving? That must mean you sent a message, did you?" Ross nodded guiltily.
"And may I be part of this almighty secret? Talking to you two is like pulling teeth, you know." Ross sighed and glanced at Blake, who nodded.
"We have discovered life, coming from Haskem. We sent a message to Sunset to see if they were having the same thing on their panels" The captain heard the small beeping and stalked confidently over to the telescope. "Sunset confirms she is getting the 'black grit' on collector panels. Black grit?"
"Yes, it turns out that the life we found is killed by the stations collector panels and power scrubbers. Blue sky is killing them, Captain"
The Captain turned violently, her eyes a blaze. "Have you any idea of what you are implying here? You are saying that we are killing thousands, no sorry, millions of aliens every second?" Ross nodded.
"What would happen if we shut down all operations?" The captain stared at the pair, "What would happen if all the pulsar stations shut down?" Blake said nothing. "I'll tell you what would happen gentlemen. Billions of people would die, colonies across the known universe would be without heat or light. Most without oxygen, too. And you two are willing to do all that, for the sake of some tiny alien organism? You might be, but I'm not!"
Blake suddenly realised that the captain had know about this all along. "You knew didn't you? You knew all along, you and all the other pulsar stations." Blake snorted with disgust. The Captain ignored Blake "You are both going to shipped off, permanently. I don't care what you do, but you will never be able to publish those stupid aliens you found, we'll make sure of it" The Captain shoved Blake and Ross roughly into the airlock, swinging the door shut behind her.
12 years later
Blake had worked in Orion labs since he was kicked off Blue Sky. Ross, his best friend had joined Blake to become biological engineers. Blake had finished his paper, titled Life From the Stars. For years he had been attempting to publish it, but only now he had found a way. After pulling strings through out the entire Galactic Republic, he had finally found the right one. His own father, minister for foreign life, had successfully argued that if foreign life was found, then every attempt to preserve this life would be made, however small that life happened to be. Because no life had been found, the senate agreed. Now Blake popped the small envelope into the mail chute, typed in a forwarding address, and with a whoosh the alien's future was secured.
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 04-08-2002).)