"Interesting." Harry peered into the cube. "Some kind of optronic memory, is my guess. We don't have anything like it." He touched the silver stripes on the outside. "Not paint, it's some plastic material. Probably machine-readable."
"By what? Certainly not us."
"No. Probably a robot recovery device of some kind."
"And the pressure gauges?"
"The cube is filled with some kind of gas, under pressure.
Maybe it contains biological components, to attain that compactness. In any case, I'll bet this large glass is a memory device."
"A flight recorder?"
"Their equivalent, yes."
"How do we access it?"
"Watch this," Beth said, going back to the flight deck. She began pushing sections of the console, activating it. "Don't tell Barnes," she said over her shoulder.
"How do you know where to press?"
"I don't think it matters," she said. "I think the console can sense where you are."
"The control panel keeps track of the pilot?"
"Something like that."
In front of them, a section of the console glowed, making a screen, yellow on black.
RV-LHOOQ DCOMI U.S.S. STAR VOYAGER
Then nothing.
Harry said, "Now we'll get the bad news."
"What bad news?" Norman said. And he wondered: Why had Harry stayed behind to look for the flight recorder, instead of going with Ted and Barnes to explore the rest of the ship? Why was he so interested in the past history of this vessel?
"Maybe it won't be bad," Harry said.
"Why do you think it might be?"
"Because," Harry said, "if you consider it logically, something vitally important is missing from this ship - "
At that moment, the screen filled with columns:
SHIP SYSTEMS PROPULSION SYSTEMS
LIFE SYSTEMS WASTE MANAG (V9)
DATA SYSTEMS STATUS OM2 (OUTER)
QUARTERMASTER STATUS OM3 (INNER)
FLIGHT RECORDS STATUS OM4 (FORE)
CORE OPERATIONS STATUS DV7 (AFT)
DECK CONTROL STATUS V (SUMMA)
INTEGRATION (DIRECT) STATUS COMREC (2)
LSS TEST 1.0 LINE A9-11
LSS TEST 2.0 LINE A 12-BX
LSS TEST 3.0 STABILIX
"What's your pleasure?" Beth said, hands on the console. "Flight records," Harry said. He bit his lip.
FLIGHT DATA SUMMARIES RV-LHOOQ
FDS 01/01/43-12/31/45
FDS 01/01/46-12/31/48
FDS 01/01/49-12/31/51
FDS 01/01/52-12/31/53
FDS 01/01/54-12/31/54
FDS 01/01/55-06/31/55
FDS 07/01/55-12/31/55
FDS 01/01/56-01/31/56
FDS 02/01/56-ENTRY EVENT
FDS ENTRY EVENT
FDS ENTRY EVENT SUMMARY
8&6 !!OZ/010/Odd-000/XXX/X
F$S XXX/X% [email protected]/X!X/X
"What do you make of that?" Norman said.
Harry was peering at the screen. "As you see, the earliest records are in three-year intervals. Then they're shorter, one year, then six months, and finally one month. Then this entry event business."
"So they were recording more and more carefully," Beth said. "As the ship approached the entry event, whatever it was."
"I have a pretty good idea what it was," Harry said. "I just can't believe that - let's start. How about entry event summary?"
Beth pushed buttons.
On the screen, a field of stars, and around the edges of the field, a lot of numbers. It was three-dimensional, giving the illusion of depth.
"Holographic?"
"Not exactly. But similar."
"Several large-magnitude stars there ..."
"Or planets."
"What planets?"
"I don't know. This is one for Ted," Harry said. "He may be able to identify the image. Let's go on."
He touched the console; the screen changed.
"More stars."
"Yeah, and more numbers."
The numbers around the edges of the screen were flickering, changing rapidly. "The stars don't seem to be moving, but the numbers are changing."
"No, look. The stars are moving, too."
They could see that all the stars were moving away from the center of the screen, which was now black and empty. "No stars in the center, and everything moving away ..." Harry said thoughtfully.