“OK! Here it is… Our Laboratory of Universe Exploration has received a message from the inhabitants of a distant planet that we collaborated with about half a century ago. Our location systems on their orbit have been receiving information all this time…”
Lora frowned.
“OK! I got it! To cut a long story short, they have discovered an object of Earth origin drifting in space.”
“Is it something from Earth?!” Lora’s eyes became wide with amazement.
“A number of tests have been carried out and the majority of them confirm that fact.”
“What’s in there?” Lora did not understand why she was whispering now. The city had no secrets. Any information about absolutely everything – be it about space finds, negotiations with whatever races, or discoveries – was stored in the central computer and was available to everyone.
“A Rescue unit, an ark… Something like that. The distance is more than five light-years away, that’s why the information is not detailed enough. They’d never have noticed this piece of metal if the signal it transmitted didn’t look so much like the SOS signal. Its frequency band sounds very much like the one transmitted from our ships.”
“An ark?” Lora could hardly hold back the avalanche of questions that was about to befall her friend. “Are there any signs of life?” She was nailing him with an intense gaze.
“Doctor Blake thinks that the ark probably holds a cryogenic capsule…”
“That means there’s a human being inside!” Lora jumped from her seat, ready to run and do something, but she knew not what exactly.
“Hey, calm down!” Paul was a bit shocked by this wild outburst of Lora’s emotions. “Have a seat…”
“It’s just that it’s so amazing!” said Lora, trying hard to breathe normally and getting back to her chair.
“You give too much importance to that,” the young man was trying to calm her down. “Earth is many thousands of light-years away; besides, the object’s energy resources are meagre…”
“You can’t know for sure! When’s Doctor Blake going to send a team to the place where the object was discovered?”
“He has no reasons to hurry.”
“And what if there is a human being? What if he or she is dying?”
“Please, calm down…” said Paul again desperately. “I’ll talk to Doctor Blake. My team has no immediate tasks for the next three days. We are in reserve so there is a big chance that we’ll be able to quickly organise a small expedition there…”