“So it’s true!” Lora forcefully grabbed Paul’s arm, like a child who had received a long-awaited present for her birthday. She looked at all the crew members with excitement. “Half a century after our departure from Earth, others also learned to travel into the deep space!”
“The technology resembles ours. I reckon they used the designs developed at the scientific department of the ‘Unity of Opposites’, abandoned back on Earth. And, finally, they were able to implement the interplanetary spacecraft project,” clarified Butoff.
“Then what happened to the ship itself?” frowned the captain.
“Unless I sort out the madness of the onboard computer, I will not be able to give you a definite answer.”
“I’m going inside,” Lora smiled.
“I’m coming with you,” Jane had already put on the coveralls. “Let’s scan the man for illnesses or diseases. Two hundred years in open space and God knows how long he was inside this capsule.”
“What happened to the second capsule?” asked Lora when they were left alone.
“I think the onboard computer switched it off by itself. Having compared the state of the organisms in the two capsules, it chose the strongest one. I have read about that system, just a mathematical calculation; nothing more.”
Lora shook her head regretfully. When they entered the compartment, Jane started filling data in a medical form, while her companion bent over the clouded glass, breathless. She could see a pale face, with skin that seemed almost transparent and dark hair that contrasted with the whiteness of his suit’s and the capsule itself.
“How does the capsule really preserve life?”
“I think a kind of preservative is injected in blood which neutralises later on. An old technology… It is highly dangerous to the synaptic connections in the brain.”
“Can something be done in order to bring him out of this state?”
Jane frowned.
“It’s preferable to leave him as he is now till our arrival on Titanium. One wrong move could cause the antidote to be injected into his blood, and then who knows how our guest will be feeling when he wakes up and what kind of help he might need!”
Lora nodded.
“Why do you think his spaceship has travelled such a long way? Was it just a scientific expedition? Or, is it possible that they might have been looking for us?”
Jane shrugged her shoulders.
“Who knows. Let’s hope that when he comes around he’ll tell us the whole story.”
The Titanium Central Hospital was a quiet lonely place. The residents of the artificial planet rarely got ill due to their inner balance practice, a result of Andre Mendes’s philosophy. Therefore, the medical workers indulged more in scientific research than in medical practice. After having met another civilization in a planetary system similar to the Solar system many decades ago, the voyagers from Earth ceased to think about intelligent life in the Universe as something extraordinary. In the period of over two hundred years of its space travel, ‘Solar Flotilla’ – a fleet of five spaceships launched from Earth – has established a lot of new contacts with the inhabitants of other planets. The earthlings’ technological advancements happened to be higher than those of the other living beings, which helped them to make collaborative partnerships for mutual benefit. On the one hand, to get supplies for the spaceships and, on the other hand, to provide the aliens with new technologies, especially new custom-made medical medicines.
