Ancient Astronauts

Stowaways

"Hans!"

The jeep Alyonna was riding in pulled to a stop in front of the administrative building as Hans was leaving.

He put on the big happy face he always did whenever he saw her and trotted down the remaining steps to help her out of the vehicle.

"Hey baby," he said and kissed her.

"Can we talk in your office?" Alyonna said urgently in a low voice.

Hans gave her a peculiar look then nodded, taking her hand and leading her back into the building. They passed dozens of clerks going about their business, and ducked into one of the elevators repurposed from the Astral Ark.

"What's this about, Aly?" Hans asked while they were still in the elevator.

"Wait until we're in your office."

A moment later they slipped into his office. Hans shut the door behind them with a soft click. Hans turned to face her, and his usual cheerful smile faded. Alyonna looked scared.

"What is it, Aly?" Hans said coming close to offer comfort. He stopped when Aly pulled away, "Is it something I did?"

"What?" Aly asked, surprised, "No, it's not you." Her eyes cleared and she stepped back toward him and took his hand, carefully sinking into one of the guest chairs by his desk.

"It's the cryo pods, Hans, something's not right about them."

If Aly hadn't had his full attention before, she did now. A hundred and fifty thousand people had been in cryo stasis for fifty years, including Aly. The whole damn colony. Now his cryogenicist fiance was saying something wasn't right about them.

"I'm usually working with the ADT, but most of that is just monitoring now. Shooby asked me to help him repurpose some of the cryopods. He needed their cooling capabilities for an experiment his RnD people are doing, though he wouldn't say what it is. Before agreeing to that, I pulled the inventory manifest for the cryopods to see which ones were still serviceable for human beings." She paused and glanced up at Hans to see if he was still paying attention.

Hans nodded, "Because the Astral Ark charter permits discarded equipment to be repurposed. You didn't want to use anything we might be able to use again in the future?"

Aly nodded.

"What was wrong with the pods aside from the usual wear and tear?"

"It wasn't the pods themselves," Aly whispered, "It was the number of pods."

"What do you mean?"

"There were one hundred and fifty thousand passengers in cryo, correct?"

Hans nodded.

"And Orion Sky allotted an additional twenty thousand pods for replacements in case any of the other units failed."

"Yes, they were in the cargo hold."

"But they aren't, Hans. Not all of them. "The inventory manifest done when we stopped to refuel at the halfway point...listed only twelve thousand pods."

Hans looked down into Aly's scared eyes and an intense bout of apprehension washed over him. "We're missing eight thousand cryo pods? How is this possible, Aly? They were there when we left, and as far as I know only about two thousand pods needed to be replaced after the asteroid struck?"

"Six thousand missing pods, Hans. The only possible explanation for it is–"

"Stowaways," Hans growled.

"Resourceful stowaways," Alyonna finished.