PART 10- RETURN TO THE
SPACECRAFT AND ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW
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After a harrowing escape from captivity in Ape City, Burke and Virdon return to their stricken spacecraft with their new found traveling companion and friend, Galen. Virdon tries to open a panel on the chronometer station in order to access the flight recorder disc. Perhaps, if they can find a disc reader somewhere, they might can find the answers that they are seeking. What went wrong? Why? And more importantly, how do they get back to their own time?
Burke is skeptical of the data on the flight recorder...
Virdon works with the lock on the access panel, trying to force it open. It is either warped from the damage caused by the apes or requires a special tool which Virdon doesn't have on hand...
Galen, by his very nature, can't stand confining places, so he chooses to wait for Virdon outside.
"Come on!"
"Open up!"
Sigh.
"Hey! if you aren't going to help, why don't you go wait outside and keep watch for the gorillas..."
Here is a good shot of some of the damage to the leading edge of the main wing spar, the control thruster ports, and of course, the emergency access / hatch release.
More closeup of the damage to the leading edge of the main wing spar. Is the nose of this spacecraft 'darker' along the 'bridge' than the others? It looks that way. Notice how thick the door is!
Almost there!
The access panel door lock 'clicks'!
Virdon throws the panel open revealing the true technology behind ANSA flight data recording and a hint at some of the advanced core technology of this space program, at least at a date later than that displayed on Taylor's ship.
The flight data recorder disk in its cradle! Could the four bronze colored posts be the read / write heads?
Notice when Virdon removes it, the tell-tale goes from red to green. You would think it was the other way around.
This tiny disc will hold all the answers to the astronauts' many questions. If they can find a reader to decipher it.
Success! However, the apes are returning, with explosives to destroy the ship. The astronauts have all that they can salvage now...
Let's get out of here! Notice that this spacecraft does NOT have any survival packs, no life raft, etc.
Abandoning ship for the last time ...
... and like Colonel George Taylor (who would not arrive until some 900 years later), neither of the surviving ANSA astronauts bother to even look back at their derelict spacecraft. It has served its purpose.
The gorillas return and use primitive explosives to destroy the spacecraft and any evidence of 'astronauts'. With the destruction of their spacecraft, Virdon and Burke are lost, stranded in the far future.
Goodbye, "Icarus". Gone, but not forgotten all of these
long years now.
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