What do you
suggest, Mazzat
, he thought.
Destroy them
as soon as they come within range of our missiles.
But, you said
they would come back in force if we destroyed them
, said the incredulous
Councilman.
We will have
to fight them anyway. So we might as well open the war with a victory.
And the other
nations of Klassek? What will they think if we drag them in an interstellar
war?
We are the
leaders on this world
, thought the General, his mindspeak almost a shout.
We
are the most powerful nation on Klassek. It is up to us to make those choices.
But all the
other nations will insist on having input
, thought Kazzat, the financier.
As
soon as that thing is in orbit, every nation with a radio will be broadcasting
their strident pleas and demands up to them.
The Councilman
looked over at the scientist, who returned his glance with the patient look of
one who understood what the leader was doing. All of the dominant species on
the planet could do the same with those they shared the womb with. The
scientific community thought it was an evolutionary development that had
allowed them to become the preeminent hunters on their world, and to have
developed the intelligence that led to sentience. Only those who had lost all
of their siblings were cut off from this kind of communion, and most soon went
insane.
Then I will
make that decision. Thank you all for the input
. He severed the link with
a thought, cutting off his brother the General in mid-transmission.
“Will any of the
other nations know about them?” he asked the scientist.
“I wouldn’t
think so. We’re the only ones with access to the deep space telescope. And
therefore the only ones who have the capability of picking them up at a
distance.”
“Then this
information is hereby classified as top secret. Under pain of accusation of
treason, and possible execution, this information will only be disseminated to
those cleared by my office.”
“But, the
scientific community?”
“I know you want
the academic glory, Professor. And it will be yours, eventually. But right
now we need to be able to act without the interference of our enemies.” The
First Councilman turned to a com panel and tapped the connect key.
“Get me the director
of the launch facility,” he said into the com as soon as someone answered on
the other end. Moments later he was connected to his nation’s spaceport, one
of only two on the planet.
“How soon can
you get a bird into space? I need it for a mission out to Jerratt,” he said,
naming the farthest of the planet’s two moons, which his nation had visited
several times in the last couple of years. “No, not to Jerratt. Just out to
that distance.”
“We have a
launch for next week,” said the spaceport director. “It is, in fact, a mission
to Jerratt. Why do you want to launch early?”
“That’s
classified. I will be authorizing an information transfer that will tell you
why. This is for your eyes only, and the commander of the mission. Otherwise,
no one is to know. And they won’t be going to Jerratt. Only to the same
distance.”
“But,” stammered
the Director. “We need an orbital capture in order to return. That will doom
the crew to a lonely death.”
“Don’t worry
about that. Just get the bird off. Arrangements will be made for pickup.”
The Councilman cut the link, then pulled open the small case he always carried
with him. In a few moments he had issued directives, and the needed
information was on its way to those who would need it to prosecute the goal of
first contact.
And there is
nothing else I can do
, he thought as he closed the case.
Except maybe
go and pray
. He laughed at that last thought as he walked out of the
Scientist’s office. He didn’t believe in any of the hundreds of Gods
worshipped by the various peoples of the planet. Worship that had led to a
large number of wars through the ages, and were still stirring up people enough
to cause campaigns of mass death and destruction.
Maybe our visitors will
have the solution
, he thought hopefully.
* * *
“We have an
interesting development here, ma’am,” said Sensory Officer da Conti, switching
the view of the main holo tank to a zoom of the planet.
“Is that what I
think it is?” asked Albright, watching as a long object climbed from the atmosphere
and curved in a high orbit of the planet.
“It does appear
to be a space vessel, ma’am,” agreed da Conti. “Very primitive by our
standards.”
“And why do you
think they picked this time to launch it?”
“It could be
coincidence,” said the Sensory Officer.
And I really
don’t believe in coincidences
, thought the Captain as she watched part of
the craft fall away. Minutes later the bright flame of a hydroxyl engine lit
up the rear of the craft, and it started moving away from the planet on a
curving path.
“Navigator. Can
you track their destination?”
“Give me a
minute, ma’am. As soon as they finish their burn I should know something.”
It took several
minutes for the burn to complete, and even then it took the Navigator a little
more time to crunch the data.
“Right here,
ma’am,” said the Navigator as a blinking curser appeared about a half million
kilometers from the planet. “And unless I’m reading their technology wrong,
they will actually fall past this point and out into the system, until they
finally achieve an orbit around the sun about five million kilometers out.”
“Any reason for
them to do that?” asked Albright, her eyes narrowing.
“I would say
that they know we are here,” said da Conti, looking from Captain to holo and
back.
“And how would
they know that?” she asked.
“They must have
some orbiting sensor systems that picked us up on infrared,” said da Conti.
“So they launched a ship to meet us as far away from their planet as they could
manage.”
“I’m still not
sure why they would do that,” said Albright, shaking her head.
“Orders, ma’am?”
asked the Helmsman.
“Plot a course
to rendezvous with them at the earliest moment,” said Albright.
“Calculating,”
said the Navigator, running the figures of the vectors and
velocity/acceleration of both their vessel and the alien craft, calculations
that involved time as well as distance, figuring that included the knowledge
that what they saw of the alien craft was an hour and half earlier. “Course
locked in.”
“Engaging,”
called out the Helmsman, setting the ship on the course he had received from
the Navigator. “Estimated time of rendezvous, twenty-one hours, twelve
minutes.”
And then they
get a good look at us
, thought the Captain.
I wonder what they’ll
think?
Chapter Two
The combination of nuclear
energy and the exploitation of the orbitals of a world is the danger zone. The
time when a civilization is most likely to destroy itself. Ours made it
through this period, barely. Many do not.
Dr. Tan Hu, Sociologist, Imperial
University, the Year 854.
Astronaut Nazzir
Lamsat sat in his acceleration couch and looked with disbelief at the object
that was approaching his small capsule. He could feel the alarm of his
siblings over his mind link, as they instantaneously looked through his eyes at
the same object. While his fellow astronaut, Hzzart Nastra sat gripping the
arms of her chair. They had expected strangeness. After all, this was a ship
built by another race.
But we didn’t
expect for it to be so, big. And fast.
“They’re coming
in too fast,” complained the other astronaut.
Lamsat checked
the radar screen, still surprised that they could even track such an advanced
ship.
Unless they wanted to be tracked, since they realize we know they are
there anyway.
“They’re decelerating at four point nine kilometers.”
That
can’t be right, can it? That’s over five hundred gravities, and we’re lucky to
get eight out of our most powerful engine.
He ran the figures, two of his
tentacle tips poking into hole after hole in his board, flying across the
surface. “It looks like they are going to stop just to the side of us.”
“But, what’s
propelling them?” asked Nastra, her primary eyes wide as her secondaries darted
all over the place, the sign of extreme anxiety. “I see no drive flames
proceeding them. An ion stream? But I didn’t think it was possible to
generate so much force that way.”
“I think they
must use a reactionless drive,” said the Mission Commander over the com.
“Isn’t that
impossible?”
“Not if they do
it,” said Lamsat, looking at the alien ship on infrared scans. “Those things
on the front, the big vanes, that might be the drive. They’re glowing with
heat.”
“I thought those
were weapons.”
“They appear to
be radiating a lot of infrared, but nothing else, so I doubt they’re weapons.
But those big glowing rings. Those look like weapons to me.”
“It’s so damned
big,” said Nastra, repeating his recent thought. “How much more advanced are
they than us? Several hundred years? A thousand?” She looked down at her
board, her eyes growing even wider. “We’re receiving a transmission. From the
alien.”
The small
viewing screen to their front came to life, at first filled with static, then
clearing to show what looked like the bridge of the alien ship. A creature sat
in a chair, its head displaying a small nose and only two eyes, strange looking
objects on the side of its head. Long reddish hair began at the top of its
skull and flowed back. It only had two limbs on each side of its upper torso,
each ending in an appendage that had five small tentacles.
Two other
creatures stood near the chair. One towered over the chair sitter, with a long
scale covered snout and an alarming array of teeth. The other was not a tall,
and had a covering of feathers over its face.
“They have more
than one species of sentient aboard,” said Nastra in an excited voice. “Do you
know what that means? They have a confederation of intelligent species. And
perhaps they will allow us to join.”
“Or they have
conquered other races, and will now add us to their slave empire,” said the
Mission Leader, not as willing to trust the unknowns as his younger partner.
“Are we transmitting? Then go ahead and send them our take.”
A moment later
the creature in the chair started speaking. At least that was what he thought,
as it was the only one whose lips were moving.. “Are they speaking Honish?”
“It sounds like
it,” said Nastra, referring to the language spoken by a people on another
continent than theirs, less advanced but more numerous than their own. And
their greatest enemy.
“We don’t speak
that language,” said Lamsat, his eyes locking on that of what seemed to be the
dominant creature over there.
“Then we will
talk in this one,” said the creature in such a fast change that Lamsat had
trouble believing he was actually hearing his own language.
Their computers
are that advanced?
He wasn’t sure why that surprised him, considering how
advanced their propulsion systems obviously were.
“We would like
to bring you aboard our ship, where we can talk more comfortably. I assume you
breath the gas mixture of the world below?”
“Yes, we breathe
our air.”
“And we breathe
a similar mixture, so you will do fine aboard our ship. I assume you do not
have the fine maneuvering ability needed to safely land in our hangar.”
“I really don’t
know,” said the astronaut. “I doubt that we do.”
“Then we’ll send
a cargo shuttle to pick your capsule up and bring it aboard. If that is
acceptable to you?”
“That’s what
we’re here for,” he said quietly to Nastra, then looked back at the viewer and
the camera mounted on it. “I would like to be taken aboard your ship. I have
messages from our leadership for you.”
And I can’t wait to see that vessel
of yours from the inside.
“Then we will
have a shuttle out to pick you up in minutes. Don’t worry. It’s a highly
maneuverable ship, and this is something the crew is good at.”
The screen went
blank, and the female astronaut looked at the male with some alarm. “Do you
think it’s safe?”
“I don’t know.
But do you think they couldn’t vaporize us in place if they wanted to?”
“True,” she said
with a smile. “So we might as well go aboard to be vaporized. At least we can
satisfy our curiosity before that happens.”
* * *
“Shuttle is
launching, ma’am,” came the call from the Senior Master Chief.
“Who’s
piloting?”
“Ensign Nguyen,”
said the Chief with a chuckle.
Albright
smiled. Nguyen was known as the hottest pilot aboard. If they wanted to
impress their new friends with capabilities, they couldn’t have picked a better
pilot.
If he doesn’t scare whatever passes for excrement from what orifice
they use for its ejection.
“Do you want to
greet them on the hangar deck with a full ceremony?” asked Lt. J’rrantar, the
Phlistaran commander of the ship’s Marine contingent.
“I would advise
against it, since we don’t know their cultural memes,” advised the Exec. “For
all we know, seeing a bunch of uniforms and rifles may make them think we are
about to arrest them.”
“OK, a small
contingent of officers, myself included,” she said after a moment’s thought.
“Lt. J’rrantar as the single Marine, and Petty Officer First Hi’tarris as our
other alien delegate.” The Gryphon crewman nodded from his position next to
the Captain, where he had been strategically placed so that the aliens could
see that not just humans were involved in their Empire. “Let’s get moving,
people,” she said, getting up from her chair and heading for the bridge hatch,
which opened at her approach.
“You might want
to see this, ma’am,” said one of the com techs over her link as she walked
toward the lift.
“Hold one,” she
said as she stepped into the lift and the doors closed. First the lift would
move up a half dozen decks, then over a hundred meters to the port hangar. The
Captain closed her eyes and let the video and audio of the signal play over the
appropriate lobes of her brain, giving her the same input as if she had been
watching the vid from the bridge.
More scenes of
fighting, as small, helicopters, rose over the skyline and shot missiles into
other buildings. A missile came back and blasted one of the gunships from the
sky. An instant later the origin point of that antiaircraft missile was an
expanding fireball.
“So they’re
fighting,” said the Captain. “We knew they were a warlike species, same as our
own.”
“This is a news
broadcast from the nation of our friends,” said the Exec, breaking into the
conversation. “They have been fighting a war on another continent for more
than a local decade, and it doesn’t look to be ending soon.”
The lift door
opened and the corridor leading to the hangar stretched ahead thirty meters.
“Let’s establish normal relations with these people first. Then we’ll get into
the question of social engineering. And besides, I don’t think they’re going
to have much time for fighting after we tell them what’s coming.”
“That might be
the problem, ma’am,” said the Exec. “These people may be so caught up in
fighting each other that they ignore the news we’ve brought. Or just refuse to
believe it.”
“That would be
insane,” said Albright, walking onto the hangar deck and looking at the
shimmering cold plasma field that separated the air filled area from space.
“Wouldn’t be the
first time someone has gotten into space with a total lack of common sense,”
she admitted, stepping to the front of the small line of officers and senior
NCOs.
The nose of the
shuttle poked through the cold plasma field, which moved out of the way,
sliding around the hull of the ship and preventing the atmosphere from leaking
out. It took only a few moments for the ship to fully enter the hangar and
thud down on the deck. Its grabber units were red hot, radiating their heat
into the hangar area. The hull was cold, the ship having not penetrated
anything that would have caused friction.
The upper doors
of the large shuttle opened up, revealing the alien space capsule. A moment
later a hatch on the capsule opened, and the first of the alien astronauts
climbed out. A couple of crew in shipboard armor rose up from the floor of the
hangar and landed next to the alien, then lifted it in the air and to the
deck. A moment later a second astronaut joined the first, and they both stood
there and stared at their surroundings.
“Welcome aboard
the HIMS
Clark
,” said Albright, stepping forward. “We are very pleased
to make contact with your people.”
* * *
“Our astronauts
have signaled that they are about to be taken aboard the alien ship,” said the
voice of the com center tech over the speaker.
“Have they said
anything about the aliens yet?” asked the First Councilman.
“We lost com
with them moments after that transmission, sir. But we have one of Astronaut
Lamsat’s brothers at the spaceport, and he is saying that his brother is alive
and well, and that the aliens seem to be friendly. Right now they are aboard
the cargo compartment of an alien shuttle, and are cut off from all sensor
reads.”
Thank the
Gods the entanglement is still working.
There had never been a
circumstance where the connection between siblings had been cut off, save by
the death or severe central nervous system damage to one of the members. There
had been some concern about the connection remaining when one of the siblings
had gone off world, but it had worked perfectly. In fact, as far as the
scientists could tell, it had transmitted information from brain to brain
instantaneously.
Do the aliens
have a similar mental capacity? Or something even better?
There was still
a lot of debate in the scientific community as to whether entanglement was a
prerequisite for the development of intelligence. This contact would have a
lot to do with proving or disproving that theory. And was the least of the
leader’s concerns.
“Make sure you
get every word and impression from Lamsat’s sibling. I want to know everything
I can about them before we have them coming down here.”
And whether their
intentions are peaceful or not, I have no doubt they are coming down here.
And you need
to be ready to blow them out of space
, chimed in his brother, the General,
over the protests of the other siblings.
If we need
to, then I will demur to you
, thought the leader.
But I will not start
a war with someone with unknown capabilities because of paranoia.
The
First Councilman cut off the link, wondering what he should do with his
sibling. The problem was, the General was his sibling, and, according to their
social structure, there was no greater loyalty than to your litter mates.
The violet phone
started shrieking, at the same time flashing into the ultraviolet range, the
alert to an important transmission from the leader of the Honish.
“Yes,” said the
First Councilman as he picked up the receiver of the old fashioned telephone,
made that way on purpose. “This is Contena.”
“And this is
Zzarr, and I call you a filthy breaker of our agreement, by Hrrottha.”
And it’s not
a good sign when the old pirate starts off calling on his bastard of a God.
“What are you talking about, Zzarr? I am not aware that I had broken any
agreements.”
“You lie,”
snarled the leader of Contena’s greatest rival on the planet. “We monitored
your launch. And now an object of unknown origin appears at the orbit of the
outer moon, and I know exactly where that capsule was headed. What is it,
Contena? Are you now conspiring with aliens to take over the world?”
“We thought it
best to make preliminary contact ourselves,” said Contena, trying to keep his
voice calm and steady.
“I bet you did,”
said the other male. “I bet there was no thought of getting an advantage over
the rest of us. Alien technologies would make you unbeatable, wouldn’t they?
Well, you are not going to get away with it. We will be launching our own
capsule in eighteen hours. And don’t you dare let anything happen to that ship
unless you want a total war. Understand?”
The line went
dead, and the First Councilman carefully put the phone handset back into its
cradle.
I want our forces at the ready
, he sent over the link to his
brother, the General.
Just in case that old fool launches a first strike.