Chapter 5: Alien Assessment
A transparent golden plasma enclosed Elliot. When he reached out, the protective torus yielded easily to his slow touch, but if he tried to poke a finger through it the field resisted firmly.
“After awhile,” one of the Baderian contingent had said, “the thing itches. We’ve developed a device that taps into the body’s nuclear forces, but still can’t get rid of that blasted itch.” Itch and all, it was still better than the cumbersome protective suit Elliot had trained in.
Maybe it was foolish to read meaning into Baderian expressions; after all, they were aliens. But as Elliot had met more of them an impression endured, of cordial patience and a collective eagerness.
On that first day in Tilith, Elliot’s sense of empathy for the Baderians had deepened.
His attention wandered back to the meeting, another in a seemingly endless succession called by the Contact Commissioner.
“We are just now reaching out for the stars,” Doctor Simpson said. “We are strangers on a foreign shore, and as such are not prepared to deal successfully with alien cultures.”
The same thing over and over again, Elliot mused. Different words but always the same theme. He tuned out. He’d learned the futility of trying to reason with them. All that brought was scorn and ridicule. He let his thoughts wander back to his first meeting with Bar Fash.
“I suppose you’ve already been asked a hundred times or more how you like our city,” the Baderian had said by way of greeting.
“Well, I suppose a conversation has to start somewhere,” Elliot said with a chuckle.
“There’s always the weather.”
“Except you don’t have any here inside Tilith.”
The Baderian shrugged his narrow shoulders in a thoroughly human gesture. “Then I’m all out of ideas.”
Elliot chuckled softly and Bar Fash made a short hissing sound.
Even after all the images transmitted to Earth following first contact, Elliot was still fascinated by the Baderian appearance. He traced the outline of a slight protuberance between the wide-set eyes, a vestigial bulge where an elegant snout had once been. Bar Fash’s head was rounded and hairless, tapered to merge with a thick neck. Beneath a tight-fitting porous garment beaded with moisture his shoulders were slightly more pronounced than a terrestrial dolphin. Remorseless nature, after finding no further use for flippers, had refashioned them into short arms.
Elliot rejoiced in communion. The ancient molecular code he shared with the alien declared that a common bond spanned the dark gulfs between stars. Beneath Eta Cassiopeia’s glare, Darwin’s postulates had molded another world with the same precision as on Earth.
Seated at the very end of the conference table, as far from Simpson as he could get, Elliot became aware of the commissioner’s stare. Beneath lowered brows, displeasure shadowed his eyes. Elliot recalled their last encounter aboard the ship just after transition.
The Contact Commissioner had popped another anti-vertigo capsule into his mouth while Elliot stood before the main viewer and contemplated the hard, tiny point of brilliance towards which they hurtled.
“Wonder if I’ll ever get used to unity transition,” Simpson complained.
Elliot resented the intrusion. “Not too pleasant, having all your nuclei reduced to elementary particles, then reassembled light years away.” Simpson shuddered and held up a hand.
“Please, spare me the details.” Elliot stepped closer to the view port. “Something on your mind, Doctor Elliot?”
“Just thinking.”
“Another of your. . .theories?”
Elliot ignored the reproachful tone. “Just wondering. Why didn’t the Baderians initiate contact with us. I mean, all this time. . .” He frowned. “It’s almost like they’ve been hiding from us.”
“Now, Elliot,” Simpson scoffed. “You’re making something out of nothing again. Their technology has been way ahead of ours for a long, long time. You know that. Baderian interstellar communications have always been through the currents, and we didn’t stumble across UT until fifty years ago.” He peered narrowly at him.
“All right,” Elliot countered, “then why haven’t they ever returned to Earth?
Simpson slouched against an instrumentation pallet and faced him.
“The real issue is whether or not we want them to.”
Elliot slipped his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit and, knowing that it would be futile, assaulted Simpson’s condescension.
“I remember a Christmas once, when I got an expensive and very elaborate chemistry set. A pal of mine, Jimmy Hawkings, got an old bicycle his big brother had outgrown. I can still remember how pleased I was with my beautiful chemistry set, but how embarrassed and uneasy I was around Jimmy after that. In this instance, mankind got the beat up old bike, and the Baderians were handed a shiny new chemistry set.”
“That’s all pretty vague,” Simpson protested.
A knot drew itself tighter in Elliot’s gut as Simpson tried to steer him off into realms of more familiar speculation.
“Just try to put yourself in their shoes,” Elliot persisted. “About a million years ago some of the Baderians’ biological progeny are removed from Earth to Eta Casseiopeia by someone they call the Toysarians.” He caught the lift of Simpon’s eyebrows. “I know. . . not everyone believes that, but the facts are there.” He nodded towards the view port. “Now here the Baderians are today, a unified star-faring civilization. It could have been us instead.” He stared at Simpson. “Imagine how uneasy the Baderians must feel about us now.”
“It would seem, Dr. Elliot,” Simpson said stiffly, “that you’re overlooking the fact that we’re also a star-faring civilization. And no one ever helped us get here either. You’re losing sight of why we came here. There’s danger in placing too much reliance on what the Baderians have told us.”
Once, long ago, Elliot had believed that any race that moved among the stars could not transport unreason, prejudice and irrational fear into the unspoiled vaults of the Galaxy. Foolish visions of a romantic. Simpson’s words reminded him of the primitive instincts which mankind effortlessly hauled around. He looked back at the distant star.
“I’m just a token member of your team, Doctor Simpson,” he said. “We both know you brought me along merely out of deference to those on Earth who haven’t succumbed to your way of thinking.”
Just then a chime had sounded, followed by a hollow voice. “Gravpulse deceleration will commence in five minutes. All passengers must return to their berths. Arrival in Tilith will be in three days. Gravpulse mode in five minutes.”
Regardless of what the others said, blinded by shame and fear as they were, his kind---his biological cousins---had built the sprawling magnificence of this Tilith. Separated by 18 light years of space and isolated by the ages, humans and Baderians had risen from the same basic stock of life. If only he could take the measure of that affinity, compute its possible worth, hold it up for comparison against past anguish and humiliation, then maybe a deeper satisfaction would come.
There had been some satisfaction, though, in the things Bar Fash had shown him. Even to his ordered and disciplined mind they were as barely imagined wonders.
“Remarkable. . .” He looked down into an instrument-laden chamber deep beneath Tilith Academy. At his shoulder, Bar Fash spoke.
“Familiar unity transition technology is a means by which constituent atoms of a mass are broken down into their individual elementary particles---what you call ‘quarks.’ These are then injected into the current where, as your John Bell long ago foresaw, they instantaneously influence other particles separated from them by vast distances. The trick is to cause that remote disturbance to manifest itself as virtual particles, stir them to real life, so that the initial mass will be reformed with all its characteristics intact.”
In the chamber below their vantage point, technicians made final adjustments. A large metal sphere rose from
a pedestal and hung in midair, suspended by a beam from a small gravpulse generator. An array of rods was focused around the ball.
“UT’s one major drawback,” Bar Fash went on, “has been the temporary availability of whatever current one wants to access. That availability has been restricted by available energies. If only enough power could be accessed, any mass, no matter how great, could be transferred at any time.”
“Although of course no mass ever actually changes position,” Elliot added.
“Correct. Movement of mass does not occur through unity transition. It’s merely an apparent superluminal propagation.”
Elliot stared down at the metal sphere and thought aloud. “Those rods around the ball focus enough power to enable access into the currents at any time.”
“Yes,” Bar Fash agreed. “They focus power from a vault deep within the planet where quark fission occurs.
Elliot’s head snapped up. “You’ve broken quark confinement? But how? That’s. . .” He almost said impossible.
“In simplest terms, we’ve found a way to change the binding characteristics of individual quarks.”
“You can change quark colors then?”
“In your terminology, yes.”
Below, the Baderian hurried from the chamber. Others worked nearby at controls massed around the room.
“Watch now,” Bar Fash said.
More felt than heard, a low hum insinuated itself into Elliot’s consciousness. Gradually it climbed in frequency until all that was left was a vague sensation of some far away force struggling for freedom.
In the chamber, the hovering sphere was slowly immersed in a pulsating haze. The glow deepened steadily then began to shrink around the ball, squeezing with some implacable strength. Now the sphere glowed as its substance was invaded by the constrictive force, at first reluctantly absorbing it, then more rapidly as if touched by a consuming hunger for more. The sphere was suddenly transparent as if its atoms were being forced apart.
A technician did something in the shielded control room and the metal ball disappeared. The technician reported something to Bar Fash.
“Our research station reports that the ball has arrived there intact,” he told Elliot.
“And how far away would that be?”
“Twelve light measures,” the Baderian replied with satisfaction. “Near a star off towards the galactic core.” He smiled. “I’m glad that we’ve piqued your interest.” The translator unit failed to hide his satisfaction.
Elliot shook his head in wonderment. “We’re such a parochial bunch. How mighty and magnificent we think we are, especially since stumbling across the currents and unity transition. And yet how little we’ve accomplished. I’m. . .I’m simply staggered by what you’ve shown me today. Our science insists that quark confinement is absolutely inviolable.”
An easy silence descended for a time, and then Bar Fash said, “You sound a little cynical.”
“A friend of mine back home calls me a pessimist,” Elliot responded. “Others call me a fool when I supported the proposition of our two races sharing a common ancestry.”
They strolled out of the academy. The interacting energy fields of Tilith shimmered in shades of red, blue and depthless green.
“I didn’t mean to sound accusing,” Bar Fash apologized. “Why has it been so hard for Earth to accept the fact that our species both began there?”
Why indeed? All the data sent by the Baderians after first contact had clearly shown the relationship. He’d been so involved with defending himself---feeling sorry for himself?---that all other aspects of the conflict had lain submerged until now.
“I suppose,” he began tentatively, “that most of us just can’t face the truth.”
And the shame, he mused. Into his memory came visions of primitive land mammals scurrying across the world, scratching, clawing. With some innate viciousness they struggled for supremacy, snapping at their own kind, killing each other out of some perverted instinct.
How simple it must have been for the Toysarians to select that other genus. . .docile, cooperative, already in that dim past unified by another kind of instinct devoted to survival.
“Who can blame us, though?” he went on slowly. “I was foolish enough to demand that they accept something beyond their ability for acceptance.”
“Perhaps you also think too highly of us,” Bar Fash suggested mildly.
“Well, the Toysarians did choose you over us,” Elliot pointed out. “Their assessment was sound.”
Bar Fash halted and turned to face him. “But don’t you also see that on Earth you rose to dominate the world with intelligence. Our ancestors did not.” The Baderian’s large, dark eyes gently focused on Elliot. “Can it not be said that we both won out, in the end?” Something dark and fearful passed through shadows far back in the Baderian’s eyes. “We are afraid, too,” he said. “Afraid of how you are going to react to us. Already there are currents of resentment and the first signs of racial hatred moving through our contact. How far will your people go to forget what they see now as a shameful rejection? To obliterate it by what means?”
As if in answer to the question, Elliot tuned back in to Simpson’s meeting.
“There is a distinct air of superiority about the Baderians,” a psychologist was proclaiming. “Should our two cultures come into prolonged and direct contact the results could be disastrous.”
“Their intentions,” an anthropologist added, “are quite clear. To come to Earth whether we want them there or not.”
Solemn nods around the table. Rationale and reason neatly sidestepped.
“It’s absolutely clear,” the representative of a major religious order intoned, “that the soul of humanity would have to endure a violent attack against its very foundations.”
To Elliot it was as though a great boulder teetered on the brink of some dark chasm. Ever so slowly it began to move.
“It’s imperative that we resist. . .”
“Our resistance must be adamant. . .”
“They must be turned aside, no matter. . .”
He tried to shut them out, but the voices spawned a panic that coiled tightly in his stomach.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he finally managed to say. “All I’ve heard have been words.” He stared at the others. “Not one fact has been presented here to substantiate a single statement any of you’ve made. This is all pure speculation.”
Simpson regarded him coldly. “All you have to do, Dr. Elliot, is look around you. You’ve seen them, listened to them, seen what powers they possess.”
“Stop looking in a mirror, Simpson,” he shot back. “Don’t blame the Baderians for the deficiencies that the ancient Toysarians saw in us.”
Heads turned away from him, eyes averted, mouths twisted scornfully. A few embarrassed glances slid his way. Simpson sighed heavily and leaned back, resigned to suffer him for a few moments more.
Elliot persisted. “Rather than bring harm to us, the Baderians could very well represent our first chance at vindication. Instead of deciding that we must resist them, we should let them share with us whatever wisdom has carried them around the dangers that surely have threatened them in the past. We must admit to ourselves, all of us, here and back on Earth, that the reaction I’ve witnessed in this room is a direct result of the humiliation we’ve borne ever since learning that the Toysarians rejected us for the Baderians. And if we can learn to face that truth we can bear it. Ultimately, with time, we can prove that we’ve surmounted that alien assessment.”
Simpson interrupted him. “And just who are the Toysarians, Elliot? Where are they? Even the Baderians don’t know. Face it. . .they don’t exist. Never have.”
Elliot faced the contact commissioner. “You will at least include my views in the final report to Earth?” he asked. Despair diluted his words.
“There’s no need,” Simpson pronounced. “Earth is only interested in the consensus.”
“Then you refuse to convey my thoughts and objections?” Elliot straightened in his seat. “What are you afraid of. If everything I’ve said is nothing more than wild speculation, why won’t you at least include it in the report?” He struggled to hold in his temper. “You know that Earth may not be totally receptive to your ‘consensus.’ You know that there are pockets of resistance to your madness.” He drew himself up and swept Simpson with contempt. “These. . .these sycophants of yours are only a majority here, aboard this ship.”
Simpson folded his hands carefully as a smile crept across his face.
“Ah yes, Elliot. . .but if what you say is true, that a few blind fools could be found on Earth. . .” A short laugh escaped his lips. “What’s to be done about it? Here you are after all, eighteen light years from your friends, and we can’t return home for another two weeks, when the next intersecting current will become available. Until then the only thing that can propagate between Eta Cassiopeia and Earth will be electromagnetic transmissions.”
At Elliot’s command the telescope slowly traversed the darkness. Remote and indifferent, stars lazily passed across his line of sight. The telescope stopped, quivered briefly. Centered in the eyepiece was one star, yellow and serene. Its loneliness, the insignificance of its frail light laid a cold hand on his heart.
He fussed with other controls and the Sun’s light faded. He turned his attention to a screen glowing softly in the darkness of the observatory and touched a button. A tiny dot leaped onto the screen. Elliot adjusted a knob and the dot grew larger, became a blue-white disc.
The chill left him. Studying the image of Earth, he yielded to the crazy idea that rushed through his mind. All he had to do was return to Earth before Simpson’s biased report could do its dirty work.
First, he had to find out whether a shuttle could fit into Bar Fash’s laboratory beneath Tilith Academy.
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