‘I confirm your decision, Colonel,’ said the General Marshal. ‘It is unfortunate that General Torrek is currently unavailable, but I have every confidence in you and your staff.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Stone.
The holo of the General Marshal vanished, and Stone looked down at her desk for a few seconds before she lifted her head and spoke again.
‘We are now committed to first contact in fourteen hours thirteen minutes.’
28
‘It’s a lot of work,’ said Keon.
I glared at him. ‘If you say that one more time, I’ll not only make the rest of your life extremely painful, but I’ll make sure Issette does too!’
Keon considered my threat for a moment, and his tone of voice changed from lazy to businesslike. ‘There’s no need to get pushy, Jarra. We’ve already modified some light sculpture emitters to fit on to probes, because it was obvious we might need them. We can program those emitters to display either a light sculpture of the test sequences, or one of the alien star system, but the light sculpture of Sol system is more difficult.’
I decided he wasn’t messing about any longer. ‘What’s the problem with Sol system? You must have all the information.’
‘We need to create an entire new light sculpture using the same range of colours as the alien one,’ said Keon. ‘Some creatures on Earth can see ultraviolet light, which humans can’t. The alien light sculpture shows the aliens can see ultraviolet too, but not some colours we can see. We had to adjust their light sculpture so we could see it properly, and we’ll have to change ours to suit their eyes.’
Keon’s unfortunate research assistants had been silently watching us, probably wondering if Keon was going to be arrested again. At this point, they did some urgent nodding.
‘I accept we need to do this properly,’ I said. ‘How long will it take?’
Keon shrugged. ‘Three or four days for the light sculpture of Sol system. You can have the others in less than two hours.’
‘Thanks, Keon.’
I headed back to the Operations Centre. Stone and Leveque were having a conversation at the command desk, but broke off to look at me.
‘I’ve sorted out Keon, sirs,’ I said. ‘We can have probes displaying light sculptures of the alien system and the test sequences in two hours. Making a new light sculpture of Sol system in colours the aliens can see will take about four days.’
Stone nodded. ‘We’ll use drop portals to send light sculpture probes in to join the original one. The test sequences are enough to show the aliens we’re invited guests. We can tell them exactly where we came from later. We don’t even know whether they sent spheres to star systems other than Earth.’
‘Threat team’s current theory is the aliens sent out an unmanned, automated ship, sir,’ said Leveque. ‘This would leave artefacts and spheres in systems it considered had potential for intelligent life. It passed through Beta sector thousands of years ago, entered Alpha sector, reached Earth, and is currently continuing on its course, probably somewhere around the border between Alpha and Gamma sector. It’s highly probable it has left spheres in multiple systems by now.’
‘But we haven’t actually found the ship itself or any spheres in other star systems,’ said Stone.
‘Any spheres would be inactive, sir, and probably deliberately hidden among asteroids, waiting for a transmission from an alien artefact. The ship itself is probably travelling through the vast empty space between two star systems. We know the ship’s starting point and course now, so we have a much better chance of finding it.’
Stone nodded. ‘So our assumption is the alien ship left more than one invitation to visit on its route. We must be the first response they’ve had to those invitations.’
‘We can be reasonably confident that this particular ship would only have encountered advanced intelligent life on Earth, sir,’ said Leveque. ‘However there’s a probability of 83 per cent that having made the necessary initial economic investment, the aliens would launch multiple ships rather than just one. A ship heading in a different direction, through areas of space uncharted by us, may have found something.’
‘You’re saying we may not be the first to visit,’ said Stone. ‘We may even be about to encounter more than one alien race.’
She raised her eyes to the ceiling for a second. ‘One lot of aliens is quite enough.’ There was a slight pause before she spoke again in a decisive voice. ‘Until we have evidence otherwise, we assume we are encountering only one alien race. They gave us a map to find their star system, so we assume they wanted us to visit and wish to be friends with us. They sent a sphere to Earth thousands of years ago, so their technology is probably far more advanced than our own by now. That means we definitely wish to be friends with them.’
‘Sir,’ said Fian, ‘their technology is probably far more advanced than ours, and it’s possible they have conventional portals they use to travel around their own world, but they clearly don’t have the drop portals needed for interstellar travel. If they did, they’d have used a drop portal to come and meet our probe.’
Stone nodded. ‘We’ll proceed on the assumption that the aliens don’t have portal technology. They’re limited to travelling between star systems conventionally, which requires huge amounts of time and resources. If that’s the case, we have a single vital strategic advantage that keeps our worlds safe from a significant alien attack.’
She heavily emphasized her next words. ‘Our first priority, at all times and at any cost, must be to make sure we don’t give the aliens any clues to portal technology.’
All around the room, intent faces and nods showed everyone understood.
‘What portal technology is on board our probe?’ asked Stone.
‘It’s a standard Planet First approach probe, sir,’ said Colonel Leveque. ‘They start at the extreme edge of a star system, spiral inwards collecting information, and eventually burn up in the sun. Since they’re designed to be used once and discarded, they contain the minimum possible equipment, and what they do have is mainly sensors and a basic manoeuvring capability. A survey ship fires a drop portal and sends the probe through it, so the probe itself contains no drop portal technology. It does contain a minimal comms portal reception ring, so Planet First teams can communicate with it, but it cannot initiate a comms portal itself.’
Stone briefly raised her eyes to the ceiling again. ‘Why did I marry him? Can someone translate that into Language for me?’
‘Transmitting portals do all the work, sir,’ said Fian. ‘The probe contains a reception only comms portal, which isn’t much more than a small metal ring. Nobody could learn anything from that.’
‘Thank you, Major,’ said Stone. ‘That means we don’t need to worry about our probes, but we must prevent any of our ships falling into alien hands. Major Tar Cameron, what’s the progress on our Zeta sector field base?’
Rayne Tar Cameron turned her chair to face Colonel Stone. ‘Sir, we’ve identified two planets with optimal gravity in star systems neighbouring the one containing the alien home world. One world is very similar to the planet Academy before the terraforming experiments. Totally lifeless, and the atmosphere has too little oxygen to be breathable. The other is a potential colony world candidate, with a breathable atmosphere and extensive native plant and animal life.’
Stone nodded. ‘We’ll use the lifeless planet. The original Planet First teams chose Academy for their Alpha sector headquarters for good reasons. A lifeless world had no threats from the local ecology, and was an ideal place to set up quarantine areas. The same logic applies here. I’m not risking taking aliens or their technology to any of our inhabited worlds, so we’ll need quarantine areas.’
Rayne Tar Cameron tapped at her desk. ‘Commander Tell Dramis’s team are flying in now to assemble freight portals, sir. Those should be calibrated and functioning within two hours. We have other personnel and equipment standing by, so we should have a skeleton field base built and operation
al five hours before contact.’
‘What’s the comms portal relay lag on transmissions to and from our probe?’ asked Stone.
‘Five point seven seconds, sir,’ said Leveque.
‘Something happens out in …’ Stone broke off her sentence. ‘We need a name for the alien planet. Suggestions?’
I waited, but no one said anything. I hesitantly spoke. ‘I don’t think Fortuna has been used yet, sir.’
Rayne Tar Cameron tapped at her desk. ‘Fortuna is not listed as a current planet name. Fortuna was the Roman goddess of fortune or luck, so is consistent with the naming conventions for inhabited worlds.’
‘Commander Tell Morrath, you believe it’s fortunate we’ve found an intelligent alien race?’ asked Colonel Leveque.
‘Sir, you never knew whether the luck Fortuna gave would be good or bad.’
Stone nodded. ‘The alien world will be provisionally known as Fortuna. Our Zeta sector field base world will be called Gateway.’
I was grazzed. I’d named a planet. Only temporarily of course. Eventually, we’d learn the aliens’ own name for their world.
‘If something happens in Fortuna system,’ continued Stone, ‘it’s five point seven seconds before I know about it. I make a decision, give a command, and it’s another five point seven seconds before our probe responds. That’s unacceptable during a first contact situation. Even a simple conversation with Commander Tell Dramis is going to be a constant struggle with comms portal relay lag.’
She paused for a second. ‘We’ll move the Alien Contact Operations Centre core functionality to Gateway base at contact minus three hours.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Rayne Tar Cameron.
I bit my lip. Alien Contact Operations Centre was moving to Zeta sector, and I was Handicapped so I couldn’t go with them. I knew Colonel Stone was making the right decision, but …
Humanity was about to make contact with an alien civilization. This was going to be the most significant moment in history, but I was being left behind.
29
‘You could go to Gateway base, Fian,’ I said. ‘Just because I’m stuck on Earth, there’s no reason you …’
We were sitting on the luxuriously large couch in our apartment at Zulu base. Fian grabbed a cushion from beside him and threw it at me. ‘Say that one more time and I’ll strangle you. They’ve only got a skeleton field base on Gateway, not many people can go there, and they don’t need a clueless history student like me getting in their way.’
‘You aren’t clueless.’
‘Yes, I am. We’re talking about a field base on a world with an unbreathable atmosphere, Jarra. They’d have to assign someone to constantly nursemaid me, because I don’t even know what alarms sound if there’s a dome breach.’
‘Oh.’ I frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose …’
‘Command may have gone to Gateway, but the Command Support and Research teams are still here. The secure command feed coming in from Gateway base has to include all the details for them, so we won’t miss anything that’s happening. Not that much is happening.’
He turned back to our wall vid. One of the group of three Military probes we now had at the edge of Fortuna system was facing an alien sphere. Neither of them were doing anything. They hadn’t done anything for the last ten minutes.
Fian sighed. ‘This isn’t much of a conversation.’
‘It’s hard to have a proper conversation when the only words … light signals … we understand are numbers and a few scientific terms,’ I said. ‘In theory, we should have learned their language properly before contacting them, but since the current estimates are that will take a century …’
‘Ninety-eight years, one month, and three days,’ said Fian, in a solemn imitation of Colonel Leveque’s voice.
I giggled.
‘I know we’ve only got a very limited vocabulary,’ Fian continued, ‘but we’ve been trying to talk for six hours now and we haven’t actually communicated anything yet.’
‘Yes we have,’ I said. ‘We’ve communicated that we aren’t shooting at them, and they aren’t shooting at us. That’s pretty important.’
‘True,’ said Fian, ‘but …’
‘Time to eat.’ Raven came over from the food dispenser, holding a plate in each hand.
‘Furniture command table get over here to position two,’ I said.
There was a low table parked by the wall. It obediently slid towards the couch, and Raven put the plates down on it.
Fian looked at my plate and sighed. ‘Raven, I wish you’d stop feeding Jarra cheese fluffle.’
I grabbed my plate of cheese fluffle and held on to it defensively. ‘You may not like cheese fluffle, Fian, but I do!’
Raven brought drinks and his own meal across to the table, and was just sitting down on a chair opposite us when there was a chime from the apartment door. He jumped up again and went to check the door controls. ‘It’s Captain Marston with a hover trolley full of our luggage.’
Raven checked the hover trolley with sensors for several minutes before he allowed Marston to bring it inside the apartment. Fian and I searched through the mountain of hover bags to find their two controlling key fobs and clicked them. There was a minor scuffle as the two sets of hover bags came to life, fought their way off the trolley, and organized themselves into two separate groups that bounced gently in midair next to us. Raven grabbed the sole remaining bag, which belonged to him.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘My pleasure, sir,’ said Captain Marston in an extremely unpleased voice.
He and his hover trolley vanished off down the corridor, and Raven closed the apartment door.
Fian looked at the hover bags and pulled a face. ‘We just asked Playdon and Dalmora to pack a few things, not everything we owned.’
‘I think Playdon’s guessed about the alien home world and is prepared for us to be away for ages,’ I said.
Fian nodded. ‘The way we suddenly dashed off was a bit suspicious. I hope Krath isn’t loudly discussing it with everyone.’
‘I’m sure Playdon will shut him up if necessary.’ I checked my lookup. ‘I knew it!’
‘What?’ asked Fian.
‘Playdon’s started sending us vids of his lectures,’ I said.
‘He’s sending them to me too,’ said Raven.
Fian and I laughed, clicked the key fobs, led our processions of luggage off to the bedroom, and left them there to be unpacked later. When we returned to the living room and checked the wall vid, the Military probe was running the light sculpture that represented the test sequences. All three of us could instantly recognize that by now.
Fian sighed. ‘I see they’re starting from the beginning for the sixth time.’
I piled up the dirty dishes and took them over to the cleanser slot of the food processor.
‘Now we’re back on a Military base, you should let me clear up the dishes, Jarra,’ said Raven.
‘I thought the Military happily swapped between acting formally and informally,’ I said. ‘We’re being informal here.’
‘I know,’ said Raven, ‘but even when things are informal, you wouldn’t expect General Torrek to clear away dirty plates.’
‘Of course not, but there’s a big difference between a Commander and a General.’
‘Well, there’s a big difference between a Captain and a Commander too,’ said Raven.
‘Captain Marston didn’t seem impressed by me being a Commander,’ I said. ‘He was openly sulking about being kept waiting.’
Raven shrugged. ‘Qwin Marston’s in a foul mood because Rayne Tar Cameron’s broken their betrothal and dumped him. He’s been thrown out of the Tar clan, and he’ll be transferred to another base as soon as General Torrek’s back to authorize it.’
Fian had been frowning at the wall vid, but now he joined in the conversation. ‘I can see why Qwin Marston couldn’t stay in the Tar clan, but it seems unfair that he gets transferred as well. That’s because he’s the lower ran
k?’
‘The Military are both a professional organization and a family,’ said Raven, ‘and combining the two sometimes gets complicated. Official policy is to arrange assignments that keep couples together, but also to split them up when relationships go sour. Who moves isn’t to do with rank as much as how easy someone is to replace. Qwin Marston is just a supply clerk. He was only assigned to this base because of his betrothal to Rayne, so there’s no question about who gets transferred now.’
‘What would General Torrek do if Colonel Stone and Colonel Leveque split up?’ asked Fian.
‘Throw a fit,’ said Raven. ‘The Alien Contact programme can’t afford to lose either of them, so he’d probably order them to have counselling. The same thing would happen if you two split up. The General Marshal has said he approves of your relationship.’
I frowned. ‘The Military can’t order people to have psychological counselling.’
Raven grinned. ‘You could try telling the General Marshal that, but …’
‘We’re definitely not splitting up then,’ said Fian. ‘Jarra would do anything to avoid psychologists.’
I pulled a rude face at him, and turned back to the wall vid to see what was happening. The Military probe had run the light sculpture of the test sequences, including the very complicated flickering section at the end that seemed to be nothing to do with the tests and no one had managed to translate yet. The alien sphere had responded with the same thing. The Military probe had displayed the light sculpture of the alien system. The alien sphere had responded with the same light sculpture, but with the second planet and its moon flashing brightly, obviously indicating that was the alien home world.
The alien sphere was now continuing with a complex light display. It looked like exactly the same one it had played the previous five times. Nobody had the faintest idea what it meant, apart from the fact it included a couple of numbers.