Earth Flight (31 page)

Once that excitement was over, there was another, longer wait. I entertained myself by playing a game of guess the alien home world, pulled up information on Sol system on my lookup, and did a bit of mental comparison between that and the light sculpture image of the alien star system. There were three tiny planets nearest the star, then four great big things, followed by two more tiny ones.

I felt the fact the aliens had visited Earth suggested conditions here weren’t wildly different from their own home world. I stared at the planets shown in the light sculpture. The gravity on the giant planets would be scary, and too far from the star would be incredibly cold, which left the three inner planets. Number three was too small, its gravity would be only half that of Earth. The alien home world was probably number one or number two.

There was another chime. ‘We have a potential match in Zeta sector,’ said Colonel Leveque.

His voice sounded as lazy as ever, but the atmosphere in the room instantly changed to tense expectancy. Everyone expected matches in the other sectors to be false alarms, because Planet First teams had covered those star systems already, but Zeta sector was different. Stellar survey was still in progress there, and Planet First assessments to choose potential colony worlds were only just beginning. A match in Zeta sector could be the real thing.

‘This system is a close match,’ said Leveque. ‘We only have the basic outline stellar survey from a mapping probe bouncing through. That will be followed by …’

He broke off and started a new sentence. ‘Unfortunately, a Planet First probe entered this star system five days ago.’

‘Is the probe still in passive mode?’ asked Colonel Stone.

‘The last routine contact with it was four hours ago,’ said Leveque. ‘It had completed passive monitoring phase without detecting any sign of intelligent alien life, and had just started broadcasting standard mathematical and other greets.’

‘Chaos!’ Colonel Stone snapped out the word. ‘The probe’s still at the star system threshold then?’

‘Correct,’ said Leveque. ‘It has a further five days of greets scheduled before it starts moving into the star system. Its next routine contact is in eight hours time.’

‘Contact the probe now,’ said Stone. ‘If everything is quiet there, then cut the broadcast. I don’t want to stir anything up before the General gets back.’

Leveque worked at his desk for a moment, and the light sculpture of the alien star system abruptly vanished and was replaced by a weird jigsaw of different holo images. One was obviously the matching star system, but there was a lot of multi-coloured stuff and bursts of numbers that didn’t mean anything to me.

I saw Leveque’s right hand stab at his desk, and the holo image of the star system reappeared. It shifted in size, so only a vastly magnified section of the outer edge of the system was visible. A white dot appeared.

‘The white dot,’ said Leveque, ‘marks the position of our probe at the edge of the star system.’

A second dot appeared. This one was red.

‘The red dot,’ said Leveque, ‘is an object moving on a course that will intercept our probe in fourteen hours seventeen minutes time. The chance of this being a natural object randomly on this course is vanishingly small.’

There was silence for a full minute before Colonel Stone spoke. ‘We currently have the option to use remote destruct on our probe before intercept.’ She looked slowly round the room. ‘You seem to have views on that, Commander Tell Morrath.’

‘I’d advise against it, sir,’ I said. ‘If someone comes to your door, sticks their hand on the door plate, and then runs away, it leaves a bad impression. If they come again, you start off by being suspicious.’

She gave a nod. ‘Anyone have an argument in favour of remote destruct?’

No one responded. Stone nodded again and tapped at her lookup. I gave a startled look at the holo head that instantly appeared above her command desk. The General Marshal!

‘Sir,’ said Stone, ‘I assume you’ve been following the situation on the command feed.’

He nodded. ‘You’ve had my undivided attention since you found a matching system in Zeta sector.’

‘Using remote destruct on our probe at this point could have negative implications for a future approach. I therefore recommend against it, sir.’

‘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 operational 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.