The Contact Episode Three Read online

  “Since we are speaking frankly,” said Shelby, “could we agree on where we go from here? We are playing for the same team, after all. How could we help you?”

  “Find out from the object what it wants from us. That’s probably the best thing you could do in this situation,” replied MacQueen.

  Shelby nodded.

  “We’ll try.”

  MacQueen rose and extended his hand to Shelby to indicate that the conversation was over. Shelby shook his hand. The General gripped his palm tightly and did not hurry to release it. He took a step towards Shelby and looked him straight in the eyes.

  “We shall have Jupiter under our control in a few days. As soon as the bomber group is deployed, we shall send the object an ultimatum. So you can be as brazen as you like in your questions. The time for diplomacy is coming to an end. Don’t spare the strong language, Professor!”

  Having said that, MacQueen smiled and finally released Shelby’s hand. Shelby smiled in reply.

  “My colleagues and I will think about how to talk to the incomer on this subject. And have you not been playing over situations in your mind, considering how best to do this? Has your analytical department not produced reports on it?”

  MacQueen shook his head.

  “We are men of action. Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die. We don’t like exercising our tongues to no purpose. Words mean very little.”

  The asteroid belt

  Kimble, the captain of the large cargo ship THP 11600, was sitting in his seat on the bridge and watching the displays. It looked as though preparation of the cargo to be transported was going according to plan. There was no information to the contrary from the engineer observing the process from outside, so that meant everything was proceeding as it should.

  The captain stood up and approached the panoramic window formed by the front hemisphere of the compartment. It was covered with amour plate, as usual.

  In big ships, whose crews could be in space for months, the living compartments were located inside the huge ring which was constantly rotating round its axis, creating artificial gravity.

  With the windows closed, and the image from outside coming through the monitors, it was hardly possible to realise that you were inside a rotating ring. The motors rotating the ring worked so quietly and evenly that the rotation took place in absolute silence. But if the windows were open, the stars could be seen turning in circles in the visible sky. This made many people feel ill, and suffer from space sickness.

  The captain was no exception, he also disliked looking at the stellar carousel, so he preferred to keep the windows closed, viewing what lay outside only through cameras. Anyway, in open space, far from any planet, there wasn’t much worth looking at. He had already had his fill of stars, and the planets were as a rule far away, and from such a great distance looked hardly any different from the stars.

  THP 11600 was a cargo ship, one of the latest models designed to transport ore. Its route lay from the asteroid belt between the inner planets and the gas giants to near-Earth space.

  Large-scale mining of minerals took place in the asteroid belt. Mobile, fully robotised mining machines reminiscent of 20th-century marine oil and gas rigs, looking like giant mosquitoes, landed on an asteroid, took samples, and if the composition was right, set to work.

  They dug into the body of the asteroid, forcing its internal content through them. After digesting the rock, they concentrated the mined ore, and while it was still warm, shaped it into an enormous cosmic sausage, which was then taken in tow by a ship like THP 11600 and transported towards the centre of the Solar System.

  Kimble’s first experience of space was in a military capacity. In his youth, he had served on a military spacecraft. He liked military service, and he saw his future as ploughing through space captaining a nimble fighter patrolling a remote sector.

  At that time, a ‘remote sector’ was anything beyond the orbit of Mars. It was space beyond the assimilated interplanetary region. It was particularly dangerous out there, because that was where fugitive robbers went, because there were not yet any trackers there and they did not have to fear military spacecraft, which rarely appeared there. Service in a remote sector was dangerous, prestigious and offered the prospect of rapid promotion. It was just the thing for young and ambitious officers.

  He had the respect of his fellow servicemen, and his commanders sensed in him the sort of hard core needed in deep space, where there was no-one to rely on but oneself. No-one doubted that eventually Kimble would make a great career for himself, and who knows, might rise to the very top.

  But Fate decreed otherwise. As often happens in life, Kimble’s glittering career played a dirty trick on him. Having got the taste for success while still quite young, he began to get above himself, and was sometimes rude to his superiors. In a short time, he had made himself several sworn enemies, mistakenly believing that because of his military talents, he could get away with any misbehaviour.

  After returning from a difficult mission, he had two days leave ahead of him, and he and his comrades went to drink in one of the numerous bars in the permanent base on the far side of the Moon.

  Long after the evening in the bar had ended, and while Kimble was asleep in his room, the alarm was raised. One of the commercial ships had been subjected to an armed attack.

  Half an hour later, Kimble and his fellow crew members were standing in line in front of their ship, where a senior lieutenant was giving them their orders. This officer was on bad terms with Kimble, and never missed an opportunity to do him down in any way possible. Seeing Kimble’s face looking bleary-eyed after his recent celebration, he went up to him.

  “Leave the line! You’re drunk.”

  This was dishonest. After the hard mission from which Kimble’s crew had recently returned, he was due for two days off. At times like that, even the military were allowed to do what they thought fit. Within the bounds of decency, naturally. This alarm call should have been answered by another ship but it had problems with its reactor, meaning it would not be able to reach full speed. Kimble had turned out now as a volunteer, although he could easily have stayed in his room without explaining anything to anyone.

  What’s more, it would be several hours before the military spacecraft caught up with the robbers, and in that time he would have sobered up completely.

  “Are you serious?” exclaimed Kimble rudely.

  “Two extra duties!” reacted the lieutenant at once.

  “Listen, lieutenant, just drop it, will you?” replied Kimble.

  “Three extra duties for improperly addressing a superior officer!”

  The lieutenant was clearly enjoying the situation.

  “Permission to speak, sir!” said Kimble, and without waiting for an answer, continued: “Up yours, lieutenant!”

  The lieutenant went purple in the face. Going right up to Kimble, he shouted in his face:

  “You are under arrest!”

  This was really too much. An extra duty is like a clip round the ear – unpleasant, of course, but ‘if you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined’. But an arrest is entered in your record. The formation observing the scene began muttering. The cool relations between the lieutenant and Kimble were no secret, but arresting him was a blow below the belt.

  “Sir, the officer has been on his feet all day and night. He was celebrating his recommendation for a decoration for the last mission.”

  “Three extra duties!” snarled the lieutenant.

  Kimble’s would-be defender fell silent. To behave like that in front of serving officers, in full view of the whole company... Such petty-mindedness would not be forgotten.

  “I’ll ruin your career, Kimble!” the lieutenant hissed in his face.

  Kimble realised that this was no joke. The lieutenant turned to the MP officers standing a little way away, watching.

  “Arrest him!” he commanded.

  The two looked at each other, but the order had to be carried out.
As they went up to Kimble, they looked at the lieutenant. Perhaps he would change his mind? But he had already gone off to the other end of the formation and was continuing with the operation orders as if nothing had happened.

  “Hands behind your back,” ordered one of them.

  Kimble obeyed. They put the handcuffs on and led him to the guardroom. As they passed the lieutenant, Kimble looked at him. The lieutenant, who had had his back to Kimble, turned round and smiled, barely perceptibly, with the corner of his mouth.

  If he had not turned round and sneered at that moment, the arrested Kimble could still have got by. After the arrest there would have been an investigation, and the relations between him and the lieutenant were no secret to anyone. There had been many witnesses to the incident, and the circumstances were known to the senior officers. Perhaps the arrest would have had no serious consequences.

  But seeing the cowardly lieutenant’s sneer was too much for Kimble. Before he had time to think what he was doing, Kimble head-butted the lieutenant with all his might. The officer’s beret flew off, and he could barely stay on his feet. The MP officers, after a moment’s hesitation on seeing such stupidity, grabbed him and made up for it with a will. They went for their truncheons at virtually the same time and hit Kimble on the legs, knocking him to the ground. He hit his nose painfully as he fell. What with his hands being cuffed behind his back, his lack of sleep and the residual alcohol in his blood, he didn’t have time to save himself.

  Kimble looked at the blood pouring from his nose onto the floor in the hangar and realised that his fate had taken a sharp turn. He could forget about a career in the ranks of the Special Space Service.

  Then came his court-martial. Taking account of the junior lieutenant’s exemplary service, he was allowed to stay in the space fleet, but he was moved to administrative posts and not allowed to serve with a weapon in his hands.

  He stayed on for a little over a year, then left the service, and on the advice of his girlfriend, signed up for a cargo ship pilot’s course, where he was received with open arms.

  His training went well, but the self-defence sessions were a joke. At that time, attacks on transport ships were occurring so frequently that their future commanders were given weapon training lessons. How could this childish nonsense be compared to training in the SSS?

  During one exercise on the firing range, Kimble mechanically fired off a whole magazine at the target and waited for his course colleagues to finish shooting. He half-stood on one knee in his position after laying down his automatic weapon and watched his neighbour, who was spending a long time fiddling with his magazine. Eventually he managed to push it into place. Then he turned towards the target and spent more time taking aim.

  Kimble silently observed the gun’s muzzle wavering as the man took aim. If he hit anything except the ground at a distance of twenty metres, it would be quite an achievement. He eventually pressed the trigger, but nothing happened. Kimble grinned. The safety catch was set to green. Watching this scene, Kimble intuitively sensed what would happen next.

  His neighbour pressed the trigger again and was about to point the gun at his own face to look down the barrel.

  “Stop!” barked Kimble in a commanding voice.

  The man shuddered.

  “What? Oh, yes...”

  Realising his error, he turned the barrel back towards the target.

  “It won’t fire for some reason...” he muttered.

  “Take the safety catch off. And on the range, always keep a loaded weapon pointed at the target,” said Kimble.

  “Yes, yes, I remember,” mumbled his neighbour, embarrassed.

  Having made sure he was holding his weapon correctly, Kimble raised his eyes to the heavens, to the stars, and sighed deeply. Now when he was in the SSS...

  But time went by, and his service in the SSS became more and more a dim and distant memory. After graduating from the flight academy, Kimble began working on a big transport ship bringing ore from the asteroid belt into the Moon’s orbit, where a huge cargo terminal was being built. The salary was good and Kimble gradually came to find that a peaceful life was to his taste. On the whole, there was nothing to complain about. True, sometimes the old life made itself felt. At such moments, Kimble became really sad. But that quickly passed.

  Killing time during a routine flight some years previously, Kimble, sipping whisky, was reading the news. A headline caught his eye:

  “General MacQueen appointed Commander of Space Fleet.”

  Kimble opened the article, which contained a photograph of the new commander. The face was unfamiliar to him. He started reading.

  MacQueen began his service 22 years ago...

  “Hmm, one year younger than me,” muttered Kimble, and carried on reading.

  The new Fleet Commander had served up to the rank of major on Join Forces Space Ship Invincible...

  Before Kimble’s eyes floated the scene of the disastrous day when he attacked that bastard of a senior lieutenant. It was the Invincible which should have gone on that mission and his ship which replaced it. If its reactor had not broken down, Kimble would just have slept it off and nothing would have happened. The lieutenant’s facial bones would have been intact, and it might have been Kimble’s photograph there instead of MacQueen’s.

  He raised his glass of whisky and looked for some seconds at the lovely oak tint of the drink.

  “To those in action!” Kimble quietly muttered the SSS toast, and then drank the contents of his glass in one gulp. A pleasant fiery feeling ran down to his stomach. Kimble picked up the bottle, poured himself another whisky, and read the article to the end.

  MacQueen’s biography was impressive. Five years in the SSS, several hostage release operations, wounded twice. Many decorations, including for liberating a hijacked passenger liner in 2160.

  Kimble went back to the beginning of the article and studied MacQueen’s photograph intensively. Perfectly ironed uniform, short haircut, determined and very slightly screwed-up eyes, thin lips. Yes, he knew the type. He had been one of them himself once. The Supreme Command had made the right choice.

  Kimble made a sign to the computer to retract the armour plating over the windows. A view of the asteroid and the mining station opened up before him. He spent a few minutes looking at them, then went to the other side of the compartment, where a view towards the stern of the ship had opened up. Not noticing anything out of the ordinary, he indicated to the computer that the window protection should be closed. The sight of the enormous asteroid apparently rotating round the ship was disturbing, his head was beginning to swim.

  He returned to his place, collapsed into his chair and locked his hands behind his head. His favourite baseball team was playing today. As soon as loading had finished and the ship was on course, he would watch a recording of the game. Kimble was looking forward to an interesting evening.

  Then his attention was attracted by the monitor displaying the radar data. Some sort of ship was approaching the asteroid where Kimble was loading ore. The onboard computer had allocated it the number 137.

  “Provide information on 137’s trajectory,” he ordered the computer. It drew a broken line showing the future course of the unknown vessel.

  “The flight trajectory of object 137 passes close to our location,” answered the computer immediately.

  “Ask it to identify itself.”

  Kimble already knew what the answer would be.

  “The ship does not respond,” replied the computer after ten seconds or so.

  “That’s what I thought,” muttered Kimble. “Give me a conference call to all crew members.”

  “Call set up.”

  “Attention, crew. Everyone to assemble at once in the pilot’s compartment. I repeat, assemble in the pilot’s compartment at once.”

  Then Kimble turned back to the computer.

  “Send an emergency call for assistance. Pirate attack, threat of hijacking,” ordered Kimble.

  “Yes, sir.
The signal has been sent, sir.” The ship’s AI reacted almost instantly.

  Object 137 was still a long way off, but the distance was shortening rapidly. If he did not delay and took off at once, in a few hours THP 11600 would be on course at cruising speed. It would be moving almost at a right angle to the trajectory of the unidentified ship, which would therefore have to travel along the hypotenuse if it wanted to catch up with THP 11600. The angle wasn’t as ideally acute as it should be, but it wasn’t bad. The pirate ship was faster, of course, but because of the great distance and the unfavourable catch-up trajectory, it would be several days before it reached the cargo ship. A lot could happen in that time. The pirates might not want to risk travelling too far towards the centre of the Solar System, where they could suddenly find themselves nose to nose with a military patrol; or the military might arrive in time to help.

  Of course Kimble was not 100 per cent sure that the rapidly approaching ship was a pirate. But the chances of such a small ship flying right past THP 11600 when it was busy loading ore were very small. Yes, space was full of ships nowadays, but the Solar System is much bigger than it seems to the average person. And the asteroid belt doesn’t look at all as such a person imagines it.

  For some reason it had become acceptable to think of the asteroid belt as a dense, gigantic ring of massive rocks, slowly rotating round the Sun. Many think that it is difficult to pass through the belt without colliding with an asteroid, you have to keep manoeuvring all the time. In fact this is not the case at all. The density of asteroids in the belt is so low that you could simply skip through that sector of the Solar System without even noticing it. So it was highly improbable that the approaching ship’s route coincided with the location of THP 11600 purely by chance. It was almost unbelievable. No, the ship was approaching them deliberately. They had to be pirates, there was no other possibility.

  Kimble angrily thumped the arm of his chair. Damn it, if he had his SSS squad here now, he would have organised a fitting reception for the pirates. Then they had feared him like the plague, now he had to run from them.