Beyond the Event Horizon - Episode Two Read online

  “Only gossip. She didn’t even want to talk about it. But none of them believe the official story about protection against meteorites. It’s not that they have any actual information; it’s more the way the military controllers behaved. When those so-called exercises ended, the lads from the fleet looked thoroughly exhausted. Their faces were red and they were covered in sweat. I doubt if exercises could have been that exciting, they go on all the time.

  “Another thing. Previously they had a direct line to the central office, but now they coordinate traffic in near-Earth space exclusively through the military authorities. She says the whole thing is altogether very strange.”

  All three fell silent, thinking about what Bill had said. Meanwhile, the strange ship continued to approach the red sector. Then at some point it changed course sharply. Now, instead of a straight line extending behind the dot on the radar, it began moving in an arc round MRS723. Obviously the ship was preventing its trajectory entering the IFF system’s zone of operation.

  “I told you it was the SSS. They know exactly where the red sector begins,” commented Bill.

  “But why should they want to avoid it?” asked Todd.

  “How should I know? Perhaps they want to remain incognito.”

  “But 723 has had them tracked for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t send long-range radar information to the Flight Control Centre. That’s not its zone of responsibility. It only does so if something enters the red zone.”

  “Yes, but... Ok, that’s enough, time to get down to work. Bill, deactivate the modules,” said Howard. He turned away from the radar screen, apparently losing all interest in the unidentified ship. It had passed round 723 at a great distance and, at the speed at which it was flying, would be beyond the orbit of Mars before they had finished their work.

  4

  MacQueen, for all his calm appearance, could not contain his inner nerves. Observing the alien formation of ships approaching MRS723’s zone of responsibility, he got up from his chair and began pacing around the bunker. But he still never let the visualisation of the radar data portrayed on the main screen out of his sight for a second.

  Yet again, the fate of mankind was in the hands of electronic machines and their short-sighted reflexes. Having reached the latest fork in the road of fate, mankind had handed over the decision on its future to some kind of automatic base, incapable of the most rudimentary ability to come to grips with the seriousness of the situation or even understand it.

  To some extent, it was an irony of fate that mankind had delegated important decision making to stupid machines and removed this role from intelligent living beings, although this was virtually what it had been doing for the entire history of its civilised existence.

  However regrettable it might be, the final decisions in contemporary society are taken by those who understand questions of socialisation and intrigues within groups better than others, not by those who know most about the subject. Although human society values unique intellects in general, it has no mercy on them when it comes up against them in everyday life. In any case, they rarely reach the political heights. Against the background of this state of affairs, the delegation of powers to stupid machines to decide the fate of mankind appears to be wholly in the spirit of ancient traditions.

  The formation had almost reached the red line when it suddenly climbed sharply, describing an arc around MRS723, exactly repeating the base’s zone of responsibility.

  The general grinned and returned to his chair. Obviously the aliens were fully informed of the function of 723, and knew precisely the range of its weapons. Good for them! On the one hand it was bad, because to all appearances, they knew the defence infrastructure like the back of their hand. On the other, they preferred to avoid escalation, and this, given their undoubted technological superiority, gave grounds to hope that the Earthlings would have a fair chance of surviving the meeting of civilisations as a developed society.

  Well, fine, if the guns were silent, it was time for diplomacy. He looked at the list of conferences in waiting mode. Those in which scientists of the ‘Dawn’ project had participated were marked in blue.

  On this occasion, since the aliens apparently did not intend to conduct the dialogue from far away, there was insufficient time to gather the civilian group of negotiators together in one hall as had been done last time.

  With a gesture, MacQueen selected the conference participants marked in blue and ordered the lines to be activated. One of the auxiliary screens immediately broke itself down into a hundred small video images.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience,” began MacQueen, after which he gave a short description of recent events. Up to this point, the Academic Council had not had full information about the state of affairs, but had only been briefly notified that ‘Dawn’ had been reactivated. Immediately after this notification, the scientists had been escorted into army bunkers, where they would have to wait till the High Command needed them.

  “How will the army act now?” asked one of the scientists.

  “Right now we are trying to call the alien ships, but they are not responding. If nothing changes, the president will most likely give the order to attack when they approach near-Earth space.

  “We are regrouping our forces; in a few hours, if we do not succeed in stopping the aliens completely, mobilisation of the population will be ordered on Earth. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to do but wait.”

  MacQueen signalled to the computer that the participants of ‘Dawn’ should be given access to the radar tracking information about the aliens. Now they could observe their flight along with the general.

  While talking to the scientists, MacQueen kept glancing at the screen on which communication with the aliens was displayed. Since they had not responded, the list consisted only of unsuccessful attempts by military ships to call them up.

  Suddenly, the radar operator of one of the ships tracking the aliens called.

  “I am registering a change in speed. The formation is decelerating,” read the text of the emergency message marked as top priority. “Attention, there is a reaction to our request.”

  A few seconds later, one of the ships that had been trying to contact the aliens ever since they had crossed the asteroid belt reported: “The aliens have broken radio silence. They are replying to our request. I’m sending the text of the message.” The text read:

  WE SHALL NOT APPROACH EARTH ANY CLOSER THAN TEN LIGHT MINUTES. WE HOPE FOR A CONSTRUCTIVE AND PEACEFUL DIALOGUE. HOSTILE ACTIONS WILL LEAD TO THE USE OF FORCE.

  “The formation has begun to change its trajectory,” was the next report from the tracking radar operator.

  Predictions of the aliens’ further flight appeared on the screen. By changing trajectory, they were apparently trying to synchronise it with the angular velocity of Earth and its satellite around the Sun.

  “I am registering an increase in the radar shadow from Alien One,” reported the radar operator.

  MacQueen had never taken his eyes of the screens, and had himself noticed several seconds earlier that the point on the radar denoting the lead ship had begun to grow in size. At first he had thought his eyes were deceiving him because he had been staring at the screen for so long.

  “I am receiving confirmation from orbital telescopes conducting visual monitoring. A cloud impenetrable by electromagnetic radiation is materialising around Alien One.”

  Then the general realised that the alien ship had apparently decided to create a sort of smokescreen around itself to deprive the Earthlings of the possibility of observing it. The previous ship had not taken any such precautionary measures. Probably this time there were live aliens on board, not just soulless machines, so it had decided to make assurance doubly sure.

  Meanwhile, the cloud was continuing to expand. Now it had fully absorbed Alien One and was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. MacQueen called the ELINT operator.

  “You can’t manage to look into the cloud,
can you?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” replied the operator almost immediately.

  “Have you tried to illuminate it with hard radiation?”

  “We have indeed, sir, but without success. The cloud is absolutely impenetrable for the entire electromagnetic spectrum.”

  The cloud eventually grew to such an extent that it absorbed all three ships. After that, its growth slowed down and soon stopped altogether. The sphere it finally formed was about two hundred kilometres in diameter. MacQueen switched on the microphone for communication with the science group.

  “I need your opinion on this cloud. ELINT finds it totally impenetrable by electromagnetic waves. How can we pierce it, so that we can determine the precise location of the ships within it?”

  The group of physicists replied.

  “From the theoretical point of view, the cloud cannot simply absorb radiation. An electromagnetic wave is nothing other than an energy front running along space-time. To stop it, the wave’s energy has to be absorbed and redirected somewhere, dispersed in space. If energies greater than the throughput capacity of the dispersion channel are made to act on it, it will become transparent again.”

  “Is there any way of determining the width of the dispersion channel?” asked MacQueen.

  “Not other than by direct experiment. And I doubt if the aliens will let us play with their cloud like that. After all, our motive is absolutely obvious: we are looking for weak points in their defences.”

  “I agree. With your ELINT colleagues, please consider the possibility of determining the precise location of the alien ships within the cloud. We must at least be able to do that, or we shall be firing blind.”

  A few minutes later, the next report from the radar operator came in.

  “The formation has completed its synchronisation of angular velocity. Its position in the sky is now fixed for an observer on Earth.”

  MacQueen nodded as a sign of approval. It looked as if negotiations could begin.

  “OK then, let’s start round two,” he said to himself sotto voce, and then out loud, addressing the computer: “Message for the president. The aliens have taken up a stationary position from Earth’s viewpoint and are inviting us to contact them. Their head ship has used technical means of protection which make an effective attack considerably more difficult.”

  5

  Someone knocked on the conference room door. Before there was any response, the door was partly opened and Kimble’s head appeared. He looked around the room and took a step inside, looking rather excited and conspiratorial. Steve and Clive, who had been peering at something on one of the numerous monitors spread all around the desk top, glanced up at him.

  “How are you getting on with the study?” asked Kimble.

  Since the appearance of the alien ships, EMC1906 had been drifting some way from the portal, maintaining a constant distance. Steve had not visited the pilots’ compartment since then, preferring to work with Clive in the conference hall, which received information from all the scientific instruments inside and outside the ship.

  “It’s coming along slowly,” answered Steve.

  There was a pause, during which he got up from his desk and stretched. Studying the portal had become quite a boring occupation lately. Whereas previously every batch of new data had brought in something novel, keeping the whole scientific team in a permanent state of animation, the work had now become routine. Steve kept thinking that he was struggling against sleep rather than concentrating on the studies.

  “I notice your lads are not working outside anymore,” said Kimble.

  “We’ve stopped observing in the visible spectrum. The telescopes don’t see anything anyway,” replied Clive.

  “What about your string theory?”

  Clive and Steve shrugged their shoulders in unison and looked at each other.

  “It looks as if it’s right,” said Steve.

  “You don’t sound too sure. I thought physics was an exact science.”

  “We have an exact mathematical description, but it’s hard to check it. The strings can’t be seen in the telescope, and we can’t close in on them because we can’t determine where they are with sufficient precision,” replied Steve.

  “Oh, that’s great,” interjected Kimble.

  “Even if we did know their position, we couldn’t study them properly with a telescope. The theory predicts dimensions comparable with Planck length,” added Clive.

  “That doesn’t mean anything to me,” said Kimble, perching himself on the edge of the desk top. After a few seconds, he changed the subject. “But that isn’t important. I’ve just received an order to return to Earth.”

  An expression of dismay appeared on Clive’s face.

  “But I have several more experiments to carry out, I can’t drop everything just like that and fly off,” he objected.

  “We can leave the apparatus here, there’s no reason for us to stay here ourselves,” said Steve.

  “So you’re in favour of flying off too, are you? But we haven’t finished!”

  “Speaking personally, I could work just as well in an observatory,” said Steve, who had no desire to start an argument with Clive, but could not see any point in hanging around somewhere out in space either.

  “How long do you need to pack up your apparatus?” asked Kimble.

  Clive, realising it was no use objecting, waved resignedly.

  “I don’t have to collect anything, I can leave right now,” he said and turned back to the monitor, re-immersing himself in his work.

  Kimble glanced at Steve.

  “I’m ready too. Right away, if you like.”

  “Good. We leave in twenty minutes,” said Kimble, getting to his feet. “Steve, could you come along to the pilot’s compartment?”

  Once there, Steve took a quick look at the radar screen.

  “Are you expecting problems on the return flight?”

  “You can never be sure there will be no problems, especially now,” replied Kimble, shaking his head. “But I don’t know of any specific threat. If you were thinking of pirates, I don’t think we’ll come across them again. They’re not fools enough to ask for trouble.”

  “Ask for trouble? You mean they’ll know about our drones?”

  “Hardly. But when two ships disappear at the same time, the news spreads among the pirates like wildfire. Someone will have known their last course, and it won’t take long to work out that they were going to intercept our ship. If two pirate ships go missing, it’s not just coincidence. So they’ll know we’re armed; they’ll probably take us for undercover SSS. They don’t attack ships of that sort.”

  Steve nodded in satisfaction.

  “You wanted to talk to me about something?” he said.

  Kimble motioned towards the free seat and sat in his own before answering.

  “You said that your professor keeps you up to date about what’s going on...”

  “Yes, he does. He sends me the intelligence information for ‘Dawn’.”

  “Have you heard the latest news?”

  “I’ve heard that the aliens have stopped ten light minutes from Earth and are drifting along with the planet. It’s said they want to negotiate again.”

  “Have you heard about the protective cloud?

  “Cloud? What cloud? I don’t know anything about that.”

  “The alien lead ship created a protective cloud around itself before approaching Earth. Because of this, the fleet can’t take proper aim at it.”

  Steve tried to imagine how this would look.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “On Earth, they think the cloud was not just created on general principles, but because this time they have a live delegation of their race on board. That’s why they are taking these precautionary measures, so as not to risk their lives in the event of an attack, as happened last time.”

  “I see. But I don’t understand what it has to do with me.”

  “If they’ve se
nt a delegation, they’ll probably want to meet us face to face, so to speak. The question arises, who will represent Earth? As far as I know, the fact that they have appeared is still secret. Therefore the negotiating team will have to consist of ‘Dawn’ participants.

  “They spent a lot of time arguing, discussing various candidates, and the idea came up...” Even before Kimble had finished the sentence, Steve realised where this was leading. “What do you think about going to the first meeting?”

  “Me? Why me? How should I know what to talk to them about? I have no negotiating experience whatsoever.”

  “But who does have it? Experience of negotiating with aliens, I mean.”

  “Well, I don’t know... Politicians talk all the time, conducting all sorts of negotiations... businessmen, all sorts of people!”

  “But you were the first to notice them, and you cooked up this mess of pottage, so now it’s up to you to eat it,” joked Kimble.

  Steve gave a strained smile.

  “Uh-huh. And for that, everyone will hate me and secretly hope the aliens will make mincemeat of me.”

  Kimble laughed at Steve’s joke, but quickly became serious again.

  “OK, it’s no laughing matter. I think that if you go, it will have symbolic significance. When all this becomes known, you’ll have become someone like Gagarin or Neil Armstrong. But if your professor goes to the first meeting, well, he’s not a young man any more. The politicians need young and stupid sheep; you can’t pull the wool over the eyes of the old ones so easily.”

  Steve thought about it. If he had been asked a year ago if he wanted to be an emissary of mankind during its first contact with aliens, he would have jumped at the chance without a second thought. But now, already up to his ears in this story, he found the prospect disturbing.

  “Are they planning to send anyone else? Or just me?” he asked finally.

  “There will probably be someone else. It could be a woman.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes. Do you have many female scientists in the project?”