The Contact Episode Four Page 3

  “Fine, when we arrive at the base, we’ll have to look into the history of these data, maybe then something will become clear,” said Clive, making himself more comfortable in his seat.

  Soon, DHL 25631 exited from the interplanetary motorway and reduced speed. The Falcon gently undocked from it and set course for Earth. Descending lower and lower, it described a loop round the planet and entered the rarefied layers of the atmosphere.

  Eventually, a barely audible noise created by the outside turbulence was heard within the ship. The noise became louder every minute, adding more powerful tones. In the end it became so loud that the ship began to shudder. Now the noise could not only be heard, but distinctly felt too. The intensity of the vibration increased to the point of discomfort.

  Steve felt the mineral water he had drunk half an hour ago bubbling in his stomach. They were still flying at more than ten thousand kilometres an hour. At this speed, the air resistance outside was so strong that the hull plating became white-hot. Flames flared up in some places.

  Finally, the bone-shaking vibration began to abate, then it disappeared as suddenly as it had begun. When the Falcon’s speed fell below that of sound, its flight became quite smooth.

  “Open the portholes,” ordered Steve.

  In the middle front of the pilot’s compartment, a narrow strip of light appeared in the form of a rapidly expanding luminous cross. The Falcon was descending in quite a steep trajectory, nose down several degrees to the horizon. With the ship at this angle, a view of unusual beauty opened up before Steve and Clive as if on the palm of their hands. The gigantic plateau on which the Space Force spaceport was located could already be seen in the distance. Their eyes, wearied first by the depressing Martian landscape and then by the sterile whiteness inside the Falcon, greedily absorbed this remarkable variety of vivid colours. A few minutes later, they passed through scattered clouds.

  The ship quickly lost altitude and speed as it approached the spaceport. After flying round it, it landed a short distance from the hangars. The ship’s wheels bounced slightly as they touched the ground. The roar of the reactors instantly ceased. The journey was over.

  “Well, home at last! It was quite an adventure, wasn’t it, Clive?” said Steve, rising from his seat. Earth’s gravity pressed on him with unaccustomed heaviness. He had to support himself against the back of the seat to keep his balance.

  “Hey, you soon get out of the habit of this sort of gravity,” Steve realised. A thought occurred to him and he went up to Clive’s seat.

  “Let me help you, little green man from Mars,” he joked as he stretched out his hand to Clive.

  Clive released his seat straps and tried to get up. Yes, it certainly wasn’t that easy. His new heart was experiencing Earth gravity for the first time. It was now beating faster than usual, finding difficulty in coping with the load. Not only did it have to pump blood at higher pressure, but the body itself weighed more. It cost him so much effort to stand up from the chair that his eyes glazed over.

  Steve noticed this, and grabbed him by the hand in good time.

  “Are you OK? Can you walk?” he asked.

  Clive came round, his eyes fluttering. It was apparent that he was not finding it easy to cope with Earth’s gravity. The medical module was right, it would take him a long time to train his new heart.

  “Hang on, wait a second. All right, let’s go, it seems to be OK.”

  Steve supported Clive by the arm as they set off for the exit. They had only been in low gravity for a few days, but their bodies had already become unaccustomed to it. How did people who had spent their whole life on Mars feel? The gravity there was only a third of Earth’s. But then they rarely visited Earth, and if they did, it was only as guests.

  Outside the ship, several grim SSS soldiers were waiting for them. Without saying a word, only nodding in greeting, they pointed Steve and Clive towards an armoured car standing nearby.

  The route from the Falcon’s landing place to the apartments for the scientific personnel working on ‘Dawn’ lay directly across the launch zone, which was bustling with life. The armoured car had to keep stopping to give way to service robots or bowsers.

  In the distance, they could see cargo ships taking off all the time to join a string of others extending high into the sky to the north. It was already evening, and the setting sun bathed the spaceport in a red glow, while the convoy in the sky shone white. Although this was all taking place in silence, there was an urgency in the air. Steve had never seen so much traffic, although he had lived not far away for several years, with a good view of ships taking off and landing.

  Deep in thought, Steve had not noticed that they were approaching the building in which his temporary apartment was located. He snapped out of it when the armoured car suddenly stopped.

  “We have arrived, sir. Have a nice evening,” said one of the SSS men in farewell.

  The building was currently uninhabited. Obviously they were all in the situation room, although it was already evening. Steve escorted Clive to his room. He already seemed to have gotten used to terrestrial conditions, and was walking much more confidently than when they had first come out of the ship.

  “Can you manage on your own from here?” asked Steve, taking him to the door of the rooms.

  “Sure, I can manage.”

  “In that case, let’s meet in fifteen minutes in the situation room,” suggested Steve.

  “Fine,” replied Clive, entering his room and closing the door behind him.

  Blockade

  On his way to the situation room, Steve went past the guard, which now consisted of several infantrymen and combat robots. He looked fearfully at their weapons. The humans were holding pulse repeater guns while the robots were armed much more powerfully.

  A few days earlier, Steve had known from personal experience what it was like to be under automatic fire from modern weapons. Fortunately, the robbers had only had traditional firearms. If even one of them had been armed with a quick-firing pulse gun, the story would surely have had an unhappy ending.

  The pulse repeater guns had vastly more capacity, and the pulses that did the damage left the barrel at approaching the speed of light, so it didn’t require special training to hit a moving target with a pulse weapon. The robbers would have been able to create such intense fire that, in spite of the dust raised by the Falcon’s turbines, they could hardly have failed to hit Steve.

  It was incredible that such a small weapon, weighing only a few kilogrammes and easily able to fit in a large chocolate box, should have such firepower. It was horrifying to think what the combat robots were capable of doing with their large-calibre weapons, which could engage several targets simultaneously. Using their all-weather optics, they could see equally well by day and by night, through dust, fog or rain.

  After their adventure in the Martian desert, Steve had thought a lot about military technology. Taking an example from history, in the thirteenth century almost all of Asia was under the control of the Mongolian Empire, which, relying on the might of its army, brought innumerable peoples, small and large, under its rule. It carried out lightning raids, sweeping any resistance out of its path. No other army of the time could withstand the Mongol horsemen, skilfully armed with only a bow, a primitive spear and an axe. Steve asked himself how many soldiers it would take, even if they were armed with nothing more modern than the attack rifles of the mid-20th century, to stop an attack by the army of the Mongolian Empire, drowning the approaching cavalry force in its own blood? A company would probably have sufficed. Seven centuries of technological developments, and the firepower of a hundred ordinary soldiers with standard equipment, would have had no difficulty in reducing to ashes and dust the attacking army of the mightiest empire in the history of mankind.

  Steve entered the hall. The last time he had been there was only a week ago, but a whole eternity seemed to have passed. He felt at least ten years older.

  Shelby, catching sight of him, waved at him e
nergetically in greeting.

  “Steve, you’ve no idea how timely your arrival is. Your help and Clive’s will be invaluable,” he said, shaking Steve’s hand. Shelby was truly glad to see him alive and well.

  “Hello. Can you bring me up to date?” Steve replied as he shook hands.

  “Of course.” Shelby nodded and pointed to the chair next to his own. Quickly bringing up a large variety of information on the screens on his desk, he pointed to one of the monitors with his finger.

  “This is a complete list of our dialogues with the object during the period of your absence. Read it carefully. We amused ourselves chatting about this and that, thinking up various tests to try to gain at least some rough idea of the internal arrangements of the object, the capabilities of its AI and so on. And I must say we really did dig up a lot that was of interest that the object did not want to tell us itself. You will find all this in the dossier.

  “But the important thing now is this. MacQueen’s ships reached Jupiter yesterday, and should already have taken up their positions round the planet. The final preparations are going on right now. We expect the blockade to begin this evening or tonight. Our role, meaning that of the scientists in this hall, changes somewhat, but on the whole we shall see the full picture.”

  Steve nodded, listening attentively without interrupting.

  “Any questions?” asked Selby.

  “Have you discussed when the project will be declassified, if it ever is?”

  “That is not yet clear. I hear rumours that certain governments do not like it being totally secret. But so far, most countries are in favour of keeping it so. Our contact is now entering a decisive phase. If the blockade leads to an escalation, global mobilisation will be declared. Obviously the project will then have to be declassified.”

  Steve nodded again.

  “Excuse me for rushing you, Steve, but there is very little time left till the blockade. Therefore if you have no more important questions, let’s get down to business. We can discuss the rest over a glass of beer when this is all over. My treat. How is Clive, by the way? He doesn’t seem to be here,” asked Shelby, looking round the hall.

  “He’s fine. I was talking to him twenty minutes ago. He should be here by now. Oh, and don’t show any surprise when you see him, Mr. Shelby.”

  “Why, what’s happened to him?”

  “Well... During the operation, he was given injections of blood substitute... His face is still a rather unusual colour.”

  Shelby smiled.

  “That’s right, I’d completely forgotten. He must be looking green around the gills.”

  “He is indeed. I think he finds it very embarrassing.”

  “OK, I’ll remember. Now, shall we get started?”

  Steve went to his place. “Wow!” he thought to himself when he opened the dossier on his monitors, amazed at how much information it contained. He would have to digest all this as quickly as possible. But really, even a week would not be long enough to read it all carefully. So once again, he’d better forget about normal sleep. He sighed, poured himself a tea and became immersed in reading.

  A little while later, Clive joined him. While reading the dossier, one or other of them would make surprised noises every now and again, astonished by the tricks thought up by the scientists to glean information about the object from its meagre replies.

  A few hours later, Shelby came up to them.

  “Well, how do you think we’ve been doing?”

  “You’ve really done a tremendous amount of work. I hardly like to ask how many hours a day you’ve been sitting here,” replied Steve. Clive hadn’t even noticed Shelby yet, he was too absorbed in the dossier.

  “Yeah, don’t even ask,” grinned Shelby, who looked exhausted. He changed the subject. “I’ve just received a message from MacQueen. The blockade is starting. Be prepared.”

  The noise in the hall was interrupted by the sound of a gong. Shelby nodded to Steve, activated his microphone and went back to his place.

  His voice rang out in the now silent hall.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places. The blockade will come into force in a few minutes, and before then, General MacQueen will put you in the picture. Please look at the main screen.”

  The image of the General appeared. Judging from the sparse furniture behind him, he was not in his own office. During their last conversation, Shelby had not managed to see what was behind the General’s back, but now he could clearly see that MacQueen was in one of the aquaria.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A few hours ago, the group of ships under my command took up battle stations round Jupiter. The strike group includes super-heavy bombers. We have also deployed static weapons on Jupiter’s natural satellites. We are in full control of space round the planet, and are capable of striking a crushing blow at any spacecraft or group of spacecraft or other space apparatus within a distance of several light seconds.

  “We also have a large number of communications vessels some way away from the blockade sector. That way we can see what’s going on online, both directly from the site of the action and from some distance away. We are also in communication with the largest scientific telescopes, both on the planet and orbit-based.

  “For security considerations, to eliminate the possibility of an unsanctioned attack on the target, the blockade group has a multi-stage structure. The first strike echelon, consisting of heavy bombers and static weapons able to attack the intruder ship, is under the sights of the second echelon. In the case of any unforeseen situation, if circumstances require, the first echelon will be neutralised by the second.

  “The aim of the blockade is to force the alien ship to take part in a constructive dialogue, concentrating primarily on questions of the security of our civilisation and other political aspects. If we do not succeed in achieving our first aim, our task will be to make the object withdraw beyond the limits of the Solar System, with or without the use of force. Let us hope it does not come to that.

  “The roles of the participants in this dialogue will be ordered in a somewhat different way. This time it will be conducted not by the AI from the station on Ganymede, but by a military negotiating team on board ships of the blockade group. Nevertheless, we shall coordinate our actions with the Academic Council.

  “At the present time, we have already sent an ultimatum and are awaiting the intruder’s reaction. Minutes of the negotiations will be relayed to Earth online as the signal from Jupiter reaches Earth.

  “I wish you every success, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The General’s image was moved to one of the smaller monitors and then extinguished. The main screen was filled with a brief text. In huge dark blue letters the size of a man, on a white background, it read:

  “Awaiting direct relay from Jupiter.”

  A cursor blinked slowly under the text, as in any normal chat. A few minutes later, the first message floated onto the screen.

  “EARTH: We have discussed many themes. Now we wish to move on to political specifics. We are no longer willing to accept evasive answers to our questions. We want to ask completely specific questions and to obtain specific answers about the motives for your presence in the Solar System.”

  The reply was not long in coming.

  “ALIEN: We are interested in establishing contact with your civilisation.”

  “EARTH: We insist on a more specific answer.”

  “ALIEN: A more specific answer is not possible at this stage.”

  “EARTH: We look on the Solar System as our living space. We consider the presence within the heliosphere of ships of other civilisations, whose motives we do not understand, to be a threat to our security. On this basis, we demand that you leave the orbit of Jupiter and remove yourself to a distance of not less than one hundred astronomical units from our central star.”

  “ALIEN: Our presence does not represent a threat to your civilisation.”

  “EARTH: Nevertheless, we insist that our dem
ands are complied with.”

  “ALIEN: Negotiations over such a distance will complicate and slow down the communication process.”

  “EARTH: The security of our civilisation is our highest priority. We insist that our demands are complied with.”

  “ALIEN: We assure you of our peaceful intentions, to our mutual benefit.”

  “EARTH: We refuse to continue an abstract dialogue until we have received exhaustive replies to our top political questions. Move to a distance of not less than one hundred astronomical units from our central star.”

  “ALIEN: In accordance with our instructions, we must request permission to carry out such a manoeuvre from higher authority.”

  “EARTH: How long will it take you to obtain permission?”

  “ALIEN: Thirty hours.”

  “EARTH: You are permitted to remain in the orbit of Jupiter for 30 hours. After that you must comply with our demands. This time limit is final and not open to discussion.”

  “ALIEN: Do you guarantee not to use force for this period?”

  “EARTH: We guarantee not to use force for this period if you remain in your present orbit round Jupiter.”

  “ADMINISTRATOR: End of session.”

  “Our guys are very determined, aren’t they?” said Steve to Clive.

  “They certainly are. Well, if the incomer won’t take hints, we’ll have to talk to it this way.”

  “Perhaps it’s for the best.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “By the way, have you had a talk with Shelby about the error I found in the data from the Martian base?”

  “No, but now might be a good time. Shall we go and see?” said Steve, getting up from the table. When there was nothing to do, any occupation was a good distraction.

  “Mr. Shelby, you gave us the access codes to the base in areostationary orbit round Mars,” began Clive.

  “Yes, I remember. Is something wrong?” asked Shelby, taking off his spectacles and laying them on the table.

  “We’re not quite sure. On the way back from Mars we had time to spare, so we looked rather more closely at the data.”