The Contact Episode One Page 7

the object themselves and begin acting without us," replied Shelby.

  "What's the difference between them noticing it before us, and after?" asked Clive.

  Shelby shrugged his shoulders.

  "The difference is that if we report the object, they will certainly have to involve us in the rest of the process, because we are the ones who know more about it than anyone else. At least at first. And if events develop rapidly, and I am almost certain they will, there won't be time to change horses in midstream. Apart from which, we are not just the men in the street, we are scientists, and space is our speciality."

  Shelby looked first at Steve, then at Clive, and asked:

  "Any questions?"

  "No," replied Clive.

  Steve simply shook his head.

  "Then let's go home. I need a good sleep and more importantly, so do you. I guarantee that as soon as the military learn of our find, they won't let us sleep any more. Now we have to decide about the apparatus, and then off to bed! Sleep as long as you can, and when you wake up, recheck if the object is continuing to react to pulses. If so, tell me and be on the alert. I bet the military will swing into action earlier than we think."

  At the Space Force base

  Shelby was sitting with an officer in a brightly lit room and relating the recent events. The Space Patrol officer, General MacQueen, was listening intently with a calm face as he drank cold sparkling water from a tumbler.

  "So, what you mean is that there is no doubt we are dealing with an intelligence of extraterrestrial origin?" asked MacQueen.

  "I would say with an extraterrestrial civilisation, yes."

  "What is the difference?"

  "We don't know anything about their origin."

  MacQueen nodded approvingly.

  "What else do you know about the object?"

  "Its approximate dimensions, shape and certain technical characteristics. I'll give the details to your technical personnel as soon as we arrive at the observatory."

  "Thank you, Professor. Is there anything else?"

  "May I ask you a question, General?"

  "Of course."

  "What do you intend to do?"

  MacQueen unhurriedly finished his drink, put the tumbler down on the table and looked at Shelby, who stared back at him. MacQueen calmly withstood the stare.

  "We shall observe the object in order to be ready for all possible ways that events might develop."

  "That was the answer I expected, but do you understand that we are not dealing with your usual probable enemy?"

  "Of course."

  "Don't misunderstand me, General. I am not questioning your competence or that of your strategists, but I am almost certain that you are ignoring one not unimportant detail."

  "What is that?"

  "The fact that the object may belong to a civilisation older than ours by hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. In principle, if we correctly understand the nature of the Universe, I see no reason to exclude a difference in age of the order of several billion years."

  "You mean that we are incapable of influencing the course of events. Am I interpreting your train of thought correctly?"

  "That is one of a large number of possibilities. If the extraterrestrial civilisation is sufficiently far ahead of us in its level of technical development, and has hostile intentions, then yes. But I think this possibility improbable. No, I mean something else."

  "What then?"

  "I think they are not hostile. And this is the very case in which we are the side which determines the course of events."

  "At the beginning of our conversation you said you know precisely nothing about the aliens, and now you think they are friendly?"

  "We were discussing facts. There is a considerable difference between facts and their interpretation. I, as a scientist, make a clear distinction between them, and if I am asked about facts, I don't mix them up with my conclusions. The facts are objectively true, but my conclusions could be wrong. You asked me what facts I knew, and I answered that question honestly. Now that we are talking about the interpretation of these facts, I can make so bold as to assert that the object has most likely been sent to us with peaceful intentions."

  "I am listening to you with interest, Professor."

  "Let us consider how the object arrived," Shelby leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "From the very beginning, they have not concealed their presence. Firstly, they were moving with acceleration. Knowing that our civilisation has conquered near-Earth space, it can be confidently stated that we are making automatic observations of space objects with the aim of ensuring flight safety. Thus, any strange object moving at acceleration will be detected almost immediately. Which is in fact what happened. Secondly, the object cut through the upper layers of Saturn's atmosphere at a colossal speed, keeping its structure intact, which from our point of view is virtually impossible, at least for any heavenly bodies known to us. Thirdly, the object was caught by Jupiter's gravitational field and became its satellite. This is quite an improbable event, considering its trajectory. Thus, the object behaved in such a way that our attention was drawn to it immediately. If the intentions of the extraterrestrial civilisation are hostile, why behave so noticeably and thus lose the advantage of surprise?"

  "If you are hunting bear with a spear, the advantage of surprise is vital to you. But if you have an orbital bomber at your disposal, there is no point in playing hide-and-seek," MacQueen answered calmly.

  "I agree. You believe this was a demonstration of capabilities. But if I want to frighten an enemy to death, it is much more effective to put a pistol to his head than to threaten him from a distance, wouldn't you say?"

  MacQueen could only nod in agreement.

  "To sum up: the object has been trying to flag its presence from the very beginning. Then it 'dropped anchor' on one of the outer planets outside the asteroid belt; that is, far enough away not to make us nervous, but close enough for convenience of communication. After that, it cautiously let us know that it wanted to get in contact with us. I am definitely inclined towards the peaceful hypothesis."

  "What if it's just waiting for reinforcements?"

  "General, I am sure that you have all sorts of things in your arsenal, but I doubt that you could withstand an object capable, for demonstration purposes, of entering the dense layers of Jupiter's atmosphere at sub-light speed and remaining whole and unharmed. It doesn't need reinforcements. And what's more, the object is capable of reaching speeds unattainable to us; we simply couldn't catch up with it! And let us not forget that it came in from outside the Solar System at relatively low speed. It only started accelerating inside the system. The question arises: why did it travel through interstellar space at such a low speed when it could move so much faster?"

  "You believe it started from some kind of space base?"

  "Maybe. Or maybe a thousand other possibilities. You have to understand that we do not know who we are dealing with, so we can't even tell which possibility is fantasy and which is real. For this reason I consider that to take any kind of measures, such as bringing forces to combat readiness, would be problematical. We could provoke them."

  Shelby then continued calmly: "My personal opinion is this. Our guests are far ahead of us in development, and as society develops, morality becomes more humane, if I can put it that way. Of course, from our point of view, we know only one case, namely that of our own civilisation. But however that may be, whether they are humane or not, they may have specific instructions for various cases. Including the case of us behaving aggressively. Are you confident that you will not provoke the application of some unfavourable instruction if you start general mobilisation? On the whole I think you are doing the right thing, we can't just wait around doing nothing, but we must keep it within the bounds of reason. Bear in mind that conflict with an extraterrestrial civilisation which is in advance of us in technology by hundreds, thousands, maybe more years, would be a disaster for us. We can only keep the initiative in t
his situation while negotiations in the language of diplomacy are taking place."

  The General listened in silence.

  "Have you ever seen how a mouse behaves when it is cornered?" he said after a pause. "I was able to see that once. It was in my weekend cottage. I was sitting at a table with friends, when I heard some kind of rustle. I went to investigate, and saw a mouse. I'll say at once that I didn't have any deep feelings about it; I decided to stamp on it and throw it out into the street. It turned out not to be that easy. I didn't think mice were so agile. But in the end I forced it into a corner. And do you know what it did? First it jumped up the wall, trying to hide, but there was nowhere. Then it turned round and started jumping at me. Can you imagine? I am six foot three and weigh over two hundred pounds, and the tiny mouse attacks me. And I retreated. Not because I was afraid, but because I didn't want the mouse to bite me. Who knows what disease it might have been carrying?

  "When I first met it, it would have been more convenient to stamp on it and throw it out onto the street, not caring if it lived or died, but after what had happened, it was simpler for me to drive it towards the door. So diplomacy is all very well, but if you are ready to fight to the end, even if you die, those who want to stamp on you in heavy boots become fewer."

  "Then let's consider this scenario. The aliens are much more developed than we are, we are just ants to them, insects on the floor. Our problems are of no concern to them. Let's base our judgement on the Copernicus principle, and on this basis let us assume that the alien society is divided into several groups. One group, the majority, is indifferent to us. A second group takes the decisions, as our politicians do. They act opportunistically, within certain bounds of decency. And there is a third group which has some interest in us, or our planet, or the Solar System. It might be resources, it might be living space, or maybe something else. We would call such interests 'big business'.

  "As has happened many times in history, such interests as a rule conflict with those of the indigenous peoples. In a humane society, trampling on the interests of the weak by the strong is criticised by the public and leads to widespread public protest. How do we behave in such a situation? We provoke a reaction from the natives which legitimates our invasion. And now imagine what could happen if as soon as aliens appear on the horizon, we mobilise our armed forces, including offensive weapons capable of destroying an entire planet. Remember we have used such weapons in the past, and almost used them in the context of Mutual Assured Destruction in the far-off twentieth century. Would this not be a reason to declare us to be savages, capable in furious rage of destroying everything around, including ourselves? Do you think we, pariahs from the point of view of the peaceful incomers, would be worthy of their sympathy? Imagine that the Maya people existed today as a developed civilisation, with all their cultural features. Could they, against the background of their human sacrifices, sadistic customs and contempt for human life, rely on the support of our liberal groups?"

  "Professor, I think you have made your point. We shall take your warning into consideration."

  "I very much hope so."

  Project: Dawn

  After a series of emergency conferences at Strategic Planning Headquarters, it became obvious that the Earth's armed forces were in no condition to oppose the military might of a civilisation from another planet if it were to be directed against them.

  The first problem was the deployment of the Earth's space forces. They were arranged in the best way for maintaining a peaceful life, and fulfilled the function of a police force rather than that of a classical army. The space forces were deployed to guarantee the safety of flights along the main transport routes, i.e. mainly in the plane of the Solar System's planetary orbits. If a