The Contact Episode One Page 8

potential aggressor decided to strike a blow perpendicular to this plane, he would only meet resistance in the direct vicinity of the Earth, which would make the front line closer to the rear by a distance of several light seconds. Such distances, even for Earth's technology, meant a flight time to the planet's surface of only a few hours. But the object had covered such a distance in mere seconds.

  It was akin to the defence of cities in the Middle Ages. The ancient cities were defended around their perimeters by fortified walls and moats, which were a serious obstacle for cavalry and infantry. But they were absolutely undefended from the air. The defence was two-dimensional. In the third dimension, it simply didn't exist. The Earth's space forces were deployed in just such a way, in only two dimensions.

  The second problem was the method. Any military operation was based on the supposition that seats of conflict would arise intermittently, and the army would only come up against a weak enemy, inferior to its regular forces in numbers, level of technology and fire power. This was not surprising. The only enemies the space forces had had to face so far were poorly equipped robbers attacking cargo vessels, making piratical raids on interplanetary transport convoys, or, much less frequently, on remote bases and logistics hubs. A mass attack by a well equipped enemy against even a dozen strategic objects would be certain to break through the defences.

  The third problem was the structure of the space-based economy. It was highly capital-intensive and, as a result, it lacked reserve capacity. If one link in the economy were broken, it would affect the whole subsequent production chain. Even an enemy evenly-matched in fire power would easily be able to cause a breakdown in the functioning of the entire space-based economy by successfully attacking a few strategically important targets. The ensuing economic collapse would leave the fleet without fuel, and thus no longer fit for combat. Mankind's sphere of influence would soon shrink to near-Earth space within the Moon's orbit. However unpleasant it was for the military to admit it, after working through the various scenarios of a space conflict, there was no realistic chance of mankind keeping control of the sector of the Solar System it now had.

  Having reached such depressing conclusions, nothing remained but to try peaceful negotiations. Shelby was appointed chairman of the academic council tasked with entering into contact with the object. The military were only to act as advisers - at least while the negotiations remained peaceful. It was decided to keep the politicians away from active participation altogether; they were only present as observers.

  As for the rest of mankind, it was decided to keep the information about the intruder secret at this initial stage. All the world's observatories that had telescopes operating in the direction of Jupiter, and which might happen to come across the object, were put under the control of the military.

  Shelby was given the job of deciding as soon as possible on the list of scientists whose knowledge might be needed in the contact process, which was given the codename 'Dawn'. Shelby knew many relevant scientists personally, so he had no difficulty in compiling the list of people needed. Having decided on the fields of knowledge required for 'Dawn', he selected the specialists he required and gave the list to MacQueen, who had been ordered to oversee the project and provide whatever cooperation the scientists needed.

  MacQueen was a combat officer who had spent the greater part of his service in actual combat situations. He had no time for the political games of the staff officers. He viewed any project as a military operation, and the only thing that mattered to him was the effective fulfilment of the assignment. When he was ordered to be subordinate to Shelby in effect, he didn't give a second's thought to the fact that he was forced to take orders from a civilian. It was not in his nature. The main thing was to fulfil the assignment, everything else was secondary.

  On receiving the list from Shelby, MacQueen took a quick glance at the columns of names and the locations of those named, and just said curtly: "All the scientists will be on the base tomorrow evening, with the exception of one who is working in Mercury's orbit. It will take four days to fetch him."

  Shelby's choices for 'Dawn' included astrophysicists, biologists, mathematicians, chemists, information scientists, historians, and some from various applied sciences in fields more or less related to space. Among the mathematicians, the main role went to specialists in game theory. There were also several highly qualified doctors and veterinarians.

  As MacQueen had promised, with the one exception he had named, he had gathered all the people on Shelby's list and delivered them to the base by the evening of the next day. Shelby was to greet them that evening, and tell them what was going on, from the platform of the great hall (normally the location for various official events such as the presentation of awards, or farewells for high-ranking officers retiring on pension). Steve and Clive were also present.

  The hall was buzzing. Most of the scientists were quite eminent in their fields, so they almost all recognised each other. Seizing the moment, they tried to sound each other out about the reason for this mysterious occasion.

  The cover story they had been given was that this would be a conference to investigate whether or not to proceed further with a recent successful experiment in the remote manipulation of Mercury's orbital velocity, on which an urgent decision needed to be taken as the current delay was proving extremely costly. But the composition of the assembled company, which included many experts not obviously related to this particular subject, led them to suspect that it might be about something else.

  The remote manipulation experiment itself, like any other project on such a scale, had been thoroughly criticised from all possible angles. Some scientists warned that changing Mercury's orbit could cause disturbances in the orbits of other planets, which in the long term could destroy the balance of the entire Solar System, or at the very least cause gravitational disturbances in the asteroid belt outside the orbit of Mars, which would inevitably increase the risk of asteroid strikes for Earth.

  At the end of the 22nd century, although the threat of asteroid strikes had ceased to be a mortal danger for Earth, it was still a significant burden on the economy. The possibility of a considerable increase in the already high cost of defending against them was a weighty argument for those lobbying against the experiment.

  In the worst case, the Solar System might break up completely a few hundred years after the experiment. However, having remote manipulation technology available would enable the orbits of the planets to be corrected to prevent the break-up of the Solar System, if this should ever become a threat in the future.

  Others criticised the technology itself, which was not yet fully understood or even theoretically justified. Many parameters of the experiment were calculated by numerical methods, since an apparatus capable of producing an analytical solution had not yet been created. As a result, they had to make do with only approximate results.

  This was not the end of the list of potential problems. There were solid reasons for believing that the disturbances would not only affect matter within space, but also the space-time continuum itself. This would do away with the limit on the maximum speed of signal propagation to the speed of light in a vacuum, as postulated by the Theory of Relativity. In theory, the consequences of this experiment might be felt throughout the Universe, and simultaneously at any point in space, regardless of how far it might be from the epicentre of the disturbance.

  One group of theoretical physicists from Novosibirsk University even produced a well-constructed theory which did not exclude the possibility of the front of the disturbance to the space-time continuum also extending back in time. Hardly anyone took this purely theoretical work seriously; after all, even its authors kept repeating that it was based on an abstract mathematical model which had a multitude of solutions. Unfortunately they had no answer as to which of the solutions made physical sense, and which were only a mathematical abstraction.

  Steve and Clive were certainly the youngest among the scientific community present in the ha
ll, and were without any academic regalia, which was why they were also the only ones sitting shyly alone in their chairs awaiting Shelby's speech. They were somewhat abashed to find themselves in the company of such stars of science.

  Unlike Clive, Steve couldn't wait to make use of the situation and start a conversation with someone. It was not every day that ordinary students were given the opportunity to find themselves in the same building with such a large number of Nobel Prize winners.

  Steve had noticed that Professor Cohen, the theoretical physicist who had discovered the possibility of remote manipulation, was sitting not far from him. Steve hesitated for a few moments, gathering his nerve, and was just about to get up from his seat and go over to Cohen to start a conversation, when Shelby entered the hall, went on stage, tuning in his microphone as he went, and got down to the matter in hand.

  "Esteemed colleagues, please take your seats."

  "Damn!" thought Steve bitterly. "Another opportunity lost."

  There had been other occasions in Steve's life when he had missed opportunities in the same way only to deeply regret it. The last occasion had been last week, when, on his way home, he happened to meet Maggie, a student in the biology faculty. A few semesters back, they had both been on the same course of lectures in the university, so they knew each other slightly.

  Maggie had just come back from her parents', where she stayed on her days off. She had two large bags in her hands, which looked as if they weighed a ton. Steve gallantly offered to help her carry them. Maggie gladly accepted. It was only a few minutes' walk from the bus stop where they had met to the door of the student hostel where Maggie lived. They walked at a slow pace, chatting freely. Steve was in a great mood, joking, and Maggie was laughing merrily, sometimes throwing her head back. Steve spent those few moments gathering the courage to ask her to join him for a coffee, but then the door opened and out came Becky, Maggie's neighbour. Seeing the two of them, she at once butted in on the conversation and began complaining to them about some petty problem or other. Maggie's attention switched to Becky. The moment was lost.

  Steve slumped in his chair in self-disgust. Why was he such a slowcoach at times when it mattered?

  Shelby waited till the hall quietened down. Then he made a sign to the computer on the podium. The curtains behind his back began to open slowly, revealing a huge display screen. Against a dark blue background, it showed the words: "Project Dawn".

  "Esteemed colleagues," Shelby began. "A few days ago, our observatory discovered an unusual object flying towards the centre of the Solar System..."

  There was absolute silence in the hall. Those present listened with bated breath. Shelby spoke clearly and to the point. In a few words, he described the situation which had arisen, and without testing the patience of his listeners, concluded:

  "There is no doubt that we are dealing with a civilisation from another planet."

  After this sentence, Shelby stopped for a short pause to allow his listeners to think about what he had said and to ask questions. But the hall remained silent. Then he made another gesture to the computer. A visualisation of the object's flight from the moment of its detection to its entry into the orbit of Jupiter appeared on the screen.

  Knowing that those in the hall included not only astronomers, but also scientists quite unaware of space matters, Shelby went on to explain the technical aspects of the object's story.

  "I ask you to turn your attention to the speed of the object. As I already said,