by Russell Fine
Jeffery thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Okay, move your ship. Commander Murphy and I will go there.”
It only took a few minutes for the alien ship to move close to the Star Rover.
Jeffery thought he should ask something before they went over to the alien ship so he turned on the transmitter and asked, “I assume the environmental conditions on your ship are satisfactory for us?”
The voice replied, “Yes, the atmosphere on our homeworld is almost identical to that of your Earth. We have two percent less nitrogen and two percent more oxygen. We keep the temperature on our ship at about twenty degrees centigrade, of which, I am sure, will be comfortable for you. I am looking forward to meeting you.”
Jeffery said, “We’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then he asked Debbie, “Are you okay with this?”
“Absolutely! I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment. Let’s go!”
The voice said, “Please approach our ship from the port side. When we see you, we will open a large door and you can fly your shuttle inside. As soon as your shuttle has landed, we will close the door and pressurize the docking bay.”
Jeffery said, “Okay,” and turned to Mike. “You’re in command while we’re gone. I’ll leave my com unit on so you can listen to what’s happening. If you feel we’re in any danger I want you to leave here and go back to Earth immediately. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” Mike responded, although he looked like he would rather not obey this particular command.
Jeffery and Debbie left the bridge and headed for the shuttle bay. When they arrived, they got into the shuttle and Debbie said, “I’ll be recording this whole thing.”
“Good idea.”
They left the shuttle bay and headed to the alien ship. It was probably three or four times the size of the Star Rover. When they were two hundred yards away, a large opening appeared on the side. Jeffery flew the shuttle slowly into the bay and landed gently. As soon as the shuttle settled, the opening closed and he could hear the area outside pressurizing.
Jeffery noticed something and he said to Debbie, “There’s gravity here. They must’ve figured out how to create artificial gravity without using centripetal force. I have to ask how they did it.”
Almost as soon as the subtle sound of the pressurization stopped, there was a knock on the shuttle door. Jeffery opened the door and saw his first alien.
It was a female, about 5 foot 8 inches tall, slender build, black hair, bright green eyes, and her skin was a light tan. She looked human except for her hands. They were somewhat larger than normal and her fingers were probably an inch longer than would have been normal for a human. She was wearing a light green uniform. She smiled and said in a soft voice, “Hello, my name is Brealak. I will be taking you to see Garlut. He is our captain. Please follow me.”
Jeffery and Debbie followed Brealak out of the bay and into a long hallway. They walked about a hundred feet down the hallway; Brealak put the palm of her hand on a sensor and an opening appeared in the wall. They went inside and saw a large table with at least a dozen chairs around it. There was a man seated, but when they walked in he stood up. He was very tall, at least six-foot-five, slender build. He was obviously much older than Brealak; his hair was gray, and his face was somewhat wrinkled. He was neatly dressed in a light blue uniform and had a perfect smile. He said, “My name is Garlut. I am very pleased to meet you both. Please sit down. Would you like some water?”
“No thank you. Commander Murphy and I are pleased to meet you too. We have a lot of questions,” Jeffery said.
“Before you start asking questions, which I will be happy to answer, I would like to explain some things to you. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes . . . If we seem a little nervous it’s because we’ve never met an alien before. I hope you don’t find the word ‘alien’ offensive.”
“The word is fine. We are from a planet we call Coplent. It is twenty light years from here. There are more than five hundred inhabited worlds in this section of the galaxy. My job is to keep watch on twenty-one of those planets with developing civilizations. Earth is one of those planets. This job is inherited; my family has been doing it for over fifteen hundred years, but we only started watching Earth a thousand years ago. I have been doing this for seventy-five years, and I will soon retire. When I do so my daughter, Brealak, whom you have already met, will take over.
“When we first started watching Earth we were not very careful about hiding our shuttles. The people of Earth frequently saw them. That is probably the reason there are paintings and descriptions of them in your ancient literature. However, we never had any interactions with anybody on Earth. In fact, our ships rarely landed, and when they did it was in remote areas that were devoid of people. You are the first people from Earth we have ever spoken to.
“We realized it was necessary for us to be more careful about being seen as the people of Earth began to increase their scientific knowledge. I do not think one of our ships has been seen for more than two hundred years. Also, I want you to know we are not responsible for the stories about ‘flying saucers,’ because none of our ships are saucer-shaped.”
“Part of my job is to make first contact with civilizations when they become capable of interstellar space travel. We have been watching Earth more carefully since you started the regular flights to Ganymede. We were very surprised it took you only twenty years to learn how to travel faster than the speed of light. For most civilizations that process usually takes a few hundred years. Now that you have that capability, we would like to establish a relationship with you. Every culture has unique things to trade, and so we have built relationships all over the galaxy based on trade.”
“Did you take the probe we put on Ganymede?” Jeffery asked.
“Yes, we did take the probe, although we intended to have it back before you realized it was gone. Unfortunately, we were unable to return it in time. Your probe had a unique source of electrical power we have never seen before and we took the probe so we could study it. If you want the probe back I would be happy to return it to you. Before you ask, we also took one of the power units from your ship during your last mission. However, we did not board your ship. We have a device similar to something I have seen in your television stories. It is a type of transporter, and it can be used over short distances to move objects from one place to another. Unlike your stories, it cannot be used for moving living things and its range is limited to five miles.”
“After your ship was placed into a time stasis field, we moved our ship to within two miles of yours. Then we used our device to move the power unit to our ship. We have tried to duplicate the technology, but so far, we have failed. The devices we make do not work. We would like to trade some of our technology for information on how to build these power units.”
Jeffery replied excitedly, “I’m sure we can do that. We haven’t been on your ship very long but as soon as we landed I was impressed that you have artificial gravity on your ship. I know that’s something we would like to have. The transporter would be very valuable as well. I believe you said there are more than five hundred planets with advanced civilizations in this part of the galaxy? Are they all humanoid? That is, do they look like us?”
“We have found all of the more advanced cultures have humanoid forms. In order to develop a civilization, a species must have the ability to make and use complex tools. That requires hands and fingers. There are a few planets with civilizations that have speech, but they are similar to dogs on Earth. They have a fairly complex language but are incapable of using tools so they cannot build the things they need to continue developing. We were surprised when we learned they have a basic understanding of farming and can grow some vegetables for food, but that is not a very difficult task.”
“Do all the humanoid people look the same?” Debbie asked.
“For the most part, yes. Some are taller, some are shorter, some have excessive amounts of hair, and others are almost complete
ly devoid of hair. Of course, all of them are mammals, but there are genetic differences too. Although you have only seen two of us, you may have noticed we are somewhat taller and slenderer than most people from Earth. I am certain you also noticed our hands are bigger and our fingers are longer than yours. But what is more important is that we have discovered as civilizations mature, they almost universally become more peaceful. Out of all the planets that have advanced cultures, only two are somewhat aggressive, and they are both more than one hundred light years from Earth.”
“You said your people never had any face to face contact with the people on Earth but did you ever consider intervening when we were about to do something stupid?” Jeffery asked.
Garlut smiled and said, “The only time we came close was at the end of what you called World War II. We typically only observe each planet for any extended length of time every ten years or so. Understand, when I talk about years, or any period of time, I am using Earth terms. On Coplent, our year is five hundred forty-one days, and each day is about thirty-one of your hours long. In 1935, we saw the development of the Nazi government in Germany and we were concerned it might lead to a global war that could have set scientific advancements back substantially. We returned almost ten years later and discovered the war had occurred and was nearing a conclusion. We were astounded that scientific advancement had reached a point we didn’t think was possible to achieve in that time span. When we discovered the United States had developed atomic weapons we considered intervening, but decided against it since we felt if the weapons were used at all, it would only be to end the carnage. I do not know if you were aware of this, but if Germany had not been defeated in early 1945 they probably would have had atomic weapons by the fall, and we did not think they would hesitate to obliterate most of the major cities in Europe. I do not think we would have allowed that to happen.”
Jeffry said, “I’m curious. You mentioned you were surprised at how quickly we developed interstellar space travel. Did we do it right?”
“Yes, your approach to the problem was correct. The only way to travel interstellar distances is by what you call wormholes. However, I suspect you will discover there are ways to increase the speed through the wormholes. We can now travel more than five hundred times faster than light, and I’m certain you will achieve that too in the coming years. But there are other things besides speed that is important for interstellar travel. One of them you have already noted was artificial gravity, and the other technology is the ability to create food from almost anything organic. We have a device that can create edible, and I might add tasty, food by breaking down molecules of any organic material into its component parts and recombining them into food. Basically, everything on our ships is recycled, so we only have to carry minimal supplies.”
Garlut paused while Debbie and Jeffery took this in. Then he continued, “One thing we have not been able to create is a communication system that allows radio signals to travel faster than light. So, like you, we are unable to communicate with our home planet in any useful way. We have been working on possible solutions for probably more than a thousand years and we have made very little progress. If the people on Earth could resolve that problem, the entire galaxy would be in your debt.
“I believe it is time for us to meet the people of Earth. I would like to go back to Earth with you because we do not want to alarm anybody. Would that be acceptable to you?”
“Yes, I think that would be fine, but first I’d like to continue our survey of the Gliese 876 system.”
“I can tell you there is nothing remarkable about this system. There are no lifeforms on any of the five planets, but if you want to continue your research, please do so. If you decide to do that, we will stay here until you are ready to return to Earth. Would you like to take a tour of our ship?”
Jeffery answered, “I think we’d both like that very much. Also, I’d like to invite you and any of your crew members who’d be interested to come to our ship. I know the people on our ship would like to meet and talk with you.”
“I would be pleased to come over to your ship and meet with your crew and passengers.”
“Perfect. I want to call my ship and fill them in on the details of our meeting.” Jeffery took his com unit off his belt, pressed a button, and said, “Parker.” A few seconds later he heard
Mike say, “I’ve been listening. It sounds like everything’s okay.”
“Yes, everything’s fine. We’re going to take a tour of their ship and then we’ll come back. We had a very interesting conversation. I’ll call you again after our tour.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“I’m curious, how many crew members do you have on your ship?” Jeffery asked Garlut.
“We have sixty-five crew members. We do not have any guests because our missions are typically several years long.”
“The presence of guests aboard the Star Rover was supposed to be a secret. How did you know we have guests?”
“I told you we monitor almost all of NASA’s communications. I think we knew about your guests before you did.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” Jeffery admitted with a chuckle. “We’re ready for our tour anytime.”
I will ask Brealak to give you the tour. When would you like me to visit your ship?”
Jeffery looked at his watch and said, “How about eight hours from now? Do you want me to send our shuttle to pick you up?”
“That is the only way it would work. Our shuttle is about twice the size of yours and would certainly not fit into your shuttle bay.”
“Perfect. I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave. Our shuttle will hold twelve people, so if you want to bring anybody else, please feel free.”
“I will ask my crew. I am certain Brealak will accompany me, and I will ask our chief engineer to come as well.”
At that moment Brealak walked into the conference room. Jeffery was confused because he never saw Garlut call her. Garlut noticed his confusion and said, “We have developed some simple forms of what you call telepathy. We can communicate commands like ‘come,’ ‘stop,’ ‘help,’ and a few others. It is very useful.”
“I’m sure it is,” Debbie said.
“Brealak, please take our guests on a tour of the ship and answer any questions they have. If you do not know the answer, ask Quat to help you. Make the bridge the last stop on your tour.”
“Yes, sir.”
As they left the conference room, Jeffery asked, “Who is Quat?”
“Quat is our chief engineer. He knows more about this ship than anyone else. I doubt you could ask a question he could not answer.”
“Your English is perfect. I have no idea how you could do that without practice speaking to other people. I speak two other languages, but it took years to learn them,” Jeffery said.
“I think our species has a natural talent for learning languages. Our native language is very difficult. It has ninety-two letters and twenty-one vowel sounds. If you can learn to speak that, other languages are easy. Our children are typically fluent by the time they are two years old, and they can read by the time they are four. Je parle aussi le français.”
“Moi aussi, mais je préfère parler en anglais.”
Understood. I will speak English. Is there anything, in particular, you would like to see?”
“No, I’m enjoying just looking around at your obviously advanced technology,” Jeffery said.
For the next hour, Brealak took Jeffery and Debbie to every part of the ship. They looked at the engine room, the medical facility, typical crewmen’s’ quarters, the dining room, the recreation room, and finally the bridge.
When they arrived on the bridge there were four people on duty, including Garlut. Each crewman was seated at a desk that had at least four screens on it. The data on the screen was obviously in their native language, so it was impossible for Jeffery or Debbie to have any idea what they were looking at, but it was impressive.
G
arlut said, “Each operator position in this room is capable of controlling everything on the ship.”
Jeffery said, “You said you used your transporter to remove the power module from our ship. Does that mean you can see inside it?”
“Yes, we have a device that generates a signal that can penetrate the hull of your ship and allow us to see inside. It is not a perfect view, but there is enough resolution to easily make out shapes and even read large printing.”
“Is it harmful to living things?” Debbie asked, a frown of concern on her face.
“No, it is not harmful unless the exposure lasts for several hours. It also has a very narrow beam, three feet in diameter. That is why it took us so long to locate the area where power units were stored. If we knew where to look we could have found it very quickly and you may never have known about the time stasis field. Did you like our ship?”
“It was very impressive. The Star Rover hardly compares to this ship. But it’s our first interstellar ship, and based on the technology available to us it’s perfect.”
“I completely agree with you. It is excellent for a first interstellar ship. We would like to give you some of our technology to use on the next ship, and we would like Earth to join our trading association. I think it would be beneficial for everybody.”
“Given everything you know about us, I’m sure you’re aware I’m in no position to accept or reject your offer. We have a World Council, and that would be their decision. But, I don’t see any reason why they’d reject your offer to join the trading association. Does that mean there would be aliens on Earth?”
“Yes, some of the planets in the group will want to establish offices on Earth, or perhaps even embassies with a permanent staff. If you are ready to go back to your ship, Brealak will take you back to the shuttle landing area now.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a most gracious host,” Jeffery said. Then he looked at his watch and added, “The shuttle will be here to pick you up in six hours. I’ll call you first to let you know we’re coming.”
