by Ian Douglas
“Nonsense!” Brody laughed. “Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 are 3,800 astronomical units apart! That’s way too far for there to be any problems like that!”
“Yeah, but how do you know?” McClure asked. “I mean . . . this is the first time we’ve been here. Maybe conditions here are different from what we expected.”
Brody looked mildly exasperated. “Look . . . Pluto is roughly 40 AUs away from the sun, okay?”
“If you say so . . .”
“And we know that from out there, our sun looks like a bright star. Maybe the brightest star in the sky, sure . . . about two hundred times brighter than the full Moon, actually, depending on where Pluto is in its year. But the two Zetas are almost a hundred times farther apart!” He pointed at the screen, where Zeta 2 showed a tiny bright disk, and Zeta 1 was a bright pinpoint off to the right. “See? That small one is Zeta 1. Just a bright star. You could see it in the daytime sky of a planet around Zeta 2, sure . . . but it would be, oh, say thirty times brighter than Venus is from Earth.”
“So not close enough to pass any heat to the planet, or raise the radiation levels, or anything like that,” Hunter said.
“Precisely! The two stars are so far apart that it takes two weeks for a beam of light to get from one to the other! No, if those conspiracy theorists claimed it was so bright because of two suns in the sky, they got it all totally wrong!”
“Huh,” Minkowski said. “Someone heard the system was a double star and just made all that stuff up, not knowing what it really looked like!”
“Interesting,” Hunter said. “I’d give a lot to know if the mistake was due to Agency disinformation.”
“More likely,” Callahan said, “it was because of CE3K.”
Hunter was puzzled. “What’s that?”
“The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Callahan explained. “You know . . . where a giant alien saucer lands at Devils Tower?”
“Oh, right,” McClure said. “Richard Dreyfuss! I saw that when I was seven! I loved that movie!”
“Right. It came out in 1977. The Serpo story first surfaced . . . I’m not sure, exactly. Early eighties, maybe? But well after CE3K. And in the movie, you’ve got ten men and two women going on board the alien mother ship, right? Dreyfuss’s character goes with them. The idea is that they’re part of an exchange program with the aliens’ home planet.”
“So . . .” McClure paused, looking puzzled. “Wait. Are you saying that Serpo is a hoax because they copied the story from the movie a little too closely? Or are you saying the movie was copied from what really happened, to kind of explain to people what was going on?”
Hunter laughed. “Jesus! Which one is easier to believe?”
“They, the conspiracy theorists, claim CE3K was part of a project to start gently disclosing what was really going on,” Callahan said, shrugging.
“I’ll go with Occam’s razor,” Hunter said. “The simplest explanation is probably the correct one.”
Brody nodded. “Given that the details of the story provided by the conspiracy theorists don’t jive with what’s actually out here . . .”
“So the idea that there are Gray aliens here,” Hunter said, grinning, “means it’s not Zeta Reticuli. It’s Zeta Rediculi!”
McClure laughed. “Looks that way,” she said.
“There’s also the age of these stars to consider,” Brody added. “We used to think these stars were part of what astronomers call the Zeta Herculis Moving Group. That’s a number of stars that share the same motion through the sky, which implies they were all born together, okay?”
Hunter and McClure both nodded.
“Astronomers can look at the spectrum of a star’s chromosphere and make a good guess at that star’s age. So it turns out that the members of the Zeta Herc group are all somewhere between six to eight billion years old.
“But then we took a closer look at Zeta Ret, and realized that both stars are dimmer than they ought to be for stars of their age and surface temperatures. The data suggests that Zeta Ret is only about two billion years old.”
“So?” Minkowski asked.
“So any planets in this system aren’t old enough for life to have evolved,” McClure put in. “Right, Doctor?”
“Exactly right. If the planets were six billion years old—that’s 1.5 billion years older than Earth, and there’s been plenty of time for life to evolve.”
“Right,” McClure said. “When Earth was two billion years old, there was life . . . but nothing more complex than bacteria and single-celled algae. Life on Earth didn’t make the transition to multicellular life until about two billion years later.”
“Hence,” Brody said, nodding, “no time for the evolution of advanced life-forms capable of building spaceships or hosting exchange programs with humans.”
“Just who told this Serpo story, anyway?” McClure wanted to know.
Callahan smiled. “He only gave the handle ‘Anonymous.’”
“Ah-ha!” Hunter exclaimed.
“Well, he wasn’t the only source of material about Serpo. Some high-ranking people in the military are supposed to have said it was all true. But . . . well, I guess you guys are right. When you look at it like that the whole story really doesn’t make much sense. I just . . . well . . . I kind of wished it would turn out to be true, y’know?”
“Good heavens, why?” Brody demanded.
Callahan sighed. “We have kind of two completely different pictures of the aliens and how we relate to them, okay? There are the fuzzy, happy, good-guy ‘space brothers,’ come to Earth to help us. And there’s the evil, dark aliens who abduct people and do nasty things to them. The Serpo story suggests we have a really good relationship with these guys, right? But, well, I guess maybe we don’t know them all that well, after all!”
Hunter watched the screen for a moment longer. Hillenkoetter was moving deeper into the system, moving closer to the star Zeta 2, but nothing appeared to move or change on the screen. It appeared . . . empty. Devoid of planets . . . devoid of life.
If there was a military target in there, it was not visible at the moment.
They needed to get eyes deeper inside the system if they were going to see what was there.
“CAG?” Groton said. “I’d like to get a couple of black triangles in close—just a few AUs out from that star.”
“Copy that, Skipper,” the voice of Captain Andrew Macmillan came back over the intercom. “We have two on ready-five.”
Groton glanced up at Vashnu, who was standing impassively beside his command seat. The Nordic had appeared just as Hillenkoetter emerged from FTL. Vashnu gave an almost imperceptible nod, as though bestowing his blessing.
“Do it,” Groton ordered. Technically, and according to regs, he commanded the Hillenkoetter while Macmillan commanded the fighter wing, both of them answering to Admiral Carruthers.
But in practice, Groton used the space wing as an extension of the Big-H, a tool for exploring their surroundings, a weapon for striking at enemies. Groton and Macmillan were both naval captains who worked together to carry out the overall mission under the admiral’s direction, but Groton was the senior, and the one who called the shots.
It was his ship, after all, a fact of which he was painfully aware.
“What are we looking for, Skipper?” Macmillan’s voice came back.
“I don’t know. Planets. Intelligence. Any sign of intelligent life at all, I want to know about it.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. We’ll see what we can find for you.”
Admiral Carruthers drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “Nothing,” he said, looking at the data relayed from Hillenkoetter’s bridge. “Nothing.”
“Were you expecting the Gray homeworld?” Elanna asked. She’d entered the flag bridge moments after Hillenkoetter emerged from FTL, a quiet, steadying presence.
“I was expecting something. Solar Warden Command sent us here, they must have expected something.”
“Not necessarily
,” the Talis said. Carruthers found himself lost in her large, dark blue, expressive eyes . . . slightly larger than those of most modern-day humans. “They wanted to confirm that the Grays and the Saurians do not have a presence here. As your government moves into Full Disclosure with your citizens, some of the myths could cause problems. Bumps in the road.”
“I can see that. Okay—you’re the time traveler,” Carruthers said, frowning. “Is there anything here we need to be concerned about?”
“Not of which we are aware, Admiral.”
“I don’t see anything but gravel, and a planet that couldn’t possibly harbor life.” His scowl deepened. He was far more concerned about what might be lurking at Aldebaran than he was about this system . . . and assets were being wasted on exploring Zeta Retic.
“Suppose I send part of my force out to Aldebaran now?” Carruthers asked the Talis. “You see a problem with that?”
“You would be splitting your forces, of course,” Elanna told him. “Is that wise?”
“In this case,” Carruthers said, “yes. Commander Johnson!”
“Sir!”
“Make to the Samford, the Carlucci, and the Blake. They are to detach from the task force immediately and deploy to Aldebaran. I want them to begin reconnaissance of that system, so that when Hillenkoetter arrives, they already have a clear picture of what’s there. They are not to engage with any hostile forces they may encounter, but wait for the Hillenkoetter’s arrival.”
“Yes, sir. And the Inman?”
“Inman will stay with us, operating in support. Pass the word to all vessels, with my compliments.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Hillenkoetter’s fighters should be able to handle anything they might encounter at Zeta Reticuli—not that such an engagement was seeming likely—but holding back one cruiser would be good insurance.
He also found himself wondering if he could trust the Talis standing beside him. She was beautiful, she was brilliant . . .
. . . but even if she was human, she seemed so very alien.
And he wasn’t sure she was telling him the whole truth.
Lieutenant David Duvall—call sign “Double-D”—strapped himself into the cockpit of the modified TR-3R. Similar in shape and overall appearance to the TR-3B shuttles, the second R in its designator stood for “recon” and identified the craft as one of Hillenkoetter’s long-range eyes and ears.
Where the 3B had room enough to transport a hundred or so people at a time, the smaller 3R was packed with high-tech sensor and communications gear. There were two cockpits, both cramped to the point of claustrophobia. His backseater, or radar intercept officer, was Lieutenant Tammy Bucknell; her job was running the electronics and performing the actual recon work, while Double-D sat up front and piloted the thing.
“TR-3R Alfa,” a voice said inside Duvall’s helmet. “You are free to cycle.”
“Copy that, PryFly,” he replied. PryFly, the primary flight control, was the equivalent of an airport tower, handling all flight deck operations. “Cycling to 10 percent.”
He brought the electrogravitic effect up in order to decrease the craft’s effective mass to just 10 percent of normal. They were sitting on a broad, flat, metal deck—Hillenkoetter’s primary flight deck—bathed in the harsh overhead spotlights that seemed to vanish into the recon craft’s ebon surface. The deck maintained a half gravity, the better to facilitate handling, prepping, and launching spacecraft, and he could feel his craft swaying slightly, eager to move. The spacecraft had been transported over a long rail embedded in the deck, a rail running straight for the enormous, open launch port a hundred meters straight ahead.
“You ready back there, Bucky?” he asked.
“Ready to rock’n’roll, Double-D! Let’s do it!”
“Anyplace, anytime, baby. PryFly, TR-3R Alfa is ready for launch.”
“Copy, Alfa. Inner screen is down. You are clear to launch at your mark.”
“On my mark, then, launch in three . . . two . . . one . . . and shoot!”
The flight bay blurred around him. Powerful electromagnetic forces hurled the craft forward down the launch rail.
The bay access port appeared to be wide-open to space, but that, of course, was an illusion. The port was blocked by not one but two magnetokinetic induction screens, force fields that kept the interior of the Hillenkoetter safely pressurized. With the inner screen temporarily switched off, only the outer screen stood between the spacecraft carrier and depressurization.
As the recon ship hurtled toward the port, the outer screen, under computer control, also went down. The spacecraft flashed past the threshold, and the outer screen switched on once more, the entire off-on sequence happening so quickly that there was no time for the air molecules to begin moving, no time for an explosive eruption into hard vacuum. The inner screen was there as a just-in-case. If the outer screen dropped and then failed to come on again, it would be very, very bad for the carrier.
Space exploded around TR-3R Alfa. Moving now at a kilometer per second relative to the Big-H, Duvall hurtled clear of the carrier. As big as it was, the Hillenkoetter very swiftly dwindled astern to a point of light—and then into complete invisibility—and the recon craft seemed to be hanging suspended in the ultimate night, unmoving, surrounded by the utter vastness of space.
“PryFly, Alfa,” he called. “We are clear of the ship.”
“Copy Alfa. Transferring you to CIC.”
“Roger that. CIC, Alfa. What’s our heading?”
“Alfa, CIC, you are cleared to proceed sunward, bearing one-one-seven by zero-three-two, over.”
“CIC, Alfa, sunward at one-one-seven by zero-three-two, roger that.”
“Good luck, Alfa. Bring us back a clear skies report.”
“Copy that. We’ll see what we can do.”
The TR-3R rotated in space until the local star was hanging directly ahead, then engaged her gravitics and accelerated. With mass nullification, the craft’s passengers were immune to the relatively low accelerations employed at launch. Under gravitic acceleration—essentially falling, with every atom of the spacecraft and its passengers falling at the same rate—they could boost at tens of thousands of gravities and not feel a thing.
It was a bit unnerving, however, to be accelerating at 1,500 Gs and still feel like they were hovering in place, unmoving.
So vast was the cosmos.
It gave them time to think.
David Duvall had been a Navy fighter pilot, driving an F/A-18F Super Hornet off the USS Nimitz. In 2014, he and his RIO had spotted . . . something in the skies off San Diego. It had been silver, it had been round, and it had maneuvered like nothing Duvall had ever seen, playing tag with Duvall and his wingman, Lieutenant “Duff” Cotter, for ten minutes before vanishing into a hard, blue sky at what the radar data claimed was an impossible twenty thousand miles per hour.
He’d been debriefed, of course . . . and then the two suits from DC had shown up and offered him a new assignment, one that would take him into space. McCally, his RIO, was married and had simply been sworn to silence. Both Duvall and Cotter, though, had ended up first at Groom Lake, and then on the Moon.
And now . . . shit. He was thiry-nine light-years from home, accelerating straight into God knew what.
“You okay back there, Tammy?”
“Sure thing, Boss. Nothing on our ears. Not yet.”
“Roger. Keep ’em peeled sharp, though. The scuttlebutt is that there could be hostiles out here.”
“I don’t doubt it. You could hide anything in all that crap out here!”
“I hear you.”
“Recommend bringing us to plus four,” Bucknell told him. “We’re a little too close to the crap layer.”
“Copy that.” He adjusted his controls to bring the recon ship a little farther from the cloud of debris. Even from just a few thousand kilometers, the debris field remained invisible. He did not want to fly into that.
“Recon Bravo reports they’re cl
ear of the Big-H,” Bucknell said.
“Copy,” said Duff Cotter. Somehow having his old wingman out there with them made the sky just a little less empty.
“Shit!”
“Whatcha got, Buck?”
“I have no idea, Boss! But it’s big—huge! And it’s headed straight for us! Recommend changing course to—”
And then all hell broke loose.
Chapter Fifteen
Houston, this is Discovery. We still have the alien spacecraft . . . uh . . . under VFR. (Visual Flight Rules.)
CDR John Blaha, commander of Space Shuttle Discovery, 1989
30 March 1981
Kammler moved like an automaton—which in a very real sense, he was. Ssarsk was riding him, riding his mind, controlling his actions directly.
And there was nothing he could do to shake the alien off.
Of its own accord, his right hand slipped inside the pocket of his cheap suit jacket, touching the grip of the .38 snub-nosed revolver there. God . . . if he could cry out . . . if he could turn and run . . .
But he could do neither.
He was in Washington, DC, standing in a large crowd outside the rear entrance to the Washington Hilton Hotel. It was 2:25 in the afternoon, and someone important, he gathered, was coming out of the hotel within the next few moments. A black limousine had just pulled up on the street outside the hotel.
It was 2:26.
I don’t want to do this! he screamed in his mind.
You, who have killed so many? He could hear scorn in Ssarsk’s mental voice.
Not here! Not like this! There are policemen over there! I’ll be killed!
That is irrelevant. In any case, you are not the only shooter here. We will direct the one of you who has the best chance of success. Perhaps you will live.
