"No,” Jeri grinned, “more like with Coke-bottle glasses."
We both laughed.
* * * *
Jeri and I met up about once a day to discuss the possibility of our propulsion system leaving a trail, but Jeri wasn't an expert on the prop, and I knew a hell of a lot less, so we didn't get very far.
Within about two days, however, the captain's promised com links to our office and cabin screens had all been installed. I checked up on the external schematic once and it looked pretty much the same as the last time I'd seen it in the control room. Neither the captain nor his XO contacted me for several days, despite the new links. I guess they figured if we had anything to tell, we'd call, and vice versa.
About five days after the link was installed, I checked on the external schematic again. The alien icon was missing, of course. Like Jeri said, our instruments didn't work while out of the universe as we know it. Captain Becker had kept the speed just as it was, though. If the Snapper ship was the same one that had somehow followed us before, he wanted us to get as far ahead of it as possible before coming out of unreality and entering the normal universe again. On the tenth day after the fight, the power gauge went back to red and stayed there, then began blinking rapidly, telling us the ship couldn't stand the strain much longer.
I heard all that from one or another of the crew but I was present at the end. Becker had ordered Jeri and me to the control room.
Captain Becker's face was streaked with the dried residue of old sweat and marks his hands had made as he wiped his face. He had hardly left the control room the whole long time of the chase, as if not trusting his ship to hang together under the stress if he was not present.
Finally, when the red light began blinking frantically and Prescott's hands were shaking where he was clutching his knees, the captain gave the order.
"Bring the drive down to normal."
"Aye, sir. Normal it is,” Prescott said, relief evident in his voice.
Once we were back to a sensible speed, Captain Becker dropped the ship out of unreality in order to see if the Snapper ship had followed us.
That creepy-crawly sensation of entering or leaving unreality was worse than ever when it came down after that horrific red-line speed run. I felt my gorge rise. Maddie did vomit. Even Jeri looked sick, what I could see of her through my blurred vision.
When coming out of superluminal unreality a ship will always wind up at the nearest gravity well, no matter how far away. We entered a star system of a white dwarf sun about 48 light years from the site of the second clash with the Snappers.
When they didn't appear after we'd waited two days, we again entered unreality—this time at our normal cruising speed, just under a light year per hour—and went on with the search for Cresperia. It was even more urgent that we find them now. We needed to warn them and we needed their technology to build better weapons in case the Snappers found us.
And three weeks later and almost 360 light years away from our last stop, we came out of unreality near a G type star. Again that creepy-crawly, nausea-inducing sensation enveloped everyone in the control room except Jeri, including the captain. I was there by request in my capacity as chief science officer for each new system we entered. Major James Henry, the operations officer, was present as well. It was the first time I met him. We all watched the screen as Maddie searched the “life zone” where earthlike planets might be found. We were lucky and came out near the ecliptic and near the orbit of a planet that was on the same side of the sun as us, offset by only about 30 degrees.
"It looks like a good one from here,” Maddie said a little later. She outlined it in the battle tank in relation to another two planets she'd spotted.
"Com."
"Captain. Go,” Becker said as he looked toward one of his screens.
"Sir, we have emissions indicative of high technology,” Major Eleanora Wisteria, the electronics officer said, so calmly that her Swedish accent was barely detectable. I could see her in the little alcove she worked from. She had a big grin on her plump, pretty face.
That was when I heard Jeri make a noise, saying something in the Crispy language. Her hyperacute hearing must have tapped into one of the low level com bands Eleanora was playing with.
"Captain!"
"What is it, Jeri?” He caught the excited tone in her voice but you'd never know it from his face.
"Sir ... sir, we have arrived at Cresperia. This is my home system."
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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
What a wild coincidence! Of course we were searching for the Cresperian planet, but the way we found it almost at random while running from a ship full of horrible aliens strained credibility. Nevertheless, that's what happened.
What we were getting was leakage from normal communication to and from satellites or some of the moons of the Jovian planet in the system. Jeri had told us that the Crispies had long ago moved most of their industry into space, farther back in time than they had records for. They don't dwell nearly as much on history as humans do, we had been told.
Jeri stayed in the control room while we headed for the main planet. At the speed we were traveling inside the system we were about six hours away.
Four hours later we got the first bad news.
"Com."
"Captain. Go."
"Sir, I just picked up something from orbit that sounds more like an Earth language than what the Crispies use."
"Jeri?"
She listened for a moment, being the best linguist in the ship by far. “Sir, I believe what we're hearing is the Hindi language. It appears that India beat us here."
Shit. What a stupid damn mess! Now what were we supposed to do?
"Continue present course,” Captain Becker decided. “Maddie, unless told otherwise, place the ship in a stable orbit, say about 300 klicks. Eleanora, continue monitoring and record. Play any more Hindi for Jeri to listen to."
"Aye, aye, sir,” they both answered.
"And Jeri, you may begin trying for official contact with the Cresperian government."
"It's not really a government as you know it on Earth, sir."
"Whatever. Make contact with whoever can make decisions."
Jeri looked troubled, but brought up the contact protocol prepared by the American diplomatic service. She examined the first bit of text and videos the State Department had prepared for her and shook her head.
"Sir, if I may, I'd like to ... paraphrase the protocols. The ones who recorded this were under a good many misconceptions. I'm sorry I wasn't consulted."
Becker smiled wryly. “I am, too. Go ahead, Jeri. I should have shown the protocols to you before now but ... things happened. Do it however you think best."
Good for him. He had enough sense not to stick to actions dictated from Earth by people who knew nothing of Cresperians, which is not to say it might not work in other instances. I must say, however, it had done no good with the Snappers, according to General Haley.
She began broadcasting but spoke for only a few minutes. “I'll really have to do this in person and merge my perceptive sense with some of the elders before it will mean a lot to them. That depends on how long the Indian ship has been here, of course. They may have already set up a dialog, but this will possibly get us started."
Becker nodded, obviously considering the implications of the Indian ship. I sure didn't have a clue what we'd do about it.
Before Jeri had an answer, the second piece of bad news reared its ugly head.
"Com."
"Captain. Go. Never mind, I see it. Damn them to hell and back!"
Startled, I glanced up from some notes I was perusing. The captain never used profanity in the control room. At the edge of the battle tank the Snapper icon became visible again. They had followed us despite all we could do. Now what?
I began running all the possible permutations of the situation through my mind. We could wind up with two factions of Crispies at odds with each other and one of them fee
ling the same way about us. The Crispies might decide that converting to humans wasn't in their best interests and throw us and the Indians both off the planet. The Indians may have bad-mouthed us all over the planet and we wouldn't even get permission to land. The aliens might invade and conquer Cresperia while their slow-motion society was still debating what to do. The aliens might follow us home and invade Earth. They might invade both systems at the same time. The Crispies on Earth might try gaining enough power to tell us what to do. Earth nations might start fighting each other over Crispies instead of cooperating in fighting aliens. And on and on.
It wasn't just a mess. It was the biggest FUBAR in history, maybe the biggest the human race had ever faced and most of them didn't even know it yet. It made me glad I wasn't in Captain Becker's shoes.
* * * *
Just as we were entering orbit, Jeri made contact with one of the faction of Crispies who had initiated space exploration. She talked for almost an hour. She remained calm but I could see the strain on her face from some sort of problem. So could everyone else, including the captain. He kept one eye on her and the other on the battle tank. So did the other officers and I. After emerging from unreality, the Snapper ship had slowed, but was still gradually creeping nearer, toward the Cresperian home planet.
Commander Prescott arrived in the control room to stand his watch but the captain didn't depart, of course. There was too much of importance going on to leave it to his XO.
"We're in orbit, Captain,” Maddie announced.
"Thank you. Now go take a break. I'll let you know if we need you. XO, take the helm.” He did so.
Maddie signed out and left. She needed to get away for awhile. She had been in the control room far longer than I had.
Jeri was still talking, but apparently following other events at the same time. She smiled at me, then looked at the battle tank, over to the captain and back to the screen in front of her where a Crispy had appeared. They had somehow altered their communications, probably when the Indian ship arrived, so that we could receive voice and picture, not that any of us could follow their conversation. I had learned a little of it but it is complicated and many of their sounds can't be pronounced by ordinary humans.
"The alien ship is still slowing, sir,” Eleanora announced even though the captain had to be aware of it from the battle screen. “They have not attempted any form of communication I can register. I've also picked up what I think is the Indian ship. It's just now moving behind the planet."
"Thank you,” he said, nodding to her.
"Captain, there is a situation with the Indians—” Jeri was cut off by Prescott.
"Separation! Sir, the Snapper ship has detached a smaller one. It is moving toward us now."
"Thank you. XO, call battle stations. Jeri, you were saying?” He was as stolid as a rock and his voice never wavered while three different situations were demanding his attention and the call to arms was clanging in his ears.
"I said there's a situation that's not good with the Indians. According to the information I've received so far, the Hindu religion has possibly undergone a huge revival-like rejuvenation on Earth. At any rate, the crew of this ship believes utterly in it and claims they have an avatar of one of their gods with them."
"Is this important right now?"
"Yes, but it can wait until we see what the aliens are up to. The nasty aliens, I should say. The Snappers. I'm trying to make the old friends I contacted believe in the danger from them, but I'm having a hard time of it. They have seen what happened to at least one Crispy who is on the Indian ship and are being very ... hard to convince that there is another side to the conversion, a positive side."
She went back to her conversation. I would have given a lot to be able to follow it in real time but the most she could do was stop every now and then and interpret a bit of it for us. In the meantime, other things were happening.
"Two of the Crispy ships are moving toward the main Snapper ship now,” Eleanora announced.
"Those are unmanned freighters,” Jeri said. “I asked my friends to relay the information that only unmanned ships should approach the Snapper at first. They still don't believe me when I tell them the Snappers are not to be trusted, but they are doing that much. If the Snappers follow their usual pattern, they will attack those ships."
The nasty little bastards were smarter than we took them for. They ignored the freighters as if they knew they were harmless. They passed them and came on toward us, still not making any attempt at contact, either with us or the Cresperians, at least so far as we knew from our instruments, or Jeri knew from her conversations with the surface.
"XO, weapons free. If the Snapper ship continues on this course, take it out."
"Aye, aye, sir.” Prescott hovered over the techs who were handling the missile launch console and the laser cannon. Both of them were alert and ready to fire.
"That won't help you with the Crispies, sir,” Jeri said hurriedly. “We—they, I mean, their society doesn't care much for violence."
"I can't help who it annoys, Jeri. If that Snapper ship continues on its present course, I'm going to fire on it and I'll fire on the little one, too."
"The Indian ship is coming back into view, sir,” Eleanora said.
All kinds of good news. It had been on the other side of the planet for the last hour or so.
"Keep an eye on it. Jeri, anything more from the surface?"
"Yes, sir. They ask that you not fire on the new visitors and that you either land the ship or send down a tender with representatives. Personally, I wouldn't let those Snappers get much closer, sir. Firing on them won't hurt our chances with the Crispies much more than the Indians already have. And I would also keep an eye on the Indian ship, sir. They are not our friends."
He nodded to her and stared at the battle tank.
Maddie came back to the control room, responding to the call to general quarters. Her hair was tousled as if she had just jumped out of bed, which she probably had. Larry Morrison was right behind her.
Becker glanced at them and moved aside. “Maddie, give us a vector that will place us behind the Indians relative to the Snapper mother ship. Larry, take over from the XO and reset the laser cannon for anti-missile fire."
I couldn't figure out what he was doing at first. Then I got it and grinned. He was trying to maneuver so that the Indians were in the first line of fire of the Snapper auxiliary ship, supposing that was its intentions.
"I've seen clusterfucks before but this is ridiculous,” I heard him mutter. I know he said it. I was the closest person to him and the only one in the control room that didn't have an immediate duty to perform.
He saw by the expression on my face I must have overheard him. He let me see the tiniest of smiles cross his face and then he was all business again.
The Snapper auxiliary was now almost at rest relative to us, but going much faster in order to keep us in view as we orbited. The Indian ship began to break orbit, seeing what Captain Becker had done. The Snapper fired at it with a laser cannon, hitting it near the center, where the power core resided if it was anything like our little prototype ship had been. It had that same general shape, rather than looking like the Galactic or the Zeng Wu, as if they had taken—or stolen?—our original design and multiplied it by a factor of 20 or more. Chances were they didn't have access to ultra-miniaturization of electronics like we do, I decided. How in the world they'd managed to get this far without being a rich superpower nation either didn't bear thinking about, or was some kind of real tribute to human ingenuity. Or maybe both.
A spot on the Indian icon flared and died. The laser apparently did little damage, indicating the ship was well armored. I wondered if that was deliberate, or merely the result of cruder, heavy-duty manufacturing. The Indians poured on the power, then fired off a missile at the small auxiliary ship.
The same thing happened to their missile as the one we had shot at the big Snapper ship long ago. It disappeared well short of its
target. For some reason, I suddenly wondered if it was the same ship or a different one. And that led me to wonder if the second time we'd been attacked was from the first ship as well. Perhaps we'd inadvertently stumbled onto the edge of the Snapper Empire. I put the idea away for the moment.
"Damn, even those little buggers can do it,” Prescott muttered when the missile disappeared without a trace, just as when we'd fired on the Snapper mother ship.
Or a Snapper ship. I was still wondering.
But the Snapper auxiliary slowed after the missile shot. None of us had any idea why—it certainly hadn't hurt it, at least that we could tell. The Indians took advantage of its slowness and fired a laser cannon next. It punched far enough into the little ship for atmosphere to begin streaming. That got its attention! It turned tail and tried to run. Another beam from the Indian cannon hit it and it exploded in a cloud of debris.
"That was a heavy one, Captain. I don't think our laser is that powerful,” Larry said from the weapons alcove.
"Which says something about their intent, I suppose,” the captain decided grimly.
The main Snapper spaceship began retreating but the Indians didn't follow. I tensed, expecting them to come after us, but they simply returned to orbit just as they had been.
The Snapper ship retreated until it was barely within detection range. There it hung, just as if it knew what our limits were. When neither it nor the Indians had made an aggressive move after another 15 minutes, I relaxed.
"It looks to me as if they were testing us and the Indian ship both,” Loraine said. She blew at a tress of hair that had gotten loose; then, when that didn't work, brushed it back.
"I agree,” Becker said, then turned his head. “Jeri? Tell us about the Indians now that the action has slowed a bit."
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jeri raised a hand to indicate she was still conversing with the surface. She continued talking for a moment, then sighed.
"Is everything okay?” the captain asked.
"For the time being it is as well as can be, considering. Now about the Indians.” She paused for a moment as if gathering her thoughts. “How much do you know about the Hindu religion, Captain?"
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