Analog SFF, April 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He pointed to the silvery metal transceiver resting in front of the president. “Perhaps they're eager to share their own religious and philosophical insights into the meaning of existence with us. Beings capable of this level of technology may be as intellectually and morally advanced above us as we are from Homo habilis."

  Lewis's eyes peered out into the misty distance through thick lenses. “Or perhaps, as those beings gazed up at a clear night sky into the vast silent Universe, they felt a great melancholy emptiness within them. The information they sent may have been like a message in a bottle, tossed out into the vast ocean of space with a prayer that somewhere, someone they could call ‘friend’ would find it and let them know that they were not alone. This device they taught us to build could be a ‘laptop of loneliness,’ the instrument by which they hope we'll answer their plaintive plea for companionship.”

  The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff grunted. “That sounds fishy to me. I think it could be the worm on a fishing hook—the bait for a trap!”

  He squinted acidly at Lewis. “If we follow your suggestion, we could be letting immensely powerful and hostile creatures know we exist and where Earth is. Their ‘answer’ might be a fleet of flying saucers and armies of death ray-wielding robots dropping out of the sky over our cities!”

  The president stared at her general, worried about his taste in movies and recreational reading material—and unsure whether he was really serious. After deciding she'd rather not know if he was, she replied, “While that possibility seems a bit ... remote, I must consider every ramification of making what Dr. Lewis calls ‘first contact.’ Earlier in this meeting you all heard him describe the many potential advantages of beginning a dialogue with these aliens.

  “Besides the religious and philosophical insights he just alluded to, they may provide us with practical solutions to many of the problems facing our world today. If they really could help us solve the energy and environmental crises we face, provide us with the medical knowledge to live longer and healthier lives, and teach us how to coexist in harmony with each other, then this device might indeed be our salvation.”

  A disapproving voice along the side of the table interjected, “Or those same ‘benefits’ could wreck our economy!”

  The secretary of the treasury continued, “Say these hypothetical aliens send us information about cheap, safe energy sources that eliminate our current dependence on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power. That could make millions of workers in those industries lose their jobs and destroy the value of some of our largest corporations!

  “Or if the aliens told us how to cure cancer or heart disease so people lived longer, the money we'd save by spending less on healthcare might be far outweighed by the greater amounts we'd pay in Social Security and other benefits to recipients who would now be living many more years than we've planned for! I know this sounds harsh, but we don't want to unintentionally cause more harm than good.”

  The secretary of defense nodded his perspiring brow. “For all we know the aliens really might want Earth's nations to get along better with each other—but for their own ends. The aliens could want us to reduce military spending so we'll be less prepared to defend ourselves when they attack!”

  The secretary of state looked at her colleague dubiously. “I won't even guess what the aliens might do, but I am concerned about the threats some of our fellow humans are making. While the public may still be in the dark about Dr. Lewis's discovery, rumors of what's going on have leaked out to several of our allies and a few unfriendly powers. They're all demanding we give them a full account of what we know and plan to do.”

  The vice president nodded. “It's risky to either stall them or share our information with them. Their greatest fear seems to be that we'll acquire technological knowledge from the aliens that would give us such a tremendous economic and military advantage that our country could unilaterally dominate the world. If they thought we'd learned how to build advanced weapons of mass destruction like the flying saucers and rampaging robots the general described, even our so-called allies might feel justified in a preemptive military strike against us before we could deploy those weapons.”

  He turned a troubled look at the president. “No matter what you decide, it's going to be a diplomatic nightmare convincing other governments we're being open and honest with them. Maybe Dr. Lewis's device won't even work. Perhaps the aliens we contact won't share their scientific secrets with us. The problem is—will any of those governments believe anything we say about what happens here today?”

  The president bit her lower lip, deep in thought. She said, “If this device works, we could let those other nations know how to build their own. Then they wouldn't have to be afraid we had a monopoly on knowledge they think could threaten them.”

  The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff shook his head vigorously. “Even if we don't use any information the aliens give us for military purposes, our enemies probably won't be so scrupulous. We don't want to hand them a tool they could use to build superscientific weapons and destroy us!”

  Lewis said, “Even if you decide not to share the plans for the transceiver, there are SETI programs in other countries that could potentially pick up and decipher the message we received. All they'd need is just a few details about the techniques we used and where to listen. Then they'd be able to make and use their own transceiver.”

  The president turned to the individual sitting with uncharacteristic silence on Lewis's right. “What do you think?”

  The tall gray-haired man who served as both her national security advisor and husband looked bemused at the arguments swirling around him. He said, “I think we should go ahead and contact these aliens. Sure, we could get into trouble with them or other countries by doing that. But I'm confident we can talk ourselves out of any mess we make and come out on top.”

  The other people in the room looked at him, unable to contest what he'd said. Finally the president continued, “Dr. Lewis has presented us with a difficult dilemma. Clearly there are serious risks whatever we decide to do about his device. All we can do is pick the course that seems to carry the least risk.”

  She smiled ruefully at the tachyonic transceiver, then at the astronomer. “I remember listening to my old classical studies professor at college lecturing about the ‘Golden Apple of Discord’ that started the Trojan War. I hope the crisis your machine's caused has a better outcome.”

  Her eyes slowly scanned all the faces around the table. “I appreciate your input and ideas. However, to quote one of my illustrious predecessors, the buck does stop with me. Ultimately only I can decide what to do and take responsibility for that decision.”

  With a firm voice she continued, “I don't want to be the person who brought hostile aliens to Earth and destroyed the human race.”

  The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and several other faces around the room tried to suppress gloating grins. But before Lewis could begin his protest the president added, “But I don't think the chances of that happening are great enough to outweigh the damage I would definitely do by holding back human progress. Dr. Lewis, show me how to work your machine.”

  * * * *

  For the next thirty minutes Lewis worked feverishly with two information technology technicians summoned to the room. The pair of computer experts arrived rolling a large open metal cart with closed laptops stacked on several shelves. After being asked to temporarily vacate their seats, the president and other officials stood nearby and watched anxiously as the IT techs set one of the notebook computers at each place along the table and brought its screen to glowing life.

  Meanwhile Lewis sat in the president's chair, turned on the tachyonic transceiver, and ran his fingertips like a virtuoso over its keyboard. As he called out instructions to them the two technicians bounced from chair to chair, carefully configuring each laptop to his specifications.

  Their work finally done, the technicians moved the now nearly empty metal cart to a far corner o
f the room and left. As everyone resumed their original seats, Lewis said, “We've set up a secure ad hoc wireless network linking the tachyonic transceiver with your individual laptops. Anything the president sees on the transceiver's screen will be mirrored on yours. Once we've made contact with the aliens, each of you will also be able to interact with them through your laptops.”

  The president stared dubiously at the familiar garish colors and icons on the transceiver's display. “That looks like the same screen I see when I start up my own laptop.”

  The astronomer nodded. “That's because most of the hardware and software in the transceiver, including the operating system, are the same as in a conventional computer. Our programmers and linguists created a translation program to convert alien transmissions into English and instantly show their messages on the screen. When you enter your own message the transceiver does the reverse, translating what you type on the keyboard into the aliens’ language and transmitting it back.”

  His index finger moved to the touchpad on his own laptop. “When I double-click this icon, the transceiver will load the program that should initiate a communication link with the aliens. May I do it, Madam President?”

  There was a long pause. Finally she murmured, “Yes.”

  Lewis made a quick pair of taps with his finger—and waited eagerly. The other people in the room stared at their screens with mixtures of fear, curiosity, and perhaps a slender thread of hope.

  At first nothing happened. Then the tense silence was shattered by a high-pitched whistling emanating from the transceiver, followed quickly by a short series of weird beeps and a brief swishing noise. Those unearthly sounds stopped just as abruptly as they'd begun—and then something magnificent happened. Rainbow colors as subtle as the first whispered glow of dawn suddenly swirled on the screens of the transceiver and every laptop in the room. Those delicate hues coalesced and solidified into an abstract background that Picasso would have envied.

  Everyone at the conference table watched awestruck as English words arranged in a triad of familiar phrases formed on their LCD displays.

  Create user name.

  Enter new password.

  Confirm password.

  The president looked at Lewis. “Any suggestions about what I should use?”

  The astronomer shrugged. “It's your decision, Madam President. Choose whatever you want.”

  Her hands hesitated over the keyboard. “I suppose I could use the ones for my main e-mail account.”

  Another instant and everyone saw the words “chiefexecutiveusa” in the first field on their laptops. But while the others saw only small black dots appear in the next two fields, Lewis was close enough to the president to discreetly sneak a peek at her fingers as she typed. He wondered if “bestpreznumber1” was officially classified as top secret.

  Her last entry completed, the president solemnly pressed the “Enter” key on the transceiver. After a slight pause an empty text box with a small blinking vertical line in its upper left corner appeared on the screen. At Lewis's suggestion the president typed inside the text box, “We the people of Earth greet you in peace and friendship.” After her fingers depressed the “Enter” key again, she and the others watched their displays change back to a featureless blur of colors—and waited.

  And waited.

  For slothfully slow minutes the only sounds in the room were the occasional cough, sneeze, and low rumble of a stomach growling. As anxiety turned into annoyance the president looked sharply at Lewis and demanded, “Well? Has this thing crashed? Should I restart it, like I do with my regular laptop when it locks up?”

  The astronomer's fingertips played across his own laptop's keyboard. He said, “Everything seems to check out okay. The aliens should have received the message you just transmitted instantaneously. However, there's no telling how long it will take them to read it or send a reply.”

  The secretary of defense snorted. “Maybe they'll submit the question of how to answer us to their equivalent of a congressional committee for review. If their political system operates anything like ours, it might be months before we get a reply!”

  The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff snickered. “Or maybe we'll just get a recording saying the number we're trying to reach has been disconnected!”

  Lewis frowned. “That isn't so far fetched. As I said earlier, the aliens’ transmission has been broadcast for at least half a century. It's possible we might not get an answer because they've been wiped out by some natural catastrophe or other disaster since they began their transmission.”

  The president scowled. “Do you mean all this trouble and worry might be for nothing?”

  The astronomer squinted at his laptop's screen, as if willing it to change into an answer to the message the president had just sent. “I hope not. All we can do is wait until—”

  Suddenly bold blue letters formed on the screens scattered around the room.

  A Missive Has Been Sent to You.

  There was a long silence as the implications of those words registered on everyone reading them. Then a new sentence appeared below that announcement.

  You Have Received an Important Message from His Supreme Highness.

  The president stared pleadingly at Lewis for guidance. He said, “Double-click on the message to read it.”

  Her finger trembled as she obeyed. All eyes stayed fixed on their screens, anxiously perusing the words that now appeared.

  Greetings, my friend. I am Gilelstab of Tromfisco, Emperor of the Two Thousand Systems. We must discuss a matter of great mutual importance.

  A reverent hush filled the room as everyone conjured up his or her own mental picture of what this regal alien looked like. Though each person's imagination bestowed the emperor with skin shades ranging from green to orange and different numbers of eyes and limbs, all created a portrait more dignified than any merely human chief of state.

  More words appeared on their screens. Treacherous rebels recently invaded the sacred sod of my imperial homeworld, Dwardemon, rendering it necessary for me to remove myself and the remainder of my battlefleet to a hidden base far away in the local spiral arm. There my loyal minions toil tirelessly to build new warships to drive that craven corps of criminals back into space and restore my benevolent rule. I am asking you to aid me in this great and noble endeavor.

  The president and other officials glanced worriedly at each other. The intricacies of Middle Eastern politics now seemed childishly simple compared to this new peril the world faced of becoming embroiled in an interstellar war.

  The secretary of state murmured hesitantly, “Perhaps we could offer the emperor our services as a neutral go-between to help negotiate a peace agreement with the rebels. We could work through the United Nations to create a multinational delegation of diplomats and use shuttle diplomacy between the warring factions.”

  The vice president snorted. “What a brilliant idea. You know how well that usually works here on Earth!”

  The message from beyond the stars continued. You can help me to secure more funds for rebuilding my military might. My enemies have blocked me from accessing a secret account containing great wealth I have in a local star system's major bank. I can instruct my agents to bribe corrupt officials there to have your name listed as the owner of that account. You can then send a request to withdraw money and have it transferred to another bank owned by a species friendly to me. To reward you for your assistance, you may keep 20.03% of these funds as a bounty.

  The president frowned. “Obviously the money isn't our major concern. If we could ingratiate ourselves to the emperor without antagonizing any other alien factions, we might gain a powerful ally!”

  For this plan to work, you only need to deposit a trivial amount of your own money into my secret account. This deposit is needed to confirm your “ownership” of my account and to allow you to withdraw all the funds from it. By authorizing this transfer of a mere one million ayohos from any account you have in a Galactic Deposit Insu
rance Corporation-approved savings institution, you will gain many millions more!

  The secretary of defense said, “That sounds like a fair deal. Perhaps we could use the money to buy new technology. All we have to do is figure out how to set up a account of our own in some alien bank.”

  To agree to my proposal, click on the hyperlink I am including later in this message. You will then be sent instructions on how to provide me with your bank account number and the other personal information I will need to confirm that you have sufficient funds for my plan to work. If you do not reply, I will dispatch several Planetpulverizer-class star cruisers to your world so my tentacle-picked captains can receive your answer in person. Incidentally, they and the destructobots onboard are eager to see if the new atomic disintegrator cannons on my ships really can incinerate a whole continent with a single blast.

  The Director of National Intelligence looked worried. “Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but doesn't that sound a bit like a threat?”

  Lewis began, “There's something familiar about this—” But the president interrupted him. “Look, there's another message coming in!”

  The emperor's missive scrolled up and off the screen, replaced by new words.

  Service for your account at the First Galactic Bank has been suspended due to unauthorized activity. Please click here for information on how to upload your account number and genetic profile to us so we can resolve this issue.

  The secretary of the treasury smiled. “I don't know how we got that account, but maybe we could use the money in it to help the emperor!”

  The others barely had time to consider that proposal before yet another message appeared.

  Pleased is we to inform you that lucky winner you be of 9598th Millennium Interstellar Lottery. To receive your prize of two putrid puspods suitable for grilling or roasting dependent on your palatal preference send small processing fee of 1 x 10100 lazlomi to place for clicking below.

  Lewis shouted, “Something is terribly wrong!”

  But none of the others heard him as their screens changed yet again.