The Seeker: A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  Yeah, right.

  “Helm,” I say.

  “Sir?”

  “Take us in closer. Dead slow.”

  All right, I think. Let’s see what you’ve got.

  Chapter 7

  Ashley

  Jeryl doesn’t so much as look at me after he enters CNC and takes his chair, but I don’t expect him to. The situation is far too fraught for any sort of personal interaction. All of us are totally focused on the moment.

  It's a moment like no other in human history. I know we’re all aware of this, but no one says it. No one needs to say it. In any event, we’re all too busy.

  I’m standing at the Communications station, where comms officer Mary Taylor is working her console as dexterously as a concert pianist playing Beethoven. I like Mary. She and I had an affinity from the moment she reported for duty on this ship, three voyages and two years ago. The previous comms officer, P'yŏng Kwangjo, had come with the ship, as the saying goes; and although he was a damn good comms man he didn’t interact much with the rest of the crew. There was nothing surly or sullen about Kwang; he merely kept to himself when he was off duty, for the most part, being a dedicated amateur musician on a traditional Korean instrument, the gayageum. He wasn’t reclusive about it, and would occasionally play as part of “talent night” get-togethers, sitting on the floor with crossed legs, the head of the instrument resting on his right knee and the tail resting on the floor. For these performances, he always wore traditional Korean garb.

  Jeryl snaps out an order about the sensor scans and gets an acknowledgement from Lannigan.

  When Kwang’s commission was up he didn’t reenlist, as many had expected him to do, and so we were forced to apply to the Armada for a new officer. In Kwang’s place, we got Mary. Kwang was a small, dapper man. I think that somehow we were all expecting someone physically similar.

  When the lift doors opened and she strode out, all expectations were immediately readjusted. She’s a tall woman of African descent, but with the light skin—and red hair—of what is still sometimes called a “high yellow” black. Beautiful she is not—striking she is. I don’t think there’s a man aboard (and more than one or two women) who hasn’t wanted to bed her. Mary isn’t against a bit of fun, for sure, but her primary focus is on being a comms officer, and she’s a damn good one. The most interesting aspect of this is that she is extremely hard of hearing, and has an implant to augment her hearing. She can crank her earbuds, but in everyday speech she sometimes can’t make out what you say unless she can see your lips.

  Now she’s scanning the electromagnetic spectrum for any hint of a signal from the alien ship. “Anything?” I ask in a low voice, though I know the answer.

  “Not so much as a peep,” Mary replies. “I’m giving them the full treatment,” she adds, pointing her chin at her instrument panel. “Given that the illumination visible through those portholes is very close to what our sun puts out, we can deduce that they have eyes like ours. I’m taking that a step further and assuming that their audio capabilities are like ours, too.”

  I nod, thinking it over. “Okay, I’m with you on that,” I say.

  “Which means, obviously, that if they’re using anything on the spectrum I should be able to pick it up. Unless they’re shielded.” She sighs. “And I think they are, because like I said—not a peep.”

  I’m so intent on what she is saying that I start when I notice Jeryl standing beside me. He’s risen from his command chair and has come up to us without my being aware of it.

  “Carry on,” he murmurs when I turn to him. “I want a closer look at Taylor's readings, is all.”

  The alien hasn’t moved since it appeared on our scanners. We’re closing with it at about 25 kilometers per hour. I notice a patch notice pop up on Mary's main window; the reports from Lannigan are ready to send to Admiral Flynn. It’s taken Lannigan longer than 10 breaths to get the reports ready, but not a lot longer. Mary sends them on their way without being told.

  “Still no response on standard frequencies, Captain,” she says calmly. But I see a drop of sweat that’s been twinkling at the base of her hairline break loose and trickle down the back of her neck.

  Then she gasps, and I know why because my fists clench when I see the alien begin moving away from us at exactly the same speed: 25 knots.

  “Guess we’ve invaded their personal space,” I mutter.

  Jeryl grunts softly. He blows his breath out. “Okay,” he says. He looks over at Pedro Ferriero, our helmsman. “Mr. Ferriero,” he says, “ahead 50 knots.”

  “Aye,” Pedro says, never taking his eyes off the main screen. He doesn’t need to watch his controls; I know he knows them by heart. He could—and has, I’ve seen him do it—fly this ship blindfolded. Jeryl doesn’t know about that.

  I think.

  And as we move ahead at the increased speed, our triangular acquaintance ups his speed of retreat by exactly the same amount.

  Jeryl mutters something I can’t hear. “Seventy-five,” he says, in such a way that I know he expects the alien to match it.

  It does.

  Jeryl’s more annoyed now. “I don’t like games,” he says with a hint of a snarl in his voice.

  “They are communicating with us, Sir,” Mary says.

  “What do you mean?” The snarl is a little more obvious. “All they’re doing is—”

  “They’re saying not to come too close.”

  He thinks about that. “They, they, they ... how do we know there’s a ‘they’ in there, Lieutenant? The thing might be automated.”

  But I know he doesn’t believe that. I don’t think anyone aboard the Seeker believes that. Someone is inside that ship.

  Tension in CNC is growing. The book says to do what he’s doing: stand off, try all hailing frequencies, observe. Union protocol says we have to do all we can to not appear threatening. That’s all well and good, but if this ship is responsible for the destruction of the Mariner, she’s got some serious firepower—firepower that could be turned against us at any moment if we make a wrong move.

  Or maybe even if we don’t make a wrong move.

  I’m dead certain that not one soul in CNC isn’t thinking about the Mariner’s wreckage right now.

  I know Jeryl wants to do something, anything, aside from merely observing. Hell, so do I! If it were up to me I’d suit up and jet over there and knock on their airlock.

  But it isn’t up to me, so I stand there at Taylor’s station, feeling my own sweat meander down my back beneath my tunic.

  “The likelihood is that she’s an enemy vessel,” Jeryl says.

  “Correct,” I say. “It’s just too much of a coincidence for this ship to show up here, so near to where the Mariner was destroyed by an energy weapon with an unknown signature.”

  He says nothing, but he takes a very deep breath. “This could be a trap,” he says. “Their sensors may be as advanced as their weaponry. They could have seen us coming, and are lying doggo here while we come in too close to get away when she makes her move.”

  I think back to that night on New Sydney. After we finished making love for the second time we took a break. We lay there in each other's arms, talking about ourselves and our goals in a way we had never done aboard the Seeker. That’s how I learned of Jeryl’s disappointment at not being on the front lines where he could face the Outers. I already knew he was driven to succeed; he’d never have won the commission to the Seeker otherwise. The military is full of overachievers; he’s one of the most aggressive.

  But he’s got a sense of humor, and despite his drive he doesn’t take himself too seriously—most of the time.

  Now here he was, confronted with an utterly unique experience in human history and he was toeing the Union’s line. Don’t piss off the natives.

  I feel his frustration. Jeryl ordered Pedro to cut back to twenty-five knots. As soon as Pedro did, the alien dropped her speed, too.

  “Ahhh, you booger,” Jeryl says, too quietly for anyone except
me to hear.

  It went like that for another ten minutes: we’d speed up, and the alien would speed up. We slowed—she slowed, always maintaining the same distance apart. We’d shift course to come at her from a new direction, she’d angle herself so that she always kept her profile to us. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “Well, this is a waste of time,” Jeryl says at last. Addressing the CNC at large, he says, “We have to think of something else. All executive officers, meet in my office in five minutes. Let’s take a break and see if we can brainstorm a new approach. Mr. Ferriero, all stop.”

  “Sir,” says Pedro, bringing the Seeker to a halt relative the alien, which immediately stops, too.

  I turn with Jeryl to leave the CNC, but then Mary says, in a tense voice, “Captain? Y-you might want to take a look at this.”

  Chapter 8

  Jeryl

  “So,” said Professor Guss, “let’s take the problem of how many technical civilizations may live in the galaxy and put that aside for now, and look at a more complicated issue. How will we recognize intelligence when we see it?”

  We students looked at one another. Trick question? At last one of the other cadets raised his hand. “They’ll have machines,” he said. “You know—instrumentality.”

  The professor nodded. “Extensions of their natural capabilities,” he said. “But be careful, here. We humans have built ourselves a complicated technical infrastructure to support us, almost like an exoskeleton supports an insect. He can’t live without. At this point, neither can we.”

  Again we looked at each other.

  “That’s not to say that others can’t,” Professor Guss said. “As a species, we’re somewhat blinded by our accomplishments. Granted, it’s no small thing to land on the Moon, abolish diseases, harness electricity, or disseminate ideas via printing or electromagnetic waves. As a result of our cleverness, we’ve come to judge the intelligence of our fellow earth species by how closely it resembles our own.” Blank looks all around, but I was starting to see where Guss was going with this.

  He said, “We have studied the sound patterns of whales. Their ‘songs’ are recognized as being a method of communication. We still don’t know what they’re saying, but on some level, they’re exchanging information and ideas. That’s very close to intelligence.”

  “Ants do that,” a dark-haired female cadet said. “And bees. I know ants use pheromones to lay down trails to food for their fellows, but that’s still information exchange. And bees communicate the location of flowers to other bees in their hive by a dance.”

  “But those are both evolved behaviors,” said Guss. “You’re not claiming that ants and bees are intelligent, are you?”

  “Well, no; but they do both build complicated structures to house themselves.”

  “Termites, too,” someone else put in.

  Guss nodded. “Good, and we’ll have to be careful not to mistake behaviors like that for true intelligence, if and when we run into extraterrestrials. Coral animals build huge structures as well—vast reefs. But no one would argue they are intelligent in any way.”

  Another cadet raised his hand. “Ants and bees won’t be building spaceships,” he said, and laughter rippled across the lecture hall.

  Professor Guss smiled as well. “True enough,” he said. “But we know of other tool-using animals on Earth. Crows and chimpanzees, for example, are widely regarded by scientists as being capable of rudimentary tool use. Other studies have shown that the extinct elephants had amazingly complex societies. They mourned their dead, for example. And once we get up to the level of primates, we start to see even more complicated social organizations.

  “But—are those animals—and let’s lump dolphins in there—are they intelligent?” He looked around the lecture hall.

  The blonde-haired girl, whose name was Ashley Gaines, said, “I believe we have to say that they are. But without hands, they would never be able to give concrete form to their ideas or to conduct experiments that would prove or disprove any hypothesis they develop.” She spoke slowly, articulating her ideas very carefully. “Clearly we evolved from primate stock... if we were to disappear, the apes might develop intelligence again.” She paused, but Guss motioned for her to continue. Speaking with more confidence now, she said, “The problem faced by, um, super-intelligent dolphins, for example, in a world where Man doesn’t exist, is that they live in the ocean, and have no fire. They would not be able to smelt metals that they could use to build machines, like say an airplane; and they lack the hands to do the building anyway. So I think, therefore... I think that their intelligence will always be limited by their own physical handicaps and their environment.” She heaved a deep sigh and sat down.

  “That’s very good,” Guss said, “but you’re still using your own humanness, if you will, to judge other species. I can imagine a race of intelligent dolphin-like creatures in the ocean of Europa, for example, even though we don’t think there’s anything like that down there, who have become symbiotic with a creature like an octopus. There are your hands. Perhaps the octopus creature began as a parasite, stealing nutrients from the dolphin’s blood. But it used its arms to secure food that the dolphin would devour over time, a symbiosis develops.” He waved a hand. “And we may well find something like that somewhere in space. Taken separately, neither species could do what they can do together.”

  The general air of the lecture hall was relaxed and casual. None of us took this silly gut course very seriously; there was no way to fail it, because it was purely speculative. But I was starting to understand that the professor’s purpose was to get us to examine our biases and prejudices. We couldn’t go out into space believing that any aliens we met would look or act like us. Yes, it was possible—if the underlying assumption of the Drake Equation held, intelligence was more likely to arise on worlds like Earth, with liquid water, and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and a relatively clement environment with enough food available to allow for the rise of a certain type of cooperative social order that would in turn allow for the development of beings who could spend their time trying to figure out the way the world worked so that it could be exploited for the betterment of all.

  Which was where we’d gotten to on Earth, before we overpopulated ourselves almost into extinction through warfare, hatred, and oppression.

  You had to wonder; how could any species, anywhere, get past those barriers?

  * * *

  I had been thinking of the upcoming meeting in my office, and had flashed back to that lecture by Professor Guss about intelligence. In this case, well, we bloody well knew that that black, triangular starship housed some sort of intelligence, so that wasn’t the question. For all we knew, it could be full of liquid in which floated something like Guss’s octopus/dolphin pair. It didn’t matter. What we needed to know was, did they pose a danger to the Seeker? Were these the people who had destroyed the Mariner, thereby murdering her entire crew?

  And if so—why? Why would an otherwise intelligent species take such a destructive step without bothering to learn the nature of those aboard our research vessel?

  Then, just as I was at the door of the CNC, Mary breaks into my thoughts.

  “Captain? Y-you might want to take a look at this.”

  I caught the uncertainty and doubt in her voice. “What is it, Lieutenant?” I asked, turning back to her station.

  “I decided to test for scanning wavelengths that are less common,” she said. “Because we don’t know what their instruments are capable of, and I was wondering what could cause the energy signature we saw in the Mariner’s debris. I remembered something from one of my classes in neutron tomography, which is the basis for the long-range scanners we use aboard the Seeker.”

  I nod; I know this. I know our scanners work even though I don’t know the physics. A good captain knows his ship’s capabilities even though he may not be able to explain them. I don’t know exactly how radio works, but I know you can talk to people on the moon with
it.

  Taylor says, “Neutron tomography sometimes has an unfortunate side-effect, depending on how strong the scanning beam is. Imaged samples can end up being radioactive if they contain appreciable levels of particular elements.”

  That’s an easy implication to catch. “You’re saying that a neutron beam of some kind destroyed the Mariner?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, “but it’s possible. Or neutrinos, which have even more penetrating power.”

  “We don’t have neutrino-based scanners,” I say.

  “No. We don’t. But they may; and a neutrino scanning beam could easily be modulated to become a weapon.” She points at one of the smaller screens on her console. “See this? There’s a flutter in this wavelength. I think it’s the main wavelength in a carrier wave, and this flutter indicates... I’m not sure what.”

  “Is that our neutrino wave, do you think?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head. She doesn’t know.

  “Fair enough,” I say. “So why wasn’t this discovered sooner?”

  She gets defensive. “Well, I wouldn’t have found it now if I hadn’t thought to scan on a finer scale than we usually do. Sir. And it just now popped up.”

  “At ease, Lieutenant,” I say, with a smile. “No need to be defensive; I'm not accusing you of anything. I simply want to know what is happening here.”

  Taylor relaxes. “The Mariner might not have had enough time to make a fine-spectrum scan before she was destroyed,” she says. “They’re a research ship, and they don’t have scanners as sophisticated as ours. They might have inadvertently made a gesture that was interpreted as hostile by the alien. Hell, Sir, excuse me, but they might never have even seen the alien.”

  “And so now here we are, nosing around, and maybe they are realizing they made a big mistake,” I say, rubbing my chin. Would the aliens apologize, or compound their error by attacking us?

  If they do attack, can our shields stand up to a beam as powerful as the one that destroyed the Mariner?

  “The wave is modulated,” Taylor says again. “That’s the flutter we see. It could be that they are trying to talk to us.”