The Omarian Gambit: A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  I turn the meeting over to Mary Taylor, who summarizes her efforts to decode the transmissions from the alien. “It took some time to figure out what they were doing,” she says. “It’s not straightforward, as you might expect. There were numbers, but not anything simple like 2 plus 2, to establish a mathematical baseline. Instead, it was a series of primes, running from 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 on up through 100,000, all indicated by a series of fluctuations in the carrier wavelength. So I responded with the series through five hundred thousand.”

  “That sounds like a pretty firm basis for communication,” says Eiléan, a trim, dark-haired woman in her late fifties.

  “Well, you would think,” says Mary. “We batted primes back and forth for a while, so rapidly that I figure they must have a computer on their end as well. Then they started in on factoring pi.”

  “Are they using base 10?”

  “No, it’s tridecimal, base 13,” Taggert replies. “It’s easy to work conversions for it. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to do it in my head.” She glances at Eiléan Docherty, who can do that sort of thing in her head. Eiléan was a math prodigy who was studying trig at age 8 and matriculated from MIT with dual master’s degrees in math and computer science at age 19. “From there the transmission got more complex. The fluctuations became multi-phasic, being superimposed on one another. What they were doing was sending schematics of molecules—but with missing covalent bonds.”

  “They’re trying to judge how advanced we are,” says Dr. Lannigan. “Sending us fill-in-the-blank puzzles.”

  Mary nods. “I think so. They know we’re capable of interstellar travel, but for all they know we could have been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years. And that, I think, is why the last question or puzzle they sent was an engineering question regarding the equations for the FTL drive.”

  “What?” I bark, startled.

  “It is so, Captain,” says EngPrime, the Engineering AI, speaking for the first time. “Analysis indicates that their propulsion systems must be very similar to our own, given the specificity of the question, which had to do with the containment system that allows us to warp space around The Seeker. Which leads to the further conclusion that when it comes to traveling faster than light, there is only one way to do it. They could not possibly have known what to ask, otherwise. The universe doubtless will not allow for more than that one path to violate Einstein’s law.”

  “The old boy must be spinning,” Dr. Lannigan says with a chuckle.

  “I think,” Ashley says, “the first thing they wanted to establish was that they could talk to us at all. You know; how much have we got in common?”

  “I agree,” says Mary. “Now they know we can talk to each other. These puzzle questions were probably designed to tweeze out how much physical science we know.”

  I lift a finger. “Clever of them, if a bit obvious,” I say. “But it leads me to wonder...”

  “Sir?”

  “Is that the way a hostile species would act?”

  Everyone casts glances at one another. I know I’m on to something. If these people attacked The Mariner, would they subsequently go to all this trouble just to establish a basis for communication with us?

  “I can think of two reasons why they might,” Ashley says. She’s quick. That’s one of the things I like about her. Quick, and funny, and she can—but enough of that. “For one thing, The Seeker is a good deal bigger than The Mariner. Not as big as their ship, of course, but even so we look like we might have teeth. We show up and they think ‘Uh-oh, it’s Mariner’s big brother come for revenge. We better play nice, pretend to be innocent explorers, trying to communicate.’ In so doing, they’ll learn how advanced we are, like Moira suggested. Then they’ll decide if they can kick our tail or not.”

  Nods and murmurs of agreement around the table.

  “And just showing up wouldn’t be a coincidence,” Eiléan says. “They can deduce that we’re either able to communicate over interstellar distances, or else we’re an immediate follow-up force such as might normally be sent.”

  “Possible, possible,” I say, stroking my chin. “And your other reason, Commander Gavin?”

  She shrugs. “They’re exactly what they seem to be.”

  “Wait, what are you saying? That this ship isn’t responsible for blasting The Mariner?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, now, wait a minute,” Dr. Lannigan puts in. “Just wait. You’re saying that there’s another intelligent species in the area!”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley says. “I know it sounds silly...”

  “Boy, does it ever,” says Dr. Rigsang, who hasn’t said one word thus far. “Do you have any idea what the odds against that are?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” she says. “It’s a crazy universe out there, Doctor.”

  “I think I get your reasoning,” I say. “The aliens seem to have deliberately made it hard to decipher their communications, burying them in a carrier wave. I have a hunch that they’re not much more advanced than us, if they’re using that methodology. I mean to say, we’re not dealing with godlike powers.”

  “Right,” Ashley says. “They haven’t teleported over here, or sent a software avatar or something...they’re barely past the dot-and-dash stage, like us.” She shrugs again. “Figuratively speaking.”

  “We’re more or less equals,” I say, thinking about it. “In terms of cultural and technological development.

  “That’s how I read it,” she tells me. “And they could be terrified. Let’s assume for a moment that they did not destroy The Mariner. We could well be looking for any excuse to blow them to atoms, how are they to know?”

  “This is damn confusing.” I can’t keep an edge out of his voice. “Wait, though; what if they put The Mariner through this same examination? This series of puzzles?”

  Ashley shakes her head slowly. “If they did, they were probably wasting their time,” she says. “She wasn’t carrying the kind of equipment we are...She wasn’t more than a scout ship, really, with no room for more than one AI and not much in the way of weapons. Gunny?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What were The Mariner’s offensive and defensive capabilities?”

  “Standard CP beams and lasers, nothing that could stand up to a ship that size,” says the armory AI. “Standard screens.” There’s a blip of static that he uses as a shrug. “They could have smashed her flatter than piss on a plate, excuse my French.”

  She turns to me. “So there you go, sir. The Mariner probably never got past the signal buried in the carrier wave. All she would have seen was the carrier wave itself, which doesn’t carry any information. Sure, she’d have known that she was facing an intelligent alien...but she probably wouldn’t have been able to talk to it. And you heard Gunny. If the alien took offense, or got nervous...” She lifts her eyebrows. “Goodbye, Charlie.”

  I heave a sigh and sit silently for so long that some of the others start to fidget. I can’t help it my wheels turn slowly when I’m faced with a serious problem. And this is possibly the most serious problem the human race has ever faced. It may be existential, because if the alien is smart enough to somehow trace us back to Sol System who’s to say that they won’t send their own armada? I know it’s idiotic to think that interstellar war is even possible—except for the fact that we’re engaged in one with the Outers.

  I sit quietly, turning all this over in my head. At last I say, quietly, “Lieutenant Taylor.”

  “Sir?”

  “You can reply to them, can you not?”

  “I can.”

  “Good. Then here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to craft a response that is neutral in tone...we’re not angry or confrontational; we’re not jumping for joy at finding other intelligent life forms. This is a purely mundane exercise for us. Savvy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. How long will it take you to do that?”

  She licks her lips
. “I can uh, I can do it now, if you’ll give me fifteen minutes. I’ll run it by you of course, before I send it.”

  “Perfect. Do it.” I push back from the table. “The rest of you, to CNC right now. I want everyone in on this.”

  No one says a word, but they all follow me out of the conference room and into CNC.

  I don’t believe I’m the only person who is sweating. I hope to hell I know what I’m doing.

  Ashley

  Once we’re all at our stations in CNC, I see Mary pick up her earbuds prior to composing the message as directed by Jeryl. At the same moment, he says, “Belay my previous order, Lieutenant.”

  She pauses, her hands poised over her entry tablet. “Sir?”

  “I’m not feeling very neutral right now. So here’s what I want you to say: ‘I am Jeryl Montgomery, captain of this vessel. We are investigating the disappearance of our scout ship. We found its wreckage. If you know anything about how our people met their demise, I request information. If you caused the deaths of our people, I demand to know why.”

  No one in CNC says anything, but I swear that I can feel a general air of approval. It may be risky, and it’s my place to speak up if I think he’s being reckless—but taking a firm stance seems warranted. It all depends on what their response is. Jeryl adds, after her pause continues, “Don’t dawdle, Lieutenant. Send it along.”

  Taylor replies, “They...won’t understand your name or rank, sir.”

  I know she doesn’t want to send that message; she thinks it’s too aggressive.

  “I realize that,” says our captain, a little testily, “but they should be smart enough to figure out what I mean. The salient points will be clear enough, I imagine.”

  I walk around the room’s circumference to her station, and lean over so that only she can hear me. “Just send it, please.” She has a stubborn look on her face, but I’m certain she will carry out the order. Her fingers move slowly over the tablet.

  Dr. Lannigan puts a voice to Mary's concern. “Your message may be perceived as a threat.” His long, lugubrious face appears even sadder than ever as he says this.

  Jeryl gives him a hard look. “Doctor,” he says briskly, “they’re free to read it as one if they’re responsible for the loss of The Mariner.” Then he lifts his chin. “Helm,” he says.

  “Sir,” Pedro Ferriero says.

  “Battle alert. Shields at fifty percent.”

  I have to speak up at this point. “Sir, this is a first contact situation. Is it wise to be at battle stations?”

  He opens his mouth to tell me to keep my opinion to myself, I’m sure—then he does one of the things that make him so worthy of respect. He listens to what I’ve said, and he considers it.

  Many captains, including every other I’ve served under, would have followed Jeryl’s first impulse and told me he’d ask for my opinion when he wanted it. But Jeryl has made it clear to every crewmember aboard The Seeker that he has an open-door policy. I was not questioning his order, exactly; I was reminding him of what’s at stake here.

  He flashes me a smile so brief that I'm not completely certain that he’s given one at all. “Mr. Ferreiro, take it down to Attention instead of Battle Alert.”

  “Sir,” says Pedro, and touches the PA controls. A triple beep fills the air, repeated five times. The lighting dims and takes on a reddish hue. Everyone on board is now at the ready. They’ll jump into action if the actual alert sounds.

  I am erect at my station, staring at my instruments. The electromagnetic shields are not yet raised, but can be at a touch. Aside from drills this is the first time The Seeker has been on Attention status since we left Earth.

  I wonder if the alien can sense the flux of energy flowing through our power grid. If so, I wonder what he makes of it.

  We wait for a response to the captain’s message. Minutes tick by. The only sounds in the CNC are small noises from the monitors as they scan the alien’s frequencies, and an occasional cough or throat clearing from one of the crew. They’re variously excited, afraid, or nervous.

  I’m nervous. My palms are sweating. I lick my lips.

  No one aboard has seen combat. Our disputes with the Outers have not yet boiled over into an open fighting. There have been no major space battles fought in fifty years, since 2147.

  In fact, the last recorded skirmish this year was minor; there were no lives lost and the ships involved suffered no more than a few laser singes. A pirate's den in the Alluria Sector. Not even any hulls were breached. It later turned out that the weapons officer on one of the ships fired out of sheer anxiety. (He was subsequently cashiered.)

  There’s been plenty of talk of possible war with the Outer Colonies, but war against an entirely unknown species? That’s a different breed of cat.

  I wipe perspiration off my forehead.

  I realize someone is standing beside me. It’s the ship’s doctor, Mahesh Rigsang. He’s slight, dark-skinned, with thick black hair and warm black eyes. His lilting accent speaks of his childhood home, the city of Dehra Dun in the northern India state of Uttarakhand, not far from the Tibetan border. He’s a damn good doctor.

  “Apprehensive,” he says. It’s not a question. I nod. He smiles. “It’s the unknown. Fear of the unknown. Can I tell you a little story?”

  I know from past experience that there’s nothing Mahesh loves more than to tell his little stories. I have told him many times that he ought to get married and have kids; he’d be a wonderful father. He only shakes his head and says, “I am not ready for that responsibility.”

  Here’s a man who has saved many lives during his time in the hill country of his homeland. During World War III, Delhi, which is only about 200 kilometers from Dehra Dun, was wiped out by a 500 kiloton nuke. By the time Mahesh was born, the incidence of cancers in the region had increased by more than two thousand percent. Two of his uncles died from radiation-induced bone cancer. His early childhood was marked by death and environmental degradation.

  Personally? I think the reason he doesn’t want kids is that he fears fathering a mutant. It happens often, I regret to say. Nowadays, they’re able to try and provide somewhat of a better life. But in a fair number of times…there’s nothing left to be done.

  Now I say, in response to his offer, with my mouth so dry I can barely croak out the words, “Sure...go ahead.”

  Mahesh pats my arm and begins, in a quiet voice so as not to attract the attention of anyone else in CNC. “A monk who found himself depressed and fearful over the looming threat of war between his land and a stronger, more aggressive neighbor, decided to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He took his boat out to the middle of the lake, moored it there, closed his eyes and began his meditation.”

  I'm listening, but my eyes are on my instruments. The alien has not made any response to Jeryl’s communique.

  “After a few hours of undisturbed silence,” Mahesh says, “he suddenly felt the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With his eyes still closed, he sensed his fear rising, and by the time he opened his eyes, he is ready to scream his surrender to the enemy boatman who had disturbed his meditation.

  “But when he opened his eyes, he saw that the craft that had struck his was an empty boat that probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.” Mahesh shrugs and grins at me.

  “At that moment,” he continues, grasping my arm, “the monk achieved self-realization, and understood that the fear was within him; it merely needed the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him.”

  “From then on, whenever he came across someone who frightened him or if he found himself in a risky situation that threatened him with harm, he reminded himself, ‘The other person or situation is merely an empty boat. The fear is within me.’”

  I turn and look down at him. He is the shortest man in the ship, but unlike many small men he’s completely unselfconscious about it. As a result he’s been quite popular among the unattached female crewmembers.

  In
cluding me. This is something I’ve never told Jeryl, and feel no need to, as Jeryl and I are not together. In fact, I’ve never told anyone. I figure my business is my business.

  “Thanks, Mahesh,” I say; and you know, I really do feel better. Someone said, in the context of looming war, something about fear being the only thing there is to fear. Once you know what’s there in the darkness, it’s a lot less scary.

  I really want to know what is inside that damn ship. I frown down at my instruments for a moment, and when I look around to speak to Mahesh again, he’s gone. In fact, he’s left the CNC.

  I promise myself that as soon as I can. I’m going to send him a drink in the lounge.

  Jeryl clears his throat. “What the devil are they doing over there, chipping their reply in stone?”

  Moments later, Mary says, in a tight voice, “We’re receiving a visual transmission from the alien.”

  Jeryl grunts. “Put it on the main screen.”

  Jeryl

  I don’t know what anyone else expected, but the image on the screen didn’t surprise me. My first feeling, in fact, was a sense of relief and even vindication. I had always believed—though I had never shared this belief with anyone, not even Ashley or even my siblings—that if we ever found intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, it would resemble us in general form.

  Think about it. We evolved from tree-dwellers who learned to walk upright. We were taller than many other animals, and we had our hands—with their opposable thumbs—free to grasp sticks or rocks both large and small. Our bodies had their primary sensory organs—ears, eyes, nose, tongue—at the top, in a head that could easily swivel around to keep watch for enemies or food. We also keep our brains up there.

  Our shape is a good size for intelligence, too. We’re adaptable and can move quickly when we need to. In our bodies we carry a huge number of reproductive cells and information therein. We’ve also got fat to see us through times when food is scarce. For evolutionary success, it would be tough to come up with a better design.