by Ira Tabankin
“So you’re not going to tell me anything about what you saw? Were there naked alien women?”
Everett broke up laughing then his face changed as he remembered the rows of giant test tubes with the bodies of ancient people and animals. “Major, welcome aboard, and if you don’t mind, I have to get my report finished and into the President’s hands. Has my aide got you set up in an office?”
“Yup, I’m right across the hall from you.”
“Of course you are. Where else would my babysitter be? Should I check-in and out with you?”
“No need to. My people are now manning the gates. They’ll let me know when you arrive or leave,” the Major smiled.
“We will have to work on the security when Kalteck comes and goes…”
“I agree and am glad you agree. When would you like to begin reviewing the security plans?”
“I’m going to complete my report, and then I’m leaving for the night. Why don’t we meet tomorrow at breakfast?”
“Goodnight, Sir.”
“Goodnight, Major.”
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As the months went by, Everett and the Major found they had more in common than either thought. They realized they were able to work well together. Everett quickly welcomed Johnstone and counted on him to perform his tasks without having to worry about it.
Everett was stuffing papers in his briefcase when he felt a strange vibration in his pocket. It was the first time he’d ever felt the vibration. He removed the small blue box Kalteck had left him. He saw it begin to strobe and was confused. I didn’t place it in my palm. I didn’t hold it and call his name. Is something wrong? How do I answer it? He only told me how to contact him, not how to respond to him contacting me. Damn it, what do I do?
Everett placed the small warm strobing device in his palm. He wrapped his fingers around it. He jumped when he heard Kalteck’s voice, “Hello Everett. I want to let you know the Soviet rocket is on its launchpad. It appears they are planning on launching within twenty-four hours.”
“Should I tell the President?”
“Yes, I believe that’s an excellent idea. Goodbye for now.”
Everett pressed the yellow button on his phone, “Send Major Johnstone to me ASAP. If he’s not here, find him and get him here ASAP!”
“Yes, sir. Sir, should I place the base on alert?”
“Yes, yellow alert.”
A moment later, sirens screamed across the massive base. Men ran to their battle positions. Ten minutes later Major Johnstone ran into Everett’s office. He was still tucking in his uniform shirt. “I knew this was a bad night to go out to dinner with a friend. What’s up?”
“Sorry to pull you away and ruin your love life. I just heard from Kalteck. I’m going to call the President and thought you should be here when I do.”
“News?”
“Yes, and not good.”
“Thank you for calling me.”
A moment later, the red phone on Everett’s desk buzzed, “Sir, I have the President for you.”
“Mr. President, Major Johnstone is here with me, I have heard from our friend within the previous hour. He informed me the Soviets have moved their rocket to their launchpad and have begun fueling it. He expects them to launch within twenty-four hours.”
“How does he know when they’ll launch?”
“Sir, the fuel is very corrosive. They can’t keep it in the rocket for very long.”
“Damn it. Thank you for the heads up. Was he sure this wasn’t a rocket aimed at us?”
“Mr. President, he told me the rocket is sitting on their new space complex, not their military rocket base. Their space complex was designed to enable a rocket to enter orbit easier as was our Cape Caneveral.”
“Will he let you know any more details?”
“I don’t think so> I was surprised he reached out to me with this update.”
“How did he contact you? I thought you didn’t have the means to contact him while he was off the planet.”
Everett swallowed, he didn’t want to lie to the President, but he also didn’t want to break Kalteck’s confidence. “Sir, he left me an emergency device to contact him. I didn’t know he could contact me with it.”
“I see. And you didn’t think to inform me of this device. Have you allowed our people to look inside it, so maybe we could learn some of his secrets from it?”
“Sir, I am not able to allow anyone else to have access to the device. It falls under the original orders President Truman gave me.”
“What if I ordered you to hand it over, would you deny my orders?”
“Sir, please don’t give me such an order. I know enough about their technology to know if anyone unauthorized attempts to tamper with their tech, it has a tendency to explode with an explosive force way beyond what we are used to.”
“I see. Okay, General Yahnig, I won’t give you an order you will find yourself caught between. Please keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Major Johnstone looked at Everett, “You’ve got a giant set, made of steel. You just stared down the President. You almost ended your career. Don’t you care?”
“I’m not worried about it. If he wants to fire me, he can. We all serve at his pleasure. I’m sure Kalteck may also have a word about my future,” smiled Everett.
“Yeah, nothing like having a giant alien standing behind and supporting you. I don’t think the President can risk firing you unless you step out of line, and from what I’ve seen, you’re a damn boy scout.”
“Thank you. I guess we’ll know within twenty-four hours, and I think much less if the Soviets succeed to launch before us.”
The next morning Everett and Major Johnstone got the message that the Soviets launched Prosteyshiy Sputnik-1 (Elementary Satellite 1), the world’s first artificial moon. Everett tuned his office radio to the beeping message from the small round new satellite. Everett looked at the Major, “I pray they’re playing the right message and not one saying, here we are, come and take us out.”
The major smiled. “Do you really…”
“Nah, I was there when Kalteck handed the recorded message to Nikita Khrushchev. They have as much to lose as we do. They wouldn’t get this wrong. I bet he ordered them to find a way to reproduce the message and play it back once the device was in orbit.” Everett sipped his coffee, “Damn it they beat us, I wonder how we’re going to respond.”
President Eisenhower wasn’t pleased the Soviets had beaten America into space. He was even further upset when the Soviets followed up their first launch with another less than a month later and this one carried a dog into orbit. President Eisenhower was furious. He ordered the American Army to launch a damn satellite. Eisenhower was further depressed when America’s first launch attempt, the Vanguard TV3 rocket exploded on its launch pad.
Chapter 19
Kalteck was in deep meditation on the lowest level of the Holy Shrine. He had sat among the old forest. The smells from the plants calmed him, he sat in a state between sleep and awake. His mind drifted back in time to when his race was unified, and war had been a forgotten footnote in their history classes.
The Shrine’s AI softly whispered, “Kalteck, it is time. The Earthlings have launched their first satellite, it is broadcasting the message. Now all you can do is wait and see if the enemy ships recognize and accept the message.”
“Who launched the rocket? The Soviets or the Americans?”
“As you suspected, the Soviets launched first. It appears they are preparing to launch a second one before the Americans will be able to respond with their first. Do you still believe you should pit one against the other? Can they work together to develop and launch a ship to the moon and then build their space weapons and fighters?”
“I do not trust the Soviets. Their goal was for propaganda and to gain an edge over the Americans with rockets. I believe the Soviet economy will implode within fifty, no later than sixty of their years. They are simply too inefficient, and their wo
rkers have no incentive to work. The Americans should be able to succeed if nothing else than driven by their pride being hurt by the Soviets reaching space first.”
“Ah, I understand. You provided the Soviets with some additional assistance so they would put up the Earthling’s first satellite so you could use it to give the Americans a harder push. A good plan if it works. It all depends on who wins their elections unless you have managed to adjust their political system too.”
“That I have not been able to accomplish. The young fools vote on paper which is counted by people. I have to hope the right person is always elected so I can, with General Yahnig’s assistance, push the Americans in the right direction.”
“One would think a race would do anything it could to avoid certain destruction…”
“Remember they are young. They lack the basic knowledge our children know by the time they start their formal education. I feel sorry for the Earthlings. It really isn’t their fault. We did have something to do with how they advanced. We didn’t want to design a race as intelligent as us. We wanted a race smart enough to perform the tasks we’d outlawed you AIs from performing. We wanted slaves, builders, and warriors. Smart enough to plan and execute a plan but not too smart as to decide they wanted to overthrow their masters.”
“Do you think your General Yahnig suspects what was really done to his ancestors? If he learned of it, what do you think he would do with such information?”
“There is nothing he can do with the information. His people can’t enter one of our old labs. Attempting to would only result in their destruction and the area around each one. The antimatter blast will be over 10 gigatons. Their mountains would be vaporized with the resulting debris thrown into their atmosphere. The debris will block the sun’s energy from reaching the ground pushing the climate into another ice age. Such an event would kill most of the humans. We would then assist them by taking many of the survivors to a safe location where we would start over.”
“Does your General know this?”
“He only knows if they attempt to break into the lab, it will explode in their faces. I wanted him to know this because soon their technology will increase to the point they will be able to locate our underground facilities. I thought it better to show him and explain the damage one such explosion would yield then have the young fools attempt to break in on their own and end up destroying their own planet. We swore we wouldn’t destroy planets any longer.”
“Kalteck, you are playing a very dangerous game. One that could explode in your face. You understand the consequences if you fail, so be careful. I calculated you have only a 46.267% probability of success.”
“Why has it dropped from the previous 49.2%?”
“Because I calculate the Soviets may be tempted to use their rockets and nuclear weapons to strike their enemy the Americans.”
“Ha, I do not think so. They do not have sufficient numbers to carry off a successful first strike. Nor are their rockets accurate enough. I made sure of that before I took my leave of Moscow on my last visit.”
“Ah, I did not know this point; hence, I will recalculate.”
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Everett was called to the White House to meet with the President face to face. He brought Liane with him so she could get back to the D.C. area to visit her old friends. Once in the Oval Office, the President reviewed Everett’s last report, “Everett, the Soviets beat us by placing not one but two satellites in orbit. Is the task now complete?”
“Mr. President, the satellites were to broadcast a signal to an enemy fleet far out in space. The signal is traveling to them at the speed of light while they travel to us at a speed of 85% of the speed of light. Their crew are sleeping. Otherwise, their ships would have to be monsters to carry enough food and water for them on such a long flight. They don’t have the faster than light drive like Kalteck has.”
“How far away are their ships?”
“Kalteck said they would be six-light months from Earth when they received the signal…”
“Huh? What’s a light month? Is that a time or distance? Please explain to me in terms I understand.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. One light minute is 11,134,751 miles, that’s how far the light will travel in one minute. There are 43,829 minutes in a month. Thus, one light month is a distance of 488,025,001,579 miles. Six light months is 2,928,150,009,474 miles from Earth. To give you an idea of the distance, Pluto is 3.57 billion miles from Earth. The fleet will be 797 times further away from us than Pluto is from the sun. Kalteck wanted the signal to arrive when their crew was still in some kind of sleep mode. He said the signal would be read by their ship’s AI, who would understand it and then turn the fleet around without waking their crew. The first time the enemy crew understood what had happened would be when they were entering their own system many years after they’d left and too far and too long a trip to try again.”
The President nodded, “I think I understand. How and when will we know if the trick worked?”
“We won’t. Our telescopes aren’t good enough to pick up their exhausts that far away. Kalteck’s AI and his ship’s sensors will see the turn, and that will tell him the trick worked. It will take six months for the signal to reach the enemy and then maybe a few hours for their AIs to plot a course home and turn their fleet.”
“Wow, I never realized how slow things happen in space. I’m used to giving an order and it being carried out right away.”
“Yes, sir. We’re not dealing with the distance between England and France or France and Germany. We’re talking about distances between the points of lights, the stars in the sky. They look close together, but most are light years apart.”
“You’re already beginning to sound like our friend. Speaking of him, now that the signal has been sent, when will he return?”
“He won’t risk returning until the enemy ships have turned around and remained on their reverse course a while, so he knows it’s not a trick. I don’t think we’ll see him for maybe 8 months to a year.”
“I see. General, thank you and carry on.”
“Thank you, sir.”
After spending a pleasant week in the capital, Everett and Liane returned home. Everett spent the last night of 1957 reviewing the major firsts in the warplane development. He matched the designs and their new technologies to the master timeline Kalteck had given him.
April 21 — Douglas F5D “Skylancer”
May 26 — Sukhoi Su-9.
June 24 — Sukhoi T-405, the prototype of the Sukhoi Su-9 (NATO reporting name “Fitter-B” and “Fishpot”).
August 31 — Boeing KC-135 “Stratotanker.”
September 10 — North American YF-107, the prototype of the North American F-107 “Ultra Sabre.”
November 11 — Convair XB-58.
December 17 ---- Convair, Atlas rocket, would become America’s first deployed ICBM.
December 26 — Convair YF-106A, the prototype of the F-106 “Delta Dart.”
Everett smiled to himself. We’re still on his master timeline. I think he will be pleased Convair finally got the Atlas launched and the air to air refueling plane made its first flight. I pray the signal worked and I wonder if he knew the Soviets were going to beat us. According to the President, the Soviet’s stunt as he called it, only served to scare the Department of Defense into putting more of their resources into rockets. I wonder if that was Kalteck’s goal all along.
I can’t get the images of that lab under the Devil’s Tower out of my mind, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking one of those bodies in the tubes is looking out at me, asking, begging me to stop their suffering. I wish he’d never shown it to me.
I hope the signal stops this enemy so we have time to continue preparing for the main enemy. Time, I have all the time in the world, and yet I feel I’m wasting time when I’m not at my desk. Liane made her first comment while we were in D.C. this week about how lucky I was not to show I was aging while her hair has begun to change and
there are some small age spots on her hands. I can’t tell her that one day she’s going to ask why she’s become an old lady and I haven’t aged. I don’t know what I’m going to tell her. She met my parents before they passed. Both looked their ages so she’ll know it’s not something handed down in my family. Am I going to have to fake my own death before hers to save her from figuring out something very strange is happening to me? I should curse Kalteck for his gift. What a gift. Damn him for putting me in this situation.
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The radio message from Sputnik flew through space at the speed of light. To the people of earth they sounded like beeps, sort of like Morse Code. The sounds were, in reality, a coded message to any alien race that the Earth belonged to the Emperor and all other races should stay away or risk their destruction.
