by M R Cates
“Well whatever,” Debbie said, almost sighing.
“Just get yourself over here and we'll worry about the other stuff, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I'm glad it's so soon, Deb,” Sandra said, changing the tone. “I didn't think you could close down that quickly.”
“I figured if I was gonna do it, should get it over with,” Debbie responded.
“Like going to the dentist, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Well,” Sandra said thoughtfully, “there has gotten to be something of a 'drill' over here.”
“Ha, ha. I thought those were the carefree Pacific Isles full of half naked people lying around drinking pineapple wine.”
“My French student is half naked all the time, so you'll feel right at home, honey. Problem is I worry that I'll have to start prying Jason off of her.”
“This is Françoise, I presume.”
“Yep. But she's bright as a penny. And would work forever if you let her. Probably she's just dressing the way Europeans dress in warm climates.”
“What about the pineapple wine, Sandy?”
“We have it. A lot of it. And it's pretty good. There are days I think about mainlining some of it.”
“Hmm. What's new with the asteroid?”
Sandra hesitated, not actually expecting the question. “Well, it's still up there, with all its friends. What are they saying in Austin?”
“Mostly doomsday stuff. But somehow, I don't think people really ... well, relate to the things up there.”
“Human nature, Deb. We can get used to almost anything. This can hardly be more stressful than all those thousands of idiotic damn wars we've fought over the years. Knowing you might get killed or tortured and your city burned at any time has been more the rule than the exception, you know.”
“Hadn't thought about it that way,” Debbie admitted. “We are pretty ... adaptable, I guess.”
“And pretty damn weird, too.”
“Guess these things have been on your mind a lot, huh?”
“You might say so, yes.”
—
Sandra was in bed by nine, hoping for a good solid six hours of sleep. She had to settle for four and a half. At one-thirty her encrypted cell phone rang, and rang, and rang. On the twelfth ring she gave in and answered.
“Hello, this better be damned important,” Sandra said, yawning.
“Sandra, this is Jeff McBrand. I apologize if I waked you.”
Without a pause, the astronomer said, “Oh, hello, Mr. President. I hope you're well.”
“Yes, of course. Listen, Sandra, I just wanted to speak with you a few minutes before your scheduled time on the telescopes tonight. Since you are expecting another communication.”
“We are, sir.” She paused and yawned again, making a noticeable noise. “Sorry.”
The President, always polite, was nonetheless businesslike. He minced no further words and said, “I wonder, Sandra, what you expect from the aliens. That is, do you have any opinion about what they might say?”
Sandra's mind came up to speed quickly. She took a couple of seconds to compose her thoughts and said, “They will – as they said they would – give some kind of instructions. My guess is that they'll send some craft or device out of orbit and provide a kind of meeting place. If I had to guess where, I'd say in the Pacific Ocean not far from here.”
“That seems to be a common opinion,” he said, referring undoubtedly to the opinion or opinions of the numerous groups who were in constant analysis of their situation. “Is that as far as you are speculating, then?”
“No. I imagine a number of different things, Mr. President, unlikely though they may be. Since I'm personally involved.”
“I see your point,” he countered. “Would you share some of these 'unlikely' scenarios?”
“I have no idea what to expect, sir. And I am concerned that maybe earth life is not well understood by them. Remember the electromagnetic disturbances they caused to our satellites? There could be some damage inflicted unintentionally.”
“Would you like to be relieved of your role in this, Sandra?” His question came out of the blue, it seemed.
Sandra didn't skip a beat, despite knowing where he was leading. “To be honest, sir, I'd like to be down on Hapuna Beach drinking pineapple wine. But I don't think we have that option.”
“What if you were to ask the aliens to speak to someone else?”
Madeleine Vigola's strategy was playing through Sandra's head. The Chief of Staff could allow herself to seem to give in to astronomer's requests about Carl and Françoise, knowing that they'd pull Sandra out at the last minute for a substitute anyway. Bringing the two extra people into the already-limited security network was not much of a price to pay for allowing time to pass undisturbed until the proper moment. Apparently that proper moment was now.
Sandra's answer was calculated, but the President didn't pick it up. “Would you like me to ask them, sir?”
“I think it would be a good idea, Sandra. Not that you wouldn't do an excellent job, of course, but it would seem logical to have a diplomat speaking to them. Someone as familiar with our governments and United Nations as you are with telescopes.” He tried to sound imminently reasonable and sensitive.
“Then, Mr. President,” she continued, “I would recommend we send that message before we receive theirs.”
The President paused, probably waiting for some advisor's comment into an earpiece. “Your idea, I suppose,” he said, “is so that they can accommodate the new contact in their instructions.”
“Yes, sir, exactly.”
Again a pause. Longer this time. Finally he said, “I'm sorry for the delay, Sandra, but I needed to speak with some of the people here, about that suggestion.”
“I understand,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Who, by the way, should I say will be speaking with the aliens?”
The President was prepared for this question. He promptly said, “Dr. McArthur Lawrence, our Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations. He is imminently qualified, Sandra, and a former astronaut, as you may remember.”
“I have not met him, sir, but know of him. I'm sure he is quite capable.”
“And able, too, to deal with possible physical difficulties, you understand. Since we all have the same concerns about the possible lack of knowledge the aliens may have about human life.”
“So,” Sandra continued, as if talking casually to a friend, “you'll send a deputy so as not to risk a full ambassador, but at a high enough level for the aliens to see you take them seriously?”
The President made an assenting sound. “That's an excellent analysis, Sandra. Yes, that's the kind of logic. And of course, Mac – as we call him – is at exactly the right place to represent more than just our country.”
“I suppose, sir, you've spoken with the Secretary General and other leaders?”
“Yes, of course. Not all leaders, certainly, but the critically important ones.”
“Alright.” Sandra moved off the bed into a chair, finding a pen, and said, “Then, if you'll give me the words I'll send them to our visitors in orbit. I'm ready to write.”
The President laughed. “You seem always ready to go, Dr. Hu ..., er Sandra. Yes, I have the text we decided on.”
“Let me have it,” she repeated.
The President read the message, which said:
“Doctor McArthur Lawrence will replace Dr. Sandra Hughes as your contact for discussions. Doctor McArthur Lawrence represents the community of nations of Earth, has direct contact with, and has been briefed by the leading governmental authorities of our planet.”
Sandra looked at the words and said, “That should make it clear to them, sir.”
“I know you will be relieved by the substitution, Sandra. In truth, we didn't want to run any risk with your safety.”
“I see, sir. So this Mac Lawrence is more expendable than I am?” She let her eyebrows rise again but kept the iro
ny out of her voice.
“Not exactly, Sandra, but I think you understand.”
“Alright Mr. President. I'll send this about six-thirty, our time, when Fragment Five is in range. That's as early as we can be confident they'll see our signals.”
“Good, Sandra, thank you. I'll be standing by.”
“You'll miss some sleep, you know, sir. That will be pretty late in Washington.”
“You have also missed some sleep, doctor. We greatly appreciate all you have done.”
“Just doing my job, Mr. President, as you are doing yours. Shall I call you directly with any response, or will your working groups take care of it?”
“Any signal will come to us, too, Sandra, as you know, as long as all the links are maintained.”
“I'll be sure to keep the data flowing your way, sir. If you have any questions, just give me a call.”
“We certainly will, doctor.”
“Great. It's been nice talking with you, Mr. President.” Sandra hung up.
A wash of conflicting feeling flooded her. The astronomer sighed and started toward the bathroom. She was both relieved and angry. But always the realist, she wasn't surprised. The guy is smooth, she thought. No wonder he won by a landslide. Maybe I should have felt better about voting for him.
Chapter 28
At six-thirty Fragment Five would be visible to the Kecks but not with maximum sharpness. There were also occasional occluding clouds, but expected to dissipate. Sandra had not let the team know about the President's change of representative, partly because she had not had a good opportunity to discuss it with them and partly because she didn't want to break the energetic spell that pervaded the efforts to get ready for what was certain to be a challenging and exciting evening. Her guess was that the aliens would not plan to transmit to them until viewing was optimized. On this first pass of the fragment, that would occur about 7:15. If the aliens waited until the second pass, choosing about ten o'clock to transmit, conditions would be at their best. So, when Sandra handed Françoise the sheet containing the message, the student was take aback.
“Sandra, who is this person?” was all she could think of to say.
“Don't know him, Françoise, but he's well respected and runs in U.N. circles, too.”
“This seems strange, you see, to ... the visitors have already made it certain whom they want to ...” She stopped, realizing the protest wasn't useful.
The group was in the control room, where Sandra had moved their operation to provide more space. Also, because of security, only she, Jason, Françoise, and Carl were there. Other support personnel were in the building, in a kind of standby status. “The President gave me the order,” the astronomer said, typing away at a brief routine she was inserting into her program to encode messages for the atmospheric correction lasers they would use. “Look,” she continued, voice shifting upward in volume, “I'm adding a delay pulse to feed into the spectrometers, to match the time of flight of our sequence to and from Fragment Five. That power supply change on the ACLs has added enough oomph that I think we might be able to pick up our own reflection – if we're lucky. Even if it’s delayed a little.”
“Why do that, Sandra?” Jason asked, from behind them, having heard. He was in black denim slacks that evening, with a heavy plain gray tee shirt, gray socks, and sneakers. At the moment he was checking the spectrometers' calibrations.
“Hoping to get some idea of what they do to receive or measure our signal. Maybe something is taken out of it, partially absorbed at certain wavelengths, that sort of thing.”
Jason nodded but didn't turn around. Françoise was next to Sandra, typing in the President's message. She had already double-checked the lasers. The young French woman was, as usual, in shorts – pale blue this time – and sneakers with no socks. Her blouse was pure white linen, with short sleeves. Françoise had her hair in French braids and looked stunning – certainly to Jason and any other men that would be around that evening. Farther away, in a comfortable chair, sat Carl Von Drath. He was in what he would call gardening clothes, simple khaki slacks, blue Oxford cloth shirt, and comfortable leather shoes with rubber treaded soles. Neither he nor Jason had seen the message about to be sent.
When the clock showed 6:12 they were ready. Sandra signaled for the others to gather around Carl. “Carl, you and Jason haven't heard yet, but we're sending another transmission up, hopefully in advance of what the visitors may send.”
“Another plan, Sandra?” Carl wondered aloud.
“Not my plan, Carl. The President's. Here's the message. She handled both men a copy of what Françoise had inserted into the computer program to be transmitted.
Both reactions were predictable. Jason shook his head. “I don't understand the reasoning here,” he said.
Carl nodded as he read, then looked at his friend. “Are you relieved, Sandra?”
“Guess so. Actually, I know so. But don't think it's a wise move.”
“I suppose we'll find out,” Carl said.
“We will indeed.”
Françoise was less philosophical. “I think this, you see, is very poor thinking,” she offered. “Sandra, you would be the very best one to speak with them.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sandra said, “but the powers that be disagree.”
“The powers that be,” Françoise repeated, sounding like she might spit.
Looking at the clock on the Keck control console, Sandra said, “In ten minutes – if the clouds cooperate – we'll see what the visitors think.
Time seemed to slow down at that point. There was nothing else necessary to do until Sandra hit the return on the computer. She would do so as the clock reached 6:30 exactly. Coffee was passed around while they waited. Jason left briefly, to make a “pit stop” as he would say. Françoise retreated to a more distant seat, to be alone with her thoughts, and Carl sipped coffee. Sandra let her eyes rove over all the instrument readouts, vigilant to the end, mind racing along several parallel possibilities that might unfold during the evening. In Washington D.C., a larger group was gathered around a group of consoles, waiting for the same moment. Their actions were much more frenzied. Madeleine Vigola was among them, with a special seat in front of the monitor displaying the Fragment Five image, next to another monitor on which expected decoded messages would be displayed.
Sandra finished her second double check and waited the last thirty seconds, activating a microphone a few seconds before 6:30. “Okay,” she said, her voice carrying to Washington D.C., “at my count the message will be sent. Three – two – one. Off! Now we wait.” She leaned back, casually, for about ten seconds, then said, microphone off, “Let's see what reflection we might have gotten.”
Fragment Five, as Jason had put it, “just keeps rollin' along,” and made no sign of receipt of the message, except the faint reflections of the human lasers that they were able to record, though with poor resolution. Nothing of immediate interest showed in the picked-up return signals, so Sandra left the data analysis to a later time. The four in the control room said little, content to watch the constantly improving image.
Sandra pondered the communications flashes she figured the visitors were using among themselves, looking for signs that they might increase in response to their message. Perhaps. She may have been fooling herself but she sensed that the random-seeming patterns had lost a modicum of randomness. I'm imagining it, probably, she thought. The spectrometers were getting as much data as they had the ability to get. All four knew they would be looking into those data in detail soon enough. Sandra also knew that dozens of others in Washington would also be looking – maybe had already started.
The four in the control room kept themselves busy, one eye always on the image of Fragment Five. If time had crept by before, it now moved like a sloth. Few words were exchanged, but there was an unmistakable bond of comradeship felt in the room. Even Jason, who barely knew Carl, sensed more keenly the role and importance of the old astrophysicist. As the clo
ck passed 7:00, the seconds clicking by on the digital display with a kind of begrudging reluctance to change, Sandra's alertness began to increase. She looked as calm as always, but had someone touched her on the arm at that moment, the astronomer might have screamed.
At 7:15 Fragment Five responded. Its internal ring lit up over a period of few seconds, then flashed five times. All eyes with access to that display were locked on it. Before the words appeared on their screen Sandra sensed the visitors would have a lot to say. They did.
“We expect to meet with Doctor Sandra Hughes. On the fourth day from now, by your calendar, July 16, at four o'clock Hawaiian time in the afternoon, a suitable craft will land in the Pacific Ocean, exactly one hundred miles due west of Mauna Kea. No human or device should be within a fifty mile radius of the landed craft. Do not approach the landed craft. That same night further instructions will be sent for Doctor Sandra Hughes.”
Madeleine Vigola saw the message only a few milliseconds after Sandra did. The Chief of Staff shook her head in a measure of disbelief. Those around her, less involved in the planning that had led to the message sent to Fragment Five forty-five minutes earlier, were nonetheless struck by the firmness of the alien words. Someone nearby said softly, “They don't mince words, do they?”
Vigola immediately called the President. He had retired early, in anticipation of this event, and arranged to be awake by eleven in the evening. The President was sitting in the family quarters with his wife, Jennifer. The phone rang at 12:17, two minutes after the message had been sent.
“The reply, Mr. President,” Vigola said with no preamble, “says they still expect to meet with Dr. Hughes, and will send what they call a 'suitable craft' into the Pacific on the 16th. More instructions that night.”
McBrand took a long breath, looking over at his wife, who was watching him closely. The President and wife were both in robes over their nightclothes. “Will you forward the text to me, Madeleine?” he asked quietly. “My computer here in the quarters is on and ready.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
