by Geoff Wolak
I nodded. ‘Good, it all helps. I’ll have it sent to Seether.’
‘How’s progress there?’ Helen asked me, despite the TV news here giving regular reports.
‘I have them all football crazy,’ I said with a smile. ‘And our first tournament saw almost ten thousand Seethans attend. We’re now building a stadium that could hold fifty thousand.’
‘Jimmy says you’ve been very clever.’
‘He did?’ I repeated, surprised by that revelation.
‘Yes, and a group of experts here have predicted that it will alter their social make-up dramatically.’
‘Well, the way they’re repressed now, a walk in the park on a Sunday would be a step forwards,’ I said. ‘They hardly smile, they work and go home, and they have nothing other than card games to amuse themselves. They’re like the old Soviet Union, only the Soviets did have sport. And ladies built like tanks.’
Helen put Selemba down with the boys. ‘On Baldy’s world, they’ve opened a portal in space and launched several probes to the Moon. But the launchers are here, in Trophy.’
‘Yes, I heard. They’re surveying the Moon, especially the far side. And the best-powered portal test had it opening almost half way there, but the probe was destroyed on exit. Unstable.’
Susan added, ‘The Chinese on that world will land on the Moon in a few weeks, with a joint crew of Indians. They say that the landing will achieve little of practical benefit, not much payload.’
‘Politics,’ I carefully mouthed. ‘The underground facility here will be ready soon enough, and the power available will be greater. Much greater. Trophy Aerospace will launch a landing module, but they’ll not try and go so far into space as to risk damaging the damn thing. That module will have supplies on it, and it could be used as a habitat. What they’re building, both here and in Trophy, is a type of rail-gun that will launch the landing craft at speed through the portal. Momentum could then take it to the Moon.’
‘Any word from Toby?’ Helen asked Susan.
‘No, no … word yet,’ Susan replied, a look exchanged with me.
‘It’s only been a few weeks,’ I lamely stated.
‘Six years over there,’ Susan thought she might mention. ‘Other families received notes.’
‘He’s probably married with three kids by now,’ I joked. Then I stopped smiling. ‘No really, he … probably is.’
‘The Seethan babies that went will be tall by now,’ Helen mentioned. ‘Be all grown up by time we see them, which may be around four weeks from now.’
‘There we go,’ I said to Susan. ‘Get to see Toby in four weeks, with grey hair and … three kids, and two ex-wives.’
She did not look like a happy bunny, at all.
I visited the volunteers’ compound the next day, chatting about space travel and aliens. Many projects had been sidelined till we knew what would come back to us from Jimmy’s old world, but a few die-hard scientists plodded on, projects mostly to do with the Moon base. Wonder Plastic was still being refined, and its properties were improving all the time. Now you could stretch it out, fire UV light at it, and it would stay in the shape you had created - whilst being rock solid. Habitats had been built, dozens of them, all now being poked and prodded, radiation fired at them - and its penetration tested.
These future Moon habitats would have a crude outer shell made of Wonder Plastic. That plastic would travel as a thick lump, to be heated on the Moon’s surface, and would expand greatly. Then it would have the UV treatment, or just be left to be hit by the Sun’s rays, and finally buried by Moon dust. Square habitats would be placed inside, the gap filled with inert gases at modest pressures.
The power stations that powered New Kinshasa had been cleverly linked, and at 3am most nights a high-power test would be carried out. If a citizen sat watching a bulb closely at that time they might notice a dip in brightness, right before they figured they’d best get a life. The power available here was far greater than in Trophy, despite the fact that Trophy had its own nuclear reactor up the coast a few miles, and the egg-heads were hopeful that we could launch craft towards the Moon from at least a third of the way there. Technically, they said, they could go three quarters of the way there, but with a margin of error. That margin of error would worry the earnest astronauts when we started sending them.
The one downside to the use of portals for launching spacecraft was that you could never bring anyone back. Finding an open portal in space would be a real needle in the haystack job, and then some. And that needle would be flying at thousands of miles per hour. So the Chinese and the Indians, on many worlds, would get to see their rockets and craft used, not least for bringing our American astronauts back from space.
‘Americans astronauts being ferried by foreigners? Ah, how times had changed,’ I quipped to one scientist, an American. He did not see the funny side, and I sloped off with my hands in my pockets.
The Indians had overtaken the Americans as far as space travel was concerned, simply because the Americans could not afford it. The Americans were not broke, they had lots of money, but their own scientists were bleeding them dry, with salaries and pensions eating up eighty-five percent of the allocated NASA budget. India, on the other hand, paid three Rupees and a curry dinner to its scientists, who equalled the academic intelligence levels of their American cousins. The Indian scientists were even cheaper than the Chinese scientists, who had become a little middle-class over the years.
The next day the balloon went up. “Alien ship found in Antarctica!”
They meant Antarctica on the Seethan world, and that we had found Slumber’s ship. Now, the Marines would build a base around it, dig it out, and try and get inside without blowing themselves up. Slumber, who was still frozen, was on hand just in case his hand-print was needed, or a DNA sample or retinal scan. A key hole in the ship would have been nice.
I received an image of the ship a few days later, and it was a sexy beast - sleek and grey, modest fins at the rear, the body flattened yet rounded, no windows or doors apparent. It reminded me of an old SR71 Blackbird in profile.
They soon found a door, but no external workings to operate it. EM scans had revealed a very faint reading coming from within. Not wishing to damage the ship, they thawed out Slumber’s hand, just his hand, and dragged his heavy sarcophagus to the ship. Pressing his hand against the door did not cause it to pop open, Jimmy ordering a sweep of the area around the ship, and around the old colony. Slumber must have had a transmitter of some sort, he figured.
Then a clever scientist suggested that a new type of micro-robot go inside. Exhaust pipes were visible at the rear of the ship, as well as buried flush into the skin at several points on the body. A negative pressure caused a covering the size of an apple to open, presumably a vent for some sort of stabilizer or directional control. The small robot was sent down, just an inch across, and crawled along sending back grainy images.
Within a day it had crawled around the stabilizer systems’ internal pipe works, but got no further. Next, a large X-ray machine was hauled into place over the door hatch, and it flashed away, not revealing the inside of the ship. But what it did reveal were three places on the door that were of a different material, and seemed to have controls connected to them. With their position accurately marked, Slumber’s other hand was thawed, and moved into placed so that two forefingers and a thumb touched all three points at the same time. Nothing happened for ten seconds, but then the door popped open with a hiss. We were in.
Sensors around the ship had not recorded the vessel sending out any messages, so no galactic alarm seemed to be going off as we jacked Slumber’s wheels. I sat up late at night with Susan and Helen, observing the helmet cam of a scientist as he entered the ship, the man breathing heavily through his mask. It was like watching Alien, the movie, all over again. He found nowhere tall enough to stand up, and crawled over dark grey surfaces, and along to a type of small and cosy command centre, many black screens embedded in walls. There was a
hollow in the floor, human sized, so he swivelled around and lay down, facing up at the screens.
His right hand could touch a panel of switches, one switch larger than the others. He touched it, describing what he was doing a horse whisper, as if he might disturb someone. Nothing. Next he tried the other switches in sequence. Again, nothing. Finally, he put a finger on the large button, and two fingers on the other two buttons, and waited. A screen flickered to life, readouts in a language that we could not understand. Slumber’s people worked in threes. After six minutes of readouts, a second and third screen came to life, details of the ship’s position highlighted, the base outside highlighted, men seen moving around.
Touching small squares on the final unlit screens, they each came to life and settled, one showing our solar system, the final screen displaying the track taken to get here. By placing a cold finger on the track, the man was able to wind it back to its start point. We now knew where they lived. Touching the screen for our solar system, the man suddenly said, ‘Oh hell!’
I hit a button on my data-pad. ‘This is Paul Holton. What’s wrong?’
‘If I’m reading this right, there are three ships approaching our solar system.’
‘How soon?’ I urgently got out.
‘If this scale is accurate, in about ten years’ time,’ he reported, breathing heavily
‘Ten years!’
‘Hang on.’ He wrestled himself closer to it. ‘I can see them moving, so … on this scale, at least a few months, if not more like a year. They’re in no big hurry.’
‘Can you see what they are?’ I urged. ‘Expand them, or something.’
‘Hang on.’ He tapped the image of one, and it enlarged. Tapping it again caused it to enlarge further, till it was obvious that the ship was of the same design. It even showed the crew compliment; one per ship. ‘We’re being invaded, by all three of them!’
‘I want you flying that ship by sun up, or you’re pants,’ I told him, cutting the link.
I linked into Jimmy, who had been watching, and had heard me of course. As had the other three hundred people linked in. ‘What do you reckon?’ I asked.
‘That I was right, and that they send people out to alter the history of other species, but slowly over time. It’s a way of … preventing a future war, or making sure that other races are not aggressive. And I’m starting to think that some of our nuclear wars might have been triggered by these arseholes.’
‘Which makes our linked worlds a special target to them,’ I said. ‘We’re a threat.’
‘Yes, we are,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘And now we know where they hang out. Any probe from us sent that way and they’ll be … vexed.’
‘And Slumber’s attack on the future Seethan ship?’ I posed.
‘They might have caught him off guard, he may have panicked, it’s hard to tell. And as we discussed before, maybe a future Seethan race are a threat to them, or a least a perceived threat to some arsehole of a political leader. What better way … than to wipe them out at the source.’
‘Do you think they may try and finish the job? On the Seethan world?’
‘Those ships are approaching the Seethan world,’ he reminded me.
‘Christ, yes, I keep thinking it’s here.’
‘You have a year or so. Anyway, all the details of that ship will be sent through to my old world. And we’ll start to analyse its metals, and its defensive capabilities. Might even have it flying by sun up.’
They didn’t have it flying by dawn, they were taking it easy. Several scientists had clambered inside, all with sensors and helmet cams, the detail piped back to many establishments, and many worlds. The news of the ship had already been sensational, and now the world received images of the inside of the ship. Slumber’s shipboard sarcophagus had been found, and it appeared that he rested in a type of gel during flights. There was a food store, the contents soon being analysed, but that food store suggested that it would last little more than a week or two. The scientists did, however, consider that Slumber’s people could slow their metabolism, and so the food may have lasted longer.
The food was found to be a paste mostly, and found to be comparable to human foods, fish DNA found in it. Seems that Slumber hadn’t lied about his fondness for fish. A record of Slumber’s flight had been found, and wound back, the dates checked, and it appeared that he had landed on the ice, not in South Africa as he stated, so he could not have developed the Seethan DNA. His purpose was the colony in Antarctica, and his ship’s track seemed to suggest that he wanted to go there, and nowhere else. He did, however, spend twenty days in orbit over the colony first.
As I flew back to Manson with Susan and the boys, a scientist managed to get the ship to move, and also managed to smash to pieces delicate equipment housed outside, injuring several people. With everyone moved back, the door closed, three men now on board, they lifted up a few feet, and landed back down with a jolt. Adjusting the scale on a screen, they tried that again, this time achieving a smooth rise and fall. Since the vents were not blowing anything out, the damn ship had to have some sort of anti-gravity engine. The egg-heads all got an erection at the same time.
Deciding that Antarctica was, in fact, bloody cold, the lead scientist took matters into his own hands and lifted off, soon at ten thousand feet and heading north, not so much as a ‘goodbye’. His landing, a smooth enough landing, at the portal opening in Manson, came as a surprise to the soldiers there, since the ship only appeared visually when our men had popped the hatch after landing.
Everyone told the earnest pilot what they thought about him, but also agreed that the ship was better positioned up there. They threw a marquee over it, and the expedition on Antarctica was slowly withdrawn because it was, apparently, a little chilly of an evening.
Arriving back on Seether, the first thing I did was to order the ship into the air, the Marines manning the scanners and missiles trying to detect it. They couldn’t. The new upgraded software was then installed, and the radar picked up the stealth ship, but only when it was moving - since the radar picked up the air pressure waves around it. I had a Marine fire at it with his laser rifle, the metal hardly warm to the touch afterwards. An old style AK47 was tried next, the scientists horrified at my brutal approach, and a scratch was noted. The ship resisted heat and lasers, but a good old bullet scratched its surface.
Detaching an internal panel, the scientists placed it against a tree, and we shot at it with many weapons, the overloaded laser punching a hole in it. This stealth ship was not so tough, probably built to be light. I sent my findings through to Jimmy’s old world, for when they contacted us next.
With a bank of sensors attached to the ship, the outer door was repeatedly opened and closed, the stealth technology eventually figured out, not least because it had an event horizon about an inch above the ship’s surface. In stealth mode, a giant hologram was emitted, but we determined that the skin either absorbed most kinds of EM radiation, or scattered it, altering frequencies as it went. If you shone red light at it, faint blue light might be glimpsed. And then we had a clear sunny day, no clouds in Manson, snow still on the ground. Inside, they reported that the power settings were climbing. The skin of this thing absorbed EM radiation, and utilised it. That info was also passed through to Jimmy’s world.
Jimmy then ordered the ship flown to Mawlini, where a very large portal was active, connected to his old world. The scientists found Africa OK, the east coast, and eventually zeroed in on Mawlini since a huge EM pulse was being sent out. Hovering level with the giant portal, they carefully edged the ship forwards - making many small adjustments, finally through to the other side, where they scraped against a wall before landing. The portal closed immediately. On the Seethan world, everyone involved with the ship packed up and went home, Antarctica being evacuated on 1938-world, and now we’d all wait for what the people on Jimmy’s old world might come up with.
I settled back in to the embassy, much talk of the stealth ship for a day or two, an
d now a great deal of optimism amongst the staff. They were concerned, of course, that three alien ships were headed this way, but confident that the egg-heads on Jimmy’s old world would come up with something. With snow on the ground football was cancelled, but the police and army still trained - after the various pitches had been cleared.
The next day I was presented with several images on a data-pad, by Henry, all of suitable places in the city for a monster of a stadium. We chose a place south of the city, and asked to buy it, the government simply handing the land to us. Builders were commissioned, and I made it clear that I wanted work to continue through the winter months, bonuses to be paid.
The head builder stared at images on a data-pad, measured out the pitch, and hammered wooden stakes into the hard and snow-covered ground, string wound between the steaks in places. We would have concrete stands, thirty rows of seats right around the pitch, and a wooden overhanging roof. Changing rooms would be under the stands, and there would be two VIP boxes opposite each other, a few other boxes available. I left them to it, hoping to have something for the spring, perhaps for May.
Such a stadium would normally take years, even on my world, but this one was very simple in design, and utilised two natural slopes. It would not look pretty, not with grey concrete, but that grey concrete was just to stand on.
I then got a call from an angry lady, puzzling it. She was human, and … this call was from my world. ‘Hello?’
‘I want my husband back. I told that man Silo, and now I’m telling you, Limey.’
‘How … did you get through to me?’
‘Silo re-directed the call. What are you going to do?’
‘Do about what?’
‘My husband!’
‘Is your husband stationed here?’
‘No, he was in that confounded alien ship they said, and now he’s gone.’
‘Oh, I … guess he’s gone to Jimmy’s old world.’
‘I want him back.’
