After finishing their emergency repairs and ship restructuring, the next few weeks for the Rithro consisted of a long fall inward towards the natives’ star. They operated the landing boats’ drives in one long period of acceleration followed by freefall, forcing everyone to rapidly refresh their skills in zero-g maneuvering. Tension ran high the first few days as the crew waited for their camouflaging shell to fail, but Nadash detected nothing unusual in the constant stream of transmissions from the natives. As usual for all sapient species, what was initially tense became, eventually, routine. By the end of the second week of tedium Captain Sadaf was almost hoping they’d be detected; it would at least give them all something to do.
The Captain gave Nadash those two weeks to work her analyzing magic on those intercepted transmissions. One ‘night’ Sadaf couldn’t rest and headed up to the bridge. As expected, Nadash sat with a calm air at her workstation. Out of curiosity Sadaf drifted over to Nadash, only to find that she was analyzing what appeared to be a hundred transmissions at once. A welter of shifting images covered her station’s display. The visual input was so overwhelming that the Captain had to look away or risk nausea.
“I know what you’re going to ask, Captain,” said the Exalted. “I do believe I’ve had a breakthrough which gives us some hope.”
“Oh?”
Nadash waved a hand and her display changed to just one moving image, that of a group of the natives clustered around a large-barreled weapon of unfamiliar design. As Sadaf watched, the natives moved in a fluid concert of motion to load the weapon’s breech and stand clear. Then, simultaneously with a pulling gesture from one of the natives, the big gun’s muzzle erupted with a gout of smoke. The concussive blast from the weapon threw a cloud of dust over the surrounding natives.
“The natives are violent. That I can say for certain. They fight and kill each other even in the present day, and from what little I’ve decoded of their history these natives, these ‘huue-mans’, have fought and killed each other for their entire history.”
“Huue-man? Human.” Sadaf sounded out the unfamiliar word in her mouth. “So why is there hope? We’ll just be one more group to fight. If they have no qualms about killing each other, they’ll for sure have no problem with killing us.”
Nadash gestured again, and this time the screen was filled with an image of a wedge-shaped spacecraft against a star-studded background. Sadaf tilted her head curiously as the spacecraft drew near to a large planet. “Wait. We know they don’t have the technology for interplanetary travel. We’d have seen any such ships of that size.”
The Exalted sounded as close as she could to smug. “Exactly. I was confused as well, until I scanned more of these humans’ transmissions and realized that a good fraction of them are fiction.”
“Oh? These humans sound a little like Knuall-toua in that regard.” The little snakelike sapients had a legendary fondness for dramatic plays, and Sadaf had been obliged to watch more than her fair share of them in the interest of crew harmony. “Does that mean they’re not as violent as you thought?” she added.
“No, they are quite violent. But here, look at this.” With another gesture, Nadash’s display was filled with a scene set in some swampy, overgrown area. Sadaf felt her horns flatten in alarm at the sight of a huge scaly figure standing in the middle of the screen, facing a much smaller human. Both beings crouched in clear combat postures. The larger creature wore a strange helmet, and as Sadaf watched the figure removed the helmet to reveal a mandibled face.
“What is that, a new sapient?” asked Sadaf, then nearly dove for cover as the big creature spread its arms and mandibles wide and roared a challenge at the human. The image paused as the Captain regained her composure. “We saw no evidence of them before!”
Nadash pointed at the creature. “That’s because they don’t exist. I’ve done extensive searching, and the only reference to these new creatures is within a series of fictions about them. From the context it appears that in the stories they’re beings from another planet, coming down to the human’s homeworld to hunt them.”
“Oh no.” Sadaf felt her heart sink. “This is very bad. That fictional creature even looks a bit like an udhyr. Well, an udhyr if you chopped off their two smaller, lower arms…”
The Exalted stopped her with an upraised claw. “Before you get too carried away, also look at this.”
Another moving image appeared, this time of a small human…perhaps one of their children?...facing another unfamiliar creature. This one was short and squat, almost the same height as the human child, and had a lumpy wide head on a neck far too slender to support it. Sadaf blinked in surprise as the two figures embraced in a gesture of affection familiar to any auhn.
“Also fiction?”
“Yes. But you see why this gives us some hope. They’ve already imagined sapient life elsewhere in the universe. They won’t view us as devils or gods, but as people like them.”
Sadaf’s horns rose along with her determination. “Right. It looks like contact is at least possible. Now we need to determine exactly how to do that contact.”
Within minutes she’d summoned Tofa to the bridge. "The humans’ planet must have the usual stable zones in its orbit around their star. What do they look like?"
The xyrax astrogator performed a quick scan. "I am detecting multiple objects in both the leading and trailing zones...and quite a few of those are artificial. I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll be able to hide in either zone."
The captain growled in frustration. "This would be so much easier if they were still only on one frinxing planet."
"I have found another possible location," said Tofa. The display zoomed and shifted to show the sapient's homeworld, a lovely blue-green globe frosted with white clouds. Sadaf stared at it in fascination. It had been many thousands of years since her race had a world to call their own. Ever since the Breakers had destroyed Dazote, the near-mythical homeworld of the Auhn, her clan was now strictly spacefaring.
Tofa expanded the view out to show a huge moon in orbit around the planet. "As you can see, the natives’ planet has a moon which is much larger than usual. There are similarly stable points along the moon's orbit around the primary. Surprisingly, those appear to be relatively free of artificial objects."
"That's a lot closer to their planet than I wanted to get," said Sadaf. “Will our shell hold up to such scrutiny?”
“If we keep our power expenditure to a minimum,” Tofa replied. “That’ll lessen our radiators’ maximum temperature. Hopefully those natives won’t realize that our bit of space is a bit hotter than it should be.”
The Captain nodded. “Do it. Set the trajectory. Then work with Grakosh and finalize our power budget.” She stared at the bridge’s central display. “About ten more days and we’ll be there. After that…well, at least we won’t be bored anymore.”
__________
“Funny you should ask, luv.” Samuel Newman’s voice still sported some of the stretched and rolling vowels of his Yorkshire upbringing. The gray-haired man sat at the lounge’s single table which held a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee; Chao sat across from him sipping from her own bottled water.
“We’re ‘avin a look for what might be a gamma-ray burster in that exact direction,” he continued. “We got a possible signal from the Fermi satellite at that position and time you mentioned, but t’was pretty brief.”
Chao nodded, a casual gesture which belied her internal turmoil. She told herself to get a grip. “That’s great, Doctor Newman…”
“I’m just Sam, please.” He smiled at her, and to her relief it was a warm fatherly smile rather than a leer. “So why’d you lug y’self all the way over ta this side of Goddard?”
She decided that a half-truth was the best policy. “We’re tracking down the source of a temporary artifact we’ve seen in a few of the NIRCam images from the Webb. I’ve been asking around and someone mentioned that gamma rays could cause such an artifact. That’s why I wanted to check if your group had seen anything.”
Newman nodded. “That makes sense. I suppose it’s possible that a gamma ray burst could cause an IR detector to give a false positive.” He sipped a bit of his coffee and reflexively grimaced at its foul taste. “Moost say, If it t’were a burster, it ‘twas a right piddly one. Barely enough flux to qualify as a candidate detection.”
“Oh?” Chao kept up a disinterested façade. “Is it usual to see a burster that weak?”
“Let’s put it like this…if we can reacquire it, it’ll be the weakest ever recorded. I suppose that’s a good thing, aye? T’might have damaged yer detector otherwise.”
“Perhaps,” replied Chao. She wondered if she should press her luck and ask the next logical question, then figured that she’d already stuck her neck out. “About how long did the burst last?”
“A few seconds, maybe? Certainly, for less time than the Fermi’s refresh rate. That’s one of the reason’s we’re not sure if it’s a real candidate.”
Chao swallowed hard. It felt like she had a softball lodged in her throat, and she forced herself to relax. “Good to know. Um, do you mind if I have a look at that particular bit of data? It’ll help us make sure of the artifact’s source.”
Newman, to his credit, handed the raw data over with a smile. His only stipulation was that she keep the data secure until his own team could get their paper published. Chao agreed with no qualms, then managed to get through ten more minutes of small talk before excusing herself with a smile of her own which she did not feel.
Chao’s guts churned during the walk back to her own office. Halfway there her nerves got so bad that she seated herself under a convenient tree which overlooked one of Goddard’s parking lots. The occasional car passed by her grassy perch while she compared Newman’s data with the notes that she’d taken during a discussion with the in-house Webb detector expert.
It took less than five minutes for Chao to accept what the data told her, and she stood up on newly-shaky legs. She felt a strange mix of terror and elation, as if she’d stepped out of a plane without a parachute just to find out if she could fly. Once back at her own building she beelined her way to Blake’s cubicle. Without a word she jerked her head towards the nearest conference room.
Blake didn’t waste any time after he’d closed the conference room door. “What did Newman say?”
She set the printouts on the central table, then next to those went the sheaf of her own notes. “It’s…” She took a deep breath and stared down at the expanse of cheap wood veneer between her hands.
“Chao? Come on!”
The analyst raised her eyes to meet his. Her gaze was no longer laser-like in intensity; now her expression said plainly that she wanted nothing more than to hide away under the table. “They saw something.”
“A gamma-ray burst?”
“Maybe. It was pretty weak, they’re rechecking the raw data.”
Blake chortled. “Well there you go! Okay, it doesn’t explain the artifact’s apparent motion but maybe that’s due to…”
“No.” Chao’s voice held just as much fear as her eyes. She tapped one of her notes. “If the gamma rays were of sufficient flux to cause an artifact, the affected pixels would have shown full saturation. They didn’t. Plus the burst was only a few seconds, not a few hours.”
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“But…” Blake’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “But Newman’s group did see gamma rays, or they think they did. Maybe they’re also chasing an artifact?”
Chao gave a single, humorless laugh. “No. The time of their burst coincides with the appearance of our mystery ‘hot’ object. What are the odds of two entirely separate telescopes showing artifacts in exactly the same direction and at exactly the same time?”
Blake’s voice dropped to a whisper. “So it’s a real source?”
“Yeah. Something appeared out of nowhere into our solar neighborhood and emitted a pulse of gamma rays while doing so. It then emitted in the near infrared for a few hours afterwards as if it was red-hot. And then it vanished…or at least, now we can’t see it anymore.”
Blake now looked as scared as she felt. After a few moments of reflection, he shook his head. “Chao…this whole mess is way above our pay grade. I was hoping we could get a nice little paper published out of it, but this? Just…just what in the hell could act like that?”
“You mean, what the hell could act like that in nature,” Chao replied.
“You said it’s never aliens.”
“It’s never aliens. Until it is.” Chao took in a deep breath that seemed to suck in all the oxygen in the room. As she breathed out, she felt her equilibrium return. “No. This could still be just a natural phenomenon. Or some coincidence of weird instrument malfunctions. Either way we need more data. See if there’s any other spectra where this thing shows up.” She gathered up the papers on the table and tapped them into a neat stack; the automatic action helped calm her further.
Blake rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re pushing our luck as it is. If we ask around too much, somebody’s gonna dig further and find those Webb images as well.”
“I agree. That’s why we don’t indulge in any more half-truths. Newman seems like a decent guy, plus he’s got enough seniority to pull a world-class team together. We’re going to go back to him and show him this analysis. We need more eyes on this, first off just to make sure we’re not jumping at shadows. Whatever happens next, we can only hope they don’t stick us at the end of the author’s list when this paper does get published.”
“You mean, if does turn out to be some weird artifact or natural phenomenon,” replied Blake. “If it’s what we suspect it is…then getting proper publication credit will be the least of our worries.”
__________
“We need to talk to one of them first,” said Takh. “Before we go and announce ourselves to all of the rest, I mean.”
“But will we be able to talk to them?” asked Dhuz. “I mean, I know eventually we’ll figure out their languages but we’ve only been orbiting here for a short time.”
The Captain snorted. “We will understand them if Nadash has anything to say about it.” The ship’s Exalted wasn’t present in the wardroom; instead, she’d installed herself up in the bridge and seemed determined to never leave her station until she’d cracked the communication barrier with these so-called ‘humans’.
“There’s a problem with Takh’s idea,” added Kifa. The pilot had her six legs clenched tight under her furry abdomen, but her voice remained calm. “We’re talking about restraining a human against their will, yes? Aside from any moral issues with abduction, it’ll make whoever we talk to suspicious of our motives.”
Dhuz sat next to the Captain as the latter cycled through overhead views of various points on the planet; the holographic wall of the wardroom mainly showed trees with the occasional area of tightly-packed buildings.
The opposite wall of the wardroom had been long before commandeered by Kexal, and at the moment it showed a time-elapsed display of the human homeworld rotating in silence. The giant udhyr sat in front of the image while making furious notes and letting loose with the occasional exclamation of “Magnificent!” or “Very curious!”
Each time the planetologist spoke Kifa’s legs twitched in irritation. Dhuz knew that they were all suffering from nerves; that fact wasn’t surprising, given that the Rithro now sat parked right next to a planet full of sapient natives who just might decide to kill every one of them in a spasm of unthinking fear should their ship be discovered.
The biologist figured that a bit of humor might help defuse the crews’ tension. “Abduction is a harsh way to put it,” said Dhuz with her horns set in a grin. “I prefer the term ‘involuntary interview’. We’ll make sure to treat them carefully and let them go afterwards.”
Takh sighed. “No, Kifa has a point. Another issue is that, er, ‘interviewing’ only one native is the very definition of a poor sample size. How do we know we’re talking with a ‘normal’ human?”
The wardroom’s display stopped on a pair of small buildings in the center of a clearing. Tall trees surrounded the structures, and as Sadaf gestured the view zoomed out to show a small town some distance away. Both the town and the initial buildings sat in the middle of mountainous terrain. Sadaf performed another zoom-out, and now they could see a few larger population clusters on plains next to the mountains.
“We want someone living on their own,” said the Captain. “It’ll make our approach and retreat after our, heh, ‘interview’ that much easier. But we also don’t want someone living too far away from their fellow humans. As you’ve implied, that raises the possibility that our candidate is too far removed from normal human behavior.” She narrowed the display back down to the initial pair of buildings. “This dwelling is nicely isolated, but close enough to other population centers.”
Sadaf stood and strode over to the display, then tapped the small abode with a clawed finger. “Let’s see if we can get some infrared imaging of these buildings. I want to find out how many humans live here. If it’s only one, this will be our prime candidate. Tofa, what did you discover about their detection and tracking systems?”
The astrogator’s many legs tapped as it walked up to the display. “May I?” Upon the Captain’s nod, Tofa gestured a pedipalp at the screen. It blinked to a view of the entire homeworld overlaid with shaped blobs of various colors.
“There are plenty of tracking radars,” said Tofa. “These are the most powerful ones I’ve scanned thus far. There’s no real blind spots anywhere, at least not near any population centers.” The xyrax pointed a pedipalp at one of the larger continents in the planet’s northern hemisphere. “Your candidate lives close to the center of this landmass, which is surrounded by many of the more powerful tracking systems.”
“Hmm. It appears that the EM screening of our shuttles needs to be on point,” mused Sadaf.
Takh clicked his mandibles in a sign of uncertainty. “Captain…what happens if we talk to this human and it turns out they’re hostile? Do we try again?”
“We’ll have to, won’t we? We’ll make sure to have some backup candidates.”
Dhuz hugged her knees to her chest. “And what happens if they are also hostile? What if the humans just want to kill us all?”
Sadaf looked down at Dhuz and stroked the biologist’s horns in a calming manner. “They won’t.”
Dhuz was not placated by the affectionate gesture. She knew the Exploration Bureau’s protocols just as well as Sadaf. If these ‘humans’ turned against them, Sadaf would have no choice but to destroy the Rithro…along with its crew.
__________
Declan slouched his way into Javier’s concrete ‘office’ with a few printouts clamped under one arm. “Got ‘im,” was his greeting.
Javier and Vincente stood next to the former’s desk while poring over the crew’s finances. The boss looked up from the notebook, his irritated expression relaxing into good humor.
Vincente still wore a small bandage across his face, but by now he’d lost the swelling and discoloration around his injured nose. Declan’s greeting made him grin. “Are you sure? And you didn’t get made?”
“Yes and yes. I couldn’t ask around that town, there was too much chance of him seeing me or hearing about me trying to get info. So I had one of my smurfs tail him while he was talking with the locals. He got two names, ‘Matt’ and ‘Toke’.”
“That ain’t much.” Javier’s expression started edging back into irritation.
Declan waved the printouts in front of him as if he was waving a red cape to distract an angry bull. “Yeah, but this ‘Matt’ guy screwed up and talked too much when he jumped us. He mentioned he had a friend who was ‘in’ and then died after he ‘got out.’ I think he was in the armed forces. It would fit with how easy he snuck up on us.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Vincente with a grimace. He gingerly touched his healing nose.
Javier crossed his arms. “Cut to the chase. You found his service record?”
“Yep. See, I figured that ‘Toke’ could be a nickname based on his last name…”
Javier narrowed his eyes.
Declan walked forward and slapped his printouts on the desk to forestall any possible retribution from Javier. “This is him, for sure. Captain Matthew C. Tocco. He was in the Marines up until about a year ago. Came in as a private, did a couple of tours, then went through their sniper school and got accepted into Force Recon, those are the Marines’ special forces guys. He got injured while on active duty, right towards the end there.”
The boss picked up one of the pages. “What’s with all these black lines? I can’t read shit.”
“That’s the secret redacted stuff. See, it’s a matter of public record that he was in the military but they don’t have to tell us what he did if it’s classified. I couldn’t even find out how he got hurt. All I know is he got a shitload of medals because of it.”
Vincente leaned over and read another page of the printout. “What makes you sure this is him?”
Declan grinned. “Because once I had the name I searched online. He does gun repairs and that kind of shit for a living. He’s even got his own website…which also includes his address.” He sailed the few final pages in his hand onto the desk. “I looked it up on Google Maps. It’s in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere and it’s within hiking distance of where we were cooking.”
For once Javier looked pleased. “Good work. If he lives by himself, that’ll make this easier. You all have one week to get ready. Then we stake out his place and move in when we know he’s alone.”
“We’re getting more guys for this, right?” Declan hoped that was the case; if so, he could bow out of the upcoming nastiness. He had a pretty good idea of what Javier had in mind for this Matt guy, and having to even watch something like that would give him nightmares for weeks.
“No. He ripped us off and drew our blood, we are the ones who settle this.”
Javier’s tone did not invite any debate, but Declan decided to debate anyway. He pointed at his printouts. “This shithead is serious business, though, not some jackoff with a gun. Even with all of the redactions in his file, I know this guy has killed more people than fucking malaria. If we had even a couple more guys…”
“No. It’s already one against four. Plus, we know where he lives.”
__________
Chao stood before the conference room’s screen as she finished her presentation. She was proud that her voice managed to stay steady. The amount of brainpower sitting in front of her would have intimidated anyone, let alone a junior-level grunt like her. Doctor Newman sat in the middle of the audience of three with his face set in a relaxed smile. His good humor helped keep her from feeling like the world’s biggest fool. Still, as Chao had gone through the data she had become increasingly convinced that the most senior of her listeners would interrupt her with some sort of obvious and mundane explanation which she should have realized back at the start.
But no interruption came. Instead, she saw a lot of thoughtful glances between the listeners as she reached the end of her prepared brief.
“…and therefore, taking both sets of data from the Fermi satellite and the Webb…well, it appears that this could be some sort of real phenomenon. I want to stress that Hawkins and I are not claiming that it is a real object. We’ve tried to figure out what kind of instrumental artifact could cause this, with the kind assistance of Dr. Hironaka…” Chao gave a nod towards the nattily-dressed woman at one end of the row of chairs.
Tsuna Hironaka smiled and nodded back as Chao finished.
“…but even with her considerable expertise we haven’t figured this out. Quite frankly, we’re stumped and we’ll appreciate any ideas on where to go from here.”
Newman straightened up in his chair and turned to the gray-haired man next to him. In contrast to Hironaka’s neat apparel, this person looked like he’d slept in his clothes.
“You see why I asked you in on this, Stan,” said Newman. Up until this point in Chao’s career, Stanley Ryan had been nothing but a name on the NASA org chart. A name which was right at the top and also oh-so-very far above her own. She’d been surprised at his apparent sloppiness upon meeting him, but Ryan’s focused demeanor belied his attire.
“I certainly can,” replied Ryan. “I can also understand why you’ve kept it quiet thus far.”
Newman growled, reminding Chao of a hound scenting a fox. “Too right. No matter how much we’d try to temper expectations, some bloody sod of a journalist – my apologies, ladies – would run off and start beefin’ about aliens invading.”
Blake stood off to one side of Chao, and thus far he’d been quite content to let his colleague take all the attention. Now finally he spoke up. “There must be another explanation, right?”
“Perhaps, lad,” said Newman. “I’ll be jiggered if I know what it is.”
“It still might be an artifact,” added Hironaka. “As Ms. Chu has stated, it is unlikely but we must be sure. Especially if this image does turn out to be that of a…” She trailed off, clearly unwilling to speak the word that was on all of their minds.
Ryan rubbed his neck, a nervous tic that reminded Chao of her grandfather. “At the risk of sounding melodramatic and sinister, who else knows about this data correlation?”
“Only those in this room,” said Newman.
“Good. Let’s keep it that way for the moment. I’ll make some discreet inquiries and find out if anyone else was looking in that direction at the time.” Ryan stood and rubbed his neck again. “Not to mention I’ve got to kick this upstairs. Way, way upstairs. In the meantime…the Fermi satellite is in low Earth orbit, correct?”
Newman stood as well. “That’s right.”
The NASA director stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. “The Webb’s orbit is at Earth’s L2 point. That’s about a million and a half kilometers away. If, and I must stress if, this thing is as close as you think it is…well, that should be more than enough parallax to triangulate its position.”
Chao resisted the urge to smack her forehead. “Oh. You’re quite right, sir. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Newman chuckled. “For that matter, why didn’t I?”
“That, my friends, is why they pay me the big bucks,” said Ryan with a half-smile. He turned to the conference room’s dry-erase board and picked up a marker. “Has anybody got a calculator handy?”
Twenty minutes later the board was filled with a hasty hodgepodge of rough sketches and even rougher equations. The team spent another few minutes while each of them independently worked through the resulting calculations. Once the team was satisfied, Chao plugged the resulting angle and distance into her laptop to determine the apparent location of their mystery object. The resulting blip showed up bright on the monitor, in very close proximity to a planet with an unfortunately meme-able name.
In spite of the seriousness of the moment, Chao couldn’t help but smile at the result and she knew that she wasn’t alone. They all looked at the display in silence for a moment until Newman spoke.
“Oh come on, will somebody please make the bloody joke so we can get it out of the way?”
Blake, to her surprise, was the one to do as Newman requested. “I’ll take this bullet for the team. What the hell is going on around Uranus?”