I sat down again, and pulled a face at Fian who was sitting next to me. He grinned back at me, and mouthed a couple of words that looked like ‘well done’. There was some incomprehensible scientific report next, so I let my mind wander for a few minutes, before discovering the report had somehow turned into a verbal fight between a civilian adviser from the Physics team and the ever-relaxed Threat team leader, Commander Leveque. The unfortunate Military officer in notional overall command of the Science teams made a last attempt to keep his civilian adviser in check, before giving up and listening with a look of despair on his face.
‘Perhaps I should remind you, Professor Devon,’ said Leveque, ‘that Colonel Torrek makes the tactical decisions, not you.’
I exchanged startled glances with Fian. So this was the Gaius Devon who’d come up with the new portal theories.
‘But a pre-emptive strike against the sphere is the only sane course of action,’ said Devon. ‘It’s sitting up there in Earth orbit to test our defence capability. You have to blow it up now to prove we aren’t an easy target.’
‘Premise One of the Alien Contact programme states an unprovoked attack should be avoided,’ said Leveque.
‘Premise One was written centuries ago by people who didn’t have a genuine alien threat on their doorstep,’ said Devon.
Leveque’s smile widened. ‘Which meant they were in a position to think calmly and logically rather than rush into precipitate action that could later prove regrettable in the extreme.’
There was no doubt who was winning this argument. Devon’s face was turning an ever-deeper shade of puce, while Leveque’s smile kept growing more maddening, and his sentences more ornate.
‘You have to attack now!’ Devon turned to Colonel Torrek. ‘You can’t keep listening to that coward.’
I gave a shocked look at Leveque to see how he felt about being called a coward in front of every senior officer in the base. He seemed to be struggling not to laugh.
‘I have every confidence in the personal courage of Commander Leveque,’ said Colonel Torrek. ‘You might note he wears the Thetis medal. He would have qualified for the Artemis, if he hadn’t been incredibly lucky and escaped totally uninjured.’
‘With respect, sir, that was good planning not luck,’ said Leveque.
‘Chaos take your Military medals,’ said Devon. ‘My evaluations show we’ve a good chance of destroying the sphere, so do it.’
‘And what happens if we try and fail?’ asked Colonel Torrek. ‘Even if we succeed, we’ll have committed an act of war. The cross-sector Military was founded to prevent any repetition of the wars fought between humans before Exodus century, not to deliberately start wars with aliens, and I’m advised the sphere may not represent the current technological level of the alien race.’
‘Oh we’re back to that again,’ said Devon. ‘It’s ridiculous to think the sphere could have got here by any means other than a drop portal. That’s how we always get to new star systems, isn’t it?’
‘If it used a drop portal,’ said Leveque, ‘it must have been one of dimensions above the maximum possible size according to Jorgen Eklund.’
Fian leaned forward in his chair as he heard his great-grandfather’s name.
‘That’s a very old theory,’ said Devon.
‘The laws of physics haven’t changed in the last century,’ said Leveque, ‘and I have good reasons to take the work of Jorgen Eklund extremely seriously.’
‘Why?’ demanded Devon.
Leveque beamed at him. ‘Unfortunately I cannot supply you with classified information from Military records.’
I bit my lip to stop myself laughing and leaned to whisper in Fian’s ear. ‘I told you Leveque wasn’t making fun of you.’
Devon was virtually shouting now. ‘If it’s impossible for the sphere to have reached here by drop portal, then it’s even more impossible that it travelled conventionally. It would have taken …’ He broke off, but he’d already made a fatal mistake.
‘Precisely,’ said Leveque. ‘You agree with my other expert evaluation of the situation. The sphere must have taken hundreds or thousands of years to get here, in which case the aliens could have made huge technological progress since it was launched. It’s possible those advances include the discovery of portal technology, so we may have far more advanced craft arriving without any warning. In these circumstances, it would be highly inadvisable to commit an unnecessary act of aggression.’
Fian’s face looked ludicrously grazzed as he heard his warning described as an expert evaluation.
‘If you accept Eklund’s theory then you would get a warning of more alien craft arriving,’ said Devon. ‘It gives rigid limits on possible portalling distances as well as size, and the Search team have found no signs of alien portal relays in Alpha sector. Alien craft couldn’t just casually portal across whole sectors of our space. They’d have to repeatedly use a drop portal, emerge, gain power, refocus, and portal again. It would take days, if not weeks, for them to get across Alpha sector, and we’re watching for the telltale bursts of energy now.’
Fian startled me by suddenly joining in the debate. ‘If aliens don’t have their own portal relays, can they use ours?’
I gave him a grazzed look. Everyone else was looking at him too, and there was an odd silence in the room.
Fian flushed. ‘It’s probably impossible but …’
Colonel Torrek looked at Leveque. ‘Is it impossible?’
‘We usually use the standard portal system to send our ships as close as possible to their destination, and then send them the last step by drop portal, but bouncing a drop portal signal a long distance across standard portal relays is definitely possible. During the Artemis crisis, we sent our dart ships half-way across Beta sector, and we did it by bouncing their drop portal signals across Beta sector’s portal relays without their knowledge.’ Leveque stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes.’
He left the room and there was total silence. Even Devon quietly sat down, which told me just how bad this was. It was five or ten minutes before Leveque returned, with an edge of grimness marring his usual relaxed expression.
‘Unfortunately, Captain Eklund is correct to be concerned. Aliens utilizing our portal relay network is not nearly as impossible as we’d like.’
‘Worst-case scenario?’ asked Colonel Torrek.
‘The alien sphere waits until Earth’s portal network shuts down during the next major solar storm and we’re at our weakest. The radiation means we can’t keep the solar arrays manned, keep fighters in orbit, or create outgoing portals. The sphere would attack to distract us, while its reinforcements portal in using our own portal relay network. We portal our forces into Sol system in response and there is a decisive conflict with significant implications for the future safety of all our worlds.’
Colonel Torrek pulled a face. ‘Meaning we’d have to win at any cost.’
‘Can’t we shut down the relay network as a defensive precaution?’ asked Devon. ‘At least, the network near Sol system?’
I was no good at science, so I’d been keeping quiet, but now I had to speak. ‘No! That would stop Handicapped newborn babies from reaching Earth. They’d all die!’
Devon gave me a look of pure disgust. ‘Insignificant given what’s at stake here.’
‘Shutting down the relay network near Earth would prevent not only alien forces but our own from reaching it,’ said Leveque.
‘We could abandon Earth,’ said Devon. ‘Only the Handicapped live here, so it’s an acceptable loss.’
Acceptable loss? My home planet! Everyone I loved! I half rose in my seat, but Colonel Torrek spoke before I could choose which furious words to say.
‘Earth has five inhabited continents and the highest population of any of our planets except Adonis and Zeus. I don’t regard it as an acceptable loss, and I’m not killing thousands of babies a day just as a defensive precaution. We’ve been discussing a purely hypothetical situation, because the aliens may not have portal technology yet, or may be friendly.’
Devon frowned. ‘Tactically though …’
