Fian had obviously recognized the image of Earth on the screen too. His expression reminded me of Issette when she was pulling one of her buggy-eyed, shocked faces. He looked at me, and then we both instinctively and pointlessly looked up at the ceiling. Somewhere up above us, in Earth orbit, was that enigmatic grey alien sphere.
I remembered Doyle’s words from when I was 12. Encountering an advanced alien species would either be the greatest opportunity in history, or the greatest ever threat to the survival of humanity. Most of my head thought about the second half of that sentence, while the rest of it called itself an idiot. I should have realized the alien contact was here the minute they called in an ape like me, let alone when I found out the Military were building a base on Earth, but it had been ingrained in my mind that humanity would encounter aliens during Planet First explorations in the newest sector, Kappa.
Something else occurred to me. They’d given me some special shots during my medical check. What were those for? Potential chemical, radiation or germ warfare attacks? Nuke that!
I heard the door open behind us. A shocked male voice spoke. ‘Nuke that!’
I’d only thought the words, but someone else had actually said them. I turned to identify the guilty party, and saw a dark-haired young man in a Lieutenant’s uniform. His eyes moved from the screen to glance at me; he looked horrified, and hastily saluted.
‘Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.’
I gave him a rather confused salute, turned back to face the vid screen, and was startled to find half the people in the room had risen to salute me. The civilians were still lounging in seats, their grey uniforms marking them out as ignorant of Military procedures, but the true Military were all on their feet. Even when they’d saluted, they still stood facing me at attention, clearly waiting for something.
I stood there like a nardle. This didn’t make sense. I was only a Captain, and the Military saluting me included several Majors and at least one Commander. I vaguely remembered seeing something in a vid, and gave it a try.
‘As you were.’
They all relaxed and sat down. I pulled a face at Fian, and we found a couple of seats near the front of the room. As we sat down, Fian leaned towards me and whispered in my ear. ‘What was that about?’
I whispered back. ‘I don’t know.’
I looked furtively around. The audience seemed to be split about half-and-half between civilians and Military. The civilians were presumably experts in various fields. I wondered why Fian and I had actually been inducted into the Military, while others were left with civilian status. There was probably some obvious reason, which I was too stupid to figure out, like the reason for the existence of this base.
A woman in Military uniform went to the front of the room, and the audience settled down to pay attention.
‘I’m Major Rayne Tar Cameron, Command Support. Fifty-two hours ago, the Earth Solar Array Meteor Watch detected a sphere approaching Earth. It was 4.71 metres in diameter, and undergoing controlled deceleration. It appeared to originate from a cluster of asteroids in the region of Mars orbit.’
Fian shot me a desperate look.
‘Fourth planet,’ I whispered. ‘Next one out from us.’
The image on the vid screen changed to a sequence showing the trajectory of the alien sphere. The Major let that play through before speaking again.
‘There is no evidence to indicate current or prior existence of an alien species in Earth’s solar system capable of building this. The current theory is the sphere came from outside this solar system, either by portal or conventional means, and stayed in the region of Mars orbit for an indeterminate period of time before approaching Earth.’
The vid screen now started showing what must be genuine vid coverage of the sphere approaching Earth. The images were obviously running at very high speed, but they slowed down twice to allow us to see the sphere making definite course changes as it manoeuvred into Earth orbit.
The Major started speaking again. ‘The sphere is now in geostationary orbit above Earth Africa. As soon as it was observed to be artificial and under power, Alien Contact was activated. We transmitted the standard series of mathematical and other greets which are sent out whenever Planet First teams enter a new star system. There was no response. We followed this with several expanded series of transmissions. Still no response. We have continued communication attempts without success. The sphere has held its position in geostationary orbit without any detectable action.’
A vid ran showing details of the attempts they’d made to communicate with the sphere. They’d done just about everything, including shining lights at it. They hadn’t actually sent someone over to knock on the side of the thing, because that might be construed as a hostile action.
The Major made another speech about attempts to scan the interior of the sphere. It was a very short speech, because none of the scans had worked. All we knew about the thing was its size and shape. Given the size, it was probably an unmanned, automated probe.
At this point, Major Rayne Tar Cameron gathered up the civilian members of the audience and led them off somewhere. All the Military in the room stayed in their seats, apparently expecting something else to happen.
Fian nudged me, and gave me a questioning look, obviously unsure if we should stay or go. A few minutes ago, I’d been wondering why we’d been inducted into the Military while other people were left as civilians, and this could be the answer. Perhaps you had to be a serving member of the Military to hear what was coming next. I stayed in my seat.
There was a pause of two or three minutes, then a woman entered the hall and went to the front. Everyone stood to salute, and she instantly gave a brisk nod, which allowed them to sit down and relax again. I made a mental note of it, in case I ended up in the same weird situation I’d been in earlier, with a room full of Military stuck at attention.
‘I’m Commander Nia Stone, Attack team leader and Colonel Torrek’s deputy,’ she said.
She half turned towards the vid screen, the image zoomed out, and now I saw four sleek, black Military ships at a discreet distance from the sphere. I’d seen pictures of Military dart ships before, but never anything like these.
‘We’re probably looking at an automated, unmanned probe,’ she said. ‘It’s only 4.71 metres in diameter, but this is an alien device with unknown capabilities. Initial assessment by the Science teams, based on its speed, manoeuvrability, and resistance to scans, is that the technology behind it is above the level of our own in some areas. As far as we know, it has done nothing since it entered Earth orbit, but it may be taking actions beyond our ability to detect.’
She paused to give us time to absorb that, and I found myself thinking of the stasis boxes left behind in Earth’s cities when humanity poured off world during Exodus century. When you found one, its protective force field was a strange furry black, hiding its contents. Usually, they held items from the past and farewell messages. If you were lucky, there could be a treasure of historical or scientific data, to help fill in the gaps of the knowledge lost during the chaotic years of Exodus and the Earth data net crash. If you were unlucky, there could be something extremely nasty, because sometimes a stasis field wasn’t used to protect the contents from the world, but to protect the world from the contents.
You had to be a specially trained expert to open stasis boxes. Our pre-history class was fortunate that Lecturer Playdon was Stasis Q. I hoped to qualify myself one day, so I’d been learning what I could from him. Stasis boxes had been found holding radioactive materials, nuclear warheads, and bio-warfare agents, as well as things Playdon wasn’t allowed to talk about. All Stasis Q had to take the Security Oath, because they needed to be warned of every dangerous item that had ever been found in stasis boxes, and some of that information was classified.
The alien sphere was like a stasis box. We had no clue what was inside, whether it was good or bad. I’d often said there was no limit to how dangerous the contents of a stasis box could be, but of course that wasn’t really true. A stasis box could only contain the unpleasant things humanity had invented during its history. The risks posed by the sphere really were unlimited.
The view on the vid screen recaptured my attention by zooming out yet again. Now I could see twelve more ships positioned further from the sphere than the first four. At a much greater distance still, were four circles floating in space. My eyes widened. Those were proper portals, not the ephemeral five-second, drop portals the
