"Yngve, A R - Alien Beach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yngve A. R)

A.R.Yngve
ALIEN BEACH
Chapter One
DAY 1
"You're not listening to me," the woman told the soldier. She was right; he did hear her, but he wasn't listening. The soldier lay staring at the tiny black-and-white TV set before the bed. The newscast was hurried, stunned, as if the Second Coming had happened without warning. The soldier was initially testy enough to shout at the woman to shut up, but in the next few seconds he didn't care to. Transfixed by the small screen, he took in the breaking news. "The signals are being received from a point off the plane of our solar system, at a distance twice that to Mars. World-famous astrophysicist Carl Sayers, known for his work to find extraterrestrial intelligence, has gathered with other scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the NASA command-and-monitoring station for deep-space probes, to study the signals. "Professor Sayers could finally give this comment to the CNN just a minute ago…” "We have now established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that this is not a hoax. The TV broadcast comes from an extraterrestrial source, extremely strong and with tremendous bandwidth; that's why it shows up on so many of the world's stations. The source is a moving transmission disk, with a diameter of… roughly, a thousand kilometers. And from the way the signal increases in intensity, we have calculated that the disk is approaching the Earth with decreasing speed. "We now have reason to believe, that the disk is in fact an enormously huge solar sail, made up of very, very thin metal foil, which is slowing down as it moves into an orbit…parallel to that of Mars. It will probably settle in orbit, in the wake of Mars, where it will be shielded from the solar wind - kind of a port in a cosmic mistral, if you like. "And according to the alien broadcast, a smaller ship will leave the solar sail and orbit the Moon while awaiting our invitation to visit Earth. I cannot express to you the excitement I feel, as do all my colleagues here at the JPL. This is... this is..." The excited scientist obviously hadn't slept very well for the last few 24 hours; neither had the soldier. The headaches were still interrupting his nights - despite the booze, the women, and the pills. The soldier's head was a little less heavy this morning, and he felt like getting some more sleep - but the news of the alien TV broadcast pestered his brain, not with the dull pain of headache but with the rush of anticipation. He couldn't remember being this excited since the war. The woman, next to him in the bed, gave him an impatient push. "What's the matter, soldier? You want me to go?" He sighed, rubbing his temples, avoiding her sharp voice and stare. "Yes," he groaned. "Go. I don't know you." She pulled back strands of black hair from her tanned face and leaned closer to him, her soft hands trying to gently pull his gaze from the TV. "But we just met," she said softly into his ear. "I want to get to know you better..." He turned to face her, and gave her an angry look. No you don't, he thought, and she let go - as if she had heard his thoughts. Without a word, the woman gathered her clothes and began to dress. From the other side of the half-closed window shutters, the street was teeming and clamoring with human life. The soldier had not wanted to be part of such life for the last two years. He had been drifting around the Middle East since the war, in permanent early retirement, going nowhere, until this morning when his life got a purpose again. Struck by instant epiphany after the TV news, he now knew that he had to learn everything he could about the aliens. And then, just maybe, get a chance to see them. And then - he couldn't picture what next. Already, mocking his noble intentions, the thirst for booze, pills, whatever, was setting in. When the fully clothed woman closed the door behind her, he watched some more TV. "The strangest features of the Sirian broadcast is its wondrous clarity and briefness. Even a child can understand it; the smallest satellite disk on a house is sufficient to receive it. Videotape and CD copies of the main message, running ninety minutes long until repeated, must already exist in millions of households all over the world. "The broadcast has been on the air only since yesterday, and already many viewers have asked us: isn’t ninety minutes too much of a coincidence? How come the alien solar-sail wasn’t detected long before? Wouldn’t this and other odd things indicate that the broadcast is a fraud? At a closer look, there are elements in its narrative structure which seem inspired by 1950s’ TV shows and broadcast films. Strange as this may seem, it is not overly strange - since the extraterrestrials claim to have had their sights set on Earth when they picked up and decoded our early wide-band broadcasts. Being more advanced, and encountering their first messages from our emerging technological civilization, they responded in kind…in both NTSC and PAL signals. "Long will future generations of humans watch that historical first broadcast over and over: moving, somewhat jerky black-and-white photographic pictures, accompanied by written, clumsy English subtexts and simple sign language, carrying the Sirians' intent to mankind. And they will reminisce how with it, the fantastic suddenly became mundane; alien visitors from space became a daily chatting topic, like Iranian missiles or the greenhouse effect..." The pundits were already turning the event into an excuse for endless media navel-gazing. Painstakingly, the soldier got up from bed and stumbled into the shower. Amphibians from space, he thought. Bet they don't have to take showers. Bet they don't feel dirty, foul, exhausted all the time. The soldier cried as he thought so, but he stayed in the shower to escape seeing or feeling the tears on his face. A while later, when the sun stood at the zenith, the soldier left his hotel-room and went out into the bustling city. Situated on an island off the coast of the Persian Gulf, this garrison town was something of a freezone in the Arab world. Here were bars which served alcohol to infidel soldiers - though not as many bars nor infidels for the past few years, since terrorists had started putting pressure on Filipino barmaids to hide their legs and arms from sight. He brought a Walkman radio with him, so that he could follow any further news about the Sirians. Resting the small headphones around his neck, he cranked up the volume to hear it over the prayer-calls. Above the city, the tall, newly-built minarets spread their wailing, two-note message through loudspeakers: "God is greater... there is no god but God..." The soldier suppressed a smile of sudden ironic insight. He thought: A call from the sky. Looks like the competition is thickening, God. What will all these people think, they who go on pilgrimage to kiss a rock that fell from space, ages ago? Would they kiss an alien spaceship too? The soldier wandered into the street-corner cafй near his hotel. Earlier, the regular Arab customers used to give him hostile looks - after all, he still wore some of his old uniform - but after a few months they had gotten used to the brooding foreigner. This morning, the soldier was almost completely ignored; the men inside were caught up watching the TV set above the counter. Unsurprisingly, they were watching CNN as well. The soldier overheard bits of the conversation, and though his Arabic was shaky he understood them well: "They look almost human." "They're amphibians, they say." "Imagine. Like a National Geographic team from space!" "What if they bring disease with them?" "I'm not afraid." "Yes you are. We all are." "We've got missiles too, don't we? And the Iranians, and the Israelis too... they could come to good use after all."
"Let them come. If they try anything...ffchh...boom!" "Maybe the angels are coming. Inshallah." "Angels with - ugh! - arms like snakes! You're talking nonsense!" "Monsters. Demons. It's the end of the world."“Aw, shut up!” "It must be a fraud. The Jews set it up to undermine our faith." "The demons are coming from hell, in the guise of angels." "Naah, it's nothing but actors in rubber suits... look, you can almost see the zippers!" "Aha, like that American show, 'X-Files'..." "To hell with 'X-Files'. This is for real!" The bravest customer, a suave youngster with leanings toward Western culture and clothing, turned to look at the soldier - as if he alone possessed an understanding the older men lacked. The soldier had sat down in his regular corner at the end of the counter, drinking the strong local coffee, eating late breakfast, watching the TV news. The young Arab touched the soldier's sleeve, addressing him with serious intent. With an ill grace, the soldier gave him half a red-eyed look. "Hey, amrikani. What do you say?” The young man gestured toward the TV screen. “Is this an American bluff?" The soldier felt vaguely accused by the youngster's tone of voice, and he didn't like the dark stares from some of the older customers. He made an averting gesture - couldn't think clearly. He had nothing in common with these people, he was an alien here. And the land he used to call "home" had become an alien world of artificial people obsessed with health, money, silicon, steroids, and happiness pills. The soldier couldn't answer the Arab's question. He could only think of one thing to say, but aimed at the sky: Take me away from here. Take me anywhere, but away from this planet. Which of course would have sounded stupid. So he looked down at his plate and kept his mouth shut.
One elderly man with a hookah at his table stopped puffing to say: "He's homesick. Go home to Mars, amrikani!" Everyone laughed. The soldier nodded toward the joker with a faint smile. "Home... phone home," he said in nasal English. Only the young Arab seemed to get the joke; he fell silent, as if he understood its underlying meaning. The soldier stood up and walked out of the cafй. He had to struggle uphill now, if he was to get anywhere with his newly found aim in life. First of all, he must avoid just going through the old drinking routine. The urge was there all right, to buy the cheapest illegal liquor and get drunk in the afternoon. His headache, forgotten for almost half an hour, was returning... he could no longer tell, whether it was withdrawal or the war injury that was the source. He stood there in the hot, dusty street, people jostling by, fingering his forehead, fighting the old numb thirst for booze, looking around with unseeing eyes. He moved his right tentacle toward his jaw, and wondered what had happened to his stubble... his jaw had never felt so large and smooth... The headache grew stronger - he groaned with pain, squinting - and the blue-green waves roared crashing through the street. As he crouched, he saw his feet: flat, long, and gray, making little flapping sounds as he staggered through the wet, white sand. His gaze shot upward. The sun turned green (natural or filtered through the atmosphere?), outshining its tiny white companion star. He opened his mouth and screamed. "Gnnh… chiskr-r-r... chiskr-r-r... chis chiptl mmer-r-r-lleee!!" The soldier collapsed in the street. The passing citizens stared at the fallen Westerner, amazed at his inhuman gibberish. A few men rushed out of the cafй and leaned down to see what had happened. The soldier lay unconscious but seemingly in turmoil - his arms and legs made strange, almost undulating movements, as if he attempted to dance. Or swim. "He's having an epileptic fit," one of the cafй-goers said. "Get this man to the American military hospital. Hurry!" A pen was wedged between the soldier's jaws; the cafй owner called for a taxi on his cellular phone. Within a minute, the men could carry the soldier into the passenger seat. He had ceased moving now, and lay limp in the seat as the car drove him through the streets of the city.
Chapter Two
Astrophysics professor Carl Sayers stirred from an uneasy sleep; after a moment's confusion, he got his bearings. He had dozed off in his guest office at the JPL headquarters. Back at the old JPL at Pasadena, California, he mused - all the old days spent here, designing space probes, following their orbits through the Solar System, paying off at last. Someone knocked on the door; he shouted at the caller to come in. "Did I wake you up?" asked biologist-anthropologist Ann Meadbourй as she entered the provisional office. He recognized her slight, crisp French accent from the phone. Carl made a sleepy-sly face as he straightened in his armchair, yawning. His own voice, when he answered, still carried traces of the old Brooklyn accent: "Hi, Ann... question is, why didn't you wake me when you arrived?" The younger woman smiled; she was still carrying the bag with the airline tags on it, but she had arrived almost an hour before. "The staff were going to wake you up, but I told them you deserved some rest. I'm rather tired myself, what with the flight from Sri Lanka." Carl brightened up at mentioning of the island. "How is Arthur doing now? I bet he wanted to follow you on this job." Ann slumped down on the sofa next to Carl's desk. The office was one of several with a panoramic window overlooking the command central, which was now crowded with scientists. A horde of journalists was camping outside the building, and Ann had had to push and elbow her way past them. As they talked, Ann noticed some other newcomers out in the command central. They waved at Ann, and she waved back. "Yes, he and the rest of the world. But he's getting to be too old and sick for travel now. Poor Arthur! The first contact is finally happening, and he can't board the space-shuttle to come and greet them." Carl groaned, holding his gray, shaggy head between his hands. "Don't say it! I'm the one who wrote that stupid book about a first contact! And imagine... they, the Sirians, may have actually seen parts of the film on TV! I feel like the greatest dork in the universe." Ann reached forward to pat his hand, but didn't quite reach it. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Carl. I'm... I'm sure they haven't seen it. Pity Hollywood instead, with their invasion movies." He chuckled, his face wrinkling into a sardonic grin. Carl was pushing sixty-five and getting rather thin, but he still hadn’t lost the childish twinkle in his eye; the hawkish nose was yet instantly recognizable. Carl Sayers' face had, through the years, become something of a public media icon - especially in the last few years after Hollywood made a movie of his book about contact with aliens. However, his lifelong commitment had never really changed. After the first excitement of the alien message, he had cleared his head with new resolve: he would not let the greatest moment of his life turn into a media circus. It was his long media experience plus his devotion that had made him the focus of the recent events; as newly appointed head of NASA's Extraterrestrial Contact Team, he was determined to keep the media at a strict distance from the aliens. Carl had insisted on bringing Ann Meadbourй to the project, since she had shown a similar devotion and was a friend though he hadn’t seen much of her - Arthur, the old SF writer and a mutual acquaintance, could vouch for her skilled research in dolphin-human communication. Now their commitment would be put to the ultimate test - they would be allowed to communicate with real-life aliens.
He stood up and shook hands with Ann, who gave him a hug. "I really appreciate that you would join us," he began, hoping he didn't sound too friendly - Ann looked younger than her thirty-five years, and was quite beautiful in a very French, elegant sense of the word. Her short-cropped blond hair framed her symmetric features and clear gray eyes - they had been covered by ugly glasses the last time he had seen her, but now she seemed to be wearing contact-lenses. "Don't be silly, Carl," she said with surprising self-control in her voice, "I'm one of the lucky few and I know it. When do we all meet up?" "Please, Ann - I must save my energy for the big briefing tomorrow. I know how hard it is to relax now. You know what I did when NASA first called me about the alien transmission? I thought it was a damned joke and hung up on them!"
Ann almost laughed as she rummaged through her bags for cigarettes, listening to Carl without looking at him. "It seemed like a joke then, because I thought such a huge transmitter in space would show up in the telescopes, years before it came this close! And intelligent life, more advanced than our own, coming from a double-star system that is only one billion years old? It defies belief! Planets just plain can't hold stable orbits in a double-star system for long enough that life can originate. Their planet would be thrown out into the cold or swallowed by one of the two stars!" Ann couldn't remember the last time she had seen Carl so upset. She said: "They must be thousands of years ahead of us, you know. Maybe they can do things we can only dream of yet." She lit a cigarette and drew the poisonous, acrid smoke into her lungs. Ann had quit weeks ago, saving a pack to test her willpower. The moment she had seen the Sirian TV broadcast, she took up smoking again - the irony of which now escaped her somehow. She had to work constantly to keep her outer persona cool and detached, to control the threatening confusion and chaos building up inside her head... The older scientist paused, paced in no particular direction, stopping at the window. She thanked the god she didn’t believe in, that Carl didn’t notice how nervous she really was. Carl's lined face, as he looked out at the command central outside, was reflected in the glass so that Ann glimpsed the vast, exhausting awe he felt. He looked not happy, not sad, but overpowered... mentally flattened. "No," he said, voice husky with exertion. "Tens of thousands, perhaps even a hundred thousand years ahead. They can understand us, the way we understand monkeys. Question is... how can we possibly understand them, or even be sure we do?" Carl frowned. A half-conscious thought that had begun when he saw Ann up close, suddenly cleared. She had made herself prettier not for him, not for the other scientists - but for the aliens. Ceremony, he had forgotten ceremony. If they should all dress up for the occasion? "Isn’t your wife here?” Ann asked - Carl’s wife usually worked close to him, them both being scientists and devoted to each other as well as their work. Carl explained, a little awkwardly: "We, uh, decided that one of us should stay behind with the family, just in case there was a danger of exposure to alien microbes." It was the truth, yet he feared people would misinterpret it. Then the phone rang, and all of a sudden Carl had a million other things to deal with.
DAY 2
The next morning, the newly-formed ECT gathered in the lab’s Von Karman Auditorium for their first big meeting: a dozen people, mostly astronomers and specialists in the fields of biology and spaceflight. Also present at the meeting were the NASA chief, the U.S. Air Force Joint Chief Of Staff, the Vice President, and the head of the National Security Council. All three visitors sat in the background and kept silent, perhaps out of insecurity in the new situation; they listened intently to what the team had to say. A cameraman from the White House was filming the entire meeting, so that the President and the U.N. Security Council could follow it from the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Other guests connected via the camera link were various scientists, NASA staff, and Ann's friend Arthur back in Sri Lanka. Carl Sayers, standing at the conference room's small lectern, introduced the people present and made some formal notices about discretion - then he went on to his main speech. "I assume that you have seen the Sirian message already; it's all over the world, and they will surely keep repeating it until we respond. Well, as we speak the President and the U.N. Security Council are discussing the next step. I'm pretty sure most heads of state are eager to get their hands on alien technology, so they won't refuse the Sirians a visit altogether. "Now, NASA's preliminary plan is as follows. First, we establish a certain frequency and stick to it, so that the aliens... er, Sirians are clear about who they should listen to - remember, almost anyone can send something they might receive with their big disk! "Then we send a radio message on several frequencies, making it clear that they are welcome - as long as we decide the conditions of their visit. They must not spread alien microorganisms or other uncontrollable life forms into our system, so personal contact will be difficult. I assume we can work something out, or that the Sirians have some kind of solution... "The first close encounter will have to take place on neutral ground: close enough to make it soon, but not too close to Earth. I have suggested the surface of the Moon, and the President has declared his support of the idea." He nodded toward the camera, and flashed a quick smile. "Now, who will be the first to meet the Sirian envoy in person? Not me, I'm afraid..." The scientists laughed, greatly relieved by the joke at such a time. "It will in all likelihood be an American astronaut, shuttled over from our space station, who will be appointed Earth Ambassador. A great honor. "The Sirians have mentioned a first, personal meeting in their message, but they weren't precise about the conditions. How should the initial communication proceed? We don't know. Can they speak our language, since they have taped our own TV and radio broadcasts since at least the 1950s? We don't know. Do they have complex rules of conduct, which we must learn before we can risk a close encounter? We don't know. Should we hold them off as long as possible, and stick to telecommunication? We don't know. And, of course, how many of them are there on that mothership? We don’t know." A scientist on the second row couldn't contain his thoughts. "What if someone outside NASA gets to hold the meeting first, or... or tries to intervene?" he asked. Carl Sayers gave the anxious caller a grave stare. "Remember that the President, and the entire U.N. Security Council, is watching this. There is an exceedingly small risk that some rogue state - we shouldn't be pointing fingers here - is planning a pre-emptive missile strike on the Sirians. I should warn anyone with such ideas, that the Sirians may expect to be attacked. Don't forget, they have seen our TV. They know what we are capable of, so they shouldn't come here defenseless..." An uncomfortable moment came over the people in the room, a sense of collective shame. For all its supposed intelligence, mankind had until now dismissed the idea that they were being overheard by beings of a superior civilization. Unless the content of the world's TV broadcasts had been censored overnight, images of war, starvation, crime and pornography were yet available to the Sirian receiver-transmitter disk. Ann Meadbourй, the anthropologist, broke the silence. "There is no reason for panic," she told the assembly, standing up. "Everything in the Sirian message and behavior is non-violent. They act like scientists, they come only to study - not to interfere, or to build permanent settlements, or form alliances, or in any way judge us. There is no..." She hesitated momentarily: it was obvious to the point of silliness. "There is no moral dimension to a visit from scientists! Especially in the case of scientists from an entirely different world!" Carl nodded at Ann, gesturing at her to sit down. "Ann Meadbourй is right," he asserted them. "No one is being judged here. The Sirians come from a world that must be quite unlike ours, which brings me to my next point..." He pressed some buttons on a remote-control, and the room darkened. On the wall behind him, a series of enlarged, fuzzy black & white photographs were projected - clips from the Sirian TV broadcast. Gray humanoid shapes walked past the camera, the view slightly convex for unknown reasons. Their size couldn't be determined, since there were no humans or man-made objects in view for reference. No easily definable machinery could be seen, except for smooth, silvery shapes and garments hung around the necks and chests of the Sirians. Long conic heads that were slightly swept backward, large eyes half-shut, two arms each. Soft arms, like tentacles with fingers. No clothes. Male and female genitals were easily discernible, astonishingly anthropomorphic except for lack of visible body hair. The faces were flatter than human faces, dominated by the eyes and their thick, smooth eyelids. Their age and size appeared to vary, though most of them seemed to move in their physical prime. Carl's audience lost their concentration and once more gazed at the eerie pictures. It was still too unreal to grasp. The Sirians were too human-like, too unlike the weirdest fantasies of aliens. Too... not ugly. Carl cleared his throat and interrupted their reveries. "The Sirian broadcast, probably sent in black-and-white to simplify matters of interpretation and transmission, came in two parts. First a purely abstract part, with simple words and sign-language. We'll skip that for now. Second, films of the Sirians themselves, during parts of their long journey.
This travelogue also displays their travel route, from Sirius to other stars, back to Sirius, passing our Sun, then spiraling outward to more distant systems. "I was amazed to learn that this wasn't their first expedition to the Solar System. The first Sirian ship sailed us by without landing, more than six thousand years ago, but that ship has now passed far, far out into the galaxy. The present visit is the fourth or fifth expedition from Sirius. The NSC man rose from his chair. "Doesn't this indicate," he asked gravely, "a mass migration from Sirius? Is their home system becoming uninhabitable?" Carl put on his best TV documentary-host manner. "Now, this isn't entirely explainable yet. I'm not even sure the Sirians originated on Sirius! Because if they did, and if they are as similar to us as it seems, their planet must have gone through enormous cataclysms! We know next to nothing of how the Sirius system formed, but normal double-star planets should have extremely unstable orbits and will be thrown out into the cold for very long periods. We might be dealing with a nomadic species who colonized the Sirius system just recently... perhaps they even brought their own homeworld with them." Now it was the Pentagon man's turn to ask anxious questions. "You are suggesting that the Sirius system was uninhabitable to begin with, and was colonized by the Sirians later! Have we got any guarantees that they ain't planning a similar colonization of our Solar System?" The old astronomer seemed almost insulted. The Egyptian psychologist of the ECT team stood up and faced the general, ready to explode; Carl answered before he had the chance to respond.
"This isn't the time for invasion hysteria," Carl said in a sharper tone. "A shorter visit is what the Sirians have asked for, and I certainly think we can risk that. Besides, general - if they had colonization in mind, wouldn't you want to learn more about them? Otherwise you would surely be defenseless." The general stiffened and said nothing. He cast an anxious glance at the camera, which carried his image to several important places in the world via the Internet. "Now," Carl resumed, "what are we to make of the Sirians' proposed visit? I have a simple theory of why they want to visit our world in person. Shouldn't an automatic probe such as our Voyager or Pathfinder craft do the job just as well, at much lower cost and risk? No. These beings are looking for something more than atmospheric data or soil samples. They want -" A cellular phone signal broke off his speech. The Vice President picked up his phone and made some brief conversation. The man rose from his seat, looked around the briefing room. His face burst into a grin. "The President called. The Security Council has just voted approval. The Sirians will be allowed to land on Earth! Get ready for the real thing!" The assembled scientists broke out into spontaneous applause and cheering. The Vice President shook some hands, then took the general and the NSC head aside. "Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel just quit their membership in the United Nations," he said softly. "The Orient is getting ready for war. Space war. We fly to New York now and meet the President for a crisis council."
Chapter Three
DAY 3
The soldier came to his senses. "Why is the sea... huh?" He was lying in a clean, white hospital bed, the room crowded with beds. A TV set was hanging from the ceiling. CNN again. He took it in instantly: "The Saudi Ambassador's speech was unrehearsed and contradictory, but he was clearly supported by his superior, King Fahdi. To our journalist, the Ambassador made a brief comment as he left the U.N. building..." "God is with us. We act in the strength of God's truth! The moon's surface will not be desecrated by unclean creatures!” “This just in - the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh has been formally notified by the Saudi government, that all U.S. airbases in Saudi Arabia must be closed down and evacuated within one month. Political commentator Steve Russert is with us live, to discuss this development. What do you say, Steve? Has King Fahdi become an ally to the fundamentalists?” "Well, Barbara, it could be a gesture meant for the home opinion. The Saudi kings have shown these moments of pious posturing before. Speculations are that his real agenda, if any, is the Saudi kings fear aliens will share with us their advanced technology - which could make oil obsolete as fuel..." The soldier tried to reach for the calling button next to him. He found that he was restrained, his arms and legs strapped to the bed. "Come over here and let me loose!" he shouted. "I'm not a maniac!" Other patients began screaming too - some jokingly, others not. "He's right!" a grave-faced neighbor declared. "He's an emissary like me! Our minds are telepathically linked with the Holy Venusian Priests!" A dozen patients, each of them claiming special insight, making the latest news part of their individual delusions and conspiracy-fantasies. “Hale-Bopp-be-bop-alle-luja!” “To infinity - and beyond!” “Sirius, the final frontier!”
“The truth is out there!” “I come in peace!” “Klaatu barada niktou!” The cacophony of shouting lunatics quickly grew unbearable. The soldier wanted to scream in agony - then, in a flash, he recalled the words he had uttered just before he blacked out in the street. "Ch... chiskr-r-r-r... chis chiptl mmer-r-r-r-lleee," he mumbled to himself. Yes, it meant something. No, he was cracking up. It was all so confusing. A doctor came up to him, accompanied by a nurse. He asked a few questions, checked the soldier's heart and eyes, and ordered the nurse to release his straps. Once free, the soldier sat up and looked for his real clothes. The nurse handed them to him, and he began to change his hospital gown for his own veteran's wardrobe. "You ought to have your brain scanned for tumors or lesions," the doctor told him. "If this is your first seizure, you must take precautions -" "Already did," the soldier said, buttoning his desert-camouflage shirt. "Just after the war. The shrinks found nothing they could change. Chemical weapons screwed up my brain. I'm a permanent war cripple." "Nevertheless, another scan is necessary. If you stay here till -" "I'm going. You can't hold me here." He was gone. The soldier marched out of the hospital as briskly as he could without running. A part of him wanted to stay there. Another part warned him that if he stayed there, they would never let him out again. He would have become just another kook among kooks there, babbling about a “higher insight”. Maybe it was madness. But he had experienced something. For a moment he had been on a strange world, been something not quite human. He glanced down at his feet. Ordinary feet, stuck in badly shoe-laced army boots, size 46. He didn't know in which direction he was walking, but any “higher insight” he didn’t feel at all. The soldier stopped in his tracks. A veteran rolled past him in a wheelchair, thick arms pushing the wheels around… his face had made brief news some time ago, when he stepped on a terrorist bomb. Barely twenty, and the guy had no legs. How old was the soldier himself? His head was starting to ache again. He popped an aspirin tablet and walked on, out of the well-guarded hospital compound. It was a beautiful day, jet airplanes making white tracks in the sky. The burning sun blinked out of existence as he squinted at it. The sky went almost dark, save for the pinhead of a white sun at the horizon. The stars began to come out. He couldn't recognize any of the familiar constellations. Out there in the darkening night he could discern a very bright yellow star. And he knew it was the Earth’s Sun. Someone shook his shoulder; the vision flickered away instantly. He found himself leaning against a wall, just outside the hospital gate. "You all right, soldier?" the other man, a younger soldier, asked. "Yeah," he said faintly, "just a little dizzy. The sun, you know." "Better get your cap on," the man said. "Are you in service? You look like shit." "No," the soldier said truthfully, straightening himself to face the other soldier, "I'm retired. Veteran's pension. Served in the Gulf." "Sorry to hear that, man. I was in the Gulf myself, but I never got into any serious shit." The soldier saw genuine concern in the other man's face. Maybe the Army could help him, he thought. Get back into the service, start over. Yeah, right - like they helped that guy with no legs. He replied: "I'm okay now -- thanks. Say, have you heard any buzz from the top brass, about this alien contact stuff you know?" The other soldier made a wry face: "You kidding? They're pissing in their pants now! Every goddamn missile there is, is being pointed into space. Of course the bigwigs ain't tellin' us, but the word is out." "You figure there's gonna be a war?" "Shit, I don't know. Word is, we’re going to evacuate the bases soon. Anything could happen. Just about anything. You wait and see."
The soldier thanked him and said goodbye. No, obviously the Army was the wrong place to turn to for help. Dammit, he wanted to meet aliens - not be ordered to shoot them. And he had no desire to go home to America, either. He wanted to go in one direction only. The soldier looked up at the sky, which now was studded with vapor trails from aircraft... Up. Up.Up. He would think of something, as soon as he had sweated out the old thirst for booze and pills. It was going to be a couple of long nights, though he could look forward to more TV news about the Sirian visitors. If only he had possessed one of those new Internet-connected, computerized TV sets - then he could have had even more access. But that would cost money, money he didn’t have. A little later, he saw on CNN the released list of scientists appointed to stay close to the aliens, during their one-year visit on Planet Earth. “A rigorous selection was made, before a select team could be assembled and approved by the U.N. Security Council. The ECT is now under the direct coordination of astrophysicist Carl Sayers, president of the Planetary Society. The other dozen members are... “From the U.S.: The writer and astronomer Stone Pound, a well-known popular science writer, with his own Internet column. “From Egypt: The Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Lazar Mahfouz.
“From France: The anthropologist and marine biologist Ann Meadbourй, who has studied dolphin behavior with Arthur C. Clarke at his Sri Lanka research station. “From Great Britain: The acclaimed biologist Andrea McClintock, one of the world’s leading experts in evolutionary theory. “From Germany: Best-selling historian Bruno Heinzhof, lecturer at the leading universities of Germany, Israel, and America. “From Japan: The award-winning engineer with outstanding merits in nuclear power plant design, Takeru Otomo. "From Sweden, an unexpected choice: The physician Mats Jonsson, just recently awarded for his discovery of a new procedure to..."
DAY 50
The whole world watched, as the orbiting space shuttle released the Moonlander module. Across every timezone on the planet, night and day simultaneously, humanity was watching the astronauts land on the Moon - a nostalgic moment for those who remembered the Apollo landings. This time, someone was waiting for the astronauts. The Sirian lander craft, a sleek, silvery shape ninety meters long, had arrived just hours before. A trio of Sirian envoys walked to greet the earthlings welcome. One of the two human astronauts walked out of the lander, seeing three Sirians walk up from their landing site. The aliens wore spacesuits made from some metallic dark-red fabric, and their movements were surprisingly heavy. One Sirian sat languidly down on a rock, while a third figure wandered up close to the first astronaut. The world watched, breathlessly; generals and tyrants ready to order the launching of missiles, poor people waiting for the salvation they had been denied - others just hoping for something new and different to change their predictable, aimless lives. One lumbering human, white armor shielding him against the cold of space, closing in on red-clad figures with soft arms. When they were just three meters apart, the closest Sirian halted and sat down in the dust. He measured a little more than two meters in height, and his face could dimly be seen behind a brown visor-plate. An aged face peered out from the helmet, deep cracks running down from the small of his standing-oval, half-shut eyes, past the corners of a wide mouth. The alien face, aged as it was, retained a streamlined shape; its features seemed modeled onto an artillery grenade. Unexpectedly, the alien's cracked lips widened. He was smiling, and it seemed to come naturally. The astronaut halted, looked back toward his landing craft, and tried hard to control his bladder from bursting in a panic reaction. With an effort, he succeeded - and kneeled down on the dusty ground, documents in one hand. He waited a while, until the alien took the initiative. A radio communications link came alive in the astronaut's headset - unfocused at first, then sharpening into utter clarity. And for the first time, humanity heard the Sirians speak. A creaky voice, deep with large lung capacity, drawling, breathing heavily - yet oddly singing.
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Goood mmmorniiing... Greetinnngsss... wweeelcome.”
ASTRONAUT: “Er... welcome to the Moon. You… you speak good English.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Thank youu...”
ASTRONAUT: “My name is... Eric Bennon. I am an elected ambassador for the people of Planet Earth.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Hoow doo youu do, Aaambassaaador Eric Bennooon..? Mmy lannd-naame iss Ranmotanii...”
ASTRONAUT: “I...I am doing fine, thank you... Ambassador Ranmotanii.”
MISSION CONTROL: “The letter! Hand him the letter!”
ASTRONAUT: “I hereby give you this document of approval, signed by the most important leaders of my planet, which verifies that I am the elected ambassador for this first meeting. The document also explains our conditions for your visit to our solar system... to our planet, Earth... up there.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Thank youu... weee rrread iiit.”
MISSION CONTROL: “What are they doing?”
ASTRONAUT: “I think they’re reading it... one of the three must be an interpreter of our language. He, or she, is using sign language and talking to them over their own radio. Houston, can you take in their conversation?”
MISSION CONTROL: “Negative, Bennon. The Moonlander antenna can't pick up their internal comlink. Keep going, you're doing fine.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Thank youu...Aaambassaaador Eric Bennooon... I uuunderrrstaand the meeeaniiing thhhat builllt the... documeeent. Yyyou speeeak ffforrr yyyour ppeoplle. Yourrr leadersss... hear uss taallk noow?”
ASTRONAUT: “Yes, Ranmotanii. Our leaders, and all the people of Planet Earth, up there. You can ask them anything... through me. Do you understand?”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Underrrstannnd. Yyyes.”
ASTRONAUT: “I am very happy that you understand. What do you want to talk about? We have much time.
“Houston, Ranmotanii is discussing something with the other two. They are... taking something out of a pouch. An object, about the size of my head. Should I return to the lander?”
MISSION CONTROL: “Just stay calm. They're not gonna eat you.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Ammmbassadooor Eriic Beeennon. Mmy ppeopllle giiive the... giift off frieendsship too youu aaand peoplle of Planeeet Earrth. Thank youu...”
ASTRONAUT: “Thank you... thank you very much. What is it?”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “A maaachiiine... to recooord aaannd repllayyy th...thoughhtsss.”
ASTRONAUT: “We will have good use for that. Ranmotanii... I have a gift to your people. It is harmless...”
MISSION CONTROL: “Bennon, what are you doing? This is not in the plans! Stay with the schedule, that's an order!”
ASTRONAUT: “Here...”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “Thhank yyyou... thaaank yyyou veryyy muchhh. Whaaat iss iiit?”
ASTRONAUT: “It is a flute. An instrument to make music. I wanted to give you a guitar, but this was the smallest thing I could get. The flute... needs atmosphere to work.”
SIRIAN ENVOY: “I knnnoww muuusic. I hearrr yourrr mmmusiiic... in rrradiiio. Yooour mmmusiiic is ssso diiifferrrent fffromm ourrr muuusic. Nooow... I caaan mmmake yourrr mmmusiiic?”