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

ASTRONAUT: “Yes. Yes, that would be wonderful. We could play music together.”
The astronaut laughed, and the old Sirian made a slow, repeated clicking noise over the radio... laughter. The world made a collective sigh of relief; aliens who had a sense of humor couldn't be all that bad.
Somewhere in a shady bar for Americans that served alcohol in a predominantly Moslem country, the soldier sat and watched it all on TV.
Among the laughing men and women, he heard one guest comment: "That doesn't prove anything! Anyone who sees us on TV for forty years must develop a sense of humor."
The soldier said nothing. He knew the man was right, terribly right. The aliens were oh so polite. Of course: they obviously had to, knowing what kind of creatures they were dealing with. The circumstances - decades of TV programming - were dictating the encounter. What had he expected, anyway? The soldier felt a great disappointment swell like bile up his throat. The greatest moment in human history was turning into a trivial talk-show. And there was nothing he could do to alter it. How did this fit into his vision of another world? Was the universe populated with beings just like humans? Would it never get better than this?
The thought made him so instantly depressed, he grabbed the nearest glass he saw and hurled its contents down his throat. Whiskey. He needed some more.
"Hey!" said the righteous owner of the drink. "Buy your own booze, weirdo!"
The soldier grinned joylessly.
"You talkin' to me?" he asked, turned away, then spun and punched the other man in the stomach before he could react.
There followed a confused, puke-stained brawl, but nobody was seriously injured. Before long, the military police showed up. Among them, the bloodied soldier recognized the soldier he had talked to days before, outside the hospital.
"Sorry 'bout the mess, pal," he slurred to the MP as they carried him out to the jeep.
"Just keep your bleedin' mouth shut, soldier."
"I'm not in service anymore," the soldier protested lamely.
"How come you're still fighting, then?"
The soldier couldn't answer that. But then he fell asleep.
Chapter Four
DAY 51
The CNN reporter tried hard to sound casual about her surroundings; she barely made it. "The scientists of the ECT team have expressly denied the right of journalists to disturb the alien visitors. This hasn't stopped scores of curious observers from circling the three-mile perimeter of the small atoll the Sirians have rented for their stay. However, the U.N. fleet of American and British ships cruising the waters outside the perimeter, will ensure the Sirians safety from terrorist attacks.
"With me on the CNN cruiser I have tribal chief Jonah Fongafale, the legal owner of the atoll. He's the man who allowed the Sirian ship to land at his islet and let the Sirian crew live there. "Chief Fongafale, how did you first get in touch with the Sirians?” "I saw them on TV, like everyone else... then I saw what they looked like, and I knew they needed much water to live. The water-humans resemble the dolphins we have around our islands. Talking dolphins, they are. Listen to them speaking English! You hear a certain melody, that can only come from living in the sea. The South Pacific is full of dolphins. It was the only right place. So I called NASA and they arranged the rest.”"Did you do any of the negotiations face-to-face with Sirians?” "I did. I met their... he's a kind of spokesman... Ranmotanii. He called me a 'land-human'. They call themselves humans, not 'Sirians'. He is a sympathetic fellow, but not a clever businessman. I struck a good deal.”
"Can you tell the viewers how much you made on the leasing deal?” “I'd rather not answer that question. But the atoll has no value to us. It is merely a chunk of sand and a wide lagoon on a reef. They asked for a lagoon.” "I see. Well, what do you think of this visit from space? Will both our races prosper from it, will there be a great cultural exchange?” "Our people have the scars of history on ourselves. We know what will happen.” "Could you explain what you mean? Mr. Fongafale..? I see... well, thank you for sharing your time with us here at the CNN cruiser.” "Thank you very much.” "As you can see from our roving helicopter camera, the Sirian lander - not the mothership, that behemoth is still parked somewhere off Mars - is now permanently resting underwater for the rest of their stay. It appears to be used as a base camp for the twenty-odd visitors, who prefer sleeping in the lagoon. The human scientists, on the other hand, have just put up their jerrybuilt habitats on the island's surface. At a closer look..." Carl Sayers got sick of watching his tiny pocket-screen, and put his sunglasses back on. He turned to the beach instead, and gazed across the glittering, soft-scented sea. Next to him stood the big signpost, just erected, bearing a text aimed at the sea:
Welcome to ALIEN BEACH
This area is under the protection of American and British Naval Forces under the United Nations Disgust with the media's treatment of the whole affair, that's what the team felt and vented… and he had to agree. The dumb interviewer had entirely missed the point of Fongafale's ominous words. Carl sensed a creeping insecurity coming over him now, as he and the ECT team waited for the Sirians to surface. He could put up with his own shaky knees, his restless stomach, the mindless phobia of the unknown. What really frightened him was the risk of disappointment. By now the team had accepted why these amphibians were so strangely humanoid: an old Polish science-fiction writer had offered a plausible explanation. “To travel through space,” the writer had loftily explained over the Net, “to accept the vast expenses and sacrifices it demands, is something only certain kinds of animals will do. It is then reasonable to assume, that if other species develop space-travel they will resemble humans - if only in their obsessive restlessness. “To expect alien life to be ugly and misshapen is plain dumb. Bipolar symmetry is a universal advantage, and should appear in almost all evolved life-forms. Two legs are better than three. Pairs of stereoscopic eyes are better than single eyes. Beings unable to grasp abstract thought and mathematics could never reach space. Thus, if an intelligent species is very different from humans, it is likely to stay put on its own world... unless it gets outside help." And yet it remained to be seen, just how like us the Sirians could be... the diplomatic stage show had ended and the real communication would - hopefully - begin. Carl wandered across the soft white sand, and joined the conversation of a small cluster of people. Among them, he only knew a handful personally, such as Ann Meadbourй and a few astrophysicists of his own profession; the Egyptian psychologist, Lazar Mahfouz, he knew only from the first briefing. All were wearing light tropical clothing; Ann wore a wide straw hat instead of sunglasses. At least two scientists were filming the historical event for the records - live-TV crews were banned, though. Carl sent a silent thought to the countless scientists who couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't come near the islet: Arthur must be watching the whole spectacle on TV now, and Carl's family too. He wished his wife could have been with him now. At the horizon, a jetfighter roared off from a U.S. carrier, and shot into a sky that was already streaked with vapor trails in circles around the atoll. The sight worried him: One of those planes might be carrying a bomb we weren't told about... Carl switched on his pocket-screen again, flipping through channels, looking for unexpected bad news. "...really safe from extraterrestrial microbes, Dr. Watts?” "The evidence was approved by scientists, and the world leaders accepted it: the alien visitors have somehow expelled their own internal bacteria and replaced it with the intestinal bacteria of our own, such as the harmless E. Coli. We have as yet received no explanation of how this was done, or how they have adapted to our microbes so fast. Frankly, I had expected them to stay in quarantine for much longer.” “So the ECT scientists run no risk of catching an infection from the Sirians?” “One cannot be completely safe. But the risks are mutual - perhaps greater to the extraterrestrials, than to us.” "But if a handful of alien spores come into our atmosphere, what would happen?” "I cannot guarantee total safety, not even the Sirians can. But in an established, old ecosystem like ours, newcomer bacteria simply won't last long. It is not adapted to our planet and the other microorganisms - it will be poisoned or eaten by the hostile majority." "And if one of these should survive, mutate, and gain a foothold on our planet? Could it threaten life on Earth?" "There is good reason to believe that alien spores have fallen to Earth in all times, and it hasn't meant the end of life as we know it. You could just as well expect all different species on Earth to start killing each other off, instead of co-existing together..." "Thank you, Dr. Watts. Despite these official assurances, the fear of alien contagion has caused a sudden upsurge in demand for antibiotics, disinfectants, even penicillin. Hospitals report a wave of psychosomatic illnesses among patients since the landing of the Sirians on Earth: headaches, nervous fever, aching joints, sleeplessness and neurotic behavior. Nevertheless these are just nervous symptoms. "We now go live to the CNN cruiser outside Alien Beach, where the scientist team seem to be preparing for..." Lazar hadn't said much since that briefing; neither did he now. But he was clearly following the scientists’ conversation with great interest. "If the minerals in our ocean correspond to the composition of their own oceans, alien microorganisms could multiply from their bodily wastes. These waters are warm, ideal for bacterial explosions or algae -" "But what about competition from the established biosphere -" "Carl, listen to this fool! He -" "I get diarrhea whenever I drink foreign water; why would tourists from another planet be different?" "You know nothing about their metabolism - you think they're stupid enough to go here unprotected?" "Why do you keep referring to the amphibians as perfect, infallible beings?" Carl interfered, before the argument could deteriorate into a passionate shouting-match between academics. He partly wished he could have gathered more down-to-earth people to deal with the visitors. It would have been great to have the Sirians all to himself, but... he simply had grown old and mellow enough to suppress such selfish impulses. "Lazar, what do you make of this squabbling bunch?" he asked. "Are they fit to confront our visitors?" The old thin-haired Egyptian made a face of benevolent confusion. "Who am I to judge? I am just as conflicted myself," he confessed aloud. Lazar Mahfouz, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist. They all looked - mute - at his leathery, lined face, as if he had betrayed their common weaknesses. He winked behind his thick glasses. "Just think of this when they arrive," he told them with sudden urgency, "both we and they are observers of another species! Observers! Don't forget!" Lazar must have glimpsed a movement in the lagoon. The dozen humans turned their complete attention to the waters, as if directed outward by the curved palmtrees among them that pointed out to sea. A few of them stepped closer, but some innate caution stopped even Carl just meters from the lapping waves. Ann pointed excitedly toward the center of the lagoon. "Over there!" she shouted in French. A long glistening head, shaped like an asymmetric bullet, cleaved the waves and shot up, water dripping off it. The head was that of a female amphibian; she pulled back a Mohawk-like mane of hair from her big, oval eyes, squinting at the sun, blinking nervously. Then another head bobbed up, and another. Twelve of them all in all. Bald-headed males and females with manes, all in varying shades of gray. They gained foothold in the sand and walked up through the water, coming into full view of the group of humans. The first thing that struck the scientists was that the Sirians wore no real clothing - only a few wore silvery metal discs and earphone-like gadgets on their bodies, and others carried waterproof pouches slung over their shoulders. The aliens squinted as they looked around themselves, but made no efforts to cover their private parts. The second thing that struck Ann Meadbourй was that they were creatures of great beauty. The way they carried things, tentacle-like arms curling instead of bending, fingers making circular patterns instead of showing protruding knuckles. Their oval, slightly flattened eyes seemed taken from a Japanese cartoon, only these were real - the oldest Sirian's eyes were bloodshot with dark veins, yet they radiated no threat or senility. The oldest alien Carl now saw had to be Ranmotanii. The legs of the amphibians moved with great control despite their flapping, flat, dark feet, and with every step thigh-muscles flexed through the smooth, blubber skin - skin like that of a dolphin or a seal. The females had large buttocks, full of muscle and fat; their breasts stood out like full, smooth swellings in their chests, not drooping sacks like those of humans. Their nipples appeared as dark spots in their skins. The males, oddly enough, lacked nipples - their inhumanly wide chests were perfectly featureless, only slightly paler than the surrounding skin. The male amphibians bore other differences: their coarser faces had thick, fishlike lower lips, whilst the females' wide lips more resembled those of human females. They lacked noses, the one frightening feature the Sirians shared: both nostrils were wide open like on a naked human skull. As the marching amphibians walked up, they threw up seawater from their lungs; from the nasal openings and the ear-holes, clear water sprayed over their smooth shoulders and chests. One female made a quick knot of her hair, soft fingers working rapidly; to Carl, it looked like she almost tied her own fingers into knots. His doubts melted away, and he stepped forth to shake hands (hands?) with Ranmotanii. Carl tried to remember the speech he been preparing, then thought: To hell with speeches. This, this is what I really want to do. He stretched out his sweaty right hand, a little shaky and pale. Ranmotanii, carrying an inscrutable closed-lips smile, stretched - literally stretched - forth his right arm, elongating it a few inches: at its end, the tip had a kind of stalk-like thumb, with four longer, softer finger-stalks along its base. A little awkwardly, eyes set on each other's hands, Carl and Ranmotanii intertwined their fingers. Carl felt a chill that wasn't fear or lust, a wave of strangeness surging from the handshake through his arm and into his head. It wasn't any supernatural force, just the sensation of touching alien fingers that felt like nothing human. They were stronger and dryer than he had thought, quite warm but firm - he felt minute bones in that arm, in that hand! Carl risked strengthening his grip a little, and Ranmotanii responded in kind. Carl looked up at the Sirian's long, lined face and made a short laugh - he didn't quite know why. "Well - here we are..." he stuttered (he hated himself then, for saying that to an ambassador from an ancient civilization), but didn't yet dare to release his grip or do just about anything but stand still. If the alien had been the physics teacher of his college days but ten times wiser and more awe-inspiring, Carl would still have known how to behave in his presence. But there were no rules for this kind of authority. "Yesss... wwe aaare heerrre. Mmy land-naaame iiis Ranmotanii," sang the alien, a bit loudly. Carl swallowed involuntarily -- his mind went blank -- but he spoke. "My land-name is Carl... Carl Sayers. You can call me Carl. Welcome." Ranmotanii lowered his bass-voice slightly. "Caarrll... wweee taalk forrr wee, or wwe tallk forr ourr peeoplle?" "You mean now?" Ranmotanii released his “hand” and made an obscure gesture, which might have meant "yes". Carl nodded. "Yes." Then adding: "Now, when we are on this island, we talk to get to know more. That is what we should do. We..." He started to use hand-gestures, to clarify the meaning of his words. "We who you see here now, are scientists. That is, scientists work to seek knowledge. Who we are... and where we came from... that is not important. To know, to learn more about everything, that is all to us. That is what it means to be a scientist." Ranmotanii, his face neutral, nodded and made the same approving hand-gesture again. Now other Sirians stepped forth, arms outstretched. All the human team members shook hands, jittery but happy. Only one of them was paralyzed with panic and had to be helped aside. Official documents from the scientific organizations and the U.N. were given to the Sirian delegation. Some more procedure followed, and all humans felt terribly awkward about it. Finally, Carl Sayers got the chance to offer the visitors to sit down in the shadow of the palmtrees, nearer the barracks. The two groups walked to the place, still keeping apart but looking at each other constantly. Straw mats were already laid out, and a pile of gifts for the amphibians. Carl asked a linguist to explain the use of the gifts: a hundred pairs of Bermuda shorts and plain t-shirts in different colors, size XXL; two crates of English dictionaries; a box of wooden flutes (a NASA PR executive had lobbied through that last-minute addition), and other trinkets. It took some effort to explain the necessity of wearing clothes, but the Sirians graciously accepted the gifts. The flutes were instantly appreciated; this was something of a novelty to them, and a few Sirians immediately tried blowing air into the flutes. It sounded awful. The human scientists laughed happily at the noise, some even applauding it. Next, the Sirians produced their own gifts to the scientists: a dozen copies of the mind-recording device that Ranmotanii had given the astronaut earlier. The group's best engineer, a mid-thirtyish Japanese named Takeru Otomo, examined his copy with an intrigued expression. A female amphibian sat down and awkwardly explained it to him. The device consisted of a set of two broad, thick elastic metal bands, forming a helmet shape with an open top. A metal knob at one end recorded the impressions from the most active parts of the brain; the whole mechanism was powered by solar energy. By the mere press of a another knob, the thoughts of the user could be replayed in his mind - it might have been the closest thing to television the Sirians had. Or the closest to art; they made the early impression on Lazar Mahfouz as being peculiarly artless. Machinery devoid of ornament or paint; featureless tools and ships; no tattoos or jewelry on their bodies. He thought this extremely odd, and didn't know if it was deliberate or natural on the Sirians' part - did they feign artlessness or was it their way of being? The Japanese engineer, Takeru, was not mystified by the artlessness of the aliens; he was enchanted, though he did not openly show his emotions. Keeping himself close to the center of events, he was the first to try and use the machine; he ignored the warnings of the others and put the metal bands around his head, clasping the knob that switched it on. He wished intensely to be the first man to use alien technology, and ignored the risk. Carl saw what was happening, too late to stop it. The knob made a little singing sound, like a word of Sirian speech - the contraption stiffened and stuck firmly to his scalp. He felt a brief heatwave from the machine into his hair. Takeru started to sweat heavily, and realized it was just his nerves. After a few seconds' wait, he switched it off and removed it. His scalp felt a little raw, but that was all. The female amphibian at once gestured at him to put the contraption back on. He did so, and pushed the knob again, feeling the device freeze stuck again - and was transported back in time to the minute before, when the device was on his head the first time. All felt like a perfectly recorded experience, except for his breathing and heartbeats; he was like a visitor in his own mind's past. Then the replay abruptly ceased - Takeru was back in the present. He was shaken by the brief experience, trembling and sweating. "Thank you," Takeru stammered to the Sirian female - an adult-looking, dark-gray individual with a very special half-shut expression in her eyes. "What did you say was your name?" "Laand-nammme... Namonnae," she said in a clear voice, pointing at a spot between her large eyes. Even when they were both sitting down, she was one head taller than he was. Takeru smiled uncertainly at the female, repeating his own name and pointing at the corresponding spot between his own eyes. Then the female's lips widened - Takeru couldn't quite make out what that expression meant, but hoped it was a benevolent smile. Not immediately but profoundly, it dawned on Lazar Mahfouz what the alien "trinkets" were worth. He realized that a traditional psychoanalyst would have given his right arm for a machine that recorded dreams. "Ask her if the machine has a memory limit!" he begged the Japanese engineer."This machine... how much can it record? What happens when it is full?" Takeru repeated the question with sign-language added, until Namonnae understood. She looked them both in the eye, blinking rapidly. While pointing a finger-stalk at the memory-section of the device, she answered in her singing, drawn-out way: "Mmmachine... iiis nooot fuuull... Wwwill nnnot beee fulll... uuuntiiil... knowww nooot trrranssslate. Unnntilll muchhh vvveeery lonnng tiiime passeees. I wiiill telll morrre lateeer. Muuust lllearn mmmorrre yooour lannnguuuage. Parrrdonnn..?" Takeru understood that Namonnae was much smarter than her speech indicated; Sirian intonation was completely different from any human pattern, and quite likely to remain that way. "It's okay. No problem now," Takeru assured her, trying a wide grin. Namonnae seemed to be taken aback - and her eyes widened instantly. Lazar tapped him on the shoulder: "Takeru, these beings don’t smile with their teeth. Didn't you know that baring your teeth is the universal threat of attack?" Takeru, shocked by his own blunder, bowed down before the Sirian several times, in the traditional ritual apology. "I'm sorry! I did not mean to threaten you!" he pleaded, then repeating his apology. Nammonae folded her soft arms into two outward-turning arches, closing her eyes once, emphatically. "Iis nooo proooblemm nnnow," she told him in calm tones. "I'mmm sorryyy... alllsooo. Languuuaaage iiin proooblemmm... nooot impooortaaant... knooowleeedge, Caaarl speak of. Morrre immmportaaant." "Yes." "Yes, absolutely." Lazar made an effort not to imitate the body language of the Sirian, then wondered why he felt the strong urge to emulate them. It might confirm something he had feared before the visit, though it was much too early to draw conclusions yet... Carl clapped his hands to call for attention, and made another announcement: according to the customs of Pacific natives, the newcomers would be welcomed with a great feast. Unfortunately the scientists did not know what the amphibians could digest, and vice versa. Despite this, Carl invited the Sirians to return to the beach at sunset that evening and bring their own food, while the humans brought theirs. An agreement was made with crude phrases and gestures; even figures in the sand were drawn, and an artistic scientist drew pictures for description; then the Sirians were free to do as they liked until the celebration.
Ranmotanii told Carl the idea was a good one, and thanked them all. All the Sirians joined him in the gesture of gratitude: they stretched out their arms before them, cupped their "hands" together, and pointed them up above their heads. Then the visitors, talking rapidly among themselves in their own language, packed their gifts and walked back into the lagoon.
"Welcome back!" Ann shouted, waving after them. Carl let out a deep sigh of relief when the last amphibian had dived into the waters. His mouth felt as dry as sandpaper, and he could barely speak. It amazed him, by comparison, how calmly Ann had behaved. "You have a lot of nerve, Ann," he rasped. "My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly lift my arm. Seriously: what were you on?" Ann made a nervous laugh: "I was scared... just like you... I still am, I guess... but when I was among them and talked to them... it felt so safe... like... I can't explain. They are giants, even the females. I couldn't be afraid when they were near, you know? Carl, I cannot believe this is really happening! I shook hands with one of them!"
They gave each other a spontaneous hug. Carl said: "These mind-recorders gave me a great idea. Let's call for a general meeting now -" One of the physicians of the team, a thirtyish, curly-blonde Swede by the name Mats Jonsson, overheard the discussion. "Carl," he interjected, "you'd better put that meeting on hold for a few minutes. About half the team suddenly got nervous diarrhea. I gotta go." Mats Jonsson darted off across the sand toward the nearest row of toilets. "Curiouser and curiouser," muttered Carl. This first contact was turning out strange all right. And comical to the point of slapstick. He was glad the media was being held at bay. Carl returned to his barrack, glancing at the surrounding sea. The background rumble of distant helicopters and jet airplanes was nearly constant now. A little later that day, the scientists gathered to hear out Carl's idea. The man with the camera switched to a fresh recording disc. "Let's see, we've got thirteen of these mind-recorders... what I suggest is we put them on during the Sirians' visit. Why not? Using our own eyes is way better than our standard video equipment! With these devices on all the time, we won't miss any important detail of this historic first contact!" Lazar Mahfouz raised a hand. "But they will stay a whole year. What if the recorders don't last the whole time? I have a personal suggestion. Let's use the recorders while we sleep instead." At once, one American scientist protested loudly - he seemed to take the proposal personally. "I won't give away my private dream-life to science! Besides, what we dream is not important to this mission! Facts are important, not fantasy!" Lazar responded with only a hint of aggravation: "And why do you think they gave a dozen people a dozen recorders in the first place? They already knew we had cameras and such things, since they've seen our TV for years! Their gift was the logical conclusion! "From now on, what we dream will be highly relevant. Because there is a world outside this island, a whole world that will dream about Sirians - dreams full of fear and desire and curiosity! Dreams that will reflect motives! With this technology, we can anticipate the world opinion and prevent it from turning against the Sirian presence. Carl, you understand what I mean, don't you? You worked in television." Carl understood quite well what Lazar meant. But he wasn't ready to accept it yet. The implications cut too deep, also into his own mind... All of a sudden, he wanted to shrug off the existence of the infernal mind-recorders, and concentrate on hard facts. Why couldn't this affair be simpler? Then again, Lazar did talk about hard, inescapable facts. About what the human mind was really like. A haunting image from an old film flickered through Carl's memory: a thinking, bloodthirsty ape, wielding the first weapon as he committed the first murder of a fellow ape... "I'm not going to force anyone into anything," he told the group after a time. "But if any of you want to follow Lazar's suggestion and record your own dreams for later analysis, please feel free to do so. I guarantee you the privacy of your own dreams." The group murmured a general approval, and set about preparing for the evening's feast. Carl went over to the hospital barracks, a large cluster of connected buildings marked with Red Cross symbols, and said hello to the physician Mats Jonsson. Mats had a patient: the middle-aged German historian, who had fallen into a catatonic fit when a Sirian had attempted to shake hands with him. The man lay on a cot now, breathing deeply but steadily. "I gave him something to sleep on," Mats explained. "He's in the risk group for heart-disease, but he didn't have a stroke - thank God he took his nitroglycerine pills before they showed up! Could you imagine the public reaction?" Carl went cold, and wiped some sweat from his forehead. "Yeah...'Aliens scared scientist to death.' That was a close call. Don't... don't talk to anyone about this just yet. But I think we have to do something... the responsibility lies on me." They both stared at the patient's newly acquired mind-recorder, lying on a table near the cot. The Swede looked uncomfortable. "Is that a necessary risk?" he asked warily. "Takeru tried it, and it worked without harming him. If that man is going to suffer a nervous breakdown during the most important meeting in history, then I want to be warned in advance. Put the damned thing on his head. Or I'll be forced to send him right off this island with the next supply boat." The Swedish doctor was clearly unhappy about it, but he put the device around the sleeping patient's head and switched it on. A Sirian voice-signal confirmed that it was activated. The patient turned about a little, but remained asleep. Carl left him that way, already busy with other pressing concerns. He had to e-mail his wife and his children, and tell them everything was okay. And beneath all his worries, he actually did feel quite good. Carl went into to his quarters and unpacked his old violin. He secretly hoped to play a musical duet with Ranmotanii during the feast. In the palmtree grove, the team cleared an area for more straw mats and a great bonfire. The American astronomer and writer Bruce Pound, the fattest of the bunch, was appointed barbecue cook. Another scientist gathered his colleagues on the beach and showed the portable tape-deck he had brought with him. He proudly held up the tapes for them to see. They were all very excited. "'Yellow Submarine'?" "'All Together Now'?" "We'll have a cosmic sing-along!" "What if they don't like the Beatles?" "Would you rather let them hear Nirvana?" "It's crazy! It's totally unscientific!" "It's gonna be great!" "I hope the Sirians bring the flutes we gave 'em! We could teach them to play 'Yellow Submarine'!"
Chapter Five
With only the ceiling lights for illumination, the soldier couldn't tell the time of day. He had awakened a few minutes ago, alone in his cell. There were other drunken and unruly customers in the adjoining cells, most of them servicemen. The American military prison was in fact full. Those arrested soldiers who weren't apathetically hunched down on their cots, were wailing in terrible anxiety or talking in their sleep. The soldier couldn't sleep for all the noise. It reminded him of the lunatic wing of the hospital he had just escaped. Crazy, he thought. Something really different happens, something that could make a radical change for mankind, and what do we do? We think of nothing better than to get drunk and act like complete fools. Maybe this isn't happening. Maybe I've been sitting on this cot all the time, strung out on pills and booze. All a crazy, drunken dream. The soldier spotted an MP guard on the other side of the bars and tried to sit up. The headache stung him in the temporal bones - he regretted having moved at all. Groaning, he yelled at the guard: "Hey! How long have I been here?" The guard barked back: "Shut up and sleep it off! It's eight in the morning." "I've slept it off. Look - let me out of here, I want to make a phone-call." "Okay, but puke on my boots again and I'll beat you senseless." The guard unlocked the tiny cell and let the soldier stumble out. He made his call on the public phone - he had lost or sold his cell-phone, he couldn't remember which. But the number he remembered. After five signals, a sleepy voice answered from far away: "Hello?" "Hi. It's me. I've decided to leave Saudi Arabia and return home." "Oh... I'm glad to hear that, but do you know what time it is over here?" "Sorry, I forgot. Could you send me some money for the trip? I'll pay you back, but I don't have enough for the flight ticket right now." The voice at the other end paused, yawning or sighing, then answered: "Tourist class. But if you booze away the money this time, I'll never do it again, y'hear? This is the last time!" "Yeah. I promise." "I love you, dear." "Love you too, Mom." The soldier hung up and faced his captors with a nonplussed grin. "Where do I sign?" After some procedure and receiving a court order, the soldier was free and walked out to the gate of the U.S. military base. He swore to himself that as soon as the money arrived in his bank account, he would buy a ticket. Not home, wherever that was. A ticket to the South Pacific. Night fell, and the Sirian group surfaced a second time - all twelve of them. This time, the amphibians were wearing the bermuda-shorts they had received earlier. The human scientists saw a new awkwardness in the Sirians' walk, as they came to greet the humans. Another series of handshakes followed, and the extraterrestrials were urged to sit in the palmtree grove with their hosts. Ranmotanii was the first one to sit down, flanked by the younger Namonnae - and another aged male, who called himself Oanorrn. He had not been present before, and seemed much weaker and paler than Ranmotanii; his skin was thin and wrinkled, and he supported himself on Namonnae's strong shoulder. Carl made some conversation with them, slowly explaining the occasion. Other, younger Sirians carried loaded sacks, which they emptied before them onto wide, silvery plates brought by their comrades. The plates turned out to be some kind of serving-machines which scurried across the ground on scores of knobby black "legs", much to the amusement of the human hosts. On the plates were loads of freshly captured fish from the surrounding sea, together with assorted seafood from the floor of the lagoon. Ann Meadbourй could name several of the captured species by looking at them; some were still stirring, the occasional fishtail flapping reflexively. When all amphibians and humans had settled around the bonfire, Carl turned to Ranmotanii and made welcoming phrases."To share food and music in peace," he declared loudly to all, "is the best thing there is. We want you to feel this too, and hope it is your way of things as it is ours. We will play our music first, but we also want to hear your music later. Now eat, drink, and be happy!" The scientists applauded, and the Sirians did too - only it sounded off-key, with the aliens’ near absence of palms to clap. The scientist with the tape-deck played the Beatles tape on a pleasantly low volume, while the guests partook of the food. A male gave Ann a large, raw, fresh fish to eat - she smiled, hiding her embarrassment the best she could. "Thank you," she said painstakingly, holding the fish with unsteady hands. "You can have half the fish... I cannot eat all of it. Please?" "Thaaank yyyou," the amphibian said, his voice a youngish, singing bass tone. On his cone-shaped head was no hair at all, nor a wrinkle of age. But he was big, a little over two meters tall - much due to the oblong head, almost twice as high as a human head. With one arm, he grasped the fish in the middle and squeezed - it split as if a cut by a dull knife, leaving Ann with the tail half. The Sirian gave Ann a curious look, saw no obvious fear in her face, and bit into his half. He had single rows of small, separated, cylindrical teeth, vaguely similar to those of dolphins, making a crunching sound when he bit off a fist-sized bite of the raw fish and swallowed it. Then he looked at Ann, blinked rapidly several times, and seemed to wait for her turn. She smiled, and explained in a slow voice: "I must... cook the fish... before I eat it. In the fire." She pointed to the barbecue chef Stone Pound, who was frying fish by the bonfire. The alien sang: "I seee thiiis beforrre... frommm yourrr telllevisssion transmiiiitterrrs. Manyyy hummmans whhen eeeat fisssh nooot burrrn iiit firrrst. Aaand mmmany humaaans burrrn foood firssst." He pointed toward a nearby couple of guests, and with amazement Ann saw what Takeru Otomo was doing. With a knife, the engineer was slicing fish into bite-size chunks and serving it raw to humans and Sirians alike. The other Sirians ate the sushi as quickly as Takeru could serve them. "Not me," Ann said, shaking her head. "Wait here." She brought her piece over to the chef, who happily accepted it; he was singing along with the music, probably the merriest cook she had ever seen. Ann heard the multilingual conversation soar about her - scattered phrases in simple English, singing slow English, and the strange, singsong tones and clicks of Sirian-to-Sirian speech. A sense of intoxication, of wondrous insight filled her; she wanted to cry, so excited was she. After spending most of her younger years trying to communicate with dolphins, this confirmed what she had learned: when everything else seemed vague and difficult to convey, the simple things in life could be understood by all species. Food. Warmth. Music. She was partaking in primal communion. And she thought: if it can work with beings from another world, as different from us as we are different from dolphins... then it should work among humans too! It really is so simple, all over the universe it is as simple! The world must learn this. It's important that they see it! Her head pivoted from side to side, and she caught sight of a man with a camera. It wasn't being broadcast live - but it would do. There was yet hope for the outside world. Stone Pound called out for Ann and gave her a paper plate with her fried fish. She brought it over to the male Sirian, sat down and cut a bite-sized piece for him. She had to goad him a little, but he accepted it. After a first, cautious taste, he swallowed the piece and closed his eyes fully, while savoring the taste for a full four seconds. "Thaaank yooou. Goood, alllso fisssh coooked," he said finally."My name is Ann." She pointed at her forehead. "Annn." The amphibian cocked his tall head to the side, narrowed his eyes to slits, and made a smiling face. "Easssy sayyy Annn. Easssy, also goood." He pointed a finger at the spot between his eyes. "Mmmy lannd-naaame iiis Oanss." "Oanss. Oanss. A good name." They studied each other's faces with equal curiosity. Their facial proportions were so different, yet all the details were equal in numbers: two eyes, two nostrils, one mouth, two ear-openings... it seemed to Ann that life was drawn up after a universal plan. Once, when the Earth was young, there had been life forms in the oceans that were asymmetric or shaped like absurd nonsensical shapes... but those had soon died out. Maybe the simple symmetry of the Sirians was - though she knew it to be her own false vanity - what humans would look like in a million years. All the rough edges and odd clumps of hair polished away by eons of time, until only the essence was left...
A sudden outburst of music interrupted their searching. The tape-deck was on, playing the Beatles song "All Together Now". The beat was simple, and the refrain couldn't be easier to get into - yet the Sirians were reluctant to join the humans in singing. Their voices were much too different. Only when Carl and the others started clapping their hands to the beat, the guests caught on. Humans sang, and aliens clapped what passed for hands among their race. The party lasted a few hours, food and drink being shared generously - for security reasons, alcohol was banned. Then, in the middle of the night, the old Sirian Oanorrn was suddenly forced to return to the lagoon; Ranmotanii and Namonnae escorted him back into the waters. Underwater lights from their submerged vessel started to illuminate the dark waters, forming an eerie halo around its streamlined shape. Now the ship could be discerned better than during the day, resting on the coral-bed twenty meters below the sea, a manta-shape three times larger than a blue whale; the top of its hull nearly touched the surface. The lights were attracting all sorts of fish, yet the retreating Sirians made no attempt to catch any as they swam past -- maybe they were just too stuffed. Other amphibians began to follow the example of their elders. They made polite gestures of goodbye, and croaked promises of return the next morning. Carl took this as unsurprising; he sensed the Sirians weren't "sleepy" in the same sense humans were; the amphibians didn't yawn or walk slower when they left. Within twenty minutes' time, the last young Sirian had dived into the waters and disappeared under the keel of the submerged ship. Carl bid the other scientists goodnight, and remembered the mind-recorders they had received from their visitors. Should he use his device? He thought of calling his family as he entered his barrack, but he suddenly felt completely exhausted. It was getting to be too much already, and he thought: God, they're still going to be here tomorrow... and the day after... a whole year. I'm too old to lead this circus. It should be Ann doing it... she seems to get along so well with them. He slumped down on his bed, too tired to put the alien device onto his head, and fell asleep. Meanwhile, three houses farther north, Ann was in her own little room that took up half a barrack - the other half, separated by a flimsy wall, held the quarters of the biologist Andrea MacClintock, a reclusive Nobel Prize winner of sixty-two years' age. Ann was tired now yet full of energy; she almost knocked on the flimsy wall, hoping that MacClintock would chat with her about the Sirians. But she knew she shouldn't - she ought to sit down and take notes on her computer... Then she recalled the gifts. She bent down and pulled out the locked box from under her bed, unlocked it, and picked up the mind-recorder she had hidden there. It felt smooth and soft in her hands... no hum from electronics there, no heat from internal power-sources. How the hell did this thing work? Her friend Arthur back on Sri Lanka had a saying, which now struck her as dead-on: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. "Ah!" Suddenly she started, and almost dropped the small apparatus. For a moment it had felt as if the machine had... moved in her hands, or its smooth texture had changed. She looked at the inside of the thick metal bands, probed its surface with her fingers. Yes, the texture was changing ever so slightly as she touched it... the surface was like the scales of a fish, only the scales must be microscopic... Ann brought the device over to her small worktable and put a part of it under her optical, low-resolution microscope. At 100 X magnification, the silvery surface of the apparatus really did resemble fish scales. She put a finger to it... and now she saw the metal palpitate minutely, reacting to the touch or the heat of her flesh. What had the machine really done when Takeru put it on his head? Had it sent out tiny needles into his head, without him feeling it, or...? Ann recognized two feelings in her body: fear in her skin, and shame in her gut. It would all boil down to a matter of trust, she thought. Put in on while you sleep, and prove to yourself your trust in the aliens. Or never use it on yourself, and always know you had never really trusted those slick, inscrutable deceivers from another world. If she trusted Oanss... Ten minutes later, she lay in her bed with the sheets pulled up to her neck, the device resting around her head. It cut into her hair, creating an uncomfortable sensation - perhaps, she thought, it would only work on crewcut or bald persons - but she could manage the pressure. She reached up and squeezed the switch knob... The device spoke in a pre-recorded, small voice: "Chiiik!" At once she felt a sudden heat in the headband as it tightened around her scalp - it receded quickly, and she felt nothing more. One hour she spent turning about in the warm barrack, listening to the air-conditioner, until she fell asleep. And with sleep came the dreams.
DAY 52
The next morning, failing to recall what she had been dreaming, Ann Meadbourй put the machine back on her head and replayed. She saw the first dream, as clearly as if she had been asleep - and gasped. She could withstand fifteen seconds of it, before she tore off the machine and locked it up. No one, she swore, no one was going to see that dream again. She rushed into the shower and tried to scrub the shame off her skin... While washing down his last piece of breakfast with fresh pineapple-juice, Carl walked out of his barrack, talking to the U.S. President over his cell-phone. "No, sir, there was no trouble. The Navy boat came over and picked up the videotape of the party this morning. You'll receive it later... didn't the air surveillance pick up the singing? They did? Thank you, sir. It was a great success. The Sirians are marvelously civilized. But there was one thing... our historian passed out, as you may have heard. "Yes, the German guy. I'm going to check the man's health now, but I'm thinking of replacing him with someone else and let him go home. So there will be a vacancy... we need a history expert - or a great communicator... yes, we will inform the universities as soon as I've made the decision... it's all set then. Till next time then. Goodbye, Mr. President." Carl put away the phone, and cast a glance at the boat leaving the lagoon for the distant aircraft-carrier. Another boat came in, loaded with fresh supplies from a nearby, inhabited island. Carl waved at the military personnel unloading the supplies, and knocked on Lazar's door. The dark-skinned, thin-haired Egyptian opened, and he was already dressed in shorts and a shirt like Carl's. Lazar gave him a brief smile, and started talking very rapidly. "I did it, Carl. I put the machine on while I slept, and played it up the first I did when I woke up. Of course I was afraid, but..." Carl asked him to explain on the way to the hospital-barracks; they had to check out the German historian's health first thing in the morning. Around them, the little community was up and moving. Andrea MacClintock the biologist and Ann Meadbourй the biologist-anthropologist were jogging across the white sand, talking to each other in. Takeru, the engineer, and two other scientists were setting up antennas and camera-resembling equipment on poles around the area. Lazar understood nothing of electronics. He was carrying his Sirian mind-recorder in a small case with him - and he understood nothing of that either. All he cared about were its implications, and those were vast. "Carl, I dreamt with total self-consciousness. While asleep, I mean. I have proof. It was amazing. Knowing that my thoughts were being recorded, my super-ego stepped in and... sort of supervised my dreams. I dreamt all sorts of things... obscene things, silly things, profound things, but all the while reasoning about it... and it was wonderful! Even when I replayed it! "When you can hide nothing, how can there be shame or sublimation? Never before in history has this happened. Always when humans recount their thoughts, they have been filtered, softened down, interpreted, censored... now, perhaps, total self-reflection is available. The most private sphere, that everybody thought sacred, is an open book. People will be able to really communicate feelings, dreams, thoughts. What will happen? Is this the key to universal communion?" Carl smiled wearily at his excited colleague, and said: "Maybe our patient will help us find that out. Now please don't ask him all that much at once." The Swedish physician had seen them coming and opened the door to greet them. "Good morning, Mats. Slept well?" The Swede's face was alert but expressionless. "Yes, but I didn't use my... helmet. Our patient just woke up, and I have his mind-recorder here. He refuses to let me use it without you hearing him out first..." The German historian, his hair and beard frizzled, was sitting on the edge of his bed and gesturing wildly at the physician. "Give me that infernal machine! It's mine, they gave each of us a copy! Dr. Sayers, tell him he has no right to read my mind!" Carl sighed, and sat down next to the German. "Bruno, this might come hard on you, but please stay calm." Pause. The German sat still, his eyes flicking now to Carl's face, now to the mind-recording device in Mats' hands, as if he refused to let go of it for a moment. "I know what you're going to say," the German croaked. "You want to send me home and replace me. My bad health is endangering the mission, is it not?" Carl nodded slowly, deliberately. "I'm afraid so, Bruno. I just talked to the President on the phone, and he has no objection against replacing you with another historian..." The German's head sunk down, and he knotted his fingers so tightly together they whitened. Some great inner tension kept him on edge, something he was deathly afraid of revealing... except maybe in his dreams. Lazar had to make an effort not to ask Bruno directly, and let Carl do the talking. "Bruno," Carl asked calmly, "what was recorded from your dreams? What caused you to pass out when that Sirian tried to shake your hand?" The German's entire body shivered with his sigh. "I'd rather tell you everything, than let you see my dreams. Give me my machine, and I'll tell you." Carl nodded toward Mats, who handed Bruno his mind-recorder. The German hugged the device tightly; with his eyes fixed on the floor, voice receding practically to a whisper, he explained. "I was born in 1945, in West Germany... my parents were card-carrying members of the Nazi Party during the war, but they pretended otherwise... all through my childhood, they kept telling me the Jews were to blame for our defeat... the global conspiracy against us, the real Germans... and I, growing up and seeing the country growing rich again, I believed them... "I joined the Social Democratic Party when every other teenager did... but it was a lie... secretly, I hated all foreigners and Jews just as much as my parents did, even more... I thought East Germany was ruled by Communist Jews... I made a career in history, and I never mentioned my real views in public... nobody accused me of being hateful, I was always looked upon as a paragon of impartiality... I was respected, dignified, loved... even Jewish academics commended me... "Then the Berlin Wall fell in ‘89, and I rejoiced... I also rejoiced when the Neo-Nazis began to attack immigrants again... I hoped it was the beginning of an awakening... but then the aliens came! Now there were not only Jews among Germans, among my colleagues... but Jews from space as well, more powerful than ever! Trying to infiltrate our culture from within! They know what my parents did, they know about the war from television... And they can read our dreams too... when they find out what I have done, they will... will -" Carl and Mats stood listening, speechless. There was nothing to do but to send this psychotic away. Lazar was also listening, and thinking. There’s your ”total self-reflection”, Lazar! Bruno realized his innermost self was open for everyone to see, and it destroyed him. And if Bruno’s case was any indication of the “collective dreams” Lazar had once mentioned as so important - then the backlash against the alien visit was just beginning. And it was going to get worse before it ended. "I have no questions for Bruno," Lazar told them. "I suggest we let him go. I need to work on this some more, Carl, but I'll compile a preliminary report for you - and for the President. Much later, that is." Carl nodded. "That's fine. I'll go to the communications barrack at once and get in touch with the university networks. The transfer should be made as fast as possible. I'll say Bruno suffered from heart trouble, and that's what you will tell anyone who asks. Is that understood?" Lazar's face wrinkled as he frowned, and he said: "Soon, you know, there might be no point in lying anymore. About anything." According to the timetable, the Sirians would appear again at noon. What lay beyond that, would have to be made up as they went along - the U.N. treaty was not too specific.
Chapter Six
DAY 54
Suva, Viti Levu Island.
The soldier stepped off the airliner and put on his sunglasses. The weather was sunny with drifting clouds. The airport of Fiji’s capital, Suva, was crowded to the full with passengers, and military guards were posted at every exit. The soldier had changed wardrobe and discarded his old army fatigues for good. He now looked just like any of the crewcut, tanned tourists, journalists, fortune-seekers and other pilgrims to the South Pacific. Among the crowds, the soldier spotted something that stood out. He took off his shades to see better... Buddhist monks? A quartet of people in crimson-red robes were gathered in the main hall, chanting in chorus to each other... an ear-grating noise, like that of a happy-go-lucky retard. One of them, a bald woman, was handing out pamphlets to passers-by under the watchful eyes of the military. The soldier walked up to the pamphlet-carrying woman - like her friends, she had had her eyebrows and hair shaved off, had her eyes painted to make them seem larger, and might be a European from any country. She must have arrived recently, for her skin was getting badly sunburned. The woman gave the soldier a serene smile, looked him in the eyes with her own eyes half-closed, and stuck a pamphlet in his hand before he could ask for it. "Good morning, greetings, welcome," she said in a lofty voice. "Good morning. Say, you're not Buddhists are you?" The woman laughed, as did her friends. "Some of us were, before they saw the light. Are you also here to seek enlightenment?" They could see it on his face. Like them, he was looking for answers. And maybe half the crowd in the hall was, as well. "Do you happen to know how I can get across to Alien Beach?"
The bald woman in the crimson robe shook her head sadly. "The U.S. fleet is surrounding the area. Nothing save our telepathic prayers can get through. Join us in prayer to the Sirian tribe, so that Ranmotani's flock will come across to us." The quartet started chanting again, and the soldier excused himself. While he left the airport hall, he glanced at their pamphlet: THE CHILDREN OF RANMOTANI WELCOME YOU Good morning. Greetings. Welcome. Those were the first words of the Sirian gospel, that... The soldier crumpled the pamphlet and tossed it away. Bunch of starry-eyed fanatics, he thought angrily. He grew even surer now that he needed to rent a native boat, or get onboard that CNN cruiser at least, if he would have a chance at meeting a Sirian face-to-face. It was several days by boat from Fiji to Alien Beach... He saw the tax-free shop entrance nearby, and his thirst grew. No, he shouldn't be falling back into his bad old ways, not now! He popped an aspirin and drank half a bottle of water, but his tongue still felt dry as sandpaper. The soldier understood too late, how comparatively easy it had been for him to avoid booze in a Moslem country - and here he was, surrounded by tropical bars, alcohol advertisements, and tax-free shops... it wasn't fair! He gestured to catch a taxicab, and jumped in while he still could resist the urge to buy booze. "To the cheapest hotel," he told the driver. The native driver, a dark, podgy man with a thick Afro haircut, nodded and drove. As the car nudged its way through the congested traffic to and from the airport, the driver cast the soldier a questioning glance. "You out looking for cone-headed aliens too, mate?" The soldier clenched his lips together and looked out the window; the driver, who sounded more like an Australian than a Fiji native, grinned into the rearview mirror. "You'll get your chance soon," he said. The soldier's eyes darted back at him. "What?" "I'm just a poor taxi-driver, with three children and an old mother to feed..." The soldier handed him ten dollars. "If I take you straight to the American Consulate now, you can take part in the lottery. Five civilians can be squeezed in on the ship when it sails back to guard Alien Beach, and there're many who are prepared to pay. But if you were a journalist, you would of course have to bribe your way on board the CNN cruiser..." "Ship? What ship?" "The U.S.S. Powell. It sails this evening. You won't even get near the three-mile perimeter on a civilian boat." "Okay, take me to the Consulate right away." The driver swerved his car and took a new route. The soldier said: "I heard from a couple of American travelers, officials or scientists or something, that the Sirians are soon going to make little excursion trips outside Alien Beach. What do you know about that?" The driver said nothing more for a few seconds but made a knowing face, until the soldier tossed dollar-bills in his direction. "The word is, mate, that the aliens will travel in discrete little groups, never out in the open. See the world. Then they’ll meet the world leaders, whenever the aliens feel ready for it. I like the idea - putting the politicians in their place, y’know? ‘Course, I could be misinformed... Don't know if they'll wear disguises, but how can you hide those bloody coneheads of theirs? Imagine them walking among us, in top hats and sombreros, bunch of bloody David Attenboroughs from space. Ask me, they should've stayed at home and not started messing with our affairs..." The driver laughed loudly. When the cab stopped, the soldier thanked the driver with a generous tip and stepped off at the Consulate. A multitude of people were already waiting or standing in line at the reception hall, next to an intimidating sign: ANY ALIEN BEACH MATTERS THIS LINE ONLY. OFFICIAL PERMITS FOR THE U.S.S. POWELL CRUISE TO ALIEN BEACH CAN ONLY BE GIVEN HERE. UP TO 5 CIVILIAN U.S. CITIZENS ARE ALLOWED ON THE NEXT CRUISE; TICKETS WILL BE DRAWN FROM THE APPLICANTS PRESENT HERE AT 1700 HOURS. Any attempt to approach Alien Beach without permit from a U.N. membership state will be stopped by U.N. forces. The U.S. Consul of Fiji
The soldier cursed to himself, but saw no other choice than to join the line. He was starting to get real hungry, and regretted not having stopped for lunch in his eagerness. There had to be at least thirty people standing in line before him. Among them, he spotted two bald-shaven figures in crimson robes; that cult was getting quite a following. Behind him, after just a minute, another two people filled in the ranks. One of them was a teenage girl, in ordinary clothes - but her head was shaven bald too, except for a Mohawk mane of hair at the top of her head, dyed gray. Her skin was dyed a dark-gray hue, as were her arms and legs - and her eyes were painted to make them appear large and ovoid, like a Sirians’ eyes. What the hell was going on here? He felt annoyed and insulted, as if the girl's fashion statement had cheapened his unique vision. But he was afraid of saying plainly what he knew, and this wasn't the place. Looking quickly over his shoulder, he told the girl: "Haven't you heard? Punk is dead." The painted teenage girl glared angrily up at him. Her companion, an adult man in a light suit, glowered at the soldier's neck. On the man's fingers were several gold-rings, the soldier had noticed in the corner of his vision. "You watch it, fella," the man warned him with barely controlled fury in his voice. "You make any trouble, and none of us will get our permits. No one messes with me, you hear?" The man squeezed the girl's arm, and added with a chuckle: "Don't worry doll, I'll get us both a ticket. You just gotta know how to oil the wheels of bureaucracy..."
The soldier kept his nose turned in the direction the line was moving, and ignored the man. Then, five seconds later, he suddenly started backward and deliberately stepped on the girl's foot. She screamed loudly, alerting the armed security guard at the door. "Sorry! I didn't mean to -" "You damn well meant it, you -!" The girl's angered protector reached out at the soldier who feigned complete innocence, but the girl was in his way - and suddenly the guard was pointing his rifle in the man's direction. "You! Get out of here! Yes, you with the rings! Now! Or I'll have you arrested!" The man with the gold-rings turned red under his too-even suntan, but obliged the armed guard. Still cursing and threatening the soldier, he dragged the painted teenager with him, out through the open entrance and into the sunshine. The soldier smiled inwardly; at least those two derelicts of humanity weren't going on that ship. It took a long wait, but he finally came to the counter. A tired clerk asked for the soldier's passport, asked a few questions about his background and purpose of the visit, and wrote some data into her desktop computer. Then she gave the soldier a slip with a number and a seal of the United States Navy.
"Be here at 1700, when the five numbers are drawn." "Can I try for the next cruise too?" the soldier asked quickly. "No," the clerk replied flatly. "Next!" He walked outside to catch some air, and moved into the building's shadow. The waves roared nearby, past a cluster of palmtrees and planted bushes. Airplane vapor trails streaked the sky here too - he could recognize some of the shapes as military craft. And all across the horizon ships, ships, ships. There could be others who had had the same visions forced upon them, just like him. But how could he separate them from the vast mass of lunatics out there? He squinted up at the blinding, bright cloud-puffs. Please let me meet them before some madman starts another war. That's all I ask for - The headache took him by surprise this time, sharp as a nail driven into his right hemisphere. Gaahh!" The soldier clutched his head, staggered into a shadowy corner, hoping he wouldn't be seen - and struck something cold. He was leaning against a wall of gleaming ice and rock. The sun had instantly shrunk to a speck of blue light, too faint to warm the frozen sea that spread out before him. An entire ocean, frozen into cracked, jutting blocks of unimaginable size, black and lifeless. The sky was very dark though the shrunken sun was shining. It grew darker still, and a gray haze began to form above him. From the haze fell snowflakes - first a slow, drifting fall of feathery flakes, then a faster fall that lasted longer, then a hailstorm. And then there was no atmosphere left - all the air had settled in a layer of white snow upon the frozen sea. The sky was completely black and riddled with stars. The soldier looked down upon his body - it was covered in a red, metallic spacesuit. There were other spacesuit-clad figures crowding up around him. Their faces were sad or grim... Sirian faces. At the horizon, a bright yellow light was born. The ground started to tremble under their feet. The frozen ocean rippled - without a sound - sending cascades of ice up into space. The light at the horizon became a flame, shooting up, up into the sky at a low, outward angle. The tremors increased, and the group of figures fled into silvery vessels that sank down from the sky. He understood then, that it was their homeworld that was being frozen. And that they had to abandon it temporarily, before it was hurled away from the sun. The pillar of flame continued to burn, pushing their world away from the sun, into the night between the stars. The others called for him to join them before it was too late. Pieces and blocks of ice were starting to crash into the ground, exploding silently around him. He could hear himself breathe, feel the tremors in the ground, hear the voices and calling-signals of the others through his helmet. Yet he stood there like a fool, mourning all the animals that had frozen to death in the oceans. Some would survive even that long period of freezing, like his own kind had learned to put itself in stasis. But most of them were dead for good. When their world would come close to another double-star and the oceans would begin to melt, the stench of rot would suffuse the seas. Then life would return to their world again. Like it had done so many times before. He finally found the will to move toward his waiting ship and safety. Life and light would return again. Something hard struck him - a chunk of ice maybe - he was hit again, and he fell onto his side. The man with the rings glared down at the soldier, kicking him. "Hah! Told you, sucker... no one messes with me!" The soldier was too dazed to really feel the pain of the blows. Suddenly the teenage girl shouted a warning; the man ceased his assault and ran off. The soldier heard a car start and roar away; a uniformed man crouched down next to him. "Are you all right? Can you stand up? Careful, now." With the guard's help, the soldier staggered to his feet - now he felt the cracked rib. He pressed his lips together so that he wouldn't scream. "Hey, hey!" the guard said. "Where do you think you're going?" "I'm going in to get my ticket," the soldier responded in a strained voice.
"I can't allow that - you're hurt. I'll get you to the consulate doctor, right away. You're a U.S. citizen, aren't you?"
The soldier wanted to lie down and wait for that guy to come back and kick him some more - preferably in the head, where it might do the soldier some good. He blew it, just when he had had the chance! There had to be another way. A half-hour later, his ribs bandaged, the soldier was escorted to a waiting taxi to take him away from the U.S. Consulate. He slumped down in the backseat, hurting in his ribs when he did so, in spite of the painkillers. He didn't look up at the driver until he recognized his voice. "Bad luck eh, mate? Y’can't win the lottery every day." "Piss off, mate." The driver merely grinned.
"Be cool. For a modest sum, I'll show you a better way to get close to those pointy-headed fellows..." "I'm not paying until I see it." "Ah, but this is fail-safe! All you need to do is to get yourself a new hairstyle and a more local appearance..." "What appearance?" "You’ve got to learn how to look like a native. Then you can rent the passport of a relative of mine, who lives on one of the islands near Alien Beach. They are allowed to use their boats in the area, because they have to. If you can pass as one, you can take a boat as near as... why, practically a step away from Alien Beach!" The soldier gave it some thought. An offer this stupid - it just had to be a scam. "Deal," he said.
Chapter Seven
DAY 54
The scientists' meeting took place out in the open, with four poles and a canvas for a roof - there was no barrack large enough to comfortably house a dozen people in the hot weather. Carl stood up from his deckchair and scanned the group: sitting or standing, mostly men and a few women of all ages thirty and up. He noticed Ann Meadbourй standing to herself in a corner, wearing sunglasses. He had been too busy to talk to her in a while. It worried Carl, but he didn't yet know for what reason. As the crowd’s murmuring died down, he spoke up. "Good morning and welcome to the daily briefing, everyone. You might have been hearing rumors of what happened to Bruno after our beach-party the other night. I assure you he is feeling fine, physically speaking. He used the thought-recording helmet, as did others, and they have reported no side effects. But Bruno has expressed ethical concerns about the use of recorded dreams, and I want this matter settled once and for all."
Stone Pound, the American physicist who Carl didn't know well, interrupted loudly. "Hey Carl! Tell us the truth about Bruno! Why are you sacking him from the team? You'd better have a reason good enough to tell us!" Others murmured agreement; Carl raised his voice slightly. An odd fatigue was starting to drag his spirits down. "Please, everyone! It was Bruno himself who demanded to be taken off the project, for personal reasons all his own. I promised him to respect his privacy. No one has seen his private dream recordings - they and the device are his personal property, a gift from the Sirians." The scientists fell silent a little too quickly - his words had hit a nerve. Carl hadn't recorded his own dreams, but he knew. And they knew he knew. They just weren't ready for this kind of technology and its implications yet, and they felt a collective defeat. And this was just the beginning, he realized. Could it get worse? "You keep your gifts, people. You do with them as you find best. Are there any more questions regarding Bruno? No? Fine. His replacement has already been chosen from the waiting list of candidates. It is..." Carl checked his papers. "Bishop Edmund Soto of the South African Anglican Church. You may have seen him on TV a few days ago, when he discussed the studying of alien religions. Bishop Soto will arrive with the U.S.S. Powell in a few days. He will take over Bruno's old quarters... any questions?"There was confusion in the group for a short while. Ann Meadbourй spoke up: "So far we have seen no sign of religious rituals among the Sirians. Shouldn't we ask Ranmotanii before we bring a priest here, who might step on their own religious taboos?" Carl looked at his wristwatch, and answered: "Which brings me to the other important subject - Ranmotanii told me they'll come out of their ship and gather on the beach this evening - and they didn't want to talk. He was vague as usual, but it just might be some ritual they are about to perform. We are welcome to watch, he said - if we keep a distance." None of them could speak for a moment, while the news sank in. After the meeting the crowd split up, and went about their planned tasks. The biologists - among them Andrea McClintock - prepared their storing tanks and microscopes for when alien tissue samples, or even sea animals taken from other worlds, would arrive. Physicians checked the sole X-ray scanner in the field hospital, hoping for a chance to examine a live Sirian. Psychologists and anthropologists - among them Lazar Mahfouz and Ann Meadbourй - went through recordings of Sirian-to-human communication and the first Sirian transmissions, looking for the parameters of alien mind and culture. Engineers and nuclear physicists - among them Takeru Otomo - recorded and measured the electromagnetic fields and particle emissions emanating from the alien vessel in the lagoon, planting hydrophones in the water to record the sounds of Sirian underwater speech. Under the coordination of Carl Sayers, the vast material was continuously being fed by cable to the communications barrack, then transmitted by satellite to the Internet and directly to the universities, research institutes, and governments all over the world. No one was to be left out - that had been the Sirians' demand from the very first broadcast. Or they would not stay at all. Then again, it wasn’t much they had revealed to mankind thus far. If there were any secret intentions behind that demand, they kept them to themselves. In the last few days, the Sirians had spent most of their time underwater, being left alone. And the scientists waited... "There he is - my half-brother George. Let me do the talking." The taxi-driver's relative owned a small yacht in the main harbor of the Fiji capital. When the soldier and the taxi-driver found him in the late afternoon, he was busy cutting fish and packing it in boxes filled with salt. The man was quite similar in build to the taxi-driver - podgy, frizzle-haired and dark-skinned. The soldier couldn't possibly see how he was going to impersonate him to get past the Alien Beach perimeter, as had been suggested. "Hello George," the taxi-driver said cheerfully. "A couple of fine fishes you've got there! Shouldn't we eat them before they go bad?" The busy fisherman shook his head, barely offering the soldier a look. "Shut up, Norman. I got this great business idea last night, when I saw the TV clip from Alien Beach. Did you see the aliens eat that fish?" "Yeah?" Norman asked. "I'll start selling this catch I couldn’t sell this morning, first thing tomorrow, to the tourists, and I'll call it 'Sirian-style cooked' - isn't it great? The dumb suckers will pay double for yesterday's fish!" Norman laughed cheerfully at his brother’s idea. The soldier didn't know whether to laugh or cry. A fat woman wearing shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt came out of the yacht’s cabin and darted him a quick, suspicious glance. Then she stepped onto the pier and walked past them, to the city. “Don’t buy anything too expensive yet, woman!” George shouted after her. “Wait until we got the money!” He gave his half-brother a look saying: See what I have to suffer? Norman nodded, and urged the soldier into the boat. “Come on board for a beer, mate, and we’ll discuss the whole scheme.” The soldier shook hands with George. “Call me Coffin,” he said. “That’s what they nicknamed me in the Gulf.” George made a grave face. “Because you killed a lot of people back there?” “No, because I always looked ready for the coffin - white as a corpse and scared stiff.” George and Norman burst out in laughter. “I like this American, Norman. He’s funny! Come on in, Coffin.” The sun sank abruptly in this part of the world: One moment there was a beautifully colored sunset at the horizon, and a brief green light - the next moment it was dark and a myriad stars were out. Carl loved the Pacific sky, the constellations so different from the Northern hemisphere, and no city lights to blot out the luminous veil of the Milky Way that stretched across it. This night, though, the lights from the passing ships were a minor disturbance. As Carl sat in a deckchair outside his barrack, gazing up after a hard day’s work, Stone dropped by.
“They here yet?” “Who?” Carl said, still watching the stars, looking for Sirius. “You know who.” Stone lowered his voice yet another notch. “Haven’t you noticed the silence around the islet? Our people are squatting down with their cameras ready... waiting to see the Sirians do their ceremony.” “I sorta knew that,” Carl sighed, offering Stone another deckchair. The overweight astronomer sat down, setting the baseball-cap on his round head pointing straight. “I can wait a little more,” Carl mused. “Astronomy teaches you patience, Stone... hmm? We sit up night after night, year after year, watching the planets and comets and stars wander across the sky...” “Yeah,” Stone admitted, “though I never believed all that star-gazing would pay off this big in my lifetime.” “I never stopped hoping. Never really. I lived for this moment, even through the cancer that almost got me. In another timeline, I might have had died just before the first Sirian transmission came.”
They paused. “But now they’re really here,” Stone pointed out. “Now what? They land, have a look around, take a few snapshots, and leave? That’s all?” “Go on.” “You know damn well what the politicians and the military are thinking: The only reason to visit another star system is to claim it, to establish a colony. They are ready to go to war.” Carl said: “All the aircraft buzzing about. No one says it out loud, but it’s obvious.” “And what if they’re right? Do we have a chance? The aliens could wipe out all of mankind without firing a single shot.” Carl sat up in his deckchair, frowning. “Where’d you get that idea?” “McClintock, the biologist. Weeks ago, when she first heard about how the amphibians had replaced their own intestinal bacteria with our own E. Coli, she got suspicious. She just told me. Her study of the E. Coli was so extensive, the results came only today. Didn’t you get a copy?” Stone rested his double chin on his palms and stared out at the surrounding sea. Out there, the lights of the cruisers and aircraft carrier formed a pearl-string of glittering lights around them. “I’ve been too occupied with the politics of this entire circus - Andrea hasn’t had a chance to talk to me,” Carl finally said. “There ought to be more of us here to share all the paperwork, but the politicians are afraid to lose control if there are more of us.” Stone swallowed, then looked Carl in the eye. “Andrea told me - if you put one of those ordinary bacteria in the guts of an alien amphibian, even remotely related to, say, a dolphin - then the bacteria would surely die. And any of us humans have literally billions of microorganisms living on our skin, in our hair - much more so than an amphibian with smooth skin and less hair! How come Ranmotanii didn’t get infected and die after shaking your hand?”
“But I did wash my hands that morning -“ “Come on! You wash your hands ten, twenty times - you plain can’t scrub off your natural skin germs. So, the Sirians must be using some additional technology we can only dream of - nanomachines on their skin, maybe, or direct genetic engineering of their own immune system. With that kind of knowledge, they could re-shape this environment completely. Turn it into their own world. We wouldn’t stand a chance.” Carl wanted to shout at his colleague, call him a prejudiced, reactionary idiot - yet the idea frightened him too. “So if they could wipe us out, why haven’t they done so already?” “Wasn’t Columbus friendly with the natives, at first?” “Columbus claimed the land, from the moment he stepped on American soil. The Sirians haven’t put up one flag. Not one.” “We’ll see about that now,” Stone half-whispered, starting at the sudden sounds from the beach. A group of figures were emerging from the lagoon. In the background light, Carl and Stone could recognize the cone-shaped heads of at least ten amphibians. And among those rose three egg-shaped, silvery spheres, each slightly larger than a man, moving with a force and limbs of their own. “Robots again,” Stone whispered to Carl. “Shh!” They intensely studied the group and saw Oanorrn, supported by Ranmotanii and Namonnae. The amphibians made little noise and no small talk; their attention was fixed on their machines. The three egg-shapes wandered up to dry land, then settled themselves into the sand and began to sink. Then it became apparent, with sand cascading up around the spheres, that they were digging themselves down - the sound they made was a deep hum, but unlike any familiar motor or dynamo. In less than half a minute, the silvery shapes had vanished under the surface. The Sirians gathered in a wide circle around the three sand-piles left by the machines, and locked “hands” with each other. Carl began to feel the goosebumps and trembling of real, physical terror. Were the Sirians hiding bombs, biological weapons, surveillance equipment? Had he been a blinded fool all this time? Yet there was no sign of secrecy in the Sirians’ behavior - they must have known they were being watched from all directions. A jet aircraft flew by a couple of hundred meters away… taking close-up pictures, no doubt. Carl forced his breathing to slow down. The ring of humanoids began to move... to dance. Their flat, clownish feet moved with remarkable agility and control, in slight, measured movements, so that the circle slowly moved - first clockwise, then counter-clockwise, in some obscure pattern. Still, not a sound came from their lips. The small devices hanging from their chests sent out rapid blinking light-pulses, aimed at the sand-piles at their feet. Was it only machines communicating internally, or something more advanced? And suddenly, there came a long, loud warning peep from somewhere - it could have been the devices carried by the Sirians - and they all backed off from the pile, squinting their large eyes. There was a movement in the sand. Three long, thick metal antennas shot up from the ground like absurd cybernetic plants, sprouting smaller outgrowths with amazing speed, until they had reached a height of at least four meters. A series of crackling pop-pop noises came from the alien antennas; a stray blue electricity-bolt hit a palmtree fifteen meters away. The Sirians seemed a little stunned, but focused their attention toward the top of the antennas. A faint blue, glow, some kind of radiation began to flow up from the sprouting antennas - an instant shaft of deep blue pointing to the stars. “That’s impossible,” Carl heard Stone gasp. “Radiation of that magnitude is lethal! They’re going to get sick if they don’t move away!” But Stone must have been wrong; the blue beam shone on, undiminished, silent; the stars above began to blur. For a moment, Carl felt as if he was going insane, fearing the stars were going out. It couldn’t be. And it wasn’t. A haze at first, then in half a minute, strips of clouds were forming high up in the night sky, a dark-blue swirl around the blue shaft. The breeze began to pick up. Now the Sirians uttered their first words. All dozen voices at once, chanting up at the sky, with inhuman loudness and intonation: “Chiiiskr-r-r-r... chiiiskr-r-r-r mmer-r-r-r-lleee!" The chant was repeated, triumphantly, as the swirling clouds above thickened and the wind rustled the tree-crowns of the island. There was no cool observation or objective analysis in the aliens’ tone of voice. Only ecstasy and revelation, and something else Carl couldn’t understand. For the first time in his life, he felt there was something he might not want to understand, and he was ashamed. Then, just as abruptly, the blue beam died and the antenna went dark. The wind leveled off slightly; the Sirians began to sing something more lighthearted in another, even more alien tongue - clicks and peeps like the speech of dolphins - were they laughing? They began to form pairs, walking off in individual directions toward the rolling surf. Carl glimpsed a male and a female amphibian embracing as they moved out of sight, caressing each other’s bodies with their soft arms. Their intentions were quite obvious. Only Oanorrn stood alone at the antennas for a while, gazing up at the new clouds, until he turned and moved toward the sea. The others had already dived into the waters. As his legs splashed into the surf, Oanorrn turned his head toward the barracks and shouted in his deep, creaking singsong voice: “Goood niiight, lannnd-humaaanss!” The feeling down Carl’s neck and face was blushing. He was heading a bunch of Peeping Toms. Takeru came up to him with a headset, carrying a suitcase-sized oscilloscope and a handheld PC. “The blue radiation…” he began, and hesitated.
“Yes?” “Ordinary blue and ultraviolet light, power output on the scale of a battery of light-bulbs. Its temperature flickered between a hundred to several thousand degrees Kelvin in irregular, short bursts - each cycle shorter than a ten-millionth of a second. Emitted by...” “Plasma?” Carl suggested. He assumed it had to be, either from charging the atmospheric gases with electricity from the antenna, or by emitting the plasma directly from the antennas. Schoolbook science, as simple as a neon-light strip - he thought. Takeru shook his head: “No. Plasma would leave traces of ionized gas afterwards. But this... glow... just... vanished, straight up into the air. Plasma that changes temperature from cold to blue-hot in millionths of a second? And travels in a straight line? I don’t think so.” “Then… it must’ve been directed along a strong electromagnetic field?” Takeru seemed mortified, even more so in the nightly gloom that surrounded them. “I thought so too, when the antenna discharged that electric bolt. But... there was no electromagnetic field there. Just... a blue glow... moving without outside force.” “You mean, our instruments couldn’t measure the field. It might have been too strong...” Carl’s voice faltered - because it all sounded utterly ridiculous. Neither he nor the world’s brightest engineer had a clue to what had just happened. Stone joined them, irritated. “Look,” he interrupted, “for all I know we could have been treated to a sophisticated laser show. We’ll go through the results again, until they make sense. Jeez...” He held up his hands in resignation. “What was that lightning charge, then?” The Japanese scientist replied: “A lightning charge, plain and simple. I took some still photos with light-sensitive film, and the video cameras were running... I’ll find an explanation.” He excused himself and returned to his lab with Stone following. “A rational explanation,” Takeru added, so that Carl barely heard him. "Look - over there," the soldier said to George and Norman, waving his beer-can to the north of the harbor, where the starry sky met the dark ocean. "Is that a thunderstorm?" Something was happening, many miles out at sea. Brief blue flashes of light were coming from there, so distant they barely managed to reach above the horizon.
"It's coming from Alien Beach," George said with a slight shudder to his slurred, drunken voice. "Maybe the U.N. forces are shooting at intruding aircraft or something." "Or someone is nuking the aliens," Norman added. The soldier's weary face was screwed up into a grimace of despair. "No! Not so soon! The bastards had to go and do it already!" He took an impulsive step, fell off the deck and into the harbor waters with a big splash. Norman rushed to the nearest life-vest and tossed it after the splashing soldier. The soldier gasped, grasped the life-vest and pulled one arm into it. And like a stranded sailor seeing a ship sail off, he began to swim away toward the flashing glimpses at the horizon. "Come back, Coffin you idiot! There's a million sharks in there!" After about thirty meters, the soldier felt his broken rib poking into him. It was either going back, or drowning. He turned and swam back to the anchored boat, coughing up saltwater as the sea lapped over his face. He wished he had been an amphibian like the Sirians - then he would just have had to dive the way across. The two Samoan brothers helped him back up on deck, laughing and cursing him simultaneously. "Don't worry, Coffin," Norman assured him, offering a towel. "It was just St. Elmo's fire you saw. Or northern lights. Or a shooting maneuver. George, turn on the news will you?" The fisherman stepped up into the nearby boat cockpit and switched on a small TV set.