8
My question and answer session with Bjorn lasted for most of the trip, and left me with even more questions. The distance we’d covered, almost two hundred thousand miles, in such a short time was only the least startling aspect. The sky ahead didn’t change, until I could see what appeared to be a steadily growing hole in space. I hadn’t given much thought to the Moon before; there had been times when it was prettier than others, but it had always been part of the background of life on the night shift. Now it commanded my attention. It was “new,” in Earth’s shadow and almost completely dark. Over time it developed a faint bluish glow, which I realized was a reflection of earthlight.
The only clue that we had slowed down came from the sudden sensation of weightlessness. I felt my arms lifting away from the gel cushion and spotted my duffel bag floating in midair nearby. I gave it a gentle push and it bounced off the sidewall. “What happened to the artificial gravity?”
“It’s not artificial,” Bjorn said. “Gravity is being manipulated for our needs. We are approaching our home ship, so the drive’s output must be reduced to allow for a safe approach. Otherwise our distortion field would push the ship away. What you are feeling now is more akin to your kind’s typical experience with spaceflight.”
“Am I safe to get out of this couch, then?”
He waved. “Of course. Push against the frame and the gel will release you.”
I pushed away too hard, flew up, and bounced off the ceiling. It was a lesson in why the interior was coated with soft paneling. I ricocheted toward the floor at the same rate, and reached for the empty seat to steady myself. Once I got over the disorientation, I couldn’t stop laughing. No wonder people paid big money for this kind of experience.
“Be careful not to do too much,” Bjorn cautioned. “Nausea is a common reaction to microgravity.”
He wasn’t kidding. My head and my guts were struggling to find equilibrium; good thing I’d only had a light supper the night before. In fact, I was getting hungry. It was nearly time for breakfast, which made me wonder what they did for food. Hopefully they’d thought of that.
Looking past Sven in the pilot’s seat, I realized something was missing outside. “If we’re close to your home ship, where is it?”
“Directly in front of us,” Sven said. “It will remain masked until we activate its gravity drive.”
Oh yeah. Back to the energy thing. So they didn’t have unlimited power. I wondered what their mothership looked like. Was it a bigger version of this teardrop contraption?
As if reading my mind—and maybe he was—Sven tapped an icon on his panel and a 3D image appeared above it. “This is our home ship.”
With no idea what to expect, I was both amazed and disappointed. Expecting to see something out of a movie, I instead saw a silvery dumbbell, a fat cigar-shaped body set within a pair of rings at either end. It was impossible for me to tell which end was which, and maybe it didn’t matter.
“How big is it?”
Bjorn floated up beside me. “By your measure, one hundred and twelve feet long. The center hull contains our living accommodations and working spaces.”
“What are those rings for?”
“Those are field projectors for the gravity drive. It is considerably more powerful than the one powering this shuttle.”
“Are all of your ships like this?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You’ll find a variety of design philosophies, though their functions demand certain forms. It is similar to the way your seagoing ships all have the same basic features.”
“So there are bigger ones than this out there?”
“Oh yes. This is a Class II interstellar cruiser, ship number 803.”
“No endearing names then? Just the number?”
“That is our custom. Other races are more emotionally attached to their vessels. More creative, you could say.”
Emotional attachment did not seem to be part of their nature. If that’s what worked for them, fine, but it seemed like something this slick needed a name. Then again, this was my first starship, so I was easily impressed.
Studying the image, I pointed to a teardrop-shaped depression in the middle of the big cigar. I hazarded a guess at what it might be for. “Is that where we land . . . dock, whatever?”
“Correct. Our fuselage will nest within the primary hull.” I noticed him glancing at one of the panel displays. “In fact, we are almost there.”
I felt us come to a stop, if only because I was now drifting back up to the ceiling. An oval outline appeared along the opposite side wall; it was the door that had blended in so seamlessly before. I couldn’t perceive much beyond that, other than to see that there seemed to be a lot more room.
Beyond that doorway, the aliens’ “home ship” waited. An unknowable future beckoned, and I sensed that this was my last chance to change my mind. Once I went through that door, I’d be committed.
I gaped at it like a drooling moron.
What was the big deal? I’d traveled most of the way to the Moon in about an hour aboard an alien spacecraft. This was just another, larger, spacecraft. Capable of interstellar travel. Again, I didn’t know much about space travel at the time, but I knew that being able to cover those kinds of distances was in fact a very big deal. To them it was part of the background, like packing up the family car for a trip to the beach.
I drew a breath to collect my thoughts. “What do I do now?”
Bjorn made a sweeping gesture toward the door. “Step through that portal, and take off your clothes.”
“Excuse me?”
His brow furrowed, the first indication I’d seen of anything approaching uncertainty or even humility. Not that they came off as arrogant, mind you, it was more like they were quite comfortable being masters of the universe compared to a puny human like myself.
“Please do not be alarmed.” I’d been hearing that a lot lately. “It is a precaution that must be followed whenever we bring new life-forms aboard. With your background, you certainly appreciate the need to avoid unknown contaminants.”
“That part I get. What I don’t get is the need to strip naked in front of you two.”
“Oh.” He relaxed. “The portal will close behind you once you step inside. You will have complete privacy.” His tone suggested their society valued that as much as ours, which eased my anxiety enough to replace it with the anxiety of being closed up alone on an alien spaceship. “It will also scan your measurements for appropriate clothing.”
I looked down at the duffle bag slung over my shoulder. “I wondered if my clothes were inappropriate.”
“It is a safety feature, not a stylistic concern,” Bjorn said. “The garment complements the ship’s inertial dampening field. In time you will find it to be barely noticeable. In fact, it will enhance your comfort level.”
“Okay . . .” I stepped into the anteroom and the portal winked shut behind me. I shrugged off my duffel bag and slipped out of my utilities. As I rolled them up to stuff them into the bag, the finality of it was jarring. I’d been wearing that uniform for years. Standing buck naked inside of their ship, my heart pounded. This was really happening.
As I took a calming breath, the oval room filled with violet light. Was it that simple? There had to be more to their decon protocols than a UV bath. They hadn’t given me eye protection, so there had to be something more subtle at work than being in a giant alien tanning bed.
The violet light disappeared, and the room returned to its original pale yellow glow. I wondered if that was normal lighting for them, like our sun.
“Very good,” one of them said, sounding as if he was in the room with me. “Now, please remain still with your arms outstretched.”
I did as he said, and a bright beam appeared above my head, a layer of pure white light that began to descend over me. This must be the dress sizing.
It didn’t just take my size, it deposited a thin film over me from the neck down. I didn’t dare move while it was at work; I had a feeling that would screw everything up. The film was a type of fabric, that much I could tell, but I didn’t have a clue as to what the material might be. It felt oddly metallic, but there was no friction or roughness to it. And it breathed; I could still feel the faintest movement of air around me.
Air. Hadn’t thought about that until now. They apparently breathed the same kind of oxygen/nitrogen mixture we did, or at least close enough to where I couldn’t tell the difference. Those little gray creatures I’d encountered must have as well. They hadn’t been wearing any kind of respirators or spacesuits.
My mind started racing as the white light did its work. How similar were they to humans, exactly? I’d encountered only two of what were supposed to be at least a dozen species, and we’d all breathed the same air. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but it implied a lot, mainly that their bodies needed to exchange oxygen in similar concentrations to ours.
Thinking about the diversity of life on Earth, with millions of species springing from the same evolutionary tree, it wasn’t shocking that oxygen-dependent life might develop on other worlds. Bodies had to metabolize to function, which meant their cells needed oxygen. Maybe the necessary ingredients for life on Earth hadn’t been that much different from the rest of the universe? If our planet’s life was carbon-based, how many others were? Was that a fundamental building block?
The questions swirled through my mind, multiple unresolved trains of thoughts heading in all different directions. I was going to have to take good notes. Did I remember to pack a notebook and pen?
As I stood there in my freshly spun metallized underwear, contemplating alien metabolism and universal needs, I realized I was thirsty. If they breathed oxygen, chances were they also needed water to stay hydrated.
“Can I get something to drink?”
I hadn’t noticed the portal was open again. Bjorn and Sven were standing beside me, as if they’d appeared out of nowhere. Once again they were simply there, like space ninjas.
“Of course,” Bjorn said with a gesture inviting me to move ahead. “We can supply anything you need.” He studied my new threads. “Does the inertia garment suit you?”
I pulled at the metallic thread. “Just fine.” Though I was a little self-conscious of it being so formfitting. “Is this all I get?”
“You can create more later, if you wish. For now you are welcome to put on whatever you feel like over that.”
Create? That sounded interesting. For now, I needed something other than alien underwear to be comfortable, and grabbed a sweater and jeans from my bag. I could study galactic fashion trends later.
As Bjorn and Sven led me through a tour of their ship, I was struck by how minimalist everything was. Clean and functional, almost Spartan. There were no hints of personalization, but then so many features were hidden until one of them would touch a panel or wave a hand across an embedded light, that it could’ve been filled with personal touches that didn’t appear until they wanted them. For all I knew, the walls could’ve been plastered with posters for alien rock bands. I wondered if music was part of their culture; yet another loose thread to clutter my mind.
It was sheer force of will that allowed me to tamp down the amazement factor and focus on what they were showing me. I had to treat this like my first day of school, where everything was new and the sheer volume of knowledge was overwhelming.
We’d begun in the back of the cigar hull. This section was dedicated to logistics and what they said were “engineering spaces,” which I understood was where they’d go if something needed fixing. It didn’t look like much to my eyes, but I did recognize the same kind of pedestal-mounted sphere that powered their shuttle. This one was much larger, easily a few feet taller than me, and I felt that same odd attraction to it. Not aesthetic, it was physical in the sense that I could sense the sphere pulling at me. I supposed that made sense if it was able to shape gravity.
We moved down an oval corridor—the shape seemed to be a recurring design characteristic—into an open area with counters built into the walls and more of the same types of contoured couches I’d seen in their shuttle.
“This is what your kind would call a ‘living area,’” Bjorn explained. “It has nutritional synthesizers and hydration ports.”
“Meaning food and water?” I was still thirsty.
“Yes.” He waved his hand across a blank panel, which promptly lit up with characters in the same undecipherable script I’d seen earlier on their crystal slates. That was going to be a problem.
“This menu will allow you to choose whatever appeals to you.” He pressed against an adjacent panel, which opened up to reveal something I immediately recognized: plates and cups. I was amused to find something so mundane among all of this technology that was otherwise beyond my understanding.
He must have noticed my reaction. “We are not so far beyond your experience as you might think. Everyone needs to eat.”
I finally mustered up the courage to ask the question that had been burning in my mind. “Are you human?” They certainly looked the part.
“We are not, though we share much in common. Our race came from an environment very similar to yours. That drove our evolution in a certain direction.”
“I wondered about that, since we’re breathing the same air. I figured it wasn’t only for my benefit.”
“It is not. You’ll find most of the life-forms within the Union are carbon-based, which means they require oxygenation for metabolism. This of course also means they require food and water.” With that, he tapped a brief series of commands into the panel and slipped a metallic cup into an opening beneath. Water didn’t pour out of a hidden spout so much as it just appeared.
Bjorn looked amused as he handed it to me. “One of your notable writers proposed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Once again, my reaction had given me away. I was going to have to get that under control. They seemed to have a pretty good bead on our culture, which led to another question that had been bugging me. But first, I drained the glass. “How long have you been watching us?”
“We have been aware of your civilization for over two thousand years, measured in your time. Watching from a distance, as you would say. We have been observing with greater intent for the past eighty of your years.”
I did the mental math. “Since World War II.” The last “good” war, if there can be such a thing. “It was kind of the defining event of modern history.”
“We consider your first world war to be even more so. That set events in motion which ultimately led to the second war and affects your global politics to this day, though not enough of your kind seem to have learned the lessons from it.”
“Yeah, we’re not particularly good at that. At least, the people in charge aren’t. Seems like the rest of us see things clearly and wonder what the hell they’re doing.”
I handed my empty glass back to him, trying to remember the history of that time. They’d been watching us like primatologists studying apes in the jungle. A global war between competing clans would surely draw closer scrutiny, especially when it threatened to bring down civilization along with it. “It was the nukes, wasn’t it? That’s what got your attention?”
“It was. The first atomic weapons test alerted us that your race had crossed a critical threshold. It was not surprising that they would be used in the war, although it’s quite encouraging that they have not been employed since. Your postwar period had us ‘holding our breath,’ as you might say.”
“It had a lot of our people holding their breath.” I wasn’t nearly old enough to have experienced it, but my parents and grandparents had plenty of stories of backyard bomb shelters and duck-and-cover drills. It had all sounded ridiculous, but what else could they have done?
“Every technologically advanced society eventually reaches a series of critical thresholds. The ability to harness nuclear power is the first. More will follow. What lies beyond each is up to your people.”
That wasn’t encouraging, as I didn’t hold a lot of faith in the collective wisdom of “my people.” “You said nukes are the first. What other traps are waiting for us?”
“There are many,” he said, with a touch of sad resignation. “Nuclear weapons are simply more obvious. There are others which are equally dangerous, and more subtle. Gene editing is one example. It can lead to medical innovations which you would find remarkable. If employed carelessly, it can also create biological weapons which could be as destructive as a nuclear war.”
“How about climate change?” I wasn’t all aboard the global warming doom train, but there was no denying we tended to be messy.
“It is a threat, though not as immediate as many of your kind imagine. Every advanced society needs reliable energy to thrive, and the sources evolve with the technology. Yours began with burning wood and coal, until you found petroleum to be more efficient. The most efficient resource you currently possess is the same one which holds the most immediate potential to destroy you.”
That drove the point home as to why they considered nukes to be such a big threshold. It felt completely normal to be having a philosophical discussion in what amounted to their kitchen. I took a seat on one of the couches. “You’re talking about nuclear again?”
“I am, but there are even greater sources of energy.” Bjorn followed my lead and took the seat facing mine. “I mentioned the ability to control gravity being the key to interstellar travel. That is not possible without a sufficiently powerful energy source.”
I was having a hard time imagining what that could be. “What’s more powerful than nuclear? What can we do beyond splitting atoms?”
“Fusing them is the next step,” he said, laying open the gaps in my own knowledge. “Fusion is the basis for many of your nuclear weapons, though your kind have not been able to control it enough to use as an energy source.”
Once again, we were better at blowing shit up than we were at actually using it. “Suppose we do. What happens next?” I looked around the ship. “Is fusion where your energy comes from?”
“We have progressed beyond that, though ‘what happens next’ will come surprisingly fast once your kind has mastered nuclear fusion.”
I wanted him to get to the point. “So what is it, then? What’s your miraculous clean-energy source?”
He raised an eyebrow, which were so lightly colored it was easy to think he didn’t have any. “Antimatter.”
Another sci-fi trope. I had no idea it was real. “You’re serious.”
He seemed perplexed. “It is by far a more efficient energy source, though it must be rigorously controlled and contained. That is the dichotomy which all advanced civilizations eventually face: the more effective their energy sources become, the more destructive potential they hold. If a single gram of antimatter was intermixed with ‘normal’ matter, it would create an explosion powerful enough to annihilate one of your largest cities.”
“Then where do you find the stuff? It can’t just be lying around.”
“You are correct, it must be synthesized. Human researchers have been able to do so for some time with particle accelerators, but in exceedingly small quantities. The antiparticles they’ve created exist barely long enough to be detected before being annihilated. Synthesizing and storing them at scale is a daunting technological hurdle. Successfully moving beyond that threshold is one of the key characteristics of a society with long-term viability.”
“In other words, we don’t use it to blow ourselves up.” Hopefully our track record with nukes was a good sign, though I had a feeling these guys were waiting to see how that played out over time.
“In so many words, yes. The mechanics of antimatter are what you might call a ‘chicken and egg’ problem. It promises vast amounts of energy, but requires vast amounts of energy to create and store. Once the manufacturing process is begun, it becomes self-sustaining.”
I looked over my shoulder, toward the tail end of their ship, with more than a little unease. “That’s what powering us? Antimatter?” Enough to level a good-sized city, if I understood him.
“Also correct.” He sensed my worry. “There is no cause for concern. This is a well-understood technology. Our fuel core is secured within a magnetic containment field with three layers of redundancy. Each layer’s integrity is under constant surveillance, and if the containment field falls below a certain reliability level, the core is ejected for our safety.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t ask what would happen to us if they tossed their energy source out into space. I hoped they kept plenty of batteries on hand.
I decided to shelve the discussion of nuclear physics as my brain couldn’t absorb much more. It was time to move on to more mundane topics. I pointed at the darkened panel behind him. “What about that food generator, or whatever you called it? How can I use it if I don’t know the language?”
“For now, we will bring you whatever you need. Once we arrive at our processing station, you will be implanted with a translation wafer. After a time, it will permit you to read and converse effortlessly.”
I’d forgotten about the wafers. There was so much to absorb, it was like drinking from a fire hose. “How much time?” No matter how accommodating Bjorn and Sven appeared, I couldn’t rely on them for everything forever.
“That will depend on you. The more you read and converse, the better the translator will learn the intricacies of your language. It responds to your input, and is most effective if you try to limit your exposure to a single language at a time.”
“Will I have that option? Or am I going to be thrown into some kind of mass immigration center?”
He smiled. “Not at all. To ease your acclimation, your initial exposure will be limited to our race and the Reticulans. The ones you encountered at the accident site.”
Maybe it was better to ease me into this Union with a species that was barely distinguishable from our own, but I was eager to meet the others. It was my whole purpose for being here, and I was anxious to get on with it. “Will I be able to spend much time with them?”
“Quite a bit, once you have the ability to converse. But I must warn you, it could be something of a culture shock. The Reticulans are nothing like what you might expect.”
“I figured as much.” The gray skin and giant heads had kind of given it away.
“It will require more than adapting to their language. You will have to become comfortable with telepathic communication, which has proven to be difficult for the humans we have previously interacted with.”
It was another hint that I might not be the only Earthling in the Union, though it was completely lost on me given the context Bjorn was laying out. “Telepathic,” I said. “They’re going to be able to read my mind?”
“Only to the extent which you allow. Compartmentalizing one’s thoughts seems to present the most difficulty. It is an acquired skill. The Reticulans’ minds function on many different levels, and separating their private thoughts from those they choose to express is what you might call ‘second nature’ to them. It has made them quite effective survey drones.”
“Drones” was a term I’d only associated with aircraft and ants. For thinking beings, it held some unpleasant overtones. Slavery, for starters. “You make it sound like they’re programmed. Like they have no autonomy.”
He shook his head. “Reticulans are not programmed, but they are exceptionally organized and self-disciplined. They have a shared sense of purpose, along with an innate curiosity. Surveilling other intelligent races outside of the Union is a delicate and demanding task, at which they excel.” He gave me a disarming grin. “Why do you think they are the most frequently identified beings in your culture’s ‘UFO’ encounters?”
“They’re doing all the grunt work.” It made sense, and it also implied there was an awful lot of that activity going on. “I presume they try to avoid being seen.”
“Yes, but they are not always successful. Despite the many precautions we take, sometimes accidental encounters are impossible to avoid. Sanctioned encounters are strictly controlled, and the study subjects are left with no memory of the event.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t always seem to work out. As you said, there are plenty of stories.” Most came from nutcases in the pages of supermarket tabloids, but I left out that tidbit.
“Unfortunately true. The human mind is quite unpredictable, yet surprisingly resilient. Most of the encounters you refer to occurred some time ago. The bulk of our surveillance is accomplished through autonomous survey craft now.”
Actual drones, then. “But you’re still coming in person, otherwise I’d have never found that crashed ship.”
“We are, though the work is presently limited to data collection and vehicle maintenance. Yours is our first direct interaction with humans in some time.”
“You mentioned ‘sanctioned’ encounters. What about unsanctioned?” I made a sweeping gesture at their ship. “If everybody in your Union has access to this kind of technology, it must be hard to control individuals setting out on their own expeditions.”
“It can be a challenge,” he admitted. “The penalties for unsanctioned contact with unincorporated civilizations are among the severest in the Union, beginning with lifetime excommunication.”
I wondered how that would work. Did they have some kind of prison planet? We could get into intergalactic jurisprudence later, though it occurred to me it’d be a good idea to learn enough to keep from unintentionally breaking the law.
As I wondered what kinds of ‘unsanctioned’ contacts may have already happened on Earth, I heard a chime and the cabin lighting turned salmon pink.
Bjorn looked up. “That is a movement warning. We are about to get underway.” He got up and waved for me to follow, with a hint of anticipation. “I think you will want to experience this from the navigation bridge.”
Now we were talking. If I was going to be on a starship, I wanted to see where the action was.