Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  Time to be fully open. “Hekar, bring the hoverbot inside the cabin. There is no danger, but its presence might help Mr. Harrigan understand the situation.”

  The black-haired, middle-aged Human lifted an eyebrow, then looked up as the swish of the hoverbot became audible as it arrived by way of the open loft window. The silvery ball came to a hover just above Sargon’s left shoulder.

  “Mr. Harrigan, or Jack, it was wise of you to not make use of your pistol.” He laid his hands on the wood table top, absently causing the fingerclaws to extrude. “If it appeared I was in serious danger, my ship’s computer mind would have ordered the hoverbot to electrify you.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Jack untied his tongue. “I take it your name isn’t Jim Langly?”

  “Quite so, Mr. Harrigan,” said the alien. “My name is Arix Sargon Arax. I belong to the Horem species, who live on a world that orbits the white star you call Sigma Puppis.” How far away was that? “I’m a Watch Commander for the asteroid starship Hekar. There are seven other alien species living on Hekar and we came to your system in the hope of setting up Trade relations with you Humans,” said the toothy werewolf face with a rictus-like grin in what he assumed was a friendly gesture. “Also, I would like to be your friend.”

  He stared at the alien, certain now this was a true alien. Jack felt the world spin around him several times. He—the first to meet an alien? He—the first to talk to an alien? He looked up at the silvery metal ball that resembled a soccer ball.

  “What the hell is that hoverbot? And what do you mean it would have electrified me?”

  Sargon shrugged. “I think your term would be taser. A coherent electrical charge is the simplest defense tool carried by the hoverbot. The device hears and sees what I see, and is in tachyonic contact with my starship, which we named Hekar. The ship is parked far away from Earth. But the courier vessel that brought me to your Smoky Mountains is not far away. Its pilot also hears and sees all that I experience.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  So, this alien was just one of eight alien groups who’d arrived in the solar system? Incredible. Feeling a bit dazed, he fell back on rituals learned long ago on his family’s farm near Shelbyville.

  “Care to break some bread, friend?” he said, gingerly pushing the sourdough forward and grabbing some old surplus CCC coffee mugs from the counter behind them. He hurriedly added two plates and a butter knife to the bread, butter and chokecherry jelly already on the table between him and Sargon.

  “Don’t mind if I do, friend,” Sargon said, smiling his imitation-smile again. “Is that coffee still hot? The particular arrangement of alkaloids in your ‘coffee’ is quite stimulating to our biochemistry, according to my son Corin. It will undoubtedly be popular among the oxygen-breathers back on Hekar once we start importing it.”

  Jack smiled. “It’s still hot. Help yourself.”

  Waiting until his new friend had poured coffee and helped himself to bread and jelly, Jack did the same for himself. Blowing fast on the still hot coffee, he sipped half of it down quickly. Ah . . . . that was what he needed in the morning. A slab of sourdough followed quickly. Jack munched, trying not to stare at Sargon’s four front incisors—damn, they sure as hell made this alien look like a Hollywood werewolf who needed a shave. He wondered what this Sargon was really like.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sargon chewed on the rough-textured bread, enjoying its unique feel and the crunchiness of unground seeds. The red chokecherry jelly tasted delicious. Planet-food was definitely something he could get used to. And the coffee—delightful! Already he felt his head swimming a little at the strange biochemicals. He noticed his new friend Jack Harrigan had stopped eating to sit back in his split-pine chair and look suddenly thoughtful.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Sargon—why me?” Jack asked. “Why not just land in Washington or at the United Nations, announce yourself and work with our governments?”

  “A good question Jack,” said Sargon as he took another bite out of the bread, chewed and swallowed. “But think a moment. A big, public First Contact like that, with one of our courier ships landing, would disturb a lot of folks, besides forcing us to be limited in our contacts.” Sargon paused, leaving Jack to wonder just how aliens landing in Central Park could be a limited First Contact. “Just now you were quite shocked. What might a local Air Force wing commander do, or someone with control of certain weapons do, when confronted with an alien reality rather than the anthropomorphic fantasy of Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” Sargon smiled that ghastly grin again. “They might react rather than think and consider. Besides, we’re Traders and we like to Trade with anyone with minimal restrictions.” Now that, he thought, was a very valuable piece of information. “Don’t you think your officials or the United Nations would declare us Top Secret, put us in a well guarded safe-house, and then try to control every aspect of public reaction and news media reporting? Not that such a control effort would ever succeed. We don’t want to be someone else’s property, so I decided to contact you. We need a Human to be the Liaison between us and your world—so why not you?”

  He? A go-between for aliens? Bullshit. “I’m just one of hundreds of good international vid reporters. A few awards don’t make me the Go To person for a bunch of aliens.”

  Sargon’s feathery headcrest flared a bit. Was it some kind of body language? “Well put, Jack. But I’ve studied your vidreporting over the last few decades. Everything you’ve reported is online.” The alien gave him a toothy smile. “Your Internet is similar to the worldnet we have on our world of Horem. And that other Compact members have on their worlds, when they moved into the Digital Age. You earned my attention.”

  Damn. It looked like he was going to have to work with this werewolf alien. Not that he wanted to give up the story to someone else. “So, Sargon, show me something that isn’t plastic surgery or special effects. Show me images of these other aliens on your starship? Show me a picture of your Hekar starship. And tell me why I should work with you, when I’m already famous and employed.”

  Sargon put down his coffee cup. The alien’s yellow eyes scanned him, then looked up at the hoverbot ball. “Life-Who-Is-Song, transmit holos of the ship and our fellow Compact mates. Perhaps that imagery will convince Jack I mean business.”

  The air to the left of Sargon blurred, then a globular sphere the size of a person took form in mid-air. The sphere cleared and then filled with an image of a gray, crater-pocked asteroid that looked like a giant football. Studding its skin were white domes. There were five of them on the surface facing him. Behind and around the asteroid was black space dotted with white, yellow and red stars.

  “That’s your starship?” Jack asked, unable to look away from the three-dimensional hologram.

  “It is,” Sargon growled low. “Hekar measures 160 kilometers long and the white domes you see are the life habitats of each member species of the Compact. Thousands live within each dome. And more live and work in tunnels and Bubbles within the asteroid.”

  “Where is your ship parked?” Jack looked away and fixed on the alien. Would it be secretive or open?

  Yellow eyes blinked. “Hekar is parked in your Asteroid Belt, far away from Earth, and from the colony on Mars. For the moment it hides behind a bigger asteroid. You Humans do have a tendency to be violent first, and talk later.”

  Jack could not disagree. He’d covered too many national wars, civil wars, insurrections and naval battles to argue otherwise. And the situation in South Asia was heading for out and out war between South Africa and the India-Russia Alliance. “It looks big. What about the other aliens who belong to this . . . Compact of yours? What do they look like?”

  Sargon sighed. “Life, transmit holos of our Command Deck crew members, including yourself.”

  The holo sphere lost the asteroid starship image. In its place came a holo of a giant centipede covered in red, yellow and green scales, with a white head at one end. Eleven pairs of insect-like legs adorn
ed the critter. The alien was partly coiled up in a basin. Behind it flickered lights on an instrument block.

  Jack nodded slowly. “Is that your friend Life-Who-Is-Song?”

  “It is,” Sargon said. “He now resides in the control room of the courier vessel that brought me to your Smoky Mountains. The following images belong to my Command Deck crew.”

  Something that looked like a giant black-winged bat with three blue-green eyes took form in the holo. “That is T’Set T’Say, who operates the Power station.”

  A clear crystal globe filled with green crystals replaced the centipede. “That is Eeess, my Science Contemplator, who is a crystalline being. He talks by way of radiowaves.”

  Jack swallowed hard. Two weirdoes. How many more?

  The globe was displaced by a giant crab. Except this crab had four eye-stalks, big mouth palps and ten legs arranged five to a side. No Earth crab had that many legs, that he knew from his time spent exploring tidal zones.

  “He is Nomik, in charge of our Supplies station. He was birthed by Maker-Of-Eggs Looseen, the matriarch of all Zik beings,” Sargon said matter of factly.

  The crab disappeared. Replacing it was something that looked like a six-legged sausage. Except this sausage had a cluster of four eyes in the middle of its back, its skin was black armor plates arranged in a spiral pattern, and some kind of tentacles hung from its belly. One end of the creature sported a gaping, toothy mouth that looked big enough to eat any human.

  “That is Lord Tarq, who runs our Life Patterns station,” Sargon said.

  Replacing the sausage was a black metal ovoid that sat on two pairs of caterpillar tracks. The front part of the ovoid was glassy, but the air inside it was hazy and swirling. Inside, something moved that looked like a brown ball with tentacles reaching out in all directions.

  “That is Belisarus, our ship’s Navigator. He is a silicon lifeform who breathes methane and lives at a supercold temperature,” Sargon said. “The tracglobe is how he and other Thix-Thet move about outside of their habitat dome.”

  A fat transparent tube replaced the tracglobe. Except this tube also sat atop a pair of tracks. Inside it was an eight-tentacled something with a single eye who resembled the small octopuses which Jack had seen at the La Jolla aquarium. But this alien octopoid was big, and its skin was a mix of bright colors that constantly changed shape and intensity.

  “She is Mother Begay, who manages our Environment station.”

  Jack shook his head. Amazing. Nothing he’d seen had any resemblance to a human. Or to Sargon. “Is that the last of them?”

  Sargon gestured at the holo sphere. It blinked out. “Yes, it is. As you see, the bipedal lifeform is not common in the universe. That is why a Horem, myself, was chosen to make First Contact with you Humans. Our Compact Council thought it would be less traumatic for you Humans to see and relate to someone who resembles them.”

  A brown-furred werewolf was the same as a human? Jack wanted to argue. But the series of crew images of the other Compact species told him that would be pointless. “Okay. That’s your starship. That’s your Command Deck crew. What next?”

  Sargon pushed away the empty plate. “What is next is our method of payment to you. For your work as Liaison. We will pay for your time in gold bullion, Swiss francs, kruggerands or other means as you wish,” Sargon said as he poured himself more coffee. “Why not call Colleen McIntyre, your producer and sat-vid person, to come out here for a special assignment?”

  Gold bullion money? Ummm. Tempting. As was a third Pulitzer. He looked closely at the alien, far past the point of wondering how this Sargon knew about his confidant, lover and damned fine vidreporter in her own right. Somehow the alien had acquired a remarkable command of colloquial American English—tinged by a British English accent. Jack smelled an incredible story. What had these aliens been doing before they arrived in Sol system? Why did they want to Trade with us, despite the vid broadcasts of our wars? The instincts of decades pushed him on to the pedestrian questions that were second nature to any reporter who had ever tried to dig up a story on a subject no one knew anything about.

  “Uh—what are the limitations of my work for you?” Jack asked. “Can I quote everything you say? Can I write it up as I see it or do you claim review rights? Just what do you want me to do and when?”

  Sargon put down an empty coffee cup, solid yellow eyes fixing Jack. “The only limitation is that no one but you and Ms. McIntyre are to know about me until I approve the release of your sat-vid recording.” Blast! “Why not interview me in low Earth orbit aboard the Strelka courier ship I came in? You can ask all the questions you want, and you have full freedom to edit and cut as you wish.” Jack relaxed—that was the reassurance he’d wanted to hear. “I’ll return the two of you to Earth near Atlanta. When you’re done working on the vid-interview, call me on your iPhone 12 and I’ll broadcast what you send me, worldwide. I have a few tricks I can play on the geosynchronous and low orbit com-satellites. I’ll pay you and Ms. McIntyre $250,000 in gold for your work, and assign all copyrights to you. Once the word is out, worldwide, you and Ms. McIntyre will be the Go To people for contacting me. And the Compact. Also, I will protect you from mistreatment by any authorities. Which I do not expect. You willing?”

  Jack could swear he heard the sound of steel in Sargon’s last assurance. Just what were the capabilities of these aliens? What were their intentions? “Uh, sounds good to me. Yes, I’ll do it. I’ll be your Liaison. After we do the interview.”

  “Good,” Sargon said. “And if you wonder whether we mean your race any harm, look at my actions since we met.” Sargon watched Jack intently. “I could have harmed you while you slept, or since, but I have not. The hoverbot keeps watch over my safety, but will not harm anyone except in self-defense. Nor will we harm your nation-Clan or other nations so long as they do not harm us.” Sargon paused, looked around the cabin, then back to Jack. “Even if we were attacked, we would defend ourselves and then retreat from the Earth-Moon system until invited back. You will find with us Horem and with the Compact that our word is our bond and our deeds match our words.”

  Carefully thinking it over, Jack felt the old thrill and excitement of following a few leads that he knew would develop into something big, something worth knowing. “But I don’t have my iPhone here, or my LinkPad. How can I get things going?”

  Sargon calmly pulled from his pants pocket the iPhone 12 and LinkPad he’d left in the hovercar. Well, it made sense if this alien had been keeping an eye on him. The alien put both on the table and pushed them toward him. “These should help you to . . . get things going.”

  Picking up the iPhone, he tapped the app for Colleen. Who was staying at her home in Whites Creek just north of Nashville. “Who’s there?” demanded a sleepy female voice.

  “Gal, this is Jack. I’m out at my place in the Smokies. Get your sat-vid gear, some blank vidcubes, and move that ‘38 Chevy Firebird of yours out here at Mach 1.” He grinned at Sargon. “I’ve got a story you won’t believe that’s worth gold coin money to you.”

  “Jack!” Colleen said grumpily. “I thought we were both on vacation. What the hell is happening that needs sat-vid attention? I’ll come up to your place tonight, after I get my hair done and finish waking up.”

  “Come up now. Please,” he said, trying to sound normal professional, the way she was used to hearing from him. “This story is bigger than my ayatollah thing. Bigger than any story I’ve ever covered in my life. You want to be in on this thing. Trust me.”

  A cough came over the phone as she sat up and cleared her throat. “Now? I need a shower. And food and coffee. Then I’ll hit the road for your place. Okay?”

  “Okay. See you in three hours. Oh, bring your fieldwork bag with your overnight stuff. This story may keep us busy for a few days.”

  “Crap.” Silence filled the air. “Will do. And you better be right about this story. I was planning to have lunch today with my girlfriends from AAUW.”

  “I
’m right,” Jack said. “Be prepared to be shocked. You literally will not believe this story. Until you get here and meet my source.”

  “Right. See you in three hours.”

  Jack put the iPhone down on the pine table as the signal vanished. He resisted the temptation to switch on the built-in video app and point the thing at Sargon. Colleen’s sat-vid shoulder-mount had far greater pixel resolution and memory than his antique iPhone. Plus she had years of work in direct news gathering uploads to the CNN website. And while the LinkPad could put him into live audiovisual link with the Internet, do basic DNG uploads and connect him with Tommy Newsome in Atlanta, he preferred privacy for the moment. Anyway, not talking to anyone else was a condition of the interview. And he was determined to do this right, proper and professionally. Having Colleen handle the sat-vid recorder while he did the interview was the way he’d done his work for the last 30 years. No need to change now. He looked up at Sargon.

  “Tell me about Horem women. What are they like?”

  Sargon puffed out air sharply, then grinned toothily. “Well, first off they have four breasts.”

  Jack listened, feeling amazed. What a way to end a quiet vacation!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Two days later Jack and Colleen pulled to a stop in front of CNN’s Marietta Street world headquarters. They got out of his hovercar, dodged the folks skimming the sidewalk on hoverboards, and walked the old-fashioned way into the stone and brick building. Colleen carried her fieldwork bag over one shoulder, along with her sat-vid imager on her left shoulder. He didn’t think she planned to record the reaction of the staff to his vid surprise, but she believed in always being prepared. As did he, which was why his iPhone 12 and LinkPad rode in pockets on his fisherman’s vest. He’d always loved the old-style clothing that had room for lots of things to store, leaving his hands and his eyes free. They passed through the atrium, entered the nearby elevator, spoke the floor number and waited as it rose. He felt sweaty and anxious.