Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  The translucent accordion tube stiffened with pressurization. Sargon saw the yellow and orange spacesuit of the Human pilot move along the five meter length of the tube. The Human carried a small, ornately wrapped box.

  Glancing over at the Detector station, the sensor beam Imager reported the box did not contain explosives or other items which could harm their ship. Turning back to the main screen, Sargon saw Yamaguchi enter the airlock, which closed and cycled itself under remote direction from the Command Deck. The lean, stocky Human, stepping out of the airlock into a low, narrow corridor, encountered his son Corin. In Net-taught Japanese, Corin greeted the astronaut. The Imager screen displayed simultaneous English, French and Cyrillic subtitles—generated by the courier’s computer—of the brief conversation. Sargon saw Corin turn around, bend over and lead the Human through the low Strelka passageways toward the courier’s central grav-tube and the planned meeting in a side-globe conference room. His fur standing tensely stiff, Sargon got up and headed toward the grav-tube, anxious to meet his third Human.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Shinzo Yamaguchi, walking through the cramped, tubular corridor of the alien ship behind the Horem alien called Corin, recalled a Japanese folktale. It was about a farmer who encountered the Emperor Taisho during one of his incognito trips through the Yamato countryside in early medieval Japan. The Emperor, dressed as a masterless ronin with two valets, had stopped to rest on the edge of the farmer’s rice paddy on his way to Nara. The Emperor asked for a dipper of water. The farmer, acting out of simple country hospitality, eventually served the Emperor a meal of pickled carrots, green tea and bean curd cakes—which was the best to be had in his house. A month later, a court official arrived with a decree from the Emperor relieving the farmer from paying taxes for two years. Reflecting upon how things were not always what they seemed to be, Shinzo entered a high-ceilinged, triangle-shaped room. Pulling his helmet off and storing it under one arm, he sat down on a floor cushion in one of the strange dish depressions that circled the room’s perimeter. He acted more confident than he really felt. He tried to remember his heritage as a great-great-grandson of a Kyushu samurai. Shinzo looked across expectantly at his guide. But Corin simply sat staring straight ahead, calmly seated on his own floor cushion, as if waiting for something. Shinzo also sat quietly, trying to figure out alien etiquette.

  In less than a minute, the corridor door slid into a side wall. Shinzo watched as a tall, blue toga-clad Horem entered the room. The werewolf-like alien was covered in short brown except for his face, which showed a three-day fuzz. Was this Sargon from the Harrigan interview? He thought the Horem was the one from the vidcast, but couldn’t be sure. Shinzo scrambled upright, suddenly uncertain. The tall werewolf stopped a few meters away from him, touched an golden disk on his left shoulder, bowed from the waist toward Shinzo at a precise twenty-degree angle, and spoke in a voice sharp with hard consonants and angled phonemes. Remarkably, he heard the alien speaking a decent version of Kanto Japanese.

  “Pilot Shinzo Yamaguchi, honored guest, on behalf of the Compact I welcome you to our ship, which goes by the name Brilliant-Green-Sky,” the Horem said as the one called Corin watched from the floor. “I am Watch Commander Arix Sargon Arax, Trader-In-Charge of our First Contact with you Humans. Permit me to offer you a towel, water and tea.”

  “I accept your gracious hospitality,” Shinzo said, bowing twice in a slightly deeper bow. Sargon then sat down cross-legged across from Shinzo, pulling a spare floor cushion underneath him. Shinzo did the same as the Corin alien drew the towel, water and tea from a side cupboard that had appeared in the room’s featureless metal wall. The tea steamed, and its smell reminded him of the purest of green teas. Where? How? But then again, these aliens were Traders.

  Shinzo took a quick guess, dipped his right hand into the bowl of scented water before him, touched his lips with it, touched his face with the towel, and sipped his tea as soon as he saw his host begin to drink from a shallow bowl. The occasion felt incongruous to Shinzo, who had expected anything but a semi-traditional Japanese greeting. He waited a moment in response to the mood of the occasion, then reached behind him for his ‘visiting present.’ He placed it on the bare metal floor between them.

  “Master Arax, allow this humble one to offer you a small memento on behalf of all Nihon as a sign of our vision for the future. Please open,” Shinzo said, inclining his head toward Sargon and the sixty centimeter square, silver ribboned box whose rice paper wrapping was adorned with exquisite stamped images of snow-white herons. One of Japan’s National Treasure Masters had prepared the rice paper especially for this occasion.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sargon, opening the package carefully, was pleasantly surprised to find inside a small pine tree in an ornate ceramic planter. Taking it out and holding it before him, he rotated it, looking closely at it as if he could see the miniature world it represented.

  “It is pleasing to me, Pilot. What is it called?”

  “ A bonsai, Master Arix,” the Japanese male said, his manner anxious. “It is a dwarf tree grown according to a centuries-old process for encapsulating the essence of a larger reality in a small container. It was personally grown by Emperor Hisahito over the last 20 years. Emperor Hisahito and Prime Minister Narasaki asked me to present it to you as a small token of our respect for you and your mission.”

  Sargon, looking at Yamaguchi, decided to find out just how much respect the Japanese actually held for the Compact.

  “Pilot Yamaguchi, your visiting present is appreciated. As a sign of our respect for Japan and for your daring voyage, please accept this holographic picture cube of Horem, my home world.” Corin efficiently handed Sargon his own present from another wall cupboard. Sargon put it on the metal floor between him and Yamaguchi. “You will note that as you gaze upon the cube face, the scene changes as the seasons of Horem change. Perhaps you will come to understand us more fully through reflection upon the cube.” Sargon, folding his hands across his togaed lap, then unveiled what his friend Jack Harrigan had called “a loaded question.”

  “However, Pilot, before we respond to your Clan’s recent radio invitation to visit Japan, I have a question.” Yamaguchi looked up sharply from the holo cube. “Do you invite us as gaijin—or as fellow nihonjin?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Shinzo felt incredible stress. He wondered desperately whether he should insult the alien by calling him a foreign barbarian—a gaijin—or instead ritually adopt him as part of the homogenous Japanese culture by calling him a nihonjin—a son of Nihon. Praying that the ancestors would understand, he made his decision.

  “Anata-wa nihonjin desu!” he said to the strange looking alien whose humanoid appearance masked a cultural reality he was only just now beginning to understand.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In Tokyo, in the Prime Minister’s private office, Hiroto Arioshi sat among other senior government ministers watching the broadcast of the Shikazu’s mission. He allowed his lidded eyes to smile briefly upon hearing Yamaguchi’s reply to the alien’s question. He agreed with Yamaguchi that the aliens should be welcomed as sons of the Kanto Plain, not as foreign barbarians. The rest of Japanese society would also accept this salutation in its proper context. In truth, these aliens—like the people of Nihon—were so different from the other peoples of Earth that calling them nihonjin was quite appropriate. He foresaw an early visit to Nihon by the aliens.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “You are Japanese!!” read the English subtitle on Jack Harrigan’s flatscreen as he sat in his book-crammed office on the same floor as Tommy’s own office in CNN Atlanta. He touched off the CNN commentary as the live-signal feed ended shortly thereafter.

  Jack leaned back in his old-fashioned, spring-mounted beechwood chair behind a large, solid oak desk. On it were the LinkPad, his iPhone 12, a flat holo of Colleen, another holo of his grown children, the flat screen that linked to the room’s wifi, and a flexible keyboard that spoke to all his devices. The keyboar
d also listened to him when he chose to dictate over old-fashioned typing. He remembered the events of the last week for the fiftieth time.

  The trip to Washington in an Air Force F-35 jet, the FBI escorted trip to a back entrance to the White House, the suspicion of the President’s advisors about his story, and the President’s own penetrating questions were unique experiences. He’d known McDonnell’s predecessors, and spoken with a few of them. McDonnell struck him as a pragmatist who cared for results more than putting blame on someone else for the surprise of the Compact’s arrival. An attitude he shared. She had given him her private vidsignal number and an invitation to visit her at home whenever he was in Washington. Then came the flight back and release to his cabin upon “probation,” with an order to report any future alien contacts. Then had come the flood of interview requests from the BBC, Le Monde, The Guardian, Xinhua, NHK General, Yomiuri Shimbun, News Corp, Viacom, Niche Video and the like. Al the trappings of being a world celebrity had failed to transform an extraordinary experience into a mundane memory. He still daydreamed about the unique sensation of silently lifting off from his home world and traveling to a vantage point in space from which he could see the wondrous blue-white ball of mountains, oceans, ice caps, air and life that he called home. He felt emotions unlike any he’d felt since the birth of his last child twenty-six years ago. Had Shinzo Yamaguchi felt like this?

  Abruptly, he sat upright at his desk, touched on the VoiceLink, and spoke to his boss.

  “Tommy, it’s time for me and Colleen to pack our bags and do some traveling. I’ve a hunch Sargon will flit right by Kinsey and Vice Premier Seramov on his way to visit Japan. How about getting tickets on Global Suborbital to Narita International Airport?”

  “Sure,” Newsome said, sounding puzzled but amiable. “It’ll be done. When are you two leaving?”

  “Tonight, ASAP. That courier ship of Sargon’s is fast!” He hoped Colleen would get back from her clothes shopping. She’d brought very little with her to Atlanta. Now, she’d have to cram them into her carryon luggage. Along with her shoulder sat-vid equipment. No matter. She was adaptable.

  Jack looked out the office window at the towers of downtown Atlanta. Nearby, the green leaves of oak trees shook in the wind of late afternoon. Memories trailed before him like geese in the fall sky of Tennessee as he started to pack his devices in the shoulderpack he always carried when on assignment.

  COOPERATION

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jack couldn’t believe his luck. He’d never traveled to orbit, or to the Moon. Yet now, one month after First Contact, he was on his way to the Asteroid Belt aboard the Horem transport ship Tekar. Colleen rested next to him, sound asleep, her red hair spread across an overly large couch-seat designed for Horem werewolves, not for humans. Jack looked tenderly at her, marveling at how adaptable people were, even when faced with the incredible. She could sleep—aboard a ship outbound for the Asteroid Belt and starship Hekar. Course the couch-seat was designed for sleeping, and also eating. Washrooms were at the rear of the transport. Course they weren’t alone. A human delegation filled row after row of giant seats that resembled the accel seats they’d ridden in when they’d taken Global Suborbital to Tokyo. Thanks to Sargon’s efforts they’d gotten a scoop there, sat-vid recording the first meeting of Sargon with Japanese Prime Minister Narasaki. And the return of astronaut Shinzo Yamaguchi to his family. After that had come courier ship visits to Washington D.C., Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and Brasilia. All of which he and Colleen had covered as guests aboard the courier ship Brilliant-Green-Sky. Now they were on a four-day trip to see more than 30,000 aliens of eight species!

  He recalled Colleen’s last question before she dropped off to sleep.

  “Jack—doesn’t this intrigue you? Doesn’t it just overwhelm you?”

  “Yes it does,” he’d replied, squeezing her hand as they both watched the several holos that floated in the seat aisle. Watching the American Moon shuttle Atlantis pull away, with the Goddard station in the background, and the Moon behind them both, had been incredible.

  Jack hadn’t stopped being intrigued since they’d left Earth orbit aboard Tekar. So right after boarding was finished, he’d pulled out his LinkPad, told it to activate, and begun typing his impressions of the trip to Tekar aboard the Atlantis. He’d promised Tommy Newsome and CNN the exclusive rights to his stories, and he was anxious to let his impressions flow onto the screen. He’d managed to get 5,000 words written during the first two days of the trip as a result of interviews with his fellow humans and with a few Compact aliens. Now, in the last few hours before arrival at 10 Hygiea, he’d put the LinkPad aside and recalled his unique memories. He smiled at the surprise they’d both gotten when Colleen interviewed the female Horem Pilot of the Tekar. It turned out she was Sargon’s daughter Persa. Who was heavily pregnant. The two women had gotten along famously. Especially after Colleen loaned her black silk formal dress to Persa. It had been a tight fit for the Horem woman, but the smile they’d both seen on the young woman’s face had been all that mattered.

  Another unique memory happened right after boarding. He’d met the ship’s Thix-Thet Navigator, whose name was Hagonar. The encounter happened during a brief visit to the eerie, red-lit bridge. Which was where Colleen had met Persa. Later, Jack managed to talk to the Thix-Thet after the ship had left the Earth-Moon system. It had felt strange “talking” to a blob of flexible silicon crystals who lived in an armored tracglobe filled with a frigidly cold air of nitrogen and methane. The Thix-Thet spoke in couplets that often needed interpretation. Helping with the interpretation was the other non-organic member of the ship’s crew. A cluster of green crystals that floated nearby in a clear quartz ball was, Persa told them, a Thoranian. Between Persa and the Thoranian named Syeess, Jack came to understand the ‘joke speech’ spoken by Hagonar. And understanding the alien’s couplet speech had revealed to Jack just how weird and strange the Thix-Thet were.

  The silicon people, he’d later told Colleen, lived on a Titan-like moon that circled a gas giant planet, which orbited the orange star Beta Columbae. The star, also known as Wazn, lay about 87 light years from Earth. While the air of their moon was mostly nitrogen, other reactive gases made it smoggy. Like Titan, the Thix-Thet air was a fine smog of complex hydrocarbons that included ethane, acetylene, ethylene and hydrogen cyanide. Those gases floated above a world sea of liquid methane spotted with icebergs of frozen methane and ethane. At the sea bottom lay a two and one-half kilometer thick layer of brownish-red hydrocarbons. Below the hydrocarbons were layers of ice I, II, V and VI. Below them was the rocky silicate core of the moon. But it was the “sea” that harbored life. The temperature at the surface of the methane sea was 91.2 degrees Kelvin, just close enough to the 90.7 degrees triple phase point of methane where the gas, liquid and solid phases of methane could simultaneously exist.

  That was the simple part of the encounter. Later, Hagonar the Navigator told Jack its race actually owed their existence to another nearby moon. The home moon of Hakan and the twelfth planet Soresins had generated intense gravity tides on a moon that lay between them. Those tides resulted in volcanoes that blew off massive clouds of silicon, iron, rare earths and aluminum. These silicon-rich particle clouds bombarded Hakan’s cloudy atmosphere over millions of years, gradually introducing silicon as a significant contaminant in the methane atmosphere and oceans. After a billion years, a crude, wheel-like cell of crystalline silicon evolved at the surface of the sea due to the strong ultraviolet bombardment of the star Wazn. The cell could deform itself in any dimension, it could metabolize gaseous methane, and it could derive energy from the hydrocarbon rain which fell from the sky. Eventually, the cell learned to link with other cells by entering the hollow middle of the host cell, leaving half circles of itself stretched out at a right angle to the body of the host cell. When other cells entered the open half-circles, a multicellular organism was generated. In the short space of a hundred million years, this multicelled silicon org
anism evolved into the Thix-Thet, a gestalt lifeform of amoeboid shape that could generate sensory, auditory and digestive organs at will.

  When Colleen asked about Thix-Thet society, he’d shared what Persa had told him. The silicon people had a social structure based on Pods of thirteen individuals, who usually shared a common genetic heritage. The Pod was still the basis for all social cooperation on Hakan. Even after the Thix-Thet developed a technological capability, deep-mined their home’s interior, fashioned structures from ice V and VI, and eventually developed spaceflight, the Pod persisted. Two hundred years after their first landing on the volcanic moon, the Thix-Thet Confederation was contacted by the Compact. The new Compact venture, then consisting only of the Horem and Strelka, gained enough insight from their encounter with such a different lifeform that they developed the Suspense process for suspended animation.

  But it was the Thix-Thet sense of humor that fascinated Jack. Like now, back then Colleen had fallen asleep as Jack chattered on about alien humor.

  The Thix-Thet were lively tricksters who laughed at the universe, figured life was a big joke played upon some poor unsuspecting chemicals, and loved to carry out practical jokes on their fellow sapients. The Navigator Hagonar, during Jack’s second visit, invited him to sit next to the alien’s tracglobe. Which Jack did. Then yelled as a frigid sensation seized his buttocks. Jumping up with a yell, Jack was told by the Thoranian Syeess that Hagonar thought the Earth concept of a “hot-seat” might be more amusing when turned into a “cold-seat”—thanks to quick blast of methane from Hagonar’s tracglobe. He had managed a rueful smile at the turn of events.