by Dane Bagley
“What’s this?” James and Kenny were looking over some readings, while Mike was thumbing through a report. Kenny looked over with interest at James’ excited question, but Mike did not seem to have even heard. “It appears that the city is lit up like a Christmas tree. Electrical and luminance readings are 2.7 times higher than usual.”
“Maybe they have some sort of festival going on,” said Kenny. “I wonder why Aspiria wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“I doubt that she tells us everything. She’s smart. She is very cooperative, but I’m sure she holds back plenty.” Mike had never let his guard down, nor would he. He liked Aspiria fine, but he would never trust her.
“I want a look.” James made his way toward the observation window. Kenny followed, but Mike stayed seated. He wasn’t interested in seeing the city a little brighter. After a few moments, he realized that he also wasn’t interested in the report or sitting in the room alone. He wanted to have companionship, and this was as good as it got these days. So he dropped the report on the table, and made his way toward the window.
“Yeah, it does look brighter, James.” It really wasn’t very exciting, but boredom had seized upon the crew to such an extent, that anything, even somewhat out of the ordinary, would draw them in.
Then it happened, the lights throughout the city went out, nearly simultaneously. The surrounding towns, showed a hint of light, but the city was completely dark. Kenny and James looked at each other in disbelief.
“Did they blow their circuits?” asked Mike. No one answered. They stared at the dark globe until the lights came on again.
“Somethin’ is goin’ on down there,” said James significantly.
As the lights went off again Kenny piped in, “It’s about every twenty seconds that it switches. I think that it’s a signal.”
“I think you’re right. They’ve seen us, they’ve calculated our orbit, and they want us to know. We are definitely not incognito, anymore.” Mike had warned about this likelihood. He spoke with somberness. He did not like seeing his prophesy come true. The men watched for a couple of minutes longer until the lights came on and stayed on. They watched for a while until the lights from the city were out of view.
“The signal was timed, not for the period that the city was in our view, but for the time that our ship was in view to them. That was an unequivocal signal.” James was verbalizing his thoughts.
“Captain Jenners has a communication coming up soon. We better get him up to speed, so that he can report it.”