by Ed Charlton
“We’ll take care of that,” said Jim, smiling. “This one is a whole lot more sophisticated than the last thing I came in.”
***
The room at the base of the TV relay tower was small. Jim, Tella, Nect, and three students were more than it could comfortably hold.
One of the students took the details of the frequency from Jim.
“Professor?”
“Yes, Glav?”
“What are we going to transmit? If it isn’t a TV or a radio that’s receiving it, he won’t get any idea of the message.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll work it out. Patch in the call signal from the campus radio.”
There was general amusement at this instruction.
“What are you sending?” asked Tella.
“It’s just a repeated sequence of letters identifying the Institute’s radio station. The authorities require a particular identification format.”
She paused to smile. “They have us sending out ‘LIRS’ for ‘Latsin Institute Radio Station.’ This lot”—she gestured to the students—”think it’s funny.”
At Tella’s puzzled expression, Madhar continued, “‘Lirs’ is the slang name for a sexually transmitted disease.”
“Ah, I see,” said Tella, shaking its head.
There were a few minutes of quiet concentration.
“Transmitting now, Professor. Power at the highest mark.”
“Thank you. Jim, how long before he notices?”
“Immediately,” Jim replied. “It may take him a moment or two to track down the signal.”
“In that time, we must prepare for his arrival,” said Tella.
“Okay, then, what do we do?” asked Madhar.
“Please have your students move to a place of safety.”
“Okay, you three! Outside!”
There was a general groan of disappointment.
“Come on, we have to let our visitors do their work. We can buy them a drink in the bar afterward.”
“Really? Do you drink alcohol?” Glav blurted out.
Jim smiled, glanced at Tella, and said, “Only in moderation.”
Happy with the prospect of a further meeting with the aliens, they rejoined their fellows outside. Nect gestured to one of them to drive the vehicle away from the tower.
“I’ll stay and make sure this works.”
She grabbed a student by the arm and whispered in her ear, “Make sure the security cameras get everything that happens!”
The student glanced up at the tower, nodded, and climbed aboard.
Tella waited until they were safely away before using the remote control unit to close the flier and have it launch itself into orbit once more.
“I hope we get it back,” muttered Jim.
“If I may quote a good friend of mine, ‘Relax. Nothing can go wrong.’”
“Bastard,” Jim said with a smile.
They stood side by side, watching the shadow diminish to a black dot and vanish.
“So, Madhar, when do I meet your government?” asked Jim.
“Huh. Didn’t your Regdenir friends tell you?”
“What?”
“They are flexing their muscles again. For the first time in a hundred years, they’re holding the threat of power disruptions over our heads.”
“Really?”
“What demands are they making?” asked Tella.
“Oh, I don’t know—some sort of joint meeting with their big chiefs and the inner circle of the government. It’s playing as a sort of power grab while we’re suffering a little instability. They don’t want you meeting us without their guys being there.”
Jim laughed and said, “It depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?”
“It does?”
“Sure. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that, faced with contact with other worlds, you might present a joint response? You know...all the people of your world?”
“Well,” she smiled, “we’d expect them to climb at least partway down from their trees.”
Tella said, “If I understand the metaphor correctly, they have already begun to do that. But I think your people will have to begin to take a broader view also.”
The scientist nodded. “That’s not going to be simple.”
“It never is, but world by world, it happens. It is a path that you have to walk. You begin; you end. It is what it is.”
She nodded again and was silent. A small alarm sounded in Jim’s pocket. He took out a small black box.
Tella asked, “He is here already?”
“His flier is in proximity to ours.”
“That was too quick.”
“Will he see your craft? Is it in danger?” asked Nect.
“No,” Tella said, “he will not know it is there.”
“Neat trick.” Her eyes flashed at Jim.
“No, Madhar, you can’t buy it. Not yet.”
They laughed but soon became serious again.
“What’s next?” asked Madhar.
“In case he is already onto us, I must prepare,” said Tella solemnly. He handed the flier’s remote control to Jim without comment.
“Okay,” said Jim.
“What’s Tella going to do?” Nect asked Jim as Tella moved back into the control room.
“Take off its clothes.”
“Really? Oh. I see.”
“Or rather you don’t see. Hopefully, neither will Sopha Luca.”
“Another extremely neat trick.”
As they waited for Tella to come back out, Madhar Nect asked a question that had been troubling her.
“Jim, is Tella male or female?”
Jim raised his eyebrows and smiled at his friend.
“Remember never to ask Tella that question. Tell your students they may not ask it either; it causes great offense.”
Madhar buzzed to herself. “How about that.” She shook her head. “There’s so much to learn. I guess there’ll be weirder things ahead of us than that.”
“Too true.”
They looked around at the control building. Jim went inside and saw Tella’s robe, boots, and gloves tidied away under a desk.
“Tella?”
There was no answer.
Jim went back into the bright morning air and stood shoulder to shoulder with his Turcanian friend.
Jim and Madhar waited for more than half an hour. Birds flocked in the middle of the games field, rising suddenly and then quickly descending to resume feeding in the grass. The distant sounds of the Institute drifted over on the slight breeze.
“It looks like you managed to get everyone away from here.”
“Only this area. I said I was setting off a test rocket,” replied Nect.
“I guess they believed you.”
“Oh yes, they expect the unexpected from me. That’s the secret of my success. I had more trouble persuading my new bodyguards that they didn’t need to come after me this morning. I sent them off to guard my best students instead.”
“The price of fame?”
“It’s all your fault.”
“I guess so.”
“Don’t think I’m not grateful. Whatever happens here, I’m glad to have lived to see these days—my world knowing it’s not alone.”
***
A black speck appeared in the distance. It traveled overhead.
“What do you think?” asked Nect.
“That’s him. He’s checking out the area. Let’s get a little way inside.”
They stood in the doorway of the control building, craning their necks to see the flier return.
The noise of its engines came first. It slowly moved down over the field from behind the tower.
To Jim’s dismay, Sopha did not land but set the flier to hover twenty f
eet above the grass. The craft turned to point its nose and weapons at the doorway.
“Madhar Nect! This is Sopha Luca of the Third Order. Come out into the open where I can see you!” The Regdenir’s voice boomed across the open field.
“Oh shit,” said Jim quietly.
“He doesn’t know it’s you,” said Nect. “I’ll go out and see what happens.”
“Be careful. He’s got the scent of blood in his nose.”
“So do I.” Madhar inhaled sharply, drew back her shoulders, and walked out into the open before the menacing craft.
Jim stayed in the shadows, looking closely at the alterations Sopha had made to his flier. The missile battery was an old-fashioned design, requiring a landing to restock. Jim could see five missiles remaining to be fired. More worrying was the laser cannon hung below the cockpit of the flier. It looked like a thoroughly professional job. Sopha must have read the instructions very carefully. It was attached to the hull with two neat lines of spring-loaded grips. All the cabling was out of sight, as per regulations.
Madhar shouted in the direction of the flier. “Sopha Luca of the Third Order, greetings and welcome to the Latsin Institute. You are welcome to land.”
“Madhar Nect, you will cease the transmission of your call sign.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I am not familiar with the equipment in here. If there is a problem, perhaps you can help me resolve it? I understand your knowledge of technology is as great as, if not greater than, mine.”
Jim muttered under his breath, “Nice one. Keep it up.”
“You lie! Cease the transmission, or I will destroy this facility!”
“No! You can’t risk starting trouble like that. We can sort out this problem, I’m sure. Just come down and talk.”
“You are audnir; there can be no talk between us. Stand aside or be destroyed!”
“Wait! There’s someone...”
She turned in panic toward Jim.
“I’ll come out,” Jim called.
He walked toward the scientist, his arms in the air in what he hoped the Turcanian would realize was a gesture of surrender.
“Sopha Luca!” he called. “Don’t do this. Your own people are saying you have to stop what you are doing to Beauty!”
“James Able. You should not have returned. You have lied to all you have met. I will not let you defile my world any longer.”
Jim’s eyes flashed to the mechanisms under the wings of the flier. He saw a missile drop from its protected cradle into the firing clamps. At the same time, he saw something move under the center of the craft. A grip had sprung open at one side of the laser. The next grip popped open. Jim realized that Sopha had allowed the flier to drift closer to the ground. It was now only about ten feet above the field, low enough for Tella to clamber up onto the laser cannon.
That Tella was in action was little immediate help to Madhar and Jim, face-to-face with an armed missile.
Suddenly, the sound of gunfire froze the moment. Halfway down the field, two fast-moving vehicles were racing along the track. Madhar’s bodyguards were shooting into the air.
The combination of Tella’s courage and initial success and the arrival of help from the guards gave Jim a brief hope of victory. He grabbed the scientist’s arm and pushed her into a run across the face of the control building. There was a hiss from the flier as the missile launched. The control building erupted in a ball of orange fire. Jim and Madhar were thrown head over heels across the grass.
Jim scrambled to his feet and dragged the Turcanian up into a staggering run. Debris was raining down on them as they tried to close the distance between themselves and the approaching vehicles.
Behind them, Sopha turned his flier and pressed the engines into high gear. The TV tower was crumbling into its own base. The transmission had ceased. He was free to return to his sacred mission. As he turned over the games field, the flier was rising steadily.
The flock of birds had panicked at the explosion and the sudden motion of the black craft.
For every landing on his landing strip, Sopha Luca had followed the correct procedure; he was meticulous in doing so. But this time, he had not intended to land. This time, he had not closed the intakes for the heat exchangers when he entered the atmosphere. In his haste and anger, he had not done as the flier’s instruction manual had told him he always must.
The birds swarmed up in a cloud of wings and distressed cries only to be sucked hard into the intakes. The first Sopha knew of his mistake was the sound of small explosions from inside the flier’s outstretched wings as several birds were incinerated.
The flier’s nose dipped suddenly and plowed into the ground of the athletics track beside the games field. The remaining missiles, ripped open by the impact, detonated with a muffled rumble. The automatic ejection system fired the pilot into the air. When the cockpit module hit its apogee, the parachute opened immediately.
A sudden silence fell over the games field. The bodyguards had piled Madhar into a vehicle and surrounded her. They were looking askance at Jim, in awe at the grounded flier, and incredulously at the burning TV tower. They waited for the scientist to give them instructions.
Jim was shouting, “Tella! Tella! Are you there?”
Madhar swung around to Jim. “Where is it? Where’s the gallassid?”
“Under the flier! Tella had gotten up onto the underside of it.”
“Then it may still be there...”
The scientist looked in horror at the smoking wreck.
“We have to find Tella. If it fell, it may be unconscious...hurt...”
“Find it? You can’t see it!”
Jim shook his head, his ears still ringing from the blast.
“Get a line of people out here, shoulder to shoulder. From where it was hovering...across...to there.” He pointed at the growing pall of smoke.
“Finding people won’t be a problem.”
A huge crowd of students and faculty was running toward them and toward the flier.
Madhar pointed at the supervisor of her guards. “You! Get them organized. They’re to search the ground from here, right across the field. Pick up every piece of debris. Call if they find a gallassid.”
“A what?”
Madhar took her fellow Turcanian’s arm and led him a step away from Jim. “You think a gallassid any stranger than that?”
The guard was silent a moment, looking from her to Jim and back.
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll call with whatever we find.”
“And I want you, personally, to secure the Regdenir from the flier.”
“That was a Regdenir? I thought it was another...alien.”
“You’ll soon see. Make sure he doesn’t get away.”
“At once, ma’am.”
***
Jim walked slowly behind the line of students. Occasionally one would stoop and pick up a bit of debris from the explosion. The nearer they got to the edge of the field, the sicker he felt. Already he was blaming himself for not keeping Sopha talking longer. Tella had only needed a few more seconds—perhaps. A few more seconds that might have meant the difference between a life continued and a life curtailed.
Suddenly the line broke. A female student had screamed. Jim was there in an instant. There was something green and grasslike that was obviously not grass.
“Tella! Can you hear me?”
Jim was kneeling, trying to work out which way Tella was lying. He ripped off his shirt and laid it over the body. The gray color washed over Tella’s limbs. A student fainted.
The vehicle arrived with Nect and a bodyguard.
“Put it in the back!” instructed Madhar.
Jim took the feet and the guard, the shoulders. Tella groaned as they picked it up and, again, as they slid it onto the seat.
“It’s okay, fella. You’re okay
now.”
Madhar grabbed Jim’s arm.
“I hope you can help Tella. We don’t have the medical skill to deal with something like this!”
“No...Nor do I. At least we have to get it somewhere warm and comfortable. We’ll take it step by step from there.”
“Medical room!” she called. Jim climbed into the vehicle beside Tella.
***
They loaded their patient onto a bed in the medical room, Tella’s body turning as white as the surrounding sheets.
“It looks like he’s cut there,” said a nurse to Jim, pointing at Tella’s shoulder.
“I guess so.” Jim didn’t think it was the time to correct Tella’s gender.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Thank you. And thank you for being so...accepting of us.”
The nurse smiled and said, “We all watch Professor Nect’s show. I’m really glad to get a close look at you.”
Jim nodded and went out into the air. He looked up and remembered the flier. He felt instinctively for the control unit. His pocket was empty.
“Oh shit!”
Chapter Three
He looked around for Madhar. She was nowhere to be seen. A gaggle of students was standing in the corridor to the medical room. Jim saw two of the three who had been with him in the tower control room.
“Hey! You guys, I need your help.”
The two moved forward, their friends watching wide-eyed.
“In the control room we had a device—a remote unit for our flier. You may have seen us using it.”
One of them nodded.
“It may still be in there or nearby. We have to find it! Do you understand?”
They nodded and followed him through the door.
“I am Jim Able, by the way.”
“Yes, sir, we know. We saw you on TV. I am Frett Amtir,” said the boy.
“My name is Rowa Culan,” said the girl, her eyes sparkling under her brows.
By the time Jim and the students found a vehicle and had driven it back to the remains of the TV tower, the fire-fighting crew was in place and busy.
The open remains of the control room were awash in fire-retardant foam. Jim stood, shaking his head in despair.
“Are you sure it was in there, sir?”