And the alien separation manoeuvre was even more worrying. The larger section of the alien craft had continued decelerating, violently enough to shake the crew, while the smaller section continued to race towards Earth. The smaller section — and ‘small’ was relative, given that it was over ten kilometres long — would make Earth orbit in a week, while the larger section would arrive in two weeks. He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the implications seemed ominous; it wasn’t as if the aliens could avoid visiting Earth now. The aliens might be much more advanced, but it wasn’t that wide a gap; their technology, or at least what the human race had seen, wasn’t that far in advance of humanity’s technology. If Earth concentrated enough resources on space travel, they could match the alien ship in short order…
He pushed that out of his mind as a ‘might have been’ and focused on Damiani. “What does that suggest to you?”
Damiani frowned. “There are two possibilities,” he said. “The first is that that’s the ‘meet and greet’ ship, with their ambassadors and maybe even trade goods, sent ahead to ensure that we don’t mean them any harm. The second possibility… is that the aliens are hostile and that they’ve launched a warship at us, with the intention of knocking us out of space before the mothership arrives.”
“I was hoping you’d come up with something different,” Gary admitted. He’d been the Commander of the ISS, insofar as the rank meant anything when everything had to be checked with Houston and NASA, for five months and he knew the station like the back of his hand. The ISS could actually manoeuvre, but only enough to avoid a major collision, not a missile or a manned spacecraft. If the aliens were hostile, his unarmed command wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. “Of course, there’s a third possibility; it’s a planet-killer aimed at us.”
They contemplated the image for a long moment. “I don’t suppose that the telescopes have picked up anything new?”
“I’d have told you if we’d seen anything new,” Damiani reassured him. Every telescope in the world might be watching the alien craft, but so far, they’d seen very little beyond the drive flares. Even the most powerful telescopes hadn’t seen much to suggest alien capabilities, but NASA had done enough research — without actually building any hardware — to have a rough idea of minimum alien capabilities. They made a fearsome list. “There’s nothing, not even a radar pulse or a communications signal…”
“I know,” Gary said. He looked down at the live feed from the telescope. The entire world was logging onto the internet to see that feed; the telescope’s owners had had to invest in extra systems just to meet the demand. “Keep me informed…”
He scowled as he pulled himself back through the modules towards the main hatch. He’d spent some time browsing the internet for anything useful, but apart from hundreds of paranoid messages, there was nothing useful at all. Some of the comments and suggestions made Stalin seem a trusting sort of man… and almost all of them would have been gravely insulting to a human ambassador. They couldn’t demand that the aliens went through a strip-search for weapons before they boarded the ISS; after all, they had no way of backing up the threat. He hadn’t been allowed any details on Earth’s defences, just in case he was captured and interrogated, but he was intelligent and knowledgeable to know just how weak the defences actually were. The Earth might have had the numbers advantage — although no one knew how many aliens might have been stuffed into that starship — but the human ability to carry out a frontal attack in space, let alone a defence, was minimal. If the aliens bulled through to orbit and took control of LEO, the war would be within shouting distance of being lost. The United States had been watching, nervously, the development of Chinese and Indian ASAT systems… but this was worse, far worse.
And, now, there were going to be Ambassadors on his station. They were probably going to start complaining about the food, or the lack of gravity, or whatever else high-ranking dignities could find to complain about. The ISS was as comfortable — and safe — as human ingenuity could make it, within the limited budget, but it was far from the Waldorf Hotel.
* * *
Ambassador Francis Prachthauser was in no state to complain about anything. The pre-flight medical at Houston had been the most intensive medical procedure he’d ever been through in his life, a nightmare of drugs, poking, and simulators that made the worst roller-coaster ride in Disneyworld look like nothing. He’d staggered out, half-convinced that he’d failed the program completely, only to be told that he’d passed with flying colours, for a man of his age. The others hadn’t fared so well, although the Russian had gone through his own preparations first in Russia; they’d all ended up looking terrible the day they’d eating steak and eggs, before boarding Discovery. It had been easy to read the looks on some of the NASA personnel faces; they’d been envious of the Ambassadors, and wished that they’d been flying with them.
The shuttle launch had been terrifying, but exciting at the same time, even though he’d felt as through an elephant was sitting on his chest during most of the flight. When the shuttle had slid into orbit, they’d been allowed to leave their seats and float about in the cabin, something that had almost lived up to his dreams. He’d been told, by one of the doctors, that zero-gee could be unpleasant to a person who was unprepared for it, but he’d managed to adapt quickly. The same couldn’t be said for Bai Li, the Chinese representative, or Philippe Laroche, the EU representative, both of whom had been sick when they floated into the air. The shuttle’s co-pilot had sucked the vomit out of the air with a vacuum cleaner and ‘suggested’ that the representatives remain in their seats until they were used to the conditions.
Francis was lucky; he was invited up to the main cabin. The shuttle was shaped like an airliner, allowing the pilot a view out into space, and Francis peered out with glee. The blue-green sphere of Earth turned slowly above him, falling… no, it was below him, but the shuttle was orientated towards Earth… and the twinkling shape of the ISS could be seen in the distance. He’d expected to see networks of satellites orbiting the Earth, if not the alien starship itself, but they were too small or too distant to be seen with the naked eye. The shuttle’s radar display picked up pieces of space junk, or even active satellites, but their current orbit appeared to be clear of any obstacles.
“The vast majority of space junk heads down towards Earth fairly quickly,” Captain Markus Kane said, reading Francis’s thoughts. “The real problem comes from items that somehow got loose from the ISS or other stations and remained in the same orbit. NASA keeps talking about rigging up some orbital sweep, but so far nothing has actually passed beyond the research stage.”
He scowled. “One Chinese proposal was to have a station of their own that they could blow up if there was a war,” he added. “If that worked, they would seal off space for at least a decade, or so they thought. There was even a terrorist plot to get a bomb onboard the ISS, but everything loaded onboard the shuttles or the supply capsules from Russia gets checked carefully, just in case.”
“I don’t think I wished to know that,” Francis said softly. He looked out at the ISS. “How long will it be until we dock?”
“Forty minutes,” Kane said. “It won’t seem that long, believe me, but we have to be very careful. If we collided with the station instead…”
He tapped a key on his console. A moment later, Francis recognised the use of the opening from Richard Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz, a tune he’d first heard on a movie soundtrack. He had to laugh as he realised why Kane was using the tune; it kept the passengers relaxed while the shuttle moved steadily towards the ISS. Kane had been right; the docking did seem to take only a few minutes, although he’d been entranced for most of time. The Earth from space was so… beautiful.
“Welcome to the International Space Station,” Kane said, after the docking formalities had been completed. “Please remember to tip your pilots after the docking and that the flight back to Earth will be, God willing, in two weeks… and if you miss that, yo
u’re stuck on the ISS for two months.”
He grinned up at Francis as he finished the announcement. “Back when I was a kid, I read a story about someone rigging the IS escape pod so that they all got to go home early, apart from the commander,” he added. “They had to send a shuttle up to recover the poor bastard on his own.”
Francis winced. They’d been briefed, endlessly, about ISS safety procedures, but they looked a little flimsy to him. If the crew couldn’t reach the escape pod, or were trapped without a spacesuit, they were dead. End of story. He’d thought himself resigned to that, but now he was on the station — well, technically attached to the station — it felt as if he’d made a huge mistake. He should have let some hotshot young State Department punk fly into space and meet the aliens… and then steal the limelight when the aliens moved their activities down to Earth. He should have…
Kane read his thoughts again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “There are hundreds of would-be astronauts who would be furious with you if you got up and then panicked when the aliens arrived. They were all more than a little… miffed that the shuttle wasn’t crammed with scientific people and even duplicate pilots, instead of…”
“A bunch of fat ambassadors,” Francis guessed. He had always thought himself in good shape until he’d gone through the pre-mission physical. “Just now, I wish I’d let them come up instead.”
“And if you’d been on the bottom of the gravity well, watching as history is made up here, would you share those feelings?” Kane asked. “Think about it; you’re going to make history up here and people will remember your name a long time after Kennedy, Carter and all those other idiots who sabotaged the space program are forgotten.”
“I suppose,” Francis said, with a sudden smile. “So, what do you think the aliens will look like?”
* * *
Somewhat to Gary’s surprise, the first three days on the ISS passed almost without incident. The Ambassadors were shown around the station, once they had gotten over the shock of finding themselves in zero-gravity, and enjoyed themselves. Gary didn’t hesitate to show them everything, apart from a handful of classified instruments; he couldn’t allow the opportunity of impressing such important people with the importance of the space program to slip past. The Ambassadors were all trusted friends and allies of their Heads of State and if they could be convinced to support the space program, it would be worthwhile. The aliens alone might not be enough to convince humanity to advance into space, although Gary hoped that the mere presence of alien life would serve as an incentive, but if there was actually some strong political support for the program, it might push the human race forward.
And space was insulated from most of the tensions on Earth. The rioting and panic in America was calming down slowly, although millions of citizens were still intending to move away from the cities, at least until they knew that the aliens were friendly. China and Russia had a major dispute over testing boosters for their space program, but the representatives from both powers on the ISS ignored it and played endless games of chess with one another. Gary had half-expected them to be studying their instructions and trying to sort out what they would say to the aliens, but there was little point in further revision. Like children awaiting an exam, there was a point where further revision would be almost useless… and they’d reached it long ago. The sheer absence of data on the alien starship, let alone what they actually wanted, made it impossible to draw up any real plans for the future or even key non-negotiable points. They all hoped for an outcome that would be, at best, beneficial to their countries and, at worst, neutral towards their countries, but in the absence of further data, there was little point in speculation.
That didn’t, of course, stop them from speculating like mad. “So,” Sonja Greenhorn said, one evening, “what do you think the aliens will look like?”
It was Philippe Laroche who answered first. “I think they’ll look exactly like us,” he said, and grinned at their faces. “They’re an evolved race, just like us, and so they will fit their environment. The humanoid form is so useful that the aliens are quite likely to have evolved along similar lines to us. If they were, say, massive octopus-like creatures, could they have evolved a space-based technology?”
“Octopuses are actually quite smart,” Sophia Friedrich said. The UN’s representative, a German-born girl who spoke English with a slight accent, smiled from her perch. “You could get one of them to actually do almost anything, as long as it was underwater.”
Kane laughed. “So, you don’t believe the abduction claims, then?”
“No,” Francis said. “I think they’re just attention seekers.”
Gary nodded. The number of reported alien abductions had skyrocketed in the days since the announcement of an actual alien starship. The reports had featured the stereotypical little grey aliens, but also hundreds of other kinds of aliens, from humanoids with pointy ears to perfectly indistinguishable human-aliens that had been attempting to pick up breeding stock. So far, no one had actually managed to provide proof that any of the abductions — let alone the UFO sightings, government men in black covering up alien contacts or even the super-secret FTL starships flown by the American government — actually existed.
“Its obvious,” Bai Li said, with one of his rare smiles. “They’re going to be Chinese.”
“Chinese? Asians? Space Asians?” Kane asked. “How did you figure that?”
“Well,” Bai Li said, mischievously, “it’s been proven by the latest revisionist history book, in the sprit of 1421 and 1434 that the old imperialist patriarchy actually built spacecraft and headed into space before somehow losing the technology in the collapse of Chinese civilisation caused by the Glorious Revolution. Of course they’re Chinese.”
Kane stared at him, realised that he was being wound up, and laughed. “I don’t think that that’s quite the answer,” he said. “Maybe they look like spiders, or other insects.”
“Won’t happen,” Sonja said. “There are limits to how large a spider, or a crab, could become before it collapsed under its own weight. It’s rather more likely that they’re dinosaur-like creatures.”
“Or little baby elephants,” Francis said, grinning. The barriers were breaking down, one by one. “Hell, they could look like anything, even the Manhunter from Mars.”
“That would be funny,” Philippe said, dryly. “Do you think that there would be a case for a lawsuit if the aliens actually looked like some alien we invented on Earth?”
“It would be hard to imagine an alien who didn’t look like something we invented on Earth,” Stanislav Genya said. The Russian smiled into the silence. “Come on; between Hollywood and the rest of the world, we have hundreds of thousands of aliens that might reassemble the real aliens. They could look like something from Star Trek or Lost in Space or… well, anything.”
Gary spoke into the silence. “Does anyone have any phobias they wish to confess to, now they’re up here and beyond recall back to Earth?”
There was a long pause. “Perhaps the aliens are machines,” Kane suggested. “That entire starship could be a machine, or two machines, and there won’t be any humanoid life at all.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Gary said. He leaned forward carefully. “Anyone want to confess?”
“I can’t stand horses,” Sonja admitted, suddenly. “I rode on one once, fell off and broke my arm… and since then, I haven’t been able to deal with them at all. You, sir?”
Gary shrugged. “I’m scared of falling into vacuum,” he admitted. “It focuses the mind a bit on the station. Anyone else?”
“I used to be terrified of the Germans,” Philippe said. “No offence, Sophia.”
“None taken,” Sophia said. “My family weren’t in Germany during the war.”
“Perhaps we should forget about humanity’s long history of war,” Stanislav suggested. “After all, this is the dawn of a new era, right?”
On the screen, the alien starship raced closer.
Chapter Five
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star.
— The War of the Worlds
Colonel Paul James watched as the President took his chair in the middle of the White House National Command Centre. The decision to have the President in the White House, even though he was actually in the underground command centre, hadn’t been an easy one for the Secret Service to swallow. They’d read countless novels of alien invasion, and seen Independence Day and other big-screen versions of alien invasion, and they feared that Washington would be attacked almost at once. They’d wanted the President in one of the massive command centres, well away from anything that might draw alien fire, but the President had insisted on remaining in the White House. First Contact, he’d said, on national television, would not be made with him cowering in a bunker somewhere.
The Vice President, Theodore Taylor, had been packed off to a command centre, despite his protests. If the aliens attacked Washington, it was likely that he would be President of the United States within the next hour. The NCC was supposed to be proof against a nuclear detonation, built using the most advanced bunker-building techniques known to man, but there was no such thing as absolute security. If the aliens dropped an asteroid on the city, the shockwave alone would probably collapse the bunker completely. Paul watched, dispassionately, as the President glanced around at his fellows, from the operators working at various consoles to the handful of Cabinet members who’d joined him for the alien arrival.
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