Beyond the Event Horizon - Episode Four

by Albert Sartison

  BEYOND THE EVENT HORIZON

  episode four

  by

  Albert Sartison

  Copyright © 2015 by Albert Sartison

  First edition

  1.01

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  1

  Steve and Maggie were sitting in the pilot’s compartment of the Viking, holding mugs of hot coffee. Like the rest of the crew, they were silently watching the capsule they had just used being towed away.

  It was now a good half a million kilometres from them and gaining speed rapidly. The drone towing it was carrying out the flight plan meticulously, exactly following the light blue line on the radar denoting the optimum flight trajectory. According to the computer, in thirty minutes the drone would have imparted sufficient kinetic energy to the capsule for it to continue on a ballistic trajectory and be picked up by the Sun’s gravitational field. After two loops around the Sun, it would disappear forever into the maelstrom of the turbulent photosphere.

  “I’m sorry for the capsule, it was so nice!” said Maggie quietly all of a sudden. “It would have been interesting to study it from an organic point of view too. The aliens might have left at least some small trace.”

  “No thank you, young lady,” replied the captain. “I don’t want any alien infection on my ship! Isn’t that right?” he asked, turning to the pilot, who only smiled in confusion and shrugged his shoulders vaguely. He didn’t want to contradict either the captain or the attractive student.

  “Perhaps we should have put robots in it before throwing it into the Sun,” the pilot suggested.

  Maggie shook her head.

  “We did think about it, but it wouldn’t have worked. We would have needed highly sensitive detectors, because any contamination would hardly have exceeded a couple of dozen molecules per cubic metre. The capsule was too cramped for apparatus like that.”

  “That’s too bad,” muttered the pilot as he turned back to his console.

  The captain looked at the radar screen for a few more seconds, drumming his fingers impatiently on the nearest console.

  “That’s all, it’s time,” he said to the pilot. “Let’s get to the first ring; they’ve been waiting for us.”

  It took some hours to reach the first ring. When they did so, Steve and Maggie transferred from the Viking to a ship waiting to take them to Earth. A few days later, they landed at the Fleet spaceport, where several figures in space combat uniforms were waiting for them.

  Steve noticed them while the ship was going in to land. Descending the steps, he nodded to them in greeting. In spite of their somewhat stern appearance, they were quite polite.

  “How was the flight, Sir? Ma’am?” asked one of the officers.

  “Nothing special, all as usual,” replied Steve, trying to look like a veteran space wolf.

  “Nothing special?” exclaimed Maggie. “From entering the atmosphere almost to landing, we were shaking terribly!”

  One of the escorting officers nodded understandingly.

  “It’s been strangely disturbed in the stratosphere recently, there’s a lot of turbulence. Ships get shaken when they return from orbit. Particularly small ones like yours,” he said, pointing to the ship.

  Meanwhile, they had reached the armoured minivan waiting for them. Steve looked around distractedly, trying to work out where he could put his bag. There wasn’t much room inside.

  “Welcome aboard. I’ll take your things,” said the officer, taking Steve’s bag and stretching out an arm to pick up Maggie’s luggage. She passed him her bag, nodded her thanks and climbed inside.

  The minivan quickly left the launch pad and, after a few minutes, stopped at the entrance to an unfamiliar building. Steve had not been to this part of the Space Fleet base before. The officers escorted them to the entrance and, while they were explaining matters to the guard, Maggie seized the opportunity to take a few deep breaths of fresh air.

  It was strange. The air on board the ships in which she had spent the past few days had been ideally pure, rich in the purest oxygen. Nevertheless, this artificial atmosphere reminded her more and more of a stuffy room. There was something in the fresh air on a normal street that was lacking in the artificial and sterile environment of spaceships.

  The escorting officers led them both to a hall and left them alone. The instruction ‘Wait for connection’ was winking on a huge screen.

  “What do you think, does someone want to talk to us?” asked Steve.

  “Maybe the president?”

  “Don’t you think he has more important things to do?”

  “Well, who knows?”

  The words on the screen faded out and MacQueen’s face appeared. Steve looked significantly at Maggie, who assumed an exaggerated expression of disappointment. Evidently, she did not find the general that attractive.

  “Good day,” said MacQueen in greeting and, without waiting for any formalities in reply, pointed to a man in typical military battledress sitting next to him.

  “Allow me to introduce Dr. Powell, head of the military psychologists’ group. His people were in charge of the selection process for the contact. He knows more about you than you think, and he has some questions for you. Go ahead, doctor.”

  Powell nodded his thanks to the general.

  “That’s right. Thank you, general. I have observed your contact and read the transcript of the negotiations, so I am familiar with the subjects discussed. I now hope you will be good enough to give me your personal opinions,” he began.

  The timbre and intonation of his voice were less dry than the general’s, but nevertheless, he spoke in a strange, unemotional way, almost like the aliens with whom Steve and Maggie had recently been conversing.

  This time, Maggie was ready to reply before Steve. “The dialogue was very interesting. There were three of them. They said during the conversation that they reproduced by sexual means, but they didn’t go into any detail. Taking account of what was said, and judging from their external appearance, two of those present were of the feminine gender and one of the masculine.”

  The psychologist listened attentively, but his expression did not betray what he thought of it all. He showed absolutely no trace of emotion. He simply listened and made notes on the tablet in front of him. When Maggie paused, he stopped taking notes, raised his eyes and looked into the camera.

  “It’s interesting that you began with that particular aspect,” he said. “Tell me, why do you think that they divided into male and female in precisely that way?”

  “I didn’t say they divided in that way, I only meant that their figures had visible secondary gender characteristics which in our race would make them women or men.”

  “To which characteristics was your attention drawn in the first place?”

  “The torso, the ratio of the length of the legs – I mean the lower limbs – to the rest of the body. The appearance and disposition of the muscles. The posture.”

  “What about you, sir?”

  “It’s hard to say. I’m not a biologist, I’m an astrophysicist... Well, the things you usually notice. The shoulders, the breasts, the hips.”

  “Did you pay attention initially to the female forms or the male one?”

  “I don’t know. I just came to realise at some point that they appeared to be of different genders...”

  The psychologist raised his eyes again, this time looking at Steve.


  “Please continue.”

  Steve coughed. The conversation was more like an interrogation, and he was feeling some discomfort from the sight of the psychologist, who, it seemed, was staring directly into the depths of his soul, stirring it up with his questions as if poking a fire.

  “On the whole, the figures were quite well-built, tall, I would say more than averagely so. But I was devoting most of my attention to what they were saying, not to how they looked. If you had seen their ugly mugs – ” Steve checked himself, “their faces, you would understand what I mean.”

  “All right. Did you consider them as potential sexual partners?”

  “No!” cried Steve and Maggie at the same time, almost shouting.

  “Why these strange questions, if you don’t mind me asking?” inquired Maggie.

  “Forgive me, Ma’am. We are trying to understand the aliens’ behaviour, that is why I am asking these questions. In spite of the fact that the aliens were at least humanoid in form, they did not look attractive from your point of view?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, they were like people, but they weren’t people. Their appearance was more likely to arouse horror.”

  “So the aliens were trying to be like people, but to you, their appearance produced a horrifying impression. In your opinion, was this a failed attempt at mimicry, or was it deliberate?”

  Maggie thought for a few seconds, but could not decide what to say. Steve, without waiting for her to reply, took the initiative. “I don’t think they were aiming to be ideal copies of us.”

  Maggie nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t believe that they wanted to but couldn’t,” Steve continued. “They are too advanced technologically to make such a mistake. After all, we ourselves are capable of making humanoid robots that are very like people. So a civilisation at their level of development must have found a process that would enable them to produce a simulacrum exactly like a human. No, it must have been deliberate. They wanted to be like us, but they did not want to be copies of us.”

  “Why, in your opinion, did they refuse to appear in their natural form?”

  “They explained it by saying that our reaction would be too emotional, that it would have a negative effect on the quality of the discussion,” replied Steve.

  “Do you think this explanation corresponds with the truth?”

  “It does make a certain amount of sense. I have heard that in conversation, a human takes in a great deal of non-verbal information, which in this case would have been too alarming to enable us to concentrate on the pure semantics of the words.”

  “Yes, this is a known phenomenon, but that was the aliens’ answer to your question about their appearance. What is your personal opinion on this question? Did their explanation appear convincing, against the background of your general impression?”

  “It did, completely,” said Maggie, answering for Steve.

  Steve nodded in approval.

  “All right. During the contact, did you notice anything strange?”

  “In what sense?” asked Maggie.

  “For example, strange feelings, mood swings, unaccustomed associations, unusual thoughts...”

  “I didn’t notice anything of that kind,” replied Steve.

  Maggie took her time about answering, apparently recalling how the contact had gone.

  “It was somewhat strange to see humanoid beings, looking quite unnatural, but expressing their thoughts quite clearly...”

  “I think that is quite understandable. We are accustomed to conducting conversations only with people...”

  “Apart from that, I didn’t notice anything in particular.”

  “Nor did I,” added Steve.

  The psychologist made a few more notes on his tablet, then turned to MacQueen and nodded. MacQueen thanked Steve and Maggie, and the video relay screen went dead.

  *****

  “What is your opinion, doctor?” asked MacQueen, as soon as the link was broken.

  Dr. Powell scrolled back to the beginning of the notes he had made during the conversation and rapidly ran his eyes over them.

  “The behaviour of our delegates was more or less what we expected. I made a presentation on the subject, if you recall.”

  The general nodded.

  “Yes, I remember it clearly.”

  “During the conversation, the delegates balanced each other well. The male delegate was inclined to more impulsive behaviour, while the female one sensed when the discussion was beginning to become emotionally charged, and acted as a restraining factor. On the whole, we can say that from the psychological point of view, the contact was a success.”

  “Excellent. But I am more interested in your assessment of the aliens’ behaviour.”

  “To all appearances, the aliens were trying to minimise non-verbal information. No particular gestures, whether conscious or unconscious, were noticed during the negotiations. This indicates that the aliens were concentrating on arguments and appealing to reason rather than feelings, and that consequently they were sincere, at least within the framework of the conversation.

  “Or it is also possible, though in the opinion of most of the scientists and of our male delegate highly improbable, that they simply do not know the behavioural characteristics of the human race well enough, and consequently do not know how to make use of them for their own ends.”

  MacQueen sighed deeply but covertly.

  “So you are inclined to think that the aliens were being frank with us?”

  “Yes. I was unable to detect any attempts at concealed manipulation. On the whole, the conversation concentrated on the arguments.

  “But there is one thing worth noting. There are several levels of sincerity. There is the sincerity of a naughty three-year-old child who has been caught out and sincerely repents what he has done; and then there is the sincerity of a lawyer defending the accused in court. In the first case, you have quite a good chance of hearing the whole truth, but in the second, despite the fact that the lawyer does not have the right to lie to the judge, you have to be careful in assessing what was actually said.”

  “The aliens, if I understand you correctly, come into the second category?”

  “Quite definitely. We can assume that everything they say is actually true, but must try very hard not to add any further meaning to their words. If they intend to keep their word, and to all appearances they do, then they will keep it exactly to the extent they said they would and not an inch more.”

  “So in a certain sense, doctor, we have to be prepared to sup with the Devil, and use a long spoon?”

  “I am quite sure that they are devilishly clever, general. To what extent they will try to trick us is not something I can make an objective assessment of on the basis of the information available to me.”

  2

  John had been sleeping badly recently. He had suffered from insomnia at the beginning of his presidency, but with time, it had become routine for him to switch off from the flood of events and decisions of the previous day. This time, however, it was quite different. One could say without exaggeration that a project like this was the culmination of his whole life, and it was not so easy to switch off from it.

  Turning over for the tenth time, he lay still and kept his eyes closed for a few more seconds, but eventually could not stand it any longer and opened them. It was dark in the room, the night sky giving off very little light, and he clicked his fingers to switch on the light on the night table and sat on the bed, looking at his clock. It was half past three in the morning.

  The three weeks he had allocated for the first assessment of the project were dragging on interminably. It made him think of his childhood, when the approach of Christmas had kept him awake in expectation of presents. This time the present was much more valuable.

  He picked up his tablet to call the head of military intelligence, but changed his mind. It would be bad form, after all, for the president to alarm people
in the middle of the night simply because he couldn’t sleep. He was on the point of putting it back, when he remembered that this particular official was in a different time zone. It would only be late evening where he was, and he gave the command to make the call.

  “I hear you, Mr. President,” said a voice, as if its owner had been awaiting the call.

  “Good evening. What is our status on the project?”

  The head of intelligence did not need to consult his computer to answer this question; he knew the state of affairs by heart. It seemed the president wasn’t the only one being deprived of sleep by the project with the aliens.

  “Optimists are predominant in the Academic Council. The division is about two thirds for and a quarter against, with the rest still undecided. Most likely they will support the project. The engineering-technical group is also inclined to support it, in roughly the same proportions. I would even say a slight euphoria prevails among them. Apparently, simple curiosity is playing the decisive role in this. It would be a great leap forward in technology, skipping several generations.”

  The president nodded in satisfaction.

  “OK. What about the fleet?”

  The head of intelligence took his time about answering this.

  “That’s more difficult. It looks as if they will vote against the project, at least in the form now on offer. They are afraid of handing over our energy supply to others, whose motives they don’t quite understand, and against whom they have no means of taking strong action, should they decide to breach the agreements.”

  “That’s clear. How is support distributed within the working group?”

  “They are almost all against, apart from two who are still undecided.”

  “So it would be no use just talking one or two of them around?”

  “No use whatsoever. To convince them, we will have to work on each one of them, including MacQueen, and he’s not someone who can easily be persuaded. And please don’t take offence, Mr. President, but he has weighty arguments on his side.”

  “So military intelligence thinks the same?”

  “Mr. President, my agency does not like to poke its nose into other people’s business.”