3zekiel (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  I’m loving this. I have no idea what some of these terms mean, but I love hearing about the progression of knowledge.

  Pretzel works with a screwdriver, twisting deep within the open back of the radio, saying, “Being wrong is a stepping stone to getting things right, but you’ve got to be willing to leave behind past notions.

  “We sent up a bunch of satellites to measure Earth and found the southern seas are higher than those in the north, meaning Earth is slightly pear-shaped; then we looked at the gravity density and saw that Earth looks a little like a punching bag, with dents all over it, albeit on a very small scale relative to its size. You see, there’s no right and wrong, just differing degrees of accuracy. As we keep looking we keep learning and refining our approach.

  “If you’re building a house, it is entirely fine to consider the Earth as flat as its curvature won’t affect your construction. On small scales, Earth is flat.

  “Now if you’re building a replacement for the Golden Gate Bridge then you need to take the curvature of Earth into account, but it’s okay to consider it as round. You don’t need to account for the flattening of Earth at the equator or gravity density fluctuations.

  “You see, thinking in terms of right or wrong misses the point. It’s a question of precision. At the moment, we simply don’t have enough to go on in regard to our visitors. We need more data points rather than arguing about flat or round.”

  The radio’s old and battered. Pretzel works with a greasy rag, cleaning gunk off the circuit board. Suddenly, the radio crackles into life. “Oh. Got it.” He puts the handset in Garcia’s open palm.

  “Nice work.”

  “What channel should we use?” Pretzel asks.

  “Look for a band called SAR—Search and Rescue. If there are any US airborne assets from the army, air force or navy, they’ll be listening in on that channel, that is, if the Russians aren’t blocking it.”

  “Okay. You’re live.”

  Garcia squeezes the transmit button, speaking clearly. “Overlord. Sierra Charlie Six. Overlord. This is Sierra Charlie Six. Come in. Over.”

  He releases and we listen to the slight hum coming from the speaker, willing it to respond. After a few seconds, Garcia repeats his call.

  “Overlord. This is Sierra Charlie Six. Come in. Over.”

  Again, the silence is painful. Finally, there’s a reply spoken so rapidly I can barely distinguish the individual words being used.

  “Sierra Charlie Six, Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. Status check. Over.”

  “Yes!” Pretzel does a fist pump.

  From behind bloody, dirty bandages, Garcia smiles. “Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. Sierra Charlie Six is one plus two civilians. Repeat. One plus two civilians. We are at Lomami base camp in need of evac. Over.”

  “Copy that, Lomami base camp, Sierra Oscar Charlie Six. Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. Out.”

  The quiet that follows is bewildering. Even Pretzel seems confused.

  “And?” I ask, wanting something more.

  “That’s it. That’s all there is for now.”

  “I don’t understand? Shouldn’t we say something else?”

  “Kid. We’re compromised. From their perspective, we’re behind enemy lines. And it’s not just the aliens they’re worried about. They’re dealing with the Russians and have no idea what our true state actually is. Right about now, they’ll be scrambling to figure out just who the hell Sierra Oscar Charlie Six actually is and wondering if the call was made with a gun held to my head.”

  Pretzel says, “I thought you were Sierra Charlie Six?”

  “Adding Oscar is a tactical way of telling them we’re not transmitting under duress, but given we’re in alien-held territory with Russians on the ground, they’re not likely to believe that.

  “They won’t tell us anything. They won’t want to give away any details that could compromise any other operations. For now, all we can do is wait.”

  Pretzel has salvaged some rations and a couple of canteens. He hands me one and although it’s just water, I drink like I’ve never tasted anything so sweet before.

  Lady joins us, which is a rather unusual, unsettling experience as she snorts and grunts, expecting a reply but none of us know quite how to react to her. She walks on her knuckles, scooting over beside me. The muscles on her arms are impressive, far beyond anything I’ve ever seen on a bodybuilder. Pretzel unwraps a granola bar and hands it to her. She sniffs it before eating it and then nudges him for more. He laughs.

  “I take it she liked that,” Garcia says, chewing on another bar and listening in to the grunts and chomps.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Pretzel takes a drink from a canteen, holding it in an exaggerated manner, overstating his movements as he shows her how his lips wrap around the small opening. Then he hands it to her and she copies him, drinking the entire canteen dry. Water dribbles from her mouth, running down her chest.

  “We’re one plus two plus one,” I say.

  Garcia replies, “Yeah. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain that.”

  The radio crackles back to life and Garcia scrambles with his hand, running his blind fingers over the sloping center console, searching for the handset.

  “Sierra Oscar Charlie Six, Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two.”

  “Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two, this is Sierra Oscar Charlie Six, go ahead.”

  “Sierra Oscar Charlie Six. We are unable to effect evac. Recommend you go overland to Obekote. Over.”

  “Obekote,” I say in alarm. “That’s a long way from here. It’s almost as far as Kisangani but to the south-east. We’d have to cross the Congo, but it’s flood season. The river is over a mile wide at this time of year.”

  Garcia replies. “Negative, Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. We are ineffective. Repeat, we are incapable of travel and in need of medical evac. Over.”

  “Sierra Oscar Charlie Six. We are unable to approach within fifty miles of your location. Your only option is to go overland to Obekote. Over.”

  Garcia is frustrated. “Negative, Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. Negative.”

  I’m not sure what Marine Delta November actually is, but given the constant buzz in the background when he transmits, I’m thinking he’s airborne, probably in some distant jet. As much as I understand Garcia’s impatience as I want to get out of here as well, I can’t see how they could help us. At best, they would have to send a team in on foot as there’s no way those alien machines are letting anyone fly in here. Hiking through the jungle would take days.

  There’s no reply to Garcia’s comment, which I take to mean some other discussion is happening on another channel.

  Pretzel gets impatient, snatching the radio from Garcia. “Give me that.”

  Garcia doesn’t have time to reply before Pretzel starts transmitting.

  “This is Dr. Pratul Khatri-Lagharin, Director of Operations for the First Contact team, put me through to General McCallister in CentCom.”

  “It’s not a phone,” Garcia says, flabbergasted by Pretzel’s audacity.

  For his part, Pretzel doesn’t care. He squeezes the transmit button once more, adding, “Make it happen.”

  The reply is somewhat sheepish but formal. “Sierra Oscar Charlie Six, Marine Delta November One-Zero-Two. Hold. Over.”

  “They’re not going to do it,” Garcia says. “We’re an unknown quantity. They won’t trust us.”

  Pretzel doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t surrender the handset either. We sit there in silence for a few minutes. I’m perched sideways on a seat facing the back of the craft. Lady seems content to groom herself, something I find hypnotic to watch. Rather than being repugnant or dirty, it seems almost dignified the way she works with the hair on her arms and shoulders.

  General McCallister

  There’s clicking on the radio. It’s intermittent, sometimes quite deep, at other times rapid and at a high pitch. Finally, a woman speaks, “Please hold, transf
erring you.” After a few more clicks, another woman speaks. “Putting you through now, thank you for holding.”

  We listen, unsure if we should speak. Finally, a male voice answers, “Whitehouse switchboard.”

  Before Pretzel can say anything, the last woman to speak says, “This is Lieutenant General Anders from CentCom for General McCallister in the Situation Room. He’s expecting this call.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant. We’ve been awaiting your call. Please hold.”

  Pretzel and I look at each other. Garcia shrugs. None of us speak, not that it would matter as we’re not transmitting, but it feels as though suddenly our words should be measured carefully.

  The next voice is one from the deep south, speaking with a relaxed tone that belies the formality we feel.

  “Pretzel, are you still there?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “They—they told me there was no way you could have survived.”

  “You know me, general. I’m a goddamn cockroach.”

  The general laughs somewhat nervously. “Okay. Well, I’ve got you on speaker. You’ve got the Joint Chiefs, National Security Advisor, President and Vice-President listening in. Go ahead.”

  From what I’ve seen of Pretzel, there are very few situations that leave him flustered, but this is one. He wasn’t expecting quite this much attention. He pauses, gathering his thoughts.

  “Ah, I don’t know about you guys, but we’ve had a rough couple of days over here.”

  He waits as there’s a slight delay on the line.

  General McCallister replies, “We noticed. Things are pretty rough here too. We’re trying to downplay fears of an alien invasion and an escalating ground war with the Russians. What’s your perspective from there in Africa?”

  I get the distinct feeling Pretzel’s words are going to be carefully scrutinized by dozens, if not hundreds of people following this call. He seems to realize that as well and speaks with clarity, making sure his accent doesn’t blur any of the terms he uses.

  “First. This is not an invasion.

  “What we’re seeing is revealing. The alien species has only deployed one type of surface craft, and one that is only capable of motion in a limited geographical area, extending not more than a hundred miles from their First Contact point.”

  He pauses. There are no questions or comments, so he continues. I imagine everyone at the other end is hanging on his every word.

  “We expected to see airborne vehicles. This species is capable of interstellar travel. Atmospheric flight would be simple by comparison, but we’re not seeing that. That we’re only seeing one type of vehicle deployed in multiple roles is telling—they came with a specific intent that did not include travel beyond the jungle, let alone beyond the DRC or the African continent. Whatever their objective, it’s local.

  “These vehicles are small and slow. They’re designed for navigating rough terrain with a minimal amount of intrusion or disruption. Their primary purpose appears to be sampling the environment, but a number of them have been deployed in a defensive manner. They’re not intended for carrying anything from the space elevator, at least nothing of any size or for any large distance.”

  He pauses and it’s not hard to see why he’s in this role as his observations are fascinating. Listening to him has a calming effect on me, and I suspect that goes for everyone else as well.

  “Like the space elevator, these craft were manufactured locally—on Cruithne. They’re identical. They’ve been mass-produced specifically for traversing the Congo, with legs that reach just beyond the jungle canopy—which is a detail they would have only picked up once they entered orbit. From what I have been able to observe, they’re drones. They appear autonomous rather than piloted, but they move independently, not in a coordinated fashion.”

  He pauses and the general asks, “Can you explain that last point in more detail?”

  “They snatched one of our team, but have left us alone, allowing us to move unhindered—which is confusing. We’ve seen them take animals, like an aardvark, and bits of plant matter. With the exception of when they established the outer perimeter, their motion is random, being chaotic rather than systematic. It’s like they’re searching for things.”

  The general asks, “Who did they take and why?”

  “A local girl from the village. A teenager. Why? I’m not sure.”

  My heart sinks. She has a name—a past and a future beyond simply being ‘a local girl.’ I know it’s nothing personal on Pretzel’s part, but I can’t divorce myself from what happened to Jana.

  My mind casts back to something Dr. O’Brien said when we first met her by the datum point not more than thirty feet from where I’m sitting in the crumpled hull of the helicopter—forget everything you ever saw in Hollywood. As much as I’d like to imagine we’re somehow going to save Jana, it’s stupid wishful thinking. All three of us are injured. Even if we weren’t, even if we had guns and grenades, flamethrowers or nukes, we wouldn’t stand a chance against aliens from around some other star. That’s just a macho delusional fantasy, and I know it. A knot forms in my chest at the realization she’s gone. Forever.

  Someone speaks over the top of Pretzel, asking, “What do you mean by autonomous? Do you mean there are no aliens?”

  “Not that we’ve seen, but we are yet to reach the elevator. There might be a control point, some kind of ground base established there, or they could have remained in orbit, or the whole mission might be robotic. Earth is a temperate, moderate environment for us, but for them it could be as hostile as a lunar walk is to humans. In the wrong concentration, even oxygen is poisonous. Earth might be a hell hole for them.”

  A woman asks, “Can you tell us about their purpose here on Earth? What are they trying to accomplish?”

  Pretzel replies almost instantly. “I’m yet to establish their purpose, but I think there’s a distinct possibility this is not their first visit.”

  He pauses, waiting a little longer than previously, but it seems no one wants to break his chain of thought.

  “SETI has been conducting a detailed scan of possible systems of origin out to a distance of a hundred light years. I recommend that be increased to at least eight hundred, if not a thousand light years, which will encompass several million stars.”

  A disembodied voice asks, “That far out?”

  While another asks, “What makes you think they’ve been here before?”

  Yeah, that’s the question I’m interested in too. Is Pretzel going to mention Ezekiel?

  Pretzel’s trying not to talk over the top of anyone but the time delay due to the routing of the conversation between planes, satellites and whatever makes it difficult.

  “Their approach is very specific—too specific. Singling out a small portion of Earth’s land surface when two thirds of the planet is covered in water is highly unusual. They’ve picked a region that has the highest concentration of plant, animal and insect species along the equator. How did they know to come to this particular spot? Their vehicles are custom built to traverse just this location, but why?

  “All this implies some prior knowledge and what we would call ‘target selection.’ A previous mission may have been undertaken for reconnaissance and planning.

  “Also, they’ve effectively ignored us—which doesn’t make sense unless their goal is quite narrow and very specific. Although it’s conceivable they could select Africa using telescopes, based on the density of plant coverage in this region and assuming that corresponds with a high proportion of associated species, the other possibility is that some earlier probe conducted an initial survey and the results of that mission have directed the current activity.”

  General McCallister asks, “But why search for their home world at a distance of a thousand light years? That’s a helluva long way out.”

  Pretzel replies, “If they did encounter Earth at some earlier time, given the nature of their spider-like craft and the minimal impact they have on the environment th
ere wouldn’t be any remaining physical evidence, but any interaction with humanity would have been recorded in writing—probably not in scientific terms, but it would have been notable to those alive at that time.”

  I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to talk about Ezekiel, but Pretzel downplays that angle.

  “If contact was made in the last five hundred years, there would be ample documentation available today.

  “If it happened in the last thousand years, we’d expect to find numerous surviving manuscripts, but once we go back more than two thousand years, our ability to preserve information is extremely poor. As an example, there are numerous books by writers such as Euclid, Aristotle and Archimedes that have been lost. All we know about them is their titles as recorded in other books because mediums like papyrus simply aren’t suited for surviving for more than a few hundred years. So, if this is a follow-up mission, as I suspect, then we have two constraining factors that govern the distance to their home world.

  “First, their craft is limited by the speed of light so their point of origin must be local. The further away they are, the less likely it is they would be willing or able to undertake such a journey. Put simply, they haven’t come here from Andromeda.

  “Second, any initial probe must have arrived over two thousand years ago or we would have substantial documentation about its exploits in our writings. By my reckoning, that puts the band of when they could have previously encountered Earth at roughly two to two and a half thousand years ago. That sets the upper limit on their home world being eight hundred to a thousand light years away when you account for a round trip.

  “You have to realize, regardless of who these aliens are, for them this is a colossal undertaking. It requires planning, logistics, resources, investment of time and effort, probably spanning dozens of generations. For them, this would be on par with the great works of our civilization—the building of Stonehenge, the pyramids, sailing to the New World, walking on the Moon. We’re probably not the only ones that think this is a big deal. They probably first discovered life on this tiny rock by accident, searching the skies with their telescopes, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, long before our civilization arose. For us, this is a surprise—not so for them.”