“Let’s get out of here,” Bill said, starting for the trees.
The tracker’s single cannon mounted above its sensor disk immediately rotated on its axis toward Bill. It fired a single low power shot into the ground a meter ahead of him. He froze, raising his hands, then turned to face the floating machine.
“Nervous bugger,” Cracker muttered as he slid his hands unobtrusively into his pockets.
“How smart you reckon that thing is?” Bill asked.
“Pretty bloody stupid,” Wal snapped, “It buggered the esky.”
Cracker removed his hands from his pockets holding a detonator and a stick of dynamite, then slowly brought them together.
“Cracker!” Wal whispered urgently. “You mad bastard, you’ll get us all killed!”
Cracker wound the timer without looking at it. He’d been setting timers for twenty years, and knew them by touch. “Fifteen seconds ought to do it.”
“Do what?” Bill demanded, edging away from Cracker.
“I think it’s too bloody curious for its own good,” Cracker said.
“If the gas didn’t hurt it, what makes you think dynamite will?” Bill asked.
Cracker ignored him, waving the dynamite in the air. “Here boy!”
The tracker drifted toward him, then as Cracker expected, one of its arms shot forward to grab the dynamite. Just before it reached the explosive, Cracker pulled the dynamite away, and turned his back to the machine, holding the explosive close to his chest.
“What the hell are you doing!” Wal demanded nervously.
On the other side of the tracker, Slab snorted. His head rolled sideways causing his mouth to fall open, but his snoring continued unabated.
The tracker moved closer to Cracker, intrigued by his strange actions. One of its arms shot out and grabbed the miner’s leg, and lifted him off the ground. Cracker groaned as the machine held him in a vice like grip, blood rushing to his head. He realized it could easily snap his leg like a twig, but he kept the dynamite pressed close to his chest anyway and activated the timer. The tracker brought him in close, turning him to see what he was hiding. Another of its arms caught Cracker’s left wrist and pulled it clear of his chest, leaving only his right hand holding the dynamite.
It’s taking too long, Cracker realized as he counted down.
Suspended by two of the tracker’s arms, he swung in toward the machine. His face prickled with static electricity as he hit the protective shield surrounding the machine. It exerted a smooth but malleable pressure that pushed harder against him the harder he pushed against it.
Its arms are sticking through it! Cracker realized, proving the shield was not impenetrable.
The tracker’s third arm shot toward Cracker’s free hand, but he lunged forward, pushing the dynamite at the bubble. His first contact with the shield was like striking a solid surface. As his hand lost momentum, the repulsive force designed to stop high velocity impacts weakened, and his hand slid through the field. Before he realized what had happened, the dynamite was inside the bubble and he let go, pulling his hand back. He found the bubble resisted his hand withdrawing as much as it had pushing in. To his surprise, the weightless dynamite floated in the air between the tracker and the shield bubble, less than an arm’s length from his face. It was so close that he saw the small red digital timer count through the last few seconds to zero.
Oh crap! He thought as he realized he was going to take the explosion full in the face. Never thought I’d blow myself up!
The dynamite exploded close to Cracker’s face. The bright flash blinded him momentarily as a swirl of flame struck the inside of the shield bubble, which trapped and channeled the blast back at the tracker. The alien machine shuddered as the two glowing, rotating spheres sparkled with energy and winked out, then began skating around the inside the bubble. The tracker fell to the ground, then the bubble collapsed, freeing a cloud of gas left from the explosion and letting the two gravity pods shoot off into the trees like cannon balls.
Cracker fell awkwardly on his head and shoulders as the tracker toppled over, narrowly missing him as hit the ground. He rolled onto his side, rubbing his aching leg while Bill scooped up a rifle from the ground and covered the now lifeless machine.
Wal gave Cracker an appreciative look. “Good one, mate!”
“You could have been killed,” Bill said soberly.
“What was I supposed to do? That bloody thing wrecked the esky,” Cracker said with a crooked grin. “And you know how much I hate warm beer!”
Slab snorted, half opening his eyes with a horrified look. “Did someone say warm beer?”
* * * *
The contact team camped beneath a rough sandstone cliff, inside a pass that cut across Bath Range from east to west. The rugged trail had been used by aborigines for thousands of years and was littered with ancient rock paintings and long extinct campfires. Paperbark trees grew from every foothold in the rocky escarpment, while the shrill calls of kites and the squeals of their prey occasionally pierced the night.
Finding sleep elusive, Beckman climbed to a rock ledge where he could see the valley to the west. Several times he saw balls of light streak silently above the distant forest at many times the speed of sound. They were red, orange, blue and brilliant white, reminding him again of Dr McInness’ explanation of how their color related to the amount of energy they used.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Laura asked from the shadows, startling him. She sat with her back against a rock, hidden in the darkness. Her eyes were fixed on a blue streak to the southeast.
Beckman watched it flash across the sky. “I don’t know, but they seem to be in a hurry.”
When the object vanished, she lifted her eyes to the sky. “I wonder where they come from?”
“That star, second from the left,” Beckman said, then shook his head with a grin. “Just kidding.”
Laura smiled. “Did you know that the aborigines see the night sky differently to us?”
“Do they?”
“We see constellations in the stars. We join the dots. They see animals and spirits in the blackness between the stars.” She raised her hand, and pointed toward a section of sky, “Over there, that’s a kangaroo. Can you see it, hidden in the darkness?”
Beckman couldn’t see anything resembling a kangaroo.
She pointed to a different part of the sky. “That’s a wombat, and right above us is an emu.” She watched his gaze shift to the different parts of the sky with growing confusion. “I can’t see it either, but it’s real to them. Maybe they’re right, and we’re wrong.”
“It’s different,” Beckman agreed, realizing the aboriginal view was as alien to him as if they’d come from another world.
They sat quietly for several minutes contemplating the patterns in the heavens, then Laura asked, “Do you think my husband is alive?”
“I really don’t know.”
“What do you think they’re doing to him?” There was a fragile quaver in her voice. “I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never believed them.”
He remembered the contact reports he’d read, the top secret assessments that circulated in rarefied circles, none of which he could discuss with her. Even though he couldn’t see her face, he felt her eyes boring into him, anxiously awaiting an answer. “I’m told an advanced civilization wouldn’t use medieval torture techniques to gather information.”
“Do you believe it?”
Maybe. “I’m sure he’s in no pain.”
“Will they release him?”
“It depends,” Beckman said cautiously, “On whether they respect our individual rights. Some civilizations will, others won’t. The problem is they’re calling the shots, not us.”
“But he’s a human being. They can’t treat him like …?”
“One of the animals you were studying?”
The comparison chilled her. “We’re not animals.”
“If they’re a million years ahead of us, we’re not equal
s.”
“But we’re civilized.”
“If you were floating up there, looking down on Earth, what would you think of us? We’ve got wars, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, terrorism and hatreds based on race, religion and politics. We must look like murderous barbarians to them.”
“That sounds almost philosophical.”
“I’ve been trained to understand their point of view.” He said, looking up at the night sky thoughtfully. “We just have to hope they know what they’re doing.”
“What are they doing?”
“I’m not sure about this particular ship, but the guys who have been watching us a long time are studying us out of curiosity, and preparing us for contact one day. They’ve had a lot of practice meeting new civilizations and they know the timetable.”
“What timetable?”
“How long before we figure out how to get out there.”
“When will we that be?”
“Not in my lifetime. It’s a very long way off.” He gave her a reassuring look. “They’ve been visiting us for tens of thousands of years. If they wanted to hurt us, they could have done it long ago, when we were much less able to defend ourselves. The fact they didn’t tells us they’re not conquerors.”
“But that may not apply to this ship?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.”
Laura gazed toward the western horizon. It occurred to her that the glow of the previous night had gone. She thought it meant the fires had died down. She didn’t realize it was a result of the great hull’s ability to shed heat at an incredible rate. “So what does it take, to do what you do? To hunt these things?”
“We don’t hunt them.” If there’s any hunting to be done, they’ll be the hunters, not us. “We investigate, make friendly contact if possible.” Assess threats. “Some of us have special forces training, some are technical specialists.”
“Have you ever made friendly contact before?”
“No, they don’t really want to talk to us. Hooper and I came close, a few years ago. It didn’t end well, but we have seen stuff most people never get to see.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Stuff I can’t talk about.” Beckman sighed. “My father is a retired two star. He used to be proud of me, when I graduated from the Point, when I made it into Delta. Now he thinks I’m sidelined in a dead-end desk job. I have to let him keep on thinking that.”
“That must be tough. Can’t you at least let him know you’re doing important, secret work?”
“That would draw attention to what we’re doing. If you’re really doing classified work, you don’t tell anyone. You give them a boring cover story, put them to sleep, kill their curiosity. My father keeps telling me I won’t make general without combat experience, and field commands. He’s right, of course. None of this will ever get into my official record. All it says is I’m responsible for patrolling fences and keeping the roads clear. A real dead ender.”
“So this job is a career killer?”
“I’ll never make general, but I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else,” he said without a trace of disappointment. He glanced at his watch. “You might want to get some sleep. We’ve got a long march tomorrow.”
“I am tired,” Laura said, standing up. “Goodnight, Major.” She started to climb down the rocks, then hesitated. “I am grateful you came along. This is no place to be alone,” she said, then clambered down.
He watched her until she was safely back in camp, then turned back toward the west. Far across the valley a brilliant white light raced above the trees like a shooting star. It vanished to the north of the escarpment in seconds, leaving Beckman filled with foreboding.
What are they doing out there?
* * * *
Dan McKay drifted in and out of consciousness in a strange dream state, with no sense of his body or location. Occasionally his mind cleared enough to sense a relentless throbbing deep in his head and an unseen pressure pinning him in place.
In those moments of clarity he remembered Blue had been barking, frightened, the night he’d been captured at Laura’s zoological station. He’d gone to investigate, discovered something dark and massive in the sky, then a brilliant beam of light had shone down on him and the dog. He’d fired his gun, then the weapon had been torn from his hands, flying up into the light. He noticed Blue was floating in the air beside him, and then that his own feet were no longer touching the ground. The last thing he recalled was looking up at the dazzling light as he glided toward it.
Now, in the black void of his retreating coma, he tried to rouse himself, but couldn’t. His fear spiked, triggering an adrenalin surge. He became aware of his body, even though his muscles would not respond. Dan forced his eyelids open enough to form slits to see through. A cone of brilliant blue white light flooded down from above and, though nearly blinded, he looked around. In the darkness outside the light, spherical shapes with long, slender metallic arms moved around him, unaware of his fight for consciousness. A white substance covered him and an invisible surgical field held every molecule in his body steady while silver metal threads penetrated his skin in a dozen places. They probed every organ, followed every path, collecting microcellular samples to perfectly map his biology.
He looked up, discovering a silver thread piercing his forehead. It reached to the very center of his brain, recording and decoding every pathway. Terror overcame him as he realized it was the cause of his terrible pain. He tried to scream, but could do no more than let out an anguished moan.
One of the spherical shapes in the darkness drifted toward him, unsure why the specimen was conscious. It took only a moment to discover the primitive creature’s body was flooded with a hormone that had increased its heart rate and contracted its blood vessels. Before the specimen could injure itself, its neurological system was disconnected from its brain and bioelectric impulses neutralized the effects of the hormone.
In a heartbeat, Dan fell back into the dark depths of an induced coma.
CHAPTER 7
An hour before dawn, the contact team broke camp, crossed Bath Range and headed northwest through virgin forest. They marched all morning, crossing narrow streams and skirting water lily covered billabongs surrounded by bamboo-like pandanus palms. When the sun neared its zenith, Cougar radioed a warning.
“There’s an object hovering to the southwest.”
Beckman, Markus and Dr McInness crept through leafy undergrowth to the sniper’s position to see for themselves. Floating above the tree tops three kilometers away was a rectangular snub nosed vehicle with a slit cockpit window, four times as long as it was high. Pulsing lights ran along its windowless sides as a series of slender metallic poles floated down into the trees from its flat bottom.
They watched five poles descend, then Cougar said, “They’re building something.”
“It’s on our line of advance,” Beckman said. “Could be a sensor system.”
“Or a weapon,” Markus added.
Dr McInness looked annoyed. “They hardly need to build gun emplacements out here.”
Beckman watched the craft float up, away from the forest and turn toward the southwest. It dipped its nose, then the lights along its length glowed brightly as it streaked away under hyper acceleration and vanished from sight.
“See that?” Dr McInness said. “The way it tilted?”
Beckman nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s thrust vector control. The craft balances on a downward force, steering by changing its angle, just like a helicopter or a rocket. That shows they’re subject to the same laws of physics we are.”
“As opposed to what?” Markus asked. “Not obeying the laws of physics?”
“As opposed to being so advanced as to transcend science as we can conceive it,” Dr McInness said simply.
Beckman turned to Cougar. “Swing around to the north. We’ll try to get in behind them.”
“Affirmative,” Cougar said, then started down the slope
.
“If you’re going to contact them, I suggest you try it without weapons this time,” Dr McInness said.
“Sure, Doc,” Beckman said as he quietly adjusted his sidearm, determined not to let them take another weapon away from him.
* * * *
Beckman stepped out of the forest into a cleared corridor carved through the wilderness like a road. Every tree and fern, every rotting log and weathered boulder had been crushed flat into a perfectly smooth surface. The grain and color of the trampled vegetation could be seen, but not their original shapes. It was as if the natural materials of the forest had melted together. Beckman knelt and touched the surface, finding it spongy. Behind him, the rest of the team filtered out of the trees, looking up and down the corridor with collective confusion.
Cougar pointed to a streak of silver that ran through the center of the corridor like a dividing line, the only unnatural component of the elastic surface. “It’s laying that, whatever that is.”
Beckman walked to the center of the corridor to examine the silver streak. It was approximately twenty centimeters wide, and had the dull sheen of mercury.
Timer pulled his helmet off and scratched his head. “Why are they building roads?”
“Cause they hate walking,” Nuke quipped.
Laura looked north and south along the corridor with a shocked expression on her face. “It took millions of years for this forest to grow, and they’ve destroyed it in a day!”
Hooper poked the road with the barrel of his M16. “Looks way too permanent for my liking.”
Markus glanced at the sergeant thoughtfully. “The Romans conquered the known world by building roads.”
Dr McInness scowled. “They have hypersonic vehicles. Why would they need roads?”
Beckman looked along the corridor in both directions. Every few hundred meters, a silver pole stood in the center of the corridor, along the silver line. He trained his binoculars on the nearest pole, to discover a metallic cross arm mounted on top, fitted with large diamond shaped objects at each end. They were the same poles the transport vehicle had lowered into the forest.
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