Alex remained calm, though being called criminally insane and a traitor by the LIA agent had raised his pulse rate somewhat. They were meeting privately in his daycabin, so at least his crew weren’t being insulted.
‘Mr Perkins,’ Alex said, with the icy tone and glacial stare which the media had dubbed his ‘Psycho’ look. ‘There is absolutely nothing classified or in any way sensitive about the locations of our worlds. As the Senate determined centuries ago and continues to recognise every time the First Contact data pack comes under review, the simple fact is that even the most primitive remote observation would readily identify our worlds anyway from their unmistakeable industrialised profiles, so that is not something that we can keep a secret. The buoy we are leaving contains no more than the data pack authorised by our government.’
‘For non-hostile encounters!’ Harard raged. ‘But these people attacked you! How much more evidence do you need that they are hostile?’
‘Screaming in fear and begging us to leave doesn’t seem very hostile to me,’ Alex replied. ‘And if the damage to our comms was deliberate, which I doubt, but even if it was, there were no casualties and no other systems were damaged, indicating a very specific, surgically accurate strike. If they had the kind of weaponry you’re obviously afraid of, they could have destroyed us in a moment.’
‘But then they wouldn’t have known where we came from!’ Harard retorted, as if laying down a fist full of aces.
Alex sighed inwardly and called up a local area star chart.
‘They already know that,’ he said. ‘For one thing, Telathor is so close that even a kid with a high-school level spectrographic telescope could figure out that it’s an industrialised system. For another…’ he indicated the multitude of markers on the chart, ‘they have already been sighted many times within our borders.’
‘But don’t you see?’ Harard was almost bouncing in his seat, in his angry frustration. ‘They were checking on us, monitoring the progress of our technology to assure themselves that we could not get to their world. But now we can, we have, that changes everything! And fear – yes, fear, I grant you that, they’re obviously terrified! But terrified people defend themselves, Captain! They’re not just going to sit there and hope we don’t come back. They’re going to do whatever they feel necessary to make damn sure that we don’t! They are following us to make sure where we’ve come from, and once they know that, they will attack, take out our ships and our ship producing capacity, shipyards and system infrastructure. And there you are, helpfully informing them where all our other worlds are too! I cannot allow you to do that, it’s absolutely out of the question.’
Alex looked at him appraisingly, trying to work out how long it would take him to get the man to calm down and talk some sense into him. But that was, he recognised, impossible. Harard Perkins was as fixed in his views as Alex was in his, and however long they spent butting heads on this, they were never going to agree.
‘And I,’ said Alex, ‘cannot allow you to interfere with our mission. I agreed to you keeping company with us in order to observe, and I have included you in briefings as a matter of courtesy, but you have no right to any say in this and certainly no right to act in any way which interferes with my ability to carry out my orders. No.’ He held up his hand to silence the other man. ‘I understand that you believe them to be hostile. I do not. And my opinion is the one that matters here, since I am the one charged with the responsibility for making that determination and making every effort to achieve peaceful contact with these people. So, I intend to do just that. And if you attempt to interfere with that and attempt any damage to a Fleet buoy carrying Diplomatic Corps broadcast, I will regard that as a criminal act on your part.’ The slightest of pauses in which he held Harard’s gaze with a look of utter, chilling determination. ‘It would,’ he observed, ‘be embarrassing to return to Telathor with your ship seized and you under arrest, but that is exactly what I will do if you fire weapons at or in any way damage the buoy we are deploying here.’
Harard looked back at him and knew that he meant it. He also carried out a rapid evaluation of the strength of his own ship’s forces versus the might of the Fourth, and of how long they would be able to resist if the Fourth sent aboard their infamous boarding parties with their shining heavy armour and multi-weapon rifles.
He said some words, then, which Alex ignored. He had won, and that was all that mattered. So the buoy was deployed and the squadron departed, with the Comrade Foretold keeping rigidly to their station and remaining huffily off-comms. They weren’t even talking to Excorps, after an ill-advised attempt on the part of Harard to get Skipper Florez to support him against the Fourth had got a very blunt answer, with words said about paranoid nutcases who had no business at all being on exploration or first contact missions.
It took them five weeks to retrace their route to Oreol – weeks in which the LIA maintained their outraged silence and the rest of them talked almost continuously, both aboard each ship and in an ongoing exchange of analysis and opinions.
By the time they arrived at Oreol they had come to some conclusions. The world they had found was, they agreed, almost certain to be Carrea Rensis. It appeared to be a pre-industrial society. That meant that the ship and sonic ray were not indigenous technology although they clearly had access and the ability to use them. Careful study of what the detangled voices in the comms blast had said had also raised the intriguing possibility that it was a third party who had commanded them not to allow any strangers to approach their world. It was subtle, but Shion for one was convinced that the translation implied ‘They have forbidden it’ rather than merely ‘It is forbidden.’ The debate about whether this might refer to the givers of the ship and sonic ray, or perhaps to religious beliefs, had occupied them all the way back to Oreol.
Alex, though, had also made some decisions.
‘I’m sending you to Telathor,’ he told Harry, having called him and Dan over to the frigate for a meeting. ‘I want you to go flat out. It is vital that you get there before the Comrade Foretold.’ As Harry looked a little taken aback by this, he explained, ‘The last thing we want is the LIA tearing into port broadcasting ‘The aliens are coming!’ and triggering Defcon One before we’ve had a chance to explain what really happened.’
‘Understood,’ Harry said, with a hint of impatience as that was entirely obvious. ‘But…’ he gestured towards Dan and looked enquiringly at the skipper. ‘The Whisker has a significant edge on us, for speed.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Alex said. ‘But with all due respect to Dan…’ a quick smile for the patrol ship commander, ‘he doesn’t have anything like the contacts, credibility or influence you have, Harry. And however strong and clear the report and advisory I send with you is, we’re dealing with a host of authorities here, most of them civilians. They will need to hear it from someone they trust, and you are the one with the networking and PR skills, the best person for this, by far.’
‘Oh.’ Harry realised that was true, and sat up rather straighter. He had not, he felt, played any great role in the mission so far, beyond taking his turn on point. Now he saw that he really did have an important role to play, not only to get back to Telathor before the LIA but to employ all his networking skills to reassure them that Telathor was not about to be attacked. ‘Thank you, Alex,’ he said.
Alex gave him a brief nod, then turned to the patrol ship skipper. ‘Dan, you’re to head out and find Customs – tell them to wind up their operations now and blag whatever supplies you can from them, all right?’
Dan smiled. They had a series of rendezvous points for the Customs ship, which had been busy all this time attempting to maintain the illusion that they and the Fourth were patrolling the region.
‘No problem, skipper,’ he said.
‘Good,’ said Alex, and told them, ‘I’m staying at Oreol until such time as the Diplomatic Corps sends out someone to relieve me. Excorps will be staying, too – we’ll make a start setting up the nucleus of an
X-base while you’re away.’
Neither man commented – it was apparent to both of them that Alex would have to stay. Amongst the information on the first contact buoy was the location of Oreol and an assurance that there would be people there from now on, waiting in the hope that they might one day feel that they could engage in communication. It had promised safe, sterile facilities and the presence of an ambassador who could speak on behalf of the League.
‘And the Stepeasy?’ Harry queried, aware that if Davie decided to make a race of it, he could actually get to Telathor before any of them.
‘I haven’t asked them yet,’ said Alex. ‘But you can rely on Mr North to keep out of mission affairs, other than insofar as they affect Silvie.’
He was right. Davie’s only concern was whether Silvie wanted to stay at Oreol or go back to Telathor.
‘I want to stay here,’ said Silvie, a little surprised that that even needed to be asked. She looked at Alex with a searching gaze. ‘I can stay with you, can’t I?’
He understood that she meant more than staying with them at Oreol, that this was open ended, for her to stay with them for as long as she wanted. He smiled.
‘Of course,’ he said, feeling such a rush of delight at the prospect that she knew very well he was not just being polite.
‘Excellent,’ she said, and seeing Davie’s pleasure, too, beamed at them both. ‘So,’ she asked hopefully, ‘Can I have my fish here?’
Alex’s smile froze in place as he considered the technical difficulties of creating a large aquarium on a frigate, the hassle he would have with civilian authorities over it and the teasing they would get from the rest of the Fleet. Then he looked at Silvie’s appealing azure eyes and the clear, innocent radiance of her trust in him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course you can.’ And as even Buzz gave a slight choking noise at that, he grinned at the Exec. ‘Add that to the To Do list, would you, Buzz?’
‘Certainly, dear boy,’ said Buzz, clearing his throat and recovering his composure, then breaking into a grin himself as he imagined the Third Lord’s reaction to seeing that the frigate had now acquired a fish tank. ‘My pleasure,’ he said.
Twenty Four
They were still more than a day out from Oreol when the Minnow and Whisker made their break from the squadron. Alex had slowed everyone down in the approach to a major vortex and it was just as they approached it that the corvette and patrol ship flicked salutes to the flagship and took off like missiles.
The Comrade Foretold hesitated for one crucial minute. By the time they’d realised what was going on and decided whether they would attempt to keep up with the fleeing ships, it was already too late. They had dived through the vortex and were vanishing at speed.
Alex, deliberately keeping the rest of the squadron to a crawl, dealt calmly with the flurry of outraged complaint from the LIA.
‘I am in no way,’ he pointed out, ‘answerable to you. You may stay with us or go your own way, your choice.’
The Comrade Foretold dithered for another three hours, as Alex had expected that they would. There was one more major zone of violent turbulence to get through before they reached Oreol, a zone they’d be taking a serious risk in attempting without the benefit of the Naos navigation system. So they stuck around for that, griping the whole time. They took off at their top speed as soon as they were through it, firing one last comms-shot at Alex threatening that he would face action for this.
‘Your actions have been at best reckless to the point of insanity,’ said the LIA agent. ‘At worst, downright treasonous. I don’t know how you will live with yourself if the consequences of your actions cost League lives, potentially millions of League lives. But I will make sure that you pay for this, von Strada.’
‘I think,’ said Alex, considering this as the Comrade Foretold hurtled furiously away, ‘that we have to score a fail on inter-service relations with the LIA.’
Buzz chuckled. He had known from the moment that the Comrade Foretold muscled in on their mission that that would not end well. Neither the LIA culture of paranoia nor Harard Perkins’ own personality were conducive to coping well with the shocks and bewilderment which were a normal part of exodiplomacy.
‘Well, at least we got through it without actually firing at one another,’ he observed.
He did not, then or at any other time, make any fatuous remarks about how well they’d done in other aspects of their mission.
Of course they had done well, as any objective assessment would recognise. Their courtesy visit to Telathor had been a public relations triumph. They had established a route through to Oreol which would now be established as an X-base. And they had, beyond doubt, identified the Space Monster of Sector Seventeen as a real ship. They had found an inhabited world, too, almost certainly the lost Olaret Nesting of Carrea Rensis. All of these were tremendous achievements, success they had every right to be proud of.
Set against that, though, was the terror their arrival had caused on that world. That was why nobody was celebrating; all talk of Carrea Rensis was subdued, questions and speculations about them muted by guilt and anxiety: What have we done? If their reaction had been anything like that which had been seen on human worlds, people would have died there as a direct result of their arrival.
That was always a risk in first contact approaches, of course. That was why they had made a slow, zig-zagging approach – the theory was that any world capable of observing a starship coming towards their solar system would recognise that as a non-hostile arrival. Even so, the risk was always there that the appearance of an alien ship might trigger global panic. And it looked very much as if their arrival at Aseltor had done just that. Against that, no ‘success’ counted at all.
Alex, therefore, was just keeping things calm and as positive as possible. They had done the best they could, and he could only hope that the fact they had spun about and sped away had reassured the people there that they were not a threat. It was a small hope, but it was all they had to cling to. And he tried to keep optimism alive, too, by preparing as if expecting that the people of Carrea Rensis might overcome their fear and contact them at some point in the future.
Other than that, all he could do was to keep people busy so they didn’t have too much time to dwell on what had happened, and what might have happened on that world after they left.
So, he put them to work on the aquarium while they were still at Oreol. After some consideration they’d decided to make use of the space currently used to house the interdeck’s siliplas extrusion and recycling plant and to store furniture, relocating that to the high security hold known as the Vault. It was a major technical challenge to create such a tank, not least because Silvie requested that the wall facing into the interdeck itself be made of clear-view plastic. She would not settle for holoscreens either side of a solid wall to give the illusion of two-way vision, either, but insisted that she wanted it to be real.
The Stepeasy had to help them out, using their own on-board siliplas plant to produce a big enough clear-view panel of the required strength. They also assisted, naturally, with providing the interior of the tank, its pumps and recycling systems, the living reef and, of course, the fish.
The tank was finished eight days after their arrival at Oreol, with no shortage of willing hands to work on it even though they had been busy with continuing repairs to their comms systems and construction groundside.
They had made excellent progress with both. They stripped off all the damaged systems from the hull, repaired what they could, recycled and improvised. Some of the parts had to be manufactured from siliplas rather than the high quality alloys of the original, but they managed to create something that worked just as well as their former arrays. They wouldn’t fool any spacer able to get a close look at them, but they made a better show, at least, than the rough and ready emergency arrays they’d rigged up before.
Groundside, too, they were achieving remarkable results given the limited nature of the resources
to hand. Alex had decided, with the full agreement of Skipper Florez, not to site the X-base on Haven itself. The atmosphere was toxic, the climate atrocious and it was, they had discovered, violently volcanic. The X-base, therefore, was established at the first place they’d set foot in the system – the wide plains of Flatworld. It had no particular advantages other than the fact that it was very safe. Which, when you had Silvie on site, was in itself sufficient reason to build there.
By the end of day eleven, the X-base was already up and running. They’d used survival domes from all three ships, together with cannibalised tech and fittings, to create a small but well equipped complex. The control room had consoles with comms and scanners as well as computer and environmental systems, there were two comfortable accommodation domes, a sickbay and a quarantine dome equipped with meeting facilities.
‘Absolutely superb – amazing job,’ was Skipper Florez’ reaction, walking around the base with Alex. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it possible with the resources we had.’
Alex smiled. He’d ordered the construction of the base as much to keep his crew occupied as to create a useful facility. Now that they’d done everything they could there he was going to have to fall back on training and drills to keep them from brooding on their disastrous attempt at first contact.
On the morning of day twelve, though, there was a welcome distraction. They had run out of doughnuts a couple of days before – actually, they’d run out of quite a lot of different supplies by then. They were eating emergency K-bar rations for lunch, keeping real food for breakfast and dinner, and treat supplies of all kinds had been dwindling fast. Even the Stepeasy could no longer provide them, as their capacious holds were as empty as the frigate’s.
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