by Trevor Wyatt
The professor shrugged. “The search for extraterrestrial life has been going on since before we became a spacefaring species. And yes, it was exciting to discover microbes, and later plants in other solar systems. That proved that life could and does arise on alien planets. But so far it seems as if we’re the only world on which intelligent life has developed.”
All of which led them to an enjoyable discussion of science fiction and possible life forms, but Guss cut it off before it went very far; it was all purely speculative. What he wanted to talk about was how humanity would react if another intelligent species were ever discovered.
The consensus was that they would wave hello, perhaps put out some trinkets on a blanket if they were aboriginals, or go the Carl Sagan route with simple diagrams and so forth if they had developed a higher civilization.
And that was it. Jeryl knew that the Union had a number of contingency plans for contact with an advanced species, but most assumed that the aliens would be friendly. There were a few who assumed our new neighbors might be unfriendly, or very unfriendly. No one wanted to talk much about the latter two instances, in part because they weren’t considered to be realistic. An advanced spacefaring species, the reasoning went, would had gone past the aggressive stage.
Jeryl was skeptical about that, however. All they had to do to trash that idea was to look at their own internecine disputes with the Outer Colonies. For Jeryl, humanity as a species hadn’t taken the lessons of their ruined planet very well to heart.
The necessity of repairing its damaged environment after World War III led to the creation of a sort of benevolent “world state” envisioned by many. It had come about more or less out of necessity, but the Union wasn’t a government as much as it was a coordinated rescue operation.
Now that the restoration of Old Earth was almost complete, thanks to the resources sent home from the rest of the Union, the old plague of nationalism was making a resurgence. That was what the Union spent most of its time and resources combatting.
Because that—from what Jeryl had learned in the Academy—was what led them to the pissing matches with the Outers that ballooned into the Schism. The Outers were the biggest threat to the Union’s stability, or at least that what the Union thought. For Jeryl, he wasn’t so sure, but they handed out the paychecks. He was happy to be on their side. He loved his job: it was as simple as that.
But he never expected to be the man on whose shoulders the burden of First Contact would rest.
* * *
As he hurried into CNC and dropped into his command chair, he saw a view of the alien ship on the main screen. There was a lot more detail visible. The craft wasn’t smooth-skinned. It seemed instead to be covered with a myriad small square plates or segments, almost like scales. There was a buzz of excited conversation around him as his officers conversed among themselves.
“Okay,” he said, lifting a hand. “Belay the chatter, people. We have work to do. Stay on point.”
The talk died away. He knew what they thought—it was the same thing he thought of, that this ship destroyed The Mariner. But they didn’t know that, and until they did, he was going to play this by the book.
“Dr. Lannigan,” Jeryl started.
He was not in CNC, but Jeryl knew he was following the drama from the lab.
“Sir,” Lannigan responded at once.
“Prepare sensor scan and telemetry reports and send them via emergency broadcast to Edoris Station. I want them on Admiral Flynn’s desk before I breathe ten more times.”
Jeryl squinted at the bogey on the main screen. It remained unmoving. It showed no sign of knowing they were here, but Jeryl was certain it was all but oblivious.
“Helm,” said Jeryl.
“Sir?”
“Take us in closer. Dead slow.”
All right, he thought. Let’s see what you’ve got.
Chapter 7
Ashley
Jeryl didn’t look at her when he entered CNC, but Ashley didn’t really expect him to. The situation was far too fraught for any sort of personal interaction. All of them were entirely focused.
It was a moment like no other in human history. Ashley knew they were all aware of this, but no one ever said it aloud and no one needed to.
Ashley stood at the Communications station, where the communications officer, Mary Taylor, was working her console as dexterously as a concert pianist. Ashley liked Mary Taylor. She had an affinity with her from the moment Mary reported for duty on this ship, three voyages and two years ago.
The previous comms officer, P'yŏng Kwangjo, had come with the ship, as the saying goes. And although he was a good comms man, he didn’t interact much with the rest of the crew. There was nothing surly or sullen about Kwang; he merely kept to himself when he was off duty, for the most part, being a dedicated amateur musician on a traditional Korean instrument, the gayageum.
He wasn’t reclusive about it, and would occasionally play as part of “talent night” get-togethers, sitting on the floor with crossed legs, the head of the instrument resting on his right knee and the tail resting on the floor. For those performances, he always wore traditional Korean garb.
When Kwang’s commission was up he didn’t reenlist, as many had expected him to do, and so they were forced to apply to the Armada for a new officer. In Kwang’s place, they got Mary. Kwang was a small, dapper man. Ashley thought that somehow they were all expecting someone physically similar.
When the lift doors opened and Mary strode out, all expectations were immediately readjusted. She was a tall woman of African descent, but with the light skin—and red hair—of what was still sometimes called a “high yellow” black. Beautiful she wasn’t—striking, however, she was. Ashley didn’t think there was a man aboard (and more than one or two women) who had not wanted to bed her at some point.
Mary wasn’t against a bit of fun, for sure, but her primary focus was on being a comms officer, and she was a damn good one. The most interesting aspect of this for Ashley was that she was extremely hard of hearing, and had an implant to augment them. She could crank her earbuds, but in everyday speech she sometimes could not make out what anyone said unless she could see their lips.
From where he sat, Jeryl snapped order about the sensor scans, acknowledged by Lannigan. Ashley scanned the electromagnetic spectrum for any hint of a signal from the alien ship.
“Anything?” asked Ashley in a low voice.
“Not so much as a peep,” Mary replied. “I’m giving them the full treatment,” she adds, pointing her chin at her instrument panel. “Given that the illumination visible through those portholes is very close to what our sun puts out, we can deduce that they have eyes like ours. I’m taking that a step further and assuming that their audio capabilities are like ours, too.”
Ashley nodded, thinking it over. “Okay, I’m with you on that.”
“Which means, obviously, that if they’re using anything on the spectrum I should be able to pick it up. Unless they’re shielded.”
Mary sighed. “And I think they are, because like I said—not a peep.”
Ashley was so intent on what Mary said that she almost jumped when she noticed Jeryl standing beside her. He had risen from his command chair and had come up to them without Ashley knowing.
“Carry on,” he murmured when Ashley turned to him. “I want a closer look at Taylor's readings.”
The alien ship hadn’t moved since it appeared on their scanners. They were closing with it at about 25 kilometers per hour. Ashley glimpsed a patch notice pop up on Mary's main window; the reports from Lannigan were ready to be sent to Admiral Flynn. It took Lannigan longer than 10 breaths to get the reports ready, but not a lot longer. Mary sent them on their way without being told.
“Still no response on standard frequencies, Captain,” Mary said calmly despite the drop of sweat that trickled down the back of her neck.
Then she gasped, and Ashley knew why. Her fists clenched when she saw the alien move away from them at
exactly the same speed: 25 knots.
“Guess we’ve invaded their personal space,” she muttered.
Jeryl grunted softly.
“Okay,” he said. He looked over at Pedro Ferriero, their helmsman.
“Mr. Ferriero,” he said, “ahead 50 knots.”
“Aye,” Pedro said, never taking his eyes off the main screen. He didn’t need to; Ashley was fully aware he knew them by heart. He could fly the ship blindfolded—and he had, Ashley had seen him do it.
And as they moved ahead at the increased speed, their triangular acquaintance upped his speed of retreat by exactly the same amount.
Jeryl muttered something Ashley couldn’t hear.
“Seventy-five,” he said, in such a way that he expected the alien to match it.
And it did. It annoyed Jeryl even more.
“I don’t like games,” he said with a hint of a snarl in his voice.
“They are communicating with us, Sir,” Mary said.
“What do you mean?” The snarl was a little more obvious. “All they’re doing is—”
“They’re saying not to come too close.”
He thought about that. “They, they, they...how do we know there’s a ‘they’ in there, Lieutenant? The thing might be automated.”
Ashley knew he didn’t really believe that. He didn’t think anyone aboard the Seeker believed that. Someone was inside that ship.
Tension in CNC grew. The book said to do what he was doing: standoff, try all hailing frequencies, observe. Union protocol said they had to do all they could to not appear threatening. And that was all well and good, but if this ship was responsible for the destruction of the Mariner, the ship had some serious firepower—one that could be turned against them at any moment, if they made the wrong move.
Or maybe even if they didn’t make a wrong move.
Ashley was dead certain that everyone in CNC was thinking about the Mariner’s wreckage at that moment. She knew Jeryl wanted to do something, anything, besides from merely observing—and so did Ashley. If it were up to her, she would suit up and jet over there and knock on their airlock.
But it wasn’t up to her, and so she stood there at Taylor’s station, feeling her own sweat meander down her back beneath her tunic.
“The likelihood is that she’s an enemy vessel,” Jeryl said.
“Correct,” said Ashley. “It’s just too much of a coincidence for this ship to show up here, so near to where the Mariner was destroyed by an energy weapon with an unknown signature.”
He said nothing, taking a deep breath.
“This could be a trap,” he said. “Their sensors may be as advanced as their weaponry. They could have seen us coming, and are lying doggo here while we come in too close to get away when she makes her move.”
Ashley thought back to that night in New Sydney. After they finished making love for the second time they took a break. They lay there in each other's arms, talking about themselves and their goals in a way they had never done aboard the Seeker. That was how she learned of Jeryl’s disappointment at not being on the front lines where he could face the Outers. Ashley already knew he was driven to succeed; he would never have won the commission to the Seeker otherwise. The military was full of overachievers, and he was one of the most aggressive.
But despite his drive, Ashley knew Jeryl never took himself too seriously—most of the time. Now here he was, confronted with an utterly unique experience in human history, and he was toeing the Union’s line.
Don’t piss off the natives. Ashley felt his frustration.
Jeryl ordered Pedro to cut back to twenty-five knots. As soon as Pedro did, the alien ship dropped its speed, too.
“Ahhh, you fucker,” Jeryl said, too quietly for anyone except Ashley to hear.
It went on like that for another ten minutes: they sped up, and the alien would speed up. They slowed—then she slowed, always maintaining the same distance apart. They shifted course to come at her from a new direction, but she angled herself so that she always kept her profile to them. Back and forth, back and forth.
“Well, this is a waste of time,” Jeryl said at last.
Addressing the CNC at large, he said, “We have to think of something else. All executive officers, meet in my office in five minutes. Let’s take a break and see if we can brainstorm a new approach. Mr. Ferriero, all stop.”
“Sir,” said Pedro, bringing the Seeker to a halt relative the alien, which immediately stopped, too.
Ashley turned with Jeryl to leave the CNC, but then Mary spoke in a tense voice, “Captain? Y-you might want to take a look at this.”
Chapter 8
Jeryl
“So,” said Professor Guss, “let’s take the problem of how many technical civilizations may live in the galaxy and put that aside for now, and look at a more complicated issue. How will we recognize intelligence when we see it?”
The students looked at one another. Trick question? Jeryl wondered. At last, one of the other cadets raised his hand.
“They’ll have machines,” he said. “You know—instrumentality.”
The professor nodded. “Extensions of their natural capabilities,” he said. “But be careful, here. We humans have built ourselves a complicated technical infrastructure to support us, almost like an exoskeleton supports an insect. He can’t live without. At this point, neither can we.”
Again, the students looked at one another.
“That’s not to say that others can’t,” Professor Guss said. “As a species, we’re somewhat blinded by our accomplishments. Granted, it’s no small thing to land on the Moon, abolish diseases, harness electricity, or disseminate ideas via printing or electromagnetic waves. As a result of our cleverness, we’ve come to judge the intelligence of our fellow earth species by how closely it resembles our own.”
Blank looks were all around, but for Jeryl, he was beginning to see where Guss was headed.
“We have studied the sound patterns of whales. Their ‘songs’ are recognized as being a method of communication. We still don’t know what they’re saying, but on some level, they’re exchanging information and ideas. That’s very close to intelligence.”
“Ants do that,” a dark-haired female cadet said. “And bees. I know ants use pheromones to lay down trails to food for their fellows, but that’s still information exchange. And bees communicate the location of flowers to other bees in their hive by a dance.”
“But those are both evolved behaviors,” said Guss. “You’re not claiming that ants and bees are intelligent, are you?”
“Well, no; but they do both build complicated structures to house themselves.”
“Termites, too,” someone else put in.
Guss nodded. “Good, and we’ll have to be careful not to mistake behaviors like that for true intelligence, if and when we run into extraterrestrials. Coral animals build huge structures as well—vast reefs. But no one would argue they are intelligent in any way.”
Another cadet raised his hand.
“Ants and bees won’t be building spaceships,” he said, and laughter rippled across the lecture hall.
Professor Guss smiled as well.
“True enough,” he said. “But we know of other tool-using animals on Earth. Crows and chimpanzees, for example, are widely regarded by scientists as being capable of rudimentary tool use. Other studies have shown that the extinct elephants had amazingly complex societies. They mourned their dead, for example. And once we get up to the level of primates, we start to see even more complicated social organizations.
Guss looked around the lecture hall.
“But—those animals—and let’s lump dolphins in there—are they intelligent?” The dark-haired girl, whose name was Ashley Gavin, said, “I believe we have to say that they are. But without hands, they would never be able to give concrete form to their ideas or to conduct experiments that would prove or disprove any hypothesis they develop.”
She spoke slowly, articulating her ideas very carefully.<
br />
“Clearly we evolved from primate stock...if we were to disappear, the apes might develop intelligence again.”
She paused, but Guss motioned for her to continue.
Speaking with more confidence now, she said, “The problem faced by, um, super-intelligent dolphins, for example, in a world where Man doesn’t exist, is that they live in the ocean, and have no fire.
“They would not be able to smelt metals that they could use to build machines, like say an airplane; and they lack the hands to do the building anyway. So I think, therefore...I think that their intelligence will always be limited by their own physical incapabilities and their environment.”
She heaved a deep sigh and sat down.
“That’s very good,” Guss said, “but you’re still using your own humanness, if you will, to judge other species. I can imagine a race of intelligent dolphin-like creatures in the ocean of Europa, for example, even though we don’t think there’s anything like that down there, who have become symbiotic with a creature like an octopus. There are your hands.
“Perhaps the octopus creature began as a parasite, stealing nutrients from the dolphin’s blood. But it used its arms to secure food that the dolphin would devour over time, a symbiosis develops.”
He waved a hand. “And we may well find something like that somewhere in space. Taken separately, neither species could do what they can do together.”
The general air of the lecture hall relaxed and became casual. None of the students, including Jeryl, took the silly gut course very seriously; there was no way to fail it, because it was purely speculative.
But he was starting to understand that the professor’s purpose was to get them to examine their biases and prejudices. They couldn’t go out into space believing that any aliens they met would look or act like them. Yes, it was possible—if the underlying assumption of the Drake Equation held, intelligence was more likely to arise on worlds like Earth, with liquid water, and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and a relatively clement environment. There would be enough food available to allow for the existence of a cooperative social order.