Analog SFF, July-August 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Barbara, how are the crew?"

  "They've done all they can,” she answered softly. “Most of them are down in the lounge, helping themselves to whatever they like. Booze, mostly. And each other."

  "They're entitled. Why aren't you with them?"

  "Because I figured you could use some company. Was I wrong?"

  He raised a hand to clasp one of hers. “Not at all.” He nodded toward the screen, unable to tear his eyes away from the spectacle. “Won't be long now."

  He stared, mesmerized by the rapidly brightening speck of light on his telescope screen, trying to picture what the last instant would look like. The starship was traveling just behind the light it emitted, and was much, much closer than it appeared. It would blossom from a pinpoint to a huge disk in an instant if it were coming straight at them. Would the video scan even capture it? Why would he even think it mattered? If it missed, the last instant would show a streak off to one side. If it hit one of the ships beyond him, the explosion would be visible the barest instant before the weapon reached him, and he would probably not have time to register the satisfaction.

  And then he saw a flash and several streaks radiating from one side of the flash. He had time to recognize the object had exploded. It must have occurred much farther away than he had expected. He had just begun to smile when a tiny fragment of the starship, no larger than a grain of sand, ripped through his ship and destroyed it.

  * * * *

  Indira Swarup stood gazing at the stars with her husband and children in the back yard of their mountain home. Tears ran down her face, more for her children, and all the billions of other children who would not have the opportunity to carry on life, than for her own impending death. Her home was near the Lowell Astronomy Data Center, the locus of her career. The sky, the source of so much wonder and joy in her life until just two weeks ago, was dark, cloudless, and beautiful. The only hint of impending doom discernable amid the canopy of stars was one star just barely brighter and bluer than its normal dim yellow glow.

  Had it all been a waste, too little, too late? The discovery of the signal by one of her amateur SETI enthusiasts? The months the scientific community spent analyzing the signal and confirming it was extraterrestrial? The efforts to translate it after it burst into modulation? The mad scramble to throw together a defense when the terrible nature of the message was revealed, and the weapon was discovered? There was so little they could do, and physics seemed solidly on the side of the enemy. The moment of truth was now at hand.

  Through binoculars, it was just possible to make out the malevolent speck of light beside a faint yellow star in Cassiopeia. The speck, the approaching weapon, glowed blue-white and was now growing brighter by the second. Suddenly, the speck flashed, and then became several specks radiating rapidly from where the first had been. A few seconds later, several small dots of light appeared close to where the original had been.

  She lowered the binoculars and watched, speechless and confused, as the streaks brightened and radiated past the horizon toward the west. The streaks changed color from a blue-white to a pinker hue, appeared to slow dramatically, and shrank to brightly glowing dots as they raced toward the horizon.

  "I think it hit something. In fact, I think it hit several somethings.” Her voice was hoarse with the strain of two weeks of toil and sorrow, but carried a hint of hope.

  Her husband grunted. “Lucky bastards! Think they made a difference?"

  "We'll know in a few minutes. It actually passed us about five minutes ago. Earth is a few light-minutes off to one side of its trajectory,” she explained. She tilted her head to one side, a puzzled look on her face. “But something is not making sense."

  "None of this makes any sense,” her husband growled. “I don't know how you can be so analytical at a time like this."

  "I'm doing what I've been doing for two weeks. I'm desperately searching for any glimmer of hope."

  The children huddled closer to their parents, seeking comfort against the frigid night and fear's icy grasp. Lisa, the youngest, sobbed softly. The two boys hid their sorrow, but felt it as intensely as their sister. Indira wondered if they would soon long for the evening chill. She eyed her husband's waist, trying not to think about the pistol hidden beneath his shirt. She shuddered as the image erupted into her mind, of her husband forced by love to do the unthinkable. At least they would not burn. She forced herself back to the quest for that grain of hope.

  "It didn't hit one of the ships that were trying to intercept it in-system. That was something a lot farther out. I'd need a calculator to be sure, but a rough guess is it was well beyond the orbit of Pluto."

  "What's out there?” her husband asked. “The SETI ship? Could they have managed to hit that thing?"

  "The SETI League ship is one of ... half a dozen, maybe a little more? Comet prospectors, mainly, operating out of a deep space station in the Oort cloud. They're three light-days out. I know they were working on something, but they're so far out we don't know what they finally came up with."

  "Would that be far enough out to make something work?"

  "It might. Could they move a comet into the path of that thing?"

  "Unlikely,” he replied. “But they would have deuterium. They would mine it to pay the bills."

  "I wonder if they figured out the deuterium release hypothesis?” Indira asked. Was this the glimmer she sought?

  "Could we have gotten word to them in time?"

  "I pray we did.” She laughed nervously. “Did you hear what I just said? Me, the avowed atheist! The hardcore astrophysicist! But I do, I pray. I suppose if I were going to start praying, a month ago would have been better timing. At this point, whatever is going to happen has already been set in motion. We can only wait. We'll know all too soon."

  She knelt to embrace her children and kiss each one, then looked to the sky. A bright aurora played across the heavens, no doubt some after-effect of the passage of the weapon. “Enjoy the moment, my dears. Cherish every second."

  The minutes passed as each one tried to live for the moment, but it was impossible to ignore the sense of impending tragedy, of being helpless in the face of injustice on an unimaginable scale.

  Indira looked down at her handheld. “We're not registering a neutrino burst. The weapon should have hit the Sun more than ten minutes ago. If there were a core collapse, it should be registering by now. I think we may have just experienced a miracle!” She turned her face to the heavens and dared to smile. “I think we're going to live!"

  Twenty-one billion people experienced the joy of salvation. The euphoria was short lived. The casualty figures came in. One brave prospector, hundreds of crew of the other ships who had offered their bodies to try to stop the awful projectile, and thousands who had decided to watch the approach with nothing to shield them from its debris and radiation, perished. Of these, the lucky ones were hit by motes of dust moving at nearly the speed of light, and were killed by the resulting blasts. Most of the victims died of the slow misery of radiation sickness. But the overwhelming majority of the human race survived. The Sun absorbed the little material that hit it with only a few flares resulting. The remainder of the debris from the weapon left the system as quickly as it entered, on a trajectory that would take it safely out of the galaxy.

  A hopeless sense of unavoidable doom had dominated the minds of nearly everyone from the moment the threat was recognized until the moment it missed. At that moment, everything changed. The remains of the weapon had not yet cleared the system when the cry for vengeance arose.

  * * * *

  Secretary General Tuekakas parted the curtains of his office window and gazed through the thick glass at the army of protestors in the park across from the United Nations Headquarters. He shook his head sadly. He understood completely how they felt, but prayed humanity was not becoming exactly like the evil creatures that had launched the weapon.

  "Ambassador Gates is here to see you,” his watch announced.

  Tuekakas
glanced at his reflection in the window. He tucked in a stray lock of his jet-black hair, styled with the forelock sweeping up and to his left side, and straightened his tie. He sighed tiredly, not looking forward to this encounter. Belters were cocky, obnoxious, pushy, and had no sense of decorum. They were also wealthy enough to get away with it. The least diplomatic and most influential of the lot was Maria Gates, Ambassador from Ceres.

  "Send her in."

  Gates entered the office, and Tuekakas turned and bowed slightly. Ambassador Gates did not return the gesture. Tuekakas indicated a pair of chairs near the window.

  Maria took her seat. “And now the ball is in our court, Joseph."

  Tuekakas felt his own feelings on the matter flood back over him for an instant: the irrational emotions, his struggle to overcome them with intellect, and the undeniable uncertainty of the basic facts. “Why, Ambassador Gates? Why would any race attempt to do such a thing to another? What could we have done to deserve such an attack?"

  "Why does it matter?” Gates replied without hesitation. “They tried to exterminate us, and so we will build a similar ship and stick it up whatever orifice they use to defecate. Who the hell cares why they did it? I don't care if they're stinking damned Vogons with a construction contract to bulldoze Earth for a Galactic off-ramp. What matters is they made an unprovoked attack, and we're going to make a provoked attack."

  Tuekakas pointed toward the park outside the building. “That's certainly what they want. God help me, I'll admit I want it, too. A part of me I'm not proud of would really like to fry them all. But if I may quote Nietzsche, ‘Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.’ Who has had time to think this through? That thing was launched from a star almost twenty light-years away. Grasp the distance ... the ships we have today would take two centuries to reach it! Even if we could fire some powerful beam at the speed of light and blow them to atoms, it would take almost twenty years to reach them and another twenty for us to see the flash. But we have no such weapon. We will have to invent and build something. If we throw the resources of the whole system into it, perhaps we can do that in twenty years. But we cannot hope to do it with some beam of electromagnetic radiation. We will need to build an interstellar ramjet, just as they did, and accelerate it for forty years. So that means, if we started working on it today, we might get some satisfaction in about eight decades."

  The Ambassador shrugged. “It must be done. Humans are capable of holding a grudge for millennia, if need be."

  "Europeans have been known to. Middle-Easterners. But the Belt? Don't you think the bulk of humanity left that kind of backwards thinking behind when they left this planet?"

  "We're adaptable. We can learn. We're not going to let this pass without payback."

  Tuekakas nodded. “I know we must do something. We can never allow such an attack to succeed. But will retaliation succeed? One man, in one small ship, found a way to defeat their unstoppable weapon. Do you think they won't figure this out? Do you think they won't mount the same defense? Do you think they can't defend against something they built?"

  "And your option is?"

  "We decoded their message. We should be able to send back a message they will understand. We let them know we stopped it, and we will not tolerate another attack."

  "Hah! It's true then. The meek really have inherited the Earth. So sad."

  "It has the advantage of speed,” Tuekakas pointed out. “We actually built a transmitter that could do it decades ago, for something they call ‘Active SETI.’ The only reason it was never used was legislation, people afraid something like this would be the response. We could have it hooked up to a radio telescope in a week, probably less. The message would reach them shortly after they realize our sun did not explode."

  Maria laughed again. “So what would that accomplish?"

  "When they realize they missed,” Tuekakas continued, “if we do not tell them we are not launching retaliation, they most certainly will assume we are."

  "And if we tell them we are not launching, they will probably laugh and launch another attack anyway."

  Tuekakas nodded. “They very well might launch another attack either way. If they were to immediately launch another weapon, or a fleet of them, it will not matter if we are building one, or have launched one. The one thing absolutely clear is the thing we should be working on is a defense against this kind of weapon, something that will not rely on the sort of blind luck that saved us this time. But it is possible they have since regretted their attack, and a word from us that we are holding off retaliation could stop them from feeling compelled to strike again just to save themselves."

  The Ambassador sneered. “Do we know how to say ‘turn the other cheek’ in their language? I think we know how to say ‘prepare to die, scumbags.’ We can say that because they taught us how. They were willing to exterminate us without provocation. What makes you think you can talk them out of it? But I suppose I should have known that is the sort of approach you would take. That's why we always appoint someone from Earth as SecGen. You know you don't run the show anymore, but you try to keep the peace between the various large rocks out in the belt where the real power lies. Just remember, we are the real power, and this thing is going to happen. I'm not here to ask you, I'm here to tell you. Deal with it, or we'll pick somebody who will. It shouldn't be hard to find a candidate.” She looked at her watch. “And I'm due for a meeting where we will figure out how to fund this weapon. Should be fun, watching everyone compete to chip in the most extravagant sum.

  "Speaking of which...” she reached in her pocket and extracted a small paperback book. “Almost forgot. Here's a little light reading to get you in the mood.” She tossed the book on his desk. “Enjoy, Joseph."

  Tuekakas escorted the ambassador to the doors of his office, and then closed them and leaned against them with a heavy sigh. Did she know how much he disliked that name, or did she simply think she was being familiar? Under the circumstances, the complaint was petty. He pushed it from his mind and trudged back to his desk. He glanced down at the little book. The title was Edison's Conquest of Mars. He picked it up and read the small print aloud. “The sequel to War of the Worlds? I had no idea one was written. Published in 1898! I can see why it would appeal to cowboys. Our honor is impugned! We demand satisfaction! Ramjet duel on Main Street at high noon!” He tossed it back on the desk. “More wasted trees. She could have just sent an e-book."

  In his mind, he began running down the list of people he needed to contact. Indira Swarup, who had been his wyakin during the last few months, would be one of the first and able to suggest more. He thought about the alien message her organization had received and translated.

  "Corruption of creation, abomination of the word, look this way. The hydrogen-sucking light-chaser comes. See your damnation approach, unstoppable. You are to be consumed in the fire of your own star. Our obligation to warn is fulfilled. Prepare to die."

  * * * *

  A receptionist took the call. At first he was insolent, suspicious the caller was just another reporter, but he sprang to action when he learned it was the Secretary General. The distinguished-looking Indian woman was soon online. Tuekakas allowed himself a quick smile at the historical irony.

  "Mr. Secretary, how good to hear from you. How may I help you?” Indira bowed ever so slightly.

  "So good to see your smiling face again, Dr. Swarup, my wondrous guiding spirit,” Tuekakas replied, returning the bow, deeper and with a flourish of his hands. “So good to see anyone, for that matter, and you played no small part in the fact we can."

  Indira beamed. “I was so giddy when that damned thing missed, I hugged and kissed my children until they ran and hid from me!"

  Tuekakas closed his eyes and tried to imagine that scene. He remembered one fat old aunt for an instant, and then brought his mind back to the matter at hand. He wiped a joyful tear from his eye before resuming the discussion. “I was wondering if you could call upon your team again and
help me decide what we must do next. The SETI League would, I think, be best qualified to speculate on the true nature of this alien civilization, and the threat they pose."

  "We know practically nothing,” she apologized.

  "Of this, I am painfully aware. We are forced to extract what we can from the very little we know.” Tuekakas paused, and a grin crept to his lips. “But your team is expert at that, after more than a century of extracting what you can from an absence of information."

  Indira laughed. “And you see that as a qualification?"

  Tuekakas shrugged. “Compared to military minds? They're trained to avoid speculation and act on the best intelligence they can obtain. Normally, that's a good thing, and a lesson learned by many bloody mistakes. But without their satellites and spies, I'm afraid they are far less qualified than your group. We need to squeeze everything we can from what little we have. We need to know the difference between knowledge and speculation. I need anthropologists, exobiologists, linguists, people who can get into the minds of a totally alien race. I need the people who decoded that message."

  Indira leaned forward and began doing something with her computer. “I'm already on it."

  "I was wondering if it would be convenient for them to meet me, perhaps one or two at a time, at a little retreat in Washington State? I'll forward the location. I'd like to avoid attracting attention. I know some of your team is near New York, in Little Ferry, but that's a little close for privacy. I would be happy to authorize repayment of any expenses."

  Indira smiled. “Reimbursement of expenses? That could be a first for the SETI League! We're an all-volunteer organization, and usually work out of pocket."

  Tuekakas raised an eyebrow. “Really? I worked with you for months and never guessed! How many space-based radio telescopes does your organization operate? Are those all run by amateurs?"

  Indira nodded, her pride evident. “Seventy-something are running full-time at last count. Hundreds more are used at least occasionally. Most are surplus space communications dishes. A few were purpose-built by our wealthier members."