Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  Alex rolled his eyes as Jones continued. They didn’t have time for even a handful of formalities. “We need information as quickly as possible,” Jones added. “Neil, please would you tell us what you have discovered so far.”

  Neil Frandsen looked annoyed at having been dragged away from the hangar deck – he’d set up a camp bed there just so that he could remain near the alien craft – but he managed to keep his voice level. The forty engineers, researchers and scientists who had been brought into the project tended to have different opinions about the alien craft. Some wanted to remain near it at all times, others could barely wait to get away from it, back to their homes and the comfortable familiar worlds they knew. A scientist had almost collapsed and had had to be transferred to another base, where he remained in lockdown and under observation. It might have been the culture shock, or it might have been something more serious. No one knew for sure.

  “It would be easier to tell you what we don’t know about it,” Frandsen said, carefully. “As I warned you at the beginning, there is no way that we can give you a timetable for when and how we will unlock the secrets of the alien ship. We have made several interesting discoveries, yet we have also discovered hundreds of new questions and mysteries. We may not succeed in unlocking all of the craft’s secrets for a very long time.”

  He leaned backwards and continued in a bored monotone. “The pieces of debris have been analysed carefully,” he said. “The tests revealed a mixture of four different metal alloys, including two that we have been unable to identify. The interesting point is that the craft’s hull appeared to be incredibly conductive, yet also surprisingly strong. It may have been held together by the craft’s power source – hence the glow emitting from the craft – but as yet no one has been able to prove or disprove it. The important news from a military point of view is that while the hull is strong, it should be unable to withstand a missile hit, or cannon fire. If we could track them, we could hit them, and if we could hit them, we could bring them down.”

  “Good,” Santini said, shortly. “Have you unlocked the secret of their radar-avoidance technology?”

  “Not really,” Frandsen said. He looked over at Jones. “We have been unable to determine how the craft flew, but some of the researchers from the Advanced Propulsion Research Centre believe that the craft had a limited reactionless drive field that would have given it astonishing speed and manoeuvrability. One of the functions of such a drive field might have been to absorb radar energy – and other kinds of energy – but there is no way to know for sure until we actually manage to duplicate the drive. That could take years.

  “On the other hand, the hull does absorb low levels of energy,” he added, “so it’s quite possible that radar pulses are simply absorbed directly into the hull. That’s actually old news, as far as the stealth community is concerned; stealth coatings have been around for years. There are ways to track such aircraft, but without knowing more about how the alien vessels operate, it might be difficult.”

  “Very difficult,” Santini agreed. “I was on the mission into Saudi Arabia three years ago. We just flew past their defences without impediment, as if they couldn’t see us at all.”

  “Which is what we might be facing ourselves,” Jones confirmed. “What about the remainder of the craft? Do you know why it crashed?”

  “No,” Frandsen admitted, reluctantly. “The rear area of the craft is almost completely inexplicable, for the moment. We’ve been probing it very gently, but parts of it appear to be fused, or perhaps that’s actually its normal configuration. The bottom line is that we have no idea exactly what the craft did to fly, although we have dozens of possible theories. As for why it crashed…”

  He scowled. “It looks as if they suffered a major drive failure,” he concluded. “That’s not actually uncommon for us. An aircraft launched from a USAF base might suffer any one of hundreds of possible equipment failures that would force it to return to base without actually engaging the enemy or completing its mission.”

  “I don’t know about you,” Alex said, into the silence, “but I find that rather reassuring.”

  Frandsen nodded. “The interesting part is that their computers may be semi-compatible with some of our own advanced systems,” he added. He held up a hand to forestall a series of astonished protests. “I’m not talking about them coming equipped with USB ports and Windows Whatever, but a certain…shared understanding of how computers work. It may take years to learn how to hack into their computers, but the specialists I’ve had brought in are confident that eventually we will be able to extract data from their records. Understanding it, of course, might be difficult.”

  Gayle Madison nodded. “I’ve been studying the alien markings on the craft,” she put in. “They’re completely beyond our understanding at the moment. It is quite possible that we will never decipher the data without their assistance, willing or otherwise.”

  Jones nodded. “I take it that the craft can’t actually fly?”

  “I don’t think we’ll be flying it up to the mothership to upload a computer virus,” Santini said, with an evil grin. “Is the craft actually dead?”

  “We don’t know,” Frandsen admitted. “There are very definitely traces of power left within its systems. It may be absorbing power from the surrounding area. However, if it is broadcasting for rescue, we have been unable to pick it up. It shouldn’t be able to get a signal out using any tech we’re familiar with, but if it can generate a stream of neutrinos, for example…”

  Alex nodded in understanding. Neutrinos went through almost anything. The hangar was surrounded by all kinds of jamming equipment, but they couldn’t stop a neutrino emission or something so fantastic that it was beyond even the imagination of science-fiction writers. The only sign that the craft wasn’t screaming for help was that none of the UFOs had visited Area 52, as far as they knew. The aliens might have adjusted their stealth systems to remain hidden as they scouted out their target. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

  “I’ll forward your report to the President,” Jones said, finally. “That leads us directly to the aliens themselves. Jane?”

  Jane looked tired, but happy. Like Frandsen, she had been spending most of her time in her department, although she hadn’t been sleeping with the aliens. The regulations forbade sleep within the biological containment area and insisted on everyone rotating out every few hours, just so fatigue wouldn’t lead to a tragedy.

  “My team has been studying the five alien bodies carefully, although we have limited ourselves to mainly non-intrusive probes until we know how the aliens treat their dead,” she said, carefully. “The first priority was to ensure that there was no biological threat from the alien bodies – they might be friendly, but their bacteria might have other ideas – and we carried out every test in the manual, as well as several we made up specially. As far as we can determine, there is no biological hazard at all. I’ve kept the bodies under heavy isolation and I certainly do not advise throwing open the airlocks and inviting in the entire world, but I feel that the danger is minimal, if it exists at all.”

  Jones frowned. “Are you certain of that?”

  “The aliens have a completely different biology to us,” Jane said, firmly. “It is highly unlikely that any of their diseases could make the jump into humanity, or vice versa. There are some disease – Bird Flu, for example – that move between species, but they all came from Earth. The aliens did not.”

  “So much for any War of the Worlds scenarios we might have been hoping for,” Santini said. “Can they live on Earth without protection?”

  “I believe so,” Jane said. “Their blood carries definite traces of oxygen, suggesting that they are oxygen-breathers. I won’t know for sure until I have a live one to examine, but I believe that they won’t have any problems spending time on Earth, or living permanently on the planet. Their bacteria and fungi – to say nothing of higher life forms – could probably find a niche here.”

  She picked up the
remote control and flashed an image of EBE1 onto the display. “The first really interesting thing about the aliens is that they are definitely from the same planet,” she said. “Their biology may be different from humanity, yet EBE1 and EBE4 share too many common points to come from two different planets. They’re also all male, I believe. We have been unable to locate any wombs or egg sacs, while we have come up with good candidates for testicles and other male organs. The second really interesting thing about them is that their brains appear to be liquid.”

  “That’s impossible,” Gayle said. “They can’t have liquid brains.”

  Jane’s face darkened. “That was my thought as well, when we x-rayed their skulls,” she said. “It took several attempts before we realised that the aliens all had tiny implants buried within their skulls and we suspect that those implants killed them. The bodies, as I mentioned days ago, were suspiciously intact, yet they were dead. I believe that the aliens committed suicide to avoid being captured – or were killed by their superiors. The implications are…disturbing.”

  “They didn’t want live aliens to fall into our hands,” Alex said. Jane was right. The implications were very disturbing. It didn’t suggest a friendly motive for visiting the planet. “Why didn’t they destroy the bodies completely?”

  “Unknown,” Jane said, flatly. It hadn’t been a fair question. How could she have known the answer? “The first subgroup of aliens is smaller and weaker than the second, yet it definitely possesses a greater degree of manual skill and very manipulative fingers. There were a handful of other implants embedded within their bodies, but without surgery I am unable to remove them or speculate on their purpose. I have teams trying to construct computer models of how the aliens might move, yet without a live one…well, such procedures can only go so far.

  “The second type of alien is…odder,” she continued. “It is definitely stronger and probably faster than the first type, with natural armour growing out of its skin. There are sacs of chemicals within its body, near the bloodstream, with an uncertain purpose. There are no implants at all apart from the one embedded in their skulls. It has tattoos and markings that the first type of alien lacks. We don’t know why.”

  She hesitated. “It’s odd, but…when I was younger, I used to design monsters for fantasy games to put myself through Med School,” she said. “If I’d been designing a monster to serve in the ranks of the Dark Lord, I might have come up with something like the second group of aliens. Their strength and endurance might be well above the norm for their race; hell, they might well have been designed to serve as soldiers. I’m not sure I like the implications of that either.”

  Santini frowned. “Designed?” He asked. “How?”

  “People have been talking about using genetic engineering to produce soldiers with superhuman attributes for years,” Jane said. “None of the various research programs ever got very far - public opinion was always very strongly against it – and mostly it flopped. The aliens, on the other hand, might have engineered themselves a warrior caste, or perhaps it evolved naturally. The two groups of aliens definitely come from the same stock.”

  Jones looked stunned. “It sounds crazy,” he muttered. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “Better soldiers,” Santini said. “To think what I had to go through to earn my wings…”

  “It’s not unknown in nature,” Jane added. “There are dozens of different breeds of dog, yet they’re all the same species and they can crossbreed. I find it hard to imagine an advanced race that exists like that, but there’s no reason why one cannot develop somewhere else.”

  “I see,” Jones said, finally. He sounded oddly rattled. “Do you have anything else to add?”

  “It’s all in my report,” Jane said. “We cannot say much more until we dissect one of the aliens to see how it all goes together, but…”

  “We still don’t know how they treat their dead,” Alex reminded her. “The last thing we want to do is give unintentional offence.”

  “They crashed outside one of the most secure areas in the United States,” Santini pointed out. “They’re watching us even now. They have either evolved or designed a warrior caste. I think we’re far beyond worrying about giving unintentional offence.”

  Jones was about to reply when Colonel Fields entered, without knocking, and passed him a PDA. “Shit,” he said, reading the message. Alex had a premonition of disaster before Jones could say anything else. Had the aliens finally commenced the invasion? “Everything has changed.”

  He looked up, into Alex’s eyes. “We just picked up a message from the aliens,” he said. His voice was stunned, disbelieving. “They’re asking for a meeting. They want to meet with the President himself.”

  Chapter Eight

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 9

  “There is not going to be any debate about this,” President Andrew Chalk said. “I’m going.”

  He stood at one end of the Oval Office, facing his inner circle. Only a handful of his Cabinet even knew about the crashed alien ship, let alone the UFO reports and the message from the stars. His inner circle all knew and had been briefed, including his Vice President, who was in a secret command post. If something happened to Washington, the President had decided on his first day in office, it wouldn’t be allowed to break the command-and-control links that bound the US Military together.

  Andrew Chalk had gone into the Army during the Clinton years and had rapidly been promoted until he reached Colonel, within the famed 3rd Infantry Division. He’d taken part in the march to Baghdad and developed a reputation as a tough, but fair commanding officer. He’d had his doubts about the aftermath of the invasion from the start and, following Washington’s reluctance to realise that the United States was caught up in a counter-insurgency campaign, he’d resigned from the army and gone into politics. He’d appealed to both right and left – the right because he had genuine military experience and was also a moderate; the left because he’d resigned in protest against Rumsfield – and his campaign had been planned with military precision. He’d crushed the challengers for the Republican nomination – his main challenger had largely been running on the grounds that he wasn’t the incumbent – and then defeated the Democrats to become President. His bluff, no-nonsense manner had won him friends and allies in disillusioned politicians and citizens, although the cliques in Washington opposed him at every turn. They suspected, quite rightly, that President Chalk intended to restore honesty and openness to the Federal Government.

  “This is not something we can pass on to an Ambassador or a Special Representative,” he added, knowing that his Cabinet wasn't convinced. He’d chosen most of them partly on the grounds that they wouldn’t hesitate to tell him if they thought that he was wrong. The worst problem politicians had was being surrounded by people who told them what they wanted to hear. “This can only be handled by the President himself. The buck stops here.”

  There was a long silence. “Mr President,” General Gary Wachter said finally, “this is not beyond debate.”

  The President frowned. General Gary Wachter had been his commanding officer several times, to the delight of some media personages who talked about the General being the power behind the throne, or perhaps being abused in revenge for putting the President through hell as a junior officer. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The President trusted Wachter completely and expected him to be as honest as he had been as a younger officer, supervising a new and very inexperienced officer.

  “We don’t know anything about them,” the General continued. “They might be sincere about wanting to talk to you, but what happens if they kill you, or simply keep you onboard their ship?”

  “That would be an act of war,” the President pointed out. “Jacob” – Vice President Jacob Thornton – “becomes President and we’re at war with an alien race.”

  “But we’d also be hamstrung,” Wachter insisted. “What happens if they keep you for longer than a day, or maybe two days? W
e’d have to cover for your absence. The strategic defence systems require authorisation directly from the President to fire. This wouldn’t be a case of you being assassinated, or suffering a major heart attack, but a case when no one knows what the fuck is going on. The risks are too high, Andy.”

  “The risks of not going are also too high,” the President said. “They lost a craft near one of our most vital military bases. I can’t help but agree with the analysts who find that ominous. If there’s a chance that we can open relationships with them, in light of the latest demonstration of their capabilities, then we have to take it. We’re naked and almost defenceless against a foe that controls the high orbitals.”

  They shared a grim look. The alien message had been inserted – somehow – into the Majestic Satellite Communications Network, a highly-classified system used for top secret discussions between the President, the Pentagon and the commanders in the field. It was so secret that no one outside the Federal Government was supposed to know about it and, indeed, most of the Government didn’t know about its existence. The aliens had not only uploaded a message into the network, but they’d encrypted it using one of the latest American encryption protocols, generated by a quantum computer. The President wasn't blind to the significance of the gesture. The aliens had not only shown that they knew who to approach for a meeting, but that they could hack into American secure communications, the most secure in the world, at will. The entire secure communications network could no longer be trusted.

  “There is another issue,” Hubert Dotson said. The Secretary of State looked grim, but intensely focused. “How do we know that we’re the only nation to have a crashed ship, or to have been approached by the aliens?”