Outside Context Problem: Book 01 - Outside Context Problem

by Christopher Nuttall

  She stepped out of the radio room and suddenly felt weak at the knees, as if she were going to faint. She hadn’t really taken her job seriously, not as anything more than just another job. If SETI had succeeded, if a radio signal had been detected from another star, it wouldn’t have made that much difference to Earth. It would be years before humanity could send a reply, or get a message back after they replied, but an alien starship in the solar system was something else again. The world was going to change. She glanced around her, taking in the hundreds of fantasy aliens displayed on the walls, and realised for the first time how silly most of them looked. The entire world looked increasingly surreal.

  Carefully, she pulled herself forward until she could walk normally again. She had a job to do and she wasn't going to faint, not until afterwards. SETI needed her to remain on top of things until her job was done.

  ***

  Karen endured a series of hugs from the other interns – most of whom were nerds who had never touched a girl in their lives – and the older researchers before escaping back to her console. Her mind kept humming a single thought – I’m going to be famous – yet she was scared. She’d known that the source was within the solar system, but she hadn’t thought about the implications until Mickey pointed them out. The aliens weren't just saying hello to Planet Earth, they’d invited themselves over for tea. It was beyond belief. It couldn’t be happening. Part of her just wanted to crawl up in a corner and hide, or find proof that her signal wasn't alien after all, even if it meant that she would become the laughing stock of the world. It couldn’t be happening…

  But it was.

  Slowly, she started to key in commands into her console. The alien signal was using a rotating modulation, perhaps to add a random variable that would make it out as being of artificial origin, but there were very definitely patterns in it. They’d repeated something ten times, then something else another ten times, and then something else again. She deduced that it was a simple case of them repeating the signal to ensure that nothing was lost in transmission – a common problem in space – and it suggested that the aliens wanted their signals to be understood. Carefully, she started to examine the signal.

  All of the experts agreed that deciphering an alien signal could take years. Aliens came from completely different cultures and building up a common understanding would be extremely difficult, even with both sides trying their hardest to understand one another. She’d read papers that suggested that Dolphins and Chimps were actually intelligent, yet the surest proof that they were not was that they had never attempted to communicate with humans, if only to tell them to stop mucking up the oceans. The signal should have taken years to decipher.

  She succeeded on her very first try.

  Chapter Seventeen

  SETI Institute, California, USA

  Day 20

  Abigail caught her breath as she pushed her way into the lecture hall. It had been sheer luck that she’d been in California when the alien signal had been detected – she’d gone to Camp Pendleton in hopes of tracking down a source who had implied that he would tell her more in person, only to refuse to even meet her when she had arrived – and, just for the moment, she hated it. The room was normally sparsely populated – SETI just wasn't very important in a world that held pop stars and other more newsworthy items – but today it was standing room only. She recognised some famous media faces among the gathered crowd, all chatting away excitedly. They knew that something was up.

  The news had broken only two hours ago, after someone had released a statement onto the World Wide Web. The media hadn’t taken it seriously at first until reporters with links to SETI had picked up on the story, followed by bloggers with a reputation for getting their facts right. Abigail knew that both Fox and CNN had been seriously embarrassed by bloggers from time to time – they’d published inaccurate information and bloggers had caught them at it – yet she knew better than to dismiss them as unpaid amateurs. There were reporters who regarded their career as just a job, compromising their principles to fit in with the editorial slant of their organisations, but the bloggers did it as a labour of love. They were more trusted by the news-reading public than either Fox or CNN – or, for that matter, the World News Network. It was humiliating to admit to how badly the media had lost the public’s trust, but Abigail’s superiors had seen it as an opportunity, helping to sort out the trustworthy bloggers from the net’s hordes of liars and uninformed. If most of the bloggers believed something to be true, it probably was…although even they had been fooled from time to time.

  She found a corner and pulled out her Smartphone, checking the feed from her superiors and three different blogs. Radio telescopes covering the side of the planet facing the signal’s source – the bloggers were already claiming that the source was within the solar system and therefore had to be an alien starship, although a sizable minority were under the impression that it was a lost human probe – had not only confirmed the signal’s existence, but that it wasn't coming from any known human satellite or probe. The mood in the astronomical community was one of cautious interest. SETI had been a bastard child for so long that it was a little late to be hopping on the bandwagon, although Abigail was pretty sure that universities would be trying to use it to gain more funding for their own space studies departments. It could revitalise space exploration.

  The bloggers seemed to share the same opinion. Many of them had pointed out that if the aliens actually did have a starship within the solar system, it would mean that humanity would be talking to the aliens in person, perhaps within as little as a week. Others wondered if it was the opening moves in an alien invasion, although they were dismissed as roundly paranoid. Skywatch – the under-funded organisation charged with watching for asteroids that might impact the Earth and ruin humanity’s day – hadn’t picked up the alien ship before it had started sending the signal. Why would anyone, the bloggers asked, bother to announce the invasion before launching the attack? The paranoid ones countered that perhaps the signal was a challenge to do battle and the discussions had rapidly degenerated into flame wars. Abigail couldn’t decide what she thought, personally. A million light years seemed a long way to come for a fight.

  She looked over at the cameras the Fox Network had sent along and concealed a smile. The networks – and the streaming video that would be sent over the net – had argued over how many cameras should be placed within the chamber. They’d finally conceded – Daisy Fairchild, whatever else she happened to be, was a formidable negotiator – that all of the networks would have immediate access to the footage shot by one team, chosen by lot. WNN would be watching Fox like a hawk, suspecting that a quick-thinking newsman might conceal footage to give Fox an exclusive, but it hardly mattered. The press conference would be going out live.

  “If I could have your attention, please,” a voice said. Abigail turned her head to see Daisy Fairchild standing on the stage, projecting her voice over the crowd. She was clearly an old pro at holding press conferences, for she ignored all of the shouted questions and waited patiently for them to settle down. It made a change from the normal pushy – if not downright rude – behaviour that most people allowed reporters to get away with, but then, Daisy had something they wanted desperately. “I have a short statement and then I will answer questions.”

  The room became quiet as the reporters settled down to listen. “Three hours ago, a signal of unknown origin was detected by one of SETI’s researchers,” she said, very calmly. Abigail could tell that she was delighted, and scared. “The signal was put through the most extensive verification procedure we have developed in order to attempt to confirm its origins. We were able to triangulate the source of the signal and confirm that it did not originate from any known space probe launched from Earth.”

  There was a chilling, pregnant silence. “We have confirmed our results with hundreds of other observatory stations around the world,” Daisy continued. “There is no longer any room for doubt. The signal is
coming from an extraterrestrial source.”

  Abigail winced as the room erupted in uproar, with reporters shouting questions at Daisy, and then yelling at each other to shut up and let her answer their questions. Daisy waited, apparently untroubled by the roar of the crowd, until the sound slowly died away, allowing her to speak again. She seemed more amused than anything else.

  “The signal may take years to decipher,” she concluded, “but one thing is clear. From this moment on, the human race is no longer alone.”

  The reporters kept shouting out questions, drowning each other out in an echoing tirade. Abigail half-covered her ears to block out the din, knowing that Daisy wasn't speaking, but waiting for the noise to die down again. Some of the reporters seemed to be in flat denial and were howling accusations that SETI was telling lies as a publicity stunt, or that it was covering up the true nature of the aliens. Abigail didn’t believe either theory. Even if some madman at SETI had come up with a plan to fake an alien signal, she couldn’t see every other observatory in the world going along with it, particularly not to please SETI. Plenty of scientists regarded SETI as an upstart and would have been quite happy to put the boot in. As for covering up the true nature of the aliens…well, unless SETI had already deciphered the signal, how could they have even begun a cover up?

  “So,” one of the reporters managed to say, finally. “Does that mean that they have a ship in the solar system?”

  “It is one possibility,” Daisy acknowledged. “There are others. We could be dealing with some alien version of the Voyager or Pioneer space probes” – Abigail was unsurprised to see that most of the reporters looked blank at those famous names – “or perhaps we’re picking up an alien signal coming out of a wormhole, or a space-time distortion. We have been unable, as yet, to get any confirmation from either orbiting or ground-based telescopes. They’ve been booked up for the next month and untangling them is proving a hassle.”

  One that might be resolved just by dropping that comment in the midst of the media’s feeding frenzy, Abigail reflected, and then a nasty thought occurred to her. The alien signal wasn't coming from another star, but from an alien starship, one that had somehow stumbled across Earth’s solar system. The timing was suspicious, to say the least. Seventeen days ago, the United States had begun what looked like a covert military mobilisation, as if the government expected big trouble. Had they known that there was an alien starship in the solar system?

  The thought seemed ludicrous, yet it made an alarming amount of sense. The increased number of reservists being called back to duty, the sudden changes in military patterns, the deployment of antimissile systems all across the United States…and, strangest of all, the recent changes in the military’s organisation. There were ten uniformed commands under the Department of Defence, including the United States Strategic Command, the Air Force Space Command and United States Northern Command, all of which held some degree of responsibility for space defence. The latter, in particular, was closely linked with Canada. If the reports were to be believed, the United States Strategic Command had effectively taken over the other two, with nary a protest. It made no sense to her.

  She knew, from an old source that used to work for the USAF, that all ten of the uniformed commands regarded each other as bitter enemies, particularly when it came to funding. Any attempt to merge the three should have resulted in a particularly nasty political catfight – there were plenty of politicians with an interest in keeping all three commands operative – and yet, no catfight had materialised. Her source had said, quite clearly, that the junior and middle-ranking levels were angry and suspicious, but the senior levels had moved rapidly to squash protests and relieve people who refused to play ball. There hadn’t even been a whisper out of the politicians, which was even stranger. The only politician who could keep his mouth shut was a dead politician. Why had they suddenly abandoned such pork barrels?

  Another reporter shouted out a question. “Do you believe that the aliens pose a threat?”

  Daisy waited until the new uproar had died down. “There is no reason to believe that the aliens present any kind of threat,” she said, carefully. “They’ve come a very long way to say hello to us. We could at least treat them with some dignity.”

  She leaned forward, looking into the camera. “I appeal to all of humanity to refrain from sending any signals back to the alien spacecraft,” she said. “We need to agree on a unified response from the planet. This is too important to allow nationalism and our petty regional bigotries to get in the way. The alien message is meant for all of humanity.”

  “Take it to the UN,” someone shouted, provoking another argument. Some reporters agreed with the unknown speaker, while others pointed out that the aliens would be dead of old age before the UN ever came to a decision about what to send back to the alien ship. Abigail had covered the UN’s operations in some parts of the globe and hadn’t been impressed. They’d probably send the aliens a message so condescending that the aliens would immediately declare war. Why not? They’d done it in Africa and the Middle East in the past.

  “The key question of how we are to respond will have to be debated worldwide,” Daisy agreed. “I do not know how the governments will respond.”

  She seemed to smile at the reporters. “And now I would like to introduce the young woman who was responsible for this great discovery,” she said. “Please allow me to present Karen Lawton to you.”

  Abigail smiled at the girl as she stepped nervously onto the stage. She didn’t look old enough to have a period, let alone work away from home at SETI. Part of her pitied the girl, for she was about to discover that her life was no longer her own, but the rest of her mind envied her. Karen was going to fly high in the new world order. The President himself would want to meet her, the Secretary-General of the UN and the Pope would want to shake her hand…hell, and she’d probably serve as a centrefold for the sexy side of science. The fame and fortune would destroy her. Abigail had seen it before, when people won the fame lottery, or even just millions of dollars.

  Poor girl, she thought, tightly. Poor little girl.

  Silently, she composed her story in her head. It would probably be presented on the net first and only then on television. The reporting cycle was so tight these days that it was no wonder that the bloggers found so many mistakes to point out – and gloat over, as if the media had made them deliberately. Who had time for fact-checking these days?

  The questions rolled over Karen, who looked as if she wanted to flee. “What will you do now? What does the alien message say? Do you have a boyfriend? What do you do when you’re not at SETI…?”

  Very poor girl, Abigail thought.

  ***

  Only Daisy’s hand on her arm stopped Karen from fleeing at once. Modern technology might have partly eliminated the need for flashbulbs, but several camera men were still using them, making her blink every time they took a photograph. Her legs wobbled alarmingly and she could barely look down at the eyes following her every move. It felt as if she was being studied, dissected, stripped bare and then filmed in intimate detail, leaving her a shivering wreck. There were people who loved being the centre of global attention. Karen almost wished, now, that she’d allowed someone else to claim the credit.

  Her mind was spinning, as if she was slightly drunk. The alien message kept echoing in her brain. They’d wanted it to be understood, she knew; it was the only explanation that made sense. She’d once watched an episode of The Simpsons, where a weird green alien had announced that he was actually speaking his native language, but by remarkable coincidence both his language and English were exactly the same, yet that was extremely unlikely in real life. She’d worked on the assumption that it would take years to decipher the message; hell, she hadn’t even told Daisy what the message said.

  She somehow steadied herself and looked down at the reporters. It was a mistake. Their sheer presence overwhelmed her, leaving her mind staggering as they called out question after question,
all blurring together into one ghastly noise. Her mind snatched out individual questions and recoiled. She would have understood questions about the signal, or about SETI itself, but who cared about her personal life? What right had they to demand that she shared intimate details with them? She recoiled and felt Daisy’s hand, as hard as a pair of handcuffs, keeping her in place. She hated Daisy at that moment, hated her and hated herself for agreeing to be interviewed in the first place. She should never have agreed to face the baying horde. It was worse than being raped.

  “Babe,” one of the reporters shouted. Karen allowed herself to believe that he was from one of the tabloids, or some other newspaper that made its money from exploiting people. “Are you well?”

  “No,” she said, wrenching her arm away from Daisy and running off the stage. The handful of security guards Daisy had placed in the room to keep the reporters under control – “animals,” she’d called them, and she’d been right – didn’t attempt to prevent her from leaving. She ran through the door, into a small waiting room that was normally empty, and collapsed into a comfortable armchair, sobbing. She’d been a fool. She shouldn’t have tried to be famous.

  She felt a light touch on her shoulder and looked up. Daisy was standing there, her face twisted into a sympathetic smile. She was the last person Karen wanted to see at that moment – if ever – but there was no way to escape, short of running out of the building and mailing SETI her resignation in the mail. The Director looked oddly compassionate, yet Karen couldn’t forgive her for putting her in front of the reporters.

  “I suppose you’re here to spank me,” she snarled, finally. It was easy to be angry at Daisy. The Director was probably hacked off about the ruined press conference and mad at her too. “What did you tell the bastards?”