In the company of Maggie and the new team, the eight-hour flight seemed to pass in no time. At the moment they intersected the first cordon, all five were sitting in the pilot’s compartment.
“This is Viking, request permission to enter the protected zone.”
“Viking, this is Cerberus-8. Permission granted, proceed on same course.” The voice of the nearest patrol ship’s radio operator was heard over the loudspeaker.
“Roger,” confirmed Nick, nodding in satisfaction and making some manipulations on the console in front of him.
“You know, we ought to be able to see the cloud through the window,” James, who was observing the radar, suddenly said.
“Nick, retract the protective covers,” the captain said to the pilot.
The sheets of armour plating slowly parted sideways, opening up a splendid view of the starry sky. Nick switched off the light in the pilot’s compartment, leaving only the individual lighting for each seat. All five began to stare into the black sky.
“Which direction is it in?” asked Maggie.
Nick pointed towards the right-hand window.
“At two o’clock.”
“There it is, I see it!” James suddenly exclaimed excitedly.
Kevin raised the binoculars he had on his knees and peered through the lenses.
Steve also peered as hard as he could into the black sky, but he couldn’t see anything remotely resembling a cloud. Just the usual black sky with the bright lights of stars.
“Uh-huh. I can see it too. It’s a dark grey colour,” reported the captain. Having found the cloud, he recorded its position so that the binoculars, with their built-in gyroscopes, would remember the recorded direction.
“Would you like to take a look?” he asked, turning towards his passengers. “Ladies first,” he said, handing the binoculars to Maggie, who was so excited, she even forgot to thank him. Clumsily holding the binoculars, she began to stare into the darkness.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “I think it’s opalescing, rather like a rainbow. What do you think, Steve?” she asked, passing him the binoculars.
Steve’s heart suddenly began to beat loudly. He had already seen the aliens. Or rather, he was the first man on Earth to have seen photographs of the droplet-shaped ship orbiting around Jupiter. But they were only photographs. And now he had only to bring the binoculars to his eyes and he would have a live view of an artefact created by another civilisation. Something like that doesn’t happen very often.
Through the lenses, the stars were brighter still and appeared to be nearer. In the left corner a green arrow was winking, indicating the location of the cloud. Steve slowly moved the binoculars in that direction, and a dark grey formation of a somewhat oblate spherical shape floated into his field of vision.
At first glance, its structure was static, but looking more closely, one could just about make out that the substance the cloud consisted of appeared to be slowly bubbling, as when milk is poured into black coffee. A wave, or something like an electrical discharge, kept running across its surface. Because of the amplified stereo effect, the eyes could clearly distinguish the three-dimensional nature of the cloud and its colossal size.
“You can add a bit of speed,” said the captain. “At 50,000, start asking,” he said, addressing the radio operator.
The ship slowly increased speed and continued its approach. It soon became the spacecraft closest to the cloud.
“Passing 50,000 mark,” reported the pilot to the radio operator.
“Roger. Beginning contact,” the operator replied, and the text of the communication session appeared on the screen so that everyone would see in real time how it was going.
VIKING: I have the delegation of our civilisation on board. At one thousand, I shall synchronise speed with the cloud.
ALIEN: Information noted.
It took the alien several seconds to reply.
“Is there any kind of radiation coming our way?” asked the captain.
“Not a trace, sir,” replied the radio operator.
Kevin shook his head in disbelief.
“No, they must be tracking us somehow. No way can I believe that we’re not of interest to them,” he said, and then looked at Steve and Maggie in turn.
“OK. Your time has come.”
Steve got into his spacesuit much quicker than Maggie. He’d had to put one on so often recently that his actions were already largely automatic.
Maggie had a problem with her helmet. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she couldn’t find any way of fitting it in. She had almost succeeded in putting the helmet on, but the end of her ponytail kept getting caught between the suit and the helmet.
“Hang on, I’ll help you,” said Steve after her fifth unsuccessful attempt.
He came up to her from behind and helped to hold the ponytail while she put the helmet on. With his help, they managed it at the first attempt.
“Thank you,” said Maggie softly when the helmet was finally slotted into place in the neck of the spacesuit. Her cheeks were rather red, either from stress or from embarrassment. Steve just nodded in reply.
Lowering their visors, they entered the capsule and took their places. Steve looked at the console in front of him, strapped himself in and signalled to the camera that everything was ready.
The hatch of their compartment of the capsule slowly closed and rotated a few times, screwing itself firmly into its thread. The contact faces were polished to the ideal smoothness, making the contact clearances so small that the forces of intermolecular attraction at once bonded them together completely.
“Prepare for start!” came the captain’s voice.
“Let’s go!” said Steve. He threw a glance at Maggie, who returned it. Her eyes were wide open. She was trying as hard as she could not to show it, but Steve did not miss the sparks of fear in her eyes. Damn! And his own heart had fallen into his boots too. He took her hand, and she firmly pressed his palm with her fingers in return.
The telescopic lock noiselessly opened in front of their eyes. The capsule totally insulated its passengers from external sounds, but Steve could sense they were moving. The black gap into open space slowly floated towards them. At that moment his fear left him, as if it had evaporated and vanished into open space along with the air from the cargo compartment. It was replaced by curiosity.
There was already a drone waiting for them outside, to tow their capsule to the meeting place. It was being remotely controlled by the pilot.
“Nick, you haven’t forgotten that it’s still too early to throw us into the Sun, have you?” asked Steve.
“Oh, is it? I thought I could do that now. I’m joking. I planned to pull Maggie out first, and throw you as far as possible. What do you think?”
Maggie tittered and looked playfully at Steve. He winked at her.
“Excellent plan.”
“OK, that’s enough of playing the fool. Steve, Maggie, when the drone pulls you, the capsule may shake. Watch out for it!” the captain intervened.
The drone caught the capsule neatly, and sharply began to tow it away from the ship. When the ship was so far away that it was just a bright point, the drone slowed down. Its steering jets flared a few times, correcting the capsule’s orbit, then it detached itself.
“You are in the initial position. Steve, check your trajectory again,” ordered the pilot. The expression on his face, relayed from on board the ship, was absolutely serious; his joking mood had vanished without trace.
Steve leaned toward the console in front of him. The picture from the camera pointing towards the cloud had something like a sight on it. With its aid, it was quite clear that the capsule was behind the aliens on an absolutely identical trajectory.
“I confirm synchronisation. Excellent work, Nick,” complimented Steve.
“Received,” said the pilot. “I’m taking it back to the ship.”
The drone’s main engines flared up, then it disappeared into the darkness. A minute later, the radio
came alive again. This time it was the captain on the line.
“Maggie, Steve, that’s all from us. According to protocol, only you can now communicate with the cloud. Permission granted for contact when ready.”
Steve looked at Maggie.
“The table is laid, now all we have to do is invite the guests,” he said, and placed his finger over the button. As soon as he pressed it, the capsule’s radio would send a pre-prepared text to the aliens, inviting them on board. He delayed for another few seconds, took a deep breath, and pressed the button.
3
Having waited several minutes after sending the invitation to the aliens without any reply, Steve signalled to the computer to connect him with Viking.
“Kevin, no reply yet. What shall we do?”
“The ELINT guys see something. They report that the cloud is reconfiguring itself,” replied Kevin.
“What’s it doing?” Maggie didn’t understand.
Steve just shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve no idea what it means.”
At that moment, something like a feeler began to stretch out from the cloud, extending directly towards the capsule. An analogy with an amoeba instantly flashed into Steve’s head. If bacteria could see, they would probably see just such a picture in the micro-world when a pseudopod stretched out to them before eating them.
“It’s like an amoeba,” said Maggie suddenly, as if reading Steve’s mind.
“Yes, it’s not a pleasant sensation,” replied Steve thoughtfully.
All at once, the formation of the feeler stopped and a bright point flew out of it.
“A spacecraft has come out of the cloud. Heading for the rendezvous point. ETA about one minute,” reported Kevin. Viking was receiving up-to-the-minute information from all the ships observing the cloud and relaying it to the capsule.
Steve stared at the point of light, which seemed to be staying in one place. He glanced at the console. The distance between them was decreasing rapidly. Apparently the spacecraft was flying directly towards them, which was why it appeared to be standing still.
But then the point became brighter, like a light bulb connected to a circuit in which the voltage was increasing. It looked as if it would blow up at any moment from excess voltage. Then the point moved sharply to the right and disappeared.
Steve had hardly had time to be surprised by this turn of events when he saw that the alien ship was right in front of his nose, only a few dozen metres from the capsule. He took a quick glance at the console, where the flight trajectory was shown, and then back to the alien ship. Even this short time interval was enough for him to realise that the aliens had flown around the capsule and come to a sudden halt directly in front of the entrance to the open compartment.
“Kevin, did you see that?” asked Steve in an astounded voice.
“Uh-huh. If we’d done that, the meat would have flown off our bones,” replied Kevin.
“Huh! Meat... There would be nothing left of the bones but dust,” put in Nick.
“Did you manage to calculate the acceleration?” asked Steve.
“More than 80,000 g at its peak.”
“They must have some way of damping the force of inertia inside the ship. How do they do that?” muttered Steve.
Maggie looked at him and silently mimed “Wow!” with her lips. Steve nodded in reply and again watched the alien ship intently.
Its appearance was familiar: aerodynamic shape, dull metallic colour. The ship was just like the first visitor, the pictures of which Steve had stared at so exhaustively.
The first ship, as it orbited Jupiter, was photographed from all possible directions in all imaginable spectra. Unfortunately, there was one shortcoming common to all these photographs. It was not possible to make out any details on a single one of them. The alien ships had an absolutely aerodynamic skin with no visible details whatsoever. It was not even possible to make out the position of their engines. The ships had an absolutely uniform surface temperature. And now, with the ship only some 50 metres away, it was the same story.
A small fragment suddenly detached itself from the ship and, moving quite slowly now, set off towards the capsule. It seemed to Steve that at the moment of separation, a barely noticeable wave passed over the surface of the ship, as if it were made of liquid mercury, which had adopted this strange shape for some unknown reason.
“Maggie,” called Steve almost in a whisper, as if he feared the aliens might overhear him. This was foolish, of course. Inside their spacesuits with their visors down, they conversed with each other via a laser link.
Maggie was so involved in what was going on that she didn’t hear him calling her.
“Maggie,” called Steve again. Still no reaction.
He stretched out his hand, but her seat was too far away. He had to lean out of his chair, and only then was he able to reach her shoulder.
“Maggie!” he called, louder this time.
“Eh? Oh, sorry.”
“That’s OK. Did you see where it came from?” asked Steve, pointing to the approaching object.
“Yes, I think it was from the side somewhere. From the side facing us.”
“Did you see the wave?”
“Yes, there was something like that.”
Steve nodded in satisfaction and sat back in his seat. So he hadn’t imagined it.
Meanwhile, the object approached the capsule and stopped a few metres away. Shelby had talked things over with the aliens and explained the structure of the capsule, so they should know the position of the entrance intended for them.
Three things came out of the object, and the shape of their silhouettes left no doubt. They were living beings.
The three slowly approached the capsule, moving in triangular formation, and since the entrance was too small for all three at the same time, they lined up in single file. One after the other, they smoothly entered their compartment, approached the screen and froze in expectation.
If his helmet had not been so constricting, Steve’s jaw would probably have dropped involuntarily. He slowly turned his head towards Maggie. They exchanged looks. Her face expressed extreme amazement.
As well it might. The three aliens, who were dressed in spacesuits, had the shape of typical primates. An elongated body, four limbs and a head. The height of all three was about that of a very tall man, and as far as could be judged from the proportions one could guess at through the spacesuits, they had athletic-looking bodies. Two had rather broad hips, a readily apparent waist and an expanding rib cage. It was easy to guess from their figures that they were female. The third figure was a little taller and had a more massive architecture, with narrower hips and much broader shoulders.
To see humanoid beings was unexpected, but not shockingly so. Yet although the appearance of the aliens was familiar, there was something about them that inspired horror.
When the beings approached the screen separating them from Steve and Maggie, the place where the visor should be suddenly cleared and became transparent. The illumination in the capsule was excellent, and Maggie and Steve found three absolutely normal human faces before them.
Their expressions were indifferently welcoming; there was even the sign of something like a smile in the corners of their mouths. But those faces...
Maggie gripped Steve’s hand hard. By the strength of her grip, he realised that she felt sick to her stomach. He himself did not feel well either. Through the glass, floating unnaturally in the air and looking at them with fixed frozen smiles, were the faces of three living corpses.
4
Apart from the presidential symbols everywhere, the internal decor of the commander-in-chief’s bunker in no way differed from the military bunkers, with their concrete walls and spartan appearance. All the same, the president had planned to mark the second anniversary of his accession to the post in rather more picturesque surroundings. The unexpected appearance of the aliens, however, had upset these plans.
Two years ago, making his t
riumphal speech on the occasion of his inauguration, he was already a politician who had seen a great deal, considering his eight years of experience as the mayor of a medium size floating super-city. In spite of this, the talk in the corridors of power kept returning to the theme of his competence, even during his election campaign. Many doubted that his experience of managing a floating city, even one with ten million inhabitants, would be sufficient for him to be entrusted with the reins of a country with a population of five billion.
In human society, people have always been divided by some feature or other. In the president’s case, the fact that he had been born, had grown up, and had made his political career in a floating super-city automatically classified him among the marine animals, about which there was a persistent belief that, unlike land animals, they were inconstant in their views, too sensitive and kind for large-scale politics, and in the habit of trusting everyone they dealt with.
At various parties, when the level of alcohol in the blood was high enough to even out the difference between what people thought and what they said, he had had to hear his dry-land colleagues say over and over again: “John, you are too trustful, you know.”
In spite of all that, he succeeded in knocking his competitors out of the election race, and by the time he laid his right hand on the Constitution and pronounced the words of the presidential oath, few if any of the insiders considered the elected president naïve. After all, the criterion of the truth in such matters lies in the practical result, and this showed that he could be a cunning fox when needed.
John took the words of warning seriously. While still studying at university, he was sure that if you knew how to listen at the right moment, you might hear much more than the speaker intended. Nevertheless, when he looked back at himself two years ago, standing in front of the guests at the inauguration ceremony and making his first speech as president, his thoughts at that time now seemed to him to have been ridiculously naïve.
He was already long past the political age of idealising state control. But he wanted to make his mark in the president’s seat, not just govern the state. No, he promised himself that he would shake up the whole of mankind. The difficulty was finding a suitable project that corresponded to the magnificence of his plans and, at the same time, was realistic enough to obtain the support of parliament to finance it.
Beyond the Event Horizon - Episode Three Page 2