Earth To Centauri_Alien Hunt

by Kumar L

  He just wished that Captain Anara would be able to make it to the hospital in time. For the moment, there was not much for him to do. He was going to stand aside and let the experts handle his patient. She was still in full quarantine and he was happy there'd been no breaches. The Class 1 clean room was holding out well and he did not anticipate any further problems in the quarantine for a few more weeks. He was already working on the regimen to be adopted to develop immunity for the child and mother, which would allow them to live healthy lives on Earth.

  For the hundredth time, he glanced at his wrist to see if any further messages had been received from the captain. There was still no word if she'd be able to make it. Her last few messages had been very cryptic and brief. He understood that she was now extremely busy with the operation to trace the aliens who he expected were somewhere nearby. He decided to drop her another line and then leave it at that. She would respond whenever possible and there were still a few more hours to go.

  There was one more thing he needed to check. “Narada?” he raised the AI on his communicator, tapping his palm.

  “Yes, Dr. Khan? I assume you are calling me to check on the progress of your request?”

  “Yes, Narada. Have you got anything?”

  “I have completed comparison of Joe and Lucy’s DNA with the DNA samples of 1.3 billion people till now. You must appreciate, doctor, that the humans on HuZryss had parents who lived as far back as 140 years. They are all long dead. Their genetic records are not available in any database. With the primitive technology of that period, it is likely their DNA was never collected or analysed. So we have to fall back on an indirect method, and that is to look for a match in the general population to locate their parents' progeny. This may lead us to their great-grandchildren who might be living today. The percentage of genes that match with the current living blood relatives would be less than 3%. It's like finding a proverbial needle in a haystack. I will be able to give you a better answer when at least 8 billion DNA samples have been compared, that is 80% of the living population."

  “Spare me the math, Narada. Is there any way we can narrow down the search?”

  “If we can eliminate some specific genetic or racial types and narrow our geographical parameters, we might be able to move faster.”

  Dr. Khan thought this through. “We know the human eggs were carried on Voyager, which was launched from the USA. Also, if we only look for matches for Lucy and Joe, then we are looking at people of Caucasian descent possibly living in the USA. Will that help?”

  “I have already worked that out, doctor. It will hasten the search, but you must understand that at least five generations have passed till now from 1977. If there is a break of even one step, like a person who did not conceive or if they migrated out of the country, we may miss the match in the reduced sample.”

  The damned AIs logic was sound as always, but it still did not have the human instinct. The doctor had to trust his guts that this would work.

  “Just use those constraints, Narada, narrow your search and let me know as soon as you have found something. The best gift we can give Lucy's child would be to find her family.”

  T minus 47 hours - NIA, Mumbai

  T he level of activity had gone up in the control room over the past hour. The amount of data being fed had started increasing as the teams had started work on the ground. There had been no fresh developments, and while the NIA teams had been busy executing their specific tasks, the crewmembers from Antariksh were sitting around, busy with their thoughts, feeling out of place.

  “Ma’am,” a tech called out from the team that was monitoring communications. They watched the DG walk rapidly to the particular station. Anara decided to follow her. After all, she was part of the investigation team and needed to know if something important was developing. Tej glanced at her in annoyance but did not say anything. Is she going to keep breathing down my neck? I need to put her in place.

  “What've you found?” Tej asked the technician.

  “I am not sure what this means, Ma’am, but there've been two signal bursts on this band in the last few minutes,” he pointed to a wavy line on his display.

  “So?”

  “This frequency has not been allocated for civilian use. In fact, it is not used by the police, military, or any other government organization. In all my years of service, I've never seen a signal transmitted this way. If I remember correctly, burst transmissions like these were used by spy agencies for covert communications way back in the twentieth century.”

  Tej thought this over. One anomalous signal may mean nothing, but two in a short interval, both in burst mode, set off her instincts tingling. “What else do you know?”

  “That's all, Ma’am. Just the two bursts. No further repetitions.”

  “Can you locate the source?”

  “No, I can't Ma’am. The bursts were too short and we're not set up to triangulate this frequency. I can, however, tell you that the two signals originated from different coordinates at least fifty kilometers apart, maybe more. I can, of course, set up location tracking now. It'll take a few minutes but I can't guarantee results. The signals lasted less than ten microseconds.”

  “Do it then.” She turned to face the technician's supervisor. “I want him off the regular team. Get someone else to man this station and move him to another isolated area. I want 100% non-stop coverage of this frequency. Any more signals and I need to know immediately, and I mean immediately.”

  “This may be the lead we were looking for,” she remarked to her deputy.

  “You mean it's an alien signal?”

  “Maybe. It's too early to be sure. The question is - who are they signaling to?” She left the question hanging and went back to her cabin. In her mind a thought was forming, its genesis in the ‘sleeper cells’ used by terrorists and spy agencies of the 20th century during the cold war and the terrorist campaigns.

  A person or persons was planted at the target site, months or even years in advance. For all outward appearances, they looked and behaved like perfectly ordinary citizens. They kept their heads low and led unremarkable, even mundane lives. They did not break the law or draw unwanted attention to themselves. They could be your mild-mannered neighbour or a petty shopkeeper. Their job was to gather information and be available when activated by secret messages. Hence the name ‘sleeper'.

  But Tej was puzzled. Sleeper cells took months if not years to activate. The handling agency needed to set up and formulate false identities that would withstand detailed scrutiny. That required time, money, and exhaustive long-term planning. But these aliens had never visited Earth. So how would it be possible for them to set up sleeper cells? And if there were no ‘sleepers’, then who was exchanging messages? It didn't make any sense. If she proceeded on the assumption that the signals were related to the aliens, then there was only one other alternative - there was a turncoat within the system. As farfetched this thought may be, it was the only logical possibility.

  Tej set up a secure link with the counter-espionage chief. A few coded messages later, surveillance had been mounted on all personnel working at the NIA on the tracking mission. She had passed it off as a routine background check on the staff working on a sensitive operation. However, another thought nagged at the back of her mind. She was missing something or someone. She could not quite put her finger on it. She surveyed the whole room, observing each person as they went about their tasks. Her eyes settled on the three crewmembers from Antariksh, and a light bulb went on in her head.

  Anara, Ryan, and Rawat sat huddled in the corner of the conference room. Anara was anxious now. She'd reached a similar conclusion as the DG. There were sufficient similarities between the SOS signal received many years ago, which had set off the quest to reach Centauri, and this burst transmission that used an archaic method on an unknown frequency. Her senses were tingling. She was not a trained investigator but years of running operations had taught her to rely on her intuition. She wished Director Srin
ivas was around so that she could discuss this with him. His tragic death in the moon transport accident a few weeks back had robbed her of the support of the one person she considered to be her biggest mentor and friend. She had not even had time to grieve over the loss.

  If her surmise was accurate, it was doubly damning - to her and her crew. The same thought kept running over and over in her mind - someone on her ship had turned over to the enemy, and she needed to find out who it was.

  ********

  “How is the search progressing?” asked ‘5’.

  “They are on the job. We need to give them time. They have virtually no leads to go on but I am confident of their ability,” replied ‘3’, the PM.

  “Our teams are also standing by to assist, if you require their help,” offered ‘2’.

  The PM acknowledged her. “Whichever way the events play out over the next few days, we must also keep in mind that we may need to go on the offensive.”

  “What is the latest update on the ship’s overhaul?” asked ‘1’.

  “There is extensive work required to be done. It will need time. I have asked them to expedite repairs and gear up for the next mission at the earliest. The engineers estimate it to take at least four more weeks.”

  That means I have that much time for preparations. Too short to confer with the Chairman. The aliens are on their own for now. Let the NIA locate them first, then I will activate my plan – thought ‘5’ as he tuned out the rest of the meeting.

  T minus 46 hours - chorbazaar, Mumbai

  T he most significant problem solved, he now made his way to the area known as chorbazaar, literally the thieves-market. It was a run-down area, famous as a flea market many decades. Here one could find antiques, art deco, stolen items as well as uniforms of every shape, size, and branch of the government. All available at throwaway prices. He was interested in acquiring the two items - communication sets and camouflage outfits. He remembered his own training - the best place to hide was in plain sight. How this would work with aliens with six limbs was something he'd have to work out. Fortunately for him, the chorbazaar came to life only at night, and he could safely shop in the anonymity provided by the semi-darkened streets.

  Slowly making his way through the narrow, meandering streets, he kept an eye on the stalls while avoiding the scores of human and holographic vendors peddling everything from short eats to local delicacies. The fuel which drove the shoppers and the sellers alike was tea - endless cups of it. People and robots milled about enhancing the look and feel of a flea market. The chorbazaar was tolerated by an indulgent government and had been preserved as a heritage site. Even the local police gave it a wide berth.

  He noted a couple of stalls that looked promising. One of them had old electronics including a couple of mid-twenty-first century walkie-talkies and the other had coveralls of the type used by oil rig or factory workers.

  Just to be on the safe side, he did a couple of circuits of the market to ensure he was not being followed before circling back to the old man with the walkie-talkies. It was relatively easy to pretend to be a collector of communication equipment, and surprisingly he didn't have to bargain hard. It seemed there were very few people looking for fifty-year-old communications equipment. He used one of the cards to transfer the money and even managed to score a couple of batteries and chargers for the handsets. Once he put in the batteries, he was pleased to see that the sets still worked perfectly. The range would be somewhat limited but sufficient for his need. They could discard the alien communication technology. He was just not comfortable with something with which he was not familiar.

  His next stop was at the clothes stall where he discarded the bright orange-coloured coveralls for darker grey boiler suits. He took two of the largest sizes available that he felt would fit the aliens. He also got some boots to go with it. Then he bought a couple of blue helmets to complete the outfit along with a few nose masks cum respirators. He was pleased with his purchase. Clad in the overalls, with helmets and masks the aliens could easily pass off as members of a work crew.

  He put all the items in a duffel bag and paid off the vendor, while carefully switching off and securing the walkie-talkies. His first card exhausted, he threw it in an open drain and walked off with hurried steps to his next stop. Time was short.

  A few blocks away, he reached a row of garages where a large number of travel pods were parked for repairs. Going inside a grubby looking garage, he found a mechanic assembling one of the pods. A terse negotiation later, money exchanged hands, and he was the proud owner of a travel pod, disconnected from the grid and capable of manual piloting in test mode. It was sufficient. He was also pleased with his storytelling skills. He'd informed the mechanic that he was off to a secret meeting with his lover who was married and if the jealous husband found them out, there would be hell to pay. The long-suffering mechanic with five children back at home, sympathised with his situation, while secretly coveting the pleasurable evening awaiting the stranger.

  His work in the area done, he got into the pod, threw the duffel at his feet and activated the controls. He also switched off the local piloting guide radar that was meant to keep him safe from collisions with the rest of the autonomous networked pods. He needed to pilot this thing manually to avoid detection. Once again his training would come to his help. As long as he kept his height below a hundred meters, theoretically he should be able to travel safely. He turned the pod east and settled it into a slow course toward Panvel. Now was not the time to attract attention with undue haste.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was nearing the location of the aliens. There had, unexpectedly, been a lot of traffic on the way. He suspected it was linked to the search for the aliens. He'd dutifully kept off the main driveways to ensure minimal chances of running into a search patrol. He shut down the engines and landed softly a hundred meters from the railway station. He sat still for five minutes listening for sounds of pursuit or tracking signals before opening the doors and stepping out onto the grass. He pushed the pod under the overhang of a large tree and threw some twigs and branches over it to obscure the shape, and carefully walked off towards the station.

  He knew that this was the correct location, but he had no idea where the aliens would be hiding. He decided to risk another short burst on the radio to locate the team. The answer was almost instantaneous as Jur shared the location. He walked the short distance and crossed the rusting rails to climb the derelict building. He looked around carefully for any video or security systems. Not that he expected anyone to bother about a deserted place like this. Climbing the two flights of stairs he paused while waiting to be shown the exact room where the aliens waited.

  Biw opened a door further down the passageway and beckoned him forward. As he entered the room, it took his eyes some time to adjust to the darkness. Despite his years of military training, he was still taken aback by the appearance of Jur. This guy is packing a punch, he thought, looking at all the gear the alien was carrying.

  Well, here I am, and this is how it starts.

  No pleasantries were exchanged, and this was fine with him. Setting his duffel down on the dusty floor he pulled out his purchases. He handed over the overalls first and motioned them to put those on. The aliens first looked at all the gear in front of them and then at each other. They shook their heads and indicated they were just fine with the way they were dressed at the moment. Jur was more comfortable in the body suits with armour and weapons.

  He tried to argue the point but gave up in the face of their stubbornness. He'd have to think of some other means. He couldn't take them where they wanted to go while they looked like - well - like aliens. This was going to be troublesome, he decided, especially looking at Jur who towered head and shoulders above the other two. The Type-4 rifle on its back plus the EVA suit gave it even much more bulk.

  He would have to find other means as the aliens steadfastly refused to change their appearance. He wasn't sure anything else could be done at such short not
ice. He glanced over at the rest of the stuff they were carrying and was mystified with the large container kept in the corner of the room. He wondered what that contained, not that it mattered to him.

  Next to turn up from his duffel bag were the three walkie-talkies. Military grade with a scrambled frequency even though they were hopelessly outdated. Being old was of no consequence for this mission. They just needed secure communication channels in case they became separated and needed to communicate. He had his ComNet, but the aliens did not. But before they were to proceed any further, he needed to be paid. He decided the taller guy was the leader but all the talking so far had been done by the other person.

  “Let's get a couple of things right on the table,” he started a little apprehensive, hoping his nervousness would not show up in his voice. “I don't care what you guys are up to, but if you need my help, I need to know what you are planning to do. And … I hope you have my payment.”

  “I have your payment,” started Biw, while slowly getting up from the perch and pacing in front of him, “but how do we know we can trust you?” Biw's command of the language was sufficiently strong now, and Biw hoped the tone conveyed menace - they needed the guy in their control.

  Time to play his own games. “You do not,” he replied simply. “But seeing that you have no one else on this planet helping you, you don’t have any other choice.” He fingered the gun in his pocket. Payment be damned, he could just shoot these guys now and take what was rightfully his. But there was the matter of the promise by the Chairman. Money may run out one day but being able to run his own kingdom had its charms. And he was not sure he would be able to take both of them down. The armour looked very professional. It wasn’t something his small gun would be able to penetrate.