Embracing the Alien

by Geoffrey A. Landis

  “But where are we?” asked Brown.

  She shrugged. “Could be anywhere. In a gravity field like that? Spacetime is unstable.” She checked her instruments. “A type G two star, main sequence. “Seven major planets plus planetoids visible, maybe more on the other side of the star. One of the planets is an Earth-sized world with a breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere."

  Varju had been looking at his instruments as well. He looked up at Brown. “I can't calculate our galactic location. The computer can't match the star patterns with the standard galactic reference beacons. I'll try initiating an extended search of the data base."

  “Good. Keep searching. Mr. Torri: has the energy ... thing followed along with us?"

  “No,” I said.

  “Any engine power at all?"

  “Engines work fine,” said the pilot. “Came back on line like it had never been out when I reset after we hit the hole.” Not that that would do us any good. Only the core ship had the FTL drive. If we weren't there to be picked up...

  “Good,” said Brown. He opened a drinking tube and took a long, slow sip of diluted ethanol from the supply he had brought with him on board. It seemed to calm him. “So, get us into orbit."

  * * * *

  The planet was much like our pod-home, much like the humans’ Earth, although the land-masses were strange, with elongated continents straddling the north and south rotational poles, and island continents in the ocean between them. Behind it a huge comet shimmered with the cold, faint glow of hydroxl ionizing in a stellar wind.

  Brown stared out fixedly “That planet,” he said, his voice seeming puzzled. “Something ... it looks oddly familiar."

  Varju looked at him with interest. “Have you seen this world before?"

  Brown shook his head slowly without taking his eyes off the viewport. “No. No, but still ... something ... the color, the clouds...."

  “Sir?” said pilot Stakowski.

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “Yes?"

  “Sir, there's something else peculiar about this system. If you look at the screen—” She touched her keyboard. An image of the orbits of the various objects in the solar system showed on the main viewscreen. Five were parabolic orbits originating far away from the sun. “You see that there are currently five comets in the inner solar system."

  “That's a very unusual situation,” said Varju. “Normally one would expect to find at most one comet, or perhaps two, in the inner solar system at any one time."

  “What of it?” said Brown.

  “Well, this comet here—” The pilot paused.

  “What about that comet?” said Brown, his tone indicating irritation.

  “The trajectory,” Stakowski replied. “It's on a direct course toward the planet."

  “How long until impact?

  “About thirteen hours,” Varju replied.

  “Is there life on the planet?"

  “Life is abundant on the planet,” said Varju. “No signs of intelligent life, though."

  “A tragedy,” said Brown, “but what does it have to do with us? Torri, do you think we can destroy the comet before impact?"

  I worked for a moment at my station, which included full diagnostics on what insufficient weapons the human station had. “No. If the engines operated, we could try to nudge it off course. Without engines, nothing."

  Varju spoke up. “Sir. Observe. Here, on the big continent.” Varju brought up a display on the main screen. The planet showed as a grid on the screen. As Varju manipulated his console controls, the image rotated, and one area was magnified until a contour plot showed at a location near the center. A crosshair grid blinked to mark the center of the contour. “This is an infrared telescope view, but microwave or millimeter contours look the same. A complex energy field. Just one. And ... it is not an exact match, but it is in many ways similar to the energy anomaly at the black hole."

  “Anything on the radio?” said Brown. “Any attempt at communication this time?"

  I worked at my station. “Nothing. No radio emissions of any kind except solar static."

  “Apparently if we are to leave this place,” he said, “we will have to meet this ... phenomenon. Stakowski?"

  “The area is mostly jungle,” she said. “There is a clearing roughly two kilometers south-east of Varju's energy field large enough to land the station."

  “But do you think you can get this pile of junk out of orbit and land it without breaking anything?"

  “Sure,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Then do it."

  * * * *

  When the station had landed and the disturbance of the landing engines died out, Brown and I got ready to exit while Varju scanned the area. A team of three, one of each species on board. The pilot remained in her egg; she would stay there until we were safely back in space.

  I checked my weapon, a small plasma beam rifle. It was not really suitable for an unknown planet, but the humans explore with callous disregard for safety, and tend to look askance at larger weaponry carried by those on their science ships. They are the most dangerous animals on their own home planet, and expect no danger from others. Except other humans.

  Brown had no weapons, but carried a large radio to communicate back to the station (we all had suit radios as well, of course) and Varju carried an assortment of scientific equipment.

  “Looks clear,” said Brown. “Atmosphere should be okay if there's an emergency, but we'll keep suits on. Ready?"

  We were ready. Varju opened the lock, and we jumped out onto a new world.

  We had all been on landing teams before, and knew what to do. We had landed at the edge of a forest densely green with ferns and odd towering trees. Varju stepped out and surveyed with his instruments. I waited a moment to see what would happen to him. Nothing. I jumped down, ran flat out to a spot where I could see around behind the station, crouched down, and looked frantically around me, my weapon drawn and ready. I wished I could smell the air for danger, but of course the suit prevented it. Brown stepped out calmly and looked up at the comet, which loomed huge and cold in the pale blue sky.

  Varju continued surveying with a gas chromatograph. “Earthlike, a bit higher carbon dioxide.” He put down the instrument. “Seems to be hardwood forests. Very few flowering plants.” He looked in the opposite direction. “Some sort of large animals in the vicinity, I think."

  Suddenly even I could hear the crashing. A gigantic reptilian head on a snakelike neck suddenly poked out from the trees.

  I instantly aimed my weapon. It was only a small plasma beam, but a well-aimed shot might disable the beast and save our lives.

  Brown shouted. “No!"

  As my weapon discharged, Brown knocked my arm aside. The deep blue bolt skewed off to the side. No time for a second shot. Brown and I held absolutely still.

  The animal—whose head alone was as large as both of us—dipped its head down to look at us, cocked its head quizzically to the side and looked with one tiny black eye, then the other. After a long moment the beast snorted, and the head withdrew back into the underbrush.

  “Herbivore,” said Varju calmly.

  “A lucky guess,” I said. This was a survival issue; I was angry. “First-Mate Brown, why did you deflect my shot?"

  “Because I recognized that animal!” said Brown. “Varju?"

  “Quite right,” said Varju. He, too, seemed to know something I did not. “One of the saurischians, the largest land animals ever to exist on the planet Earth. Alamosaurus, judging from the size and the shape of the head. Indigenous to the late Cretaceous period of Earth history."

  “Then this planet is—"

  There was an attention beep from our radio link. Brown flicked it on.

  The voice on the radio crackled, but the tone of fear in Stakowski's voice came through clearly. “I've identified the star pattern from the computer archives!” said Stakowski. “I know what has happened! We have been displaced backward in time nearly seventy million years."

>   A buzzing sound. I turned my head to follow the motion of an insect.

  “The planet we're on is the Earth."

  The insect landed on my shoulder. It was a very large insect, perhaps a poisonous one. I raised my hand to squash it.

  “Don't harm any animals you encounter! A change in history at this point could have severe consequence a millions of years hence."

  I stopped suddenly, and gently bushed the insect off my shoulder.

  Brown pushed his mike to transmit. “Yes,” he said dryly. “We've figured that out."

  We all put away our weapons.

  Brown looked at a compass. “This way, I think."

  Varju looked toward the comet. “Sixty five million years in the past."

  Brown raised his eyebrow. “Yes?"

  “And that comet,” he gestured, “will impact in twelve hours. The catastrophe caused by the collision will cover the planet with a thick cloud of dust and smoke. The freeze will destroy every life form on the planet larger than a vraln ... larger than a rabbit. It will wipe the slate clean. And give your species a chance to take over."

  “So this comet will spell an end for the dinosaurs,” I said. I knew what dinosaurs were. I had studied the history of the humans, my strange but amiable hosts, and of their planet.

  Brown nodded. “And a beginning for us."

  My companions puzzled me. Space and time are the same, and in principle we all knew that if space flight is possible, so also must be travel in time, but the reality hadn't seemed to disturb them a bit. First-mate Brown apparently had no fear at his position; no sense of impropriety at being co-located with the ancestors of their most ancient pod.

  “Onward,” said Brown.

  We trod in the direction Varju indicated, through thick underbrush toward distant trees. Behind me, I could see Varju scan with his various scientific instruments, occasionally pausing to examine areas of unusual interest. Despite the demonstrated danger, he seemed not to be especially watchful.

  “This planet is not unlike parts of the my home world,” I said. And just as dangerous to the unwary, I thought, but kept my thoughts to myself.

  “You have animals like that?” said Brown.

  “Not quite so large, First Mate Brown. But a bit more ferocious."

  Varju was still scanning the area, oblivious. Without looking up, he said, “this is a magnificent opportunity to observe biosphere evolution—"

  Just then there was another call from the ship. Pilot Stakowski had found something she thought was of interest, and wanted Varju's opinion.

  We found a cliff wall of mostly bare rock, which I figured as probably the most defensable position we could. Brown set up a portable video screen.

  “I ran a calculation,” Stakowski said, “based on the hypothesis that the cluster of comets we observe fell into the solar system because of a perturbation of the Oort cloud by some massive object. Based on the results of the calculation, I computed the probable current location for the object and conducted a search using the long-range telescopes."

  “And?” asked Brown.

  “It's on the screen.” The view was of empty space with scattered stars, evidentally a computer-enhanced telescopic view. A blinking rectangle in the center indicated the search location.

  “Well?” said Brown. “I don't see anything there.” There was a pause. “I see. A black hole?"

  “I think so. Similar to the one in the Praesepe Cluster, perhaps slightly less massive."

  “And you believe they may be one and the same?"

  “Well ... a black hole would be expected to gain in mass over time."

  “Can we use this to get the Igloo back to our own proper time?"

  “Negative. Tidal forces near the event horizon would tear the ship apart. In any case, without FTL drive, it would take twenty years to get there."

  “Hmmmf,” said Brown. “Well, carry on with your work.” Brown folded the video and the umbrella antenna back into their box, and we continued on.

  Varju paused and frowned in concentration, tendrils stiff, scanning each side of the path. “Interesting,” he said. He shook the machine and looked at it again. “I seem to be detecting a—"

  A low resonant note, a sort of booming, vibrating warble, came from behind the treeline. I pivoted and reached for my rifle, then deliberately let my hand drop to my side. It was an order of pod survival to kill nothing here. The human pod, to be sure, but survival of an ally pod takes precedence over any individual, no matter what. At least until the alliance is dissolved. I searched for cover.

  “What was that?” said Brown.

  “Hadrosaurs,” said Varju.

  I could see their body heat reflected off the tree leaves before I could see the animals themselves. They slipped out from between the trees with amazingly silent footsteps for animals so large, a herd of fifteen of them.

  “I'll be damned,” said Brown. “Duck-billed dinosaurs with purple leather capes. Now I really have seen everything."

  They ran past on two legs, twice as tall as a human, running with a curious rolling motion, heads down and necks stretched out ahead of them. The ‘capes’ were a flap of skin, fluttering from a flagpole-like crest on the head and stretching loosely back to the shoulderblades. The hadrosaurs did not even spare us a glance as they ran past, blood pulsing hot patterns across their skin. They silently vanished into the forest behind us. They were fast, and in a moment nothing was left of them but the swirls of heated air from their labored breathing.

  Behind them the woods still rustled. “And apparently also a large theropod,” said Varju.

  “A what?"

  The warbling roar repeated, and branches shook. A tree crashed forward into the clearing where we stood, and suddenly a gigantic hot-blooded shape loomed up half-visible behind the trees.

  In a moment a huge head rose up above the highest branches of the treeline. This was no gentle plant-eating reptile. Even my inadequate knowledge of extinct Earth animals could recognize this one. It was the king of the giant lizards: a tyrannosaur. It turned sideways and a huge eye looked down. The mouth opened, showing large daggerlike teeth, and the dinosaur roared again.

  Brown and I looked up in awe.

  “A large, carnivorous dinosaur."

  “Don't shoot!” shouted Brown. “Run!"

  The dinosaur's shadow fell over us. We turned and ran. With a loud crash, another tree shattered and fell. The roar repeated. I looked behind me. The beast stood motionless on top of the fallen trees, its head turned sideways to watch us.

  We ran. A large boulder blocked the path; Brown cut to the left around it; I and Varju dodged to the right and through a narrow cleft in the red sandstone cliff face.

  The tyrannosaur looked to the left, saw Brown, and with a jerky motion slued around to follow. It moved with incredible swiftness for a beast so large, running with its tail stiff out behind it and its back almost horizontal.

  I scrambled up the rock face and turned to look back. From my new angle it was clear that the other path came to a dead end at the face of the cliff, with no convenient niches to hide in and rock walls too steep to climb. I stuck my head out to look for Brown.

  He looked left and right, but saw no escape. The shadow of the tyrannosaur rose over him. He looked up.

  The tyrannosaur pivoted its head down.

  Brown stood frozen on a large rock, his bubble-helmeted head eye to eye with the tyrannosaur. The head of the beast was nearly as large as Brown. He stood perfectly motionless, and the tyrannosaur sniffed at him, then opened its mouth, showing pointed, six-inch long teeth. A snakelike tongue darted out of its mouth and licked him, once, twice, again. With a disappointed querulous noise almost like a meow, the tyrannosaur spun around in a single graceful movement.

  It hopped onto a high rock outcropping, raised its head, and puffed out its throat sac. Then it sang out, with a long, low warbling note that trailed out into a trilling coo. It cocked its head and listened for a long moment, but only silence greet
ed it. It hopped to the ground and vanished into the forest.

  Varju and I came up behind Brown and stared after the retreating dinosaur. My hand repeatedly reached toward my rifle, but stopped without drawing the weapon. I did not understand.

  Varju explained calmly. “It detects its prey by scent. In the suit, Brown had no smell, therefore, he was not prey. When it realized he was not edible, it lost interest."

  “Never would have figured it,” Brown said, still looking after the vanished animal. He seemed unshaken by the encounter. “Never. Who'd have thought a tyrannosaurus would have gold and brown spots like a leopard?” Brown shook his head. “Onward,” he said.

  We continued around the boulder. The radio sounded, and the first mate stopped, unfolded the umbrella antenna, and turned it on. “Brown here."

  Pilot Stakowski was audible over quite a bit of static. “You're entering the vicinity of the anomalous energy field,” she said. “I can still pick up your signal, but may not be able to get through to you."

  “Are you suggesting that we turn back?” asked Brown.

  “No,” she said. “No point in that. Just ... be careful."

  “Will do,” said Brown. “Out."

  I looked up into the sky as Brown folded up the antenna. The comet hung suspended against the blue. It seemed to have grown larger than ever.

  We continued on.

  * * * *

  We continued over a ridge and look down into a valley. Varju's anomalous energy field was a fuzzy blob of light drifting slowly in the air, a fine network of webbing slowly moving inside it, glowing with light but no heat.

  Varju scanned it, and shook his head. “Strange. Interesting. Highly organized energy fields. The intensity is remarkable."

  “Is it alive?” asked Brown. “Is it intelligent?"

  “Is it dangerous?” I said.

  “I don't know,” said Varju.