Beyond the Event Horizon (3 page)

“About two
months ago the telescope on which I was working at university
detected a small asteroid on a direct course for Earth. At first it
was observed by the computer automatically, but when its trajectory
became too strange, it notified me.

“Our attention
was drawn to the fact that it was moving with acceleration. On this
basis, we initially took the calculation of its trajectory to be an
error. After all, the distance was considerable for an object of
that size, but it soon accelerated to sub-light speed. It then
performed a few tricks, but those are just details. The main thing
is that it soon became clear we were not dealing with an asteroid
at all, but with a spaceship. A ship built by a non-human
civilisation.”

The team
members exchanged looks. Steve continued.

“When there
was no longer any doubt that it was such a ship, the military were
brought in. A project codenamed ‘Dawn’ was started. Its aim was to
make contact with the extraterrestrial civilisation.

“The best
scientists on the planet took part in ‘Dawn’, and you have to hand
it to them, they fulfilled their task excellently. They solved the
technical problems of the first contact within a few days. After
that, they entered into a dialogue.”

“So they do
exist then?” came a question from somewhere on the left.

“They do
indeed,” replied Steve.

“Did they say
where they came from?”

“Er, no. That
was one of the first questions we asked them. They replied that
they didn’t know.”

“How could
they not know?”

Steve spread
his hands.

“I don’t know.
Perhaps they experienced the collapse of their own civilisation,
and knowledge of their home planet was lost. There were many
questions the incomer did not answer.”

“How old is
their civilisation?”

“According to
them, about a million Earth years.”

Someone
whistled.

“Really! We
must seem like Neanderthals to them...”

“Very likely.
As far as technology is concerned, they are way ahead of us.”

“If they’ve
been around so long, they must surely have spread out across space,
right?”

“Yes. They
told us that quite openly. The nearest star system to where their
civilisation is present is the system of the star Gliese 581.”

“And where is
that?”

“In space
terms, quite near. It’s one of the nearest stars to the Sun.”

“OK, so what
have we agreed on?”

“Unfortunately, we haven’t agreed on anything.”

“How can that
be? What did they want from us?” Questions were coming in one after
another.

“We don’t know
that either.”

“Not much of a
result, is it?”

“That’s true,
unfortunately.”

Steve was
turning his head in all directions. He could hardly keep up with
the questions.

“So how did it
all end?”

“After its
appearance, the incomer did not approach Earth too closely. It
probably didn’t want to make us nervous. It decelerated when it got
to Jupiter, and stayed in Jupiter’s orbit all the time we were
communicating with it. A few weeks after it had been detected, the
situation got out of control. It then left the Solar System.”

“What does
‘got out of control’ mean?”

“It means that
we fired a cannon at it.”

“Good grief!
Couldn’t you think of anything better than that?”

“It’s a long
story.”

“Did it
threaten us, or what?”

“Not directly,
no. But there were grounds for believing that it was playing a
double game.”

“Surely we
didn’t have to fire at them?”

“It was either
a technical hitch or sabotage, we don’t know for sure. But fire was
opened without orders.”

“So you mean
they flew here to make contact, and we shot at them?”

“One shot was
fired at the alien ship, but it remained serviceable. Or at least,
it was able to leave the Solar System under its own power. What
damage was done to it, and whether anyone on board was killed, we
don’t know. Since that strike, we have heard no more from
them.”

“Bloody
hell!”

“Quite
so.”

“This anomaly
we’re flying to, is it somehow connected with them?”

“We don’t know
for sure, but it most likely is. When the military got involved,
they naturally started an electronic intelligence survey. They
listened in to all the frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum,
and we also monitored them in the gravity waveband. The alien ship
did not use the usual means of communication, such as radio or
laser. But we did once manage to detect the weak radiation of
gravity waves. We believe the aliens know how to use these waves to
transmit information.

“The incomer
may possibly have started out from some kind of mother ship, which
remained in the shadows but observed events from afar the whole
time. According to our calculations, this ship or base could not
have been more than six or seven light years away.

“After
intercepting the gravity-wave transmissions, we began to study the
space around the Solar System within that distance. That was how we
came across the anomaly to which we are now heading.”

“So we are
expecting to find an alien base there?”

“I don’t know
what we’ll find there. It is too great a distance for radar
scanning. But quite possibly, yes.”

“OK, so we fly
to this anomaly, and wow! We see a great big spaceship. Then
what?”

“It depends on
the circumstances. Our primary task is to find out what we’re
dealing with. It is quite possible we are wrong, and the aliens
have nothing to do with it. In that case, it will simply be a
scientific expedition.”

“You said we
attacked it. What if they attack us when we approach?”

Steve was at a
loss when he heard this question. He had to admit that this was a
thought that he himself found deeply troubling. Kimble, who was
sitting alongside him, stepped in.

“What would be
the sense in that?”

“Well, we
attacked them.”

“You mean
revenge?”

“Well, it’s a
possibility...”

“They saw us
destroy our own weapon after it had fired on their ship, so they
must know we had technical problems. Revenge in this case would be
out of place.”

“But what if
they mistake our ship for a military one? We might have another
technical problem.”

“We don’t
represent any threat to them. Our weapons couldn’t harm the alien
ship when we attacked it in Jupiter’s orbit, and a whole battle
group of combat ships were involved in that. They’re not afraid of
our weapons. There would be no sense in attacking us.”

“Our weapons?
I thought this was a civil mission.”

“Yes, we are
armed, but only for defensive purposes. When the incomer took a
fancy to orbiting around Jupiter, the military withdrew their
forces to the inner planets. They reduced their presence in all
lower-priority areas. As a result, the crime situation in space has
become much worse. As far as flight security against armed attacks
is concerned, we have been set back thirty years. Attacks by
pirates have become an everyday occurrence, as they were in the
past. Unfortunately.”

“Could you
tell us what we’re armed with?”

“Well, let’s
just say it would not be an easy matter to take us by storm.”

The questions
from the team suddenly dried up, and silence reigned. Taking
advantage of this, Steve changed the subject.

“During the
flight, we shall naturally be studying the gravity waves emanating
from the anomaly. We will also be measuring the parameters of
space-time, since the incomer apparently exerted some sort of
effect on it during its visit. To some extent, you could say that
was the very reason we attacked the alien ship.

“On the back
of this, I would like to say to every member of the team: if you
notice anything strange, report it immediately. Last time we were
too late in noticing certain changes in the structure of
space-time. If we had noticed them earlier, we could have prevented
the attack on the alien ship.”

“Report what,
exactly?”

“Anything at
all. Strange instrument readings, problems with navigation,
communications, the operation of the reactor or the thrust of the
engines, the atmosphere inside the ship, changes in how you feel.
Anything, in fact. The alien civilisation is so far ahead of ours
that we haven’t even a rough idea of what technologies they have at
their disposal. Therefore, we must be on the alert. Throughout our
expedition, the same rule applies as in military
counterintelligence: nothing happens by chance.”

After the
briefing, Steve returned to his cabin with the firm intention of
having a good sleep. There is no concept of day and night in space,
so sleeping and waking regimes have to be created artificially. To
avoid jet lag, the time zone from which most of the team had come
would normally be applied. However, if the team were too variegated
in time zone origin, the time zone of the flight control centre
would be applied.

After
determining the time zone to use on board, the ship’s AI adapted
the lighting and climate inside the living accommodation, basing
them on natural conditions. Morning began with cool air and yellow
light, which became white by midday. Towards evening, the air
temperature in the ship was raised, and the light moved more and
more towards the red end of the spectrum. At night, however, the
light inside the non-working compartments and corridors became like
moonlight, which, along with the quiet coolness, created a
realistic sensation of night. This impression was increased by a
gentle breeze in the corridors.

The longer the
flight continued, the more the team enjoyed this breeze, even if it
was artificial. If you went out into the corridor and closed your
eyes, you were no longer in a tin can in the depths of empty space
but on Earth, with a cool evening breeze on your face. Because of
this breeze, the expression “Let’s go and get some fresh air” came
to be used by the team to mean taking a walk along the corridor.
Naturally, the air there was no more or less fresh than within the
compartments, but in the corridors the air conditioners blew
irregularly, creating a semblance of natural wind.

Steve washed
himself and lay down on the bed. He did not feel remotely sleepy,
despite the fact that in the time zone from which he had taken off
that morning, it was already late at night. He was too busy
thinking about the briefing that had just ended. The theme under
discussion had really been very exciting. For Steve, unlike the
rest of the team, the alien ship’s visit was not a surprise, but
man is a pack animal, and the mood in a group affects all its
members.

He lay his
head on the rather coarse but comfortable pillow and closed his
eyes. A picture floated into his head of himself and Maggie
returning from a short walk in the park just as the news that the
alien ship had been fired upon reached the base and a state of
emergency was declared.

To Steve’s
surprise, there had been no panic among the scientists. No-one had
run around the situation room with a mad look in their eyes crying
blue murder. Most of the scientists had just taken the information
on board with a laconic shrug of the shoulders. Over the several
weeks they had been involved in the project, they had developed an
immunity to exciting news, no doubt learning this from the
military.

On the same
day, after receiving the first detailed information from the
blockade group commander, General Rohas, the Space Force High
Command made contact with the Academic Council from their secret
bunkers. It appeared that the situation, which had been gradually
heating up in the past few days and was beginning to come to the
boil, had resolved itself of its own accord. The alien ship had
simply gone back home without a word.

The Academic
Council was kept together for a few more days in case the incomer
suddenly made itself known. A few days later however, when nothing
had happened, the ‘Dawn’ project was put on hold. By an absolute
majority of government representatives from every country on Earth,
it was decided not to remove its secrecy rating.

The military
removed their stationary weapons from Jupiter’s satellites and
dispersed the groups of ships they had formed all over the Solar
System, leaving only a few craft equipped with scientific apparatus
to study the consequences of the strike against the incomer. The
consequences of the explosion to Jupiter’s atmosphere, which were
too noticeable to be hushed up, were explained to the public as a
test of stationary weapons for use against super-large
asteroids.

After that,
the space forces embarked on the greatest inquiry ever undertaken.
As well they might. It had been the first armed conflict with an
alien civilisation in history. Everything was subjected to
exhaustive study and critical analysis, including the principle of
subordination and interaction of all the offensive and defensive
forces in the space fleet.

Naturally,
special attention was devoted to explaining the behaviour of the
fixed weapon that had made the unauthorised strike against the
incomer – the gun with the military codename E1. E1 had been
totally destroyed by a series of powerful explosions and scarcely
anything bigger than a micron was left of it. Furthermore, most of
the material of which it had consisted, mixed with surface ice and
water from Europa’s ice-covered ocean, had either been scattered
all over the Solar System or had fallen on Jupiter. This made
things much harder for the military specialists trying to find out
the reason for the unauthorised strike.

All the logs
of the weapon’s technical parameters and of the communications
between its gun crew, the command group and other ships were taken
and subjected to intensive analysis. After finishing the
investigation and putting together a picture of what had happened
from minute fragments, the military did somehow manage to dig up
one or two things.