Infinite Reef (27 page)

Chapter 10

1
They emerged from the clouds far from the orbiting ring. Tony said he could see it on his long range radar, a few hundred kilometers distant.

Since the planet’s massive gravity had sapped much of
Diver’s
energy reserves, they elected to shut down and orbit until voice contact was made with the
Goddard
.

They were all happy to see the stars again. Even the pallid light of the red dwarf Lalande seemed inviting.

The stores were still full, so they shared a celebration meal of sandwiches and geebrew. Afterwards, with their appetites sated, they relaxed.

Stowing his sandwich wrap in the appropriate slot near his seat, Johnny faced the crew. “I have to confess I’m a bit disappointed,” he began. “I had it in mind to do an EVA to meet the Lalandians. I even rehearsed it in my mind.” He gave a sad little laugh. “I never imagined that music might play a role.” He glanced at Mary. “Even after that experience on Jupiter.”

“You mean when we heard
Ode to Joy
?” Mary replied, sipping her geebrew thoughtfully.

“This wasn’t a first contact, Commander,” said Tony. “It was a concert.”

“Exactly.” Johnny shook his head. “Who’d have expected ...?”

Mary blinked as if startled and touched her ear. “
Goddard
, sir. The signal’s weak, but getting louder.” She blinked again and smiled. “They see us. Ned Binder is hailing us.”

“Greetings, Commander!” said an exuberant Ned Binder on the cabin speaker. “We thought you were lost.”

“Do you have our lock?”

“We do, sir. The homing system’s already engaged.”

Alex took his hand off the drive stick. “I guess I’m retired again.”

Minutes later, as
Goddard
came into view above Bubba 2’s dusky horizon,
Diver’s
engines fired automatically.

Johnny declined a request to download
Diver’s
data to the
Goddard’s
computer as they had on all outings in the past, and the Commander’s refusal caused immediate suspicion. “We’re eager to begin analyzing your data, Commander,” Binder said in an overly polite tone. “Is there a problem?”

“I want to brief you first,” Johnny replied. “I’m not trying to hide anything.”

The speakers crackled with empty static for a moment, then Ned spoke again. “Uh ... as you know, Commander, we have a protocol that guards against contamination. If you’ve been in alien contact ...”

Commander Baltadonis interrupted his assistant. “I know the protocol, Ned. I helped write it. We’ll go through the contamination cycle. Let’s get on with it.”

“I’m sorry, sir. But we need to review the data before you arrive, so we can prepare ...”

Mary swiveled her chair to face the Commander. “Johnny, you should comply with their request. They mean business. I heard them alert security.”

“Their computer can positively identify us and detect biological changes,” offered Tony. “They’re just paranoid.”

“Mary’s right,” admitted Johnny, touching his console. “I’m downloading the files now. I was just hoping to avoid an interrogation before we arrive. The sooner I feel some gravity under my feet, the better I’ll feel.”

It was no surprise to anyone that the Commander’s first general briefing was done while he was still aboard
Diver
.

Though he knew it was his own protocol the staff was following, Johnny was angry. Grumbling about the weightlessness in the bay, he conducted the briefing from inside his virtual bubble, transmitting directly to master control, where the senior staff asked his holographic surrogate scores of questions.

Finally
Goddard’s
computerized mechanisms determined that neither
Diver
nor its crew had been contaminated. As soon as it announced a negative finding, the Commander demanded immediate entry and got it.

2
Hours later Alex and Mary found themselves exhausted and back home with Inky rubbing against them happily. Their house was still retracted inside the shell of the great cylinder and the first thing Mary did was to switch on the Pictoglass windows to make the place appear less claustrophobic. With the illusion of Gannytown appearing through their windows, they finally began to relax.

Their voice mail told them that the Captain’s wife had assumed stewardship of Inky while they were gone. She had even arranged for one window to display birds in nearby bushes, to keep Inky entertained. She had also decorated the apartment with vegetation she said might have perished when the lights in the great cylinder were darkened for the return trip to Earth.

“Going home,” Mary said wistfully. “What a thought.”

With the cat fed, and too tired to even shower, they entered their bedroom, undressed, and collapsed on the domed bed.

Lying on their backs, side by side, they stared up at the blank dome covering them. Soon Inky curled up between them and they fell asleep.

Some hours passed before the computer lit the dome lit up brightly to wake them. Alex opened an eye to find his nose an inch from Inky’s rear end. The sight made him recoil, scaring Inky who sprang from the bed. Mary sat up in time to see the cat flee the room. “Why are you always upsetting him?” she moaned sleepily. “And why did you light up the dome?”

Alex opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the Commander’s voice. “Crew of the
Goddard
,” began Johnny, his voice sounding hoarse, “By now most of you are aware that we’ve made contact with the Lalandians, but, due to the bizarre nature of the event, we cannot confidently conclude that there was any meaningful dialogue.” He paused and took a sip of water, then continued. “We are preparing a report that will be displayed all over the ship. When all of you have seen it, we’ll be in a better position to decide our next step. Until then, I bid you all good evening.”

Mary rubbed her eyes and blinked. Then her body gave a jerk. “It’s the baby,” she said rubbing her flat belly. Her hand went lower. “I wonder if I’ll be different ... down there ... after the baby.”

Alex looked at Mary’s silky nether and sighed. “Whatever change will be part of you and perfect, like the rest of you.”

He placed a hand on her stomach and almost immediately felt the baby move. He kissed her and smiled. “It’s normal to worry. But you shouldn’t. We’ll be in Gannytown before it’s due.”

On the bubble that overshadowed their bed, an edited visual replay of their alien encounter was being broadcast. The report was fairly complete but, to Alex’s disappointment, it didn’t mention what had happened to the escort of black saucers that surrounded the great ship after
Diver
had disappeared. He ventured a guess that the saucers had, from
Goddard’s
point of view, simply vanished. Still, he wanted to know. “Computer,” Alex said loudly. “State the circumstances of the departure of the black saucer shaped craft that surrounded the
Goddard
before we ... er ... shuttle
Diver
, disappeared.”

“
EM sensors suggest recession from Goddard’s position at quantum speeds.
”

Mary and Alex looked at each other. “Quantum speeds?”

“
Definition: Beyond sensor tolerances. Refer to “Subatomic Space Time Games” by Dr. Irwin Winslow Bush, PhD,
MSP ...
”

“Thank you, computer,” Alex interrupted.

Above them the computer had created a window to insert the data. “
Shall I download the file for you, Mr. Rose?
”

“Transfer it to our com center.”

“
Transferring file.
” The image window vanished from the domed screen, leaving a file name in its place for a few seconds. When that faded, a looming closeup of the alien Mary had named the General took its place, and dotted all over the dome were images of his spidery minions as they swarmed over
Diver’s
hull. Somehow the presentation made them seem far more odious than Alex remembered.

“Yes,” relied Mary to Alex’s unspoken thoughts. “I wonder if the crew thinks they’re that ugly.”

No longer even conscious of Mary reading his mind, Alex shrugged. “Beauty, my dear, is in the eye. Take yourself, for instance. Some envy your beauty. Some guys covet it the same way they would a decent brew. I see the real you. The person I belong with.”

Mary smiled and petted the cat in slow smooth strokes, evoking a loud rumbling purr. “People believe what they choose to believe.”

“Nothing wrong with free choice, I guess.” Alex grinned. “We’re living proof of that.”

“We’re living proof that crime pays, Alex.”

“Dingers, Mary!”

The Commander’s face appeared on the dome and they both jumped, wondering if the Commander had been listening, but the looming face above them was still part of the recording.

The Commander was giving his summation. “So, friends, we can say with some certainty that those legs that waved at us inside Howarth’s egg were the same, or at least related to the multi-legged beings you have just seen. You have also seen that their technology is still beyond our ken. Barring any other events or revelations, it seems we’ve met the Lalandians, and they have met us. If they wanted revenge for destruction we caused to their egg, they had the opportunity and did nothing. They had us in their clutches and released us. In my view we were given a tour ... and a concert.” The Commander smiled. “The Lalandians showed us the pinnacle of their construction ability and even introduced themselves to us. And they communicated something that they knew would make sense to us, transmissions from Earth. It also seems that they chose the only transmissions that had any significance to them, our music.”

The Commander leaned forward, resting his elbows on the console. He moved closer to the camera, adding drama to his presentation. “On the other hand,” he continued, “you all might ask, what was our message to them? Well ...” Johnny straightened up again and grinned. “I think we’ve been having our say to them for a long time, via radio. What they made of it, we may never know. I’m content to let others decide that issue. Our mission now is to get this information home.

Therefore, I am ordering the staff to prepare for departure.”

Johnny paused for a moment as if he was choosing his words carefully. “When we left the solar system Earth was nearly at war. Perhaps news of the Lalandians might help inspire peace after we return. I certainly hope so.

“So there is much to be pondered during our journey home. Life may be more common to gas giant planets than to worlds like Earth. Another question is whether the Lalandians, being an old civilization with space technology, ever visited Earth.”

The Commander drew a deep breath. “Of course any conclusions we draw are only speculation. Right now we must ready our ship for our last burn in the Lalandian system, the one that will take us home. Before we leave, we will light up the cylinder for a full daily cycle. The dawn of our last day will commence in an hour. I am sorry we cannot fill the lake for the occasion, but we will fill one of the secondary pools for the benefit of our dolphin crewmen.”

Johnny picked up a slate and stared at it for a moment. “Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot. I have been reminded that the ultralight championship finals were not conducted. The semi-finals were held during the last night cycle. So I’m authorizing the championships to be held tomorrow. Good luck to everybody involved, but please fly safely and responsibly.”

Johnny straightened in his chair and grinned into the camera. “Crew of
Goddard
, as your acting Commander, I order all of you to join in our daylong celebration of a successful mission, but remember, don’t party too much. We launch in forty-eight hours.”

3
The whole cylinder seemed to be celebrating when Alex and Mary left their house on the morning of the last day in the Lalandian system. They went to the sublevel and climbed the stairs to the main level of the cylinder, emerging in the midst of a throng of people partying in warm simulated sunlight. They easily avoided the crowd and walked at a leisurely pace toward the peninsula that divided Lake Geneva. Mary wanted to run, mainly to avoid the throng, and Alex reluctantly agreed to join her. “Remember I’m not made like you,” he reminded her. “I get tired.”

Inevitably Mary pulled ahead, leaving him amid the crowd of merrymakers. The distance between them widened until she reached the causeway where she stopped and bent over the railing. When Alex arrived next to her, Mary was shouting and waving to the dolphin crew who swam in a depression in the lake bottom about the size of an Olympic pool. It was just large enough to hold the entire cetacean crew, who were splashing and tossing squeezers of geebrew back and forth.

“Where do they go when they empty the pool?” asked Alex, out of breath. He bent over the railing and waved at the dolphins, who splashed back at him. One deftly tossed a geebrew up to him, but he missed it and it tumbled back. One of the dolphins caught it midair and took it under the waves.

“There’s a shallow tank below decks,” Mary replied. “It’s something like our dome with beds and specially designed helmets to wear during the gee pulse.”

Mary waved again at the dolphins as they turned to leave. One of the dolphins called out in a voice that was more of a shriek. “Mareee! Yooo rule!”

Mary smiled and waved back. “What did that mean?” asked Alex.

“They’re drunk. They think I should be the Commander.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “That’s interesting. Why?”

“Communication skills, I guess. Apparently, I impressed them.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” He put an arm around her and they strolled the rest of the way across the causeway. Overhead, the sky began filling with ultralight aircraft that emerged like a stream of hornets from the two hangars at the either hub of the cylinder. Alex squinted up at them. “Looks like the whole fleet’s up there.”

He expected them to assume a formation, but each pilot chose his own course. Some dove toward the ground while others looped in the weightlessness near the core. Still others, some in groups of twos and threes, soared in the partial gravity of the mid-zone, a hundred meters or so above the heads of the throng, leaving smoke trails of varying colors.