Christopher Nuttall: The Trojan Horse

Washington DC/Virginia

USA, Day 1

“Holy shit!”

Jason Lucas stared down at his screen. It had seemed like a routine day at SETI, monitoring the heavens for some sign of extraterrestrial life. Interns like Jason joined SETI, worked for a few months or years as technicians and computer geeks, and then left the foundation when it became clear that no alien message was going to be forthcoming. He’d expected to go back to college and concentrate on something more practical, something that would look better on his resume…

He couldn’t believe his eyes. A signal was flooding in on the hydrogen band, a frequency that all of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’s experts believed would be the one most likely used by another intelligent race. It was almost perfect, almost exactly what they’d expected to find. Jason felt a strong sense of excitement flooding through him, tempered by caution. SETI had been mistaken — or hoaxed — before and no one would thank him if he alerted the media and then discovered that he’d picked up signals from a forgotten Russian satellite or a top secret military spy satellite high overhead.

But all the computer programs geeks like Jason had devised to verify the origins of any unknown signal all agreed. The signal was coming from the Lagrange Point between the Earth and the Moon, precisely balanced at the point where the gravity fields created by such huge objects were perfectly balanced. A space station could have been positioned there, if NASA had gotten off its ass and actually done something apart from sucking up tax dollars and providing employment for lobbyists and political pork for congressmen. There was nothing up there, as far as Jason knew; even the long-rumoured Chinese lunar mission had failed to get off the ground. He keyed in a final set of commands, verifying the findings through the network of radio telescopes that SETI monitored on a routine basis. By now, others would be aware of the signal. It wouldn’t be long before the news got out.

For all of his life, Jason had dreamed of travelling in space. He’d been told that by the time he reached his teenage years, mankind would have space stations in orbit around the Earth and colonies on the Moon and Mars. But the dreams created by Robert Heinlein, Doc Smith and other science-fiction writers had never come true; by the time Jason had left high school, NASA had shut down the space shuttle program and the economic recession was sweeping the country. There was money for everything, it seemed, apart from space travel. An angry visionary had drifted into SETI in the hopes of touching some of the wonder he’d dreamed of in the past, yet knowing that alien contact would change the world forever. The Native Americans had encountered advanced beings who might as well have come from a whole new world. They hadn’t survived the experience.

The computer results all agreed. There was a signal source where no signal source should be. Jason felt growing terror overriding his excitement. SETI had always expected to discover alien civilisations light years from Earth, civilisations that could pose no serious threat to the planet. Unless someone discovered a means of travelling faster than light, only the most hardy of space travellers would seek to cross the interstellar void and pay a call on Earth. And yet, the signal was definitely coming from nearby. There was an alien spacecraft near the Earth.

He reached for his phone and dialled a number. It was early in the morning and the Director, Daniel Crenshaw, didn’t get in until late, but the protocols for any form of verified encounter were specific. Jason — or whoever was on duty — had to report the contact to his superiors at once, who would then start alerting others — and probably calling the media, the cynical side of his mind added. SETI had been having problems raising funds and a genuine alien contact would ensure that they received all the funding they needed to keep watching for alien life.

“Sir,” he said, when a tired voice answered, “I think you should listen to this.”

The Director didn’t believe him at first, which wasn’t surprising. SETI had been hoaxed before, after all. But once Jason had convinced him that he was telling the truth, the Director leapt into life. Jason left the matter in his capable hands and turned back to the computers. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could decipher the message before the world’s scientific community came in and buried the whole issue under a series of studies about how to decipher the message. He didn’t have high hopes. It was hard enough to learn a human language, let alone one from another world. SETI had all kinds of programs that should allow them to establish a common understanding with an alien race, but they’d never been tested. It should have been impossible to decipher the message.

He succeeded on his very first try.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” Colonel William Sanderson (retired) said. “I wish you were still alive.”

He stood below the rising sun, looking down at the two gravestones in a private part of his Virginia farm. His wife and eldest son lay below the ground, his wife dead in childbirth, his son dead in the wars. The Sanderson family had a long and proud tradition of military service; there had been a Sanderson with George Washington when he crossed the Delaware, a Sanderson with Grant and Sherman as they marched on Richmond and put an end to the slave-holding Confederate States of America, a Sanderson in the Spanish-American War, the World Wars and Vietnam. The Colonel had served in Desert Storm when the United States had first waged war against Saddam and his evil regime; two of his children had fought in the liberation of Iraq a decade later. And one of them had fallen there.

“I don’t know how to cope with Toby,” he told his dead wife. “I feel as if I failed him — I failed my son. Did I blame him for your death…?”

The memories rose in front of his eyes, memories that neither military service nor drink could keep from his mind. Mary had been slight for her age and the doctors had warned that she might have difficulty bearing children, but she’d given birth to five healthy children without apparent difficulty. The Colonel had been delighted when she’d told him that she was pregnant again, yet it had been the beginning of the end. His memories took on a nightmarish hue that none of his memories of combat matched, even when he’d been on the verge of capture by enemy forces during a mission that had never been officially acknowledged. Mary’s pale face, the blood, the crying child… and the face of the Doctor as he admitted that they hadn’t been able to save the Colonel’s wife, despite all of their knowledge. The Colonel had tried not to blame Toby for his mother’s death, yet there had always been a rift between the Colonel and his youngest son. And then Robert had died in action.

Toby had loved Robert, his eldest brother. They’d all loved Robert. The Colonel had expected him to serve his time in the military and then return home to take over the farm. Instead, he’d been killed by an IED on the streets of Baghdad in the days before the government admitted that there was an insurgency underway, his death the result of blundering by the planners who should have prepared for chaos in the days following the fall of Saddam’s regime. Toby had taken it badly and a series of bitter arguments between father and son had blossomed into a deep and apparently permanent rift. He’d rebelled against his family’s traditions and disappeared into Washington. They hadn’t spoken since.

The Colonel rubbed his eyes. His father had told him that death was part of life, that everyone died eventually. All that mattered was how well a person lived. The Colonel liked to think that his family had lived well, even the Sanderson who had fought beside General Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia. But Toby had been at just the right age to be influenced by the death of his brother and he’d rejected the family.