Alex Gore - The Cube

“That’s the greatest song of all times!” Marcela exclaimed.

“Do you think it’s coming from the ship?”, Norman asked.

“Impossible, we are not connected in any way, neither by Bluetooth, nor optically.”

“Do you think this technology needs it?”, Michael retorted.

“Actually, it comes from the Cube”, Hans said, leaving his quiet calmness. “They are trying to make contact with us.”

“With Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’?” Michael wondered.

“What did you expect? Beethoven?” Sergey asked. “Or ‘Farewell of the Slavic Woman’?”, Michael looked amusedly at Ivanov, who did not buy the joke.

Norman made Babyface play the recording again. “Can you check it?”

“Of course, Sir. I’ll pass it through the filters now. Just give me five minutes.” The Lieutenant started hitting the keyboard energetically.

“What do you think?” Norman glanced at them one by one. “I think this is an extra cool song and I love the way these beings start their conversation with us…” Marcela was overexcited as if she were at a rock concert, slapping slightly her thigh in the rhythm of the music.

“How exactly they make a conversation? I didn’t get it,” Alan said.

“Well, that should be some kind of a code, shouldn’t it?” Sergey addressed Hans.

All the rest also turned their eyes to the plump mathematician. In this obscure situation he was the only one keeping calm and coolly appraising the facts. Despite his little oddities they couldn’t manage without him. All the nuclear heads of a submarine, capable to destroy the world, could not match the force of that brilliant mind.

Hans looked them over one by one, took out his white handkerchief and started clumsily cleaning his eyeglasses.

“I will need some time to find out. It could be something else. Something in terms of a greeting or, emotionally, a part of art, which I don’t quite appreciate. I would much more welcome a dry but understandable message.”

“Well, the choice of a rock song is way cooler”, Michael interrupted.

“Not quite. If the aliens have art or a system of values, related to music, it could become dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Norman raised an eyebrow.

“Not dangerous by all means, if an alien likes our music and paintings that’s fine. Only what happens if he hates some tune or piece of art? Emotions are bad… especially in inter-species communication.”

“Or inter-planetary”, Michael added.

“And why specifically music?” Alan seemed a bit disappointed.

“As a whole, it makes sense”, Hans went on. “If you want to start a friendly conversation with someone…”

“Or delude him and put him off his guard…” Ivanov was frowning even more than usual.

“Do they necessarily have to harbor hostile intentions?”

Marcela was the incorrigible pacifist.

Babyface interrupted the argument.

“Sir, we are ready with the sound analysis.”

“Report, Lieutenant.”

“The musical file is on the computer hard disc. It’s just there. There is no any date and hour of installing and downloading. It plays itself for no reason. It is a standard file, format MP3. Just an ordinary song, Sir.”

“Except that aliens greet us with Deep Purple.”

“We checked for attached information. Nothing, Sir. No other channels or any added file. It’s a perfectly clean little file.”

“Could be a virus…” Michael offered.

“Yes, did you trace the system for bugs? Can’t it be something like a cyberattack?” Norman asked.

“No, no, it’s definitely clean.”

“You know, as a young girl I was a great fan of Richie Blackmore, the solo guitar”, Marcela said. “And the band is awesome. I know all their songs by heart.”

“Couldn’t it be something related to the lyrics?” Sergey suggested.

“No, I don’t think so. The lyrics are just fantastic, but there is

hardly anything with reference to a first contact with aliens.”

“What is it about, anyway?” Ivanov’s English was perfect. So was his suspiciousness.

“Well, the band was in Switzerland with Frank Zappa for a concert when the concert hall on the bank of Geneva Lake got on fire. They wrote the song with reference to the occasion. The lyrics go like this:

“It doesn’t sound all that innocent to me. There are instigators, explosions, casualties, damages on a large scale and definitely an inside attack…” Ivanov remarked with a stony face.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Colonel”, Marcela gasped unbelieving.

“He might be right” Norman interfered. “There are some curious moments in the lyrics, that are worth being thought over. Couldn’t the words be some sort of a semantic message?”

“May I see the lyrics at my leisure?” Hans addressed the Major, who nodded in approval.

The Lieutenant typed something on the keyboard, took a memory stick out of the USB port and gave it to him. Hans gave a discreet sign to Marcela and the two of them left the room.

“I have to call Washington”, Norman said, also rising from his seat and going out.

“People, do you imagine what a great moment in human history that is?” Alan had overcome his initial anxiety and now his voice was charged with excessive pathos. “For the first time during the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution we make contact on the level of reason with an alien civilization.”

“Just please explain to me how exactly we are talking to those little green men and what you understood of what they told you”, Michael contradicted him in his own style.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment and it is our duty to record it for the future generations! We have the tremendous honor to…”

“Alan, you are not on TV, dude”, Sergey interrupted him. The slang address and his accent made the others laugh.

At this moment Marcela entered with a cup of coffee.

“I didn’t ask if you want any, but I definitely need it…”

“I need to make a phone call”, Ivanov said and stood up.

Everybody knew he was going to report to his superiors in Moscow.

“I need to take some fresh air”, Marcela said and went out to collect her thoughts. She was dead tired, but after some point she felt her body numb, not feeling anything, neither tension, nor exhaustion or pain.

She had experienced hard challenges before, but it was different now. Never till the present time had she felt deadly fear and she could not help but feel that she was standing on the edge of a precipice. She sensed that someone was watching her stealthily, lurking in the shadows behind her back and is only waiting for his chance to push her to the abyss of hell.