Janet Edwards: Earth Star

Fian shot me a desperate look.

‘Fourth planet,’ I whispered. ‘Next one out from us.’

The image on the vid screen changed to a sequence showing the trajectory of the alien sphere. The Major let that play through before speaking again.

‘There is no evidence to indicate current or prior existence of an alien species in Earth’s solar system capable of building this. The current theory is the sphere came from outside this solar system, either by portal or conventional means, and stayed in the region of Mars orbit for an indeterminate period of time before approaching Earth.’

The vid screen now started showing what must be genuine vid coverage of the sphere approaching Earth. The images were obviously running at very high speed, but they slowed down twice to allow us to see the sphere making definite course changes as it manoeuvred into Earth orbit.

The Major started speaking again. ‘The sphere is now in geostationary orbit above Earth Africa. As soon as it was observed to be artificial and under power, Alien Contact was activated. We transmitted the standard series of mathematical and other greets which are sent out whenever Planet First teams enter a new star system. There was no response. We followed this with several expanded series of transmissions. Still no response. We have continued communication attempts without success. The sphere has held its position in geostationary orbit without any detectable action.’

A vid ran showing details of the attempts they’d made to communicate with the sphere. They’d done just about everything, including shining lights at it. They hadn’t actually sent someone over to knock on the side of the thing, because that might be construed as a hostile action.

The Major made another speech about attempts to scan the interior of the sphere. It was a very short speech, because none of the scans had worked. All we knew about the thing was its size and shape. Given the size, it was probably an unmanned, automated probe.

At this point, Major Rayne Tar Cameron gathered up the civilian members of the audience and led them off somewhere. All the Military in the room stayed in their seats, apparently expecting something else to happen.

Fian nudged me, and gave me a questioning look, obviously unsure if we should stay or go. A few minutes ago, I’d been wondering why we’d been inducted into the Military while other people were left as civilians, and this could be the answer. Perhaps you had to be a serving member of the Military to hear what was coming next. I stayed in my seat.

There was a pause of two or three minutes, then a woman entered the hall and went to the front. Everyone stood to salute, and she instantly gave a brisk nod, which allowed them to sit down and relax again. I made a mental note of it, in case I ended up in the same weird situation I’d been in earlier, with a room full of Military stuck at attention.

‘I’m Commander Nia Stone, Attack team leader and Colonel Torrek’s deputy,’ she said.

She half turned towards the vid screen, the image zoomed out, and now I saw four sleek, black Military ships at a discreet distance from the sphere. I’d seen pictures of Military dart ships before, but never anything like these.

‘We’re probably looking at an automated, unmanned probe,’ she said. ‘It’s only 4.71 metres in diameter, but this is an alien device with unknown capabilities. Initial assessment by the Science teams, based on its speed, manoeuvrability, and resistance to scans, is that the technology behind it is above the level of our own in some areas. As far as we know, it has done nothing since it entered Earth orbit, but it may be taking actions beyond our ability to detect.’

She paused to give us time to absorb that, and I found myself thinking of the stasis boxes left behind in Earth’s cities when humanity poured off world during Exodus century. When you found one, its protective force field was a strange furry black, hiding its contents. Usually, they held items from the past and farewell messages. If you were lucky, there could be a treasure of historical or scientific data, to help fill in the gaps of the knowledge lost during the chaotic years of Exodus and the Earth data net crash. If you were unlucky, there could be something extremely nasty, because sometimes a stasis field wasn’t used to protect the contents from the world, but to protect the world from the contents.

You had to be a specially trained expert to open stasis boxes. Our pre-history class was fortunate that Lecturer Playdon was Stasis Q. I hoped to qualify myself one day, so I’d been learning what I could from him. Stasis boxes had been found holding radioactive materials, nuclear warheads, and bio-warfare agents, as well as things Playdon wasn’t allowed to talk about. All Stasis Q had to take the Security Oath, because they needed to be warned of every dangerous item that had ever been found in stasis boxes, and some of that information was classified.

The alien sphere was like a stasis box. We had no clue what was inside, whether it was good or bad. I’d often said there was no limit to how dangerous the contents of a stasis box could be, but of course that wasn’t really true. A stasis box could only contain the unpleasant things humanity had invented during its history. The risks posed by the sphere really were unlimited.

The view on the vid screen recaptured my attention by zooming out yet again. Now I could see twelve more ships positioned further from the sphere than the first four. At a much greater distance still, were four circles floating in space. My eyes widened. Those were proper portals, not the ephemeral five-second, drop portals the Military used for Planet First, and they were large enough to send through those Military ships.

Commander Nia Stone started talking again. ‘Threat team initially estimated a 39 per cent chance that the sphere was hostile. I emphasize this is only an estimate. We are dealing with an unknown alien race, their thought processes and logic may be totally different to our own, and we may misinterpret their actions.’

She paused for a second, and I thought of all the different cultures in pre-history. Humans had often struggled to understand each other, so it would be chaos difficult to understand a truly alien species.

‘We would expect a friendly approach to include immediate attempts to communicate,’ Stone continued. ‘As far as we know, the sphere has made no such attempt. There is a small possibility it is talking, but we don’t know how to listen. It could be waiting to catch us off guard by a surprise attack. It could be gathering data to help it either contact or attack us. It could be alien etiquette is to begin a conversation with a polite silence. It’s even possible the sphere isn’t working properly. Threat estimate is now up to 47 per cent and still rising as the sphere does nothing. Our greatest concern is this is an advance guard, gathering information while waiting for reinforcements.’

A hand shot up in the audience.

‘Search team has found nothing in Sol system, and Monitoring team has detected no unknown portal activity,’ said Stone. ‘We’re also running checks on the star systems of our other inhabited worlds. Nothing so far.’

The hand went down again.

‘Our options are to attack or to wait. You all know Premise One of the Alien Contact programme. Conflict should be avoided if possible, since attacking an alien race of inferior technology is unnecessary, while attacking one of superior technology could result in the extinction of the human race. Premise Two tells us if the aliens find us before we find them, we should assume they do have superior technology to us. We must therefore proceed as if the sphere is friendly, while also preparing for the worst-case scenario, where the sphere turns out to be hostile, highly dangerous, and launches a surprise attack.’