 
THE CONTACT

episode one

by

Albert Sartison
Published by Albert Sartison at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Albert Sartison

1.12

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ALSO BY ALBERT SARTISON

Beyond the Event Horizon

Fundamental Force

*

The Storm

*

Entangled

### Contents

Prologue

Error

Something about the stars

Night

The Doppler Effect

What is to be done?

At the Space Force base

Project: Dawn

Contact
"Our nature consists in movement;

absolute rest is death."

Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662)

# Prologue

The spacecraft reaches Mercury at the intended time and begins sending signals to determine the precise orbit of the planet. The experiment begins that evening. A command is sent to increase the speed of Mercury from the Experiment Control Centre at the moon base. Three hours later, the International Space Station, scientists at the moon station and also many other groups of scientists on Earth, register an increase in the diameter of Mercury's orbit round the Sun by two percent. Once the experiment is over, Mercury's orbit is slowed down to its previous level.

Soon after, a Chilean observatory observes a space object moving from outer space which could potentially collide with Earth. Precise calculations of its flight trajectory are not yet possible because it is so far away, and the orbital telescopes, even those in orbit round the gas giants, are currently being used in support of an experiment testing remote manipulation technology. In view of the low speed of the object, the time for it to reach the Earth's orbit is estimated as hundreds of years, so a low priority is given to clarifying its trajectory. Nevertheless, the instruction is entered into the central computer for a second observation of the object a week later, to confirm the low priority status.

At the next observation session, the object is not detected. The telescope control system probes the space sectors in the region of the assumed location. The unidentified space body is eventually detected, but its actual position differs greatly from that initially assumed. Following its programmed instructions, the telescope computer corrects the calculation data and raises the priority for finally calculating the trajectory. The third observation session is appointed for 24 hours later.

The third observation session reveals an even greater calculation error. The Chilean telescope's automatic control system has to notify the scientific personnel...

#  Error

With his dirty trainers up on the table, Steve, a final year astrophysics student working as a junior scientific assistant at the observatory in his spare time, was fast asleep. A relay suddenly clicked, switching on the display of the main monitor, shining a broad ray of bright light oppressively on the sleeping Steve. He half-opened one eye and sleepily looked at the message:

UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT FOUND.

MAY COLLIDE WITH INNER PLANETS.

IMPOSSIBLE TO CALCULATE ITS TRAJECTORY.

In a hoarse voice (due to an excess of cold beer and loud serenades last night), Steve commanded:

"Give additional information."

Columns of figures floated onto the screen. His head was working slowly, but his gaze automatically picked up the main information: the size of the object, the parameters of its motion, its brightness...

"So what's the problem?" thought Steve.

He got up and went to pour himself a coffee. Opening the kitchen cupboard door, he discovered, with astonishment, that there was an amulet on his right wrist. It took a full minute for him to recall what had happened after he left the student pub "Minus Alpha" with his friends. They had been to a party there, nothing had come of it. He scratched the back of his neck, fetched a mug, filled it from the percolator and went back to his place.

The main screen was still filled with information about the strange object from the depths of the Universe. Steve sat down, took a gulp of coffee and grimaced, pushing the mug away, and began quickly leafing through the contents of the log file.

First observation more than a week ago. Trajectory... Speed... Direction... Second observation. Trajectory... Speed... Direction... Error correction... Speed correction factor twenty three and five? Somewhat high. Third observation, error correction factor seventy eight?

"Well, that's way too much," Steve thought.

He reached out for the mug, picked it up, but remembering how vile the contents had tasted, put it back. He had finally woken up.

Speed estimate error of seventy-eight-fold, why so great? The telescope had never made an error before at distances like that. When they measured Mercury's orbit a fortnight ago, it was accurate to within one hundredth of a permille. But here... Yes, the object was at the edge of the Solar System, but...

Steve started the orbit simulator. The simulation program opened where it had ended last time – on "advanced collision model". Steve, sitting at the computer, rolled up his eyes and sighed. 'ADVANCED COLLISION MODEL', what sort of an idiot would call his degree thesis that? The ACM was the brainchild of Clive, one of his fellow students on the same course, and probably the most famous nerd in the whole space science faculty. Steve remembered him from his very first days at the university. The first-year students, still wet behind the ears, gathered in the lecture hall and were given instructions by the entire teaching staff, including the Dean of the faculty. The Dean's speech was interrupted by Clive raising his hand. The Dean, Mr. Shelby, well respected by the students for his informal and honest manner, broke off his speech, smiled and asked Clive what he wanted to know. Clive stood up, coughed, quoted a passage from the work of some theoretical astrophysicist and asked Shelby what he thought of it. The grey-haired old man looked round the new students and his colleagues, and then turned back to Clive, who was waiting in silence.

"Very interesting work," replied Shelby, still smiling. "One of our research groups is studying this question. Ask Dr. Kubinski, he will be glad to answer all your questions."

Clive, as cool as a cucumber, wrote down the group leader's name, thanked Shelby and sat down.

Steve, observing from the sidelines, thought Clive's behaviour was contrived. He thought at that time that he was just showing off to an audience. But over the past few years, having come to know him better, Steve realised that this was not a game. It was in Clive's nature, he really was like that: rather inept in social relations, but a truly gifted person as far as science was concerned.

Steve's thoughts returned to the computer. He selected "Solar System". With its usual deftness, the computer simulated the Sun and the planets. He added the strange object, clarified its parameters and started the simulation. If the speed of the object was the same as for the previous measurement, the object should not be anywhere near where it actually was. Could the computer be in error again? Steve commanded:

"Assume object acceleration."

The computer altered the parameters of motion of the object and assumed that the object was moving at a constant acceleration.

"Find acceleration value."

If it was assumed that the object was accelerating, the trajectory anomaly disappeared. That was fine, but this object was not any kind of spacecraft. How could an object of natural origin accelerate so far from high-mass celestial bodies?

So. What could accelerate this object? Ejection of material? Highly unlikely, that could not impart so much force. Judging from its trajectory, it was flying in from outer space, from the direction of the Omega Nebula. The distance – Steve looked it up in the catalogue of celestial bodies – was about five thousand light years. He looked at his reflection in the switched-off monitor to his right and carried on thinking, "The body really is increasing its speed. It doesn't appear to be an artificial object, though that will have to be checked."

He waved a finger, and the virtual problem icon appeared on the main monitor. Steve, now under the spell of scientific curiosity, commanded:

"Try to identify object as human made artefact. Go."

"Failed to identify object as human made artefact."

Steve looked inquiringly at his reflection on the black display on the right. The reflection declined to comment. Steve absentmindedly took a gulp of coffee and immediately spat it out.

"Ugh, that's vile!"

He tipped the coffee into Clive's flower vase. The guy would be annoyed, but there was no time to think about that right now. Steve ordered the computer to check if any lost spacecraft could be on the course of the strange object. Taking account of fuel reserve and engine thrust, several craft were theoretically able to carry out the necessary manoeuvre and come onto such a course. Yes, but why? And how?

Four lost craft had the required fuel reserve: two of them were transports, completely automatic interplanetary shuttles. One was used for delivering materials for construction work on Europa, a satellite of Jupiter. The other was transporting fuel. They had both been lost in the vicinity of Mars. Assuming that they had begun this strange manoeuvre at once, there would theoretically have been time for them to become this strange intruder from space. The third lost spacecraft had people on board – a group of tourists, making a tour round the gas giants. The ship entered the shadow of Saturn and was never seen again. Unfortunately, communication with this spacecraft was impossible, because all the communication satellites in orbit round Saturn were out of radio visibility at the time. The fourth spacecraft was a military one. It had been on a routine patrol in the space between the inner and outer planets. All of a sudden it extinguished its position beacons, after which it too was never seen again.

Naturally, they were searched for. The transport shuttles were half-heartedly sought for the insurance companies, and soon written off. A long time was spent searching for the tourists, although anyone who had worked in the space industry realised that it was a hopeless case. Civilian ships have numerous position beacons. If a ship had come out from Saturn's radio shadow, it would have been recorded at once by the Interplanetary Flight Coordination Centre. But this did not happen. The last pulse had been sent from one of its beacons minutes before it entered the shadow. Its course was known. After a little over three hours, the tracking computer sounded the alarm. Immediately on receiving the signal, the communication satellites were moved into position to probe the space close to the planet in the radio shadow region. But the ship was not found. It could not have emerged without being noticed, therefore it must have fallen onto the gas giant. As for the military patrol vessel, it was virtually impossible to find it without position beacons. Anyway, the search and rescue function was the responsibility of the military, who were well known for saying as little as possible.

His thoughts were interrupted by the wall clock, which beeped briefly, marking the beginning of a new hour. Steve lifted his eyes to the wall, then looked down at his watch, sighed and switched the computer off. It was already getting dark, the Sun was slowly sinking. It was time to go home and make up for the hours of sleep he had lost in the night-time party.

Steve got up, screwing up his left eye a little because of his headache (he really had had too much to drink the previous evening), and set off.

#  Something about the stars

Clive, the biggest pain in the neck in the astrophysics faculty, was patiently drawing a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram on the board. He could of course simply have called it up on the screen by lightly waving his finger, but no, as Clive liked to put it, food for thought is only digested when it is thoroughly chewed.

Completing the curve of the sub-giants, Clive turned to the class. The first-year students, who were already used to his little ways, were calmly copying the clumsy squiggles scribbled on the board by Clive. Earlier, the most daring of them would try to criticise Clive's methods, but this hubris was soon stilled under the unyielding pressure of the Great Pain in the Neck's logic. The Great Pain in the Neck possessed one very valuable quality: he knew how to explain even the most difficult material in simple language. It was for this reason that the first-course students preferred his lectures to those of the others, and were willing to put up with his grumbling throughout the entire semester. Their reward for this was outstanding knowledge and, as a rule, a good assessment – Clive was a pain in the neck, but he was an honest one, and if a student knew the subject, no power in the Universe could make Clive give him or her a poor assessment.

"So, we can see from the diagram that most stars are in the so-called main sequence. Stars in this category obtain their energy from nuclear synthesis reactions, converting hydrogen to helium. Now a question for the audience. How did the heavier elements form in the Universe?"

A suppressed whispering went round the hall, but no-one was willing to answer. Clive would not have been an outstanding teacher if he had not judged the mood of his audience correctly. The students had lost interest – heavy elements, light elements, who cared?

"As I can see, the importance of this question has not quite been understood."

Clive did not mock their lack of knowledge of such elementary matters; after all, students attended his course to gain that very knowledge.

"Let us turn to the beginning of the Universe. We are on the time axis at the point of zero plus an infinitely small space of time. The Universe has just been created by the Big Bang. What do we see? Nothing. Space is opaque, it is filled with energy, seething with radiation. The monstrous temperature prevents the formation of material. All that exists is energy, compressed into an unimaginably small space to an unimaginably high density. And now the Universe begins to expand." Clive noted with satisfaction that he had recaptured the attention of the hall and was holding it in his firmly clenched hand.

"Let a few instants elapse, allow the Universe to expand, and we find its temperature has fallen to such an extent as the result of its expansion that atoms can form. What is formed first? The simplest elements, naturally – those at the beginning of the periodic table. Hydrogen, my friends, hydrogen! What does a hydrogen atom consist of? This element has the atomic number One, therefore its atom contains only one proton and one electron rotating round it. You couldn't imagine anything simpler. Free protons, scurrying around hither and thither in the Universe, each pick up one electron and form an atom of a certain substance. This process took place an incalculable number of times in the Universe, and as a result, even today, 14 billion years later, the most widespread substance is still this same hydrogen.

"But look at your hand."

The students in the hall obediently began looking at their hands as if they had never seen them before.

"What do you see? You see organic material containing carbon, probably the most important building brick of life. Look at your fingers. Some of you will see rings of precious metals, silver, gold, platinum... Where did these elements come from, if initially there was only hydrogen?

"If we look at the diagram I have drawn, we will see that the majority of stars convert hydrogen to helium by nuclear synthesis. These two elements differ in their atomic numbers – One and Two respectively. As I said earlier, a nuclear synthesis process takes place in the cores of stars, as a result of which a new element is born in the periodic table. This is accompanied by the release of energy, thanks to which we can observe the luminosity of the stars. Sooner or later the time comes when a star has synthesised all the hydrogen in its core and turned it into helium. The hydrogen synthesis process still proceeds at the periphery, and the star enters the next stage of evolution. If the star is heavy enough, the process of transition from the first stage continues until all the material of the star has been transformed into iron. That is how the elements up to iron appear."

At this point, Clive decided that the scientific material had been chewed thoroughly enough. With a wave of his hand, he called up a visualised model of the transformation of a star into a red giant on the big screen in the middle of the hall. Against a black background, a yellow sphere appeared, ejecting impressive splashes of plasma from time to time.

"As we see," Clive continued, "the star is now precisely in the stage of synthesising helium from hydrogen. Now let us see what happens when only iron remains. In stellar terms, iron is nothing other than ash. That which is left when everything is burned up."

Clive gestured to the computer to simulate the process. The yellow star began to grow, and its colour changed to dark red.

"We see that the star has increased in size. The outer layers are beginning to move out from the core" – the red sphere on the screen continued to grow – "and to cool down as a result of their expansion. This explains why the colour changes from bright yellow to dark red. I must add that at this moment, the star is leaving the main sequence curve and passing into the giant category. Back to the outer layers. They are continuing to expand, and as a result, fly off into space and..."

The enormous red sphere grew to an incredible size, then the red shell became transparent, ceased to shine and merged into the vastness of space.

"...the star has thrown off its outer shell, and along with it the elements born within itself. The new elements are scattered in every direction throughout the Universe. Some of them eventually collect into a cloud from which planets subsequently formed. The planets then lay the foundation for biological life. And we, you and I, are no exception either. Our bodies consist of stellar ash, born by a star which exploded billions of years ago somewhere in the depths of the infinite Universe."

Having finished this sentence, Clive fell silent and looked up at the wall clock over the entrance. The second hand had only three divisions to go to the end of the lecture. The bell rang.

"Thank you for your attention. At the next lecture, we shall learn how the rest of the elements appeared. The task for today's theme, as always, can be found on my webpage."

He was impressed but not surprised that he had managed to get through all the planned material in time. Such precision can only be achieved by few, only by those who plan their actions accurately and strictly adhere to their plan. Those like Clive.

Today's studies had ended. With a feeling of deep satisfaction, Clive put his things in his briefcase and left the class.

The evening sun was no longer burning, but just giving a pleasant warmth. The sultry heat of the day had given way to the cool of the evening. Clive enjoyed every moment, walking unhurriedly in the direction of the observatory.

Steve was walking towards him and wasn't keen to stop and talk, but Clive had already noticed him and Steve was reluctant to be seen deliberately to be avoiding a meeting. Yes, Clive was a nerdish sort of chap, but all the same, they were colleagues in their work at the observatory. And they'd been on the same course. And anyway, Clive wasn't that bad, a bit of a nerd, but not a bad guy. When they were level with each other, they stopped.

"Hi, Clive," Steve casually waved his hand in greeting.

"Steve," Clive nodded in reply. "Is anything going on?"

"No, everything's still as it was." Of course, Steve could have told him about the interesting object, but not now. If he said a word about his discovery, Clive would bombard him with questions and add a couple of theories too, and he'd never get away.

"You look kind of tired, are you preparing for the seminars?" asked Clive.

"Uh-huh," replied Steve. "Spot on. That's all I'm thinking about."

The thing Steve liked about Clive was that he did not understand irony, and it was very easy to make fun of him. Also, Clive rarely took offence, and if he did, quickly got over it, and although he didn't forget it, he behaved as if nothing had happened.

"I'd better get going. Are you going straight to the observatory?"

"Yes I am, it's my shift. And apart from that, I have to figure something out."

"Oh yes, I saw that – Advanced collision model?"

"That's right! And do you know what I found?" Clive's face stretched into a smile as he prepared to talk to Steve at length.

"Something interesting, no doubt, but you can tell me about it tomorrow. Excuse me, Clive, but my head's bursting at the seams from my own models. Not now."

Steve certainly did not want to listen to Clive's latest theory. He had theories for everything. For example, a crystallisation anomaly theory. Or a theory of condensates. The first explained why ice cubes in Clive's freezer did not form in order, but in some other sequence. The second threw light on why Clive's spectacles always misted up more on the left than on the right when he entered the refrigeration chamber in the biology faculty to pick up his lunch pack. The most nerdish thing in all these flights of fancy was the fact that he backed up his theories with mathematical calculations and checked them experimentally. That was why it was so difficult to argue with him. He always had empirical data obtained strictly according to the rules of science.

"Well, it's up to you." Clive shrugged. "Till tomorrow, then."

Clive went on his way to the observatory, where an extremely interesting evening awaited him, alone with his favourite model. A computer model.

#  Night

Steve woke up with a start. He opened his eyes. He looked up for a few seconds, then turned his head sharply to the side. He looked round the side of his room, still not understanding where he was. Then he raised himself a little, leaning on his elbow, and looked round the other part of the room. The window was open, letting in the cool, scented night air. A wind was lightly rustling round the room, blowing on one object after another. A book open on the table rustled as it was caught by gusts of wind, the open page turned forward and then unhurriedly back, which was somehow comforting, but also created a barely perceptible feeling of inexplicable anxiety. The room was slightly illuminated by the moon shining through the trees.

Steve's consciousness slowly returned from the world of dreams to the real world. A few minutes previously, Steve had had a very eventful dream. His brain was fully working, but now he couldn't remember even roughly what it had been about. Finally he realised where he was – at home in his room, in his apartment. He was renting it from some guy he had never seen – he had only spoken to him once, on the phone. This guy left the key for Steve in the university front office in a yellow envelope. Steve paid his rent regularly, never raised hell (at least, not at home), and didn't create any problems. The guy never bothered Steve either. He just never appeared at all. At one time, Steve even thought that he could have disappeared somewhere, and he need no longer pay for the apartment. But he decided not to check this theory, and went on paying his rent. Peace and quiet were worth more to Steve than money, more anyway than the money he was paying for what was basically a good apartment at a cheap rent, in a little house near a small lake.

In the evenings, shortly before sunset, when the sun was just disappearing over the horizon, frogs croaked on the lake, creating a real concert. It began quietly. First one frog would croak, then another would answer it, a third one would join in, and they were away. Having croaked all they wanted, the frogs gradually quietened down and presumably went peacefully to sleep. Steve liked this concert. These entertaining croaks alone were worth the money Steve was paying for the apartment.

Steve gradually dragged his thoughts together. He was fully conscious now. He lay on his back entangled in a light blanket. Steve glanced at the clock, which showed ten past two. Half the night over already.

On the previous evening, Steve had gone to bed early, as soon as he got back from the observatory. He probably lay down at about nine and dropped off straight away. He was no longer hearing frogs. And now he was lying eyes open in the middle of the night, with no desire to sleep at all.

Generally speaking, Steve did not like going to bed early, because if he did, he would wake up in the middle of the night and then toss and turn until he fell asleep again somewhere about four. This particularly applied if he had to get up early the next morning.

But he would not have to get up tomorrow, it was a day off, so he could lie in as long as he liked, and think. Steve loved moments like these – lying half asleep and half-dreaming about something, window wide open, wind blowing round the room, quiet, calm, pacifying...

Steve untangled the blanket, turned on his other side, covered himself properly and closed his eyes. Paradise...

He was lucky to have come across such a great apartment, trees all round, hardly any people in the area, a lake nearby, and then there were the frogs. On the whole, he had been lucky throughout his life. He had not been a favourite of the teachers in school, he was a bit of a rogue, but he graduated from school with good marks, particularly in the exact sciences, of which he had a very strong grasp. Then he applied to the university, to the astrophysics faculty. There were entrance exams, but Steve passed them without any particular problems. When the semester began, Steve found he had much in common with the other guys in his faculty. Many of them were very much like him. While he was at school, Steve had thought that the university would be full of nerds, but on the whole the students, in his faculty at any rate, weren't bookworms, but they weren't complete dimwits either. Just normal lads, knowing, in their spare time, what to say and what not to say to the female students, but also not forgetting that in a university, you also have to acquire knowledge. In short, the world surrounding Steve was very much like his own internal world, and a stable balance was established in a natural way. In general, life was going as it should.

On the other hand, his studies were coming to an end, and Steve had not yet decided what he would do after he had got his degree. Should he go into the private sector or go for a post-graduate degree? Projects in the private sector were less impressive than in science; however, they were well paid. Yet science gave you more opportunity to think and to work at a higher intellectual level, but you had to be content with less in the financial sense. Steve was still on the fence.

Humanity had managed to go far into space. The private sector had already totally assimilated the Solar System within the orbits of the inner planets, and was gradually extending further, beyond the asteroid belt, towards the outer planets. Leisure and educational tours round the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, had been going on for decades and were now quite normal, and indeed practically mandatory for anyone with an interest in space. So normal that you could no longer surprise anyone by the fact that you had been to their orbits.

Steve himself had now twice viewed the rings of Saturn from a distance of only a few thousand miles. A fascinating spectacle, it must be said. The gigantic sphere of the planet and the even rings round it – Steve could not stop gazing at them for a long time. In the first moments, as their ship was approaching Saturn and the porthole covers were opened, everyone said "Wow!", and Steve felt a lump in his throat, it was so moving to see the power of Nature.

Towards the end of the journey, on the way back to Earth, Steve had the opportunity to speak to the ship's captain while sitting at the bar. The captain admitted that even after twenty years of space flights and more than a hundred opportunities to see other planets from close up, he was touched anew by the spectacle every time. According to him, his colleagues felt the same, most of them at least. But the captains of transport craft lost all interest after a while. There were even those who while waiting for a cargo in orbit, never even opened the hatch covers to take a glance at the planet in real life. Maybe transporting mundane things such as fuel or minerals dulled the senses. Maybe.

Steve thought about it, and decided he did not want to become like that. He loved stars, planets and comets. If he had a stone from another planet in his hand, Steve could study it from all sides for a long time, imagining that stone lying on the surface of Mars. A stone has no concept of "life", it can lie for thousands, millions, billions of years, all the time in one and the same place, seeing the planet changing, the oceans evaporating, the atmosphere becoming thinner and thinner as Mars' neighbour Earth came to life, changing from a red-hot rock into an azure pearl. Steve was enchanted by such thoughts when he was turning extraterrestrial stones in his hands.

Thinking, Steve opened one eye and looked at the table, on which there was just such a stone. Steve had won it at chess from one of his observatory colleagues who had a whole collection of such stones. After winning the stone, Steve had ordered a quartz sphere from the university workshop and sealed this stone inside it. It looked amazingly good. The stone contained iron, which gave it a reddish tint. It was smooth on one side and uneven on the other. Steve, examining it under an electronic microscope, came to the conclusion that the stone had been melted on the smooth side. The irregularities on the other side showed that the stone had been broken from a big rock.

Steve got up, opened the shutters, leaned out slightly and took a deep breath. The coolness of summer was pleasantly humid from the dew on the grass. There was a barely perceptible aroma from plants of some kind. Two steps from the window stood a mouldering tree stump with several fireflies fluttering round it. Steve took another deep breath and looked out at the night sky. His eyelids became heavy, he felt sleepy. Steve went back to bed, lay down and fell into a deep sleep almost at once. He had no more dreams that night.

#  The Doppler Effect

Steve opened the observatory door and entered the dark hall. The servers twinkled with a calming green light. All the monitors except one were on standby; only one was lit, showing some kind of data. Steve did not switch on the light, he preferred the semi-twilight round his workplace. He went up to it unhurriedly and sat down in the armchair. He put his legs up on the table, which was his favourite pose.

If Clive had been next to him, he would have certainly begun grumbling. Clive could never understand how you could get anything done in such a position. Firstly the spine was distorted; hadn't Steve been taught to sit up straight? Secondly, feet on the table – what a bad habit, they're dirty.

Steve brushed aside the books, cups and other clutter, and pressed the button to switch on the console. The whole hall at once came alive with various-coloured lights, monitors lit up showing the latest news accumulated over the past 24 hours – spectral analyses of expected supernovas and far-off galaxies, the orbital characteristics of the bodies of the solar system... In fact, everything was as before. Then Steve remembered the strange object noticed a few days ago. His evening tiredness vanished as if blown away by the wind.

With the accustomed wave of his hand, Steve called up the log of observations of the object over the past 24 hours. He did not beat about the bush by looking at mathematical models of its flight, he simply started the visualisation. Of course, much that was interesting could not be seen in the visualisation, such as the various trajectory anomalies, but it gave a good idea of the general picture. Real astrophysicists, such as Clive for example, began by digging around in columns of figures before starting something as commonplace as visualisation, but fortunately Clive was not present.

"Time scale?" asked the computer.

Steve rubbed his chin, thinking about it.

"Make it one to three thousand six hundred."

At such a scale, each second of the visualisation would represent an hour of real time, and the whole history of the past 24 hours would be shown in less than half a minute. Lights winked on the computer console, and in the blink of an eye, it showed the solar system – the planets, satellites and their orbits round the central star. Twenty-four hours ago, the unknown object had been outside the orbit of Pluto. The simulation went from real time into the scale Steve had set.

For the first few moments, the object did not move, then it rapidly picked up speed, bypassed the orbits of Pluto, Neptune and Uranus, and passed by Saturn at minimum distance, losing speed as if it had encountered an invisible barrier, got as far as Jupiter and went into orbit round it. The simulation ended, the objects faded and vanished, and the screen filled with columns of figures.

"Repeat?" asked the computer. Steve suddenly realised that he was sitting there sweating, with his mouth open.

"Where is the object now?" he asked.

"In orbit round Jupiter," the computer replied immediately.

"Is there visual contact?"

"There is no visual contact at the present time. The object entered the planet's shadow thirty minutes ago. If its orbital trajectory remains unchanged, it is expected to come out of the shadow in one hour twenty-three seconds.

"During the past 24 hours, the object has entered the field of vision of other telescopes. Request photos of the object?"

"Yes!"

The solar system vanished, and the star-filled sky took its place. The computer had only two photos of the unknown object. In the first, the object was seen against the background of the stars. In the second, the object was barely distinguishable against the bright background of Saturn's rings. The pictures were of too low resolution to see the details. The object was only a point of light on them.

The problem was that the object had not been subjected to direct observation. It had only been visible on those images by chance. All the world's observatories, on Earth, on the Moon and on other planets and satellites, were connected in a single system. Space within the solar system was constantly viewed by various observatories and orbital telescopes – scientific, commercial and military. Special telescopes continuously observed the space routes, supplying information to the Interplanetary Space Flight Centre. Therefore, virtually any sector of solar-system space in the orbital plane of the planets was in the field of vision of some telescope at any moment in time.

Steve thought about it. The object was nearby, in Jupiter's orbit. By aligning any powerful telescope with Jupiter, it would be possible to determine the size of the object. By joining several telescopes into a linked group, it would be possible to obtain a detailed picture, from which the shape of the object could be found, a spectral analysis of the slide could be made, and other possibilities explored. Steve thought furiously. Clive would be very useful in this situation, he compiled the operating schedule of the telescopes...

Steve gestured to the computer to start the communication module. Images of people in the observatory's database appeared on the main screen. Steve feverishly leafed through one page after another, looking for Clive. There he was. Connect.

"Clive Sinclair speaking." Clive's voice rang out all over the hall. He must have been sitting at his desk for the connection to have been made so quickly. Steve gestured to lower the volume to a normal level and turned to face the camera above his console.

"Hi, Clive, this is Steve!"

"I can see it's you, what's your problem now?"

All their telephone conversations began this way. Steve found it very irritating that Clive always accused him of some kind of shabby trick. As if, because he was ringing Clive, he must have done something wrong and didn't know what to do next. Although, to be honest, more often than not, this was the reason he called Clive. Particularly if he was calling from the observatory.

"This time, no problem – at least, none that's my fault."

"So what have you got there?"

"Listen, you're not busy, are you? If not, could you look in at the observatory, I've come across something interesting and I need your help."

Steve had to force himself to say the last few words. He hated having to ask Clive for anything, but that was the best and, most importantly, tested way of getting Clive to come to the observatory without lots of questions, discussions and stories from Clive about how busy he was.

"Well, since you're not getting anywhere without my help, so be it... I'm in the library, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"OK, but put your skates on, if you can."

"What's so important?"

"I don't know how important it is, but it's urgent, that's for sure." Steve was afraid the object might disappear from view, be lost, fly back to where it had come from, whatever... The chance of seeing something like this did not come along every day. You could spend all your life in the observatory and never see the like again.

Clive nodded and hung up. His image disappeared from the screen.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Steve heard the sound of the door opening, and jumped out of his chair to meet Clive.

"So what's going on?" asked Clive.

"Sit down, I'll show you."

Steve sat Clive down in the armchair, stood behind him and restarted the simulator.

"It all began during my shift yesterday. The telescope picked up an object from distant space. On its initial trajectory, it would have intersected Earth's orbit, but..."

"What do you mean, 'on its initial trajectory'? You mean its flight trajectory is changing?" interrupted Clive.

"Yes, it's changing. Just listen, don't interrupt. It was first picked up beyond the orbits of the outer planets, coming from the direction of the Omega Nebula."

Steve leaned on the back of Clive's chair and gesticulated with his free hand, showing the position of the object in the Solar System depicted on the screen.

"On the basis of the results from the first analysis of its flight trajectory, it would have intersected the Earth's orbit in about two hundred years. The repeat observation didn't find it at first, the data for velocity had to be corrected. The third time, the data still didn't match. That's when the object first came to my attention."

Steve moved away from the back of the chair in which Clive was sitting, sat back down in his own chair, took a gulp of tea and recovered his breath. It was obvious that Clive was intrigued, but so far his eyes still showed a trace of scepticism. After taking another gulp, Steve continued.

"When I got the data about the object and looked at its flight trajectory, I realised at once that it was accelerating. But as you know, the computer does not consider such possibilities; we are not observing artificial objects. And yet it was clear that the object was accelerating. I reset the acceleration to other than zero, and immediately everything about its motion fell into place. But that wasn't the end of the surprises."

Steve had already foreseen Clive's next question and jumped in before he had a chance to ask it.

"Yes, I compared it with the spacecraft database, it's not there. No position beacons either. There were no other data, but as you must realise, a distance of more than forty astronomical units would be quite a long way for an object of that size."

Clive was now completely intrigued. He didn't even notice the coffee grounds on the petals of his flower. He moved the vase a little to one side, so that it didn't impede his view of the auxiliary monitors.

Meanwhile, Steve increased the tempo of his story till he was talking nineteen to the dozen.

"Well, I racked my brains, and wondered if it might be one of the lost ones. I skipped the stories more than five years old, before that it would have been physically impossible for them to have performed such a manoeuvre, the engine thrust would not have been sufficient. I also took a look at the search operation logs – there were a couple of candidates, but it would be quite strange to assume that they had been zooming away at top speed for five years in one direction, and then suddenly changed their minds completely and decided to come back. What's more, if they had been noticed on the way back at a distance of forty astronomical units, they would also have been noticed while they were much nearer. In short, theoretically it can't be ruled out, but in practice it's highly improbable that we have simply come across a lost craft."

Steve finally stopped talking. Clive looked him in the eyes for a few more seconds, then silently turned to look at his flower. Silence reigned, broken only by the slight sound of the air conditioner and the buzzing of the servers.

"Could they be military? We don't have complete information about military spacecraft. Let's assume that during a flight to Saturn a spacecraft was travelling in stealth mode, but on the return trip, without it," proposed Clive.

Steve smiled condescendingly.

"I haven't told you everything yet. In the past day, the object has picked up speed. Enough to travel thirty astronomical units. In less than 24 hours."

Clive tried to work out in his head the speed and power reserve needed for this. But whichever way you looked at it, the difference between the present-day capabilities of the best engines and the thrust of this object was tremendous.

"Perhaps the initial coordinates are wrong? Could it have started from much nearer?" suggested Clive.

Steve shook his head and continued.

"At this speed the object whistled past Saturn, then obviously became caught up in its atmosphere, lost speed..." Clive's eyes began to widen. "flew on, reached Jupiter and became its satellite."

Clive, shaken, reached out for the bottle of water without looking, but it slipped out of his hand. The water poured out right onto his shorts. He swore, picked up the bottle, put it back and looked accusingly at Steve as though it was his fault.

Steve assumed an imperturbable air and observed the quivering Clive as an adult looks at a clumsy child. It was satisfying to see Clive actually spill something for once after frequently accusing Steve and other colleagues of clumsiness! After a short pause while Clive wiped himself dry, Steve ended his story.

"Since then, the object has been in orbit round Jupiter."

"Was there any visual contact?" asked Clive.

"There was, but as the object was not being specially tracked, there are only random photos from the general database. And those were only taken by small telescopes; in other words, what photos there are aren't worth anything, they don't provide any clarity."

"Show me!"

Steve gestured to let the computer know what he wanted. The computer obeyed, and displayed both shots on the main monitor and the flight trajectory data on the auxiliary ones.

Clive stared intently at the screen. His gaze swung from one picture to the other, as if he were looking for some sort of trap. This went on for about half a minute. Steve would have liked to say something, but Clive gestured to him to stop him doing so. Clive had just come over from the main monitor to the auxiliary one and was greedily absorbing the columns of figures.

"So while it's circling round Jupiter, we ought to look at it more closely!" exclaimed Clive, without looking away from the figures.

"We need a telescope array. And as you know, a decent array of telescopes can only be lined up on the Dean's signature. And before all this bureaucracy is finished, at least one whole day will have elapsed" replied Steve.

Clive knew this, of course.

"Hmm, yes, that's no use..." Clive thought deeply. "You know, we have orbital telescopes round the gas giants, let's line them up on it," he proposed.

Steve had completely forgotten about this. Yes indeed, these telescopes had been specially aligned for an experiment about the remote manipulation of Mercury's orbit, but now they were virtually idle. Being low-power and highly specialised, they were of little interest to the scientific community. They weren't particularly useful for commercial organisations either, because they did not have suitable instruments for tracking artificial objects. It would have been too inconvenient to use them to track interplanetary transport craft.

"Do you happen to know anyone from their control centre personally?" asked Steve. "Because if we go through the official channels, there will be the same bureaucratic delay."

Clive's duties in the observatory included, among other things, the allocation of telescope time. This job was not usually entrusted to students, but Clive was an exception. Firstly, he had already completed his studies and had of course already let all the professors know that he planned to apply for a postgraduate studentship (in other words, he had already thoroughly got on everyone's nerves). Secondly, Clive was unequalled for pedantry and responsibility. So when the question of appointing an allocator of telescope time arose, he was the obvious front-runner.

The scientific community often called on each other for help, particularly in matters of allocating telescope time. And Clive was no exception. At first he ignored requests from colleagues at other research centres to take one or two photographs bypassing the official channels, but in time he came to realise that you couldn't get by without mutual backscratching. He himself had occasion to ask things of others. Thus he created for himself a wide circle of acquaintance ready to help with telescope time.

"I know. Look up our colleague Sanchez in my address book," said Clive.

Steve quickly found the required contact number and commanded the computer to make the call. The weary face of the duty operator appeared on screen.

"Control centre Jupiter-Alpha, Sanchez, how can I help?"

"Hello, sorry to dis..." Clive started, but Steve interrupted him.

"Hello, Jupiter-Alpha, we are calibrating our equipment and we need the support of your telescope array. Could you turn a couple of your lenses onto a small asteroid in orbit round Jupiter? We just need a short series of shots, there's no need to track it. Four telescopes would be about right."

"I'd be glad to, but I can't give you more than two, the others are switched off. Send the trajectory parameters and I'll do it. In which spectral bands do you want the shots?"

"The visible spectrum would be sufficient, but the infrared might come in handy too," replied Steve as he sent the object's trajectory data.

"As you wish. We are using the telescopes ourselves right now, but they'll be free in about 30 minutes. You can expect the results then," Sanchez replied.

"That's fine, thank you."

"No problem, ask again any time!"

Clive turned to Steve.

"While we're waiting for Sanchez to send the pictures, let's look at Saturn's atmosphere," he proposed. Steve nodded approvingly.

Clive moved his chair back to its place behind the operator's table. His console immediately sprang to life with little signal lights of various colours. With the usual gestures, Clive only took a few moments to go through the authorisation routine, and take over control of the telescope.

"Have you put the data on the object in the general directory?" he asked.

"Wait, I'm doing that right now," replied Steve. "Ready."

Having made the data available, Steve turned back towards Clive. As always, Clive managed to be controlling the computer at the most interesting times.

Clive was already fully engaged, sending the parameters to one of the orbital telescopes. For convenience, so that Steve would not have to keep looking at his screen, he displayed a copy of his monitor on the hall's main monitor. In the centre of the hall, the orbital telescope showed as a man-sized symbol. It slowly turned round its axis, turning the lens towards Saturn.

How much time it took to turn! Steve couldn't stand watching this snail-like pace. Clive apparently felt the same way. They both, as if responding to an order, looked away from the screen. Steve wiped his forehead, Clive impatiently wiped his hands.

"Have you thought about what it might be?" asked Clive suddenly.

Silence reigned for a few seconds.

"To be honest, no. I found out about the object during my last shift, but then it was just behaving a little strangely. I only learned of the recent events half an hour before you did, there wasn't time to check various theories, you know how it is."

"And now, off the cuff, what do you think?"

"When did you start taking an interest in what I think, off the cuff? And what are the possibilities?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you," said Clive, persisting with his questions.

"Let's take a look at Saturn's atmosphere anyway, after that it might be a bit clearer," snapped Steve. He didn't like this conversation. Putting forward unsubstantiated theories was all very well over a glass of something foaming, but it was not very fruitful to fantasise in actual science. Both Steve and Clive were sufficiently experienced in astronomical observations to know this.

"Look, the telescope has finished turning," said Steve, changing the subject.

Clive threw a quick glance at the main screen and quickly turned back to the console. The auxiliary monitor was schematically drawing the trajectory of the object through Saturn's atmosphere.

Clive made some manipulations on the console and looked back at the main screen in the centre of the hall. No track or trace of the object was visible in either of the spectra.

"We ought to take a shot of the atmosphere from the other side, so that the Sun illuminates it. Perhaps then the spectral analysis will show something," proposed Steve. "Taking its speed into account, the shock must have been of colossal force; if it lost any material we should be able to see something at the point of impact. Frankly, I don't understand how the object didn't break up from such a shock, it should have exploded!"

"That's a riddle to me too," said Clive. "However that may be, after entering the more or less dense layers of the atmosphere, the surface of the object must have been heated to very high temperatures. Possibly it created a plasma cloud round itself, which acted as a cushion and reduced the atmospheric resistance?"

Steve thought over what Clive had said for a few moments, then sceptically shook his head.

"But are you sure that a plasma cushion would act in just that way? I somehow don't think a turbulent plasma cloud can screen the pressure of the oncoming flow of gas. We'd have to ask the engineers."

"I know that it's possible to move through an atmosphere very quickly, I read something about it in a scientific journal. The resistance of a gaseous medium grows in proportion to speed in the fourth degree. But the energy required to create a plasma cloud of the required density does not grow that fast."

"Clive, you're just wriggling. I'm sure that the plasma cloud there is not simply turbulent, it is ordered in some way. And that, you must agree, radically changes the effect of a plasma cushion."

Clive nodded in agreement. Steve was obviously right.

"I've just had a thought," said Clive suddenly. "Why in fact did we decide that the object did not disintegrate? It's quite possible that it broke up under the shock, part of it burned up on Saturn and the rest is now flying round Jupiter."

"So, you're inclining towards the comet theory. In your opinion, the rough external shell was swept off by the atmospheric impact, and the core flew on? But what about the comet tail? As I understand it, we haven't seen it."

"Don't forget that the object was first noticed at a vast distance from the Sun, where the intensity of the solar wind and radiation is not so great," Steve continued. "I simply make this comment in passing, I did not mean that the object is a comet. The object must be something like an asteroid, consisting entirely of solid material, but must have, let us say, some irregular shape. As it intersected the atmosphere, part of it broke off and the rest flew on. Fine particles burned up on Saturn, but a large fragment managed to retain enough energy to continue its flight, and was then caught by Jupiter's gravitational field. This, by the way, would not be particularly unusual. Jupiter picks up all sorts of things."

Clive nodded in agreement. "Let's say the body behaved as you said and broke up in the atmosphere of Saturn. True, I don't know how it succeeded in doing that without being noticed, considering its speed, but let us assume that it did. But what about the acceleration?"

Steve spread his arms.

"I don't know, Clive. I honestly don't know. Have we ever seen anything like it in astronomical practice?"

"No."

"Then why ask about it, if we have no data? We have never come across such a thing before. No such phenomena are predicted in any theory I know. I have no guesses and no explanations. Not for now, at least. We'll get the data, look at it, whatever, it will become clear. Only I fear the object may fall onto Jupiter and never be seen again. Which would be a great shame."

"Stop being such a prophet of doom. If that happens, I'll go out of my mind. To catch something like that and lose it without having explained how this object performed its pirouettes, I couldn't stand it."

There was nothing left for them to do now except wait for the shots from the Jupiter telescopes.

The second hand of the wall clock circled round the white dial agonisingly slowly. Steve silently gazed at the main monitor, Clive leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.

"It's fifteen minutes since they promised to send the shots, could they have forgotten?" Steve couldn't help saying eventually.

"Not at all likely," answered Clive in a calm voice. "They'll send them, just be patient."

Suddenly there was an announcement on the screen.

"Data transfer from Jupiter-Alpha, downloading."

Their sleepiness vanished instantly. Steve and Clive eagerly followed the progress of the data transfer – twenty per cent, thirty, forty... Two minutes left, one minute (time seemed to be standing still), thirty seconds, twenty...

"Message received, open message?"

"Yes," commanded Steve.

"Message contains visual three-dimensional information, visualise it?"

"Yes!" This time Clive got in first.

Jupiter appeared on the huge monitor. The computer always began visualisation against a general background, selecting a scale at which all objects would be visible at once. The object was too small against the great gas giant, its position was only marked by a symbol. The computer assigned it the name 'delta-two'.

"Object delta-two, maximum magnification," commanded Steve.

The object could be seen in all its beauty. There were not many details, but enough to see that this was no asteroid. The object was a dark metallic colour and had the regular shape of a droplet just about to fall from a tap. Other details could not be distinguished, they simply weren't there. Steve grimaced somewhat disappointedly. The euphoria of expectation evaporated. Further observations would probably not bring any more clarity. The only thing left to do was to send an automatic module to the object to feel it out, take samples, probe its internal structure...

"The message also includes video, did you notice?" asked Steve.

Clive silently started the video. Sanchez's face appeared on the main monitor.

"Lads, we're colleagues, you needn't have kidded me about it being an asteroid. It gives you a strange feeling when an asteroid winks at you with a laser! OK, enjoy the pictures, goodbye till next time."

Steve looked questioningly at Clive.

"What was he talking about?" asked Steve.

"I don't know," Clive replied.

"Repeat the video."

Clive ordered the computer to show the clip again. After looking at it once more, Clive scratched the back of his neck.

"What laser?" he asked, after briefly thinking about it.

"You heard the same as I did, how should I know? Was it the object he was talking about? Only I don't understand what lasers have to do with it," answered Clive.

"Sanchez said that the object was winking with a laser."

"That's how I understood it, but that's absurd! Could he have meant something else?"

"OK, let's call him again, what's the point in guessing?" proposed Steve, with some irritation.

Clive gave the command to repeat the call. A second or two later, Sanchez's face appeared on the central monitor.

"Miguel, it's us again. Excuse me asking, but what lasers were you talking about?" asked Clive.

Sanchez grimaced, but his tone remained friendly.

"Clive, is this a practical joke? When I turned our lenses onto your 'asteroid' and took a bearing on it with a laser distance gauge, it winked at me in reply."

"What do you mean, winked? Who winked, the asteroid?"

"Who else?"

Clive exchanged glances with Steve.

"All right, Miguel, thanks."

Sanchez grimaced again and hung up.

"Maybe he's making fun of us?" asked Steve after a short pause.

"I don't know him well enough for him to be playing jokes on me."

Steve stroked his chin. He didn't want to propose crazy theories. Clive apparently thought the same. Each of them simply waited to see what the other would propose.

"We have a transport route tracker a few light seconds from Jupiter, let's get it to light up the object with a laser. That will give us its precise orbit at the same time," suggested Steve.

Clive turned to the console and gave a request to determine the trajectory of the object.

"Ready."

A little less than an hour and a half later, the main screen came alive and showed columns of figures, defining precisely the parameters of the object's trajectory. Steve opened the tracker log from his console.

In taking the bearing of a transport, trackers always tried to identify the spacecraft by sending the appropriate interrogation. By protocol, the identification number was requested via a laser link. The laser had the advantage of being directional, so by comparison with radio waves, it did not clutter up the ether with noise unwanted by other spacecraft.

Steve rapidly looked down to the end of the recording, containing the craft identification data.

"Identification status: no result. Reason: unknown protocol."

Steve turned to Clive.

"Look at the end of the recording, where it reports on the identification. You see what it says about the unknown protocol?"

"I see it. I'm just trying to understand what it can mean," replied Clive.

"Damn, it could have said a bit more about it."

"Too true."

"So, the object could not be identified," said Steve, thinking aloud. "That was to be expected. The tracker asked for its number through the laser link and the object did not reply. But what does 'unknown protocol' mean? Did the tracker receive a reply after all?"

"Perhaps the object is simply reflecting the signal?" suggested Clive.

"But trackers ought to be able to distinguish such cases," answered Steve.

"Ought to, ought not to... You mustn't forget that they are not meant for tracking random objects, but spacecraft, and a craft's plating does not reflect a laser beam like a mirror. The tracker knows this and can distinguish a laser reflection from a response pulse. But our object consists of some other material. There it is." Clive pointed to the large screen "In the photo, it's almost mirror-like. Possibly the intensity of the reflection is so strong that the tracker mistakenly takes it for a response. As a result, it sees its own interrogation, and since an interrogation protocol differs from a response protocol, it can't identify it. Therefore, naturally, it issues the error signal 'unknown protocol'."

"That's pretty crude, even for a tracker, don't you think? And what about the time lag between question and response? If the tracker sees the reflection of its own signal and takes it for a response, the craft under interrogation has no 'thinking time'. Don't you think the tracker would notice that?" objected Steve.

"There are vast numbers of trackers, and so they are kept primitive due to cost considerations. Therefore, in designing the standard routines of trackers, they act on the principle 'the simpler the better', and don't bother to think about what else they could teach it just in case it might come in handy in the future. And what practical use is there in calculating the time lag between receipt of signal and response? Incidentally, the log ought to include both the interrogation and the response. Compare their binary structure," said Clive.

Steve commanded the computer to compare the two packets of data. The response was instantaneous: coincidence 99.998%.

Steve looked at Clive and spread his arms, smiling.

"The percentage of error could well be ascribed to errors in transmission."

"I think so too."

Steve looked at the protocol again. Something wasn't quite right.

"Hang on a minute, Clive. The laser reflection is precisely the same as the signal."

"Well, yes, it should be exactly the same."

"Oh? Are you sure?"

"We can assume it."

"And what about the Doppler effect?"

"What about it?"

"The reflector is moving away, yet we don't see any Doppler effect. How do you explain that?"

"If you think about it, the signal really ought to show some red shift. Here we don't see this. Wait, don't be hasty. Maybe we haven't taken something into account?" said Clive.

"Clive, your theory about the reflection has bitten the dust. I don't believe that a tracker can't distinguish its own signal from something else's. And then there's the Doppler effect, the object is undoubtedly sending signals! It's simply first making a correction for spectral shift," said Steve.

This thought had long been at the back of Steve's mind, he was simply reluctant to put it into words. Up to this moment. At first all this business about the manoeuvres, then slowing down in Saturn's atmosphere, the external appearance of the object, and for dessert, the Doppler effect too! The object was not of natural origin, it was a spaceship.

Clive was silent. Silence reigned.

"OK, let's take your theory as a starting point." Clive spoke in a quiet and unbelievably calm voice. "Two possibilities remain. The first is that it is military, fitted with all sorts of technology we civilians know nothing about. The second possibility is that we are dealing with an extraterrestrial civilisation. Frankly, I don't know which of the two is the crazier."

"Clive, there are no other possibilities!"

Steve extended his hand towards the monitor, which was still showing the photograph of the object. The photo was not crisp and detailed like movie alien spaceships, but dull, lacking contrast, quite ordinary.

"Do you really think asteroids look like that?" he asked Clive, pointing to the photograph.

"No, of course not," Clive replied.

"And can they accelerate to sub-light speeds, all on their own?"

"I agree with you."

They spent some time sitting in the semi-darkness of the hall, just staring at the image of the object on the auxiliary monitor.

"What now?" asked Clive.

"I think for a start we ought to consult Shelby," suggested Steve.

Clive unexpectedly burst out laughing.

"He must have a problem with his nerves," thought Steve, dumbfounded by such behaviour.

Clive, noticing Steve's reaction, laughed all the louder. He explained, smiling:

"No, Steve, I'm all right. I was just imagining you phoning Shelby and saying" – Clive continued in imitation of Steve's voice – "Mr. Shelby, could you come to the observatory? We've just found some aliens!"

"You're right, he wouldn't come alone, he'd bring a team of men in white coats with him," said Steve. Seeing the funny side of the situation, he laughed too.

"OK, joking aside, it's a serious matter. Call Shelby," said Steve.

"It's late, he'll be angry."

"You don't get angry about this sort of thing."

"That's true too," said Clive, and called Shelby's number.

After at least a dozen rings, the Dean's sleepy face appeared on the screen.

"Shelby here," said Shelby, sounding friendly enough in spite of the call at a clearly inappropriate time.

"Mr. Shelby, good evening, forgive me for calling so late," began Steve.

"Good evening? It's more like night... Not to worry. So what have you got there, lads?"

"Something very important has cropped up here. You will have to come to the observatory."

Steve paused briefly, then continued.

"You know we would not bother you at such a time for anything trivial. But this certainly isn't. We'll explain everything to you when you arrive."

The Dean's face instantly became serious. He obviously had a foreboding that something terrible had happened.

"Is it very bad?" he asked, in a quite different tone of voice.

"No, but it's important. Believe me, nothing terrible has happened, you may be sure."

"Understood, I'll come out." Shelby hung up before he had even finished the last word.

#  What is to be done?

More than half an hour had elapsed since the Dean had left home. For all this time, Steve and Clive had been combing through the observation logs for the entire history of the observatory. Had similar things happened in the past?

They didn't understand themselves why they were so feverishly looking for something that was certainly not there. Really each of them just wanted to be left on his own to think through what had happened. Could such awesome events really take place in such an everyday way, so boringly, so wearily? They sat in the dimly lit hall, it was long past midnight and they were exhausted. A normal long working day.

Suddenly an auxiliary monitor winked, drawing their attention. A message appeared on it saying that the gates to the observatory grounds had opened. "The visitor is registered as Mr. Shelby" was written under the image from the CCTV camera taken only a few seconds ago. In the photo, Shelby was just entering the observatory grounds. A few minutes later, the hall doors were flung open and Shelby walked in rapidly. Steve and Clive were already waiting for him at the door.

"What's up, lads?"

Steve moved an armchair towards him and Shelby obediently sat down. Steve and Clive drew up their own chairs and sat down after him.

"Mr. Shelby, I don't even know where to begin," Steve started, and then fell silent. He really didn't know where to begin. From the very beginning? Or should he just come out with it? Clive was no help, he was at a loss too.

"Take it easy, Steve, be so good as to bring a glass of cold water." Shelby quickly took the situation under control. He was once again the old man they knew so well. His voice sounded calming.

"Of course," replied Steve, then got up and went over to the mineral water machine. Pouring a glass, he returned to his chair.

"Here you are."

"Thank you, Steve. It's not for me, gulp down some of that cold water yourself," said Shelby, smiling.

Steve obediently did so. Amazingly, the tension simply vanished. Steve took another mouthful, not so hurriedly this time. The cold water ran down pleasantly to his stomach, spreading a pacifying calmness through his body. Shelby could relieve the tensest of situations with incredible ease. At the moment, he was just sitting opposite Steve and watching him.

"And now, lads, you can tell me what's going on," said Shelby. "Continue, Steve."

"Some time ago, we noticed a strange object beyond the bounds of the Solar System. This object was coming in from the outer depths of space, heading for the sun and intersecting the Earth's orbit. After being recorded by our telescope, the object accelerated, passed through the upper layers of Saturn's atmosphere, lost the greater part of its speed and was then caught by Jupiter's gravitational field. The object is now in orbit round Jupiter."

Shelby listened attentively, his face showing no trace of emotion. Thoughts were no doubt teeming in his head, but he gave no sign of it. He did not want to interrupt Steve, who took another gulp of water and continued.

"The object naturally interested us. We asked colleagues to take photos of the object. I refer to the Jupiter-Alpha team. They did so, but when they took the pictures, they used a laser range finder on the object and it sent a laser pulse in response..."

"Sent it or simply reflected it?" asked Shelby.

Clive came to life.

"No, it responded," he cut in.

Shelby nodded as a sign for Steve to continue, which he did.

"At first we thought it was an error, so we decided to check it ourselves. We sent the object's orbital parameters to one of our trackers, which took a bearing on the object. As you know, when a tracker takes a bearing, it requests the spacecraft's identification number."

"Yes, I know."

"So, the object really did respond. The tracker registered the response. The response was an exact copy of the interrogation." Steve paused, to allow Shelby the opportunity of asking about the reflection.

"And you're not confusing a response with a reflection?"

"Clive suggested that possibility too, but the point is that the pulse was shifted in spectrum. You see, at the moment the bearing was taken, the object was moving away from the tracker at cosmic velocity, so the reflected pulse should be somewhat different. The object corrected the spectral shift so that the tracker received an absolute copy of its own pulse. Sir, we think the object is the product of an extraterrestrial civilisation."

Shelby did not bat an eyelid as he received this information. He looked round the room over the heads of Clive and Steve while he immersed himself in thought for an instant. After a few seconds, Shelby asked:

"Are there no other possibilities?"

Clive and Steve simply shook their heads vigorously.

If they had been two first-year students, Shelby would have simply turned to the computers and it would have turned out ten minutes later that they had made a mistake due to an excess of romantic imagination and lack of sleep. But not Steve, and certainly not Clive, not by a long chalk! He knew these two.

"Show me the photos," Shelby said.

Steve signalled to Clive that he would make way for him. Clive thanked him with a nod. Without getting up from his chair, he moved it over to his console and began to work his magic there. A moment later, the photo of the object appeared on the large screen.

Shelby removed his spectacles, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and, without hurrying, wiped first one lens and then the other. He then put his spectacles back on and turned to look at the main screen. Steve, watching Shelby, could not help smiling at such moderation and self-control.

Shelby looked at the shot of the object for quite a long time. He then nodded in approval, and turned his gaze to the other screen, as if he had lost all interest. Taking off his glasses, he put them away in his front pocket.

"Well, I imagine you know the protocol in such cases. The confirmation of at least two independent groups is required. True, this is a special case, and I believe the military will have to be informed too, but otherwise we keep the information to ourselves. And first of all, to make certain, we must illuminate the object again, from another apparatus. We need a powerful laser with a good guidance system and a decent receiver. The craft on which the laser is mounted should not approach closely. Select the distance so that the object can be tracked easily without making it nervous by close contact. Do we have anything like that in this sector?" And without waiting for an answer, he added: "If not, let me know and I'll find one."

"The military?" asked Steve in surprise.

"Yes, but no-one else at all. I don't like it either, but I think we can't avoid it. What I'm afraid of is that they might notice the object themselves and begin acting without us," replied Shelby.

"What's the difference between them noticing it before us, and after?" asked Clive.

Shelby shrugged his shoulders.

"The difference is that if we report the object, they will certainly have to involve us in the rest of the process, because we are the ones who know more about it than anyone else. At least at first. And if events develop rapidly, and I am almost certain they will, there won't be time to change horses in midstream. Apart from which, we are not just the men in the street, we are scientists, and space is our speciality."

Shelby looked first at Steve, then at Clive, and asked:

"Any questions?"

"No," replied Clive.

Steve simply shook his head.

"Then let's go home. I need a good sleep and more importantly, so do you. I guarantee that as soon as the military learn of our find, they won't let us sleep any more. Now we have to decide about the apparatus, and then off to bed! Sleep as long as you can, and when you wake up, recheck if the object is continuing to react to pulses. If so, tell me and be on the alert. I bet the military will swing into action earlier than we think."

#  At the Space Force base

Shelby was sitting with an officer in a brightly lit room and relating the recent events. The Space Patrol officer, General MacQueen, was listening intently with a calm face as he drank cold sparkling water from a tumbler.

"So, what you mean is that there is no doubt we are dealing with an intelligence of extraterrestrial origin?" asked MacQueen.

"I would say with an extraterrestrial civilisation, yes."

"What is the difference?"

"We don't know anything about their origin."

MacQueen nodded approvingly.

"What else do you know about the object?"

"Its approximate dimensions, shape and certain technical characteristics. I'll give the details to your technical personnel as soon as we arrive at the observatory."

"Thank you, Professor. Is there anything else?"

"May I ask you a question, General?"

"Of course."

"What do you intend to do?"

MacQueen unhurriedly finished his drink, put the tumbler down on the table and looked at Shelby, who stared back at him. MacQueen calmly withstood the stare.

"We shall observe the object in order to be ready for all possible ways that events might develop."

"That was the answer I expected, but do you understand that we are not dealing with your usual probable enemy?"

"Of course."

"Don't misunderstand me, General. I am not questioning your competence or that of your strategists, but I am almost certain that you are ignoring one not unimportant detail."

"What is that?"

"The fact that the object may belong to a civilisation older than ours by hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. In principle, if we correctly understand the nature of the Universe, I see no reason to exclude a difference in age of the order of several billion years."

"You mean that we are incapable of influencing the course of events. Am I interpreting your train of thought correctly?"

"That is one of a large number of possibilities. If the extraterrestrial civilisation is sufficiently far ahead of us in its level of technical development, and has hostile intentions, then yes. But I think this possibility improbable. No, I mean something else."

"What then?"

"I think they are not hostile. And this is the very case in which we are the side which determines the course of events."

"At the beginning of our conversation you said you know precisely nothing about the aliens, and now you think they are friendly?"

"We were discussing facts. There is a considerable difference between facts and their interpretation. I, as a scientist, make a clear distinction between them, and if I am asked about facts, I don't mix them up with my conclusions. The facts are objectively true, but my conclusions could be wrong. You asked me what facts I knew, and I answered that question honestly. Now that we are talking about the interpretation of these facts, I can make so bold as to assert that the object has most likely been sent to us with peaceful intentions."

"I am listening to you with interest, Professor."

"Let us consider how the object arrived," Shelby leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "From the very beginning, they have not concealed their presence. Firstly, they were moving with acceleration. Knowing that our civilisation has conquered near-Earth space, it can be confidently stated that we are making automatic observations of space objects with the aim of ensuring flight safety. Thus, any strange object moving at acceleration will be detected almost immediately. Which is in fact what happened. Secondly, the object cut through the upper layers of Saturn's atmosphere at a colossal speed, keeping its structure intact, which from our point of view is virtually impossible, at least for any heavenly bodies known to us. Thirdly, the object was caught by Jupiter's gravitational field and became its satellite. This is quite an improbable event, considering its trajectory. Thus, the object behaved in such a way that our attention was drawn to it immediately. If the intentions of the extraterrestrial civilisation are hostile, why behave so noticeably and thus lose the advantage of surprise?"

"If you are hunting bear with a spear, the advantage of surprise is vital to you. But if you have an orbital bomber at your disposal, there is no point in playing hide-and-seek," MacQueen answered calmly.

"I agree. You believe this was a demonstration of capabilities. But if I want to frighten an enemy to death, it is much more effective to put a pistol to his head than to threaten him from a distance, wouldn't you say?"

MacQueen could only nod in agreement.

"To sum up: the object has been trying to flag its presence from the very beginning. Then it 'dropped anchor' on one of the outer planets outside the asteroid belt; that is, far enough away not to make us nervous, but close enough for convenience of communication. After that, it cautiously let us know that it wanted to get in contact with us. I am definitely inclined towards the peaceful hypothesis."

"What if it's just waiting for reinforcements?"

"General, I am sure that you have all sorts of things in your arsenal, but I doubt that you could withstand an object capable, for demonstration purposes, of entering the dense layers of Jupiter's atmosphere at sub-light speed and remaining whole and unharmed. It doesn't need reinforcements. And what's more, the object is capable of reaching speeds unattainable to us; we simply couldn't catch up with it! And let us not forget that it came in from outside the Solar System at relatively low speed. It only started accelerating inside the system. The question arises: why did it travel through interstellar space at such a low speed when it could move so much faster?"

"You believe it started from some kind of space base?"

"Maybe. Or maybe a thousand other possibilities. You have to understand that we do not know who we are dealing with, so we can't even tell which possibility is fantasy and which is real. For this reason I consider that to take any kind of measures, such as bringing forces to combat readiness, would be problematical. We could provoke them."

Shelby then continued calmly: "My personal opinion is this. Our guests are far ahead of us in development, and as society develops, morality becomes more humane, if I can put it that way. Of course, from our point of view, we know only one case, namely that of our own civilisation. But however that may be, whether they are humane or not, they may have specific instructions for various cases. Including the case of us behaving aggressively. Are you confident that you will not provoke the application of some unfavourable instruction if you start general mobilisation? On the whole I think you are doing the right thing, we can't just wait around doing nothing, but we must keep it within the bounds of reason. Bear in mind that conflict with an extraterrestrial civilisation which is in advance of us in technology by hundreds, thousands, maybe more years, would be a disaster for us. We can only keep the initiative in this situation while negotiations in the language of diplomacy are taking place."

The General listened in silence.

"Have you ever seen how a mouse behaves when it is cornered?" he said after a pause. "I was able to see that once. It was in my weekend cottage. I was sitting at a table with friends, when I heard some kind of rustle. I went to investigate, and saw a mouse. I'll say at once that I didn't have any deep feelings about it; I decided to stamp on it and throw it out into the street. It turned out not to be that easy. I didn't think mice were so agile. But in the end I forced it into a corner. And do you know what it did? First it jumped up the wall, trying to hide, but there was nowhere. Then it turned round and started jumping at me. Can you imagine? I am six foot three and weigh over two hundred pounds, and the tiny mouse attacks me. And I retreated. Not because I was afraid, but because I didn't want the mouse to bite me. Who knows what disease it might have been carrying?

"When I first met it, it would have been more convenient to stamp on it and throw it out onto the street, not caring if it lived or died, but after what had happened, it was simpler for me to drive it towards the door. So diplomacy is all very well, but if you are ready to fight to the end, even if you die, those who want to stamp on you in heavy boots become fewer."

"Then let's consider this scenario. The aliens are much more developed than we are, we are just ants to them, insects on the floor. Our problems are of no concern to them. Let's base our judgement on the Copernicus principle, and on this basis let us assume that the alien society is divided into several groups. One group, the majority, is indifferent to us. A second group takes the decisions, as our politicians do. They act opportunistically, within certain bounds of decency. And there is a third group which has some interest in us, or our planet, or the Solar System. It might be resources, it might be living space, or maybe something else. We would call such interests 'big business'.

"As has happened many times in history, such interests as a rule conflict with those of the indigenous peoples. In a humane society, trampling on the interests of the weak by the strong is criticised by the public and leads to widespread public protest. How do we behave in such a situation? We provoke a reaction from the natives which legitimates our invasion. And now imagine what could happen if as soon as aliens appear on the horizon, we mobilise our armed forces, including offensive weapons capable of destroying an entire planet. Remember we have used such weapons in the past, and almost used them in the context of Mutual Assured Destruction in the far-off twentieth century. Would this not be a reason to declare us to be savages, capable in furious rage of destroying everything around, including ourselves? Do you think we, pariahs from the point of view of the peaceful incomers, would be worthy of their sympathy? Imagine that the Maya people existed today as a developed civilisation, with all their cultural features. Could they, against the background of their human sacrifices, sadistic customs and contempt for human life, rely on the support of our liberal groups?"

"Professor, I think you have made your point. We shall take your warning into consideration."

"I very much hope so."

#  Project: Dawn

After a series of emergency conferences at Strategic Planning Headquarters, it became obvious that the Earth's armed forces were in no condition to oppose the military might of a civilisation from another planet if it were to be directed against them.

The first problem was the deployment of the Earth's space forces. They were arranged in the best way for maintaining a peaceful life, and fulfilled the function of a police force rather than that of a classical army. The space forces were deployed to guarantee the safety of flights along the main transport routes, i.e. mainly in the plane of the Solar System's planetary orbits. If a potential aggressor decided to strike a blow perpendicular to this plane, he would only meet resistance in the direct vicinity of the Earth, which would make the front line closer to the rear by a distance of several light seconds. Such distances, even for Earth's technology, meant a flight time to the planet's surface of only a few hours. But the object had covered such a distance in mere seconds.

It was akin to the defence of cities in the Middle Ages. The ancient cities were defended around their perimeters by fortified walls and moats, which were a serious obstacle for cavalry and infantry. But they were absolutely undefended from the air. The defence was two-dimensional. In the third dimension, it simply didn't exist. The Earth's space forces were deployed in just such a way, in only two dimensions.

The second problem was the method. Any military operation was based on the supposition that seats of conflict would arise intermittently, and the army would only come up against a weak enemy, inferior to its regular forces in numbers, level of technology and fire power. This was not surprising. The only enemies the space forces had had to face so far were poorly equipped robbers attacking cargo vessels, making piratical raids on interplanetary transport convoys, or, much less frequently, on remote bases and logistics hubs. A mass attack by a well equipped enemy against even a dozen strategic objects would be certain to break through the defences.

The third problem was the structure of the space-based economy. It was highly capital-intensive and, as a result, it lacked reserve capacity. If one link in the economy were broken, it would affect the whole subsequent production chain. Even an enemy evenly-matched in fire power would easily be able to cause a breakdown in the functioning of the entire space-based economy by successfully attacking a few strategically important targets. The ensuing economic collapse would leave the fleet without fuel, and thus no longer fit for combat. Mankind's sphere of influence would soon shrink to near-Earth space within the Moon's orbit. However unpleasant it was for the military to admit it, after working through the various scenarios of a space conflict, there was no realistic chance of mankind keeping control of the sector of the Solar System it now had.

Having reached such depressing conclusions, nothing remained but to try peaceful negotiations. Shelby was appointed chairman of the academic council tasked with entering into contact with the object. The military were only to act as advisers – at least while the negotiations remained peaceful. It was decided to keep the politicians away from active participation altogether; they were only present as observers.

As for the rest of mankind, it was decided to keep the information about the intruder secret at this initial stage. All the world's observatories that had telescopes operating in the direction of Jupiter, and which might happen to come across the object, were put under the control of the military.

Shelby was given the job of deciding as soon as possible on the list of scientists whose knowledge might be needed in the contact process, which was given the codename 'Dawn'. Shelby knew many relevant scientists personally, so he had no difficulty in compiling the list of people needed. Having decided on the fields of knowledge required for 'Dawn', he selected the specialists he required and gave the list to MacQueen, who had been ordered to oversee the project and provide whatever cooperation the scientists needed.

MacQueen was a combat officer who had spent the greater part of his service in actual combat situations. He had no time for the political games of the staff officers. He viewed any project as a military operation, and the only thing that mattered to him was the effective fulfilment of the assignment. When he was ordered to be subordinate to Shelby in effect, he didn't give a second's thought to the fact that he was forced to take orders from a civilian. It was not in his nature. The main thing was to fulfil the assignment, everything else was secondary.

On receiving the list from Shelby, MacQueen took a quick glance at the columns of names and the locations of those named, and just said curtly: "All the scientists will be on the base tomorrow evening, with the exception of one who is working in Mercury's orbit. It will take four days to fetch him."

Shelby's choices for 'Dawn' included astrophysicists, biologists, mathematicians, chemists, information scientists, historians, and some from various applied sciences in fields more or less related to space. Among the mathematicians, the main role went to specialists in game theory. There were also several highly qualified doctors and veterinarians.

As MacQueen had promised, with the one exception he had named, he had gathered all the people on Shelby's list and delivered them to the base by the evening of the next day. Shelby was to greet them that evening, and tell them what was going on, from the platform of the great hall (normally the location for various official events such as the presentation of awards, or farewells for high-ranking officers retiring on pension). Steve and Clive were also present.

The hall was buzzing. Most of the scientists were quite eminent in their fields, so they almost all recognised each other. Seizing the moment, they tried to sound each other out about the reason for this mysterious occasion.

The cover story they had been given was that this would be a conference to investigate whether or not to proceed further with a recent successful experiment in the remote manipulation of Mercury's orbital velocity, on which an urgent decision needed to be taken as the current delay was proving extremely costly. But the composition of the assembled company, which included many experts not obviously related to this particular subject, led them to suspect that it might be about something else.

The remote manipulation experiment itself, like any other project on such a scale, had been thoroughly criticised from all possible angles. Some scientists warned that changing Mercury's orbit could cause disturbances in the orbits of other planets, which in the long term could destroy the balance of the entire Solar System, or at the very least cause gravitational disturbances in the asteroid belt outside the orbit of Mars, which would inevitably increase the risk of asteroid strikes for Earth.

At the end of the 22nd century, although the threat of asteroid strikes had ceased to be a mortal danger for Earth, it was still a significant burden on the economy. The possibility of a considerable increase in the already high cost of defending against them was a weighty argument for those lobbying against the experiment.

In the worst case, the Solar System might break up completely a few hundred years after the experiment. However, having remote manipulation technology available would enable the orbits of the planets to be corrected to prevent the break-up of the Solar System, if this should ever become a threat in the future.

Others criticised the technology itself, which was not yet fully understood or even theoretically justified. Many parameters of the experiment were calculated by numerical methods, since an apparatus capable of producing an analytical solution had not yet been created. As a result, they had to make do with only approximate results.

This was not the end of the list of potential problems. There were solid reasons for believing that the disturbances would not only affect matter within space, but also the space-time continuum itself. This would do away with the limit on the maximum speed of signal propagation to the speed of light in a vacuum, as postulated by the Theory of Relativity. In theory, the consequences of this experiment might be felt throughout the Universe, and simultaneously at any point in space, regardless of how far it might be from the epicentre of the disturbance.

One group of theoretical physicists from Novosibirsk University even produced a well-constructed theory which did not exclude the possibility of the front of the disturbance to the space-time continuum also extending back in time. Hardly anyone took this purely theoretical work seriously; after all, even its authors kept repeating that it was based on an abstract mathematical model which had a multitude of solutions. Unfortunately they had no answer as to which of the solutions made physical sense, and which were only a mathematical abstraction.

Steve and Clive were certainly the youngest among the scientific community present in the hall, and were without any academic regalia, which was why they were also the only ones sitting shyly alone in their chairs awaiting Shelby's speech. They were somewhat abashed to find themselves in the company of such stars of science.

Unlike Clive, Steve couldn't wait to make use of the situation and start a conversation with someone. It was not every day that ordinary students were given the opportunity to find themselves in the same building with such a large number of Nobel Prize winners.

Steve had noticed that Professor Cohen, the theoretical physicist who had discovered the possibility of remote manipulation, was sitting not far from him. Steve hesitated for a few moments, gathering his nerve, and was just about to get up from his seat and go over to Cohen to start a conversation, when Shelby entered the hall, went on stage, tuning in his microphone as he went, and got down to the matter in hand.

"Esteemed colleagues, please take your seats."

"Damn!" thought Steve bitterly. "Another opportunity lost."

There had been other occasions in Steve's life when he had missed opportunities in the same way only to deeply regret it. The last occasion had been last week, when, on his way home, he happened to meet Maggie, a student in the biology faculty. A few semesters back, they had both been on the same course of lectures in the university, so they knew each other slightly.

Maggie had just come back from her parents', where she stayed on her days off. She had two large bags in her hands, which looked as if they weighed a ton. Steve gallantly offered to help her carry them. Maggie gladly accepted. It was only a few minutes' walk from the bus stop where they had met to the door of the student hostel where Maggie lived. They walked at a slow pace, chatting freely. Steve was in a great mood, joking, and Maggie was laughing merrily, sometimes throwing her head back. Steve spent those few moments gathering the courage to ask her to join him for a coffee, but then the door opened and out came Becky, Maggie's neighbour. Seeing the two of them, she at once butted in on the conversation and began complaining to them about some petty problem or other. Maggie's attention switched to Becky. The moment was lost.

Steve slumped in his chair in self-disgust. Why was he such a slowcoach at times when it mattered?

Shelby waited till the hall quietened down. Then he made a sign to the computer on the podium. The curtains behind his back began to open slowly, revealing a huge display screen. Against a dark blue background, it showed the words: "Project Dawn".

"Esteemed colleagues," Shelby began. "A few days ago, our observatory discovered an unusual object flying towards the centre of the Solar System..."

There was absolute silence in the hall. Those present listened with bated breath. Shelby spoke clearly and to the point. In a few words, he described the situation which had arisen, and without testing the patience of his listeners, concluded:

"There is no doubt that we are dealing with a civilisation from another planet."

After this sentence, Shelby stopped for a short pause to allow his listeners to think about what he had said and to ask questions. But the hall remained silent. Then he made another gesture to the computer. A visualisation of the object's flight from the moment of its detection to its entry into the orbit of Jupiter appeared on the screen.

Knowing that those in the hall included not only astronomers, but also scientists quite unaware of space matters, Shelby went on to explain the technical aspects of the object's story.

"I ask you to turn your attention to the speed of the object. As I already said, the object covered more than forty astronomical units in less than 24 hours. Let me explain, for the non-specialists in the hall. This requires a speed of almost a quarter the speed of light. Since the effects of relativity are already beginning to appear at such speeds, we classify them as sub-light speeds.

"We have analysed the flight trajectory and, on this basis, we have every reason to believe that the object is capable of more. For comparison, our best space engines cannot give us even a hundredth part of such a speed.

"The second aspect is the object's flight through the atmosphere of Saturn. It is obvious that this was how the object performed its braking manoeuvre. I must admit that it is quite an elegant solution. I am confident that our pilots would be glad to do the same, if they had the same shell strength. Let me explain in more detail.

"A spacecraft, like any other physical body in motion, possesses kinetic energy. If you want to carry out a braking manoeuvre, you must relieve the craft of part of this energy. On Earth, whether on land or in an aircraft, this is simple. In the first case you are moving along the ground, in the second in atmospheric air, the force of friction against which can be used as something to hold on to. There is no such possibility in space. Out there, there is nothing to hold on to. Therefore spacecraft are forced to carry with them at least a double reserve of energy, for acceleration and deceleration. In fact, to save fuel, spacecraft often use the gravitational fields of planets to change their flight trajectory, but we can ignore this for a number of reasons.

"But all the intruder had to do was to fly past Saturn, plunge into its atmosphere for an instant, and by holding onto it, disperse part of its kinetic energy. This is a very elegant solution from a technical point of view, but unfortunately it is not available to us with the technology we have now.

"We have made assessment calculations, and it turned out that the braking energy was so great that in the energy dispersal process, the intensity of the effect on the shell of the object was comparable to the energy of a nuclear explosion – equivalent to 500 to a thousand tons of TNT. This is a monstrous load for a craft the size of the intruder. For comparison, it would only take a few kilograms of TNT to damage the shell of our spacecrafts. So we have a difference in strength of the order of five, in other words of one with five zeros.

"Our engineers had a heated discussion about the interpretation of this fact. I don't want to go into details of properties of materials, but there are several opposing opinions. I shall only express one point of view, which is a sort of common denominator – technology of this level will not be available to us for at least another three to five centuries.

"To sum up, it would be most logical to assume that the incomers are ahead of Earth's technology by at least several hundred years. We shall talk later about the consequences of this state of affairs.

"Let us return to the present situation. At this moment, the object is radiating electromagnetic pulses of a specific character, directed towards our terrestrial and space receivers. Our crew of specialists interprets these signals as an invitation to make contact. Up to now, we have not responded to this invitation. We plan to do so tomorrow morning."

General MacQueen made a discreet sign. Shelby nodded in reply.

"I should like to mention one important detail. All the passenger and transport routes passing within a short distance of Jupiter are now being diverted to reserve trajectories by the Flight Control Centre. By morning, there will be no traffic in the vicinity of Jupiter. It is strictly forbidden to approach the object or even the planet in whose orbit it is located. There is an order to open fire on anyone breaking this ban. This applies to all craft of any kind, including trackers.

"As you will have realised by now, the project is secret. To prevent leaks of information, you are forbidden from this moment to contact anyone outside this military base. Due to the current situation, our civil rights are restricted until the president specifically orders otherwise."

On hearing this, the audience in the hall buzzed with indignation. A grey-haired elderly man in the front row stood up and indicated that he wished to speak. Shelby nodded.

At that moment, a small drone with a camera rose up from somewhere behind the stage and flew rapidly towards the man. Stopping smoothly half a metre from his face, with the blades of its small propellers whirring softly, the drone patiently waited for him to start speaking.

"Mr. Shelby, I do not wish to appear impolite, but I, like many others in this hall, am a citizen of another country. So restrictions imposed by your president... I think you understand what I am trying to say," the elderly man said politely. The image of his indignant face was relayed by the drone to one of the reserve screens.

The murmur in the hall, this time of approval, became even louder.

"Silence please, ladies and gentlemen. I understand your resentment. But you must agree that this is a really unique situation. Please show some understanding of this fact. All these bans and inconveniences apply equally to me too. As for the foreign citizens among us, this question has been agreed with your governments. Let us concentrate on the main issue, and leave the concerns of everyday life outside our discussion. As scientists, I think we all understand the motives for this decision."

It was amazing how quickly the indignant fuss quietened down. Some still showed their discontent, but nevertheless, the general mood was constructive. Shelby came out from behind the lectern and, with his hands behind his back, began to walk about the platform.

"So, we know that the object is a spacecraft from a non-terrestrial civilisation. But we do not know if there are living representatives of this civilisation, or civilisations, aboard it. It is quite possible that the apparatus is fulfilling an automatic programme, and we shall have to communicate with an artificial intellect. This could complicate things, but more on that later.

"The problems we have to solve are these. Firstly, we have to formulate a common communication protocol. In other words, we have to learn how to encode our information so that the object understands it. We need some common language.

"Let us assume that we want to communicate to the object what meaning we attach to the word 'star'. The first thing is to work out how the object, when it has received our signal, will read the word 'star' into it. The next step is to convey to the object the semantics which we associate with the sense of this word."

"You said that the object is sending us signals. What have we managed to read from the messages sent?" called someone from the depths of the hall.

"In our opinion, the object's message does not contain any significant information. It is simply an invitation to a dialogue. Later, I shall give everyone a dossier on the project containing all the information we possess at the moment. You will find the technical details there," replied Shelby.

"How do you want to reply?" asked one of the biologists.

"The most natural thing would be to reproduce the signal exactly. The information scientists among us would call this an echo. The series of pulses lasts a little over two seconds, the pause between each series is about five seconds. We believe that by these five seconds, the object is implying that it is awaiting a reply."

"Assume the object ignores the echo. Then what do we do?"

The question was asked by one of the mathematicians.

"We repeat the echo."

"Assume the object continues to ignore it?"

Shelby made a dismissive gesture, "Let us solve problems as they arise."

The asker nodded approvingly and sat down.

"What will our next step be?" Shelby continued. "Assume that we have made first contact, i.e. we have communicated to the object that we are aware of its presence and that it is clear to us that it is of non-terrestrial origin. What can we say to it, and more importantly, how do we say it?"

"I propose we start with a greeting."

This reply came from a tall man, one of the historians.

"Hmm, yes, a greeting... And what selection of pulses, in your opinion, would constitute a greeting for a non-terrestrial intelligence?" asked Shelby.

Clive looked at Steve and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Oh, these humanitarians! Steve smiled slightly in reply.

"Well, what about the greeting that we use between our own spacecraft?"

"Are you proposing to use something like the Morse code, or do you have in mind the algorithms used in modern digital communication?" asked Shelby.

"Er, I'm not sure that a non-terrestrial intelligence would know the Morse code. Open text would probably be better, wouldn't it?" asked the historian.

"Without going into details, digital communication uses something like the Morse code, but thousands of times more complex. For example, before the moment when you manage to hear the greeting, your computer and that of your opposite number have already exchanged a series of pulses. The problem with such a long greeting is that firstly, it makes the task of its interpretation much more difficult, and secondly, the more information there is, the greater the chance that it will be misinterpreted. For understandable reasons, we want to minimise this risk," said Shelby, and made a sign towards the back of the hall.

One of those present stood up and in a well-modulated voice, with much gesturing, began:

"We should not forget that we are subconsciously relying on our experience of human communication. But in this case, we are trying to communicate with an alien race. The difference is that two members of the species homo sapiens, even if they speak different languages, have a certain number of behavioural patterns which are instinctively understandable to them. But in the case of the object, you can't rely on this. Therefore I propose rejecting the idea of a greeting, instead aiming to operate exclusively in universal natural concepts."

Shelby looked into the hall looking for a response to this suggestion. Someone on the right asked for permission to speak. Shelby nodded.

"Thank you," said someone in a deep bass voice. "Sullivan, Professor of Cybernetics. I would like to change the course of our discussion somewhat. We have very little time, and I doubt if we shall be able to work out an effective protocol for the exchange of information.

"Let us not forget that in this situation, we are the more stupid side, compared to our uninvited guests. That is the first point. The second is that we don't know what they know about us. It is quite possible that they investigated us long ago and came to understand the principles of operation of our entire communication infrastructure. When I say infrastructure, I don't only mean electronic channels of communication, but also our speech. Addressing the military in this hall, I would assume that even our cryptography would not constitute a serious obstacle for them. It is more likely that we shall find it difficult to conceal anything from them than to convey the sense of our message to them."

Having heard him out, Shelby asked:

"How exactly do you propose that we begin our 'conversation', if we can call it that?"

"Why, just as you proposed yourself, with an echo. That will be our first reaction to the object's signal. By reacting, we make it known that we are able to receive its messages and reproduce them. The point is that by repeating the signal, we are also giving the object an opportunity to assess the level of development of our apparatus, in particular its resolution capacity."

"Please explain what you have in mind," said the officer sitting next to MacQueen.

Sullivan turned towards where the General was sitting.

"Firstly, the signal has a carrier wave. It radiates electromagnetic waves at a certain frequency, and receives a response signal from us with a certain degree of error. The extent of the error will indicate the accuracy of our instruments, and consequently the level of our technical development."

"What conclusions can be drawn from these data?"

It was MacQueen himself who asked this question.

Professor Sullivan thought about this briefly and then replied:

"That greatly depends on the context, on what knowledge the intruders possess. If this is not their first contact of this kind, they will have had the opportunity to analyse many civilisations at different levels of technological development. With such knowledge, far-reaching conclusions can be drawn. On the other hand, there may not be any universal rules for the development of technology. In that case, the conclusions will be much more modest."

Shelby indicated to Professor Sullivan that he wished to speak. Sullivan nodded.

"Let us return the discussion to the original theme. So far we have no answer to the question of how we intend to continue communication after we have established contact. Tomorrow morning, we shall answer the object with an echo. It is extremely important to determine what our next actions should be. A few minutes ago the supposition was expressed that the intruders might understand how we communicate. But what if they don't?"

"Are there any arguments for or against the theory of the intruder understanding us?" asked someone.

Shelby turned his glance to Steve. Steve shook his head.

"When we first noticed the object, we tried to take a bearing on it. The object could have made use of this situation to send us some comprehensible information. It did not do this. On the other hand, the object precisely determined the location of some of our telescopes, even those which had not broken radio silence in its direction. That is to say, it knows that we are observing it and knows where from. Therefore it has at least a minimum of rudimentary knowledge about the location of our apparatus. Nevertheless, it is sending us a series of primitive signals. This could be interpreted in favour of the well-informed intruder theory, or against it. On the data we have available to us, we are not in a position either to confirm or reject this theory."

Shelby paused briefly to go to the lectern to have a drink of water.

"One of our esteemed colleagues here expressed the opinion that we should operate in universal concepts. Would you like to develop that theory, sir?" Shelby continued, after taking several small sips.

"With the greatest of pleasure. I had the following in mind. Any developed civilisation, ahead of ours by at least several centuries, must know numerous fundamental physical constants of various kinds, mathematical sequences and so on. The first thing that comes to mind in this context is geometric progression. Various forms of geometric progression can be observed in the processes of animate and inanimate nature. For example, the division of bacteria, the number of which doubles at regular time intervals. Or the decay of a radioactive substance. It is possible, though hardly probable, that the first of these is not present on the intruder's world, but we can guarantee that it knows the second.

"Thus we can send a series of pulses containing within itself the pattern of a certain progression. This pattern will be easy to guess, so there is a high degree of possibility that the object will understand what we have in mind.

"But that is just the beginning. The most interesting question is how to go over from encoding such simple logical constructs as geometric progression to encoding complex concepts, for example of a political nature."

"That is the very point on which I wanted to focus," said Shelby. "Do you have any ideas on that score?"

"Yes, I do. But before I express them, permit me to consult my fellow cybernetics experts. I'll give you the results tomorrow morning."

Shelby nodded, looked at his wristwatch and said:

"I think we've all understood the basic problem, so I would like to end today's meeting at this point. We shall assemble at seven thirty am precisely tomorrow in a situation room, where we shall begin making contact with the object. I urgently request you to spend the rest of today in studying the 'Dawn' dossier in detail.

"Colleagues, tomorrow we open a new era in the history of mankind. Our task is to make sure it is not the last one."

#  Contact

The next morning, Steve woke up several minutes before his alarm. He lay for some time with his eyes closed, half-asleep, but when he remembered recent events, his sleepiness quickly vanished.

It was quiet in the room, only the ticking of the mechanical clock on the wall could be heard. Steve imagined all the bustle going on now in the situation room, where more than half the academic council was sure to be assembled by now. It promised to be quite a stressful day. And a long one.

He stretched, took a deep breath and finally opened his eyes. The pale blue light of early morning was peeking through the heavy curtains here and there. Steve sat up in bed. He was still very tired from the events of the previous day, although in some ways the project hadn't even begun yet. Steve wiped his forehead, took another deep breath, and got out of bed. When would he get another normal night's sleep?

Half an hour later, not a trace of early morning fatigue was left. A wash in cold water and a short series of press-ups had their effect – he was full of energy again.

Steve strode across the base, stuffing a doughnut into his mouth on the way, and washing it down with plenty of coffee. Working at the observatory had taught him to hold a sandwich or doughnut and a mug of hot drink at the same time in one hand, while the other hand was free to work, controlling the computer with gestures. This time he was carrying a briefcase in his other hand.

Approaching the building containing the situation room, he noticed Maggie from some way off. She was waiting her turn to enter the building. Steve also joined the queue.

It was moving slowly. Everyone entering the building had to show an electronic pass, verify him or herself by pressing a hand on the DNA scanner, and undergo an iris scan. After that, several questions from the security officers had to be answered.

The entrance was protected on the outside by at least eight infantrymen with heavy weapons. A little farther off, on either side of the entrance, stood two eight-foot-tall combat robots.

While waiting his turn, Steve studied the robots with interest. It was the first time he had seen a 'live' combat machine, and so close up too. Like most students on the physics and mathematics side, he was interested in combat technology not so much because of its purpose, but because it was so advanced. For almost the whole span of human history, military engineering had been far ahead of its civilian equivalent by several decades.

In silhouette, the robots bore a strong resemblance to people, if you ignored their rough titanium-coloured surface, which didn't look much like skin. They also had limbs, and held plasma guns in their hands – two at the same time, one in each hand, muzzle pointing downward. Their heads were smaller proportionally than humans, and were attached to a powerful neck. There was no face in the human sense of the word; instead, there was something which created the impression that the robot was wearing some sort of helmet. On each shoulder was a short-barrelled machine gun for close combat. The whole appearance was quite frightening even with the robots at rest. It must have been terrifying to meet such a machine face to face in a real battle.

From the technical point of view, the humanoid shape of the body was not ideal for a self-propelled combat machine. The human anatomy is such that the muscles which bend the forearm are attached quite close to the axis of rotation in the elbow joint. The arm forms a lever, which gives it more speed at the expense of strength. But mechanical muscles, unlike biological ones, are capable of contracting at a much higher rate, so there is no need for a rapid but weak lever. And in order to compensate for loss of force, the mechanism needed to be much bigger.

The lower limbs were not the best design decision either. The human method of moving on two legs is much more costly in energy and considerably slower than that of many other animals. In creating a combat robot of humanoid appearance, the designers had to resign themselves to the use of energy in a less than optimum way.

However, the humanoid appearance had one great advantage in combat – a psychological one. The sight of a hostile machine eight feet tall, designed to look like a human, aroused fear to the point of panic, particularly among inexperienced troops. Raw recruits who had never been under fire fell into a stupor at the sight of these iron monsters on the field of battle.

Still gazing at the robots, Steve took a step forward without looking, not noticing the person in front of him, who was bending over to pick something up. Stumbling over him, Steve almost knocked him off his feet, and he himself, waving his arms and spilling coffee everywhere, barely managed not to fall over.

One of the robots, in a barely noticeable movement, turned its head slightly towards the disturbance.

Steve apologised, shook his wet sleeve and continued to wait. Embarrassed by his carelessness, he stopped staring at the robots.

Then he noticed Maggie smiling at him from the back of the hall. She had just answered all the security officer's questions and been given permission to enter, when she heard the noise of the commotion caused by Steve.

Steve nodded to her in greeting. She nodded in reply, smiling broadly. Moving a little away from the entrance, Maggie waited for Steve to pass through the checkpoint.

"Hi, Maggie, what are you doing here?" asked Steve in surprise, once he was through.

"The same as you," Maggie replied. "I was in the hall yesterday too, you went past me twice without noticing me."

"Really?" How could he have failed to notice Maggie?

"So it was you who discovered the object?" she asked.

"It seems it was," answered Steve, not without pride. He was still somewhat embarrassed that Maggie should have noticed him just as he was clumsily waving his arms about, trying to stay on his feet. He must have looked a real idiot.

Trying to find something to do with his hands, Steve fiddled with the amulet on his right wrist. Maggie looked down at the amulet and remarked:

"I see you like my amulet."

So it was Maggie who had given him the amulet, Steve realised.

Steve had drunk rather too much beer at that party, and when he found the amulet on his wrist the next day, he couldn't remember where it came from. Now he clearly remembered the scene when Maggie had tied the amulet on his wrist. She had also been in the tavern that evening, with some other girls, and at that moment they were chatting to Steve, discussing the forthcoming final exams and diploma theses. Steve had said at the time that he would need a lot of luck to find a theme for defending his diploma. In response, Maggie had taken the amulet off her own arm and tied it onto Steve's.

"Then let this amulet help you find a good theme. It's always brought me luck," she had said flirtatiously. It was less than 24 hours after this that Steve had found the object. How could even a scientist fail to be superstitious after that?

"Er, yes, I certainly do," muttered Steve. "Listen, how do you happen to be here? I saw Shelby's list, and there were no other students on it."

"That's right, it was just by chance really. Shelby asked for a certain doctor from the faculty where I'm writing my diploma thesis, but he's in hospital just now, he was in a serious accident. And I know more than anyone else about the research he was in charge of. That's how it happened. Pure chance."

One of the security officers came up to them.

"Good morning to you. Please go in and take your seats," he said, politely but insistently.

Steve nodded to the officer, and touching Maggie's elbow lightly, he guided her towards the situation room.

The situation room was a hall with no windows, but it was flooded with bright light, divided into a number of colour-coded sectors. Each sector in turn was divided into oases consisting of several tables set in a circle. On entering the hall, Steve and Maggie stopped, looking for their places.

"I'm sitting over there against the wall," said Maggie, pointing to the red sector.

"Uh-huh." Steve peered round the tables, but couldn't find his group anywhere.

"Well, the best of luck then," said Maggie, and went to join her group.

Steve finally saw his workplace. The group of astrophysicists, unlike the others, was located on a small platform in the centre of the hall. Shelby was head of the project, so his group's table was in the centre.

Shelby himself was already in place, and was energetically discussing something with two people in uniform bending over their desktop monitors. Steve went to his table, unhurriedly took his things out of the briefcase, and sat in his chair to wait patiently. Clive's things were set out on the next table.

The hall's central display screen was showing the countdown to the official start of the project. As soon as it reached zero, a gong sounded, and the lights dimmed down gradually, leaving the hall in comparative darkness.

Shelby touched the microphone close to his mouth. It went live, showing a green light.

"Yes, check the telemetry data again please..."

His voice was heard across the hall.

"Give a sign when there is confirmation."

Shelby gave these last instructions to an officer sitting alongside him. After looking at the monitor in front of him for a few more seconds, he finally raised his head and looked round the hall.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," said Shelby, greeting those present.

"Let me bring you up to date. The object is continuing to circle in an orbit round Jupiter, sending laser pulses in the infrared, visible and ultraviolet bands to ten or so of our space-based and terrestrial telescopes. Its orbit round Jupiter is such that at any given time, it is in direct line of sight of at least two of our telescopes.

"The object's laser signals have not changed their pattern – they consist of a series of short pulses in a particular order. We have decided to respond to these signals by repeating them exactly.

"At the present time, Jupiter is at a distance of approximately forty light minutes from Earth. Thus, the shortest time between question and answer is about 80 minutes. To save us time, we already sent our 'echo' over an hour ago. We are awaiting a reply within the next few minutes."

Shelby made a sign to the operator, who displayed the countdown to the expected reply on one of the auxiliary monitors. It was now just past the five minutes thirty seconds mark.

Shelby continued.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, we are doing as we agreed yesterday. I am acting as moderator of our discussion. Your places are arranged so that you can confer directly with your colleagues in the same discipline. If you require interdisciplinary assistance, please contact the required group directly through the intercom. Please confer in low voices. Answer questions briefly; and it is of course desirable to speak in terms which will be understood by those who are not specialists in your field."

Having finished his speech, Shelby signalled to the operator, who dimmed down the light in the hall still further. Now the hall was broken down into numerous brightly illuminated oases of concentrated mental power. From outside, it was like a school competition, except that instead of spotty kids, bald heads predominated in the hall.

The countdown was approaching zero. With ten seconds to go a muffled blow was struck on the gong, and the hall at once fell silent. Hundreds of eyes watched the counter: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. On reaching zero, the counter stopped. A sea of eyes flashed across to the main screen, on which the signal from the object was displayed in visual form.

The object continued to radiate the same signals as before, without changing either the frequency or the pattern. The narrow line on the main screen kept jumping synchronously with the pulses. Suddenly the signals stopped. The hall sat with bated breath. The visualiser was showing a 'plateau'. The signal had vanished.

It seemed to Steve, who had been observing the line on the visualiser, as if not only the hall, but the whole world, had frozen in anticipation. It was as though everything alive had stopped and was staring at the monitor.

And then a blip appeared. An instant later, another, and another... For the first time in history, mankind was conversing with another form of intelligent life.

This time, the signals clearly contained some kind of information. They were of different intensity. On the visualiser, this appeared as peaks of different height.

The first peak was the biggest, followed by more, much smaller but not identical to each other. After sending a dozen or so different peaks, the object took a short break, as if taking a breath, and then started repeating the sequence from the beginning.

The first one to come to his senses was Shelby.

"So, as we see, our signal has been registered!"

Shelby's voice trembled a little, but he retained his self-control. It was apparent from his voice that his throat was dry. He took a sip of water.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today, on 26th June 2177, at 8 hours 45 minutes, we have for the first time made conscious contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence..."

###

END OF EPISODE ONE

Thank you for reading my book, I hope you enjoyed it! It would be great if you could take a few minutes to leave a review. Reviews help others to decide what they should spend their time and money on. They also help authors to put out better, more enjoyable books. I take reader feedback very seriously.

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Website: albertsartison.com

E-mail: contact@albertsartison.com
