 
BEYOND THE EVENT HORIZON

episode one

by

Albert Sartison
Published by Albert Sartison at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Albert Sartison

1.01

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ALSO BY ALBERT SARTISON

The Contact

Fundamental Force

*

The Storm

*

Entangled

### Contents

Prologue

The events of this book continue the story begun in "THE CONTACT" and follow on immediately from the end of the previous book. "BEYOND THE EVENT HORIZON" can be read as a stand-alone story, although certain nuances of the plot will not be understood if you do not know the preceding events.

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Albert Sartison (Goodreads)

Nature creates ability; luck provides it with opportunity.

François de La Rochefoucauld

#  Prologue

In 2177, close to the Solar System, scientists discover a source of disturbance to the space-time continuum: radiating gravity waves that did not appear to have the signature of those caused by natural processes.

On the basis of the approximate distance to the source and the intensity of the waves generated, its mass ought to be compatible with the size of a binary star and exert a strong influence on the movement of the planets in the Solar System. However, such a system of heavenly bodies is not known to exist.

Attempts to detect the mysterious object with the aid of Earth-based observatories and orbital telescopes are unsuccessful, but astronomers succeed in determining the location of the anomaly. Its distance from the Sun is estimated to be six light hours, which is within the range of high-speed spacecraft. A research expedition is being equipped to go to its location...

#  1

By the evening of the day of departure, the weather was already beginning to deteriorate. When Steve left the house and got into a taxi, the sky was shrouded in a light mist, changing its colour from dark blue to milky. When he reached the spaceport an hour later, bundled his things together and walked towards the terminal entrance, there were sparse rain clouds overhead.

All those taking part in the expedition were sitting in their seats in a small private conference hall. As he entered, Steve saw dozens of faces turn towards the sound of the door opening. Since working on the 'Dawn' project, he had got more used to such situations and had become more relaxed about facing people he didn't know. Dozens of pairs of unfamiliar eyes directed towards him no longer brought on wobbly knees and a dry mouth as they had done before.

Also, he had now taken his finals. As soon as Shelby had finished checking and marking his work, Steve would no longer be a student, but a fully-fledged adult. An astrophysics specialist. Since the assessment was no more than a formality, it was time to conduct himself accordingly and not look up to his more senior colleagues from below, but consider them his equals.

Steve nodded to them in greeting and looked round for an empty seat. He started by looking along the back rows, but after thinking about it for a second, looked further forward, closer to the podium. The closer to the speaker, the easier it was to take in what was said. Steve knew this from his experience of lectures at university.

Under the gaze of those present, he stepped forward and sat in the front row. It was better that way. He looked to either side. On his right was a gloomy-looking elderly man working away on his tablet. When Steve had approached the seat next to him, he hadn't even given him a glance, but just took his coat off the seat irritably. To his left, a little further away, was a group of people, clearly scientists, who obviously already knew each other. They were quietly discussing something. Clive was sitting a little further along the same row. They looked at each other, and Steve acknowledged him with a brief nod.

A voice suddenly rang out from the stage. "Greetings, team!"

Everyone stopped talking and turned their heads to the front. Once satisfied that he had the attention of his audience, the speaker continued.

"Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Kimble, and I have the honour of being the captain of our expedition ship."

Compared to the others, Steve, as a former participant in the 'Dawn' project, knew more about the expedition, so he already knew the captain's name. But this was the first time he had seen him in the flesh. The captain's appearance radiated the confidence typical of all ships' captains.

"Our route takes us beyond the limits of assimilated space," continued Kimble in a confident voice. "This makes our expedition the first of its kind, taking us far beyond the orbits of the planets."

The captain switched on the screen behind him to show images of the Solar System.

"If you look from the Earth's viewpoint, our target is roughly in the direction of Mars, but at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic. This will mean that after only a few days of travel, we shall be far away from our entire space transport infrastructure, and should unforeseen circumstances arise, we will have no-one to rely on but ourselves.

"I am not saying this to arouse fear. But each member of the team must realise that the expedition has to be taken seriously; we can't expect help from anyone. And now please proceed to the exit. We will be taking off immediately, and the shuttle is already waiting for us. I'll tell you the rest of the details on board the ship."

Steve, who had just made himself comfortable in expectation of a long and detailed explanation, looked surprised as he had to stand up and make his way to the exit with the others. That was probably the shortest briefing he had ever attended. It was clear that the captain was no lover of long speeches.

On his way out, Steve slowed down. When Clive caught up with him, he again nodded in greeting.

"Well, how did you find the briefing?"

Clive looked discontented.

"I don't understand why we had to assemble in the hall. We all know where we're going anyway."

"Perhaps just so that everyone knows who their captain is."

"It's all the same to me," said Clive in a loud voice, not in the least concerned that the captain himself might hear him.

Steve just smiled. Clive was being his usual self. Previously, Clive's awkward socialising skills used to irritate him, but he found them rather amusing now. Perhaps Steve was beginning to grow up...

Outside, the weather had finally broken. The spaceport field greeted them with pouring rain, lightning and deafening thunder. A strong wind blew cold spray into their faces, and although the bus was waiting for them under a small shelter, giving some protection to the face, it meant their feet got wet through almost instantly.

The bus closed its doors with a hissing noise and set off immediately. The sound of its powerful electric motor was barely audible against the noise of the rain beating down on the roof. With every gust of wind, water lashed against the windows as if someone was amusing himself by spraying the bus with a hose, its valve fully open.

It was clearly not flying weather, and Steve looked around him in alarm. The dense rain prevented him seeing very far, but as far as he could make out, there was no other movement in the spaceport. The bus, rocked by the strong wind, passed long rows of parked tankers, their lights off.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, the bus left the field in front of the terminal and was now passing between launch pads. They were weakly illuminated, and it seemed that most flights had been cancelled. Those ships that had not managed to land before the onset of the bad weather were awaiting the end of the storm in orbit. Nor were any launches taking place.

The wind was so strong that even the space elevator was not running. As they passed, its cables stretching up into the sky were barely visible in the glare of the floodlights. They were rocking considerably, despite being thick and under strong tension.

Steve got up from his seat to talk to the captain. The bus was going at quite a speed, so it wasn't easy to keep his balance. He staggered up to the front where Kimble was sitting, busy with his tablet.

"Sir, why are we in such a hurry? I thought lift-off was scheduled for five in the morning," said Steve, raising his voice to make himself heard over the sound of the wind and rain outside. Gusts of cold air were blowing into the bus through a slightly-open hatch in the ceiling. The larger drops were trapped by filters, but fine spray still found its way in. Jets of wet air were beating right into the captain's face, but he seemed to be enjoying it.

"The plans have changed. I'll explain everything on board the ship," he answered curtly, making it known by his manner that he had no desire to discuss the subject with every member of the team individually.

Steve said nothing, but looked out through the windscreen. Nothing could be seen apart from the cat's eyes in the asphalt.

"But won't it be difficult to take off in this weather?" he asked.

"I've taken off in worse weather than this. It will rock a bit at first, but nothing to worry about," said Kimble to allay his fears.

"Taken off? I thought you were the captain of a large cargo ship," said Steve, rather surprised.

Large cargo ships, as a rule, transported ore from the asteroids and were so big that they never landed on the surface of a planet. They unloaded in orbit.

"Even I was young once, Steve," said the captain, smiling.

"Forgive me, sir, but non-flying weather has always been non-flying weather."

"So it has, but no-one ever told us about it in the SSS," replied Kimble as if to himself, looking at the screen of his tablet. Glancing back at Steve, he said, "Everything will be OK."

The trip had already lasted at least half an hour and they had still not reached their launch pad. Steve had not realised that the spaceport was so huge. The glare of powerful floodlights was soon visible in the distance. It seemed they had finally reached the shuttle that was to deliver the team to their ship awaiting them in low orbit.

The bus slowed down gradually, and the light became brighter and brighter then suddenly disappeared, leaving a few floodlights illuminating a launch pad with a squat shuttle mounted on it.

Steve discovered to his surprise that what awaited them was not a civil ship but a military one. Quite small, squat, streamlined, predator-like – it had already opened the entrance under its belly, from which a red light was emanating. The powerful engine nozzles suspended above it looked significantly larger than those of civilian ships of the same size.

The bus drove as close to the shuttle as it could, then finally stopped. Steve was sitting next to the door, so was the first to leave the passenger cabin and come under direct bombardment from the cold rain. The water didn't just fall from above, it beat into his face from all sides, even from below, bouncing up under his untucked shirt and running in a cold stream down his stomach.

Steve ran for the shuttle as fast as he could. You might think that the faster you run, the less wet you get, but in such rain, it makes no difference. His clothes were soaked through the second he left the bus.

The interior of the shuttle was quite spartan. Everything was functional, with no concern for either convenience or comfort. Steve hadn't expected anything else. The wide entrance led into something like a cargo hold, which, unlike civilian shuttles, had two rows of seats for spaceborne troops, their backs to the walls. Further on there were illuminated racks for weapons, which now stood empty. Further on still, the compartment narrowed, ending in a door to the cockpit. Unlike the space for passengers, the cockpit had narrow windows, their lower edges roughly at shoulder level. All the lighting above was red, but looking down, there were a vast number of lights of every possible colour. The two pilots were already strapped into their seats, chatting to each other.

One of them, hearing Steve's footsteps, turned round and took a quick glance at him. Steve, who was looking round the interior of the cockpit with interest, met his eyes. He nodded in greeting, but the pilot simply turned back, ignoring the gesture. Oh well, armies have their own ways of doing things. Not so much formal courtesy, but, on the other hand, more respect when things got serious.

After shaking the water off his clothes and wiping his face with his sleeve, Steve went further into the lounge and sat down on one of the seats. He found and fastened his seatbelt and lowered the stabilising bar, which clicked into place. Cushions immediately inflated themselves on either side of his back, fixing his body in place completely. Cool! There were no such devices on civilian ships.

Steve took a quick look back at the entrance, where the others were still hurrying in. The water was not just trickling off the roof of the shuttle and the engine nozzles, but pouring down in streams. The bright glare from the floodlights lit up the rain, blinding Steve's eyes as it dispersed. Because of this, it was impossible to see what was going on outside the ship from inside. Shadows periodically appeared as if from nowhere, breaking through the downpour and momentarily opening the curtain of water to the world outside.

The torrential rain forced the team to get from the bus to the shuttle amazingly quickly. Some coped with their seats at once, while others fiddled about for a while trying to strap themselves in. Kimble walked along the rows of seats, strapping in those who couldn't manage it themselves. Only then did he flop himself down onto a free seat and strap himself in with lightning speed, an action he had obviously done hundreds, if not thousands, of times before.

Once firmly in place, the captain made some sort of gesture towards the ceiling. Steve followed the gesture with surprise, and only then noticed the dark eye of a small camera above them. It seemed that the pilots had been using it to observe them. There had been no need for them to look round from their seats.

"Roger," said a voice from one of the loudspeakers above Steve's head. He was sitting quite close to the cockpit, and could hear the pilot's voice even without the intercom.

At that very second, a deafeningly loud hissing noise was heard from outside. The ship was blowing out its nozzles with compressed air to eject the water that had drained into them and any other detritus. The solid wall of water cutting the interior of the ship off from events on the launch pad disappeared immediately. The water gushing out of the nozzles could be seen for dozens of metres behind them as it swirled around and away into the night sky.

From the direction of the entrance came the sound of hydraulic amplifiers, straining. The entrance door, which also served as the floor, thus making it easier to enter the shuttle, began to rise, sealing the entrance behind it. Once in place, it slammed sonorously, moving sideways slightly into slots that locked it in place. The deafening hiss from outside fell silent immediately.

A small monitor came down to a position just in front of Steve's face and relayed the image from the external cameras. He could see the water from the rocket engine nozzles still shooting off into the darkness.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind them on the other side of the hull plating, sharp sounds like discharges of electricity were heard. At the same moment, the water from the nozzles stopped flowing in uniform streams, and diamond-patterned shock waves passed through it. The frequency of the waves kept increasing, and, with a bright flash of light, two plasma exhaust jets shot out of the ship's tail. The shuttle was instantly filled with a low roar, incomparably noisier than on civil ships.

Steve took his eyes off the screen to look at Kimble. It was hard to make out in the semi-darkness of the shuttle, but he thought Kimble looked pleased. The lift-off in the military shuttle must have brought back some pleasant memories from his past.

The violet plasma jets changed their focal length several times, then the engine nozzles were lowered. The ship shuddered noticeably and rose vertically into the air. It was shaken from side to side almost instantly, with gusts of wind trying to throw it on its side and back to the ground.

After gaining only a few dozen metres of altitude, the nozzles changed direction again, and Steve felt the acceleration inclining him to the right. The side cushions were good shock absorbers, preventing his body from bumping painfully against the harder parts of the seat.

The shuttle stopped being thrown from side to side, and, instead, started vibrating like mad. The noise of the turbines continued to increase, and Steve felt the ship accelerate even more. Yes, it seemed the pilots had never heard of passenger comfort.

Steve looked at the image from the front camera, but his eyes could make out nothing but onrushing drops of water. Suddenly the drops were no more, and the amazing sight of the starry night sky and the bright moon shedding its soft light on a dense blanket of cloud opened up before him.

The ship's acceleration increased significantly. This is really too much, thought Steve. The excess G was beginning to make him feel uncomfortable, and the shuttle was now gaining altitude at an acute angle to the vertical. Under the pressure of such acceleration, the blood was beginning to leave his head and his vision was blurred and fading.

After a few minutes, the ship suddenly changed position sharply, so that its ceiling was now the floor. The shaking had almost stopped, and the shuttle was moving along smoothly and steadily. Describing a huge arc, it left the atmosphere and went into orbit to meet the expedition ship.

#  2

"Visual contact with destination point," one of the pilots said over the intercom.

Steve woke from his half-asleep state and looked at Kimble, who nodded to the camera.

"We'll soon be there," he said to Steve.

Steve again turned to watch the images from the cameras displayed in front of him. The ship waiting for them was still just a bright spot in the distance. It was difficult to tell which way was up and which was down, but it seemed as if the shuttle would have to gain a few more dozen kilometres of altitude to reach the ship.

Steve felt the shuttle turn a little and lower its nose, and the expedition ship was lost from view. About 15 minutes later, however, its belly suddenly came into view floating right above the shuttle.

The expedition ship was enormous. Steve was not very good at recognising types, but it looked like a medium class cargo ship. He had to admit he had been expecting something more compact, but so much the better. The bigger the ship, the more room there would be in the cabins. They were facing a long flight, and he didn't fancy spending it in a space the size of a broom cupboard.

The space flight proceeded smoothly, and the shuttle seemed to be floating on clouds. It was apparent from the screen that the ship receiving them had already opened its cargo compartment ready for their arrival. The shuttle flew into it with its engines idling and landed softly on the stamped steel floor. After its legs had been clamped in magnetic traps, the shuttle switched off its engines and opened its exit door.

The side cushions deflated, and Steve immediately felt his body floating in his seat, rocking from side to side in the conditions of weightlessness. He unlocked and raised his seat's security bar and released the straps. Instinctively putting his feet on the floor to get out of his seat, his body began to float up at once. He managed to grab something and stop himself just in time before he hit his head on the ceiling. This was not his first experience of weightlessness, but he still hadn't been in it very often, so his movements were rather clumsy; he had none of Kimble's automatic reflexes.

"Take the magnetic soles from under your seat," Kimble told the team.

Leaving the shuttle and looking round, Steve finally realised why the ship was so big. Half the capacious cargo compartment was filled with various containers covered with camouflage-coloured tarpaulin. He chuckled at his own thoughts: when mankind first discovered radio waves, transmitters and receivers were the size of a large trunk, whereas today they could fit into a pinhead. It was the same with gravity waves, though they were more complicated. Dozens of containers of cumbersome equipment were needed to register them. Maybe a hundred years from now, they too would be reduced to the size of a pinhead.

Walking in magnetic soles was tiring, at least for Steve, but perhaps they just took some getting used to. The floors, walls and ceiling of most of the ship's compartments were covered in magnetic material. The soles only had to be close to them and they would grip at once, holding the body firmly in place. They automatically adjusted the power of adhesion depending on the load, and switched off as soon as they registered a neural pulse in the muscles of the foot trying to take the next step.

After walking with heavy tread to the exit, which left them very short of breath, the team reached the lock separating the cargo compartment from the compartments with artificial gravity. The lock was in the form of a large-diameter tube divided into sectors, each of which rotated at different rates. The further they were from the weightlessness compartments, the quicker they rotated.

The principle for creating artificial gravity was quite simple. Part of the ship, which included the command compartment, living compartment and some technical compartments, rotated constantly round its own axis. Centrifugal force created acceleration, which in turn created artificial gravity indistinguishable from the natural kind.

This design made it possible to change the artificial gravity inside quite easily; the rotation of the wheel just had to be speeded up or slowed down. For long flights, the doctors recommended Earth gravity, but to extend the life span of the rotation mechanism, it was often reduced to the level of that on Mars or even the Moon when there were no people on board.

Now the ring was almost at rest, creating only minimum gravity, approximately the same as on the Moon. The ship had recently left the servicing dock and been taken by the AI into low orbit to receive the team. There was no sense in wasting the ring's life span on creating artificial gravity. Energy isn't free, after all.

Lunar gravity wasn't particularly comfortable, but was sufficient to keep objects from flying chaotically around in the ship. They stayed were they were put. There is a rule in space, however, that in weightlessness, and in a ship of sufficient size, no matter how thoroughly you fix objects in place, there will always be something floating about, hitting everything it can. Another rule is that the heavier this object is, the more likely it is to hit something fragile, while a third rule dictates that this something fragile will be either an important sensor monitor or the last bottle of the very best wine or spirits.

Kimble seemed to know his way around the ship. He was the first to pass through the gravity lock, before helping the others.

"I expect you all in the conference room in 20 minutes," he said, when the last expedition member had successfully passed through the lock. "Any questions?"

There were no questions, and the team members dispersed to their cabins. Steve called up a map of the living accommodation on his tablet and lifted his bag from the floor. It was pleasantly easy to carry a heavy bag in a weak field of gravity, but you had to remember that it still had the same inertia. If inexperienced, lifting, lowering, throwing or catching it could give you a nasty bump or a sprained joint. Unaccustomed gravity is a tricky thing.

"Attention, gravity increase in 30 seconds," warned the voice of the ship's AI, as Steve was on the way to his cabin. The AI had detected that there were people on board, so had decided to make them more comfortable by bringing the gravity up to Earth level. The bag Steve was carrying became heavier.

Once again, he was the last to enter the conference room. Kimble switched on a small holographic projector which stood in the middle of the table, and signalled to the computer to dim the lighting.

"We all know the aim of our expedition, but that is not the whole story. What you are about to learn is classified 'Top Secret'. No kidding."

The captain picked up his tablet from the table and read aloud the text on its screen.

"All information entrusted to or acquired by those present from this moment on is a state secret and must not be divulged to third parties without written permission from a higher authority. Any violation of this rule is punishable by a long term of imprisonment. This directive has no time limit."

Kimble looked up from his tablet at the team, for most of whom this turn of events was unexpected.

"I am asking the ship's computer to record the reading of this directive, and each member of the team to confirm by a biometric scan that it has been read and understood."

The captain passed his tablet round the circle, so that everyone could leave his or her biometric signature. When the tablet was given back to him a few minutes later, he transferred the data to the ship's computer and turned to Steve.

"You have the floor."

Steve stood up so that they could see him better.

"Yes, thank you..." he said hesitantly, and then fell silent. In such situations it is always hard to decide where to begin.

"About two months ago the telescope on which I was working at university detected a small asteroid on a direct course for Earth. At first it was observed by the computer automatically, but when its trajectory became too strange, it notified me.

"Our attention was drawn to the fact that it was moving with acceleration. On this basis, we initially took the calculation of its trajectory to be an error. After all, the distance was considerable for an object of that size, but it soon accelerated to sub-light speed. It then performed a few tricks, but those are just details. The main thing is that it soon became clear we were not dealing with an asteroid at all, but with a spaceship. A ship built by a non-human civilisation."

The team members exchanged looks. Steve continued.

"When there was no longer any doubt that it was such a ship, the military were brought in. A project codenamed 'Dawn' was started. Its aim was to make contact with the extraterrestrial civilisation.

"The best scientists on the planet took part in 'Dawn', and you have to hand it to them, they fulfilled their task excellently. They solved the technical problems of the first contact within a few days. After that, they entered into a dialogue."

"So they do exist then?" came a question from somewhere on the left.

"They do indeed," replied Steve.

"Did they say where they came from?"

"Er, no. That was one of the first questions we asked them. They replied that they didn't know."

"How could they not know?"

Steve spread his hands.

"I don't know. Perhaps they experienced the collapse of their own civilisation, and knowledge of their home planet was lost. There were many questions the incomer did not answer."

"How old is their civilisation?"

"According to them, about a million Earth years."

Someone whistled.

"Really! We must seem like Neanderthals to them..."

"Very likely. As far as technology is concerned, they are way ahead of us."

"If they've been around so long, they must surely have spread out across space, right?"

"Yes. They told us that quite openly. The nearest star system to where their civilisation is present is the system of the star Gliese 581."

"And where is that?"

"In space terms, quite near. It's one of the nearest stars to the Sun."

"OK, so what have we agreed on?"

"Unfortunately, we haven't agreed on anything."

"How can that be? What did they want from us?" Questions were coming in one after another.

"We don't know that either."

"Not much of a result, is it?"

"That's true, unfortunately."

Steve was turning his head in all directions. He could hardly keep up with the questions.

"So how did it all end?"

"After its appearance, the incomer did not approach Earth too closely. It probably didn't want to make us nervous. It decelerated when it got to Jupiter, and stayed in Jupiter's orbit all the time we were communicating with it. A few weeks after it had been detected, the situation got out of control. It then left the Solar System."

"What does 'got out of control' mean?"

"It means that we fired a cannon at it."

"Good grief! Couldn't you think of anything better than that?"

"It's a long story."

"Did it threaten us, or what?"

"Not directly, no. But there were grounds for believing that it was playing a double game."

"Surely we didn't have to fire at them?"

"It was either a technical hitch or sabotage, we don't know for sure. But fire was opened without orders."

"So you mean they flew here to make contact, and we shot at them?"

"One shot was fired at the alien ship, but it remained serviceable. Or at least, it was able to leave the Solar System under its own power. What damage was done to it, and whether anyone on board was killed, we don't know. Since that strike, we have heard no more from them."

"Bloody hell!"

"Quite so."

"This anomaly we're flying to, is it somehow connected with them?"

"We don't know for sure, but it most likely is. When the military got involved, they naturally started an electronic intelligence survey. They listened in to all the frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum, and we also monitored them in the gravity waveband. The alien ship did not use the usual means of communication, such as radio or laser. But we did once manage to detect the weak radiation of gravity waves. We believe the aliens know how to use these waves to transmit information.

"The incomer may possibly have started out from some kind of mother ship, which remained in the shadows but observed events from afar the whole time. According to our calculations, this ship or base could not have been more than six or seven light years away.

"After intercepting the gravity-wave transmissions, we began to study the space around the Solar System within that distance. That was how we came across the anomaly to which we are now heading."

"So we are expecting to find an alien base there?"

"I don't know what we'll find there. It is too great a distance for radar scanning. But quite possibly, yes."

"OK, so we fly to this anomaly, and wow! We see a great big spaceship. Then what?"

"It depends on the circumstances. Our primary task is to find out what we're dealing with. It is quite possible we are wrong, and the aliens have nothing to do with it. In that case, it will simply be a scientific expedition."

"You said we attacked it. What if they attack us when we approach?"

Steve was at a loss when he heard this question. He had to admit that this was a thought that he himself found deeply troubling. Kimble, who was sitting alongside him, stepped in.

"What would be the sense in that?"

"Well, we attacked them."

"You mean revenge?"

"Well, it's a possibility..."

"They saw us destroy our own weapon after it had fired on their ship, so they must know we had technical problems. Revenge in this case would be out of place."

"But what if they mistake our ship for a military one? We might have another technical problem."

"We don't represent any threat to them. Our weapons couldn't harm the alien ship when we attacked it in Jupiter's orbit, and a whole battle group of combat ships were involved in that. They're not afraid of our weapons. There would be no sense in attacking us."

"Our weapons? I thought this was a civil mission."

"Yes, we are armed, but only for defensive purposes. When the incomer took a fancy to orbiting around Jupiter, the military withdrew their forces to the inner planets. They reduced their presence in all lower-priority areas. As a result, the crime situation in space has become much worse. As far as flight security against armed attacks is concerned, we have been set back thirty years. Attacks by pirates have become an everyday occurrence, as they were in the past. Unfortunately."

"Could you tell us what we're armed with?"

"Well, let's just say it would not be an easy matter to take us by storm."

The questions from the team suddenly dried up, and silence reigned. Taking advantage of this, Steve changed the subject.

"During the flight, we shall naturally be studying the gravity waves emanating from the anomaly. We will also be measuring the parameters of space-time, since the incomer apparently exerted some sort of effect on it during its visit. To some extent, you could say that was the very reason we attacked the alien ship.

"On the back of this, I would like to say to every member of the team: if you notice anything strange, report it immediately. Last time we were too late in noticing certain changes in the structure of space-time. If we had noticed them earlier, we could have prevented the attack on the alien ship."

"Report what, exactly?"

"Anything at all. Strange instrument readings, problems with navigation, communications, the operation of the reactor or the thrust of the engines, the atmosphere inside the ship, changes in how you feel. Anything, in fact. The alien civilisation is so far ahead of ours that we haven't even a rough idea of what technologies they have at their disposal. Therefore, we must be on the alert. Throughout our expedition, the same rule applies as in military counterintelligence: nothing happens by chance."

#  3

After the briefing, Steve returned to his cabin with the firm intention of having a good sleep. There is no concept of day and night in space, so sleeping and waking regimes have to be created artificially. To avoid jet lag, the time zone from which most of the team had come would normally be applied. However, if the team were too variegated in time zone origin, the time zone of the flight control centre would be applied.

After determining the time zone to use on board, the ship's AI adapted the lighting and climate inside the living accommodation, basing them on natural conditions. Morning began with cool air and yellow light, which became white by midday. Towards evening, the air temperature in the ship was raised, and the light moved more and more towards the red end of the spectrum. At night, however, the light inside the non-working compartments and corridors became like moonlight, which, along with the quiet coolness, created a realistic sensation of night. This impression was increased by a gentle breeze in the corridors.

The longer the flight continued, the more the team enjoyed this breeze, even if it was artificial. If you went out into the corridor and closed your eyes, you were no longer in a tin can in the depths of empty space but on Earth, with a cool evening breeze on your face. Because of this breeze, the expression "Let's go and get some fresh air" came to be used by the team to mean taking a walk along the corridor. Naturally, the air there was no more or less fresh than within the compartments, but in the corridors the air conditioners blew irregularly, creating a semblance of natural wind.

Steve washed himself and lay down on the bed. He did not feel remotely sleepy, despite the fact that in the time zone from which he had taken off that morning, it was already late at night. He was too busy thinking about the briefing that had just ended. The theme under discussion had really been very exciting. For Steve, unlike the rest of the team, the alien ship's visit was not a surprise, but man is a pack animal, and the mood in a group affects all its members.

He lay his head on the rather coarse but comfortable pillow and closed his eyes. A picture floated into his head of himself and Maggie returning from a short walk in the park just as the news that the alien ship had been fired upon reached the base and a state of emergency was declared.

To Steve's surprise, there had been no panic among the scientists. No-one had run around the situation room with a mad look in their eyes crying blue murder. Most of the scientists had just taken the information on board with a laconic shrug of the shoulders. Over the several weeks they had been involved in the project, they had developed an immunity to exciting news, no doubt learning this from the military.

On the same day, after receiving the first detailed information from the blockade group commander, General Rohas, the Space Force High Command made contact with the Academic Council from their secret bunkers. It appeared that the situation, which had been gradually heating up in the past few days and was beginning to come to the boil, had resolved itself of its own accord. The alien ship had simply gone back home without a word.

The Academic Council was kept together for a few more days in case the incomer suddenly made itself known. A few days later however, when nothing had happened, the 'Dawn' project was put on hold. By an absolute majority of government representatives from every country on Earth, it was decided not to remove its secrecy rating.

The military removed their stationary weapons from Jupiter's satellites and dispersed the groups of ships they had formed all over the Solar System, leaving only a few craft equipped with scientific apparatus to study the consequences of the strike against the incomer. The consequences of the explosion to Jupiter's atmosphere, which were too noticeable to be hushed up, were explained to the public as a test of stationary weapons for use against super-large asteroids.

After that, the space forces embarked on the greatest inquiry ever undertaken. As well they might. It had been the first armed conflict with an alien civilisation in history. Everything was subjected to exhaustive study and critical analysis, including the principle of subordination and interaction of all the offensive and defensive forces in the space fleet.

Naturally, special attention was devoted to explaining the behaviour of the fixed weapon that had made the unauthorised strike against the incomer – the gun with the military codename E1. E1 had been totally destroyed by a series of powerful explosions and scarcely anything bigger than a micron was left of it. Furthermore, most of the material of which it had consisted, mixed with surface ice and water from Europa's ice-covered ocean, had either been scattered all over the Solar System or had fallen on Jupiter. This made things much harder for the military specialists trying to find out the reason for the unauthorised strike.

All the logs of the weapon's technical parameters and of the communications between its gun crew, the command group and other ships were taken and subjected to intensive analysis. After finishing the investigation and putting together a picture of what had happened from minute fragments, the military did somehow manage to dig up one or two things.

As we know, the space intruder had been told in the form of an ultimatum to take the dialogue to the political level. When it continued to evade specific answers, the group of military negotiators demanded that it leave the Solar System and withdraw beyond the heliosphere. The incomer had asked for 30 hours to consider this demand, on the grounds that it was obliged to have its actions approved by its superior command structures. With only a few hours left before the ultimatum expired, E1 had somehow become cocked and ready to fire.

The system of subordination within the strike group was such that the command was unable to take complete control of the weapon remotely. The command could only take a weapon off safety and issue a command to the gun crew on site, but firing a shot or preventing one could only be done through physical access to the weapons.

Without any information on the capabilities of the alien civilisation, the military did not want to risk activating remote access to their weapons. After all, the incomer might break through the protective perimeter and seize control of the space fleet. It was this shortcoming in the system that played a dirty trick on the fleet command. When E1 stopped subordinating itself to Rohas, he had no other way of putting it out of action except by destroying it.

General Rohas had unsuccessfully tried to make contact with the gun crew. At that precise moment, the alien ship was outside E1's zone of visibility. Rohas then ordered the ships of the second echelon, attack ships intended to prevent strike weapons from this very sort of independent activity, to fire a warning shot.

There had been no reaction. Unfortunately, it would never be possible to find out whether the gun crew had lost its nerve at that moment, or if sabotage had taken place, or if they had gone out of their minds or were even dead. Since the incomer was quickly entering E1's strike zone, the decision was taken to neutralise the combat-ready gun together with its crew.

The second echelon command ship fired, but missed. It tried again and again, each time without success. It then fired a volley from every weapon under its command. Ten powerful ships let loose a storm of fire on Europa to compensate for any excessive targeting error.

As a result of the explosion, the satellite lost about one per cent of its mass. A huge quantity of ice, dust and rock was ejected into space, the temperature of Europa's ocean rose by several degrees over an area of several thousand square kilometres, and the celestial body changed its angle of rotation around its own axis and its orbit around Jupiter.

Nevertheless, E1 had had time to fire at the alien ship. The delay due to the targeting error of the second echelon command ship turned out to be enough for the shot to be fired.

The incomer, caught at a tangent by the explosion, had been ejected from its former orbit, after which it rapidly accelerated and disappeared into the depths of space.

The command was concerned with three questions, on which the investigation concentrated. Why had the random cocking of the weapon taken place? What had happened to the crew, since there had been no reaction either to attempts to contact it or to the warning shots? And why had the attack ships of the second echelon not been able to put E1 out of action with the first shot?

When it is a matter of military operations on Earth, there always remains the possibility of concealed agents, 'sleepers', who can undertake a sabotage operation on the enemy's instructions. But the idea that Earthlings could be recruited by the aliens seemed absurd, and was not considered credible.

They did not succeed in finding a sensible explanation for the behaviour of the crew of E1 in the minutes before it fired. There was constant monitoring of the atmosphere in their living accommodation, so poisoning by some kind of gas, or loss of seal, could be discounted. The motion sensors did not register any foreign objects. No non-standard activity was recorded. The behaviour of E1's gun crew directly before it was destroyed remained a mystery. The only thing that was known for certain was that the order to take the weapon off safety must have been given from within. E1 did not receive any order remotely.

There is rarely one single reason for a catastrophe of technical origin. More often than not, a whole chain of circumstances lies behind it, and what happened to E1 was no exception.

The situation in which E1 escaped from the command's control had been considered possible, so in this case, the strike group blockading the alien ship had included the second-echelon ships. The second echelon had the specific task of destroying weapons not responding to orders, as a last resort. Unfortunately, however, even these safety measures had proved insufficient.

When it became clear that control over E1 had been lost and it would be impossible to restore it within an acceptable time, a shot was fired at it by one of the second-echelon ships. The anti-matter charge missed the target and struck the surface of Europa hundreds of metres from the targeted point. Since the charge had been fired from a distance of only a few tens of thousands of kilometres, a distance from which a miss was not expected, its energy had not had an excess reserve. But it would have been enough to put E1 out of action and possibly to save the lives of its crew.

As was discovered later, the reason the charge deviated from its trajectory was an anomaly that had been discovered a few days earlier by Professor Shelby's team. At the time of the events surrounding E1, the existence of this anomaly was already known to the Space Fleet High Command. Unfortunately, the facts known about it at that time and the brief time interval had not been enough to work out an effective strategy for counteracting it. The situation was complicated by the fact that the greater the energy of the anti-matter charge, the more the anomaly distorted the trajectory of the space weapon. Not having come across such a phenomenon before, the aiming computer was unable to recognise the distorting factors. The only solution programmed into it was to use excess strike energy.

Using enough force to produce a huge crater in the surface of Europa, E1 was finally destroyed. But by turning the disobedient weapon into fine dust, the second echelon had buried forever the last hope of fully explaining the reasons for the control failure. The Space Fleet High Command had no option but to be content with theories.

The first of these assumed a technical failure of E1's built-in computer. Obviously, any such failure would have to have affected not only the targeting module but also the communications module, which had made it impossible to establish contact with the command ship. The gun crew might have been trying to restore control, and for that reason did not react to the warning shots, knowing that restoring control was the only thing that could save them from being destroyed. There was simply not enough time to contact the command ship by any other means.

Another theory assumed that E1 had been acted on from outside. Looked on as a false flag operation, loss of control over it followed by a strike at the alien ship made sense, but raised a series of problems of a technical nature.

To break through the defences of E1's computer would require profound knowledge of its internal structure. Such information could be acquired by re-engineering after infiltrating the weapon system on site or while it was being transported to its place of deployment.

Since mankind had long since mastered the technology of manufacturing and using nano-robots, E1, like any other modern weapon, had the means to protect and counteract the penetration of nano-machines into it, protecting not only its internal electronics, but also living personnel.

For successful and imperceptible penetration, the means of infiltration would have to be smaller than nano-objects, yet possess considerable computing power. The creation of such robots came up not against technical difficulties, but a theoretical threshold. Such unimaginably small devices could not possess such unimaginably great computing power. In this case, the re-engineering and subsequent control of the weapon would require an incredibly impressive computing apparatus.

There also remained the possibility of infiltration at the production stage. This theory also had many weak points. For example, how would the incomer know precisely what weapon would be used in the blockade? It was logical to assume that it could not know this, and therefore would have needed to infiltrate numerous arms factories. If they had, it would mean that most of Earth's military production capacity was compromised. Furthermore, if the alien civilisation had such means of infiltration at their disposal, what was stopping it from extending its influence to the military infrastructure? With such control over the human race, there was no sense in staging such an incident.

After long discussions, the military investigators were divided into two groups: those who supported the theory of a chance failure, and those who were convinced there had been interference from outside. In spite of the difference in their assessments of past events, their view of the future was identical: the alien civilisation had come to stay. Consequently, we should expect subsequent visits.

#  4

After several days of a sedentary way of life, Steve really missed his bicycle. As some compensation for the lack of movement, he wandered around the ship, looking into every corner with interest.

He spent most time in the engine room, where he bombarded the engineer with questions. The sight of the mighty thermonuclear reactor booming along at 90 per cent power won Steve's admiration. He, like many other students of the exact and natural sciences, had always been fascinated by massive power plants.

Standing with the engineer on the upper floor of the engine room and looking down, the reactor remotely resembled a seven-pointed star. Thousands of fine tubes were interwoven into an immensely complicated tangle, each one fulfilling its own unique function in the general cause of generating electricity. Cables twice as thick as an arm extended out from the reactor. Immersed in channels filled with liquid nitrogen and cooled to a temperature close to absolute zero, their superconductor cores carried vast amounts of electrical energy from the generator to the engines.

The heart of the ship was the apotheosis of contemporary engineering thought. The reactor itself differed in principle from its predecessors, particularly from the first-generation ones. It had no heat engine, yet the reactor had an efficiency coefficient of almost one.

Mankind first discovered electricity in the 17th century. During the industrial revolution, it learned how to generate electricity on an industrial scale to electrify cities and factories. But for several hundred years, power stations remained the same in principle, although they changed externally, and more and more sophisticated engineering decisions were incorporated into their design.

They used a large boiler to heat water which was fed under pressure to turn a turbine, which in turn turned a dynamo-type machine and thus produced electricity. This principle, dating from the Middle Ages, endured through the era of atomic power generation based on the fission of heavy elements. Nuclear power stations of this period still had the same steam boilers and furnaces, albeit atomic ones. The price of such a number of stages in the electricity generation cycle was low productivity. The old power stations irretrievably lost two thirds of the energy of the fuel burned in them in heating the nearby lakes and rivers, when water from the cooling circuit was ejected into them.

It was only towards the end of the 21st century that mankind finally mastered a technology that managed without heat engines. This simple step had taken about 500 years. Steve involuntarily recalled the words of the messenger from another planet: we judge the level of development of a civilisation by the type of energy it has assimilated. After all, it was true; all the achievements of a civilisation were based on energy. Take away mankind's power generation capability and it would immediately find itself back in the Middle Ages.

Having looked around the ship, Steve finally reached the bridge. After some hesitation, he knocked and opened the door. In general, there was an unwritten law on the ship that members of the team should only appear on the bridge in the course of their duties or by order of the captain. It was not the done thing to 'pop in for a minute', to call in for a chat with the ship's commander. Steve only had limited space flight experience, but he still intuitively understood the rules of subordination within the crew of a space ship. Nevertheless, his curiosity got the better of him. He subconsciously justified his actions to himself by believing that he was not just a member of the crew, he was also a commander, if only of the scientific part of the expedition.

"Good day, Captain Kimble," said Steve as he entered the bridge. As usual, Kimble was sitting in his chair reading. Hearing the greeting, he raised one eyebrow slightly on seeing his uninvited guest. That was how it seemed to Steve anyway. Oh, to hell with it... Let Kimble think that he simply didn't understand their customs.

"Hello, Steve. What can I do for you?"

The captain put down his tablet and indicated that Steve should sit in the empty first pilot's seat. Kimble turned it away from the console so that it was facing him, and Steve obediently sat down.

"I'm getting to know the ship; I've just been in the engine room. I thought I'd call in on you," said Steve to start the conversation, and glanced at the pilot's console. "Oh, we've already passed Mars' orbit... By the way, do you know that certain members of the 'Dawn' project are continuing to receive intelligence information?"

Kimble's face expressed mild surprise.

"I thought the project had been wound up."

"To some extent it has been. The project has been put on hold, but the military have not forgotten about it. Therefore they are keeping Dean Shelby informed of the current course of events and are consulting with him, so as not to miss something if the aliens decide to pay us another visit."

Kimble heard Steve out and nodded.

"If you ask me, I'm sure the aliens will be back."

"Really? What makes you think so?" asked Steve.

"Well, think about it. The first contact did not succeed. That's no reason not to communicate in the future."

Steve smiled, and pointed to the tablet Kimble had been holding when he entered the bridge. It was obvious that the captain had been reading an e-book. The author's name was clearly visible at the top of the screen – Carl von Clausewitz.

"For a von Clausewitz fan, you take a very optimistic view of things," he remarked.

For the first time, Kimble smiled broadly. Steve had hit on a theme that was clearly close to the captain's heart.

"Where did you get the idea that I'm a fan of his?"

"You finished reading it when we were flying here in the shuttle, and now you're only just past the beginning. People don't usually re-read books they don't like."

"Anyone who has been in a military academy has read it."

"A lot of people have read it, but probably not all of them re-read it."

"Steve, you said that you are receiving intelligence information. Is something in it worrying you?" said Kimble, returning to the previous subject.

"Well, yes. I have seen what's going on in the asteroid belt. All the large cargo vessels are now only flying in convoys escorted by a military ship. We are flying somewhat to one side of it, but all the same, who knows..."

Kimble got up and approached the main screen in the centre of the bridge. Bringing up a map of the Solar System, he made a gesture to magnify one sector of it. With a few more gestures, he drew several lines.

"The red zone extends up to this limit. Military intelligence considers that a ship like ours, moving there without an armed escort, has a 60 per cent probability of being attacked by pirates. In this sector, the yellow one, the danger is reduced to five per cent, and in the green zone it barely exists.

"Our flight trajectory will pass mainly through the green sector. We only touch the yellow at a tangent and leave it again after two hours. I think the probability of coming up against pirates is negligibly small."

"It says in my report that there are believed to be two pirate ships parked in the yellow sector. They tried to seize a ship, but, after an unsuccessful attempt, withdrew to here. They are most likely still there," said Steve, outlining part of the yellow sector on the screen.

Kimble laughed.

"Such information is usually only given to the ship's captain."

"But this is not exactly a routine mission. And we are carrying something more valuable than the usual ore. You could make quite a bit of money out of it."

Steve could see that the captain hesitated for a second, considering whether he should share certain information with him.

"I know where those ships are. I've been keeping an eye on them for some days now," he said, and signalled to the ship's computer to lock the door to the bridge. "Here's where those two ships are. Here's one, here's the other. There's another one with them, but I'm not sure that one's moving," explained the captain, indicating certain points on the visualisation.

As the intelligence dossier sent to Steve a few hours previously had warned, the two ships were just where they were expected to be. The two points denoting them were marked in red. Lines from them ran to their own ship, showing the best interception trajectories.

"Do you know anything about the type of ship? Or the crew?"

Kimble said nothing in reply, but just changed the map. Steve saw two photographs, apparently taken through an onboard telescope from the ship the pirates had tried to take by storm a little less than a week ago.

The photographs were taken from a very great distance for such small objects. There were no details; all that could be seen were silhouettes. Steve just shook his head.

"They don't mean anything to me. Can you make anything out from them?"

"They're old army attack ships, 2110 model."

"Army attack ships? Where did the pirates get them?"

"They are written off from active service after 40 years of flights and sold to anyone who wants them. The weapons are taken out, of course, and so is the additional armour plating. Without them, they are no different from ordinary civil ships. Except maybe that the engines will be a bit more powerful," Kimble explained.

"And how many crewmen can they hold?"

"Up to fifty."

"Really!" exclaimed Steve. "How can you speak so calmly about it?"

Kimble stared at him briefly. This could be read as a mild rebuke for a naïve question.

"It would be child's play for just five armed fighters, equipped in the right way, to take us over. It's not a matter of how many there are in the crew. If they make the mistake of trying to take us by storm, it will be their last mistake. Did you notice the tarpaulin-covered crates when you were in the cargo compartment?"

"I thought they were spares of some kind for the ship."

"Some are, but not all of them. I have something put by against attempts to seize the ship. The high command understands the importance of our expedition, so they've given us something to bite back with."

"That's reassuring."

"Put your mind completely at rest. There's no way they can take us. If they knew what we're carrying, they'd avoid us like the plague."

#  5

Steve had only just finished his morning shower when there was a knock at his door. Clive was on the threshold.

"Steve, Kimble asked me to tell you that he wants you on the bridge, pronto. He tried to get in touch with you but he couldn't find you."

"Yes, I've only just got out of the shower," Steve replied.

Clive nodded and went to his cabin.

Steve hurriedly dried himself, quickly combed his hair, and, eating his breakfast as he went, set off for the bridge.

"Here, take a look at this," said Kimble, relocking the door as soon as Steve had entered and pointing to the main screen.

The radar visualisation with which Steve was already familiar was showing on the display. Now the red dots had left their parking place and had started moving towards their ship, exactly following one of the trajectories predicted by the ship's computer. The dots were now bigger and winking constantly. A warning showed in the corner of the screen:

"Attention, danger of ship seizure."

"It looks as though they're monitoring our ship's computer," remarked Steve, surprised at how exactly the pirate ships were repeating the interception trajectory predicted by their AI.

"The flight trajectory calculation program is the same everywhere, so there's nothing surprising in that."

"What actions will we take? Are you going to notify the crew?"

"Not all of them; just two, so that they can unwrap our surprises. There's no need to bother the rest."

"Could I take a look at what you're hiding in the cargo compartment?"

"Certainly. You are one of those who will be unwrapping them. That young colleague of yours, is he also getting the intelligence information?"

"Clive? No. He said he wasn't interested and it would just be a waste of his time. He's not interested in anything much at all, apart from science."

"I understand. OK." Kimble signalled to the computer to put him in touch with one of the crew. "Toshi?"

"Yes, Skip, I'm listening."

Apart from the voice, the loudspeakers also carried the sounds of scraping metal producing a ringing echo. Only the cargo compartment was big enough to create acoustics like that.

"Are you in position? Steve will be joining you; he also knows what's going on."

"Roger. An extra pair of hands will be very useful," replied Toshi. He spoke haltingly, with brief pauses to recover his breath.

After passing through the gravity lock to the ship's compartments without artificial gravity, Steve, now subjected to weightlessness, was at once conscious of the breakfast he had just eaten in his stomach. It was not a pleasant sensation. Any sudden movement immediately brought on severe nausea. The food wanted to come out. He found an inhaler with a nausea remedy and took a deep breath. After a few seconds, his stomach calmed down and the unpleasant nausea passed.

The cargo compartment was flooded with bright daylight. It now looked bigger than it had seemed to Steve the first time. Something was going on in the far corner.

The shortest route there was in a straight line. He only had to kick off strongly and his body would float there on its own. Unfortunately, free flight was forbidden in such large spaces. The engines were now switched off, but at any moment the ship's computer might restart them to correct the flight trajectory. You never knew which way the ship would rock when carrying out a manoeuvre, and which wall might suddenly become the floor and which the ceiling. If you should fall from a height of 20 metres, even half a G of acceleration would be enough for you to break something. So he had to put on magnetic soles and trudge wearily to the other end of the compartment, where Toshi was already waiting for him impatiently.

"We have to unload these two containers here and then those three over there," he said, pointing to some huge iron rectangles. The first was around four metres high and three times as long. The others were no higher than the height of a man.

"Where shall we start, with the small ones?" asked Steve.

"No, better with the big ones; they have drones in them. We can unload them onto the starting platform right away, there will be more room.

"Look, here are the tarpaulin locks," said Toshi, pointing to some massive metal mechanisms. "I'll crawl in from the other side and tell you when to open them, and watch out! The tarpaulin is under tension. If all the locks are not opened together, there'll be a tangle, then we'll be here all night. Got that?"

Steve nodded. Toshi crawled into the gap between the containers and disappeared from sight. He was agile, and could easily creep into narrow gaps, reminiscent of a black beetle.

"Ready?" His voice sounded as if it were coming from a pipe.

"Yes."

"OK, we'll start with the one you're standing next to. On a count of three: One, two, three!"

Steve pulled a small lever, and, after a few sharp clicks, the lock opened. It turned out there was a spring inside it, which gently released the tension in the tarpaulin strap.

"Well done. Now the next one," Toshi's voice was heard again.

"Say, what would happen if the ship switched on the engines while we were taking a tarpaulin off?

"Nothing. The container is held to the floor by magnetic locks. The tarpaulin is just to conceal it from prying eyes."

"Oh, I see."

As soon as the other locks were open, Toshi reappeared from the gap between the containers. He waved Steve away, then grabbed the free ends and began to pull the tarpaulin off. It turned out that the tarpaulin did not cover a full-walled container, but only a frame with the walls and roof removed.

Inside the skeleton container, three rocket motor tubes began to appear, then the tail of a drone, then its body, and finally its slightly pointed nose. On top there were two narrow windows glazed with tinted armoured glass. The drone itself was the size of a large army tow truck.

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"Great! But why the windows? Does that mean it can be piloted?"

"Yes. It has room inside for six people, not counting the pilot. It can be used as an emergency shuttle. You can go from orbit to a planet's surface in it. Great piece of kit!"

Toshi put on the manipulator glove for the crane, raised his arm and made a gesture as if calling someone towards him. Then he pointed to the drone and clenched his fist. In the corner, up near the ceiling, a telescopic jib came to life, a green light winked confirming the task, and it began to extend in the indicated direction.

Reaching the drone, it gently attached itself to a special lock on its roof. Toshi pointed upwards with his index finger, and the drone automatically released its fixings at the bottom. The crane lifted it and froze in anticipation. He then pointed to the starting platform in front of the external lock through which the shuttle had disembarked the crew when they had arrived that first night.

Once the crane jib had placed the second drone on the platform alongside the first one, it was time for the smaller containers.

"The rest is easy."

"What's in them?"

"Combat robots," said Toshi, and opened one of the containers. Inside was a humanoid combat machine like those Steve had already come across at the base, except that this one was rather smaller. Judging by its design, it was a new model.

Steve had heard from engineering students that there was a common belief among them that there was some correlation between a successful design and an aesthetic external appearance. If a ship, a robot or something else was a joy to behold, you could confidently assert that its design was successful. And the uglier the machine, the more design faults there would be in it.

This robot looked more attractive than those Steve had seen at the base. And since each model was an improvement on the previous one, the newer it was, the more elegant it would look. It seemed the engineers were right.

The robot in the box was squatting with its head inclined forwards. In this position it looked more like a cube than a humanoid, but it took up much less space that way.

"Careful! Move back a bit," warned Toshi.

Steve obediently took several paces back. Toshi took a key from his chest, inserted it somewhere in the small of the metal back and turned it. The robot slowly lifted its simulation of a head. Its optics were hidden behind thick dark acrylic glass, and its head was more like a futuristic motorcycle helmet.

Toshi made a few well-practised movements to initialise the robot. After checking its system, he ordered it to leave the container. The robot obediently straightened up to its full height, and, with a clanking noise, stepped out.

Only now could they see how tall it was. Steve measured it with his eyes from head to foot. It must have been about six and a half feet tall.

After activating and checking the remaining machines and supplying them with ammunition, Toshi wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Skip, we're all done here."

"Roger. Put the robots on duty. Steve, return here to the bridge."

After passing through the gravity lock on his way back to the bridge, Steve sighed with relief. Whatever you say, gravity is a lot more pleasant than weightlessness. There's no nausea, and your face doesn't swell up like a balloon due to the rush of blood to your head.

"Well, let's see if our pursuers will listen to the voice of reason," said Kimble with the hint of a smile, and switched on the radio.

Like any other large cargo ship captain, deep down Kimble was longing to take revenge on the pirates. Anyone with twenty or more years of commercial flight experience to the limits of assimilated space could always remember unpleasant stories about space robbers. If you have experienced their cruelty first-hand, any pity for the corsairs instantly evaporates.

"Attention unidentified ships on approach course, this is the captain of EMC1906. I consider your actions an attempt to seize my ship. I order you to cease your pursuit. Change course," said Kimble, and, after switching off the microphone, added: "I bet they don't bat an eyelid."

Silence was the response. Kimble waited several minutes and repeated the warning. The pirate ships continued to fly on the same course, as if they had not heard the captain.

"Attention unidentified ships. This is the captain of EMC1906. Change course. This is the last warning. Keep at a distance of not less than one million kilometres. We are authorised to use force without further warning."

Kimble grimaced at his own words.

"I hate having to warn the enemy."

Steve just shrugged his shoulders.

"Flight rules are what they are. You can't do otherwise."

"Exactly."

Kimble patiently waited another few minutes. There was no response from the ships, nor were they going to change course.

"They are not reacting at all," said Steve, somewhat surprised.

Kimble laughed. "Of course they aren't. They think we're ordinary civilians, just bluffing." He looked at the clock again.

"All right, they don't want to listen to the voice of reason..." He switched off and contacted Toshi.

"Let the birds out of the nest," he ordered him.

Toshi could be seen on the image from the camera in the cargo compartment standing next to the drones and saluting, then keying something in on his tablet. Vapour issued from the tails of the drones, and Toshi hurried towards the exit. The magnetic soles made movement difficult, particularly running. Toshi was lifting his knees unnaturally high, trying to run as fast as possible before the cargo compartment became filled with mist.

Eventually, the drones started their engines. The screen showed their tail ends beginning to light up. The first one rose slowly and floated to the exit. A few seconds later, the second one followed.

Kimble switched on communication with their onboard computers. All systems were working normally. Their coordinate system was linked directly to the heart of EMC1906, its reactor. Now they were moving at two and a half metres a second relative to the ship.

When the first one went out into space, the ship's computer divided the picture into two parts. One part of the screen showed the view from the external camera, the other showed the view from the cargo compartment. A few moments later, the second one passed through the lock. By that time, the first one had already turned and accelerated away from the ship towards the pirates. Its speed rapidly increased to 100 metres a second. The second one followed, a few dozen seconds behind it in flight time.

The external camera tracked them, keeping them in the centre of the picture and gradually increasing the optical magnitude. Then the image suddenly disappeared and reappeared. Now the picture was coming from a telescope. Both drones were clearly visible against the background of the black starry sky, although they were covered in light-absorbing paint. The speed readings increased still further to 500 metres a second. Now the two drones, which so far had been flying in the same direction, accelerated in absolute synchrony.

1000 metres a second, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000...

After passing the five thousand mark, the computer changed the units to kilometres a second.

6.0... 6.5... 7.0... 7.5 kilometres a second...

"Why have they separated?" asked Steve in surprise.

"They will approach the target from different sides. It's harder to neutralise them that way," replied Kimble calmly. He leaned back in his seat and put one leg on the console in front of him.

"When will they be in position?"

"In three or four hours," replied the Captain, not taking his eyes off the screen in front of him.

"And then what?"

Kimble raised his eyes.

"Then there will be two less pirate ships."

"Just like that, so unceremoniously?"

"Piracy is a serious crime. They know the risks."

"Couldn't you just scare them off?"

Kimble grimaced as if from a nagging toothache.

"If we had not had the drones, we would only have had a few hours to live, Steve. In nine out of ten cases when a ship is seized, the crew does not survive. If we just scare them off, in another couple of weeks they'll seize another ship."

"I realise that, but I'm still not happy about it. It seems kind of underhand."

"Have a chat with Toshi, he'll tell you a lot of interesting things. He and his friend were the only survivors of an entire crew when they were kidnapped during loading. They spent eight weeks in a shuttle before a patrol chanced to pick them up. And another shuttle with his fellow crew members in it could not be intercepted, because it went too far into space and was lost."

Steve nodded to show that he understood the seriousness of the situation. After the incident on Mars, he himself knew what sort of people they were dealing with. For distraction, he immersed himself in reading the dossier on the anomaly. Shelby and his group were continuing to work on their research on Earth, and were keeping Steve and Clive in the picture if they succeeded in finding out anything new.

"Drones will be in position in three minutes," reported the ship's computer in a matter-of-fact voice several long hours later. Kimble dimmed the light in the bridge.

"Action begins!"

Steve saw the image of the pirate ships taken through the drones' telescopes. Over the past few hours, they had reached the pirates, turned, and were approaching them from behind. Now they were flying directly behind their targets, within the exhaust of their engines. The picture was partly covered by grey vapour. The drones were photographing from such a great distance that even the exhaust dissipated in space clouded them over somewhat.

"How can they transmit images without the pirates noticing? They are directly between us!"

"The drones sent out a communications satellite, which is flying a few thousand kilometres to one side. The image is relayed through it by laser."

The live image of the pirate ships was not very varied. Nothing could be seen apart from the light from their rear turbines. They twinkled slightly, and that was all the variety there was in the picture.

"Drone 1 in position, awaiting Drone 2," came a message from the first drone. Automatic devices provided information about the current combat situation in text form.

"Drone 2 in position," reported the second machine a little later, indicating its readiness. After that, the status reports from both drones began to come in almost synchronously.

"Drone 1 locking on to target. Locked on to target."

"Drone 2 locking on to target. Locked on to target."

"The world will be a cleaner place without you guys," muttered Kimble. Although the pirates deserved to be atomised, he was clearly deriving no pleasure from the process of killing them.

"Drone 1 attacking."

"Drone 2 attacking."

Steve looked intently at the screen. His heart began to beat faster. Although the pictures from the monitors did not look any different from a computer game, they still made a very strong impression on him. He was so involved in the combat situation that he felt as if he were there, on board one of the pirate ships.

He saw in his imagination the dim light of its bridge, where its captain was sitting with a bottle of whisky in his hand. The other members of the crew, unshaven, half drunk, their breath reeking of alcohol, were playing cards in the next compartment. They were discussing how they would spend the money they would get from seizing another ship, not realising that their plans were destined to fail. They only had a few seconds to live.

Steve saw a fine white thread heading towards the pirates. The anti-matter charge fired from the drones' weapons was annihilating the sparse molecules of the exhaust from the pirates' turbines along the path of the shot. An instant later, quite silently and almost simultaneously, both pirate ships were transformed into a bright flare, shooting out orange fireworks in all directions.

The drones, as if by command, decreased the magnification of the telescopes through which they were conducting visual observation of the targets. The spheres of the explosions were now fully in the picture. They rapidly increased in size, and, as they increased, they slowly became dimmer, changing from white to the colour of a dark Bordeaux wine. A few seconds later the light from the fragments went out and they were lost from view. Where the exhaust flames of the plasma exhausts had just been twinkling, nothing remained but the emptiness of space.

"Drone 1, target destroyed. Returning to base."

"Drone 2, target destroyed. Returning to base."

Steve turned to look at the Captain, who was sitting there with a completely calm face.

"Was that your first live relay of combat?" he asked.

Steve nodded without saying anything. He had to digest what he had seen. Kimble got up from his seat, went over to Steve and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Go and get some rest. By tomorrow evening, we shall reach the object of our expedition," he said. His voice sounded unusually soft, and quieter than normal.

Steve just nodded again and went to his cabin.

#  6

After dealing with the pirates and picking up the communication satellite, the drones drew apart from each other to take up the standard formation and set course to catch up with the expedition ship. By adopting this formation, they minimised the possibility of both of them being destroyed simultaneously in the event of a sudden attack.

A few hours later, they were back in the cargo compartment of their base ship, and the maintenance robots checked their serviceability. Like any other weapon, the drones needed servicing after every use in combat. Once the serviceability of all their systems had been checked, they were again ready to defend their space base against uninvited guests, as the ship's computer told the captain without delay.

"I never thought it would be such child's play for the drones to deal with two ships," said Steve after hearing the report that the drones were ready again. During the time since the attack, he had managed to get some rest and get his thoughts together.

"Well, if the pirates had known that pilotless spacecraft like those were hunting them, it wouldn't have been so easy," replied Kimble.

"How could they have known? I thought it was impossible to spot them."

"Not everything is as simple as it seems from the outside. Our drones belong to the latest generation the army has. Older models would have been hard put to cope with two ships without loss."

"And here's something I've never understood. If pirates are doing such damage to the economy, why doesn't every ship have such things?" asked Steve, pointing to the display showing the two drones.

The Captain laughed.

"How do you think the pirates get their weapons?"

"I don't know. I suppose they buy them."

"OK. And where do their suppliers get them?"

"I... I don't know. All right, where do they get them?"

"You can't build sophisticated modern weapons in a garage. You need a whole chain of factories with high-technology equipment and special materials, and they cost a lot. The pirates mostly use captured weapons. Black market workshops sell a few, but the lion's share consists of captured weapons.

"If every commercial ship were equipped with toys like ours, in less than a year the pirates would have them too. And then the problems we have today would seem like child's play."

"But how could they seize a ship if it were protected by things like these?"

Kimble smiled condescendingly.

"Because metal is just metal, even if it is as advanced as our drones. And man being what he is, he will always find a loophole, a weak point in any weapon, and that's where he'll strike. The people are the main thing, the weapons are secondary."

"Do you mean to say that when you were in the SSS, you could seize any weapons system?"

"If we were given the task, yes, we could. It's only a matter of the price I am willing to pay and the training of the personnel. The art of war is the art of deception; it's not beating your head against a brick wall."

A trace of scepticism could be seen in Steve's eyes. Kimble laughed.

"You know, Steve, it is commonly believed that primeval man was a huge muscular monster, and that hordes of them used to attack mammoths and hit them on the head with clubs. But there are still tribes in Africa who hunt elephants with stone-age weapons. Do you know how they go about it?

"Three short scrawny-looking aborigines creep up to the herd while it is asleep, select their victim, and cut the tendons in its legs. Next morning the herd gets up and moves on, but the wounded one soon begins to lag behind. The wound becomes inflamed, and the elephant finds it harder and harder to walk. After a few days, when the poor creature is totally exhausted, they cut one or two arteries. The unfortunate elephant, unable to resist, bleeds to death, passing calmly into the next world. Cunning, not brute force, is the key to victory."

"So they could seize us too?"

"They could. But those two contraptions give us a considerable advantage. We can't be taken easily. They would need a lot of ships and weapons and they would have to accept that half their people would not return from the mission. It's too expensive to seize us, it wouldn't pay. So we can consider ourselves safe."

The conversation was interrupted by the voice of the ship's computer.

"Regular scanning in gravity band completed. More precise information on location of source. One point three million kilometres to destination."

"Good. Commence deceleration. Complete stop at 100,000," the captain ordered the computer, then he turned to Steve. "We're almost there."

The ship gradually slowed down as it approached its target. EMC1906's instruments and the whole scientific team were constantly scanning the sky in search of the source of the mysterious radiation.

"Speed zero. Distance to anomaly 100,000 km," reported the ship's computer.

So far, neither the detection systems on board nor Steve and Clive's colleagues had been able to detect even a hint of any radiation device.

"Hmm," muttered Steve. "Perhaps there's nothing there?"

"How can there be nothing there? Are you saying the anomaly itself doesn't exist?" snorted Clive. He had just returned from the cargo compartment and was in a bad mood.

"No, but the generator, if there actually is one, could be non-material."

"So how does it generate waves? By waving a magic wand, do you think?"

Kimble silently observed this dispute, looking from one to the other in turn.

"How should I know what technologies they have?"

Steve was gradually becoming irritated by Clive's tone. As if it was his fault they couldn't find the source!

"I'll say this," said Kimble, butting into the conversation. "I don't know what instruments you have there, but I know the ship's systems very well. If they can't find anything, it means that there is nothing there bigger than one cubic metre."

"Then maybe we should try approaching closer?" suggested Steve.

Kimble glanced at Clive.

"Do whatever you like." Clive waved him away and turned back to his monitors.

The captain looked inquiringly at Steve, as if to say, "What's up with him?" Steve just rolled his eyes. Pay no attention to him...

Kimble turned towards his console.

"Continue approach to centre of anomaly. Stop at ten thousand," he ordered.

The ship rocked as the turbines were switched on again. Changing figures appeared on the screen, showing the distance to the target.

Steve switched on the connection to his team.

"We're at 100,000, but still haven't found anything. Closing to ten."

At 18,000, Mark, who was responsible for the gravity scanner and was working in the cargo compartment, came on line.

"Steve, look at the data, I think I've dug something up."

After displaying the forwarded graphics on the main screen, Steve and Clive stared at them. To all appearances, the waves were emanating not from a point source, but from a surface of some kind with an area of several dozen square kilometres.

"If the radiation surface is as big as that, why aren't we seeing anything on the radar?" asked Steve thoughtfully.

"Hmm, yes... Perhaps the radiating object is not solid, but consists of fine threads?" said Clive, suggesting a possibility.

Steve smiled broadly and clapped Clive on the shoulder.

"Clive, your beloved string theory has lain in the graveyard of science for more than 100 years now. You can never reconcile yourself..."

"Leave off, Steve," smiled Clive in reply. "No, I'm serious. In principle, even if the threads in themselves only had little weight, very high energies could be concentrated in them by means of super-high oscillations. This, by the way, would explain how the incomer generated gravity waves on board that ship without the aid of super-massive objects."

Steve, not finding an answer to that, thought for a while, but then shook his head sceptically.

"A material string cannot oscillate at as high a frequency as you like. It would break from overload."

"We don't know what materials they are using."

"Any material has a maximum tensile strength."

"Suppose they are using a magnetic field?"

"How would they do that?"

"By creating a tunnel from a field, which would compress the thread and not permit it to stretch even at super-high loads."

"But that's pure fantasy!"

"Why? It's what we do in thermonuclear reactors. We use a magnetic field to restrain the plasma."

"There are no high-frequency oscillations there, and plasma jets are a lot thicker."

"The main thing is that such a thing is possible in principle. The rest is just a matter of technology, and theirs is very advanced. You won't dispute that, will you?"

"No, of course not. But all the same, it's too complicated."

"Do you have a better explanation?"

"No."

Clive maintained a significant silence, and sipped from his glass.

"Just a minute," intervened Kimble, who had been listening silently to the arguments. "These damned threads... If we hit them, what will happen?"

"At the point of contact, material is probably converted into hard radiation..." surmised Clive in a melancholy tone.

"What??? Why didn't you warn me earlier?"

Steve and Clive looked at each other.

"Well, we've only just thought it out ourselves," said Steve, embarrassed.

"With what precision have you determined the location of these threads?"

"Probably to within three to five thousand kilometres. Could be ten."

Kimble shot up from his seat.

"Could be ten? What about 20?"

"That's possible."

"Oh, that's great! We're already closer than twenty thousand!" Kimble was beside himself with rage at these damned scientists. He gestured to the computer:

"All engines stop. Reverse along same trajectory. Immediately!"

The ship shook and began to decelerate sharply. Some things lying on the table began sliding in the direction of flight.

"Sir, the field intensity gradients are falling in all directions. We are in the epicentre or very close to it," the computer unexpectedly reported a few minutes later.

"Yes, the error must be just on twenty thousand," muttered Clive, earning an angry glare from Steve.

"Oh, hell! This thing, is it like a mesh, or what?" Kimble was boiling with indignation.

"I don't think so. The aliens must have to fly through the gate somehow. More likely the threads simply encircle the radiating shape. That's if they exist at all, these threads," said Steve, trying to pacify Kimble, though he was feeling uneasy himself.

A few hours later, when the ship had withdrawn to a respectable distance, the tension on the bridge had eased off.

"Let's not have anything like that again! Get your little grey cells working quicker!" said the captain sternly, after sitting in silence.

Clive did not admit his guilt.

"I was only proposing a theory, what's wrong with that?"

Kimble just gave him a discontented look, finished his drink and went out. He could be heard swearing as he went away along the corridor.

Steve and Clive were left on their own, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

"OK, we'd better report the latest results to Shelby," he said.

Clive signalled to the computer to record a message.

"Message for Shelby. We have reached the point of maximum intensity of the signal. Judging from the scan results of the vicinity of the epicentre, the source is not a point, but takes the form of a cuboid, with a radiation area of 40 square kilometres.

"Apart from that, the source is non-material. We did not succeed in detecting any rotating or oscillating mass. I have... We have a version according to which the waves may be created by the oscillations of fine baryonic threads restrained by a magnetic field. Please propose a descriptive mathematical model.

"From a close distance, we can distinguish a whole harmonic range, consisting of the basic tone and numerous harmonic overtones. The latter are of lower intensity, close to or even below the sensitivity threshold of our apparatus.

"The hypothesis of non-natural origin is being considered as a priority. I am sending the scanning data. We are continuing our research. Message ends."

#  7

Shelby, the elderly dean of the astrophysics faculty, and also concurrently head of the expedition's scientific group, had last been on the Space Force's military base some days after the 'Dawn' project had been put on hold. Then, although mobilisation had been cancelled, the base had still been a hive of activity. The corridors were full of armed guards who were constantly checking personal data, creating long queues. To enter the building and reach the required sector, it was necessary to pass through several checkpoints, all irritatingly taking DNA scans.

Outside, it was no better. Ships were constantly arriving at the base and leaving it. The launch facilities could barely cope with so much traffic. Military and transport spacecraft were landing one after the other, filling the surroundings with an incessant roar. Patterns of vapour trails were visible in the sky, coming from spacecraft which were descending from and climbing into orbit at higher speeds than usual to increase the throughput capacity of the spaceport.

But today everything was different. A calm had again descended on the base, similar to that which had greeted the professor when he first visited it. The people on duty there looked fresher; they even had time for a joke during their document checks and DNA scan taking. Everything about the base indicated that life had returned to normal.

Shelby was escorted to one of the conference halls and left to wait for General MacQueen, Commander of the Space Fleet. He was not long in coming. The professor had barely had time to pour himself some sparkling water from one of the bottles thoughtfully left on the table when the door opened and the general entered the hall. Smiling as if to an old friend, he was clearly glad to see Shelby again.

In spite of their different ages and occupations, good relations had been established between Shelby and MacQueen during their joint work on 'Dawn'. They understood each other very easily. Probably each of them subconsciously felt that in spite of their different approaches, they were the right people for their respective jobs, and knew what they were doing.

"Glad to see you, Professor," said MacQueen. Today his smile was particularly broad and sincere. He took the last few steps with his hand extended in greeting.

Shelby shook his hand in response.

"The feeling is completely mutual. I see your department is gradually getting back to normal."

"Yes, it is, I'm glad to say." He gestured to Shelby to turn towards the window, which gave a view towards the launch pads.

"The intruder certainly stirred things up here. It was the first time in the history of the space fleet that we had conducted such a wide mobilisation. Doing so revealed that we were not at all prepared for such a turn of events."

"It seemed to me that it all went like clockwork," remarked Shelby in some surprise.

"From the civilian point of view, yes. But war is a serious matter, it does not forgive mistakes. The enemy usually attacks not head-on, but at the weakest point, and during mobilisation we discovered a whole lot of them. So that means a lot of work. We are now completely reviewing the entire structure of the space fleet."

There was a short silence.

"Well then," said MacQueen eventually. "Shall we get down to business?" He pointed to the nearest chair in front of the table, and sat in the chair next to it without waiting for his guest to take his seat.

"Our expedition has achieved the aims of its journey and is continuing its research," Shelby began. "The scientific team periodically sends the results of its work. On the basis of the latest data, we are inclining towards the theory that the anomaly is of artificial origin."

"But you already knew that before the expedition, didn't you?" asked MacQueen.

"It was the working hypothesis. But now we have experimental arguments in its favour."

"What exactly?"

"My people succeeded in determining its location. The point is that it begins not from a point source, as we assumed initially, but is spread out in space, as it were. That is, it has a certain shape. Such geometrical shapes are not characteristics of nature in the raw."

"Interesting..."

"It is a rough approximation of a cuboid, or hexahedron..."

"Excuse me, what's that?"

"The three-dimensional equivalent of a rectangle. Like a tabletop, for example," explained Shelby, drumming his fingers on the table.

MacQueen nodded in satisfaction.

"Taking recent events into account, we think that this phenomenon is connected with the visit of our mysterious guest. My team collected more precise information about the radiation, and this made it possible to improve our methods of detection. Working from here, from Earth, we have scanned our galaxy and have discovered dozens of similar phenomena."

"Excuse me for interrupting you, but if these things are scattered all over the Milky Way, why haven't we noticed them before?"

"The problem has many aspects. It is difficult to detect gravity waves due to their low intensity, particularly when they are of natural origin. As I said before, the generation of such waves requires the oscillation of massive heavenly bodies, such as a binary neutron star system. These stars rotate at high speed around their own centre of mass, and moving with acceleration – and movement in a circle is always movement with acceleration – they create a ripple in space-time.

"The cosmos we are studying is extremely noisy. Everything that exists in it, the planets, gas clouds, stars, black holes, all this fills it with noise in some waveband or other, littered with elementary particles. Or rather each of these objects emits noise in all wavebands, but more in one and less in another, depending on the nature of the heavenly body. For example, our Sun is extremely noisy in the infrared and visible spectra of electromagnetic radiation, because they are the ones in which it radiates most of its energy. And let us not forget solar wind. It is like a bombardment with an ocean of elementary particles.

"Apart from this, our Universe is filled with residual radiation coming in from all directions. If man had organs capable of registering all this radiation of energy, it would seem to him that the world was filled with loud noise, the song of Nature. It is very difficult to identify and separate out any unknown signal from it. But the problem is made easier if we know exactly what we have to look for.

"My lads on the ship who are now studying this phenomenon are located very close to the source, which is why they have managed to draw a very detailed picture. Now we know very well what we should be looking for, and we didn't have to wait long for a result."

MacQueen nodded.

"OK, let's get back to the phenomenon."

"Yes. Knowing its signature, we set out to search for similar phenomena in our galaxy. If you remember, as a result of the shape of the Milky Way and the position of our Solar System in it, a great part of it is concealed from us by stellar dust and gas clouds. Any radiation is to a greater or lesser extent absorbed by this barrier, so a great part of our galaxy is hidden from our eyes on the other side of the gas-dust cloud.

"Gravity waves differ from electromagnetic waves in that they are not absorbed by these clouds. To be precise, it seems that they are not subject to absorption by matter at all. Therefore we have succeeded in detecting such beacons not only in those regions we have already studied by the classical methods, but also in looking where we could not look before.

"And now we come to the most interesting part. The following law became obvious to us. The beacons are not scattered uniformly over the cosmos, but form certain clusters in certain sectors of the Milky Way. These clusters are most likely to be found, firstly, close to stable star systems; that is, systems in which the central star is in the quiet stage of its life cycle. And secondly, near those star systems which have planets in the habitable zone.

"On this basis, we draw the conclusion that this source of gravity waves is something like a beacon, integrated into the cosmic infrastructure of the incomer's civilisation. Since we did not know of the existence of such a phenomenon close to us before the Solar System was visited, it can be assumed that the incomer activated some kind of a mechanism which created this beacon during its visit. It is quite possible that setting up this beacon was the real aim of its visit. The contact with us may simply have been a distracting manoeuvre."

"Interesting. As a military man, the first analogy that comes to mind is that this phenomenon is something like a marker, as often used by clandestine groups to correct missile fire and bombing strikes."

"That may be so. But to me, as a civilian, another analogy comes to mind. I called the source of the gravity waves a beacon. But beacons, at least in our civilisation, act as landmarks in space. In other words, they are part of our transport infrastructure.

"If you remember, the alien ship came into our telescopes' field of vision while it was still beyond the orbits of the Solar System's planets. At first it was moving slowly, and only later picked up a fair bit of speed. Yet it is not rational to overcome interstellar distances at low speeds, or its journey would take tens of thousands of years.

"This leads to the thought that the incomer started from some kind of base located somewhere outside the orbit of Pluto. Or its starting point might not be a base, but some element of a transport infrastructure making it possible to overcome cosmic distances faster than at the speed of light. If this supposition is true, the gravity radiator may denote the location of a portal for fast travel which the incomer was using.

"This would also explain the radiation of gravity waves, because, as I said, they are not in the least subject to absorption by matter. Therefore the dust clouds filling our galaxy are no obstacle to such beacons. They can be seen everywhere and from anywhere."

"These portals... To what extent are they possible, from the point of view of contemporary science?"

"From the point of view of our science, they are pure fantasy. We know that at sub-light speeds, the mass of a rocket begins to grow perceptibly. The closer to the light barrier, the greater it becomes. Therefore we require more and more energy to impart more speed to the ship. As it approaches the speed of light, the mass value rises to infinity, which means we would require an infinite quantity of energy to continue accelerating the ship. Naturally, this is impossible, which is why it is impossible for any object with a mass of more than zero to travel even at the speed of light. It is customary in science to call the effect of the increase in mass and other phenomena which appear at sub-light speeds 'relativistic'. These effects are a consequence of the properties of our space-time.

"But as we know, the aliens are able to manipulate space-time itself. Who knows how far they have succeeded in that? Therefore the existence of such portals cannot be excluded.

"Nor should we forget that the incomer, when it left the Solar System after our attack, selected a flight trajectory towards the phenomenon. This could hardly have been a coincidence. I think we ought to consider the portal theory the most probable, although we shouldn't exclude your marker theory either."

"All right, then let's take the theories of beacons and portals as starting points," proposed MacQueen. "It seems they've built a space highway to us. That means that sooner or later we are going to have numerous guests."

"You're probably right."

#  8

That morning, Clive's face was despondent, and there were many empty glasses on the table. Steve knew what that meant. Clive had not closed his eyes all night, but had been sitting at his calculations after finding something which didn't add up. That was how problems usually began.

"Hey, what's up?" asked Steve, sitting down next to him. "Are my calculations about the shape wrong?"

Clive grinned.

"No, your calculations are correct. So are mine."

"So what's the matter then?"

"When I put them together, it produces a contradiction."

The day promised to be a lousy one. If Clive had been sitting over his calculations for several hours, it would not be easy to find the error. The worst thing of all is when two sets of calculations are both true, but lead to mutually exclusive results. You could spend months looking for the solution. Something similar had happened a few times with the telescope. Just remembering those cases was enough to give Steve a headache.

"All right, let's go through it again together," proposed Steve.

"It's no good. I've already rechecked a hundred times. There are no errors in your figures."

"And yours?"

"Not in mine either."

"But it has to be somewhere, doesn't it?"

"I know that without you telling me," snapped Clive.

When Clive was in this state, it was best to leave him alone. Steve turned to his own console and set about rechecking his calculations. A visualisation of the anomaly in space was revolving on one of the auxiliary displays.

Due to the relatively low resolution capability of the apparatus for detecting gravity waves, the size and shape of the anomaly were only known roughly. The data on which the visualisation was based were approximate, and were extrapolated in several sectors.

Steve was fascinated by the picture. On the visualisation, the gravity anomaly was rocking slightly from side to side, or even rotating. It was quite possible that it was shuddering in space, slightly changing its state, but due to the imprecision of the data, the computer was interpreting this as rotation.

The rotation looked unnatural, somehow. The cuboid, which had recently been looking more and more like a cube, the edges of which were denoted in the visualisation by fine lines, seemed to be rotating around its axis, but after making a half turn, it jumped sharply back to its original position. This sudden jump did not look like a natural movement. Maybe that was the crux of the problem.

"Does anything about the visualisation seem strange to you?" asked Steve after several minutes' thought.

Clive raised his eyes, red from lack of sleep, to the auxiliary display.

"It's rotating in a strange sort of way. It keeps twitching," he replied.

"But it isn't a sticking pinion, to twitch like that."

"It's the low resolution of the instruments distorting the result, that's why it's twitching."

"No, hang on. Shelby sent us the theoretical calculations of the anomaly in the form of a portal between two points in space, right?"

"Well, so what? It's pure fantasy. The lads from the theoretical physics faculty gave free reign to their imagination. From the practical application point of view, their description is worse than useless."

"All the same, they did construct the mathematical model."

"Not every mathematical solution to a system of equations makes sense in terms of physics. Speaking purely mathematically, time goes backwards at superluminal speeds. That doesn't mean it will be like that in the real world."

"Well, look at it this way. It follows from their calculations that the portals are connected to each other in space, right?"

"Well... yes. Only they call it hyperspace, because the tunnel exists in five or more dimensions."

"It doesn't matter what they call it. They postulate a space with a larger number of dimensions than ours. If they are right, then the portal is partly in our space and partly in hyperspace. That's so, isn't it?"

Clive thought for a second or two.

"Well, if you mean within the framework of their theory, yes. So?"

"Then we aren't seeing the whole portal, but only part of it, as a three-dimensional projection."

Clive thought again, and his eyes suddenly came alive.

"There's something in that..."

He turned back to his own console and started rapidly working his magic on it. Then he transferred a picture to the main screen in which a number of different strange-shaped figures were rotating. Steve had already seen this many times in lectures on hyperbolic geometry. They were three-dimensional projections of rotating four-dimensional objects. In other words, they were how objects in four-dimensional space would look in our three-dimensional universe. On condition, that is, that such objects did exist in reality, not only in theory.

Clive put each of the figures in turn in the centre and magnified it. After several rotations, not finding any similarity to the visualisation of the gravity anomaly, he turned the figure back.

"That one's something like it," said Steve, when Clive reached the fourth figure.

Clive looked at it intently, but then shook his head.

"No, hardly," he said, and went on to the next projection.

"Not that one, either," said Steve and Clive at the same time.

Eventually it came to the turn of the tesseract. With a vivid enough imagination, the similarity looked quite good. This time Steve did not say anything, but only turned to look at Clive. Not hurrying to change the figure, Clive gave a barely perceptible nod.

"What do you think?" he asked Steve.

"Could be."

"Shall we try it then?"

"Let's do it."

Clive made a gesture as if grabbing something floating in the air and then throwing it towards the display, on which the visualisation of the data from their gravity scans was rotating in an endless cycle. The visualisation froze at once. The computer waited for the next task.

"Simulate a visualisation of the portal as a three-dimensional projection of a four-dimensional hypercube," he ordered the computer.

The electronic brain of the AI paused briefly, then produced the solution. Clive combined the two images on the screen. The external resemblance was quite strong.

"There is a certain similarity," said Steve, without taking his eyes off the screen.

"Yes, they are visually similar," said Clive, echoing this opinion.

"Now we have to check it analytically. If they coincide... you could easily write a hundred doctorate theses on the subject," said Steve slowly.

"And theses for a dozen Nobel Prizes," added Clive. Inspired by scientific curiosity, he had completely forgotten about his lack of sleep. His disordered hair and eyes, running from lack of sleep but burning with fire, made him look crazy. Now he looked exactly like the mad scientists in the comics, though much younger.

"You know what bothers me a little?" said Steve. "The fact that the portal is rotating."

"If they are connected rigidly to each other, there is nothing surprising in that. After all, its other side comes out in some other star system, which could have angular momentum relative to the Solar System. If in one such system it is at rest, it must rotate in the other."

Steve thought about it carefully.

"Then the axis of rotation must coincide with the direction towards the other end," he said eventually.

"Sounds logical."

"Let's see where it's pointing."

Clive turned back to the console again. On the screen there appeared an image of the Milky Way, viewed from above and to the side.

Steve knew the position of the Solar System in it by heart. He found it with a quick look. A few seconds later, a winking yellow spot appeared at that point.

"The pulsating marker is our Sun," Clive told Steve.

Steve rolled his eyes heavenwards. Clive thought that without his prompting, no-one was capable of finding his own star himself! Too clever by half!

A white arrow extended out from the yellow spot.

"The straight white line is the direction of the axis of rotation of the portal," added Clive.

The white line extended in the plane of the galaxy, barely touching its centre, towards the other side of the disc.

"Damn, that sector is covered in dust," said Steve disappointedly.

"Perhaps deliberately, to prevent us finding out where the tunnel ends?"

"Looks like it."

"All right, we must send the data to Shelby. They can feel out that sector, maybe they will be able to see where the tunnel leads in the gravity band," said Clive.

"Go get some sleep, I'll check the calculations and prepare a report."

"OK. If anything happens, wake me up," said Clive, rising with difficulty from his chair.

"Yes, of course, of course. Go and sleep."

The first thing Steve did when he was left on his own in the compartment was to brew himself some green tea. He didn't like drinking coffee while he was working, as the others did. It lay too heavily on the stomach. Tea was another matter. It had a calming effect, both on the body and on the spirit.

A few hours later, the latest report was ready. Steve had a last-minute look through the whole document. He didn't appear to have forgotten anything, it could be sent.

"Send," he commanded.

The document on the screen closed and disappeared. He reckoned he could take a break now. He gestured to switch off the desktop displays, then got up and turned to the central one to do the same. Up to now, it had been visualising information from the gravity scanners on the anomaly. But now the axis of rotation of the tunnel was pointing not to the other side of the galaxy, but somewhere upward. Steve caught his breath.

"When did the portal change its axis of rotation?" he asked the computer.

"Twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds ago," the computer replied calmly.

"Why didn't you warn me before?"

"I had not received any instruction to do so, sir."

Steve waved at it in disgust. Electronic idiot...

"Compare with scanning data from the very beginning of the expedition. Has it done this before?"

"No, sir."

"Extend the axis of rotation to the edge of our galaxy. Look only at the star systems of the Milky Way. Does it intersect any planetary systems where the planar inclination of the orbits coincides with the angle of rotation?"

"Yes, sir."

"Which star is it?"

"83 Leonis."

With a shiver, Steve ordered the computer to create a new report.

"Report for Shelby. Twenty minutes ago, the portal changed configuration. Possible activation with view to transfer. Input point believed to be in star system 83 Leonis. Message ends."

#  9

Lost in thought, Steve and Clive looked at the visualisation of the portal in silence. Kimble, in his chair as always, was reading a book, and only glanced at the two of them when they were talking about something he understood.

The latest report from Shelby had come in today. In it, he had included an actualised version of the theory describing the portal. Steve and Clive were to go into the physico-mathematical model and check it as far as they could experimentally, using the scientific apparatus on board the ship.

It was not an easy job. The original research work was really more art than science. The study of a new hitherto unknown phenomenon is always like an attempt to open the door of a massive safe with bare hands. Every millimetre of its surface has to be carefully studied to find even a microscopic clue. At first it is not always known which way the door with the new knowledge behind it opens. And sometimes it isn't even known where the door is.

Steve got up from his seat and stretched himself. His muscles were beginning to ache from hours of sitting still, and it was as if someone had filled his brain with a thick grease that was slowing down his thought processes.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked Clive as he set off for the drinks machine.

"No thanks."

Steve went up to the machine, poured himself some sparkling water and drank it slowly. The cold feeling ran down his throat, dissipating his sleepiness to some extent.

"Let's take model number two as a basis," proposed Steve, leaning on the wall. "The one in which the portals are bonded by two points in space-time, rather than serving as a way out into hyperspace through which travel time can be shortened. Then we can theoretically direct a telescope onto the portal and look into that part of space, as if we had put a telescope at the location of the other portal."

"That doesn't happen. It does not appear in the electromagnetic spectrum, unless you count the light gravity ripple which slightly diverts the light beam."

"That's because the portal is closed. It hasn't been activated yet. But at the moment when ships pass through it we shall see exactly what I said: the star pattern of that sector of space from which the ships come. Just imagine, if their central star or planet comes within the field of vision of our telescope, it will be the first time we have been able to study another system from such a short distance."

Clive considered this.

"Not a bad idea. We can try. Only it will have to be placed as close as possible to the portal so that its angle of vision on the other side is as great as it can be."

"And we'll have to mount another telescope on the rear of the portal."

"That's also true."

Suddenly the compartment was filled with a soft signal. The computer always produced this sound when it wanted to attract attention, and Steve and Clive simultaneously turned their heads towards the screens. The background of one of the graphics they were displaying, of which there were well over a hundred, was winking red. Steve pushed himself off from the wall and went right up to the monitors. Even on the miniature image, it was apparent that its graph was creeping upwards.

"OK, magnify it," he asked Clive, who was sitting at the console.

In the magnified view, it could be seen that the graph depicted the measurement results of the alpha radiation around the portal.

"What new trick is this?" muttered Clive.

"What processes in nature generate alpha radiation?" asked Steve, thinking aloud.

"Well, the Sun, for instance... And then there's..."

"No, that's it. The Sun."

"So what?"

"So we are detecting the solar wind of 83 Leonis! The portal is transporting the wind of their central stars to our Solar System! It's opened!"

The flow of charged particles was increasing all the time. Steve looked at the graph of its intensity, which was slowly climbing. Suddenly, the straight line of the graph curved sharply and shot up. The flow intensity had begun growing exponentially. The graph on the display seemed to have frozen, and only the scale was changing its values, measuring in ever larger units.

Three points suddenly flared up and went out inside the triangle with which the computer had outlined the position of the portal against the star-studded sky. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed that the auxiliary displays were also filling with columns of figures. The sensors positioned around the portals were beginning to send a firework display of readings.

"It looks as if there are three of them this time," remarked Kimble, who up to now had been silently observing what was going on.

Clive, monitoring the sensor readings, also livened up.

"I confirm the flight of three objects through the portal, heading towards the centre of the Solar System. All three are flying in formation on parallel trajectories. Speed constant."

All at once he shuddered and jumped up in his seat.

"One of them scanned us with a laser beam... The formation is still moving without changing its flight parameters."

Steve, without showing it, sighed inwardly with relief. Now the aliens know that we have discovered their portal and know what it's for. The drones around it are positioned so that they will not interfere with the flight of the ships, and the expedition ship itself is a bit further off. Apparently, in spite of the way our last meeting ended, they must have realised that the strike against them was unintentional and therefore don't see us as a threat. That's good. Unless, of course, they've come to settle accounts with our Solar System.

"Wait." Clive began working very fast on the console. "In my opinion, it wasn't a scan, it was some sort of message," he said eventually.

"Feed the signal into the AI and let it translate it," proposed Steve.

"Damn, where's that module?" Clive knew what to do without being told, and was feverishly looking for the necessary module of the AI.

"Here it is. It's ready."

DO NOT PURSUE, DO NOT TRACK WITH TARGETING SYSTEMS.

ANY HOSTILE ACTION WILL LEAD TO INSTANT DESTRUCTION.

Steve slowly lowered himself into his seat.

"Inform Shelby," he said.

#  10

At the SSS Academy's annual graduation ceremony, delayed this year due to the recent emergency, MacQueen had been given the role of speaker and of presenting awards to the particularly outstanding cadets of the past year. He was the only commander of such high rank among those present, and naturally attracted the attention of the cadets because of the position he held.

Although official speeches delivered by high-ranking officials and officers are, generally speaking, made up of vague generalities and clichés (as their position obliges them to be), MacQueen did not consider his presence an empty formality. The cadets, many of whom were in their first year, were yesterday's school pupils. Today they were being addressed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Space Fleet, who many of them had seen on television or read about in the papers. Such events make an impression, make them understand the importance of their future work, are frequently recalled, and have an influence on the personality.

MacQueen himself was no exception. In his second year at the SSS Academy, they were addressed by the Commander of the First Fleet, who left an indelible impression on the future general, although he was two or three ranks below that held by MacQueen today. MacQueen still remembered it as if it were yesterday, how one sensed his iron will, and his crushing handshake which made the joints crackle.

The future Commander-in-Chief looked at the exalted guest with pounding heart. Before him stood a space wolf, the massive leader of a mighty pack, who had earned his position through his military talent and unbending character. MacQueen had received from him a medal for exceptional success. Although this was the least important medal of his career, like a first love, it meant more to him than all those which followed.

After the speech, the cadets due for awards marched onto the stage, and MacQueen personally handed them their certificates and pinned their medals on them. On the way to the Academy, during the flight, he looked through the dossier of each of those due for awards, so that he could say something personal to them, not just the standard empty phrases. Yes, the general felt himself personally responsible for the future of the space fleet, and took it extremely seriously.

As he was shaking the hand of one of the cadets, MacQueen noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was a sudden animation among his bodyguards. Having combat experience, he felt such small changes in a situation, unnoticeable to the untrained eye, with the back of his neck. He looked at the guard commander, who took a step towards him.

"Sir," he whispered in the general's ear, "a report has come in that several hours ago, three alien ships passed through the portal heading towards the Sun. A general alarm has been declared for all branches of the armed forces. You must leave immediately for the command bunker."

MacQueen nodded.

"Forty-five seconds, then we'll go."

"Yes, sir."

The guard commander took one step back to his previous position and said something into his microphone. Behind the barrier, on the lawn, the soldiers of his guard swarmed out of the parked escort ship and spread out, taking up a defensive formation and holding their pulse weapons, although with muzzles lowered. This ship and MacQueen's own, standing a little further off, had already vented their engines in preparation for an emergency lift-off.

There was one cadet left. MacQueen unhurriedly stepped up to him and extended his hand for a handshake. After congratulating him, and apparently unaware of his guards' activities, he took the medal off the cushion, and, piercing the cadet's tunic with its pin, asked softly:

"How's the leg?"

The cadet's eyes widened in surprise. Two days previously, to mark the beginning of the academic year, he, with others of his class, had crawled onto the barrack-block roof, far from the eyes of their commanders, for a small celebration of their reunion after the annual summer leave. But they were noticed, and had to withdraw quickly. In running from roof to roof, he sprained his ankle, so was caught by the military police. There were no serious disciplinary consequences, but a note had been made in his file.

Although MacQueen did not welcome indiscipline in the Service, this case was a grey area. A real commander must on the one hand strictly observe regulations, but on the other have a certain wildness in him, so that he can achieve the impossible in combat contrary to all logic. Those who succeed in maintaining the fine balance between these two apparently mutually exclusive character traits have the potential to become great military leaders.

"It's almost healed now, sir," replied the cadet smartly, after a moment's confusion.

MacQueen finished pinning on the medal, smiled and shook his hand.

"I wish you further successes, young man," he said, in a loud voice this time.

"Thank you, sir!"

The forty-five seconds were up. The general nodded farewell to the audience and calmly stepped down from the stage.

While MacQueen was fastening his seat belt on board his spacecraft, the guard commander took from his pocket a device for generating quantum random numbers, selected '8' on the display, and pressed the button. The '8' was replaced on the screen by a '3'. This time the space fleet command post was in Bunker No. 3.

"Destination Bunker No. 3," confirmed the pilot who was observing them through a camera, and almost at the same moment, the ship soared into the sky.

Paying no attention to the overloads or the vibration, MacQueen got out his tablet, to which all the space fleet's tactical and intelligence information was downloaded in real time.

"The expedition ship studying the gravity anomaly has reported the appearance of three ships of the alien civilisation. They passed through the portal at a speed of 90 km/sec. They are in triangular formation, and are continuing to move towards the centre of the system at unchanged speed."

The report included a map of the Solar System, on which the formation's flight trajectory was clearly shown. It intersected the orbit of Saturn, and was reminiscent of the flight trajectory of the first alien visitor. But this time, they were apparently not intending to stay in the orbits of the gas giants. If the vector remained unchanged, their destination appeared to be Earth itself.

The general put his tablet aside.

By this time, MacQueen's ship and its escort were already in near-Earth space, where the atmosphere was so rarefied that there was virtually no air resistance. Having accelerated to a tremendous speed, they left behind in rapidly changing succession the fields of the East Coast, the forests and lakes of Canada, the dreary landscape of Greenland and the snowfields of the North Pole. When the white lifeless desert was replaced by the leaden waters of the Arctic Ocean, the ships re-entered the atmosphere, and losing altitude in a shallow trajectory, set course for Norway.

In the icy waters of the Norwegian coast, illuminated by the dim light of the Sun sitting low in the sky, a bright star, falling from the heavens, was reflected. A minute later, the silence, apart from the sound of the cool wind and the splash of water, was broken by the deafening roar of the sound wave created by the military ships flying at Mach 5.

They slowed down as they continued to descend to just above sea level, then changed to horizontal flight. Almost touching the ocean, they rushed on, creating splashes which kept hitting the armoured windows.

Having reached the mainland, the two ships disappeared into one of the firths. Following the watercourse, and avoiding the cliffs majestically rising from both sides of the fjord, they weaved about, banking sharply in the turns. Suddenly the first one pointed its nose upwards, and describing a huge dead loop, hovered over a quite unremarkable cliff. The second one followed it, taking up a defensive position a little way off.

At one point in the cliff, a barely noticeable landing site had been cut out, running deep into the mountains. There, under a canopy of overhanging rock and concealed from the prying eyes of outsiders, was the start of a tunnel going many kilometres into the mountains.

The general's ship landed, reducing the thrust of its turbines to the minimum, leaving the guard ship hovering some way from the landing site. Several SSS officers jumped out, and, after looking round the vicinity, took up position at its perimeter.

"All clear. We can move out," reported the guard commander to MacQueen.

The general unstrapped himself and got out, after taking silent leave of the pilots with a salute. A strong cold wind blew in his face, disturbing his short hair. The cold easily penetrated his summer tunic and made itself felt on his body, and the fresh wind was in sharp contrast to the warm breeze in Florida, where he had just been addressing the cadets.

After presenting his hand and eyes for scanning at the entrance, MacQueen was authorised to enter. The tremendously thick door, partly recessed into the rock, turned anti-clockwise and moved back, opening the dark tunnel. In order not to breach the camouflage, the lighting was only switched on when the door was fully closed. The general was the first to step inside, the soldiers guarding the perimeter ran inside two by two, while the others had their guns trained on the area in front of the entrance. When no-one remained outside, the door returned to its original position, closing the passage. It immediately became quiet in the tunnel.

Outside, one of the ships took off, turned, and disappeared from sight, going back down the fjord towards the water. A few seconds later, the other one followed. The deafening roar and wind from the turbines ceased, and silence was restored to the fjord. The ships retraced their route back to the open sea, and only then did they soar up vertically.

Inside the tunnel, the air was warm and dry. MacQueen and his guards entered the passenger compartment of the monorail standing a little further in and took their seats. The cabin of the miniature train moved off almost noiselessly, and, rapidly gaining speed, rushed its passengers through a labyrinth of tunnels with many branches.

The underground monorail travelled fast, passing round the turns smoothly. Every few hundred metres, the tunnel branched out into several new tunnels, most of which went on penetrating for kilometres into the mountains and finished up as dead ends. The train unerringly selected the few roads which led to the command bunker.

Some ten minutes later, they reached their destination. The general went in, leaving the guard to take position at the entry post, and looked around. The interior décor of all the secret command bunkers was the same to make them more difficult to identify at video conferences: an external box of massive ferroconcrete with another box inside it, an 'aquarium' consisting of thick glass, simply furnished with the command control panel, a table and chairs. Nothing that was unnecessary.

The general went up to the air conditioner control panel, which shone with an amber light right by the entrance, and lowered the temperature a little. He preferred working in a cool atmosphere. It helped him forget that he was imprisoned in a mountain under kilometre-thick granite, where the air in the corridors was warm and dry.

MacQueen took off his ceremonial tunic and signalled to the computer to start up the system. While the servers were starting, he sat down, leaned back in his chair and wiped his eyes. Last time he had only had to spend a few weeks stuck in a bunker. This time, it could be forever.

"I need several back readings. Flight time to Mars and to near-Earth space. Base them on the last known speed and flight trajectory of the aliens."

"Yes, sir."

"What is the registration number of the ship that sent the report about the aliens?"

"EMC1906, sir."

"Have they managed to find out anything about our visitors?"

"Clarifying information was attached to their last report."

"What is it?"

"EMC1906 managed to take several close-up photographs. Shall I display them?"

"Yes."

The screen filled with hundreds of small photos. They had been taken over a short space of time, so could be viewed as a film. MacQueen viewed the animation several times, stopping every now and again to magnify a picture in an attempt to get a better look at the alien technology. But in vain.

Like the last time, it was not possible to make out any details of the alien spacecraft. All three ships were of the same elongated teardrop shape. Absolutely smooth surface, no acute angles, edges or convexities. One of the ships was distinguishable by its size. It was about five times as long as the others, but less drawn out longitudinally. The other two were indistinguishable from each other.

"Allocate numbers. Call the biggest Alien-1, and the other two Alien-2A and Alien-2B," MacQueen ordered the computer.

The computer did so, synchronising with the central computer centre. The ships would now be listed under these names in all the military databases.

The first one appeared to be the main one and the other two its escorts. They could be fully automatic drones. From a military point of view, they had to be kept targeted, and it had to be borne in mind that they might try to position themselves as shields to cover the main ship, if it came to an attack.

After some thought, the General asked:

"Are we technically able to distinguish between 2A and 2B?"

"On the basis of our current information, no, sir. 2A and 2B are absolutely identical."

"No difference in exhaust or hull temperature?"

"Nothing is known about the exhausts. The surface temperature of the alien ships is equal to the temperature of their environment, at present close to absolute zero. No higher temperature areas have been detected on the hulls."

"Hmm."

"Sir, the formation has increased speed. Flight time to Mars' orbit has been reduced to eighteen hours. Thirty-three to Earth," reported the computer.

"Has there been any exchange of information with them?"

"After they left the portal, EMC1906 made no attempt to contact them. However, they received a message from Alien-1. Shall I display the content of the message?"

"Certainly."

There appeared on the screen, in large letters:

DO NOT PURSUE, DO NOT TRACK WITH TARGETING SYSTEMS.

ANY HOSTILE ACTION WILL LEAD TO INSTANT DESTRUCTION.

Without letting his face betray his feelings, MacQueen approached the wall serving as a screen and, with a careless gesture, wiped off the aliens' warning, then magnified the map of the Solar System.

As the aliens approached the orbit of Mars, they would fly through a sector of space monitored by one of the automatic armed bases, which would track any flight in its sector and attack any unauthorised traffic. There was no problem with authorising the alien ships, but it was not possible to stop the base's targeting systems tracking them. This could only be done by a servicing team landing on it.

As soon as the aliens entered the zone of operation of the base's weapons, they would be scanned by radar. If their message was not a bluff, they would open fire on the base and probably destroy it. According to military doctrine, the attack on the base would constitute aggression, and would accordingly call for an act of retaliation. The aliens would immediately be attacked with everything available. It was beyond even MacQueen's power to cancel this order, and that would mean the beginning of a war.

"How long before the aliens are within MRS723's firing range?"

"Sixteen hours three minutes."

"Which servicing team is closest to it?"

"There are no servicing teams in space at the present time. The nearest team is at its base, the Mars civic spaceport."

"How soon can they reach MRS723?"

"Lift-off from the planet's surface, reaching space, flight, deceleration and docking will take at least six hours. Plus reaction time."

The General nodded in satisfaction. That would have to suffice.

"Message for servicing base. Top priority mission. Send at least three technicians to MRS723. They are to go on board and await further instructions. Notify ETA. Act on this immediately."

MacQueen glanced at the other screen, where the list of forthcoming video conferences was displayed. He already had more than twenty of them lined up, and the number was growing all the time. He looked through the list of participants. So far there was no-one on it who outranked him, so they could all be ignored. They could wait.

"Sir, the formation has speeded up again. ETA Mars orbit seven hours thirty minutes. ETA Earth, eleven hours twenty minutes."

"Damn! Is there any ship within firing range of that blasted base?"

On the map of the Solar System, three points not far from MRS723 began winking. MacQueen rapidly ran his eyes over the information about the ships. Two of them were SSS ships, and the third was a light attack ship. None of them was capable of neutralising a space fortress. The team of technicians should get there in time, but it would be tight. If the base was not switched off, in seven hours the formation would come within range of the radar and would be scanned.

Even if the servicing team did reach the base in time and managed to switch off its combat systems, the aliens would reach Earth a few hours later. Who knew with what intentions? MacQueen sighed deeply. It looked as if there would be no choice this time.

"Message for the President. Highest degree of urgency. Within seven hours, the first armed conflict with the aliens' ships is expected. I consider it advisable to declare a general mobilisation of Earth's armed forces. Commander-in-Chief of the Space Fleet, General MacQueen."

###

END OF EPISODE ONE

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Website: albertsartison.com

E-mail: contact@albertsartison.com
