Kallandra awoke but refused to open her eyes. She’d set the wakeup call at an arbitrary time so she’d have a lie in. A few minutes later she niggled herself into rising.
Before sleep she’d added a few tasks to the list she’d been working through.
She needed to quiz Elaine about the mystery locker that they’d jettisoned. She had suspicions, too, over the large sealed section near the rear. The inventory indicated food, emergency coolant, and other supplies that were only accessible robotically. It was impossible for her to manually verify, but she’d thought of a way to attach a cam to the machine that would fetch stores—a robotic quartermaster, as long as she could figure how to override its controls.
Her stomach protested at the prolonged fast by rumbling louder than Apoidea’s background gurgles and whinings so Kallandra re-hydrated scrambled egg and wolfed down a granola bar, washed down with Hawaii Kona coffee, black.
With her hunger abated she drifted to the bow for a languorous stare out of the window and played join the dots with the stars. She frowned as the constellations didn’t figure as they should, even taking into account the distance from Earth. Idly, she checked that distance, which should now be around 240 million kilometres. Her frown reversed with raised eyebrows when the distance showed 232 million. Had she remembered it incorrectly? After all, her head had been orbiting her heart in the last forty-eight hours. More out of curiosity than concern, she initiated a star identification head-up display over the window. It confused her more. None of the constellations she recalled seeing before her sleep were showing. A tingling sensation raised her neck hairs as she realised a significant course change had occurred. She shivered and then held her breath as she illogically leaned towards the window to get a clearer view. A green dot in the middle.
The star identification computer kept track of Earth’s position at all times and there it showed—the green light for home, which shouldn’t be visible. A thought tugged about the navigation homing system. If, during hibernation, the ship lost the spheres there was a routine to do an acceleration to the most likely direction and search. If unsuccessful the ship would then head back to Earth. However, the search was to take a week or more, not a few hours. Had she slept too long after all? She couldn’t have gone into a partial hibernation, surely?
If Apoidea had about-turned while Kallandra slept, then the spheres could be more than a quarter of a million kilometres away. Damn. A glitch in the system seemed to have aborted the mission. She’d much rather be in control of a search than let the ship automatically do it without her input. A strong urge to turn the ship around grew.
Should she ask Mission Control first? No, she’d tell them. Enough pussy-footing around with fucking protocols when the last chance to save Earth was disappearing behind her. As she checked the electronic manual for overriding the homing controls another thought occurred to her. This time a nagging feeling gave her stomach butterflies another chance to agitate.
She visited the console for using the rear navigation telescope and punched keys. She gasped as the spheres showed up sixteen-hundred kilometres behind her. A few more jabs revealed they matched her speed and direction. From consternation and near despair moments before she abruptly laughed aloud. The first human noise for days, other than crying. That thought also added to her laughter for at least three minutes.
“Claude,” she shouted to his imagined spirit. “They must have noticed our message after all. They’re on their way back to Earth!” The elation was tinged with a battery of new questions but they could wait while she celebrated. Then she calmed, gathering her thoughts.
The repeated realization she’d succeeded made her lose control again and she clapped her hands and spun around in glee. Oops she shouldn’t have done weightless pirouettes straight after breakfast. Luckily, she rarely suffered motion sickness, nevertheless, to avoid the horrendous possibility of scrambled egg ejecta decorating the cabin, she grabbed the side of the comms console and braked.
“Hi Houston, reporting in after my breakfast. Well, you guys pulled one on me while I slept didn’t you? Turning me one-eighty like that. Good to see I’m on my way home though and that the spheres must have noticed our feeble attempts at timequake communication.
“After running through a systems check, I’m gonna work through the more conventional comms with them. Now that they’ve recognised my existence, maybe they’re ready to open up. Out.”
She checked for messages and was surprised to find none since Derek’s attempted morale boosting note sent with a less romantic update on coolant reroutes.
Elaine had already uploaded a hundred more good luck and Claude-condolence messages. She must have held onto hundreds more, filtering out crank notes, thank God.
Sucking up more of her coffee, and making herself comfortable in the swivel chair, she tripped through the systems check. Everything had green lights, but something was missing. The readouts for fuel and hydrazine didn’t indicate any usage while she was asleep. How could Mission Control turn her around without using any fuel? A cartoon image of a Space Monkey flying alongside with a giant magnet brought a smile, but it disappeared when the puzzle persisted. She checked for radioed data packages that must have been received to activate programs running navigation and the manoeuvring controls. Nothing.
The dawn of truth hit her, making her let go her coffee tube. Not that it drifted far, but a small blob of coffee floated in front of her eyes. She partially stood and like a fish opening its mouth, leaned forward, caught and gobbled the miniature sphere. As she swallowed, the metaphor wasn’t lost on her. But was it the other way around? She looked at the screen showing the spheres now following Apoidea, a reversal of roles.
If the spheres had turned her around, what was their motive? OK, she knew Earth needed them to return and normalise the time problems, but did the spheres have the same motives? Strange, because it was her who argued for this mission until she had no voice left, but now that it might be nearing achievement the doubts others threw at her began to nag.
Running diagnostic routines revealed the Apoidea achieved an about turn an hour before she awoke. One moment she headed away from Earth, the next she was pointed at it. Impossible if she hadn’t known the spheres’ ability to use time in unusual ways. If the ship had suddenly rotated, without time effects, she along with everything else not strapped down, would have been thrown against the bulkhead. An hour ago, so Mission Control would have detected the course change any time….
Sure enough, the radio beeped.
“Apoidea, Dwight Disraeli here as temporary Capcom. Elaine is off duty, but wanted to ensure I wished you a happy birthday.”
Kallandra hit the pause. Birthday? She didn’t know what day of the week it was, let alone the date. Fancy having a birthday sneak up on her like that! She laughed, wondered if they’d left a present, and resumed the message.
“I’m confirming what you must know. Your biometrics indicate you were asleep when the Apoidea reversed its course. We need you to attempt a communication with the spheres, find out their intentions, otherwise—”
A cold chill rippled down her spine.
“…we can’t let them get too close to Earth. You know why. We’ve learnt from the previous mistakes, but don’t ask—It’s better you aren’t privy to all our options.
“We have comms and linguistic experts on twenty-four-hour standby to assist you, and as much computing power as necessary to figure a way to talk to the aliens and insist they rectify our problems, which they caused. The next communication will be in an hour. Out.”
He must be joking, thought Kallandra. All she’d done is copy a pattern of flickering via quasi time-decoherences, and that by a considerable slowed-down factor.
She’d no idea what the flickering meant. It could’ve been anything from a ‘here we are’ to ‘where are we?’. Damn, she’d thought too humanlike again. If the alien spheres were machines then the only comms they’d need would be in alien machine code—they were saying: 00110101 or more likely: #..-|||. No translation would be relevant. Disraeli would know from her records that her secondary majors were in Linguistics and AI, and so expected her to come up with the equivalent of the Klingon-English dictionary. If only it were that easy!
She sent a cautionary reply to him, then, before opening a dialogue with the ‘experts’ on how the hell they’d set about mission impossible, she reflected on his other loaded comments. He said: ‘We can’t let them get too close to Earth…’ Obviously, NASA wanted them to go back into Earth to once again absorb the time anomalies, and make time smoothly linear. He was saying that unless she could get confirmation from them that it was the reason for turning back, then Earth would assume they were returning to eliminate humans or their technology so they couldn’t follow the spheres again. Surely Disraeli didn’t really believe the Apoidea would be able to follow the spheres to their home planet, base or whatever? Her assumption, along with others, was that the spheres were travelling so slowly in order to meet up with other spheres or maybe to check if they were being followed. Of course, that implied that they cared they were being chased, would do something about it, and damn it, think like humans. Once under steam, she’d no illusions that the spheres could either zip to their base at just under light speed or use their time manipulation to get home faster; assuming they had a home.
Part of her strategy was to chase the spheres until it was impossible. To alert them to human existence because, apart from a few time-side-stepping of missiles and a handful of other interactions, they hadn’t shown any indication they’d noticed Earth was populated. They behaved robotically where their programming had not taken Earthlings into account.
At least it seemed the Apoidea’s efforts to simulate timequakes had attracted the spheres’ attention.
Now Disraeli was saying, unless the spheres indicated friendly intention, they’d be what? Destroyed, and how? He said that they’d learnt from mistakes, which could mean they’d try and blow them up, presumably with missiles and nukes sent from Earth, but the spheres dodged them before using timequakes. Perhaps a battery of multiple missiles timed to detonate seconds apart, but how would the detonation of one not destroy any nearby unexploded missiles?
“Apoidea calling Mission Control. First, with respect, Sir, the chances of engaging in any meaningful dialogue is as likely as me winning an Olympic medal pole-vaulting with a pencil. This doesn’t rule out me giving it my best shot. Second, and, speaking of shots, if I don’t succeed in acquiring a benign intent from the spheres, it doesn’t mean they’re returning to eliminate us. They know where Earth is and could already have wiped out the Apoidea, so that indicates non-hostility, doesn’t it?” She turned off the mike.
The spheres might not have eliminated her for several reasons, only one being friendly. If they’d only just noticed the existence of an Earth-based sentient species because of Apoidea following them, then maybe they were still gathering data. It was possible they were using her as a human shield…. She couldn’t imagine her one life and the billion dollar Apoidea preventing a missile being launched in her direction.
Before she left Earth, she’d discussed possible communication strategies with her linguistics professor.
Ah, her rumination on how to initiate a dialogue was interrupted by a thought image. She’d just pictured missiles leaving Earth—how ridiculous. They’d take far too long. Instead, the bastards must have primed Apoidea as a super bomb—the sealed cargo area wasn’t food and resources. Disraeli was using her as bait and it was working. Surely Earth needed the Spheres? She found it hard to accept her own logic that they’d go to so much trouble to destroy the only means to save the planet.
She postponed her communication attempts in order to test her suspicions. With her heart thumping, she stood at a console and tapped in instructions for a robotic inventory of the extra storage facility.
:NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME:
That’s ridiculous, she had administrative rights to all the computer facilities. She typed in a query.
“When will it be possible to undertake an inventory?”
:UNKNOWN:
Undeterred by such blocking manoeuvres, Kallandra tried a direct question after checking the label on the suspect storage hold.
“What is in storage number 3 aft?”
:INTENDED STORAGE FOR EMERGENCY OXYGEN, FOOD STORES,
EMERGENCY WATER, FUEL CELLS, MISCELLANEOUS:
“List the miscellaneous.”
:NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME:
“Show me the most recent inventory of number 3 aft.”
:NOT ACCESSIBLE:
“Has there been such an inventory?”
:THERE IS NONE LISTED:
“Switch on the number 3 aft cam and display on this screen.”
:CAM INOPERATIVE:
“I instruct you to perform an inventory now of number 3 aft now.”
:NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME:
Known for her patience with machines, Kallandra didn’t blame the computer as so many home PC owners would’ve done. It had either been programmed to refuse access or it really couldn’t access the storage hold. If she was going to try and access it manually—the next logical step—it would be useful to check a few facts such as:
“Is life support operating in number 3 aft?” In some ways it would be illogical to waste heat and air in an emergency storage facility but neither would it make sense to damage food and other supplies. Some electronics and liquids don’t like being frozen.
:AIR PRESSURE 800MB. TEMP 5 CELSIUS:
“Is the access hatch from the external bay doors unlocked?” If so, she could open the cargo bay doors and EVA in.
:UNKNOWN:
“Nonsense, you know the status of all hatches with locks.”
No answer because she’d not asked a question. This meant the hatch was locked and the computer didn’t know the access code. Worse, it’d been programmed not to be aware of it. If she broke into the storage hold, she’d not be able to re-seal it without a lot of work. If only Doctor Who’s Sonic screwdriver wasn’t fictional.
Maybe she should get back to working on communication attempts with the spheres. Punching up the flicker pattern she’d used previously, she wondered if she dared use Apoidea to do a repeat stop start pattern and risk not only the ship falling apart but her insides being turned to raspberry jam. No. Now that the spheres were closer and presumably watching for signals maybe lights alone would work, or perhaps she could program a tethered engine to perform the dancing instead of Apoidea.
In the meantime she should set up a rear cam to specifically record flickering from the spheres. Damn, she should have done that hours ago. She immediately took a long look at the following spheres. It looked like a closely packed bunch of silver grapes. The bunch from Earth had been added to those from Mars and Venus, and Houston had told her there were twenty five a few days after she’d left Earth.
She uploaded the cam image into a graphics package and counted. She could see fourteen. She smiled a welcome relief when she recalled a mathematics lecture on sphere-packing problems and their associated kissing numbers. For three dimensions, which she had to assume she was working with, the kissing number, or the most efficient number to pack perfect spheres around a central one is twelve. She ran a programming routine on the image. It told her there were thirty-one spheres in that group.
She peered again at the live cam image. There didn’t seem to be any flickering.
She punched in the instructions for her rear lights to simulate the previous set of flicker patterns. The lights were so bright the cam blanked, but she let it repeat for five minutes.
While she waited for any response, she wondered again whether the spheres were artefacts or aliens. Suppose they had already evolved beyond their original form and the spheres were their current state? Metal for skin, patience for a heart, time for ambition. How should she communicate with such beings? OK, she knew the physical how—at least she thought they’d noticed the attempts at time-quaking, but it could’ve been coincidence.
Her concern was what she should attempt to say. The debates about how to convince aliens that Earth housed intelligent species was to transmit mathematical concepts such as PI, prime numbers or the Fibonacci series. The last seemed a nonsense to her. Fibonacci occurred in nature, so transmitting that wouldn’t necessarily imply intelligence. A sequence of prime numbers might, but it was irrelevant since the existence of the Apoidea must imply at least a minimal level of competence.
She recalled her notes on what great minds had said about first contact conversations. Professor Kopal said if the cosmic phone rings don’t answer it; we shouldn’t attract attention. Too late. Rather similar to Martin Ryle, the former British Astronomer Royal, who’d warned that aliens might consider humans to be their next lunch. The only nearly useful advice she remembered was from Douglas Vakoch at SETI, who advised the first approach to aliens should be to indicate our altruism.
Further, he thought the very sending of a message or reply to an alien contact conveys intent of mutual benefit. Well, too late and not relevant. If the spheres had any inkling of the plight of humans they’d know in an instant that her mission wasn’t one of mutual benefit unless the spheres considered giving to beggars would help in their own spiritual salvation. She couldn’t see that either.
A beeping from the spheres-watching cam software shook her. She seemed to be easily shaken now that she was on her own. The spheres had flickered. Yeay! She ran the pattern through the computer. The pattern was different, and repeated six times. Wow, maybe they were asking her what help she needed! Her excitement stopped her fingers pressing the right keys. She had to stop, step back and breathe slowly or she’d find she’d sent last week’s garbage at the spheres instead of a “Hi”.
Exhilaration was exhausting and fearing she’d make mistakes she forced herself to think about having a short rest. First she ensured all the data from the spheres continued to be transmitted to Houston. She had to think about how to interpret and reply to the spheres. Forcing herself away from the console she laid in her sleep couch and hit the random music player. Claude’s favourite flooded the cabin:
“Well, I never felt more like singin’ the blues
‘cause I never thought that I’d ever lose
Your love dear, why’d you do me this way?”
Tears cascaded down her cheeks. A few minutes later she thought, OK, what would Claude have wanted? He made up his own lyrics. She pictured him with a pretend morose face looking at his watch and reaching the end of the song with:
‘Singin’ the decoherence blues.’
Hah, that felt much better. It should be a hit. Claude! Hey, that would be her first real question if she ever mastered enough language of the spheres: “Please use time decoherence to bring back my Claude.”
She wondered where his body drifted—she must have already passed it on the return journey.
After a short rest, she sent a copy of their flickerings back at them; seven instead of six repeats, just in case they thought she was a simple mirror. Life was going to be easier if they’d accept a light signal instead of physical agitation. Her excitement rose again as she thought about how she was going to try and learn rudimentary elements of an alien language.
She made some tea and returned to the cam screen to wait for the next response. Five minutes, ten, thirty. Maybe they were having a meeting and, after trawling the Earth’s Internet, were getting ready to use Morse code. If only.
With more time to kill, Kallandra remembered she had another problem. There must be a way the captain of a NASA spaceship can get into a storage space. She had her own code for accessing those hatches. Claude had his code too. It was possible that she could suit up, EVA to the external access for the cargo bay and use her’s or Claude’s code to get into that elusive store. But if Disraeli didn’t want her to get in there, then it would be waste of time and effort—the codes would be inoperable. What she needed was an engineer’s backdoor code. Um, but messages to Derek would be filtered—Elaine would pass them on—but, hey, was that why she was replaced?
Disraeli trusted only himself.
Nevertheless, she prepared a message for Derek. They’d discussed the possibility of needing their own encryption.
“Derek, love,
Again on my own up here now, except for the spheres. Fortunately, I’ve help from linguistics for messages to them but I wondered if there was more I could do.
Talking of messages, remember we hatched a plan about opening chatlines? 3rd June wasn’t it? I’m sure you can come up with a code or something that will open their minds for me?
Back soon, love K XXxx X x”
She hit Send. It would take about thirty minutes to reach Capcom, whoever it would be by then, be read by Dizzy or one of his censors and passed on to Derek. He’d recognise their agreed kiss-code meaning covert message—first letters and hopefully he’d notice the important words—aft 3, hatch open and code? Sure he would.
Suppose he didn’t receive the message? Then an EVA armed with cutting tools might have to be in order, but was it really necessary? She attempted an analysis about what type of munitions Disraeli would have planted.
She ruled out missiles. Using the Apoidea as a launch platform would’ve been difficult to engineer covertly with Derek as senior design engineer. It wouldn’t be difficult to release mines, and she supposed they’d be triggered with proximity sensors. She couldn’t imagine how engineers working in secret on Earth would know how to ensure the right target had been selected.
Even with the relative ease of releasing mines, she knew they’d be unlikely to be powerful or wide ranging temporarily and spatially to do significant damage to the spheres. The only possibility left sickened her. Store number 3 aft was probably a nuclear bomb. Disraeli had said they’d learnt from their mistakes, which meant their solution was to go bigger. So the Apoidea was a Trojan Horse, luring the spheres in to take a close look then boom. Unless she could disarm it or jettison it like the mysterious locker.
Maybe the locker had lost some of its mystery. It was located next to a comms unit. No doubt a wifi link to the electronics in the locker was part of the identify and detonation plan. She and Claude hadn’t turned off the internal cams then, but Mission Control hadn’t referred to their sabotage. Either they had a backup plan or the locker was merely a red herring.
She studied the rear cam and readouts, but sadly the spheres had not flickered in response to hers. The previous occasion must have been coincidence; they remain blind to her lights or not seeing them as communication.
Blast. And that might be the operative word if Disraeli believes there was no communication going on. So, what was she going to do to make Houston think a dialogue was happening, when it wasn’t?