Chapter 3.
After finishing a light meal in her room, Zuri took the lift back up to the bridge. As the lift door opened, there stood Evander, hands clasped behind his back. “Anything new happening?” she asked.
“Bridge crew seems to be a little tense. But otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary. How about you?”
“Nope. Let’s see what the others have to say.” Zuri stepped out and turned toward the bridge. Evander fell into step beside her as she walked the few yards to the entrance.
As she entered, she noticed conversations ceased immediately. A few crew members turned quickly away from her, focusing their attention back on their assigned duties. She thought she could sense the tension in the room.
“Yeh, me too” she thought as she walked up to the handrail that separated command level from the work stations two steps below. “Com . . . Nav . . . Report”
“Com here. Interloq reports transmitter problem still being worked. No other incoming to report, mam”
“Nav here. All ships on new vectors for intercept, mam.”
“Very well. Com . . . route all holo-com to my station and get everyone on line.” Turning toward her raised platform at the rear of the room, she motioned to Evander again.
“I want you in on this, too. Not on line . . . just take a seat over there somewhere.” She motioned toward the chairs directly opposite the holo-console.
“I want you to observe how the others react. Get my attention if you see something you think is important.” Evander looked a bit uneasy.
“Don’t worry about speaking up. The others will have their seconds there too. They just won’t be visible. OK?” Zuri took the seat at the holo-scanner.
“Com . . . bring ’em up.”
Directly in front of her were four clear glass cylinders three feet in diameter and four feet high. Each rested on a raised circular platform at desk height. They were arranged radially, with Zuri’s station at the head of the circle.
In quick succession each of the four captains’ images began taking shape layer by layer inside the cylinders. When the last of the four was completely formed, Zuri began speaking.
“Greetings, all. Anyone have anything new to report?” To Zuri’s left the form of a very dark-skinned man turned toward her. His straight white hair seemed to sparkle in the holo-light. Imamu, the captain of Sequum spoke.
“Looks like reactor number three will be back on line in a few minutes. MC tells me one of the rod casings warped and shorted out. They replaced it and are finishing up their check lists as we speak.
“Good. Anything else?” Imamu shook his head.
Interloq’s female captain was next in the circle. Asha was also dark-skinned. But by contrast, she had no body hair, typical of her race.
“Our primary dish is still down. The step motor on one of the segments blew a rotor. Fab shop will have to make a new one. We’re installing the back-up now.”
“Thanks, Asha. How about Sauda?” Zuri turned toward the image of her sister, Wasswa. This woman was tall and spindly, nothing like Zuri, who was borderline heavy and only a little over five feet in height.
“We’re one hundred percent. When we changed vector, the target . . . sorry . . . the object . . . seemed to shimmer a bit at the end we were scanning. But as soon as our course stabilized, the shimmering stopped. Engineering thinks there might be some sort of force field being generated, but we really don’t know for sure.”
“OK thanks.” Turning further to her right, Zuri gazed upon the pale gray image of the last of the ships’ captains. Soon to be two hundred twelve years of age, he was just reaching his prime. Chetan was tall for his race. At just under six feet, he stood head and shoulders above everyone who had come from his home planet, whose name his ship bore.
“Chetan, does the Venure have anything to add regarding dimensions or surface configuration of the object?”
“We’re still too far out to pick up much detail other than overall dimensions. The exterior surface appears to be non-uniform, for what that’s worth. Can’t say anything about the interior yet.”
“All right, then.” Zuri straightened in her chair. “I guess we’re all pretty much awe-struck by what has happened. No one knows what to think, I’m sure. For all these generations we’ve never experienced anything quite like this. So, I’d like to open this up for discussion . . . hear what you all have to say. Who wants to go first?”
Asha turned toward Zuri. “I don’t want to state the obvious, but it seems to me we don’t really know what’s going on here. Is this another race trying to contact us?”
“If that’s the case, this is a first.” said Imamu. “Each of our races was relatively equal technologically when we met. None of us had even dreamed of building a ship this huge. What sort of a culture has such technology? And why would they even bother with such puny beings as us?”
“Don’t forget, this thing just popped in out of nowhere.” a voice came from outside the holo-fields. “It’s possible such an abrupt appearance might be aggressive.”
Wasswa turned toward the voice.
“It’s certainly possible. But we have no reason to suspect so. It’s been over two hours since that thing appeared, and it’s just been sitting there.” Turning back toward Zuri, she continued, “Maybe it’s just waiting to see what we will do.”
“I wonder if it knows there are five of us compared to only one of it.” Chetan leaned back in his chair, raising his hand for attention. The hand and several inches of his arm disappeared as they extended beyond the holo-field.
“OK.” Zuri leaned forward in her chair. “It’s clear that all we have are questions . . . no answers. So, let me suggest this. In the past each if us has gone on the assumption that aggressive races self-destruct before they ever attain space-travel capability. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t continue with that line of reasoning.”
“That’s a pretty risky assumption, don’t you think?” Chetan also leaned forward.
“True enough.” Zuri held her position. “But what’s the alternative? Do we run away? That would go against everything we stand for.”
“May I interject here?” Evander rose from his seat across the room and began walking slowly around the circle, hands clasped behind him. No one but Zuri could see the expression of concern on his face.
“Curiosity brought our ancestors into space. Curiosity brought our races together. Certainly they were all fearful, at first; probably much as we are now.” He paused, then turned around to retrace his steps.
“How long has it been since we made our last contact? Three; four generations?”
All ships’ captains deferred to this man. Each listened respectfully. Of them all, Evander had been the only one reluctant to accept his position. He had never reached out for power or influence. They had come to him naturally. He carried with him an air of authority. He had always been soft-spoken. But his words carried weight with everyone he spoke to.
“During that time I fear we may have lost some of the determination which drove our ancestors. We may have become a bit complacent; a bit too comfortable.”
“You’re probably right, Evander.” Chetan frowned as he listened to the invisible voice behind him. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be cautious.”
“Of course you are right, my friend.” Evander caught Zuri’s eye for just a moment. Then he continued. “Caution is always justified when confronting the unknown. But we must also be prudent. As yet we have seen no sign of aggression. Therefore we ought to take care not to exhibit any ourselves. Besides; what could we do? There may be more of those things hiding just beyond our view. Ultimately, numbers may count for nothing.”
Zuri sensed it was time to intervene. Venure’s captain was known to be stubborn and confrontational, traits that had served him well as he rose through the ranks to the captaincy. Evander, on the other hand, was the consummate diplomat; always able to turn his opponents words to his favor. Som
etimes this rubbed people the wrong way. Zuri feared this was becoming one of those times.
“All right, then.” Zuri interjected. “All we really know is that we don’t know anything. Agreed?” She looked around the circle, making eye contact with each one in turn.
Chetan tried once more. “Maybe it sees our ships changing course as aggressive.
“That may be the case.” Zuri felt mildly irritated at the remark. “But it still didn’t respond when we did so. I think that means we’re still back where we were.” Chetan averted his eyes. He knew he had lost this sparring match.
“Now.” Zuri straightened in her chair and took a breath. “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do. I think we should try to communicate with it. Any thoughts along those lines?”
“I’m all for that.” Wasswa was first to respond. “But what do we want to say?”
Evander was quick with an answer.
“I spent most of the time before this meeting going through the archives. I managed to locate a copy of the message that was being transmitted when the Sequum first made contact with the fleet.”
“I thought all that old stuff was deleted long ago.” said Zuri. “How’d you manage to find it?”
“It was in the diplomatic protocol files. I had to decompress it, but it’s still intact.”
“What’s it say” The pitch of Wasswa’s voice betrayed her excitement.
“The file is huge. But from what I had time to download, it appears to be based on a mathematical model . . . binary to be exact. I can beam a copy to each of your ships, but it’ll take a while. I don’t think we should risk transmitting broad band just jet.”
“Agreed.” Zuri again caught Evander’s eye. “Let’s do that. Each of you put a team on it and see what you can find out. Unless there’s something else we need to discuss, let’s plan on meeting again tomorrow at this time. Anything?” Zuri looked at each of her captains in turn. Each nodded their agreement.
“All right then. S.C.O. out.” The images in each cylinder dissolved as they stood up.
“Evander, how’d you manage to pull that off so quickly? You must have had to sort through thousands of files.”
“It wasn’t that hard really,” he said sheepishly. “I like poking around in the archives. I guess you could say it’s sort of a hobby.”