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 w
hether 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