The Sails of Tau Ceti (13 page)

“Thirty seconds to engine shutdown,” Tory reported.

“Make sure the others know that,” Garth ordered.

Tory made the announcement, and then turned back to the screen. The plan called for them to shut down their engine and drift, allowing the sail to overtake them. The specialists on Earth thought an unpowered craft would appear less threatening than one that rushed directly at the aliens spewing a fountain of charged particles before it. Tory hoped they were right in their assessment.

The chronometer in the corner of the viewscreen counted off the seconds. Suddenly, the thrum of power was gone. So, too, was the pull of acceleration. Tory rebounded into her straps. Her stomach did a quick flip-flop, and then steadied. On the viewscreen, the luminescent fog from the drive flare began to dissipate slowly. It reminded Tory of the slow clearing that follows a Martian dust storm.

“Stand by for a radar pulse.”

“Standing by.”

The ship’s radar had been one instrument blinded by the interaction between the light sail’s ion river and
Starhopper
’s drive flare. Garth waited several seconds to allow the fog to dissipate. When “seeing” conditions had improved sufficiently, he ordered, “Pulse!”

The overhead lights dimmed as Tory funneled maximum power into the forward antenna. The disruption lasted but a moment. It took less than half-a-second for a glowing apparition to begin forming on the viewscreen. The object resembled an ancient parachute, except the “canopy” had far less depth to it than any parachute. Perhaps a more apt image, Tory thought, was that of a dinner plate suspended from a spider web. The shallow convex shape of the sail was due to its rate of spin, with “centrifugal force” maintaining its shape. Tory quickly calculated the amount of rotational energy stored in the sail and wondered if that were not the aliens’ power source.

The shroud lines, invisible at this distance to either eye or telescope, stood out starkly in the wavelength the radar used. They formed a fuzzy conical shape on the screen, the point of which converged ten thousand kilometers in front of the light sail. A tiny dot of light at the cone’s apex hinted at a solid object there.

“Magnify!”

The screen was slow to paint this time. Eventually they found themselves staring at the very tip of the shadowy cone. Around the apex was a shape so indistinct that they could tell little beyond the fact that it possessed dimension.

“That’s it!” Garth exclaimed.

It was all Tory could do to nod agreement as large globular tears came unbidden to her eyes. The surge of feeling was all the more intense for the speed of its onset. Here were the people who had crossed twelve light years of emptiness to meet their human counterparts. The alien starship was in sight and all of the speculation was about to end!

#

The control room was crowded for the final approach. Garth and Tory continued strapped into their couches, while Kit and Eli floated behind them. The two observers had anchored themselves to handy stanchions in an attempt to keep out of the way.

“See anything?” Kit asked.

“Not yet,” Tory answered over her shoulder. Tory had the telescope slowly scanning the point in space where the starship was located. They were closing with the alien craft at a few hundred kilometers per hour, and from a direction well removed from the ionization laser’s cone of operation.

“There!” Eli shouted.

“Where?” Garth snapped.

“Lower right hand quadrant. Just above the edge of the sail.”

Tory looked to where he directed. Sure enough, something glinted where there had been no star a few seconds earlier. Coming in from the flank as they were, the sail showed a limb like a planet. Despite their proximity, however, the shroud lines remained invisible to all but the sensors.

“Magnify!”

“Can’t. We’re at maximum already.”

“Right. Keep the scope trained on that spot.”

The object on the screen began to take shape slowly. The sliver was transformed over several minutes into a bullet shape. A minute later, the bullet became two shapes — a large cylinder and a smaller sphere.

Garth gave the order to paint the starship. The scanning radar was far less powerful than the single pulse they had used earlier, but more discerning of surface detail. Everyone held their breath and hoped the starship’s crew would not interpret the new signal as an unfriendly act.

“How is the microwave link?” Garth asked Eli.

The linguist glanced down at a hand held monitor and responded, “Going out strong, Captain! Earth will be watching this same scene in another 630 hours.”

“My God, how large a ship is it?” Kit asked when the radar began to paint the alien vessel’s image on the screen. Dimensional information appeared unbidden to answer the question. The central cylinder was slightly more than four kilometers long, with a diameter of one kilometer. Its shape was highly reminiscent of a human LaGrange colony — hardly surprising since both were designed to simulate planetary conditions in a space environment. The shroud lines terminated in the spherical structure at the aft end of the cylinder. Doppler measurements showed cylinder and sphere to be rotating at different speeds. The sphere’s movement was synchronized with the twice-an-hour rotation of the light sail, while the cylinder rotated once about its axis every/ 48 seconds.

“How much centripetal force at the periphery?”

“I make it 87% of Earth standard,” Tory reported.

“That proves they’re from an Earthlike world, at least in terms of gravity.”

“Not necessarily, Captain,” Kit said. “Remember, Saturn’s gravitational field isn’t much stronger than Earth’s. They may be from a gas giant.”

“Let’s get a surface temperature reading from the hull.”

“Infrared radiation peaks at 20°C.”

“Still sounds like Earth to me. Still, Kit has a good point. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Just then, the screen switched from radar display back to the view from the ship’s telescope. A tiny cylinder lay silhouetted against the black of space just above the limb of the light sail. The resemblance to a LaGrange colony was uncanny. Complex machinery could plainly be seen covering the starship’s hull. Some of these would be heat rejection mechanisms, Tory knew. Rejecting waste heat to the vacuum of space was a much larger problem than most people realized. Other bits were undoubtedly sensors, while still others might be weapons. Distance and lack of familiarity with Tau Cetian technology made it impossible to be certain of anything.

“Why are there no lights?” Kit wondered aloud.

Until then Tory had not realized the alien cylinder was completely dark. It was dimly illuminated by distant Sol and the glow emanating from the light sail.

“Maybe the ship is a derelict after all.”

“Why should there be lights?” Guttieriz asked. “Who is going to see them out here?”

“Whatever the reason,” Garth replied, “lets make sure that we’re getting pictures of everything.”

“Scanning,” Tory reported. Through her implant, she was aware that a dozen different data streams were wending their way back toward Earth. Each passing second gained humanity several million bytes of additional data concerning the alien craft.

Their concentration on the viewscreen was suddenly broken by a muted tone. The noise was so ordinary that it took a few seconds to register. Four sets of eyes were drawn as one to the small symbol that had suddenly appeared in the lower corner of the viewscreen. The icon was that of an old style telephone. It signaled the arrival of a message on the short range, ship-to-ship communications band. The only problem was that there was but one other ship within six hundred light hours of them …

Garth looked sharply at Tory. “You aren’t playing a joke with your implant, are you?”

The look on her face convinced him of her innocence.

“What do we do?” she asked

He took a deep breath and reached for the communications control on his instrument panel. “We answer it.”

2 The Phelan

CHAPTER 10

The viewscreen broke up into multicolored static, and then cleared. It took a moment for Tory’s eyes to focus on the being that stared out at them.

The alien was covered in dense white fur. Its mouth was buried in a short black muzzle, above which were two large eyes. The eyes showed horizontal slits in place of round pupils. Atop the cranium was a pair of motile ears from which tufts emanated. The ears were carried erect, like a Great Dane’s.

Before anyone could respond, the alien opened its mouth and words began to stream forth from an overhead speaker. The words were in precise, colloquial Standard. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Phelan starship
Far Horizons
. We have watched your progress with much excitement. Do you wish to come aboard?”

There was a long silence while Garth regained his composure. He finally said, “Yes, please.”

“Very well,” the being in the screen said. “Recorders on and we will transmit approach instructions.”

“Recorders on!” Tory announced

There was a sudden high-pitched keening noise over the comm circuit. It lasted less than a second, but signified that considerable information had been received.

“The recording will give you an approach corridor and velocity profile, Captain. We will monitor your progress and guide you back on path should you stray.”

“Stray?”

“You must be aware of the laser with which we ionize interstellar hydrogen. It is very powerful. You do not want to encounter it during your approach. The control lines with which we attach our ship to our propulsion device are also a potential hazard. You could severely damage us if you collide with one. It would not do you any good either.”

“I can imagine…”

“Not to worry, Captain. If you follow our instructions, you will remain quite safe.”

“Acknowledged.”

The alien turned slightly. The movement, which was vaguely reminiscent of a human being moving to break contact, brought a strangling noise from behind Tory.

“Wait!” Eli Guttieriz shouted.

The being’s ears cocked in the direction of the screen. “Is something wrong?”

“We have questions to ask.”

“We also, Professor Guttieriz. However, would it not be better to wait until you are safely aboard our ship? Satisfying your curiosity is undoubtedly a matter of many hours.”

“How do you know my name? You can’t see me!”

Tory glanced at the small repeater screen that showed them what was going out over the commlink. Sure enough, the pickup was still tightly focused on Garth. How
had
the alien known it was Eli who had spoken?

The barely seen white shoulders performed an elaborate shrug. While recognizable, the movement was obviously unsuited to the alien’s physique.

“You four have been profiled in broadcasts from Earth, Professor. Since I saw that it was not Captain Van Zandt who had spoken, I assumed that it must be the only other human male aboard your ship.”

“Who am I?” Kit asked.

After a moment’s hesitation, the alien replied, “Katherine Claridge, Ph.D. and M.D.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“We have a recording of a lecture you gave a few years ago on Mars,” the alien replied. “We matched your voice pattern to that in storage.”

“Who the hell are you people?”

“My personal name is Faslorn, Doctor. My people are the Phelan. As your scientists have already surmised, we are refugees from the Tau Ceti nova. The ship you see before you is named
Far Horizons
. It is the ark that carried us to safety when our star exploded.”

“What is your purpose in coming here?” Garth asked. The question was inane, he thought, but he wanted to get the answer on the official record being transmitted back to Earth.

“That should be obvious, Captain. We come seeking a home to replace the one we lost. We hope that you will allow us to settle near the warmth of your star. We are not beggars. We are prepared to pay for your assistance.”

“In what medium of exchange?”

“There is only one currency that holds its value over interstellar distances. That is knowledge. Aboard this ship, we carry the accumulated knowledge of our species. We are prepared to share all we know with humanity if you will allow us to establish a colony in your system. Our requirements in terms of land are quite modest. We need a few thousand hectares on which to grow food and to settle our people, and will be pleased to settle land humans consider worthless. I hope you will advise your superiors of what I have told you.”

“How did you know to come here to Sol in the first place?”

The alien made a gesture, the significance of which was lost on the humans. “My ancestors picked up your radio signals some fifty years before they learned that our star was unstable. When it became obvious that our world was doomed, we built this ship and three others. We sent the others to the stars you know as Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, and Alpha Centauri.
Far Horizons
was assigned Sol. There weren’t very many other choices.”

“Only four ships?” Tory asked. “Were you so few then?”

“On the contrary,” Faslorn replied. “The population of Phela was twenty percent greater than the current population of your Earth. All but those few on the ships perished in the nova.”

Tory shivered. To think of all those lives snuffed out in a single instant.

“How did you learn to speak our language?” Eli asked.

Faslorn emitted a sound that was reminiscent of a chuckle. “We have monitored your communications for most of the time we have been in transit, Professor. Aboard this ship, we use the human tongue more than our own. I’m afraid, that you will find little use for your specialty here.”

“One thing else…” Eli said.

The alien interrupted him. “Please, we will have several weeks in which to learn all about one another. Our immediate problem is to get you safely aboard our ship. Please play the audiovisual and set up for your approach, Captain Van Zandt, and notify us when you are ready to begin the procedure.”

“Right.”

“Faslorn out.”

“
Austria
out,” Garth replied as the screen went blank.