A Sword Into Darkness (20 page)

Nathan was alone.

He listened deeply, trying to block out the sound of his own breathing and the movement of his clothes.  All was silent.  There was nothing left.  Gordon Lee could fill a room with his presence, and his spirit could keep it brimming with excitement even after he left, but none of that lingered now.  Gordon was gone and not even a ghost remained to shepherd them through what lay ahead.

He shook his head, returned Gordon’s keys to his pockets and walked over to the immense terracotta warrior that dominated the foyer.  Nathan looked up at it, bowed his head slightly in respect, and then proceeded on through the darkened, quiet interior of Gordon’s former home.  He moved with a purpose, for he had one, but nostalgia and grief gave him a halting gait as he passed objects which had been merely part of the background, but now took on the significance of a thousand memories.

After the pain of losing his place in the Navy, this place had become his life and his home.  It was not where he lived, but it was where his life had regained meaning.  Gordon had given him something beyond any mere job or project.  Gordon had given him purpose, had made Nathan matter again to the world, and made the world matter to Nathan.  It was a debt he had not even realized he owed before, and now it was too late to ever repay it.

Nathan reached the home office, lit only by the frozen static on the desk screen.  The stream was still logged in.  He knew that the telemetry stream had already been viewed by almost everyone on the short list with access to the server, but he himself had not had a chance to review it yet.  Nathan stepped carefully around the desk, self consciously avoiding the spot where Gordon had died, and sat down.  He shook his head and scrolled the cursor around, clicking to begin the video log again.

The static cleared and a video divided into four images began.  First was a visible spectrum, light-enhanced view out of the main camera.  Next to it was the same scene, but in a false color, multi-spectrum view.  Below the first images was the video from the sub-probes
Promise
had launched, switching from one unit to another every few seconds.  The last image was a view of the
Promise
itself, taken from a spar extended from the main hull.

The probe looked to be in decent shape—discolored slightly, with multicolored burns and pockmarks around the shielded nosecone, but nothing appeared to be broken or missing.  The other images showed nothing but stars and space.  Then the main views rotated and the Deltans were revealed for the first time.

They filled the images.  Either the probe was
extremely
close, the magnification was all the way up, or the approaching aliens were really, really big.  Nathan’s jaw fell slack and he forgot to breathe for a moment.  The “ship” was unlike anything he had expected.   And it was not really a ship at all.

The most immediate feature was the Deltan drive.  It was not a photonic drive or rocket as they had surmised, though it might ultimately produce a similar effect.  This was, for all intents and purposes, a sun.

It appeared as if someone had lassoed a star and forced it to radiate in only a single direction.  Blue white light blasted forth from one pole of a distended ball of plasma.  The tortured sphere of the drive had its own roiling purple white and golden red radiance, but it was far outshone by the thrust of the drive.  Where the “star” was constrained, brilliant ropes of silvery light bound it, forcing it out of its natural form and putting it to work for the ornate bodies orbiting it.

Surrounding the drive, but unconnected to it by any visible means, were four shapes.  The configuration of those shapes had perplexed Gordon for years.  He had never figured out what significance they had, but it all seemed obvious to Nathan upon seeing it now.  The bodies orbiting the Deltan drive were positioned directly upon the classic Lagrange points—three of the shapes in an equilateral triangle around the drive, with the fourth shape stuck in the middle of one of the sides.

For any two bodies in a gravitationally bound system, where one body is much more massive than another, there were points of gravitational minima and maxima, where another body so placed would be in equilibrium with the first two bodies and the whole system could exist in stable harmony.  These were known as the Lagrange points, designated L1 through L5, and these were the points that the four constructs surrounding the drive were configured around.

The drive obviously filled the role of the central, massive body.  The other body of the “two body problem” was the smallest of the constructs.  Illuminated by a brilliant violet-red glow from the equator of the drive, this vessel was the most starship-like of the four.  It appeared as a dully metallic, plated ovoid, with various projections and hatches of unknown purpose adorning its hull.  The vessel had none of the comforting normalities of a human construct—no recognizable docking points, solar panels, thrusters, or view ports.  Nathan could hardly even tell the front from the back.  The overlapping rings of plates which formed the hull gave it a vaguely arthropod-like appearance, but Nathan was probably more closely related to a lobster than these things were.  Below this vessel, all of the silver-white bands of energy around the drive sphere came together, though for what purpose, Nathan was not ready to guess.

At the L3 point, directly opposite the first vessel across the drive, was an irregular sphere of plated metal.  It looked … incomplete.  The coloring was not uniform, and there appeared to be nothing purposeful or special about it.  There was no reason to believe he could tell anything from first appearances, but to him it looked like nothing so much as a junk heap.  It was easily twice the size of the first vessel, but if this really was a Lagrangian configuration, it would have to be much less massive.

At the L4 and L5 points, 60 degrees ahead and 60 degrees behind the first vessel in its orbit about the drive, were the last two constructs.  Similar in size and basic shape to the junk pile at the L3 point, these appeared in no way incomplete.  These were nothing less than the cathedrals Gordon had spoken of in his last words.

The one orbiting at L5 was somewhat spherical or polyhedral, and was covered with long, curving chambers defined by angular ribs, adorned with almost gothic arches.  The structure appeared to be made of dark gray, polished stone blocks, accentuated by copper and silver edgework and statuary.  There were no lights to reveal its darkly shadowed alcoves, but half of the structure was illuminated by the deep carmine glow from the drive.  Nothing about it seemed practical or spaceship-like.  Instead, it appeared to be the illegitimate offspring of Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey as interpreted by Salvador Dali or M. C. Escher.

L4 sported a construct similar in purpose to the gothic structure at L5 (in so far as it bore no relation to either of the two main bodies or the junk heap at L3), but completely different in style and appearance.  It was also somewhat spherical, but appeared lumpy and organic.  Domes, spires, and hollows adorned the structure, configured in a pleasant, orderly fashion, but which seemed to have been extruded naturally rather than built.  It looked to be made of an off-white plastic or polyp, lit on one side by the drive’s reddish-purple glow, while complex geometric designs of intersecting whorls of color and dark, looping lines broke up the uniform surface coloring.  By the way the light played over the designs, they appeared to be cut into the surface of the construct vice merely drawn upon it.

The four structures of the Deltan “system” revolved slowly around the equator of the drive, rotating about their common polar axes so that no one side was tidally locked toward the star-like sphere of plasma.  Whether this system was indeed gravitationally bound like a planetary or solar system, or whether there were other forces at play, Nathan would have to wait for the telemetry analysis, but he felt himself making his own assumptions about the system regardless.

The drive seemed to be an enormously powerful and skilled manipulation of several forces, well beyond Earth’s own capability, but it did not feel magical or beyond all understanding.  The drive was apparently controlled by the lobster-like ship, and produced a massive thrust in order to slowly accelerate its immense bulk from star system to star system.  The other constructs were then dragged along behind, bound to it by gravity, electromagnetism, or some other force unknown to humanity.  The constructs themselves inspired a number of different interpretations, none of which had any validity other than the feeling in Nathan’s gut.

For the junk heap at L3, Nathan felt nothing.  It was a non-entity, neither alluring nor threatening.  For the ornate structures, gothic and organic at L5 and L4, Nathan felt a sense of wonder and enticement.  They practically invited exploration as works of art and design—design along two completely different aesthetic frameworks.  The whole system was alien, and every part of it seemed alien to every other part.

Only the lobster-like control ship carried with it any negative connotation.  It looked menacing, though not one element of it could be pointed out as threatening, and it did nothing but revolve about the drive, same as the others.  Staring at it, though, he could not help but feel a sense of dread.  Perhaps he attributed too much to it because of what happened to Gordon, but the plated vessel appeared to be vaguely threatening.

The view devoted to the sub-probes came to life as one or another made a close flyby of each structure.  More detail was seen of the individual vessels, but nothing indicated any life aboard.  The vessels cruised on, dragged by the forces of the drive to an eventual rendezvous with the solar system, but they did so without change or response.  They appeared to be either dead or asleep.  Nathan wondered what the telemetry would show.

Getting nowhere with the sub-probes,
Promise
would move to the next step.  Lights came on around the probe—with flashing indicators above the auxiliary communication disk and the lidar transceiver, declaring its presence for all to see in case any potential viewers had missed it.  He could not tell from the video, but he knew the probe would now begin transmitting to the four vessels, attempting to make contact.

Nathan began to tap a rhythm on the desk—one, two … one, two, three … one through five … one through seven, and so on.  It was the classic “first contact” transmission, the first thirty-three prime numbers, from 2 to 137, the inverse of physic’s fine structure constant.  It was a decidedly nonrandom set that would communicate a variety of things to any potential extraterrestrial visitors.  Namely, that humanity knew what a prime number was, and its significance, that we were a mathematical, reasoning species, and could thus be seen as potential peers to the advanced race dropping by for a visit.  Whether or not this implied message would get across to these particular aliens, Nathan had no idea, but it always seemed to work in the movies.

Promise
would broadcast the prime transmission at a number of different frequencies and rates, from long wavelength radio, to microwaves, visible light, and ultraviolet, hoping to come across something the Deltans would notice.  It would keep this up for 24 hours, repeating the sequence over and over again until some response was received.  If a response came in, it would reply in kind and then broadcast the greeting message on the appropriate frequency, thus beginning the long process of forming a primer for common communication.  If no response was received during that first 24 hours,
Promise
would release additional adjunct probes, this time attempting a physical touchdown and contact with one of the alien structures.

Nathan tapped out the twelfth prime (37) when the Deltan system stopped revolving.

He sat up straight in Gordon’s chair.  There had been no other change in radiance or activity, but the four structures suddenly ceased their ponderous orbits about the drive.  They stood still, frozen in their positions, belying the necessities of orbital mechanics.  Obviously, there were other forces involved than mere gravity and inertia.  He wondered how it worked, how much sheer energy it must have taken to stop the motion of those enormous masses.

Then, even more rapidly than they had come to a stop, the system spun in the reverse direction until the main, arthropod-like vessel was aligned closest to
Promise
, whereupon it stopped again.  Nathan shook his head, in awe of this moment.  He could hear his own heartbeat in his ear.  Was this sudden activity what had led to Gordon’s attack?

Promise
would have noticed this change in motion and likely taken it as a response.  The prime transmission would have ended and the welcome message would go out, a robotic probe acting as mankind’s first ambassador to the stars.  In his head, Nathan heard the words in Gordon’s own voice, “Greetings to you, our unknown visitors from a nearby star.  We welcome you to our solar system in the name of all the free inhabitants of Earth.  Please allow this probe to exchange data with you in our stead, such that we might form some bridge for open and enlightening communication between our two species.”  Whereupon, the probe would begin a math lesson, graduating from there to sounds, letters, and pictures, and from there to concepts and actual negotiations.

Mankind had come far from the days of a golden record slapped onto a beeping probe.  Not that it mattered in the least.

Before Gordon’s message would even have had a chance to finish, the Deltan system responded.  Threads of silvery light lanced out from each of the structures to the adjunct probes
Promise
had fired near them.  Telemetry on the third screen turned to static.  The silvery light flared about each mini-probe until they were all supplanted by spherical clouds of sparkling dust.  The dust clouds then began to break up and stream toward the articulated plate hull of the be-shelled vessel.

Each stream of dust was drawn up into the main ship through unseen vents, soon vanishing completely.  Nathan let loose a ragged breath, unaware he had been holding it.  Some of its capability and intent now revealed, the ship appeared even more menacing than it had before.