The Mothership (12 page)

No one had figured out what medium the
device used, only that it didn’t receive electromagnetic waves like a normal
radio. It had long been assumed only a specialist research unit observing Earth
would have primitive radio equipment, which was another reason why the risk of
detection of the team’s tactical radios was deemed low. What was unknown was
whether the tiny device could send, as well as receive. Several Groom Lake
scientists suggested it picked up the wearer’s brain waves, converting them
directly into audible messages, negating the need for a microphone. If true, it
wasn’t calibrated to interact with the human brain, because no transmission had
ever been made with the device. Signals from nonterrestrial vehicles keeping
watch on the Groom Lake facility had been detected, and some intercepts had
even been partially translated, but they were routine navigational
communications which provided little worthwhile intelligence.

Virus was so absorbed in tweaking his tiny
toy, he didn’t notice Beckman approach.

“Anything?”

Virus glanced up. “Maybe. I’ve been channel
surfing this thing since we came ashore. I heard two short, high pitched
sounds, then nothing for hours. I figured it was static, nothing like the
intercepts we’ve picked up before.” He looked puzzled. “Now I’m not so sure.”

He passed Beckman the headphones, along
with the black cigarette box housing the recovered communicator. Almost
immediately, Beckman heard a few seconds of high pitched sound, followed by a
momentary silence and a second shorter series of sounds.

“I hear it.”

“They’re coming in once or twice a minute
now, regular as clockwork.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know what they’re saying, but
their comms traffic is increasing.”

Beckman motioned for Xeno to join them,
then another duet of signals sounded in his ears. “Are there always two
bursts?”

“Always,” Virus said. “The first is always
longer.”

“Order and acknowledgment,” Beckman
suggested. He passed the headset to Xeno. “What do you make of this?”

She pressed one of the speakers to her ear.
After she’d heard several transmissions, she said, “If it’s a language, it’s
unlike anything I’ve heard. I doubt there’s enough information here to form
meaningful sentences.”

“May I?” Markus asked, extending a hand.

Xeno gave Beckman a questioning look. He
nodded, then she passed the communicator to Markus. who listened intently to
several sequences before handing the communicator back. “Sounds like encrypted
bursts, short in duration, high in content. Shorter signals are harder to
decode.”

Dr McInness sat on his pack nearby, staring
at his notebook computer. His camping equipment and several instrument cases
lay scattered around him, awaiting his attention. Without looking up, he said,
“I realize it’s the job of soldiers and spies to be suspicious, but there are
other explanations. It’s probably nothing more than telemetry from scientific
instruments; soil analyses, weather reports, pictures of gum trees and koala
bears. Maybe they’re warning their sample collecting machines not to get eaten
by giant lizards.”

“How do you explain the increase in
traffic?” Beckman asked.

“It takes time to deploy their data
collectors.” He looked up from his computer. “Twice we’ve been close to their
equipment, once at the borehole and once at the research station. Both times
they fled to avoid contact with us. If they were hostile, don’t you think
they’d have attacked by now?”

“They have attacked,” Markus said. “They
destroyed the patrol boat, and shot down aircraft and satellites. I’d call that
hostile.”

“Maybe they saw them as threats.”

Beckman turned to Virus. “Record it.
Analyze what you can. Save the rest. Even if we can’t make anything out of it,
the eggheads back at Groom might crack it.”

“I’ve got several hours on disk already. I
was going to run a decrypt later tonight.” Virus said, indicating the notebook
computer sitting on his pack. It was loaded with a vast array of decryption and
sound analysis tools for just such a purpose.

Before Beckman could endorse Virus’ plan,
Steamer clambered to his feet and pointed to the western sky. “Yo, what’s
that?”

A sphere of brilliant red light floated low
in the sky, so bright, no detail of the craft itself was visible. It glided
silently to the north for a few seconds, then descended into the forest and
vanished.

“It was on fire!” Timer declared. “It must
have crashed!”

Dr McInness stood up, holding his computer
under his arm, looking after the vanished light. “It wasn’t on fire. The red
light was a photoelectric effect caused by its propulsion field.”

“Say what?” Steamer said, giving the
scientist a confused look.

“It’s basic physics,” Dr McInness
explained. “Einstein worked out the formulas for it over a hundred years ago.
Their vehicles emit fields which ionize and excite the air particles around
them. That generates a plasma which gives off photons, which is the light we
saw. The stronger the field, the higher the photon energy, the more the color
of the light shifts toward the blue end of the spectrum.

“It was red, not blue,” Nuke said.

“Yes, but it was hovering. That’s a low
power maneuver. The photon energy was low, so the color was down at the red end
of the spectrum. For high power maneuvers like take offs, the photon energy is
much higher. That’s when the light shifts to blue or white. The more power it
uses, the greater the effect the vehicle has on the surrounding air particles,
the more the color shifts toward the blue end of the spectrum. It’s a bit like
a jet getting louder the faster it goes because of its impact on the air.”

“So it made a controlled landing?” Beckman
asked.

“No doubt about it,” Dr McInness replied.
“I should go over there and try to make peaceful contact with them.”

“We’ll all go.” Beckman turned to Cougar.
“Distance?”

Cougar winced, trying to gauge the range in
the darkness. “Four hundred meters.”

“Close enough.” Beckman nodded to Hooper,
who had already pulled his pack on in anticipation of the next order.

“All right, people, mount up!” Hooper
barked. “We’re advancing to contact!”

“Contact?” Dr McInness said alarmed. “You
can’t attack it!”

“Take it easy, Doc,” Beckman reassured him.
“We’re just going to take a look.”

Cougar jogged off into the forest, pulling
his pack on as he went. In the campsite, the team threw their gear into their
packs, ready to move in seconds. Beckman started after Cougar as the others
fanned out either side of him. Markus took up position a short distance behind
Beckman, where he could observe without getting in the way.

Dr McInness blinked, still holding his
computer in one hand, surprised at how quickly they had moved out. “Wait!” he
yelled, glancing after them, then running back and frantically pushing his
equipment into his pack. Without waiting to strap his pack up, he started after
them, the metal instrument cases and his computer jangling together
discordantly, then he tripped and spilt the contents of his backpack.

“Major, wait!”

Beckman glanced back, seeing Dr McInness
bent over his pack, hurriedly stuffing displaced items back into it.

Hooper followed his gaze and gave Beckman a
doubtful look. “Want me to shoot him?”

Beckman was tempted by the thought. “Waste
of a bullet. Just keep an eye on him.”

They moved forward through the trees
quickly, with Dr McInness stumbling after them in the dark, the sound of loose
metal cases clinking together marking his position. Halfway along the skirmish
line to Beckman’s right, Vamp glanced back at Dr McInness and smiled, amused.
She drew the recovered tracking device from her pocket and scrolled out slowly
until she had the target on screen.

“Tracking,” she radioed. “There are
contacts all around it. Looks like a sightseeing party.”

“Roger that,” Beckman replied, as Dr
McInness’ metallic jangle came closer, and louder. Beckman turned to Hooper.
“Shut him up.”

Hooper grinned, then turned and waited.
When the scientist reached him, Hooper raised a finger to his lips. “Shh!”

“You didn’t wait for me.”

“You weren’t ready. Now, slow and quiet.”

“Right, slow and quiet. Like a commando!”

“Or a librarian,” Hooper suggested with a
crooked smile.

Dr McInness put his arms around his noisy
backpack, and started creeping after the team, trying his best to be silent.
Occasionally, his pack would emit a metal clang, and he’d freeze, looking
apologetically at the scowling sergeant beside him.

Ahead of the team, Cougar crouched behind
some ferns. “I’ve got a visual,” he radioed, raising his sniper scope and
focusing on the craft.

It was octagonal, made of highly reflective
silver metal, five meters high and more than twenty across, with a smoothly
curved upper hull. The red spherical light that had sheathed the vehicle while
it was airborne was gone, while a narrow beam of brilliant yellow light blasted
down from beneath the vehicle into the ground. A cloud of white steam boiled up
around the beam, while tiny compressed black droplets periodically rose through
the center of the beam into the ship.

Beckman took cover a few meters from
Cougar’s position, raising his binoculars. The steam partially enveloped the
vehicle, although he thought he detected several small round windows near the
top of the craft. He heard movement to his left as Markus stopped beside him.

The intelligence officer scanned the area
ahead. “If they have the same technology as Vamp’s tracking device, they know
we’re here.”

“Maybe they’re ready to talk,” Beckman said
as he shrugged off his pack.

“Or maybe they’ll just kill anyone who gets
too close.”

“Or that,” Beckman conceded as a solitary
clink sounded behind them as Dr McInness crept up, with Hooper two steps
behind.

Beckman started to rise, “Stay here.”

Dr McInness looked alarmed. “Major, as the
representative of the scientific community, I should accompany you–”

“Once I determine it’s safe, you can study
that thing until your head explodes. Until then, stay put.” He nodded toward
Hooper, crouched behind the scientist. “Sergeant Hooper will ensure you obey my
orders.”

Dr McInness glanced uncomfortably at the
grizzled veteran, whose fixed expression left him in no doubt the order would
be followed.

Beckman started towards the craft, knowing
if the occupants were tracking them, they’d see the team had gone to ground. He
hoped they’d interpret that as a nonaggressive gesture, rather than a prelude
to attack, and that Dr McInness was right, that they were indeed a gaggle of
sightseeing scientists. When he passed Cougar, he saw the craft was noticeably
darker on top, except for tiny green and yellow running lights spaced at the
octagonal corners, while the glow from beneath the craft lit the underside and
the surrounding area.

“No movement,” Cougar whispered.

Beckman thumbed his mike. “Vamp, you still
tracking contacts outside the vehicle?”

“Affirmative, multiple contacts.”

Beckman glanced at Cougar. “Maybe they’re
waiting for me.”

Cougar readied his sniper rifle, quietly
easing a depleted uranium tipped, armor-piercing round into the chamber. “I’ve
got your six.”

Beckman crawled toward the vehicle,
cradling his rifle on his forearms. As he approached the landing site, the
brilliant light beneath the vehicle overpowered his night vision, while the
hiss of steam billowing up out of the ground from beneath the craft grew louder.
When he reached a thicket of ferns with an unobstructed view, he paused to
study the vehicle. He was not surprised to discover it appeared to be a single
piece of metal from top to bottom, with no welds or seams. Molecular bonding
was a trait shared by all of the recovered vehicles at Groom Lake and was one
of the reasons why the reverse engineering teams found it so difficult to
disassemble them.

Beckman decided the time had come to
approach the craft openly. He went to stand when something clamped firmly on
his arm. Startled, he rolled onto his side, tearing free of the grip and
bringing his rifle around to face his attacker. A dirt-smeared elfin face
crowned by short red hair stared back at him over the barrel of his M16. Laura
McKay raised a forefinger to her lips, advising silence, then nodded toward a
stand of trees to the left.

“It’s over there,” she whispered.

“Major!” Vamp’s voice sounded urgently in
his earpiece. “I have a contact right on top of you.”

“I’m OK. Standby,” he whispered as he
stared in the direction Laura had indicated. Five meters away, the glassy black
sensor disk of a seeker protruded above a thicket of ferns. The slender,
quad-armed machine was crouched and motionless, although Beckman heard
something moving through the undergrowth beyond. Suddenly, the silence was
shattered by a series of terrified animal shrieks.