Koban (9 page)

Something else bothered Dillon. “If these are remote piloted
missiles, then where's the ship that fired them and controls them? How can they
be remote drones if Jake never detected the control signals? If we have to accept
that they have a better drive, why not a smaller manned ship?”

“You may be right Doctor.” Mirikami conceded. “What's one more
defiance of what I was taught as being the Laws of Physics?”

Dillon started to say something else but was interrupted by Jake.
“Communication arriving, audio only.” This announcement was followed by a quavering
voice, already in mid-sentence.

“....to escape or you will be destroyed! Any resistance will
be dealt with savagely. Please believe me; if you run or fight you will die. Your
lives depend on submission and instant obedience. For God’s sake, don’t try to Jump,
they can sense your Trap fields. Obey them
exactly
! A moment’s hesitation
can be fatal.”

There was a moment of silence, then the broadcast repeated. “Make
no attempt to escape or you will be destroyed! .,.” The remainder was a repeat of
the same message. On the third playing Mirikami told Jake to take it off speaker,
but to continue recording and report any change in content.

Noreen was the first to speak. “I think whoever made the recording
is under duress, possibly a prisoner, and from his voice he sounds frightened. Perhaps
someone from Midwife?”

“If so,” Mirikami mused, “he believes our attackers to be ruthless
and competent enough to make armed resistance futile. After the flying and firing
demonstration just witnessed I can't doubt their ability.”

Watching her own tracking display, Noreen saw that the twenty
onrushing targets had modified their formation. “The main group is fanning out.
They're netting us like a fish.”

Mirikami muttered indistinctly then selected voice Link. He used
the code phrase that placed the computer in dictation mode. “Jake, take a message.”

“Ready Sir.”

“This is Captain Mirikami of the Flight of Fancy, Mizzeran registry.
Our drive fields are disabled and we require assistance. We will comply with your
demands and will offer no resistance. We have eight hundred ninety nine souls onboard,
and light cargo. Please identify yourselves.” He spoke the termination phrase, “Jake,
end message.”

“Routing
Sir?” was the automatic response.

“Broadcast it on the same frequency they are using, between their
transmissions, and on all four distress frequencies as well. Advise the Bridge if
there is any reply, or a change in their current transmission.”

To Noreen he said, “Play that incoming recording for the crew
only, and let them hear my reply. Get our people on duty in passenger country into
a privacy booth. Impress on them that I mean to do exactly as we are told. I'll
speak to the passengers myself and prepare them a little more gradually. I don't
want a wild-eyed panic, so they won't hear the actual message just yet. To keep
them in their seats I'll caution them to expect additional acceleration for a course
change. Make sure the crew understands that it’s only a bluff so that they know
it's safe to move about. Start a search for the four missing people, and get some
medical help to those that need it.”

“Will do,
Sir.”

Next Mirikami addressed the passenger decks. “Let me have your
attention please. This is Captain Mirikami speaking. We are in no immediate danger
at present, but we have been pursued and caught by a fleet of small unidentified
spacecraft. They have ordered us to cease efforts to escape and to follow their
instructions. In order to insure your safety I have agreed to their terms.

“I regret any injuries or discomfort you may have suffered due
to the abrupt accelerations. Your couch monitors will have informed the medical
staff of anyone requiring immediate attention. Depress the call button to request
a steward only if you require immediate attention. Because we may be required to
get underway on a new course without warning, I must ask you to remain seated for
your own safety. Please remain calm. If our pursuers intended us harm, they could
have already done so. I will keep you informed as I learn their intentions. Thank
you.”

Mirikami
waited for his First Officer to complete her crew briefing.

As soon as she switched off, Mirikami swiveled to face them both.
“I want your comments and any observations that seem pertinent. Since you've been
witness to all that's happened, Doctor, you're included. Noreen, you go first.”

“We haven’t any choice but to follow their orders for now. However,
they neglected to tell us who they are and they didn't send us video. I think that
may be significant. They may be hiding their identity because we still have a chance
to escape, or because they may intend to release us if we turn out to be as harmless
as we seem to be. Right now we can't tell anyone who they are.”

Mirikami voiced partial disagreement. “Escape is out. We can’t
make a surprise Jump even if we could catch an energetic tachyon in the next few
minutes. If we restored the Traps...,” he froze as he realized where the completed
thought led. Instantly he was at the com panel and keyed the Drive Room speakers,
shouting. “Willfem! Leave the Trap fields alone! Don't try to restore them! Do hear
me? Don't do
anything
to them! Acknowledge!”

When her face appeared on the screen, it was that of a bewildered
woman. “But... Captain, I was about to try to close the secondary Trap field again
by shutting down and recycling. There's about a five- percent probability we could
catch a minimum Jump particle in time. It's a slim chance, but shouldn't we try?”

Mirikami explained why they couldn't. “Nan, you heard their message.
They'll destroy us if we try to escape. The device used to tamper with our fields
from the outside, from kilometers away, must be able to sense the presence of our
fields. They know with a closed Trap there's a possibility, however small, that
we could catch a Jump particle within a few minutes. Restoring either field might
be seen as an escape attempt and provoke a fatal attack. The odds against a Jump
before they can hit us again are too great to risk.”

Willfem conceded
reluctantly. “You're probably right Sir. But I wish we had a little more time.”

“No more than I do Nan, but they are too damned fast, and too
close to risk the attempt. Just stand by until we know what they want us to do.”

Killing the connection, Mirikami released a shuddering sigh.
“I nearly missed the point of my own argument against trying to Jump. If she had
reset either field we might have been blasted without further warning.”

The tracking display showed the twenty craft had ceased to fan
out and were moving parallel to the path of their prey. The Flight of Fancy was
about to be enveloped by an open bottomed hemi-sphere formation of ships. The trailing
two craft, now having reversed their course would close the bottom. They were making
no assumptions about the apparent helplessness of their victim.

“Your turn Doctor.” Mirikami invited. “What do you think, and
how do you think your people will take this?”

“I have a theory now that I'm afraid is going to make me sound
more paranoid than my last one, Captain. However, I've been examining all this analytically,
not emotionally, and we know a few new facts. If what I'm about to suggest is really
happening here Captain, we might indeed have a panic if we don't prepare for it.
I'd really like you to punch holes in my hunch if you can.” Dillon had the undivided
attention of both officers.

For the last several minutes, he had been collecting bits and
pieces of information, fitting them into the framework of a radical idea that had
occurred to him a short time ago. It needed more pieces, but what facts he had fit
the theory.

He began to outline his bits of information hurriedly, ticking
them off like items on a shopping list. “First, the frightened man that made the
recording is probably a prisoner. Perhaps he’s one of the people from Midwife. But,
that’s a strange thing don't you think? Our extremely competent aggressors passed
on an ultimatum secondhand, via a clearly male voice, rather than from some authoritative
female of their own?”

He moved to his next point. “Next, their message wasn't a specific
reply to our own broadcasts to Midwife; we were not called by ship name. The recording
must have been prepared in advance, before they even knew who we were. To reach
us this quickly those little ships must have started after us as soon as our re-entry
gamma ray wave front reached Newborn. If the message
was
recorded in advance,
I wonder why they didn't take time to prepare an ordinary video recording and
add more detail.

“As you observed Captain, we had essentially no chance to escape
once they had opened our Trap fields. They certainly knew they had us, and yet sent
no images, nor did they identify themselves in any way.” At this point, he realized
Jake hadn't said where the message originated. He didn't know if that detail might
fit his theory or not. “Noreen, please ask Jake if the transmission came from one
of the twenty-two targets he's tracking, or from somewhere else?”

Noreen relayed the question to Jake, but in rephrasing the request,
she asked for the “source and nature” of the signal. The computer proceeded to give
every detail of the broadcast.

Dillon had merely wanted to know if the message came from Newborn,
which was too far away to have even known the Flight of Fancy had been successfully
disabled. To fit his theory, the signal had to originate from someone close enough
to have known the prey had been caught. He got a lot more than he had expected.

“The transmission,” began the precise, smooth voice, “is radiating
on a tight beam from one of the twenty ships that are approaching us from
Newborn. The specific source is the ship directly at the center of the enveloping
hemisphere. It is a radio signal with a carrier frequency centered on the interstellar
hydrogen emission frequency of one thousand four hundred twenty megahertz, using
frequency modulation to convey audio information. The …”

“Terminate, Jake.” Noreen ordered, not certain what Dillon had
been after. She halted what was sure to be endless and pointless detail from the
computer.

Dillon felt an icy chill crawl up his back, “That was more than
I was expecting, but I think that just might clinch it. I'll explain in a moment.”

He outlined the next point, “These small craft have shown us
capabilities that outstrip the most advanced ships known to either of you experienced
Spacers. Furthermore, they have a device that seems to violate the laws of physics
of our field equations for Tachyon Space.”

He was nearly finished. “There also has been no indication that
any of our messages have been understood. It's as if they can't improvise their
communications with us.”

Now it was time for the final clue that had convinced him he
had to be right, but he wasn't sure it would loom as significant to the others.

“Their transmission itself is the single most revealing detail.
I don't mean the content; I'm speaking of the mode of delivery. They used one of
the most significant frequencies available. The radio frequency generated by interstellar
hydrogen clouds when the atoms in them collide. Every long-range Jump ship automatically
records emissions on a number of so called ‘Magic’ frequencies. These are the radio
emissions that occur naturally in nature and are important to radio astronomy.

“There is a very old, often forgotten reason why these frequencies
are monitored by Jump ships.” He waited to see if this information would at last
lead them to what he now thought was true.

Mirikami nodded his head slowly, but remained silent. He saw
where Dillon was leading and was seeking a flaw in his string of evidence that would
prove him wrong.

Noreen, seeing Mirikami's nod, was still in the dark. “Dillon,
what’s so significant about that frequency? The Captain seems to know but I didn't
know it was monitored. Why do we do it, and how did you know about it when it apparently
isn’t common knowledge to flight crews?”

“It's done, because we first heard the so-called Corrillians
on that same frequency, nearly four hundred years ago by SETI. The frequency is
one of a number of naturally generated radio signals that radio astronomers have
studied for centuries. Searchers for intelligent extraterrestrial life believe that
any culture with a radio level technology, such as the Corrillians had, might try
to communicate with beings in other solar systems.

“I know about it because I'm a volunteer member of an old scientific
task force, in the biology unit, that would respond to the discovery of another
alien race. The ships that operate out near the Rim have recorders that are checked
automatically for non-random patterns by computers at spaceports each time the ship
docks. We anticipated discovering another intelligent race someday. One may have
found us instead.”

She wasn't buying it. “Dillon, isn’t it pretty farfetched to
extrapolate the few facts we have here, into an attack by the Corrillians? Besides,”
she added, “I recall some of the historical facts. It happened even before Jump
ships. I believe the signal was picked up for only a few weeks and that it was apparently
being aimed at stars randomly, not specifically for us. They didn’t even know we
existed.”

“I'm not saying these are Corrillians.” Dillon responded. “That
signal was beamed from a globular cluster over twenty thousand light years from
Earth. They were sending in the blind, looking for someone to talk to. After centuries
of studying what was in their message, we think their physics and mathematics was
on the wrong path to stumble onto Jump travel.”

“Then you
think we've been found by some other species?”

“It may seem unlikely, but it fits the facts better than anything
else I can think of. In any event, we are about to find out, and I want us to be
prepared for the shock if I'm right. One of my boyhood dreams was to participate
in a First Contact. That wish may have pushed my mind into fitting the facts to
a desired conclusion. I earnestly hope that we, here and now, are not in a First
Contact situation. Not like this.”