Nebula (40 page)

The first
Chanreek transports arrived at the American Southwest Resettlement Area one year after the signing of the treaty. The arrivals at the Russian Northeast Resettlement Area and the Canadian Northeast Resettlement area followed within several months.

Less than three years later, the entire population was resettled, and life on Earth began to return to normal, with the only major changes being that Nebula was now firmly in control of the human governments, more or less in a federal type of structure, and the
Chanreeks were well on their way to establishing their own governmental authority that spanned the three regions. The Chanreek military still maintained control, but they were gradually preparing for a transition back to civilian authority with a new set of ministers who were open to cooperation with the humans. Work to terraform Mars began only one year after the final arrival of the Chanreek refugees.

Chapter
18

Once the relocation had begun, Harry’s job was done, and he said goodbye to his friends in Nebula and returned to the university, where he was welcomed back with open arms. He was now a celebrity since the story of his exploits was publicized, with embellishments that he found amusing if not completely outrageous. He was bombarded with requests for interviews, all of which he declined, and he’d even heard that a movie about him was in the making.

At first, he plunged back into his research and tried to recapture his previous life, but after a couple of months he concluded that it no longer interested him as it had before. He needed something else to do, something more exciting, maybe even a bit dangerous, and he also missed being part of Nebula and the interactions that he had with General Kragin and other
Chanreeks that he had met. He decided to try to get back into the action and contacted Brad to learn what was happening and how he could rejoin Nebula.

Brad returned his message almost immediately. “What took you so long?” he began. “I’d been expecting something like this since you left. Once you get a taste of adventure like what we had, it’s hard to go back to the sheltered life. I’d have thought that one or two weeks would have been enough. We have a place for you that I think you’ll enjoy. It’s been waiting for you. I’ll send a runabout to pick you up.”

The small runabout settled down just outside Harry’s research building, and a crowd of students quickly assembled around it. Everyone knew of these spacecraft by now, but they were still rare enough to elicit a high degree of excitement, and to be able to see one this close was something that was not to be ignored.

When Harry emerged from the building, the crowd realized that he was the one that the ship had come for. They parted to let him through, and he approached the runabout and waited for the entry port to open. He was surprised when he saw Yuri standing in the open doorway.

“Hello Harry,” Yuri said with a big grin. “I understand that you want to go for a ride.”

Harry returned the grin. Then he walked into the entry and gave Yuri a big hug. “It’s great to see you again. Let’s go.” And that was it. They both retreated back into the runabout. The door closed, and it rose vertically for several seconds before dashing away toward the ocean.

*

Harry found himself part of a human-Chanreek enterprise that was established with financial support from Nebula and from a few of the wealthy human nations. Manufacturing had already begun for the equipment that would be needed on Mars. It seemed that Seduro had set aside a position for him from the very start, probably realizing that life back at the university would soon bore him and that he’d return to Nebula as a permanent member of the senior leadership. After all, he earned it, and he was one of the few humans who had close contact with Chanreeks at the highest levels.

Relations between the two species improved rapidly as they cooperated in the terraforming effort and other cooperative ventures, and they soon learned to trust one another. Even the human populations in the nations began to take active interest in working with the
Chanreeks, both for terraforming and for building advanced technology industries.

The combined human-Chanreek terraforming effort resulted in progress that was much faster than originally expected, and in only one short decade, the first Chanreek settlements were established. They still required environmental housing with life support for their living quarters, but they could work outside for up to five or six Earth hours, even with only minimal breathing apparatus. The projections were for mass relocation from Earth to Mars to start in another five or six Earth years.

*

Harry saw that this phase of his work would come to an end soon, and he started to think about what to do next. So he contacted Brad once again and asked to meet with him and get some more of his advice. The two of them had formed a friendship during the war and afterwards. They rarely met face-to-face, but they kept a steady dialog through the network that Nebula had established.

Brad flew to the facility where Harry was working and after shaking hands and exchanging some small talk on what they’d both been up to, Brad switched to the topic that had brought him here. He had a proposal for something that could keep Harry busy and happy for a long, long time.

“Well,” Brad began, “we have a new project that might interest you. But it’s something that will be a permanent assignment with no possibility of turning back once you start.”

“So, you’re going to shanghai me again?” Harry asked with a grin.

“No, not this time. This time you’ll need to be fully aware from the start, and the choice will be yours and yours alone.”

“OK, what’s it about.”

“General Kragin and I and a few others have a plan to refurbish some of those
Chanreek ships that were contaminated and set out on an expedition to explore deep space, maybe even into other galaxies. We figure that there are probably other worlds out there where humans and Chanreeks could live, and after the Chanreek experience with that supernova, we both thought that it would be prudent to search before something happens to the sun or some nearby star that could require us to leave as they had to leave. We’d travel at near light speed, so time isn’t an issue for us, but we’d have to leave everyone here forever. The gravitational drives have been improved, so our speed would be even closer to the speed of light than before, and we could travel for millions of years without aging too much. If we did find a planet of interest, we could return and help lead a larger expedition with settlers for the new world. If we didn’t find a new home world, we’d still make discoveries beyond imagination and might even meet some other intelligent life forms. Would you want to join us?”

“Whoa,” Harry exclaimed. “When you said you had an interesting proposal, I never expected it to be anything like that. Let me think about it for a couple of days. It does sound interesting, and there really isn’t anything here that holds me back. But let me mull it over a bit before I jump into the unknown again.”

“OK,” Brad answered. “There’s no rush. We’ll need at least another year, probably two, to get things ready and to recruit our exploration team. We plan on taking at least two or three thousand humans and Chanreeks, plus a few thousand robots, so this won’t happen very soon. We also have to make the arrangements for Nebula and the Chanreeks to transfer ships and other equipment to us. Seduro and Grakoo, the new Chanreek prime minister, are supportive of the idea, but the details need to be worked out, and the value of those assets will generate a lot of discussion. So take as long as you need.”

*

Harry thought about the offer for two days and then replied to Brad. “Count me in. I have a taste for getting back into space, and I like the idea of exploring instead of fighting. When can I start?”

“How about tomorrow?” Brad replied. “We’ll send a shuttle to take you to our base. It’s on Mars, near the Chanreek colony by our old bunker. You won’t recognize the place. A lot has changed since we left. I’ll meet you there, and we can get started on your new assignment.”

“Unidentified craft, bearing point five radians to starboard, approximately three light minutes distance.” The report from surveillance section rang through the operations center, and General Kragin almost spilled his tea as he rose to get to the control station.

“General quarters,” Kragin commanded, and the claxon rang on all ships as human and
Chanreek crew scurried to their posts. “Decrease speed to zero point one c, and maintain heading.”

Brad and Harry entered the operations center seconds later. They’d been playing bridge with two
Chanreek officers and were only several meters away in the lounge near the operations center.

“What’s up?” Brad asked.

“Unidentified ship,” Kragin replied. “I think that we’ve finally met another spacefaring species. I hope it’s a peaceful meeting, but I’ve issued the order to prepare for whatever happens. I’m keeping shields down for now. Let’s look as peaceful as possible and try to make contact. But we’re on ready alert.”

They waited tensely as the strange spacecraft approached them. They could see that it was also unshielded. Kragin ordered signal lights and transmissions, both microwave and gravitational, to be broadcast with a pulse code that had been established as the best way to make first contact. The code was a simple 1, 2, 3, … count up to ten, then another up to twelve. Then it was followed by the numbers to indicate pi to ten significant figures, using groups of pulses separated by an interval to encode pi in base ten, so the first group consisted of three pulses, the second had one, and the third had four, and so forth. Then they did the same for pi in base twelve, going to twelve significant figures. Then they waited.

After three repetitions of the one-to-ten, one-to-twelve, and pi sequences, the other ship responded. It used a similar code, broadcast with light pulses, microwave pulses, and gravitational pulses, precisely repeating what had been sent by the human-Chanreek ship. Then they added another message. The ship’s computer took several seconds to recognize that the alien ship was sending decimal data that defined the number “e”, the base of the natural logarithms, to ten significant figures. So, the conclusion was that these aliens most likely were saying that they had ten fingers, or whatever types of digits served as fingers. And they clearly were willing to establish communications.

Kragin ordered the fleet to stop as the other ship approached. The other ship stopped too. They were now about two light seconds apart, just standing still and watching one another.

“Brad,” Kragin said, “We need to approach them, but I don’t want to seem threatening. I want you and Harry to take a runabout and see if you can get close to them. Maybe they’ll even let you dock.”

“Right,” Brad answered, and he and Harry turned to leave.

“Wait,” Kragin said. “You need to take a Chanreek officer too. If they let you in, they’ll see that we have two distinct species onboard, so they should get the message that we’re open to working across species and civilizations. Take Dragoy with you. Wasn’t he with you in the lounge?”

“Yeah. We were playing cards.”

“Tell him that I want him to join you. If things start to look like trouble, get back here as quickly as you can. We’ll give you cover fire if necessary, but so far it looks peaceful. Take one of the ships with an escape pod, just in case. They seem friendly so far, but I don’t want to take any more risks than necessary.”

“OK,” Brad replied. “Let’s go Harry.”

The three of them suited up, went to the hangar deck, climbed into a runabout, and flew off into the unknown.