Starbridge (11 page)

"Yeah. We're lucky we could see it the first time they ran it. Since then, they've altered it so it would be visible to people having everything from ultraviolet- to infrared-based vision."

"Maybe they showed it first in their own vision range."

"Makes sense. Their sun and Sol aren't all that different."

"I can't
believe
how similar these people are!" Rob shook his head. "After all the wild possibilities I imagined, this is almost like finding human beings out here."

"They may be more alien
inside
than they are outside," Jerry cautioned, watching Rob stand up. "Where are you going?"

"Down to my lab. I'd started on an atmosphere-analysis kit of my own, and I'd better get it together. I don't think it'll be long . before we hear that knock on the airlock door.''

Jerry glanced at the left viewscreen. "Yeah, they're coming right along on that airlock extension they're building."

Spacesuited figures swarmed over the flexible-appearing extrusion, just as they had in the alien "film."

Rob yawned so widely his jaw hurt. "I wonder if I'll ever get eight hours in the sack again?"

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"We'll have months to sleep on our way home," Jerry said. "I'll call you if anything happens."

"Thanks." The doctor turned to leave, then glanced over at the copilot's seat,
where
Mahree lay, curled up. "Poor kid, she's out like a light. Should I carry her down to her cabin?"

"No, she'll probably wake up if you do," Jerry said. "I'll just dim the lights in the forward section."

Rob stood for a moment looking down at the girl's shadowed face; she had turned on her side, her cheek cuddled into the bend of her arm. Her long
hair
had
come loose from its braid and spilled over her shoulders, hanging off the armrest. The doctor experienced a sudden rush of tenderness that surprised him. "She's a good kid," he said softly, remembering the matter-of-fact way she'd produced the aspirin and orange juice. "She's holding up better than most of us."

"She's a
smart
kid," Jerry said respectfully. "She seems to intuitively grasp things about these aliens."

"You're pretty good at that yourself," Rob said. "How does that greeting gesture go?"

Jerry demonstrated. "I just hope we're reading it right."

"Well, at least we know that they can see, and that their vision is fairly close to our own. That's likely to mean their computers have optical scanners, like ours."

"Which reminds me, I've got to finish up the last of the programming and set up a portable terminal with a scanner," Jerry said. "I just hope we can get our computers to interface with whatever they've got."

"Sounds like a tall order," Rob said.

"I'm not so sure." Jerry pushed his hair back behind his ears, a sure sign that he was thinking hard. "When you break human computers down to their most elemental level, binary boils down to two possibilities . . . 'on' or 'off,'

right?"

Rob nodded, and the Communications Chief continued, "Well, that's such a simple concept--so simple that it seems to me that aliens might well utilize it, also. And if they do, we should be able to develop a mapping algorithm that will allow us to interface."

"Makes sense to me," Rob said. "Guess I'd better get busy in the lab. See you later."

After he'd been in the lab for an hour or so, Simon came down and offered his help. Rob, pleased that the Bio Officer

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seemed to be adjusting to their situation, accepted gratefully, and after that the work went twice as fast.

Two hours later, Raoul's voice emerged from the intercom.

"Doc? You finished yet?"

"Just a few more minutes," Rob said.

"Well, hustle." The Captain's voice was taut with repressed excitement. "It looks like they're sealing that tube around our airlock."

"Look!" Paul's voice reached the doctor faintly. "Before it ) looked as flexible as thin plastic or cloth, but now it's stiffening!"

"They must be in the final stages," Viorst said. "Won't be long now."

Rob finished up hastily, then packed the equipment into a small duffel bag that resembled the one the alien had carried. He looked up at the Bio Officer.

"Thanks for the help, Simon. I'd have never finished in time without it."

The other man made a dismissive gesture. "You about had it sewed up when I came down. I only hope it works right."

"Yeah, I wish we were as well prepared as they are," Rob said, then added,

"They seem very welcoming."

Viorst shrugged. "Yeah, they do. Maybe it's going to turn out all right."

Rob smiled at him. "Sure it is."

When the doctor reached the control cabin with his equipment, he found Raoul, Jerry, Joan, and Mahree waiting for him. "You all set, Doc?" the Captain asked.

"It's ready." He glanced at each of them. "Who'll be doing the testing? I'll have to show you how."

"You are, Doc," Raoul said. "We're going, you, Joan, and I."

Rob's mouth went dry, even as he felt it widening into a huge, silly grin.

"Me?" He glanced at Jerry and Mahree, saw the disappointment in their eyes, and felt a brief stab of guilt.
They're the ones who worked so hard on
the programming . . . especially Mahree.
"You sure you want me?"

"Yeah. Joan and I'll carry the computer hook-up, and I want you to handle the atmosphere testing personally. I only wish we had some kind of film about us to show to them."

"Uncle Raoul?" Mahree tugged at her uncle's sleeve.
"I thought
about that, and I had the computer run off these flimsies

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and fastened them into a sort of book." She held out a sheaf of what appeared to be photographs.

"Huh?" Raoul flipped through them. Rob caught a quick flash of scenes from Earth, some in color, many in black and white, plus diagrams of the Sol system. "This is the kind of stuff I meant, Where'd you come up with this?"

"My history text, the same place where I found the Pioneer and Voyager pictures." She managed to smile, though it was a bit shaky. "These are the images they sent out on the Voyager disks. They're terribly dated, I know, but better than nothing. And each scene was carefully chosen by experts to tell the maximum number of things about Earth."

Raoul gave her a warm smile and a quick hug. "I think it's entirely fitting that part of the message those folks sent out to the stars will finally get there, honey. This is
great."

"You did good, kiddo," Rob said. He gave her a thumbs-up sign and grinned.

She tried to smile, but this time it didn't quite come off. Rob leaned over and whispered, "Stay up here on the bridge. I'll call you on the security channel.

It'll be almost like you're there with us. Okay?"

She nodded, biting her lip.

Raoul took a deep breath. "Okay, I guess that covers everything. We'd better get suited up."

"Why the rush?" Rob asked.

For an answer Raoul flicked on the intercom, and Rob read the location ID

above it. The forward airlock.

A hollow thump reverberated, then two more, then three more.

Then it came again.
One . . . one-two . . . one-two-three . . .

"They've been knocking for nearly five minutes," Raoul said. "It'd be rude to keep them waiting."

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Dear Diary:

I'm sitting here in the control room all by myself. It was nice of Rob to promise to call me, but ... but, dammit, I'm
tired
of him treating me like his kid sister! I mean, he doesn't have to fall in love with me, but I'm
not
twelve!

I get the feeling that he's sensitive about his own comparative youth, and that treating me like a little kid is one way of widening the gap between us ...

I'm also pissed because I'm not going with them. Jerry and I developed those programs. One of
us
should be there, not Joan.

This is it, this is really
it. . .
the something special, the thing nobody else has done. If only my--

Wait a minute! The vid-cams just came on, presenting me with a view of three spacesuited figures in the airlock!

. As the inner airlock door hissed closed behind him, Rob pulled on the gloves to his spacesuit, then sealed them. Taps sounded against the outer airlock door.
One . . . one-two . . . one-two-three . . .
Quickly he reached over and returned the signal. "Just hold on a minute, and then we'll open it," he muttered. He glanced over at Lamont, who was clamping his helmet into place, then hastily donned his own. Joan, too, was ready. "Radio check,"

Raoul said.

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"Receiving you loud and clear," Joan responded in clipped tones that betrayed her excitement.

"Me, too," Rob said. He glanced over at the weapon the First Mate was sliding into the tool sheath located on the hip of her spacesuit. "Do you really think that's necessary?"

She glanced at him, and he watched her mouth tighten. "Just following orders," she said shortly.

"I thought over what we talked about, Doc," Raoul explained. "But one of us should be armed. I can count on Joan to keep her head in an emergency. I wish I felt comfortable enough to walk out there completely unarmed, but I don't."

"It's set on 'shock,' Rob, not 'disrupt,' " Joan said. "And believe me, I wouldn't use it unless I had a damned good reason."

"All right," Rob said. "Just promise me one thing, Raoul."

"What?"

"If there's ever a time when we meet them en masse,
don't
issue one of those to Simon. We've made progress, but he's still xenophobic. I encouraged him to join Evelyn Maitland in hibernation, but he refused."

"Do you mean that he's dangerous?" Raoul demanded sharply. "I can order him to be frozen, if you have evidence that he's mentally unstable."

"No ... I don't think that's necessary. He's definitely making progress."

Joan nodded. "Simon will be all right, Raoul," she said. "Rob, don't forget your suit camera." She reached up to activate her own helmet's vid-cam.

Then she switched on the ship's recording units, and verified that they were working properly.

"Cycle the airlock, Joan," Raoul directed when she finished. "Leave the gravity on. Everyone remember that their gravity's higher than Earth-normal."

Rob picked up his testing equipment, clutching it like a security blanket. He was sweating so profusely that the suit's extra cooling unit cut in; he tried consciously to relax.

"Vacuum" flashed on the control panel. Raoul checked another indicator.

"Okay, we've got vacuum outside," he said. "You two ready?"

"Ready, Raoul," Joan said. Rob gave a thumbs-up signal.

The Captain pressed the "airlock open" switch.

The doors split apart to reveal a glare of white light. A spacesuited figure stood there on all fours.

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It looked up at them, and Rob saw that the being's shoulders nearly reached his waist.
If it stood up on its hind legs,
he thought,
we'd be about the same
height.
It wore a suit that was iridescent blue, with a dark blue helmet. The faceplate must have been polarized, for Rob could barely make out the alien's furred face and violet eyes through the transparency.

It seemed rude to tower over the creature, so Rob clumsily knelt and, after a second, Raoul and Joan did the same. The alien rose until it was squatting on its heels, bringing it to eye level with the humans. Very slowly, the being made the ceremonial gesture they had seen in the film sequence.

"Think we ought to imitate it, Doc?" Raoul asked.

"Yes," Rob said.

Carefully, the three humans did their best to reproduce the flowing motions.

The alien's eyes widened behind its faceplate, and they could see its mouth moving.

"I'll bet it's reporting back to its people," Joan remarked.

Shit!
Rob thought, remembering his promise. Hastily he activated the security channel. "Mahree? You there?"

"I'm here, Rob," her voice reached him, breathless with excitement.

"Can you people see and hear everything?"

"Yes. I'm still up on the bridge with Jerry, but everyone else TM is watching and listening down in the galley. We can hear you, but only Jerry's allowed to respond. Which I can understand . . . it'd be too confusing if everyone tried to talk."

"Okay, if I need to speak privately, I'll use this channel."

The alien took a cautious step forward, then held up the orange bag it had brought. It moved its head to the right, its right hand turning palm upward.

The doctor watched its lips move again. "I think our friend is asking whether it can come in and do the atmosphere testing," he told his companions.

"How do we say 'okay, go ahead'?" Raoul asked.

Rob thought for a moment, then he rose and backed up, motioning Joan and Raoul to do likewise. He began beckoning exaggeratedly with one hand, while pointing to the clear space in the middle of the airlock with the other.

"Come on," he said, nodding hard so their visitor could see his helmet move.

The alien took another step forward, then glanced at Rob. The doctor repeated his motions. Then, with a sudden air of decision,

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the being strode over to the spot the human had vacated. It squatted there, gazing around curiously.

"I'm going to have to close the airlock doors," Raoul said. "I hope that won't alarm it."

"I don't think so," Rob said. "After all, it knows why it came here."

"Here goes. Joan, don't take your eyes off it." Raoul carefully made the widest possible detour around the squatting alien. He triggered the airlock to pressurize.

The doors began sliding together, but the alien did not move, only watched everything that went on with a bright, nearly unblinking gaze.

Finally the airlock was again fil ed with air. Rob cautiously went over to the green light that was flashing. He tapped it with his gloved forefinger, nodded vigorously at the being, then returned to pick up his own duffel bag. He took out the first of his instruments and peered intently at the calibrations. "Earth-normal," he said, then nodded again.