The Mothership (57 page)

“Uh oh!” Cracker said as he flailed his
arms uselessly trying to right himself, to his companions amusement.

Floating in the centre of the chamber, Dan
and Laura reached out toward each other until their finger tips met, allowing
them to pull themselves together through the treacle-like dampening field.
Laura threw her arms around her husband as tears welled in her eyes while Dan
stroked her hair, unable to speak.

The darkened room flashed, then Djapilawuy
appeared on the far side of the chamber. Her face was a mask of terror until
the neuroelectric waves bathing the compartment dissolved her fears.

“Hey,” Wal declared with a grin, motioning
toward Djapilawuy, “There’s another one!”

* * * *

A wave form ended the
sleep programming in Beckman’s primitive hominid brain. He opened his eyes and
squinted against the bright white light that flooded the room. Instinctively,
he raised his hand to shield his eyes, but the intensity of the light
diminished to a tolerable level before his hand was in place.

We prefer more light than you
, the Biologist explained with a thought
that was warm and soothing, yet strangely detached.

Beckman sensed someone standing to his
left. He turned toward the being, expecting a diminutive Zeta, but finding
instead a slender humanoid two and a half meters tall. His large circular eyes
were luminescent green with no whites and a triangular iris in a slightly
oversized head. The nose had considerable vertical length but protruded very
little, while the mouth was too small for the head. Beckman remembered one of
his orientation courses: if their mouths are small, they’d see our mouths as
too large. He made a mental note to try to keep his mouth small while speaking.

Unnecessary
, a single perfect thought assured him. The Biologist
knew of millions of species across the universe, all physically different from
each other. He could not be offended or repulsed by any physical appearance.

“Where am I?” Beckman demanded, glancing
around the room. The walls glowed a soft white, while the metallic floor and
ceiling did not. There were no doors or windows, although directional lights
were aimed at an empty space in the room. It was then he realized he was
floating, with his feet just out of reach of the floor.

The Biologist, sensing his unease, issued a
telepathic command that gradually returned gravity to the three dimensional
area Beckman occupied. He drifted like a settling feather to the floor as his
weight slowly returned to normal.

Move slowly
, the Biologist informed him.
If you leave your
personal gravity field, your weight will increase eighty three percent.

“Personal gravity field?” Beckman said
curiously, sticking his arm out in contravention of his instruction. For a
moment, his arm felt heavy and started to sink, then the gravity field
refocused around him, returning his weight to normal.

They told us your species would disregard
guidance.

“Yeah, we’re disobedient sons of bitches,”
he replied, then looked up curiously. “Who told you?”

Your neighbors.

“Is that what they think of us,
disobedient? After how many years of spying on us?”

Studying, not spying.

“So, you’re not from around here?”

No, I am not.

“Where are you from?”

This ship is my home.

“I meant what planet. How far away?”

Our origin system ceased to exist before
your star had formed. The supernova remnant that remains is in a distant
galaxy.

It took Beckman a moment to realize what
the tall alien was telling him. “I guess that makes you the top dog around
here.”

We were one of the First.

“The first what?”

The first to know, to think, to create.

Beckman studied the slender alien, noting
the tiny fold of his ear, the smooth pure white of his skin, the absence of
hair and the smoothly shaped ellipsoidal head. He wore a simple maroon jumpsuit
that hung loosely in places and white skin tight gloves. His arms and legs were
spindly under his clothes, yet Beckman guessed he must have been a good deal
stronger than a man, considering the higher gravity he preferred.

“So, did we win the war?”

 The Intruders have been returned to their
proper place.

“But you’re going to go kick their butts,
right? Teach them a lesson?”

That would be unnecessarily aggressive.

“They kicked ass out there. All those ships
destroyed. I saw the movie. You can’t let them get away with that.”

There shall be no punitive retaliation. We
have no desire to damage their civilization. They are young. In time, they will
develop. The penalty for not doing so would be severe.

Beckman looked surprised. “Wait a minute.
You said, they’re young? I thought we were young, and they were old?”

 They are old, from your perspective, young
by ours.

“So what are we? Amoeba?”

You are younger.

Beckman was irritated at the thought of
being younger than young, but that was fate and he’d been taught over and over
again, no matter who you meet, there’ll always be someone older. He put it out
of his mind. “Suppose they attack again? Suppose they attack Earth?”

They have no interest in your world.

“We’ve got their ship. They’re going to
want it back.”

The Biologist took a step towards the wall.
It vanished, replaced by an image of space. Hundreds of kilometers away, a
shining rounded cylinder floated above the pristine blue and white globe of
Earth. It was unlike any ship in the battle he’d seen from the mothership’s log
room. Beyond the cylinder was another ship that was its twin while three more
held formation to the rear.

“Nice window.”

It is a view.
The Biologist pointed toward the lead ship closest to
them.
You see, you need not be concerned, they will not come looking for
their ship.

Beckman leaned forward, studying the
massive cylinder. Floating beneath the central section was a tiny gray sliver,
with a row of silver specs floating either side of it.

“Wait a minute!” Beckman said in disbelief.
“That ship was huge.”

Size is relative. For now, your perspective
is small. In time, that will change.

The Biologist issued a thought and the area
of the gray sliver expanded. The wrecked Intruder mothership floated in space,
surrounded by small silver elliptical craft. Beckman swallowed, his mind
spinning as he realized each cylindrical ship was hundreds of times larger than
the Intruder ship.

“That ship was a wreck. How’d you get it
off the ground?”

We isolated it from your world’s
gravitational field.

The derelict mothership drifted toward the
cylinder. Beckman thought they were going to collide, but the intruder vessel
slid through the hull of the cylinder and vanished. A moment later, the smaller
elliptical ships streaked away from the big cylinder and the view returned to
the wide angle perspective. He could just make out the silver ellipses, now no
bigger than dots, as they dived toward the Australian land mass.

“What are you going to do with their ship?
Study it?”

Their primitive technology is of no
interest to us.

“But you captured that sphere thingy?”

We assisted your neighbors in capturing it,
so they may study it, and come to understand the Intruders as we do. It is the
first Command Nexus to be taken with its consciousness intact. It will help
involved civilizations contain future aggression.

“Involved? In the war?”

Involved in relations between developing
civilizations.

“Developing? Like us?”

You are not involved. Neither are we. Your
time of involvement is yet to come. Ours has long passed.

“Right,” Beckman said thoughtfully, trying
to fathom the tall humanoid’s meaning. “But you’re here now, so you are
involved.”

We have reset the balance, nothing more.
This is not our responsibility.

“But you set the rules. Right? So when we
get out here, you’ll be setting the rules for us too?”

You will not have to concern yourselves
with that for a long time.

Beckman gave the Biologist a surprised
look. “We’ll be out here one day, soon.”

Not soon. You greatly underestimate the
difficulties.

Beckman furrowed his brow. “How tough can
it be?” He turned to the Biologist. “What do we have to do to get out here,
with you guys?”

Evolve.

“So we’re too dumb for space?”

No, your species will become an
interstellar civilization in five hundred to a thousand of your Earth years –
if you do not destroy yourselves first – but you will need to advance your
understanding of your place in the universe, and your tolerance of difference.
If you cannot live in peace with yourselves, how can you live peacefully with
others not of your world? It is something every species must learn. In time,
when you are ready, your neighbors will help you.

“Help us? How?”

The resources you need no longer exist in
this system. They were mined out long before your species came into existence.

“Damn! You mean someone stole our stuff?”

There was no sentient life on your world at
that time.

“So even if we figure everything out, we’re
still stuck here?”

Your neighbors will give you the resources
you need, when you are ready.

“We’re ready!”

They will decide that, not you. It’s why they
have been studying you so intensively. They know your time is coming, and are
preparing for you.

Beckman scratched the back of his neck.
“But they don’t understand us, right? Our emotions, how we work. So how can
they judge?”

It is a vanity of your species that you
believe you are not understood.

“But they’re aliens. You’re an alien, no
offence. No one is supposed to understand anyone. Isn’t that how it goes?”

Everything you are, they once were. They
know more about you than you know about yourselves. We are the ones your
neighbors do not understand.

Beckman looked surprised. “Why is that?”

The greater encompasses the lesser. The
lesser cannot encompass the greater.

“Deep! So what’s going to happen now?
Everyone down there is going to know for sure you guys are out here.”

Nothing will change for your civilization.

“I don’t mean to be telling you your
business, but satellites were destroyed, planes were shot down, nukes exploded.
People tend to notice stuff like that.”

There will be no proof.

“There’s alien crap everywhere.”

We are gathering all Intruder artifacts
from your southern continent. Nothing will remain.

“We tried to nuke them. Something must have
happened to make us do that.”

The view adjusted. The northern tip of
Australia appeared, rushing up to meet them. Ahead and to the right was a
silver ellipse diving toward Arnhem Land, towing a much larger rocky object.
The view swerved up away from Earth as the craft providing the images pulled
up, performed a complete circle and stopped. Off to the right, the other craft
performed the same maneuver. The two small asteroids tumbled towards the Earth,
beginning to flake tongues of fire as they punched into the atmosphere while
the tow craft tracked their trajectories.

“What are you doing?”

Impacting two asteroids onto your planet.
The first will land on the military base the Intruders destroyed, the second on
the crash site itself.

“Are you nuts!”

The asteroids will not seriously affect
your climate. Global temperatures will fall slightly for less than a decade,
but your planet will recover.

Beckman’s mind swam. “You can’t hit us with
asteroids? Whose side are you on?”

It is for your own good.

The two small asteroids became engulfed in
flames as they tore down into the thicker atmosphere, side by side.

“Suppose you miss.”

There is no possibility of that.

The twin asteroids become brilliant white
stars as they dived toward the vast tropical forest of northern Australia. They
struck seconds apart, the first one precisely on the ruins of Tindal Air Force
base, the second in the center of the Goyder River Valley. Two brilliant white
flashes bloomed like fusion bombs, sending shockwaves expanding in circular
patterns around both impact sites and launching millions of tons of debris into
the atmosphere. Beckman watched stunned, chilled at the prospect that they
could easily do the same to Earth’s cities.