Contact: Part II

"And you're sure it's not one of ours?"

"Hire, no human has ever made anything like this. I've never seen anything even close to this. I guarantee it's not one of ours."

Hire frowned. Something seemed odd, he just couldn't figure out what.

He rocked slightly with the motion of the transporter as it moved over uneven ground. His commute to the office was shorter than most, but still took more time than he would like. Today, of course, he had something to occupy his mind. His excitement had soured into distrust. It wouldn't do to believe in something so impossible as contact with extraterrestrials. He didn't want to be disappointed.

Molds Flame, the head of contact branch was on the communicator with Data Carver and Hides-With-Dye, the project engineers. They were both brilliant young men who could speak the languages of math, electronics, and hardware, but they made up for this efficiency with a severe deficiency in social interaction. They were the right men for the job, however, and their social abilities didn't matter.

They had been catching him up on the morning's events during his ride. Halfway through the sleep cycle the night before, one of their deep-space probes had picked up information on a non-natural object. These probes were designed to recognize when something they encountered was composed of more than two minerals, indicating a likelihood of being crafted by an intelligent being. The probe had hooked this object and jumped back to Agia, arriving near the end of the sleep cycle. The engineers had taken one look at it, and called Hire right away. According to their description, the thing was definitely crafted, but he couldn't understand how they were describing it, and would have to wait until he could see it for himself.

Flame continued on in his ear. "The strangest thing is that it comes apart. It's like whoever crafted this intended for it to be disassembled. Can you imagine building an interstellar craft with detachable parts? I'd think it would have fallen apart by now." That was interesting, Hire thought. No human had built a spacecraft such as this, as far as he could remember. He hadn't spent years studying human history, but he couldn't remember anything like this coming to the surface. The first spacecraft that he knew of were built thousands of years ago by humans on Utopia and Ryhona, both now gone.

"I'm almost at the office, Flame. I'll be in in a few minutes to look at it."

"Carver's been poking around it's insides for hours now. He hasn't left it since it came."

"I'm not surprised. Flame, I'm going to go, I'm almost there. I'll see you in person in a few minutes."

  

"I think he's found some operational components. He says if he just takes the time to study it..."

Flame droned on. Her communicator was struggling to keep up with her fast pace while still making her sound confident and sure, as communicators were designed to do. Hire sighed and half-listened as the transporter pulled up outside the offices of the Galactic Outreach Program. He stepped off into the bright morning, and the transporter whirred away softly.

He made his way past the initial entry, and scanned his identification at reception. The automated greeter chimed him a merry greeting, then unlocked and opened the door leading to the labs.

"I need to go to my office," he told the greeter, indicating another door. "I need to deposit my things."

"Molds Flame requested that you make your way directly to the labs."

"I'll bet she did," muttered Hire, listening to Flame still talking in his ear. He made his way through the lab entrance and walked down the hall to the main lab.

The main lab was designed like a theater-in-the-round, with a large open examining area in the middle surrounded by raised platforms carrying seats, tables, coolers, and other examination equipment. The place was buzzing with activity. Technicians were bustling around the raised platforms, discussing things in large groups. The main examination area was so crowded, Hire couldn't see through to the object itself, with the exception of the top quarter of the thing, which poked out above the heads. He could see Flame standing in the middle, her green hair standing out from the crowd. He made his way to her, edging his way past the throngs of technicians.

He could hear Flame's voice echoed as he came to stand beside her. "Flame, I'm here."

She looked up quickly at him. "Oh." She disconnected her communicator with a flick of her wrist

.  

Hire Looked at the object and drew in a breath. Flame was right, no human had constructed this.

The main body of the craft was golden in color, and geometric in shape. It appeared to be covered in some sort of foil. On one side of the main body was a large white section of what looked like what had once been a parabolic dish of some kind. It looked as though at one point there had been several arms protruding from the thing, but the jagged edges indicated that most of them had since been torn off. Carver, the lead engineer, was currently elbow deep in the main body.

"Tell me what you've found, Carver."

"It's incredible," He replied, not looking up from what he was doing. "We found several internal components that not only could come apart, I think they were designed to come apart. They were stored in this main body here in a little chamber down in the center. I sent Hides off to examine them more, he should be around somewhere."

Hire glanced up to one of the platforms, where he saw Hides' back bent over one of the examining tables. "Is there anything on the top?" The entire craft stood just taller than Hire himself.

Flame jumped in. "You wouldn't believe it. There were markings along the top. We took these visual records." Her communicator jumped to life, hearing the implications in her voice, and projected several images into the air in front of her. Hire's eyes widened in disbelief. On one side, there was what appeared to be a small, simple geometric painting. Surrounding this painting were several plain markings, consisting of straight and curved lines.

"Do you know what those markings are?"

"We haven't thought too much about it. They could be simple drawings, depicting life forms on the planet where this originated."

"I suppose they could be. What about this painting?" He indicated the small but colorful diagram.

"Well, you see this section here?" Flame pointed to a small portion of the painting. "I think these could represent stars. This whole piece could be a visual representation of where their planet lies in space."

"Incredible. If this really is from an non-human life form, the implications are astonishing."

"I know. This would mean they have eyes similar to our own. They see and work in geometric shapes and patterns. They must see a similar color spectrum as us. You see the reds here? The gold? And, if this diagram does represent their place in the universe, it means that they have sent something to space, to understand that they sit in its vast emptiness. What if they are interstellar travellers? What if we..."

"Don't get too excited," Hire cautioned. "We don't know what we're dealing with yet."

Flame nodded. She was about to say something more when she was called away.

Hire looked over at Hides, and began to pick his way through the confusion to where Hides sat.

"What are you working on?" Hire asked him.

Hides looked up, startling Hire by the size of his eyes. Hides lowered to magnification lenses he was wearing and pointed triumphantly at what was lying on the table.

"These were inside the main craft. Can you believe it?"

Hire looked at the objects on the table, surprised by their simplicity. On one side was a small golden disc, no bigger than a serving platter, and next to it was a box no bigger than the disc.

"Do you know what they do?" Hire asked.

"No, but see how this box has a circular indentation on this side, I think these are two pieces of a whole. I think they're meant to go together." Hides gingerly picked up the disc and laid it flat on the box. "See? It's a perfect fit. The disc settles right into this groove. Now the disc itself, we think, is some sort of...tablet. Like the ancient Utopians used to use? We think the non-humans here may communicate by drawing pictures on tablets like this." He showed the disc to Hire, who realized for the first time that there were indeed small pictures on the disk. They were obviously extremely worn with time, but he could make out an exploding star, several squares, and some circles.

"Are these scratches?" He asked, indicating a series of jagged marks.

"I don't think so. They follow a strange pattern. I think they're part of the design."

Hire nodded. "Keep at it." He laid his hand on Hides' shoulder and moved back to the main area. "Flame, I'm going to my office. Notify me of any dramatic changes."

She nodded. "You don't want to be here in case we discover something?"

  

"I'll be just down the hall."

"Keep your communicator open."

He smiled, and moved out the door into the quiet hallway.

His office was cold and clean, the way he liked it. He needed this space to think. The events of the day were disturbing. He wasn't sure what to think. The first recorded human history came from twin planets Utopia and Ryhona. They had long since burned away in a supernova, but their location was marked on every stellar map. The distance was too far to travel for the average human, but some made the pilgrimage. They had been part of a small system of six inhabitable planets, all of which were colonized before their sun went nova. Since human habitation had been recorded on both prior to either gaining the ability to travel in space, it was theorized that humans were in fact much older than either planet, and must have colonized both Utopia and Ryhona around the same time. But no physical records existed of any prior habitation, and so it was nothing more than a theory. Regardless, Utopia, the first to travel through space, made her first crafts out of solid pieces of material. Humanity had followed this pattern since, and that had been thousands of years previous. As far as he knew, no human had ever made a craft even close to resembling the one that lay down the hall. Real contact with non-human entities. The thought sent a thrill down his spine.