Chapter 28

Masi'shen Phone Home

Michael saw Dee'rah, her father Jon'na-ren, and others of the Masi'shen ship's council assembled on the ship's bridge, standing to one side of the primary communications and display panels. Several crew were seated at their stations, busy with controls and data screens scrolling symbols and glyphs.

Michael-mine, this is such anticipation for us. Our technicians have prepared and installed the new crystals. They told father that they have never seen the equal! These earth crystals you brought, they are pure and they are stronger, more tightly latticed in their structure. We expect our primary intelligencer, and our communicator array, to perform stronger, more tightly focused than ever before. Oh, Michael-mine, you cannot imagine how anxious we are at this moment!

Jon'na-ren turned to his daughter and while smiling, placed his finger on his lips. Dee'rah blushed and was still; everyone on the bridge was busy activating and testing the linkages to their primary computer bank, the "intelligencer" that approximates a human notion of artificial intelligence. This system was the beating heart of the ship's functions; it linked and controlled all the minor intelligencers and ship systems as a coordinated whole.

The prime intelligencer was their inter-galactic communications controller; it contained the signal generating and beam focus resources required to send and receive transmissions between the ship and its home.

A joyful technician approached the circle of councilors to inform them that the tests were finished. All systems were operational, and exceeding expectations. The system was ready to be brought online.

Father, I return to my quarters. I wish to lay down, for my spirit self will be spending the next day-cycle with Michael-mine, sharing my joy.

Michael dimmed his room lights, lay back on the bed, and prepared to spend the evening resting while his spirit self went dancing somewhere in the universe with Dee'rah.

Operational plans had long been stored on a secondary computer, a part of the ship's tactical navigation system. The intelligencer calculated an astrogation almanac to determine when their position on earth would be in correct alignment with their home galaxy, and what azimuth and elevation angles were required at the correct moment of the planet's rotation for their beam to reach home. The technicians downloaded the data and printed out worksheets for the next several days.

We are fortunate. The planet's tilt at this season is within limits to allow a window. An ice opening at this angle from our aiming dish to the surface will allow the beam to pass unobstructed. If we make the diameter of the bore four times the dish diameter, we will receive sufficient energy return to cohere a response from home sector when they respond.

Excellent. I will inform the council. They will certainly concur; please prepare the dish for energy scattering mode. We will be ready to open the ice bore when permission is given.

The ship's communications dish resembled an earth-designed parabolic reflector used for microwave signal focusing and beaming, most commonly seen as household satellite television dishes. The Masi'shen version did not use microwave radio signals, but the principle was similar. The purpose was to focus the radiated energy into a tight beam for aiming at a receiver, similar to a searchlight beam. Conversely, the much weaker received energy would be collected from the area of the dish and directed as a focused bundle onto the tiny receiving element mounted forward at the assembly's focal point. The Masi'shen dish, mounted atop the forward bridge module, was 50 meters in diameter, housed within a massive enclosure. The technicians prepared the dish to emit a high-intensity energy burst that would literally explode a core of ice and snowpack upwards. It would erupt in a plume four times the diameter of the dish, more than six hundred feet across. It would be an awesome display and leave a hole visible from orbiting satellites.

We are reminded by the council to consult our obscuration procedures; there is little we can do to hide the visible geyser of ice fragments when we clear a signal path. We must project an obscurity field at the bore opening when the planet rotation is not in alignment. We hope that the prevalent conditions of darkness will help to conceal the opening when the obscurity field is not in place.

The tactical navigation intelligencer had little experience with planet-side contingencies, which was reasonable, considering that it was a space-faring system more suited to intergalactic problem solving. The possibility of a primitive hover machine noisily intruding into the area never occurred to its crys-nueronic mind.

At the precise moment the Masi'shen technician triggered the energy burst from the communications dish, precisely positioned with the coordinates of the Masi'shen home world at the exact moment of optimum planetary alignment, a SeaVire helicopter approached at one hundred fifty knots. The geyser erupted out of the ice pack and rose fifteen hundred feet before falling and spreading in a downward arc to cover the surrounding snowpack. It left a hole in the ice six hundred feet across.

The eruption threatened to engulf the helicopter pilot when it blew directly in his path. He veered wildly to starboard to avoid falling debris. He simultaneously keyed his radio microphone and yelled:

"Holy Shit!"

Unaware of their panicked visitor, the Masi'shen crew keyed the commands to change emission modes. They transmitted a long burst of communications energy towards home. It contained a report of their stranding, their status, location, and the limits of their planetary signal exposure. They included the almanac of planetary rotation periods, adjusted to the universal galactic time standard, and explained that the ship would listen during those times.

If the helicopter pilot had known the truth of what he'd flown into and came very close to being destroyed by, he would surely see just a bit of grim humor in the fact that he'd arrived at the moment E.T. had chosen to phone home.

Captain Hartmann and the expedition leader, Gunter Hahn agreed with Werner Schmidt's suggestion that the ship's two anti-submarine helicopters be kept busy doing useful survey work while they waited for further instructions following the submersible debacle.

The captured crewmen had been returned, unharmed as promised, and in suspiciously good spirits. They didn't seem the least bit upset or unbalanced by their encounter with the alien creatures. The ship's doctor went so far as to write in his evaluations of the men that they seemed far more rational and emotionally stable than their earlier sign-on psychological profiles would suggest.

"If I would allow myself to speculate, Herr Hahn, I'd think these men had been deliberately adjusted, or had experienced something that altered their basic life perceptions. Of course, it is not for me to speculate. I can only state in their official records that both men seem to be fine ... very stable and well-adjusted young men, both of them."

The ship's intelligence officer was much less cordial in his assessment:

"I can't get a useful word from either of them. They claim to have seen nothing, done nothing, encountered nothing the least bit unusual, or to have had any experience worth discussing. 'Routine submersible operations, ' both of them keep repeating.

"I ask them, 'where is your submersible, then? Why did you not return with it? Why did you come in that alien craft with two minders?' " And all they say is, 'It was much safer that way. The submersible was a very dangerous and ill-suited machine, sir!'"

While Werner Schmidt conferred with the American Agency director, SeaVire flew the Siple Island coastline and interior with their helicopter submarine detection equipment. They hoped that the ultra-sensitive magnetic detection equipment would detect some metallic structures under the ice pack to match the dense shadowing visible in the satellite images provided by the agency.

The magnetic survey proved useless; nothing was detected other than the snow-covered wreckage remaining at Hawthorne's camp. It was on one of the last survey sweeps when helicopter 102 almost flew into the ice geyser.

The news went to Herr Schmidt, who informed the Director, who blew a gasket nearly matching the Masi'shen eruption with its size and intensity. Viktor's spies sent a burst report that reached him within minutes of it reaching Werner; Viktor called Steve, who turned to Mike and Marie with a stunned expression:

"Holy Shit!"

A Bad Day for the Director

The Director received copies of everything that SeaVire had, plus copies of data tapes and, most important of all, copies of video scenes of the alien missile-shaped transport devices, including views of the alien penguins speeding along behind at speeds exceeding 50 knots.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible," he raved at the small circle of agency analysts and advisors surrounding him in his office. "Does anyone have a clue, or even a wild-assed guess, how these creatures achieve that kind of speed? The damned things aren't even wiggling a fin! It's like they're riding an invisible beam. No earthly creature can sustain that sort of sustained speed, hour after hour, mile after mile, without exhausting itself. These don't appear to be exerting themselves in the slightest! And those damned missile pod-things ... that's just as bad! How the hell are they propelled? Jason, your team has analyzed that footage, frame by frame, right?

"Yes sir, and we've applied every visual enhancement at our disposal."

"And you see no clue from the penguin bodies, or the vehicle body, or from any traces in the water surrounding them, of any distortion effect? Some odd currents, something that would indicate some external force being applied to move them through the water like that?

"No sir! Nothing in the slightest. And I've got to say, that first set of tapes where the SeaVire submersible was almost directly in their path and the oncoming alien formation took evasive action, we have an excellent view of them coming head-on, and then another excellent view of them from the rear as they move out of view. There is no evidence of any propulsion effects in any of those views. All we can point to is the odd circular disc projection on the nose, and the pair of smaller disc shapes recessed in the aft fairings on the tail of the device. But there is no indication of disturbed water or current swirls or anything showing a physical displacement of water as you'd expect to see from—oh, for instance—a submarine propeller, or a crawler system. It is a basic fact that to move through the water, you must push against the water. That, or have a jet drive or rocket drive, and that disturbs the water as much as a propeller.