The Incident at Kruger 60, Part 1 Read online

The trip was uneventful, as far as any alien ships went. In hyperspace it wasn’t likely we would stumble across one, and if we did, we wouldn’t know what to do anyway, it a little ship like this. We did spend a lot of time talking however. And the main subject was, of course what we saw.

  After dinner, after our blast off, we looked at each other.

  “So Alex. What are we going to do?”

  “Go see my friend Jochim. Keep our mouths shut until we talk to him. Sell the cargo, and load up on supplies and fuel. And out fit this ship so we can survive long term in deep space. Just in case...”

  “In case what?” She said, rather dramatically.

  “Just in case. I can pack this thing with a years supply of food and fuel, and still make money on mining. Not as much, but having more options on board now looks like a good idea. Don’t you think?” And I looked at her.

  She paused. “Yes, it makes sense.” She paused again. “So what happens if we tell the space authority?” She knew this was a loaded question.

  “That is exactly what I'm thinking about, and wondering about. I’m really not sure. This is the kind of thing they would do anything to keep a lid on until they had more facts, and determined what we are facing. I doubt we would be allowed to continue with what we are doing. In fact I doubt we would be talking to anybody, even each other.” She could picture what I meant. The space authority would want to keep this quiet at all costs, and the safest way would be to place us in protective custody somewhere. With zero chance of contact with the outside world, or escape.

  “So then, we can't tell them can we.” She said simply.

  “No, it doesn’t look like we can.”

  “So, what about your friend. Are you sure we can trust him? And if so, how so?”

  “Very good questions. I’m asking that myself. I’ve known Jochim since we were seven years old at a boarding school together. I know a few of his secrets, and he a few of mine. I think...” I paused, “I think we can talk to him. I don’t see him going right to the authorities. He would at least tell us to get out of town, and disappear if that is the best thing to do. I can't see him turning us in, cause he knows if he tells me to keep my knowledge to myself, I will. Of course, then there is you as well. That’s a different matter, I suppose.” I looked at her. We had known each other a couple of months not longer. She had always been honest with me. I liked her, good personality. Curious, smart. It was clear why she didn’t fit in with others, too bookish. “I think Jochim will want to talk to you, a bit to get to know you. Then again he is a pretty good judge of character, so he may take your word as mine. I think it all depends on how he perceives you when you all meet.”

  “I can see that. Look I know we don’t know each other all that well, and I've only known you for about ten weeks. But I'll tell the the truth Alex.” She paused. “I'm scared. I don’t have anyplace to go. As far as people I can trust, well right now you are pretty much it. I have a few friends in the world, but they are like me. Loners, traveling around the space system. We don’t see each other very often, keep in touch by space net. I’m not really looking to set out on my own right now.” She stopped. “Unless you want me to...” And trailed off.

  “No, relax, I don’t want you to set out on your own. In fact I think that would be more dangerous for both of us.” I paused as she gave me a quizzical look. “If you and I are alone, and one of us gets nicked for what we saw, they will definitely find the other. So separating isn’t really to our advantage.” I looked at her again. “Also if we are separated, they could cook up some kind of story about the other one, anything really, to get you to talk or me to talk.” I leaned back. “No, that isn’t really going to help things and could even make it all more difficult.”

  “OK.” She was visibly relieved. “That’s good to know. I’ve gotten used to this ship and like it.”

  I smiled back “Yea, well, I’m rather fond of it myself.” I kicked off my boots and climbed into the bunk. “So. What do you think that thing was? Ideas? Anything?”

  “Hmm. More advanced than our civilization, definitely. Some kind of drive that operates, maybe, by force field? An alcumberie drive that requires no moving parts? I think its possible from what I've read, but the energy involved in setting it up would be greater than what we currently use in spaceships, maybe by what ten times? Maybe 100? Or who knows, maybe they know something we don’t.” She left that hanging.

  “Yea, all possible. I was thinking some kind of force-field drive, maybe even a force-field ship. The way that thing shimmered, that didn’t look like any metal we have.”

  “Maybe it was some kind of liquid metal?”

  “Hmm, interesting idea. And a force field keeps it all together?”

  “Maybe so, or something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “No idea, but then we don’t know anything about the technology that built that ship, do we?”

  “No we don’t.”

  She climbed up into the upper bunk.

  “Well, we can sleep and think on it, can't we..?”

  “Good idea.”

  We continued our discussion about the ship over the next few days. The idea of some kind of force-field around some kind of liquid metal sounded interesting. I would mean the ship could change form depending on its needs, etc. That would mean a technology thousands of years ahead of us tho. Laura correctly pointed out they were using a low band norm space radio to transmit on. That would indicate someone who was barely on the edge of our own technology in long distance communication. That struck both of us as a strange paradox. We had a long talk about that issue the next day.

  “Alex, how in the universe could a civilization develop that kind of force-field technology, and still be using primitive, AM radio communications?”

  We had eaten lunch and were sitting in the pilots chairs. “I have no idea. It doesn’t seem very likely does it?”

  We were silent a while.

  “Could we have hallucinated it?”

  “Yea, theoretically, sure. But how come we both have the same hallucinations. And how do you explain the sensor records. That’s a pretty powerful hallucination. Unlikely at best.”

  “Good points. I hadn’t really thought it thru, it just popped into my mind.”

  “No worries. I wondered the same for a while. Even toyed with the idea that perhaps some kind of mass hallucination was induced by something on the planet. Except that doesn’t explain the data we collected. You can't hallucinate something so powerfully a machine can see it, at least not that we know of.”

  “No that’s true.”

  “As to their backwards comm and advanced power that is also unexplainable. It doesn’t make any sense, as if you have the physics to do the drive, you should be able to figure out much better comm technically. I do have one idea tho.”

  She looked at me. “What?”

  “What if you wanted not to be found easily. We don’t use am radio for much of anything anymore, we have more advanced systems. But we do all carry a transmitter, as it does work in non light situations. Short wave am. Mainstay of back up radio. There are even operating nav beacons still, on earth that send those signals. What if they were either making some kind of emergency broadcast, or...”

  “Yes...”

  “What if they didn’t want those signals to be found. Most people even in our world wouldn’t turn their radios there unless they had a good reason to. Good place to hide something, eh?”

  She sat silent for a minute. “Yea it could be. Could be very good.”

  “See what I mean. It might be logical, actually.”

  “Yea, but I don’t like the sound of aliens sneaking around the edges of our known universe. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No, maybe not. Or maybe it does. Its pretty obvious that first contact is probably always a pretty dangerous experience. So maybe they are just being precautious. It would be just as bad to jump to the sinister alien conclusion because of that. Mind you I'm not saying it means we
should trust them at all, just offering a logical explanation.

  “Yea I know. It's still scary. I don’t know what to think now. That thing was way more advanced than our ships. If they wanted to take over us, I think with that technology they could.”

  “Why would they want to take over us?”

  “Dunno, isn’t that the way of things?”

  “Not always. What would they have to gain by conquering us or even eliminating us. Obviously the mineral wealth in the universe is pretty enormous. We haven’t explored 10% of the planets we do know of, and less than 1% of the asteroids, rogue planets etc, in our known space region. As it stands now, resources are pretty much unlimited for at least 10,000 years. The problem is getting out there and getting it. But once you find it its all there. It's easy to get a lot of the time, and it has no effect on our world. I don’t see how conquering us would help them. Do you?”

  She thought about it a while.

  “No, I can't see a reason for it, but then they could have reasons for it we have no idea about.”

  “True, I'll give you that. Yea, I believe caution is a good thing. But at the same time, we can't let caution become fear.”

  “True, theoretically.” She paused. “What about in this situation?”

  “Yea, I know this isn’t theoretical. Well, if there is contact coming then its coming. That is going to happen sooner or later anyways, we all know that. And we all know that the first contact isn’t going to be an easy situation. A lot could go wrong.”

  “We have all heard the dire predictions.” Her voice was matter of fact.

  “Don’t know, got to think about it some more.”

  We talked about the technology. It didn’t make any sense that they would use am radio, unless they were hiding from something. But what. Or whom. Who knows. We didn’t know if they were living a few light years away, or thousands. My guess was thousands , based on the drive technology. She wasn’t so sure. “They could be living nearby, and just keeping a low profile around us. They would probably also know that first contact can be dangerous, and so might be staying away from us.”

  I had to agree, we didn’t have enough information.

  Another conversation went about like this:

  “So if they are smart enough to build that stuff, they must be smart enough to know we are out here Alex. In fact I don't understand how they didn't detect our ship.”

  “Well, we were at minimal power. And behind that berm. And we are a small ship...”

  “Do you really think they wouldn't detect us?”

  “It depends. Maybe yes, they have advanced scanning equipment, that we don’t have. But that doesn’t explain why they didn’t check us out. Do you think it would be a logical decision to ignore another ship?”

  “I dunno. I just cannot believe they couldn't detect us somehow. Not with a ship like that. The thing was probably liquid metal.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. We don’t know that.” I paused. “Like I said, don’t make assumptions. Maybe they did detect us, but as long as we weren’t a threat to them, they didn’t feel a need to threaten us.”

  “Maybe. I would think you would make some kind of contact tho.”

  “Or maybe not. Contact, first contact must always be difficult at best. It would be better to make some kind of announcement and then do it. No surprises.”

  “Yea I see your point. Something weird is going on...”

  “Agreed.”

  After a few days, we started talking about Jochim and my plan to talk to him.

  “So do you really think telling him is a good idea?”

  “Well, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Alex, do you really think he is going to protect you, and not protect the people he works for?”

  I was silent for a while.

  “Well I see what you are getting at. However, do you have a better suggestion? Should we just not tell anyone? Keep our mouths shut? How would that help anything? Or send an anonymous transmission to someone in space control?”

  She thought for a bit.

  “Honestly, I have no idea what to do.”

  We were both silent for a while.

  “Well I'm open to suggestions.” I said.

  “Maybe we should investigate further, first...”

  “Sounds pretty risky to me. We aren’t experts in linguistics for one thing. How would we communicate with them if we made contact. Also how do we know they are peaceful? Or that they couldn’t detect us if we were watching them? Sounds pretty risky to me.” I paused. “Also we don’t know what they have for weapons, what their intentions are, nothing. We can't assume they are going to be friendly to us.”

  “Yes I see your points. All good. But why should we trust your friend and the space command? As you pointed out in our flight out to Kruger 60, it's hardly a democracy, and its pretty clear that the powers that be are primarily interested in retaining control of power and politics that rules our society. Sure they might investigate it. But that doesn’t mean that we get to wander around space knowing what we know.”

  “Yea but what do we really know? We saw an unknown ship on a distant distant planet around a minor star system. Or at least we think we saw it. What is that then? Really not much. There are others, with other stories circulating around space ports and the like, stories about all kinds of weirdness in space. What would make us any different?”

  “And there are people who disappear on a regular basis who have strange stories to tell.”

  We were both silent a while. The lights on the control console blinked on and off.

  “OK, so here is an idea. We blank out the data on the tapes that identifies us as the ship that saw this, this UFO, for lack of a better word. We can either send it to Jochim from the space port, or we can take it to him personally. Then we leave, right after we send it. First we load up with supplies, before we do anything. Sell the UUP and collect our credits. Take payment in hard credits. Or maybe better yet, just sell enough UUP that we can buy what we need for a year or so, and then keep the rest of the UUP. That is as good as currency anyway. We can sell that anywhere.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  We went around in circles discussing the various permutations of our plan, and the possibilities of how the ship we had seen would function. In the end all we had were some theories. And in the end it didn’t matter. We reached the vicinity of Ross 248, and came out of stellar drive. I had a feeling things were going to get interesting. They were.

  Kroatzy's Station, Ross 248.