Another round of applause, and seven of them began peeling off EVA suits while Barnes clumped away to the isolation suite.
The Commons was jammed: the entire first contact team was there, with all the department heads, and all the individual scientists, no matter the discipline. Sandy set up his cameras, set to record and transmit, and Barnes, relaxing in the isolation suite, gave a brief summary, and then said, “I think you’ve all seen Sandy’s movie by now, so you really know as much as we do. The question isn’t what we got, the question is, what does it mean? That’s more in your territory than mine.”
Crow jumped in immediately, addressing himself to Fang-Castro: “Ma’am, one thing is already crystal-clear from the vid. If the jukebox, uh, Wurly, is not lying to us, then everything we hoped for and feared is about to happen. The aliens are about to deliver technology that could unbalance the world’s power structure. In my opinion, that’s the number one thing that our strategists on Earth have to think about. The other stuff is interesting, or, I should say, fascinating, but the tech… that’s beyond important.”
Barnes got back in: “I’m a little skeptical. Total strangers, ‘benevolent’ aliens give us incredibly valuable and very dangerous tech? They’re handing the family jewels to someone who could potentially be their enemy. What’s the catch?”
Fang-Castro nodded, looked at Clover: “John?”
Clover took the cue. “Y’know what I think? I think they’re pump-priming. I think they’re giving us technology that they expect will make us more valuable to them. I don’t think this is charity or altruism. I think this is self-interest. Remember, they already have met us, in a very real sense. They know our languages. We don’t know how they know—maybe their supercomputers just analyzed radio broadcasts. But however they got their hands on the information, they know a lot more about us than we know about them. Besides, it’s not like this costs them anything.”
Crow cleared his throat. “I’m in agreement with John on this one. There’s nothing the aliens could give us that would make us a credible threat to them. We don’t know who they are, or where they’re from. One thing we do know is that they could be an existential danger to us, if we tried to mess with them. So there’s no downside for them in giving us this stuff, and there might be a considerable upside.”
Sandy interjected, “You don’t think antimatter technology makes us a lot more dangerous?”
“To ourselves, maybe, but not to them,” Crow said. “Try this thought on for size. Suppose the U.S. were to give Jamaica, with whom we’re none too friendly these days, all our military designs and knowledge. What could they do with it? Attack us? Sure, they might get in one slap. Then we’d wipe their island off the face of the planet. At the first White House briefing on the starship’s arrival, the military science guys told President Santeros that one of the reasons we had to come out here was because a starship was inherently very dangerous. Slam one into the earth at running speed and there’s a good chance you make humanity extinct, or at least push it back to the Stone Age.”
Martinez joined in. “That’s just the technology we know about. All we’ve seen is a starship that is a century or so ahead of our engineering. From what we’ve seen here and been told by the answer-bot, we know it’s not their first or only one. A ship like the one we detected may take a century or more to make a trip between star systems. The ’bot said it was installed seventeen centuries ago. How many millennia ago did the makers build their first starship? Three? Four? Ten? And what about the other species, the ones who aren’t the makers? And who built that damn primary thing twenty millennia back?”
Crow nodded. “Exactly. They’re not just a century ahead of us, they’re thousands of years ahead. We don’t really know how many. So why not give us tech that might make us more valuable to them? Or, maybe, just to make us like them a bit better? Trinkets for the natives.”
Clover looked thoughtful. “Yeaahh,” he drew out. “Maybe they’ve been doing this long enough that they’re a real good judge of who’ll make a good future trade partner. Or maybe it’s just a shotgun approach: they try this on every potential partner. If it works out, great for both parties. If the indigenes screw themselves over, no skin off the aliens’ butts. Assuming they have butts. If we get too big for our britches and turn hostile, they’d wipe us out and go on to the next species. There’s lots of fish swimmin’ in the Milky Way. Hell, maybe it’s never worked, but they figure it doesn’t hurt to try again.”
“So that’s the big picture? We get this stuff because they think it will make us more valuable, but if we don’t play like good little boys and girls, we’re history?” Fang-Castro asked.
Clover said, “It’s probably not that simple. We might even be completely misjudging the situation. But it might be prudent to assume the worst in this case and behave accordingly…. I’m particularly concerned that we can’t get any information on the aliens, of whom there seem to be several varieties. I’d like you all to think on questions that might circumvent that prohibition and ones that would illuminate why it exists in the first place.”
Crow nodded in agreement. “Security always has a reason. We need to understand theirs.”
Fang-Castro said, “Another conversation with Wurly—God, I can’t believe you did that, Cassie, but I think we’re stuck with it now—anyway, another conversation with Wurly is our top priority, along with that high-bandwidth link the answer-bot offered us. First priority on next contact is engineering and communication. We’ll have a new team leader in Lieutenant Emwiller, in keeping with the idea of some basic military-style discipline while on the primary.”
Sandy held up a hand, and Fang-Castro nodded at him. “If I’m not out of place, I think it might not be a bad idea to take a guitar and an amp with us. And maybe, if they want to go, Joe Martinez and Crow. We could talk to this trade-bot they’ve got, give them a musical demo, see if they want to trade, and for what. My concern is, we’re doing fine right now—but what if they cut us off for some reason? What if we… or the Chinese… do something to piss them off? I think packing away as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible, might be a good idea.”
Fang-Castro said, “Yes. That’s good. Get the equipment ready. Whether or not Mr. Crow would be a valuable musical addition to your team, I would like to have a security expert take a look at the inside of that place. If Mr. Crow agrees…?”
“Absolutely,” Crow said.
Martinez said, “You know I’m hot to go, under any conditions.”
“We should start getting responses to first contact from the earth-based people in four hours or so. Let’s plan to launch again in twelve hours, to meet here in eight to discuss Earth-expert concerns and suggestions. Between now and then, I want seven hours of sleep for all team members, with meds as necessary,” Fang-Castro said. She thought for a moment. “Okay. That’s it. Everybody: brainstorm ahead of time and see if you can figure out some questions that might get us more information on the prohibited topics.”
Second contact.
On the first trip out, Sandy had kept all of his cameras fixed on the primary at different focal lengths. On the second trip, he put one camera in tourist mode, recording sweeping views of Saturn along with the rings seen nearly edge-on, a thin white line bisecting the sky, most with the alien artifact somewhere in the picture. And he spent time recording in detail both the bees and the antimatter storage units.
On the second trip in, with Martinez at the wheel, they moved more quickly, and stayed longer. They were all more relaxed than they’d been yesterday, but this time, they all kept their helmets on.