“Is that a lifeform?” said the president. “Or could it be a robot?”
Frank was science advisor to this president, as he had been to his predecessor. The camera operator was several hundred feet away, and every small jiggle of his equipment caused the zoomed-in image to bounce wildly. Frank nodded at the president. “It does look metallic…”
The thing stepped forward, onto the ramp. CNN cut for a second to a shot of the troops. Every weapon was trained on the starfish. It started down the ramp. Frank peered at the screen some more. “No—no, it’s not a robot. It’s wearing a space suit. See?” He pointed at the creature’s legs. Strapped to each one was a thin cylinder, presumably containing whatever gases the creature breathed.
“But Tosoks can breath Earth air…” said the president.
Frank nodded. “Meaning not only is that not a Tosok, it’s not even from the same planet…”
“Why are its arms up in the air like that?”
Frank shrugged. “To show it’s not carrying any weapons?” A pause. “Mr. President, if it’s not a Tosok, and it’s not armed, you should get the troops to stand down.”
The president looked at one of the generals seated near him. “We still don’t know what it is,” said the soldier.
“For God’s sake, Karl,” said Frank to the general, “you saw its mothership—if it wanted to kill us, it could have done so from orbit.”
The president spoke into a telephone handset. “It’s our recommendation to the UN commander that the military forces assume an at-ease posture.”
The alien continued to move forward.
“Frank,” said the president. “We need to talk to that thing. Can we communicate with it the way we did with the Tosoks?”
Frank shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, eventually, sure, at least about some basic math and science, but—” His eyebrows went up. “It may not be a Tosok, but I bet it knows how to speak the Tosok language. After all, it presumably came in response to Kelkad’s message.”
“So?”
“So send Hask out to greet it.”
*40*
On second thought, it was deemed better to send a human out to make first contact. There were those who still didn’t trust Hask or Seltar, and the two Tosoks might also be in danger from this new alien: they were, after all, traitors to their own people.
Since Frank Nobilio was the only living person with direct experience at first contact, the job fell to him. He was flown from the Virginia command center to the UN aboard a two-seater Marine Corps Harrier TAV-8B VTOL jet, dispatched from a training squadron at Cherry Point, North Carolina.
Once he’d arrived in New York, Hask and Seltar greeted Frank in an office inside the looming monolith of the Secretariat building.
“It is good to see you, friend Frank,” said Hask.
“You, too,” said Frank. “You recognize that ship?” The alien vessel was visible through the mirrored office window.
“No,” said Hask. “But that is meaningless. So much may have changed in the intervening centuries since our departure.” The male Tosok’s tuft waved. “Whatever happens now, Frank—to you, and to your world—I thank you for your previous help, and ask you to remember that humanity had at least a few friends beyond this planet.”
Frank nodded. “I will.”
Seltar raised her front hand, bringing it tentatively toward Frank’s head.
“May I?” she said.
Frank was momentarily taken aback, but then paused and smiled. Seltar’s four flat-tipped fingers tousled Frank’s hair, which was now mostly gray.
When she was done, Frank used his right hand to briefly stroke Seltar’s tuft, and then, in a move that clearly surprised the male Tosok, he reached over and mussed Hask’s tuft as well.
“I have to go,” said Frank. “Can’t keep our new visitors waiting.”
Hask took his portable computer, with its cross-shaped keypad, from its pouch on his tunic and handed it to Frank. Frank took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked slowly across the United Nations parking lot, toward the spherical ship. The twelve-limbed alien had retreated into its lander some time ago. Frank was afraid he was going to have to go right up to the landing craft and knock on its hull, but when he got within about fifteen meters of the lander, the door appeared again and the alien—or another one just like it—came out.
Frank held up the portable computer, hoping the alien would recognize it, and know what to do with it. It was a gamble: Frank certainly wouldn’t recognize a specialized Italian farm implement from A.D. 1800, let alone one from a culture that wasn’t his own; there was no real reason to think that the newcomer would recognize a two-century-old Tosok computer.
The alien reached out with one of its long arms—from the way it moved, it appeared to be jointed every twenty-five centimeters or so, rather than being a tentacle of pure muscle. Frank took a deep breath and continued to close the distance between them. The alien was indeed wearing some sort of space suit, made of a silvery fabric. There was a clear strip, though, near where each leg joined the torso, and through it Frank could see the creature’s real skin, a scaly yellowish gold. The clear strips were meant to allow the alien’s eyes to peer out—Frank could see two oval-shaped eyes, one atop the other, on each leg. The eyes had lids that closed from left to right, but no two eyes on the same leg ever seemed to shut simultaneously. The tanks of gas on the legs joined directly to the suit at the base of each leg; presumably that’s where the creature’s six breathing orifices were located.
Frank continued to hold the computer out in front of him. Because of the alien’s short height, he could look right down on it from above.
It really did seem to be perfectly radially symmetrical; if it had a preferred front side, Frank could see no indication of it. One of the six arms reached out to Frank. Although its tip was gloved in the same silvery material, Frank could see that it was bifurcated. The two branches easily plucked the computer from Frank’s hand. The suit had been warm to the touch; it was radiating excess heat—the alien perhaps came from a cooler world than this one.
The alien folded its arm back, bringing the computer up to one of its vertical pairs of eyes. It turned it around, apparently unsure how to hold it.
Frank’s heart fell—they’d have to start over from scratch, apparently, trying to learn to communicate.
Suddenly a second starfish alien emerged from the spherical lander. It came toward Frank quickly, its body rotating as it did so. When it got close, Frank saw that it had something in one of its hands—a device that ended in precisely the same sort of tripronged connector he’d come to associate with Tosok technology. The second alien took Hask’s computer from the first alien and plugged it into the device it had brought along. Lights began flashing on both devices.
Frank was aware of a high-pitched buzzing sound, barely audible. At first he thought it was coming from Hask’s computer, but his ears soon focused better on the source. The two aliens were apparently conversing, using mostly ultrasonics. The buzz alternately came from one of them, then the other.
The lights stopped flashing on Hask’s computer. The second alien disengaged it from the device he’d brought, and proffered it to Frank. Frank was surprised, but took it back. The alien handed the other device to the first alien, then twirled back a dozen meters.
The buzzing started again from the first alien, and within seconds, the synthesized voice Frank had come to associate with Hask was emerging from the device the starfish creature was now holding. “Do you understand me?” said the voice.
“Yes,” said Frank, his heart pounding with excitement.