The answer to that was to link the gates as fast as possible, which was one of the reasons that he was getting ticked with Columbia’s civilian applications side. The news media was getting huffy because they saw it as a money grab by Columbia, which was not only a big corporation but a, horrors, Defense Contractor. They hadn’t even touched on the fact that as long as the gates were open, they were available to any species that had the capability to open them, friendly or hostile. And despite his initial pronouncement, all the species they had encountered seemed to be hostile.
That was bothering the SETI folks no end, but they were blaming it on the way that the government had handled first contact. They seemed to be ignoring the fact that First Contact from the Titcher was the snatching of two innocent retirees.
Columbia’s civilian side, meanwhile, had gotten wrapped up by their lawyers. Gates gave instantaneous and unhazardous communication from Point A to Point B. But that wasn’t enough for the lawyers. They were trotting out all of the potential horrors that might be involved, litigation-wise. If someone tripped on the exit from the gate, who would get sued? Columbia, that’s who. If someone got hit by a truck, said truck delivering materials to a gate, who would get sued? That’s right, Columbia. If a gate was opened to one Point B and another Point B was considered to be more economically viable, who would get blamed? You guessed it.
So the gates remained closed while the news media howled about monopolies, the Congress held fact-finding commissions, the lobbyists ran around asking for bills and unknown potential aliens rubbed their hands in glee at all the available bosons.
And, oh, yes, transportation remained via car, truck and airplane.
Humans could not be the only sentient race in range to detect them that would sooner or later notice the available bosons. Someone was going to open one up. And, like the Titcher gates, Bill anticipated that it would be sooner rather than later.
“Boson fourteen is linking to a remote active boson; direction galactic hubward.”
Tcharl looked at the viewscreen and frowned at the face of his littermate, Tsho’an.
“Dreen?”
“Probably not; this is a Class Nine boson, not a Class Six.”
“It could be a remnant,” Tcharl said.
“It just started linking,” Tsho’an argued. “That seems to suggest that the remote was recently formed. We are not alone. Well, alone with only the Dreen for company.”
“Yes,” Tcharl replied, grunting in black humor. “We need Unitary approval to open a remote gate. Especially after the disaster with gate seven. I’ll submit a request.”
“Do you think we’ll get it?” Tsho’an asked.
“I really don’t know. I think that they would like to see all the bosons turned off. The transportation guilds have been complaining, again, about incursions on their authority. Move it as quickly as possible to Sector Nine, just in case it is a hostile entity. If it is, we’ll have to set up quarantine measures. I’ll send a message to the Unitary Council. We will see about opening it.”
“They could be friendly,” Tsho’an pointed out. “Any support against the Dreen would be useful.”
“I was going to bring that up,” Tcharl noted, closing the connection.
“It had been quiescent for two weeks,” the physicist from the French Academy of Sciences said. Bill knew him, slightly, from scientific conferences they both had attended prior to the opening of the Chen Anomaly. He and Bill disagreed on just about every major scientific topic that existed, especially if it had a political flavor. They cordially detested one another, in fact. But they were buddies compared to most of the aliens humans had encountered. “Then a gate formed. The farmer who owns the vineyard contacted authorities immediately, of course. Then they came through. Before our reaction team could arrive, I might add.”
They were five beings in armor that was marked with a muted, vaguely sand-colored camouflage. The beings were bipedal, nearly three meters tall, with three fingers and a thumb. Other than that it was impossible to determine what they looked like in their all-covering suits. They might not be that tall, if the suits were made like Wyverns.
One of the beings was talking in pantomime with a human wearing an environment suit. The aliens’ weapons, presumably weapons, that they had been carrying on entry were stacked up by the gate. They were large guns that looked similar to rifles but instead of a conventional barrel they had large bores that looked vaguely like a blunderbuss. Bill suspected that they fired something other than nails. The ground was torn with tracks from armored vehicles and the French Leclerc Mk2 tanks that surrounded the gate had effectively destroyed the vineyard.
Bill walked towards the group as the academic sputtered behind him. He touched the person in the environment suit on the arm and smiled as the woman turned towards him and widened her eyes in surprise that he was not similarly dressed.
“You washed them down, right?” Bill asked. “So far we haven’t found anything on any of the worlds which is infectious.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a picture, holding it up so that it could be seen by the nearest of the aliens.
The alien let out a hissing howl that sounded remarkably like one of the dog-demons and could best be written as “Dreeen.” The picture had been of a dead dog alien.
“Yeah,” Bill said, nodding. “We call them Titcher.” Then he extracted his laptop and opened it up. He was no wiz at three-D modeling but there were various cartoon programs available in two-D that worked. He brought up a program and ran a short video he’d composed on the way over.
First there was video of the Titcher, taken at the attack in Eustis by a TV cameraman who would probably win some sort of posthumous award. Then there was video of Nyarowlll shaking hands with Bill, clearly in a friendly manner. Then there was some video of the nuclear attacks in Eustis and Tennessee and more video from the aftermath, centering on all the dead Titcher. Then there was a cartoon, poorly done, of Nyarowlll smiling at Bill and then, when he turned his back, sticking a knife in it. Then there was another cartoon of Nyarowlll with her arm around a Titcher dog-demon.
The alien he had been talking to waved at the other four and they crowded around while Bill showed the video again. They nodded at each other, waving their necks back and forth, but didn’t seem to be talking although there was some sound coming out of the suits. It took Bill a minute to realize that they were probably speaking via radio or some equivalent.
The first alien, he seemed to be a boss, waved at the screen on the third run-through and Bill froze it on a picture of Nyarowlll.
“Dreeen,” the alien said.
“Mreee,” Bill replied. “That one’s Nyarowlll.”
The alien cocked his head to the side. “Nyarowlll, Mreee.”
Bill touched his chest. “Bill.” Then he pointed at the screen. “Nyarowlll.” He pointed at himself and the other humans around. “Human.”
“Oooman,” the alien replied. “Adar,” he added, pointing at his chest.
“Humans,” Bill said, then pointed at Nyarowlll. “Mreee. Bill. Nyarowlll.”
Bill backed up to the point that had Nyarowlll being friendly then to the rough cartoon of her putting a knife in his back then to the picture of her being friendly with a Titcher. Then he brought up another, a video of the suited aliens, the Adar, side by side with the Titcher, one armored arm over the back of a thorn-thrower.