Chapter 13
Yves had become comfortable with the daily rhythm, but each day had a few unique beats to keep it interesting. This morning he had slept in a bit, and woke up with a smile, thinking back over the past two weeks.
Twelve days back, he came to Hanna with a suggestion when they returned to his apartment after a third extremely long day at the ESA office. “You know, it seems all of this activity isn’t leaving you with much free time. You could stay at my place for the near future. This apartment is close to the office, so you won’t have to travel far, and you do not have to spend time trying to find a different place.”
Hanna looked at him with a cautious curiosity, waiting to see what else he was going to say. But Yves held his tongue, knowing it better to let her make the next move.
“OK,” she agreed, as she turned to hang up her jacket. “But you’ll have to let me help you with the rent while I’m here. Director Brożek offered me a stipend today, and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t actually use any of it to pay for housing. Besides, it’ll give us both someone to talk to about the daily happenings without worrying about breaking security protocols”.
As the excitement of the first few days crested, they had renewed their romance as well.
The landing of the alien craft in Kremenchuk was something both couldn’t stop talking about when they had returned to the apartment that evening eleven days ago. The intensity of the emotions they felt, and the deep conversation about the future led to physical closeness which, without too much prompting from either of them, soon turned to kisses, caresses and a rapid fumbling of fingers to remove their clothing. The sex that night was less about passion towards each other and more about the passionate emotions in the air all around them.
Last night was another night of passion. Afterwards, Hanna curled up under his arm, twirled the hair of his chest in her pinky and said “Do you know what tomorrow is?”
Yves meant to say “Um, no”, but all that came out was “Mmmm, nmm.”
“Tomorrow is when the final group of colonists go to the ship,” she explained.
He turned his grunts into words. “That’s exciting!”
“It is!”, Hanna quickly responded. “But when the excitement of upcoming events gets to me, sex allows me to calm down and sleep well.”
Yves chuckled, “I am happy to fill your stress reduction prescription.”
When he woke this morning, Hanna had already left earlier to prepare for the final day of activities related to ‘volunteer’ departure. Yves slept in a bit longer, arriving at the office by 7:30 am. He went straight to his console, brought up the ETIOT data gathered overnight, and called to the lead astronomer working the overnight shift.
“Bonjour, Yves,” Lucie Saint-Germaine answered when her image popped up on the console.
“Bonjour, Lucie. Anything to report?” he asked.
She was looking a bit annoyed this morning. “You know we’ll call you directly if anything new is seen overnight. Why don’t you trust us to do our job?”
“I trust you to do your job,” Yves replied, “and I did my job three weeks back, tracking the alien craft. But neither I nor anyone else around here thought about going beyond my job, and we missed the second and third ships, and someone else found them. I’m not going to let that happen again. You do your job and I’ll rely on you to find any new craft that appears. I’ll look at the data afterwards and look for things besides any new spacecraft.”
But like every other morning, there wasn’t anything to discover in the satellite data. So Yves went down to the common area in the office to get some coffee and enjoy the breakfast that was brought in for ESA employees.
By 8:20 am, he was caught up with all the overnight messages he received, had reviewed news and other government agency reports from the three landing sites, and he went to the senior staff briefing. He saw Hanna, who was there as part of her own team lead responsibilities, and sat down beside her.
“Bonjour, Dr. Clegg. Any new poems from the aliens this morning?”, he asked her.
“Not today,” Hanna smiled. “Did you find any new space ships, Mr. Al-Battani?”
“Not today.”
General Director Martyna Brożek’s image appeared on the conference room wall screen. “Good morning, everyone.” The room quieted.
“Today is another day full of activities,” she continued. “And while no day is exactly like any other day, this day is especially critical for us. It will be our last opportunity to learn directly from humans what it is like inside the alien craft, what alien technology they are able to observe, what additional plans they have been told, and the last chance to talk to them before they leave Earth.”
“I know there are many of you in Sophia and in other locations that wish you were here with us in Kremenchuk today. We wish everyone could be here, but there are responsibilities everywhere to address. I personally appreciate the focus each of you is taking today, regardless of your locale.”
“Hanna – it is especially critical that you and your team provide us immediate notification of any messages you received from the alien craft today.” the Director General said, looking from the screen to where Hanna was sitting.
“Yes, Director. We will patch you in for any real-time communication,” Hanna quickly replied.
“Thank you, Hanna,” Director Brożek continued. “I’m going to let Dr. Guidetti cover the schedule for today.”
The camera turned to Angelica Guidetti, ESA Senior Director of Planetary Sciences. “Thank you, Director Brożek. This is, indeed, a busy schedule. All hours are in Central European Time, in keeping with ESA standards.”
“Immediately following the end of today’s teleconference, we will join the ESA Direct Observation Team at the outer perimeter fence of the Kremenchuk craft.”
“At 09h00, we expect to see the 40 volunteers from Group 2, along with any volunteers from Group 1 or 2 who have decided to remain on Earth, leave the craft and approach the perimeter fence. The kilometer walk should take about 15 minutes.”
“At the perimeter fence we will have a brief physical and biometric check of each volunteer who has left the craft, before allowing them into the EU facilities for a one hour individual debrief. The processing of all 40 people, plus anyone remaining, should likely take 90 minutes.
“This will be followed by a 1 hour group debrief, which will include ESA military liaisons to participate in the question and answer session starting at 11h45.”
Director Brożek interrupted, “It is during this time, Mr. Al-Battani, that the daily ESA briefing will occur. Do you have your presentation ready, Yves?”
“Yes, Director Brożek. The focus will be on propulsion systems.”, Yves answered.
“Thank you,” the Director replied. “Please continue Dr. Guidetti.”
The Planetary Sciences Director looked a bit annoyed at the interruption, referred to her papers to gather her thoughts, and then back at the camera. “At 13h00, a group lunch will be provided for the 40 volunteers from Group 2, who will join the 600 volunteers from Group 3 who will have already started lunch an hour earlier. One Group 2 volunteer will be seated at a table with fifteen of the Group 3 volunteers. Lunch and volunteer conversation will continue until 14h00.”
“Also at 13h00 hours, those volunteers from Group 1 and Group 2 who have opted to not participate in the program will be escorted away from the Kremenchuk landing site. They will be driven to Kiev in unmarked vans and released at the Kiev Central Police facility. We have guaranteed their anonymity during the transport and all of them have signed non-disclosure agreements to maintain confidential information, we will not be able to control how they interact with the public or whether they reach out to any broadcasters, so I suggest we should all be prepared for surprises, whether due to leaks of information we have told them is confidential, or due to sharing of information they have previously not shared during any of the debriefs, or due to stories they may fabricate about their experience in the alien craft or interacting with ESA or EU agencies. In anticipation, we will be seeing a doubling of security personnel to guard the Kremenchuk site starting later today. We must avoid the chaos that occurred in Dar Es Salaam yesterday after one of their Group 1 volunteers left the site and began spreading rumors of aliens lining humans up for alien consumption.”
Yves, who was a fan of 20th century media, leaned over to Hanna and whispered, “It’s not a book on service! It’s a cookbook!!” Hanna smiled, punched her elbow into his side, but didn’t look at him.
Director Brożek did notice, however, and interrupted the presentation again. “Mr. Al-Battani, is there a comment you wish to share?”
Yves, slightly startled at being called out, stammered, “Um, no Director. I was just mentioning how, uh, I feel the additional security personnel is a wonderful plan to, ah, to ensure the success of our mission.”
“I’m glad you support our decisions,” Dr. Guidetti said, shooting an even more annoyed look than the prior interruption. “May I continue?”
Yves gave a weak smile and nodded.
“Thank you,” said Dr. Guidetti curtly. “After lunch is complete, there will be a live-cast panel interview starting at 15h30 with nine of the Group 2 volunteers and three of the Group 3 volunteers. Selected European broadcasters, including Bernadette Marat from Sky News,” at which point, Dr. Guidetti paused for a half-second and looked directly at Yves, “will be allowed to ask questions of the volunteers for 45 minutes. These volunteers will be told during earlier debrief sessions what is to be considered confidential. If at any point, disclosure of what is determined to be classified information occurs, the volunteer microphones will be turned off and the moderator will end the panel discussion.”
Yves was tempted to whisper his thoughts to Hanna about how he felt all this attempt at controlling the message was going to backfire, but held his tongue, not wanting to get singled out during this meeting again.
“During this panel discussion,” Dr. Guidetti continued, “the Group C volunteers will be allowed their last personal communications, which are all being monitored for content, and will be prepared for final release to the ship.”
“At 16h30, the returning Group 2 and all Group 3 volunteers will be escorted to the inside perimeter fence where they will be released to walk to the ship. Based on experiences at the Seneca and Omo Forest sites, we expect some of the 600 Group 3 volunteers to change their mind on the walk to the ship. Any that return will be taken through a short debrief and transported to Kiev similar to the others that changed their mind and decided to remain on Earth. And any remainers will be replaced with stand-by volunteers.”
“Finally, by 19h00, we expect all volunteer transfers to the ship will be complete, and we will suspend public broadcast of events from Kremenchuk for the day. We will continue direct monitoring of all activity around the alien craft and will welcome back any volunteers released from the ship during the overnight time period.”
Dr. Guidetti looked around the physical room in the Kremenchuk facility where she was located and back at the camera. “Are there any questions?”
No one asked anything right away. Yves knew he would get pummelled with questions during the daily ESA operations briefing he would be giving at noon, and finally spoke up. “When will the Group 3 volunteers that wish to remain be released from the alien craft?”
Dr. Guidetti narrowed her eyes and said, “That is part of the schedule for tomorrow, which is not what we are covering at this moment.”
“Yes, Dr. Guidetti, I understand that,” Yves said with a bit of annoyance in his own voice, “but I can almost guarantee that will be one of the questions asked of me during the noon operations briefing.”
Dr. Guidetti glanced at Director Brożek, who nodded her acceptance. Dr. Guidetti then referred to the notes on her personal tablet and said “Tomorrow at 09h00.”
“Any other questions?” she asked, looking around again but this time ignoring Yves completely. No one else spoke up, so the Directory of Planetary Sciences nodded towards the ESA Senior Director.
“Thank you, Dr. Guidetti,” said Martyna Brożek. “We will keep this meeting channel open and all of the rooms you are at have been reserved for the entire day, so if there is a need for an ad-hoc gathering, we will meet back here. I thank you all for your continued focus. After today there will be two days of monitoring and waiting for the volunteer processing to complete at the remaining six sites before lift-off day on 7 May. Those will be difficult days of waiting and watching, so make the most of today, everyone. Thank you.”
That effectively ended the senior staff gathering, and people on screen and in the room at Sophia began getting up from the table and leaving the room. Yves and Hanna wandered out with the rest of the people but then paused in a hallway before they split apart to go to their separate work areas.
“Why do you have to be such a troublemaker, Mr. Al-Battani?”, Hanna asked teasingly.
“I’m not a communicator, by profession or training, Dr. Clegg,” Yves mockingly answered. “Besides, I find those senior staff sessions very boring. It needs a little fun, don’t you think? Although I will admit, watching Angelica read a schedule is quite fascinating. Have you ever seen someone that has as many facial expressions of annoyance as her?”
“You’re a chauvinist, Yves”, Hanna said. “I told you that was one of the main reasons we broke up in graduate school.”
“I am not a chauvinist. I am French. Besides, they can’t expect to keep every little fact about this operation a secret. What does it matter what time everything happens? The world is watching no matter how many comm jammers the EU military is placing around Kremenchuk. And they can’t expect anything new from our site that they haven’t already learned from Kansas or the Omo Forest.”, Yves said with his volume increasing as he spoke.
“What they can expect is that the aliens will be communicating with us, here, in Sophia.” Hanna said. “And I need to get to the communications center to be ready for our 9 o’clock check-in with them.” She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Be nice to the reporters, please.” she said as she went up the stairwell.
“I wonder if it’s the ‘volunteers’ we should be nicer to and tell them to not go. It feels like we’re offering them up as a sacrifice to the alien gods to go away and leave the rest of us alone for a while.” Yves said loud enough for Hanna to hear, but not specifically directed at her.
Hanna stopped a few steps up the stairs, turned her head around and said firmly, “Get your head on straight, Yves. You’re representing not just the ESA when you talk to the reporters, but all of the European Union.” Then she continued up to her work.
Yves just stood in that spot for a minute, taking in that last sentence. He hadn’t planned, nor asked to be a spokesperson for anything or anyone. He knew his science, he knew he was good at explaining technical details to a non-technical audience, he even hoped his appearance made him a good person to put in front of the livecast cameras. But that didn’t mean he was supposed to be parroting whatever nonsense the senior ESA staff told him to say.
He was getting more upset and needed to calm down before the noon briefing, so Yves went to spend some time with Lucie and her team asking questions about the numbers being stored by the ETIOT equipment. Nothing but reality to look at there. All he had to do was figure out what reality it was telling him.
Another ninety minutes had passed, and Yves decided the approach he was taking to analyze the satellite data wasn’t going to yield any results different from Lucie’s team or any of the other teams. So he decided to ‘start over’ by retracing the path the first craft had taken. Nothing new on the calculated flight path inside the Sol system up to Jupiter. Nothing new on the known flight path from Jupiter to Earth.
“So if I wanted to stay hidden within near distance of the Earth, how would I go about doing that?”, Yves asked himself.
He threw out ‘magic cloaking devices’, since if the aliens had that technology, why not use it when they first arrived?
He did an extra search of the rings of Saturn and Jupiter, but nothing special appeared.
His commblock reminded him it was time to get down to the briefing, but he wanted to do one more thing before leaving his workstation. He started a detailed analysis of each object in the asteroid belt to determine if there had been any changes in the past month of their mass, diameter, rotational speed, orbital speed, orbital path, even elemental composition. It would take an hour before the initial results were available, so now was as good a time as any for the briefing.
On the walk downstairs, Yves reviewed the notes prepared by the ESA Propulsion Systems group on the likely systems used by the alien craft for interstellar travel. They had taken what they knew about human space travel and extrapolated to what they imagined the alien ships must use. Yves knew this was speculation at best, but even fiction writing from centuries back had some basis of reality when guessing what the future might hold.
He arrived with less than five minutes to spare at the “staging room” that had been set up near the entrance to the ESA main office where the press briefings were held. The reporters were welcomed to the briefing area, but weren’t allowed any further into the ESA complex. Yves had refused to be ‘made up’ for the briefings, but did agree to let someone clean his face and comb his hair in advance, after he noticed he looked a bit disheveled in some of the earlier casts. Today he didn’t even have time for the normal prep, and took the brush from the ESA contractor whose job it was to make him look good, and did his own ‘touch-up’.
Finally, at 11h45 as announced from the daily schedule that morning, Yves’ commblock lit up with the message from Dr. Guidetti “Briefing can begin.” and Yves walked out of the “staging room” to the podium in front of the reporters. They all politely took their seats.
Yves started out. “Thank you for joining us today, everyone. The format today will vary a bit from the normal, as we plan to have the more standard daily update with time for questions and answers at the end, once the activities in Kremenchuk conclude for the day. You have all been given the schedule for today for reference and, to be honest, I know as much as you do about how activities are progressing in Kremenchuk.”
“What I do have ready for you is an ESA report on the likely propulsion systems the alien craft are using to transport the volunteers to their new plan,… uh, their new home.”
Yves heard some grumbling and whispering among the reporters as he brought up the relevant notes on the podium display, but he opted not to look directly at their reactions. Instead he brought up images of the alien landing craft and the orbiter on the briefing display.
“These are images of the two types of craft used by the aliens.”, he continued, bringing up the two ships on the large display facing the reporters.
“Now I’ll put them in perspective to one another.”, and the landing craft shrunk to about one-fifth the size of the orbiter.
“We know the landing craft traveled inside the orbiters, since we saw the landers launched from the orbiters in the first days after the aliens arrived, so our focus for interstellar propulsion has been primarily on the orbiters.” At that, the image of the landing craft disappeared from the display, and the image of the orbiter began rotating.
“The orbiter, which is presumed to be the aliens’ interstellar craft, appears to be powered by a dark propulsion system. We suspect the cone, here, is the dark matter projector to transfer axions to a forward shield to protect the craft from particle collisions during transit. We feel the dark energy engine is in the rear, um, aft of the ship. While the dark propulsion systems they use will be significantly more advanced than what we currently have available to us here on Earth, the basic concept of using energy channels to travel in subspace must apply to the aliens the same way we’ve used it to send exploratory craft to other stars and solar systems.”
A reporter raised his hand to ask a question, to which Yves responded “Not yet, Javier. You know I’ll allow questions when I finish the presentation.”
And then Yves continued, “We suspect the alien craft orbiting Earth currently are being prepared for human transport, as the estimated space needed for human occupancy will have been made available from the departure of the landing craft.”
Yves’ commblock buzzed and an update from the asteroid belt analysis appeared. 1215 Eunomia orbit variation of 0.0026% “Interesting”, he thought, but turned quickly back to presentation and focused on the briefing.
“While the aliens haven’t talked about future volunteer missions, we suspect that once this first group arrives safely on the new planet, they will look for additional volunteers to reduce the burden on Earth. Hence, we feel that only one orbiter will be used to transfer these initial volunteers and the other two will remain in orbit around Earth prepared to transfer later groups.”
His commblock buzzed again 123 Flora orbit variation of 0.0027%
This time, Yves actually paused and continued to stare at his commblock screen. He knew changes in orbital trajectory would only be caused by collisions, and while he hadn’t remembered all of the upcoming collisions ETIOT had projected, he knew two of this level were very unique. Also, the program hadn’t reported any other changes on these two asteroids except for their orbit, and collisions impacting their orbit this much should have resulted in a loss of mass noticed by the program. He decided to wrap up the briefing early.
When he looked back up, all of the reporters were staring at him in anticipation. “Anything of interest, Yves?”, asked the reporter from the “Espace” channel.
“Um, no, just a standard notification from our ETIOT system,” Yves lied, and then regained his composure “I have a real job to do when I’m not answering all of your questions, and the universe doesn’t wait for our presentation to end.” That line got a few chuckles and seemed to satisfy most of the reporters.
“That is the main information we have at this time, so now we will proceed to your questions. Bernadette, go ahead, please.” Yves pushed a button on his podium console and turned to face the main display that now had Bernadette Marat’s smiling face on it. She had been given the opportunity to ask the opening question of every noon briefing, in keeping with the agreement reached in the first few days, since the ESA senior staff were still concerned she had an ‘inside connection’ and didn’t want to risk unwanted disclosure of agency secrets. Normally, the Sky News reporter was in the chairs in this briefing area, but today she was on-site at Kremenchuk.
“Thank you, Yves. You mentioned the volunteers will be transported to the colony planet on the alien ships currently orbiting Earth. We’ve not seen any food or other supplies being loaded into the ships to support their journey. What have the aliens been telling you about how the volunteers will be kept alive in transit to their new home?”
“Well, I don’t know if I would put it in such dramatic terms, Bernadette,” Yves responded, “but I’m sure they will be well cared for. As of yet, we have not been able to confirm with the aliens if our, ah, volunteers will be kept in full consciousness during the 17-week trip to their new home, or if they will be put into metabolic stasis for the journey.” He turned and pointed to the ‘Espace’ reporter, “Javier?”
“Human travel through subspace has not been proven safe,” the reporter jumped in. “In fact, there has been no contact with the only craft to try human subspace travel that was launched twenty years ago. What proof does ESA have that the volunteers leaving in two days won’t meet a similar fate and disappear forever?”
Normally the questions at these noon briefings weren’t quite as sensational, and Yves was able to answer their questions by pulling out additional facts to add to the information he had given. Today, he had to be better at thinking on his feet.
“I have some details on the materials from which the alien landing craft are constructed, if anyone is interested,” Yves tried to joke. “No? OK, back to your question, Javier. I remember hearing about that mission when I was very young, and from what I recall, they said it would be decades before they expected to arrive at their destination and there would be no communication while they were in transit. But keep one big difference in mind. The aliens arrived here via interstellar travel and they had to go through subspace to get here. I’m sure whatever is done to ensure the journey is safe for them will ensure the safety of our volunteers as well. Now who would like a run-down of lander shell composition? Stella?”
The Danish reporter asked, “Why are we not quarantining people that are released from the ship? The Americans, Nigerians and even the Chinese governments are all keeping any returnees from the alien craft at those locations in a medically secure location for at least two weeks of observation. And the other five remaining landing sites have all also agreed to quarantine any returnees for at least that amount of time.”
Yves was anticipating this question and had a ready answer. “Because the aliens could release any toxins or agents into the environment already, if they had chosen. Plus, we respect the rights of the volunteers, and if they choose to leave, they will be allowed. Also, they will have gone through a bioscan immediately upon reaching the inside perimeter and a second more comprehensive bioscan and observation period before being released back to general society. Lily?” and as soon as he called the next reporters name, his commblock lit up for a third time. 209a Eros identified. Mass: unknown. Diameter: ~500 M. Rotational velocity: unknown. Orbital velocity: 30 KM / s. Orbital trajectory: unknown.
“When do we expect the final batch of volunteers who wish to remain on Earth to be released from Kremenchuk?” asked the reporter from the BBC.
Yves couldn’t stop staring at his commblock. This made no sense. A new asteroid only occurs after a collision, but again, nothing else in this message indicated a collision had occurred. No new data was appearing about 209 Eros, the supposed parent of this new asteroid, and when full asteroid belt scan was done, any variations in objects next to each other were displayed nearly instantaneously.
The BBC reporter spoke again. “Yves?”
Yves looked up. “I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”
“When do we expect the final batch of volunteers who wish to remain on Earth to be released from Kremenchuk?” Lily asked again.
Yves was able to replace his blank stare with a smile of relief. “Tomorrow at 09h00. Thank you everyone, we will talk again tomorrow” And with that, Yves left the podium and walked out of the ESA lobby with reporters calling after him.
When he got back to his desk, he pulled out his commblock and looked up Gerald MacLewis, an old friend and former ESA colleague. “Hello, Gerald,” Yves said when his friend answered. “I have a favor to ask. Are you still involved with asteroid tracking at Maeker Braek?”