Journey Beyond the Sea - 6. Chapter 6

Vespris rode upon calm seas in the gray morning light, what movement she did make accountable only to the ocean current. Jem and Nico stood side-by-side at the port shotsman's station, watching as the twelve drones lined up by the elevator from belowdecks. Mister Sharples stood to one side, while Deera inspected each drone, nodding as she walked along. She reached the end drone, and patted it affectionately. "You understand the mission, Number One?"

"Yes. We are to locate any life forms attached to the hull, and capture them. If we are unable to capture life forms we encounter alive, we are to make every effort to return the remains for study. We are to transmit video and sound during the course of the maneuver. We are to defend ourselves if attacked."

Deera smiled. "Good." She patted the drone again, and then stepped back. "We want to try to secure this creature, but we want all of you to come back, too. Safety first, capture second. That will be the order of the day. I think all of you are more than able to care for yourselves, and we have seen nothing as yet to indicate that this creature is dangerous. But we also don't know if it's alone, or what else may be attached to the hull. So be aware, and be safe."

Jem grinned at Nico. Drones were extremely efficient, and extremely capable. That Deera treated them as she would anyone else and worried over their safety was endearing. Artificial intelligences enjoyed many of the same freedoms that humans did under the Compact, depending on their level of awareness. Drones were designed to do dangerous work, and that was something they clearly understood. To that end they were also extremely well-constructed, strong, and durable. The idea that something made of flesh could harm one was not easy to accept. Not only were they strong, but they were well-armed, fast, and adept. Twelve of them together should be able to handle anything.

Still, Jem more than understood Deera's insistence on safety. You looked out for those you worked and lived with, no matter their origin. To lose even one of the drones was not a notion that Jem wanted to entertain.

In the hunt display, the faces of Master Terpin and Kel MacAfee showed in each of the upper corners. While voice contact was maintained during every hunt, faces were normally not displayed, on the theory that having eye contact in your field of view in the middle of intense moments was distracting. But for this mission, close contact between all the main players was needed. Nita Frees and Mya Omari were visible in the lower corners of the display. For this maneuver Nita had stationed herself at the starboard hunt station so that she could keep tabs on everything that was going on. The angle of their heads indicated that they were watching as Deera inspected, and Mister Sharples stood by to advise if needed.

The master had the helm, and Jem was certain that everyone else aboard ship was in front of a display of their own, watching. Even Moira, who normally slept after the master had resumed his station, would be interested in what happened next. And certainly Til, watching from his bunk in the dispensary. Jem, smiled to himself, already imagining the man chewing anxiously on the bed covers. Til had become a little excitable since the attack, as if he was still unable to believe that the relationship of his hunter to the orx's prey had been so mysteriously stood on its head after so many years of consistency.

"Okay," Deera resumed, nodding. "Split up. Six of you over the port bow, six of you over the starboard. Physically inspect everything from the waterline to the keel. Visually inspect the hull at the waterline and up to the rails. I'll be watching the video feeds, and will see anything that you do. Now let's get to work."

The drones split into two groups, and marched towards the bow. For this mission they had been equipped with vacuum suckers on their 'fingers', and would simply go over the railing and crawl down the side of the ship to the water. Once in the water they would use a combination of suckers and their own small reaction drives to move about.

Deera and Mister Sharples watched the drones go over the rails, and then came over to the display with Jem and Nico. Jem knew that they could also be seen now on the display at the other hunt station, and on every other display aboard ship. Because Jem had trained on this station he had been given main charge of it, though it was understood that both he and Nico were able to act, if needed.

"Very well," Master Terpin said. "Let's get the feeds up."

The center of the display divided into a dozen squares, and each one filled with a different view. Some showed Vespris from the sea at the waterline, while others showed submerged views of the hull. Lights came up, and the soft gray luster of the ironwood hull was there before them. Each feed was numbered, so that they knew from which drone it originated.

"Begin when ready," Deera said.

Some of the views settled downward under the curve of the hull, and soon they were looking at the vessel's keel. Unlike in vessels constructed from steel or wood, the keel of Vespris was not an actual structural member. The hull of Vespris was one piece, sculpted by powerful multi-wave lasers from the single massive trunk of an ironwood tree. The keel was made of carefully weighted lengths of sculpted ironwood, fused to the ironwood hull by those same lasers, and now effectively one with the hull. It marked the vessel's centerline and center of gravity, and also marked the meeting point between searching drones from each side of the ship.

The views steadied, and then begin to move slowly towards the stern of Vespris, turning this way and that, not missing so much as a square centimeter of surface.

"Clean hull," Nita said in the display. "Do they always look like this?"

"Yes," Mister Sharples replied. "The sea life here has no fondness for ironwood." He laughed. "The surface of the material, once smoothed by laser, is in no way porous, and there's simply nothing to hold onto. One of ironwood's nicer qualities, I must admit. There is no local equivalent of barnacles that can cement themselves to this type of hull."

The drones continued to move back along the hull. Those inspecting the sides of the ship stayed in pace with those underneath, to give them a uniform view of the length of Vespris as the search proceeded. So far, there was nothing to see.

"Might just be one of those green things," Jem hazarded to guess. "That would be good, wouldn't it?"

"That depends on its function," Nita said from the display. "But I would say that you're probably right."

Nico grinned, and poked Jem gently with an elbow. Jem poked back, and allowed himself a small smile.

"The storage cabin is in the rear quarter of the ship," Mister Sharples said. "Providing our guest proceeded straight down the hull, we've a ways to go just yet."

"We're just coming to the mid-mark," Master Terpin agreed.

The inspection continued, and reached the middle of the ship. Still nothing.The drones proceeded onward, and Jem found himself leaning forward, his eyes moving from one transmitted view to the next, searching for the green thing that had been seen outside the storage cabin.

Suddenly, all the views ceased moving at the same time.

"Target sighted," a drone voice announced, and a soft red border lit around the square containing the view from drone number four. It was one of the drones inspecting the port side of the keel. The view was rock steady, save for the subtle motion of the sea around the drone.

Jem strained his eyes, but even in the light from the drone's spot, nothing was visible.

"I don't see it," Deera replied.

The view suddenly shifted and the scene changed colors, from the mostly pearly gray of the ironwood hull and the more drab gray of the sea around it, to one of blues and greens and reds. The hull was blue, the sea green, and one, round, red blob stood out at what was likely the limit of the drone's visible spot.

"False-color view," drone four returned. "Target is attached to the center of the keel."

"Can you zoom, and return to standard visual?" Deera asked.

The view returned to mostly grays, then seemed to move in a weird rush of motion; and then Jem was able to see a faint, dark blob in the center of the view.

"I got it," Deera said. "Can you move closer?"

"Yes."

The drone crawled slowly closer to the blob, and Jem noticed that the other views also proceeded forward at the same pace, at the same time. The drones were sticking together, and as they moved, the two drones on either of drone four's flanks turned to gaze at the target, too. Soon, the thing was visible in three views, and then more.

"Five meters," drone five said then. "Four....three..."

"Halt there," Deera advised.

The blob was clearly visible now, hanging down by its suckers from the keel.

"I think it's facing back towards the stern of the ship," Nita said immediately, squinting within her small inset."I don't see the echolocation transducer, which these things seem to see by. That may mean we can walk right up to it and grab it."

"It has to hear as well," Mister Sharples pointed out. "It may hear the drones approaching. Their vacuum grips make an audible sound as they attach and release."

"We need at least three drones to make a swift capture," Deera said.

Each drone had been furnished with a large sack made of carbon fiber, with a simple drawstring at the top. The idea had been to grab the blob, put it in the sack, close it, then bring it aboard for study. It was simple and basic, and about all they could come up with on the spur of the moment. Vespris was not equipped for the capture of live sea life, and so carried none of the more specialized live capture gear that ships of the Department of Marine Biology might carry.

"One to do the grabbing, one to break the suckers loose from the hull, and one to hold the bag," Mister Sharples added, smiling. "Your basic, good old fashioned kidnapping, just like in the danger dramas."

Jem laughed along with the others. Despite the seriousness of what they were doing, everyone seemed positive about the outcome.

Deera leaned slightly towards the display. "Drones four, three, and five, proceed with the capture. The rest of you provide support if and when needed."

"Acknowledged. Proceeding with capture."

In the display, the feeds from those three drones suddenly accelerated towards the blob. The move was startlingly fast, especially for an action proceeding underwater. A pair of grippers appeared in the view for drone four, and reached for the blob.

A red indicator lit in the display, and at the same time a strange waveform appeared next to the indicator.

"The blob is broadcasting!" Mister Sharples said quickly, leaning forward. "An intense, modulated squirt of sound at one-hundred-twenty kilohertz."

"The transducer is facing the stern!" Nita called. "Several of the drones should head that way to see if something else is there."

"Follow those instructions, eight and two," Deera said immediately.

Those two drones immediately headed along the hull towards the rear of the vessel.

In the view from drone four, its grippers had seized the blob. That creature immediately changed shape, elongating into almost a cylinder, and there was a blast of water from beneath it as if it was trying to jet away from the hull. Grippers from drone three reached into the view and also seized the struggling creature, and then drone five was there, pulling the sack up over it. The moves were deft and rapid, and in a moment the blob had been secured inside the bag.

Deera blew out her breath, as if she had been holding it. "Drones three, four, and five, bring in your capture immediately. The rest of you proceed back along the hull and look for --"

"Motion detected," drones eight and two said at once.

Jem blinked as something large raced out of the murkiness behind the ship and passed beneath them. It was easily fifteen meters across, dark and sinister, and like nothing he had ever seen before. He had the momentary impression of something round and flattened, like a disc, as it raced past in the drone's views. The drones had apparently immediately secured themselves to the hull, and while a blast of turbid sea coursed around them in the object's passing, none were broken loose.

"That was deliberate!" Deera grated, pounding her fist into the other hand. "They were trying to dislodge the drones!"

Everyone knew who they were. The aliens, or whoever their new opponents might be. The enemy, Jem was shocked to suddenly consider.

"All drones, back aboard ship, immediately!" Deera ordered. "Try not to lose your captive if possible, but I want all of you back."

"Motion detected," several of the drones said again.

And there was the disc again, racing by underneath Vespris at incredible speed, leaving roiling sea in its wake. The entire ship rocked faintly this time, and Jem gasped as what had been a purely remote event until now came home.

"This object does not appear on active sonar," Master Terpin said then. "But I can hear it now on the passive array. It's coming back around!"

The drones, which had resumed their upwards movement, all froze once again. The dark shape of the disc materialized out of the sea in several of the drone's views, and then again the craft shot by beneath the hull. This time, Vespris actually rocked from side-to-side in the wake.

"That was too close," Master Terpin said calmly. Jem looked at the man's stone-like face in the display, and it looked as set and unmovable as always. But the crinkles about his eyes had gathered into a new direction, that spelled out the man's anger.

A new face suddenly appeared in the display - Til Majors, in his bunk in the dispensary. "Master Terpin! I have a suggestion."

"Go."

"Time the passes. When you have a feel for the duration between appearances, launch a couple of hundred prods into that thing's path."

"Not while my drones are in the water!" Deera yelled, looking genuinely alarmed for the first time.

"After the drones are above the waterline," Til amended. "Master Terpin, the explosive charges, detonated en masse, will act to produce a sizable pressure wave. If this thing doesn't run from that, it won't run from anything!"

Master Terpin nodded. "Our guest is coming around again. The ship's AI is on the mark."

The drones all ceased moving, and held on as the disc roared past beneath the hull. This time it was so close that the drones all swayed back and forth in the water; yet none of them broke loose from the hull. They resumed moving again as the waters calmed around them, and several emerged into the daylight and proceeded up the hull.

The disc blasted past them again, this time just below the surface on the port side - the side where the drones were bringing up the capture bag. It appeared briefly as a huge orange blob in the passive sonar display, and then the signal broke up. Vespris rocked again, and when Jem leaned out from behind the display to look beyond the rail, he could just make out a massive shape beneath the waves as it rocketed away from them, looking like some insanely fast orx on the move. It was both amazing and frightening to see, and Jem felt an unusual, intense, tingling sensation crawl down his spine.

"I don't want this object to clip the hull," Master Terpin said then. "Ironwood is virtually indestructible, but I don't care to put it to the test against some alien hardware. Once they see they cannot blow the drones loose by turbulence, they may try other means to free their beastie."

"Everyone's out of the water," Deera said then. "Go ahead with your plans." She left then, to go and meet her drones.

Til nodded in the display. "With your permission, Master Terpin. Mya...Jem, each of you, let go with two hundred prods on the next pass."

"Do it," the master agreed.

Jem nodded, and began passing his fingers through the proper icons in the display. To one side of them, four of the eight capture mounts rolled their cylinders to deploy prods, and began tracking. A green indicator lit, and Jem nodded. "We're on AI control."

"Here, too," Mya said.

The sounds the disc made as it moved through the water were meaningless to Jem, but the ship's AI used powerful software and three widely-separated pick ups on the long hull to determine direction, speed, and distance. After the fifth pass, the AI running the show had the timing of each sweep, and so was ready for the next one. The four mounts on Mya's side hissed, and each prod clip discharged half their magazines into the sea. The prods raced beneath Vespris and emerged on Jem's side of the ship, and as they did his own four mounts hissed, and added two hundred more prods to the swarm. The entire grouping raced away into the sea and met with the orange blob of the disc in the passive display just as it came back within range.

There was a roar off the port railing, and a fountain of water erupted into the air a mere ninety meters from the ship's side. Jem ducked along with the others, just reacting to the great, booming sound, and the amazing column of water that shot skyward out of the roiling circle of sea there. Nico crowded closer, and bumped against Jem, and the two of them peered around the end of the display at the sea beyond.

The water was still rolling and bubbling as a large black disc shot straight upwards into the air above. It spun and lurched about the sky, turning this way and that, and then swooped down and hit the water violently and skipped across the surface like a tossed stone on a quiet pond, throwing up enormous fountains of water with each impact. It bounded upward again, turned, and Jem and the others shrank down again as the disc passed over the bow of Vespris. It hit the sea again on the other side, plowing up a great furrow of water, skipped across the surface some more, and then lurched into the air again.

There was a grunt and a whistle from the thing, and then a fierce light from the edge facing them; and then the disc was hurtling away from them across the sky to the accompaniment of a deep, throbbing bellow. It dwindled quickly to a dot, and soon vanished into the lower dots of high ice along the horizon. The sudden quiet was startling, and Jem just stood and stared into the distance along with all the others.

"Did you see that?" Nico finally whispered. And then he laughed. "Well, I know we all saw it. But...do you believe that?"

"A machine," Mister Sharples stated flatly. "Not an organic creation there. That was something I can understand." He grunted. "These people may build things out of living ooze, but they also build real machines that fly, and swim in the sea."

Nita gave a short laugh. "That may explain our communications problem. If these aliens are roving the sea underwater, undetected, they can be very close to us and we won't even know it. Close enough for the sound emitters on their riders and other creatures to communicate with them. No wonder I couldn't figure it out before this."

"If they were that close, why didn't we hear them on the passive array?" Mister Sharples asked. But then he frowned, and answered his own question. "That craft must be very quiet when it is just moving along at our own speed. Evidently quiet enough not to stand out from the background noise." He smiled then. "Took a scare to get them going, and at speed that thing is definitely not quiet."

"Why does my active sonar not show them?" Master Terpin asked. "And for that matter, when they took to the air, they didn't show on radar, either."

The engineer shrugged. "Stealth coating of some kind, maybe. Could even be a natural property of whatever that hull was made of. Doesn't take that much tech to absorb sensor emissions from the types of old-fashioned gear we use. That sort of stuff was highly-refined back on earth even a millennium ago." Mister Sharples turned to gaze at the master's image. "Let's face it: we're out of our league here in dealing with technology at this level. If we still had our own ships from Earth coming, and had maintained that level of technology locally, I'd feel confident we could deal with these invaders. I suggest you report everything that happened back to the port authority at Nocksic Bay, and get them scrambling to look over the Earth tech we still have in storage to see what we might be able to use. If we could produce one modern, working sensor array, we could probably pinpoint our visitor's location anywhere on the planet."

"I'll do that, Frin. Thank you for your input."

Mister Sharples turned then and smiled at Jem and Nico. "Well done, lads. It's good to know we can count on you in a crunch."

Nico shrugged. "I didn't do a thing." But then he grinned at Jem. "Jem did it all."

Jem was astonished. "I didn't do anything but swipe a couple of icons. The AI did the hard part."

The engineer laughed. "You both stood your ground and acted when needed. That's the mark of dependability." He nodded, and turned to watch Deera as she looked over her drones. The dark shape of the capture bag holding the blob writhed upon the deck between them. The engineer grunted, and started over. "Let me go and see what we have here."

Nita appeared then from the other station, and joined the engineer as he arrived next to Deera. The three of them stood gazing at the moving bag, talking.

"I'd advise getting that thing out of the bag immediately and into a holding tank filled with native seawater," the biologist said. "There can't be much water in the bag, and we don't know how critical it is that this thing be allowed to move about in order to oxygenate."

"It didn't move on the hull of the ship," Deera pointed out. Nonetheless, she pointed at the two drones now shepherding the bag, and waved at the elevator. "Take that thing below. Fill the number three inspection tank from the sea, and put our guest inside. I'll be down shortly."

The two drones hefted the bag, and moved off.

Nita nodded. "The riders have a very efficient facultative breathing system that allows them to stay underwater, and never rise to the surface to take air. I will assume at this point that this blob is the same. But that sort of oxygenation system requires that water be in motion through the filaments at all times for the exchange process to be effective. Riders move with the orx, and so that motion is maintained. The blob --" she laughed "-- we'll have to think of a better name for this creature - could be stationary on the hull and still breathe, because Vespris was always moving. But there in the bag, it will have difficulty maintaining any kind of flow."

Deera nodded then, and turned to go. "I'd better rig an oxygenation system for that tank then. You want to come with me?"

Nita laughed, and patted the older woman's forearm. "Try to stop me."

"I'm coming along, too," Mister Sharples said, joining them.

Deera paused long enough to thank the drones and ask them to return below. Then the entire group moved to the elevator and rode it down. The covering doors drew closed, and sealed tightly with an audible gulp.

Nico let out his breath then, and rolled his eyes. "That was amazing." He gazed off across the sea, in the direction the strange disc had gone. "I wonder if the aliens were actually inside that craft?"

Jem shook his head. "We'll probably never know."

Kel MacAfee called to them from the display. The master had disappeared from his small inset, but Mya and Til Majors still occupied theirs.

Jem nodded at Kel. "Did you want me?"

"Yes. I'll be bringing up new heads to replace the four you discharged. Mya, you, too. Just give me a moment to go and change my pants."

Jem and Nico both laughed. "Was it that exciting for you?"

Kel blinked, and then grinned. "Funny. No, when that thing exploded from the water, I dumped the rest of my coffee in my lap." He shook his head. "What an amazing event this is. This is going to be the first recorded meeting with an alien species capable of interstellar travel. It will go down in the permanent history, believe me." He laughed. "I'm even more interested in writing an account of this voyage now than I was before."

"Just spell my name right," Nico said, winking at Jem. "C-Y-R-U-S."

Kel grinned. "I will. The heck with fiction. This is history, so should be an accurate accounting. I may want to interview you guys on your impressions of the event, okay?"

"Fine by me," Jem said. "I was down on the deck most of the time, but I did manage to see a few things."

Kel rolled his eyes, but his good humor was not reduced even slightly. "See you soon." And then his inset winked out.

"You guys performed well," Mya said then. "Don't you think so, Til?"

"Absolutely. I saw everything." He sighed. "More or less. But for the next meeting with these strangers, I want to be out on deck. Jem?"

"Yes?"

"After you're off duty, could you come by and see me? I'd like a first-hand account of everything, if you wouldn't mind." He sighed. "And just...just someone to talk to a little."

Jem felt an immediate rush of sympathy for the man. He looked at Nico, who smiled and nodded.

"How would two first-hand accounts be? Mind if Nico comes with me?"

In the display, the shotsman smiled. "Not at all. I could use the company. Maybe after the evening meal?"

"We'll be there."

"Great. See you then." Til nodded, and his inset vanished.

There was a faint rumble beneath them, and Vespris started forward. The vessel went into a turn to port, and then headed due west. The speed came up, and soon they were making good time across the still calm sea.

"The master is not wasting any time putting some distance between us and this spot," Mya said. "Can't say I blame him."

Jem considered that, and an alarming possibility presented itself. "You think the disc will come back?"

"Anything could conceivably happen, Jem. I have to figure that these outsiders were tracking us the way they were because they felt their presence here was not known, and they wanted to keep it that way. But now they will be sure we know about them. It wouldn't be that hard to find us with just radar, and I'd be willing to wager these folk have still better sensors. And we no longer have the equipment to detect their use. So, for now...the more distance we put between our last known location and any possible pursuit, the better."

Jem looked at Nico, who gave out a little sigh. "Not much else we can do, but move on."

"Yes." Jem nodded. "I'll bet the next crew discussion will be an interesting one. I know the master will have informed Nocksic Bay about what just happened. I'll be interested to know what they want to do about all this."

"And the other towns," Mya added. "Everyone will have to know, if they haven't already been told. This is something every human on Benteen will need to be a part of, before it's all over."

Jem felt a small shudder pass through his body. Could this really be a war coming?

"It's a little scary, isn't it?" It was out before he could stop it.

But Mya simply nodded. "Scares me. The towns will need to convene the alliance government for this, I'm sure. This is something that will probably need a combination of all of our resources."

"Can we fight?" Nico asked then. "Humans haven't had to fight for a long time. At least, not against other people."

The woman nodded. "If it's a matter of survival, we'll approach it like we always have. We'll work together, to ensure that our lives here go on."

Jem nodded, too, feeling resolute about what must be done. "We have to survive."

"Oh, here comes Kel," Mya said then. "Talk to you guys later." She smiled. "Don't worry. This will be handled." And then her inset also winked out.

Jem moved closer to Nico, and took the boy's hand in his. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

Nico moved closer, giving Jem's hand a squeeze. "Whatever happens, it will happen to us together."

Jem let his eyes rove the sky, and then the far northern horizon. The tall ice was there, moving slowly southward as winter set in. It wouldn't be that much longer before they would be forced to head for home. The orx had been conspicuous by their absence for some time now. Did that mean that there were no more of the creatures able to act on their own?

The world had always seemed filled with wonder to Jem. A place of endless mysteries. But now, he could also see that there were things of a darker nature there, that needed to be walked about carefully. That needed to be dealt with, in order to survive.

Where did these aliens come from? How long had they been here? What did they want?

And, now that they had been discovered, what would they do next?

* * * * * * *

"I saw what happened, but viewing it in the display is not like being there," Til said, watching Jem and Nico in their seats next to his bunk in the dispensary. The shotsman's face looked very relaxed now. The medical display behind the bunk showed his status and medications, and it was apparent with just a glance that the man had very recently been administered a new round of neural suppressors for pain. Mya had asked the boys at dinner to try to avoid getting Til excited, as the pain meds seemed to be making him uncharacteristically antsy. But he seemed calm, and alert enough, and Jem had decided to take him at face value for the time being.

"Thanks for letting me know what you saw," Til continued. "I can't see as much as I'd like to on that display. I'm only sorry I couldn't be there."

"It was pretty strange," Jem admitted. "I don't think any of us were expecting what happened to happen."

Nico nodded in agreement, his eyes wide, and Til smiled. "I'll second that. I nearly fell out of the bed the first time that disc shot by beneath the hull."

"I was so stunned that I didn't pay attention to the information in the display," Jem admitted. "Some shotsman, huh? It's speed as it passed was probably indicated, but I wasn't looking. Sorry."

"I saw it," Til told them. "It was traveling at over ninety knots when it went by under the ship. That's not terribly fast, but it's a fair clip underwater. And an insane speed to pass by a stationary vessel at a distance of only meters."

"They were trying to blow the drones off the hull," Nico supplied. "At least, that's what everyone thought at the time."

"I agree with that assessment. I'm just wondering...why that? I mean, if they wanted their blob back, couldn't they have just come to the surface, pointed a big blaster at us, and demanded it back?"

Jem smiled at the danger drama term for an energy weapon. "Maybe they don't have blasters."

One of Til's eyebrows raised, and he nodded. "Exactly." He shook his head. "I have a lot of time on my hands just now, guys. So I have been considering everything that's been going on, and I've come up with a few ideas. In keeping with the idea that these aliens might be explorers, or even colonists, like us, I've been trying to imagine what they might be equipped with in the way of technology to those ends. It's been an interesting thought exercise."

Jem and Nico looked at each other, and then both boys leaned closer. "You think they could just be explorers, instead of here to start a colony?"

"Yes. Benteen was initially discovered by scouts. Small expeditions of one or two vessels, that go off down known Righoff lines, looking for new branches that may lead to new star systems. We do it that way, so why not others? The scouts find the new system, and look for worlds in the habitable zone, and if an Earthlike one is discovered, they mark the route and send it back along their path in a drone. The information arrives back at Old Earth, and the Colonial Authority sends a science vessel to do a complete survey of the planet. If it is deemed habitable by humans, the next step is that a colonizer vessel is dispatched with twenty or thirty thousand colonists, and all the equipment needed to begin new settlements."

"I know it takes a few years, from scout to colony," Nico said. "I read somewhere that it was nearly ten years between the time that Benteen was discovered, and the first colonists arrived."

"It's a pretty massive undertaking," Til acknowledged. "Colonizers are the largest moving structures humans have ever conceived. The class in service at the time we lost contact with Earth were over three kilometers in diameter."

Jem narrowed his eyes. "We couldn't miss something like that if it took up an orbit around Benteen."

Til nodded. "It would depend on the orbit, but I tend to agree. Our new friends seem interested in the northern hemisphere, so it stands to reason that a colonizer would take up an orbit in some way detectable to us here."

"So maybe not colonists," Nico decided.

Til cleared his throat. "Suppose...just for the moment...that a scout vessel of another race arrived here, in the past. They discover Benteen, and look the place over. For the sake of argument, we'll say this happened shortly before the Righoff lines shifted, which is how they came to be stranded here."

"How do we know they're stranded here?" Nico asked. "Maybe they just got here."

"And maybe not. When it was first suspected that the Righoff lines between Benteen and Earth had shifted, the colonial administration of that era sent a drone back along the path to Earth to check it. Every colony was equipped with a few of these drones, just for that reason. The drone reported back that it was unable to get to Earth. The rest of the colony's drones were sent out to look for alternative routes, or for routes to other colonial worlds, and again, nothing was found. The critical leg of the Righoff web that joined Benteen with human space was the part that had shifted."

"How does that mean these aliens didn't just get here now?" Nico asked.

Til nodded. "The drones reported at that time that they had explored the accessible web and found no links to habitable worlds. That happens sometimes, where a segment of the Righoff web becomes temporarily isolated from the rest, like a pocket, away from the overall web. That's what apparently happened here."

Jem frowned at that. "Why hasn't anyone said this before now?"

Til smiled. "It's history, Jem. Most people today just remember that the Righoff lines shifted 300 years ago. They don't recall the details. It may just be that no one else on Vespris knows or has remembered this particular part of it."

Nico pointed at the older man. "Maybe the lines have shifted again since that time, and others can get here now, even if not people from Earth."

Til frowned at the idea. "I won't say that's impossible. But...if we arrived at a new world and already found it colonized, we'd simply move on. There are far too many worlds out there waiting to be found for us to contest one with another species. I would hope these others would feel the same way." He smiled. "But humor me for now, and let's suppose these others were stranded here when the Righoff lines shifted."

Nico nodded. "Okay. But aliens might see things differently than we do."

"I know. But the fact that they seem to want to stay hidden suggests to me some fear of us, perhaps just at our numbers." Til shrugged. "If they just got here, and were adamant about having the place, why not just go home and then return in force? Playing around with a bunch of orx is hardly the way to conquer an entire planet."

Jem nodded. "Sounds reasonable."

"Okay, so they're stranded here," Til went on. "They would know we were here fairly quickly, even before actually landing. We have an amazing amount of communications equipment broadcasting at any given time, some respectable amounts of power being generated, and there were literally hundreds of grav flyers then moving between the towns, rather than the two dozen we have left now. Modern sensors would detect their movements very quickly." He waved a hand. "By the way, I also read the Harbormaster's feed from Nocksic Bay, and I can see everything not marked 'For vessel master's eyes only'. Two of the cargo flyers have been detached from that important duty to search for Chregar."

Jem gasped. The colony relied upon the flyers to maintain the needed flow of supplies back and forth between the ten human towns along the coastline of New Australia. The numbers of those flyers had decreased over the years, as the Old Earth gravitational manipulation technology slowly failed after hundreds of years of constant use. Parts from some craft had been used to keep others going, but the current twenty-four were all needed to keep the towns fed and supplied. Each town contributed something to the welfare of the group, and only by that group effort had all the towns prospered. To detach two of the flyers from their normal duties was serious business.

Til nodded. "I suspect that search will be called off - at least the air part of it - once the master has delivered his full report of the recent incident. The alliance cannot afford to lose those machines."

"What about the new ones?" Jem asked. "What are they called...helicopters?"

Til nodded. "Maybe. Another resurrected technology from the past. But the synthetic fuel for them is limited so far, and these craft have very limited range, and nothing near the same lifting capacity as the grav flyers. It has already been established that Chregar is not anywhere close to New Australia. Those helicopters do not have the range to search farther."

"So, anyway, we were talking about the aliens," Nico reminded, obviously wanting to hear more of Til's thoughts on the matter.

"Right. We were supposing that a scout from an alien civilization had arrived. They find us here, but confined solely to the small northern continent. They would know very quickly that we are not a native species, and realize the import of what they had discovered. Aliens, from somewhere else."

"So they were curious?" Nico continued.

Til smiled "Wouldn't you be, if the positions were reversed?"

"Yes." Nico nodded. "I'd be very interested."

"And they probably were, too. So, they hung around, watching us, and so were caught here when the Righoff lines shifted."

"But wouldn't human scouts have said hello in a similar situation?" Jem asked. "I thought Mister Sharples said they would, even if they moved on."

Til laughed. "I actually don't know if that is true or not. I suspect they would send a drone back to Earth with information on their discovery, and then lay low while awaiting orders."

"Could aliens have hidden from us, back then?" Jem asked. "We still had good sensors, three hundred years ago."

"Yes, but they did not routinely survey the entire solar system, just the direction our own deep space vessels would arrive from. Sensors to monitor interplanetary traffic are a different breed than ground based systems. The aliens could have arrived from another direction. A vessel arriving with the bulk of the planet between them and us could easily escape notice by our sensors. Our people at that time simply had no reason to be looking elsewhere. We thought we were alone out here, remember?"

Jem grinned. "You have been doing some thinking here."

Til smiled. "Not a lot else to do except watch the display or read. I'm usually at my station all day, and save those activities for my evenings. If you have to do them all day long, they get old rather quickly."

Nico shook his head. "That's amazing. So this scout comes here, and before it can leave, the Righoff lines shift, and there's no way home."

"Right. For all I can imagine, the scout did leave after the shift, and went looking for another way home. Righoff lines are some odd critters. When they shift, others can take their place. These aliens may have gone looking for a way home, didn't find one, and only recently returned. Or, they could have been here all along, and now they're running out of time, and have to act. We just don't know." Til sighed. "It was unfortunate that one of our own supply ships from Earth was not in orbit when the lines shifted. While I wouldn't want to wish being stuck here on any vessel's crew, having a ship here would have greatly eased our technological needs in being isolated from Earth."

Jem sighed. "There were suggestions made after Brinker Two-Four was isolated by a Righoff shift that more supplies of technology be left on each new colonial world, just in case of that very thing happening again. But a Righoff shift didn't happen again until us, and in those hundreds of years, I guess the Colonial Authority people decided it didn't need to be continued."

Til smiled. "Humans have been fighting governmental inertia for an eternity, Jem. Even good governments like Earth's get distracted from what's needed."

"The aliens," Nico reminded patiently, grinning.

"Well, they're here now, and that's all that matters," Til resumed. "If this is a scout ship, it would have some sort of armament aboard. Traveling the stars is not for the meek. But...we also don't know the mentality of these others. The way they came at us, using orx as weapons, suggests a desire to be surreptitious, and remain concealed. Maybe they thought that if we decided that the seas were dangerous, we'd stop ranging so far from home. In any event, they avoided a direct confrontation with us, and now I'm wondering why."

"If it's just a scout, they'd have a lot less in the way of resources than we do," Jem pointed out. "They'd be vastly outnumbered."

"Yeah," Nico agreed. "Maybe the way they're doing this comes from just not having any other way to do it."

Til shook his head. "They could have contacted us. If they have been observing us for a long time, they know we are not aggressive towards each other."

Jem considered that. "Maybe it's a matter of perspective, Til. I mean, the way these aliens seem to be with creating life, could it be possible they don't do things like hunt to eat? Maybe they grow all their own food. Maybe they find killing things frightening or repulsive." He shrugged. "Or uncivilized."

Nico gaped at Jem. "Ooh. You mean that they see us hunt orx and other sea life, and maybe know we hunt on land, too, and so they think we're dangerous to them?"

Til frowned. "There's a thought. If these people came up in some other kind of ecosystem where hunting was not the way food was gathered, they could find the way we do it rather frightening." He grunted. "We just don't know. But you've given me even more to consider. We can't judge these others by our own standards at all. If that disc had been armed with something really threatening, why didn't they use it?"

"What about Chregar?" Nico asked. "They certainly killed them off without any trouble."

"We don't know that for sure," Til reminded. "The ship is missing, but that does not mean it's destroyed."

"What about the blood in the lifeboats they found?" Jem asked. "That certainly looks like someone was killed."

Til nodded. "Point. I guess we just don't know enough right now to draw any serious conclusions." He smiled. "But we sure imagined some interesting scenarios."

Nico laughed. "I've sure heard enough to make me have trouble getting to sleep tonight!"

The shotsman laughed, and pushed his head back into his pillow. "Speaking of that, I feel my own eyes getting suddenly heavy, guys. I really enjoyed seeing you. Can you come back now and then? The others drop in from time to time, too, but that still leaves whole stretches of the day and evening without company."

Jem stood, and patted the bed covers. "Sure, we'll come back. Won't we, Nico?"

"Absolutely." He also bent and patted the bed. "Have a good sleep, okay?"

Til definitely looked sleepy now. He nodded, and then closed his eyes. "Goodnight."

Jem motioned to Nico, and the boys left the dispensary and closed the door.

"That happened kind of fast, didn't it?" Nico whispered.

Jem sighed. "He's pretty beat up. I'm sure that's wearing. Let's head back to the cabin."

They had just entered the corridor to the living quarters when Nita's door opened, and she came out. "Oh...hi, guys. What's going on?"

"We were just up to see Til," Nico offered. "He finally fell asleep on us."

The girl smiled sympathetically. "He's lucky he wasn't killed. The body knows when it needs rest to knit itself, and I'll bet he sleeps a lot right now.. I'm just happy that he'll recover fully."

"Were you off somewhere?" Jem asked.

The girl nodded. "I was down in the catch room examining our new friend all afternoon, and just came back a short time ago. All that time I was there, our critter remained quietly in its tank, and didn't make a sound. But Deera just called me and said it's singing." At the boy's sudden looks of astonishment, she laughed. "You know, making sounds with its transducer? I was just going back to listen."

Her eyes suddenly brightened. "Say...you guys want to come with me? See our new friend?"

Jem felt a thrill of excitement course through him. He and Nico looked at each other, and Jem could see the excitement in his friend's eyes. He felt the same way!

"Uh, yeah. We'd love to." Jem tried to sound nonchalant, but even he could hear the slightly breathless quality in his voice.

Nita smiled knowingly. "Come on, then."

They headed to the stairs to the main deck, but turned right there, went around a corner, and down the flight of steps that presented itself. This let them into a cross corridor with several doors in the far wall, and Nita led them to one and pushed it open.

"I've been calling this creature the 'sentinel' in my reports, but it will always be 'the blob' to me. It's shape seems subject to change. The tank it's currently residing in is a large one, designed to hold the biggest of orx. They use these tanks to inspect the carcasses before butchering, and then to remove the head and tail, which are too bulky for the drones to remove at sea. The buoyancy of the water makes it easier to manipulate the carcass."

Jem winced, preferring not to think about it. Even though he understood fully the nature of what they did, he had no real desire to see what happened to the orx after they captured them. It was food, it was necessary, and that was enough.

They pushed through another doorway, and came onto a landing. They heard an odd sound then, almost like the cry of a baby, except higher in pitch, and much more complex. It tooted and gulped and tweeted like any number of animals Jem had heard in the back country, yet all at the same time, almost like a song. It was almost frighteningly harsh at one moment, and then beautifully, almost hauntingly sweet the next.

"Is that...?" Nico began, in a hushed voice.

Nita seemed equally mesmerized by the truly alien sounds. "Let's go and see."

They descended another flight of steps, and were deposited in a cavernous room. It was brightly-lit, amazingly clean, and gleamed with stainless steel and ironwood fittings. Above them, Jem could see the big rollback doors that opened to the main deck. In the center of the room was the huge, multi-jointed crane with its clawed fingers at the end, now fully retracted, and to the left of them the wide elevator that could handle all of the drones, as well as a number of personnel.

There were wide, gleaming tables with pillar-like supports beneath them along one wall, more than large enough to hold a fully grown orx each, and four huge tanks set against the opposite wall, of an equally herculean size. Only one seemed to be filled with water and illuminated from above. Inside, standing upright in the center of the tank, was the green blob.

Several drones moved about, obviously doing things, but what, Jem had no idea. Deera Stanper sat in a chair before a desk to the right side of the room, but the chair was pulled back and turned towards the tank. The woman sat motionless, apparently listening. The amazing sounds came from several speakers above the tank in question, and echoed eerily about the huge room.

The woman sensed them coming, and looked back. She reached over to the desk then, touched something, and the volume of the song was suddenly reduced. Deera stood and smiled at them, and waved a hand at the tank. "Come for the concert, have you?"

"I hope you've been recording these sounds," Nita said, by way of a greeting.

The catch supervisor seemed not in the least offended by the blunt hello. "Of course."

"How long now?" Nita asked, moving to face the tank.

"Going on ten minutes. It just started very suddenly, with no preamble whatsoever."

Nita nodded. "Has the creature moved?"

"Not a centimeter."

The song suddenly rose in pitch, causing Jem to shiver. "It sounds so...sad," he said immediately, without thinking.

"I doubt it's a genuine indicator of feeling," Nita replied, not taking her eyes off the tank. "What you are hearing is a virtual translation, stepped down from frequencies we cannot hear, to ones that we can." But she nodded. "I know what you mean, though."

Nita moved slowly towards the tank. Jem looked at Nico, who seemed frozen in place, his eyes glued to the tank and its occupant. Jem took a breath, and then took his friend gently by the arm, and pulled him into motion. They followed Nita as she went right up to the transparent face of the tank and stopped. Jem and Nico stopped beside her, and the three of them stood together, staring at the creature within.

The blob was about half Jem's height, and currently as round as a ball, save for the base of it, which formed a short, graceful pedestal that terminated in an array of bulbs that had suckers beneath them. The color of the creature was green, almost like some of the growths that dotted the sea beds in the shallows near the beaches Jem had visited. There were faint, nearly invisible black bands that circled the bulbous body, set at equal measures apart from tip to toe. The center of the hemisphere facing them held a round disc, equal to the spread of a hand in diameter, also black in color, and which had an eerie, almost hazy quality to it. Jem supposed it was because it was vibrating at an amazing rate, to produce the frequencies which had been translated into the sounds they were hearing now.

Jem licked his lips, feeling something significant about the moment, but unable to place it into words that meant anything. He knew that he was witness to something history-making, something that would affect his entire future, but as yet he had no feeling for how or why. The creature before them was like nothing they had ever encountered, like nothing any human had ever encountered. A completely artificial life form, made by an alien hand for a purpose that as yet none of them really understood.

Jem raised a hand automatically, and laid it upon the transparent face of the tank, almost as if he somehow expected to feel the vibrations created by the creature within.

As quickly as his fingertips touched the transparency, the strange and alien sounds stopped.

Jem heard everyone gasp in surprise, and withdrew his hand as if it had been burned.

"Is that from what I did?" Jem gasped out, stepping back.

But even as he spoke, the strange sounds suddenly resumed.

Nita turned to stare at him, and then reached out and laid her palm against the face of the tank. The strange alien song continued, unbroken. Nita frowned, stepped back again, and turned to Nico. "Put your hand against the tank."

Nico gulped, but nodded, and leaned forward and placed his spread fingers against the transparency. There was no change in the alien song.

"Deera, would you come over here?" Nita beckoned with one hand, and the catch supervisor pushed herself up from her chair and joined them. She immediately leaned forward and laid a hand on the face of the tank, and again, there was no change.

"Okay, step back." Nita looked at Jem again. "Put your hand back, please."

Jem stared at her, for the first time seeing only a scientist, and the cool, appraising mind that lurked within the appealing face. "Please, Jem," she said, softly.

Jem nodded, and reached forward again, and laid his palm against the transparent face.

The song chopped off as if a switch had been flipped. Nita stared at him, even as Jem stared at his own hand in disbelief.

"Well, well, well," the biologist said, watching him with interest. "Something new has been added."