LITMIR.BIZ

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but it was tucked away against a wall, and just held drinks, a stack of flexiplas plates, and some trays of food. I’d been a nardle to panic. The Colonel wouldn’t be holding fancy dinner parties when Alien Contact programme was active.

      There might only be three other officers in the room, but Fian and I were in very select company. One Colonel and two Commanders. Colonel Riak Torrek looked extremely tired, and was wearing a rather crumpled standard uniform. As commanding officer, he could wear whatever he liked of course.

      The two Commanders were in dress uniform. One of them was the woman from the briefing, Commander Nia Stone. The other was a dark man with an angular, thoughtful face.

      Fian and I saluted, Colonel Torrek pointed at a couple of empty chairs, and we sat down.

      ‘Jarra Tell Morrath and Fian Eklund, I think you know my deputy, Nia Stone, already. This is her husband, Mason Leveque, our Threat team leader.’

      We exchanged nods to acknowledge the introductions.

      Colonel Torrek looked at me with amusement. ‘Jarra Tell Morrath causes as much chaos as her grandmother. Since your suggestion at the briefing, we’ve created an Ark team, and we have any number of people working on preparations to portal the civilian population into Ark if the situation worsens. You’ll notice I haven’t had time to shower or change.’

      ‘Sorry, sir.’

      ‘Don’t be. I was having nightmares because we couldn’t portal the Handicapped off world. In the event of hostilities, they wouldn’t just be vulnerable to alien attack, but there could be casualties from our own weapons’ fire. Ark has its own self-contained atmosphere and a shield of solid rock. If you have any more bright ideas, I want to hear them.’

      He paused. ‘What’s your situation analysis, Jarra?’

      I was grazzed by the question, and needed a moment to organize my thoughts. ‘In theory, Earth is the best defended of all our planets, because it has five solar power arrays instead of the usual one. If the sphere’s hostile and came here deliberately, it must have defences that can stand up to planetary power beams.’

      He nodded.

      ‘It may not be hostile though,’ I continued. ‘The sphere could be a random exploration probe. Perhaps it isn’t trying to communicate because the aliens don’t expect there to be other intelligent life in the universe.’

      Colonel Torrek leaned forward in his chair. ‘No one has suggested that before. Is it credible? Surely if they’re exploring space they’d realize there’s at least a possibility of meeting another civilization.’

      I shook my head. ‘Not necessarily. During most of pre-history, humanity believed it was totally alone in the universe. Once we had drop portals, we discovered hundreds of thousands of worlds with varying forms of life, only a small percentage of which were suitable for human colonization. Our mathematicians decided centuries ago that intelligent aliens had to exist, and we’ve already discovered two planets with neo-intelligent life forms.’

      I shrugged. ‘We’re naturally prepared to meet intelligent aliens, but aliens will have a different historical perspective. They could have developed technology far in advance of ours, without stumbling across the key to basic portal travel, let alone drop portals. If they’ve been limited to conventional space travel, they may have very little information on other worlds.’

      ‘We’re naturally considering the possibility they don’t have interstellar portals,’ said Colonel Torrek, ‘but to actually believe they’re the only intelligent life in the universe …’

      He glanced across at Mason Leveque, who nodded and spoke in a deep, relaxed voice. ‘Minimal effect on our current numbers, sir, but still worth incorporating into the probability analysis. At any moment, we may have new information that radically changes the weighting factors of the zonal nets.’

      I didn’t understand a word of that. There was a moment of silence, so I risked speaking again.

      ‘Since you’re recruiting a History team, sir, it’s obvious you’ve already thought of another possibility. Aliens could have visited here before, at a time when humanity only lived on Earth, and they’ve simply come back to the same place to see how we’re progressing.’

      The Colonel smiled. ‘You’re absolutely right, Jarra.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ said Fian, hesitantly. ‘You say you’re considering the possibility the aliens don’t have interstellar portal travel?’

      Colonel Torrek turned to him. ‘Yes, we don’t know if the sphere portalled into Sol system or travelled here conventionally. Monitoring team are watching for the energy bursts of drop portals now, but we don’t know what we missed earlier.’

      ‘But …’ Fian shook his head. ‘Physical laws limit the size of portals. We’ve only managed to create them 4 metres in diameter so far, and 4.4 metres is possible, but the sphere is 4.71 metres. That’s over the maximum limit. The sphere definitely didn’t portal here. That must mean the aliens didn’t have drop portal technology when it was launched, or they’d have made their sphere a bit smaller and used a drop portal to send it at least part of the way here.’

      Mason Leveque raised an eyebrow. ‘Captain Eklund, are you by any chance related to the Jorgen Eklund who wrote “Physical Constraints on Portal Development”?’

      ‘He was my great-grandfather,’ said Fian, looking surprisingly defensive about the admission.

      ‘Interesting,’ said Leveque. ‘Our Physics team seems to have rejected his work in favour of the more recent Devon theory which would allow portals to reach in excess of 16 metres. Possibly they’re swayed by the fact Gaius Devon is on the Physics team and has a forceful personality.’

      Fian shrugged. ‘Gaius Adem Devon the third … Well, if you think it’s good science to introduce a constant from nowhere just to make your equations add up … My uncle says it shouldn’t be called the Gaius constant, but the garbage constant.’

      Since I’d always struggled with science at school and given up studying it as soon as possible, I didn’t know about any of this, but I was naturally on Fian’s side against the unknown Devon.

      ‘I must admit to being intrigued, Captain Eklund,’ said Leveque. ‘Why is a descendant of Jorgen Eklund studying history? Please don’t tell me you’re working on time travel. I’ve always been deeply grateful that it’s supposed to be impossible.’

      Fian flushed, with either embarrassment or annoyance, possibly both. ‘My great-grandfather may have been a brilliant physicist, but I’m not, and I happen to like history.’

      He paused and his chin developed a familiar stubborn tilt. I watched anxiously as he continued speaking in a determined voice.

      ‘I understand the Military like the idea of bigger portals, so you could have battleships rather than just fighters, but it isn’t possible. That’s very important right now, because if that sphere came to Earth conventionally, it took a long time to do it. I assume you’re already double-checking the star systems closest to Earth for signs of intelligent alien life?’

      Leveque nodded, his eyes studying Fian’s face. ‘We’re gradually working our way out from Earth, checking every star system in Alpha sector. Humanity could conceivably have overlooked something among the vast numbers of systems without Earth type worlds, especially in the first chaos of Exodus century. So far we’ve found no possible origin world for the sphere.’

      ‘Then it came a very long way and took a very long time to get here,’ said Fian. ‘Hundreds or even thousands of years. You mustn’t make the mistake of assuming it represents the aliens’ current level of technology. They could have made huge progress since they launched that sphere. Just compare the weapons we have now to the ones humanity had a thousand years ago in 1789.’

      He was speaking with passionate urgency now. ‘The aliens didn’t have portal technology when that sphere was launched, but they could have discovered

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