Illegal Alien

269 Pages·1999·0.86 MB·English

by  Robert J. Sawyer

Illegal Alien
Robert J. Sawyer
Ace Books
ISBN: 0441005926
For Justice, though she's painted blind, is to the weaker side inclined.
— SAMUEL BUTLER (1612-1680)
1
The Navy lieutenant poked his close-cropped head into the aircraft carrier's wardroom.
"It's going to be another two hours, gentlemen. You should really get some sleep."
Francis Nobilio, a short man of fifty with wavy hair mixed evenly between brown and
gray, was sitting in a vinyl-upholstered metal chair. He was wearing a two-piece dark-
blue business suit and a pale blue shirt. His tie was undone and hung loosely around his
neck. "What's the latest?" he said.
"As expected, sir, a Russian sub will beat us to the location. And a Brazilian cruise ship
has changed course to have a look-see."
"A cruise ship!" said Frank, throwing his arms up in exasperation. He turned to Clete,
who was leaning back in a similar chair, giant tennis-shoed feet up on the table in front
of him.
Clete lifted his narrow shoulders and grinned broadly. 'Sounds like a big ol' party, don't
it?" he said, his voice rich with that famous Tennessee accent—Dana Carvey did a
devastating Cletus Calhoun.
"Can't we cordon off the area?" said Frank to the Navy man.
The lieutenant shrugged. "It's in the middle of the Atlantic, sir—international waters.
The cruise ship has as much right to be there as anyone else."
"The Love Boat meets Lost in Space," muttered Frank. He looked up at the Navy man.
"All right. Thanks."

The lieutenant left, doing a neat step over the raised lip at the bottom of the door.
"They must be aquatic," said Frank, looking at Clete.
"Mebbe," said Clete. "Mebbe not. We ain't aquatic, and we used to land our ships at sea.
This very aircraft carrier picked up an Apollo command module once, didn't it?"
"My point exactly," said Frank. "We used to land our ships at sea, because that was
easier than landing them on land, and—"
"I thought it was because we launched out over the ocean from Canaveral, so—"
"The Shuttle goes up from Canaveral; we bring it down on land. If you've got the
technology, you come down on land—if that's where you live; the Russians came down
on land from day one."
Clete was shaking his head. "I think you're missing the obvious, Frankie. What was it
that boy said a moment ago? 'International waters.' I think they've been watching long
enough to figger it'd be a peck o' trouble landin' in any particular country. Only place on
Earth you can land that ain't nobody's turf is in the ocean."
"Oh, come on. I doubt they've been able to decipher our radio or TV, and--"
"Don't need to do none o' that," said Clete. He was forty years old, thin, gangly, jug-
eared, and redheaded—not quite Ichabod Crane, but close. "You can deduce it from first
principles. Earth's got seven continents; that implies regional evolution, and that implies
territorial conflict once the technology reaches a level that lets you travel freely between
the continents."
Frank blew out air, conceding the point. He looked at his watch for the third time in the
last few minutes. "Damn, I wish we could get there faster. This is—"
"Hang on a minute, Frankie," said Clete. He used one of his long arms to aim the remote
at the seventeen-inch color TV mounted on the wall, turning off the mute. The aircraft
carrier was picking up CNN's satellite feed.
"...more now on that story," said white-haired Lou Waters. "Civilian and military
observers worldwide were stunned late yesterday when what was at first taken to be a
giant meteor skimmed through Earth's atmosphere over Brazil." Waters's face was
replaced with grainy amateur video of something streaking through a cloudless blue sky.
"But the object flew right around the Earth well inside our atmosphere, and soon almost
every public and private telescope and radar dish on the planet was trained on it. Even
the U.S. government has now conceded that the object is, in all likelihood, a spacecraft
—and not one of ours. Karen Hunt has more. Karen?"
The picture changed to show a pretty African-American woman, standing outside the
Griffith Park Observatory. "Lou, for decades human beings have wondered if we are
alone in the universe. Well, now we know. Although the U.S. and Russian military
aircraft that flew over the splashdown site earlier today failed to make public the videos
they shot, a Moroccan Airlines 747 en route to Brasilia passed directly over the area
about three hours ago. That plane has now safely landed, and we've obtained this
exclusive footage, taken by passenger Juan Rubenstein with his home-video equipment."
The image was coarse, but it clearly showed a large object shaped like a shield or a
broad arrowhead floating atop gray water. The object seemed capable of changing colors
—one moment it was red; the next, orange; then yellow. It cycled through the hues of
the rainbow, over and over again, but with a considerable period of pure black between
being violet and red.
Cut to a dour, middle-aged man with an unkempt beard. The title "ARNOLD
HAMMERMILL, PH.D., SCRIPPS INSTITUTE," appeared beneath him. "It's
difficult to gauge the size of the spaceship," said Hammermill, "given we don't know the
precise altitude of the plane or the zoom setting used at the time the video was taken, but
judging by the height of the waves, and taking into account today's maritime forecast for
that part of the Atlantic, I'd say the ship is between ten and fifteen meters long."
A graphic appeared, showing the vessel to be about half the size of a Space Shuttle
orbiter. The reporter's voice, over this: "The United States aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk is
on its way now to the splashdown site. Earlier today, the president's science advisor,
Francis Nobilio" (black-and-white still of Frank, a few years out of date, showing his
hair as mostly brown) "and astronomer Cletus Calhoun, best known as the host of PBS's
popular Great Balls of Fire! astronomy series" (silent clip of Clete at the rim of
Arizona's Barringer crater) "were flown by military jet to the Kitty Hawk, and are now
on their way to rendezvous with the alien ship. The Kitty Hawk should reach its
destination in just over one hundred minutes from now. Bobbie and Lou?"
Back to CNN Center in Atlanta and a two-shot of Lou Waters and Bobbie Battista.
"Thanks, Karen," said Battista. "Before Dr. Calhoun left the U.S., our science
correspondent Miles O'Brien managed to interview him and University of Toronto
exobiology professor Packwood Smathers about what this all means. Let's have another
look at that tape."
The image changed to show O'Brien in front of two giant wall monitors. The one on the
left was labeled TORONTO and showed Smathers; the one on the right was labeled LOS
ANGELES and showed Clete.
"Dr. Smathers, Dr. Calhoun, thanks for joining us on such short notice," said O'Brien.
"Well, it looks like the incredible has happened, doesn't it? An alien spaceship has
apparently landed in the middle of the Atlantic. Dr. Smathers, what can we expect to see
when this ship opens up?"
Smathers had a square head, thick white hair, and a neatly trimmed white beard. He was
wearing a brown sports jacket with leather patches on the elbows—the quintessential
professorial look. "Well, of course, we first have to suspect that this ship is unmanned—
that it's a probe, like the Viking landers, rather than carrying a crew, and—"
"Look at the size of the thing," said Clete, interrupting. "Pete's sake, Woody, ain't no
need for the thing to be that big, 'less it's got somebody aboard. 'Sides, it looks like it's
got windows, and—"
"Dr. Calhoun is famous for jumping to conclusions," said Smathers sharply. O'Brien was
grinning from ear to ear—he evidently hadn't expected to get an impromptu Siskel and
Ebert of science. "But, as I was about to say, if there are alien beings aboard, then I
expect them to be at least vaguely familiar in body plan, and—"
"You're hedging now, Woody," said Clete. "Couple years ago, I heard you give a talk
arguing that the humanoid body plan would be adopted by purty near any form of
intelligent life, and—"
Smathers was growing red in the face. "Well, yes, I did say that then, but--"
"But now that we're actually goin' to meet aliens," said Clete, clearly enjoying himself,
"you ain't so sure no more."

"Well," said Smathers, "the human body plan might indeed represent an ideal for an
intelligent lifeform. Start with the sense organs: two eyes are much better than one, since
two give stereoscopic vision—but a third eye adds hardly any value over two. Two ears
likewise give stereophonic hearing, and they'll obviously be on opposite sides of the
body, to give the best possible separation. You can go right down the human body from
head to toe, and make a case why each part of it is ideal. When that spaceship opens up,
yes, I'll stand by my contention that we'll probably see humanoids inside."
The Clete on the TV set looked positively pained. The one sitting next to Frank aboard
the Kitty Hawk shook his head. "Peckerwood Smathers," he said under his breath.
"That's hooey, Woody," said the TV Calhoun. "Ain't nothin' optimized about our form—
y'all only get optimization when you've got an ultimate design goal in mind, and there
wasn't one. Evolution takes advantage of what's handy, that's all. You know, five
hundred million years ago, durin' the Cambrian explosion, dozens o' different body plans
appeared simultaneously in the fossil record. The one that gave rise to us—the ancestor
of modern vertebrates—weren't no better than any of the others; it was just plum lucky,
is all. If a different one had survived, nothin' on this planet would look the way it does
today. No, I bet there's some critter inside unlike anything we've ever seen before."
"Clearly we have some differing points of view here," said O'Brien. "But--"
"Well, that's the whole point, ain't it?" said Clete. "For decades, guys like Woody been
getting grants to think about alien life. It was all a good game till today. It wasn't real
science—you could never test a one of their propositions. But now, today, it all goes
from being a theoretical science to an empirical one. Gonna be pretty embarrassing if
everything they've been saying turns out to be wrong."
"Now, hang on, Clete," said Smathers. "I'm at least willing to put my cards on the table,
and—"
"Well, if you want to hear my—what? Crying out loud, hon, can't you see I'm on TV?"
A muffled female voice, off camera; Frank recognized it as Clete's secretary, Bonnie:
"Clete, it's the White House."
"White House?" He looked directly into the camera and lifted his red eyebrows. The
shot widened, showing more of Clete's cluttered study. Bonnie crossed into the frame,
holding a cordless phone. Clete took it from her. "Calhoun here. What—Frankie! How
good to—no, no. Sure, yeah, I can do that. Sure, sure. I'll be ready. Bye." Clete put down
the phone and looked into the camera again. "I gotta go, Miles—sorry 'bout this. They're
sending a car for me. I'm off to rendezvous with the alien ship." He undipped his
microphone and moved out of the shot.
Cut back to O'Brien. "Well, obviously we've lost Dr. Calhoun. We'll continue our
conversation with Dr. Smathers. Doctor, can you—"
Clete hit the remote, and the TV went dead.
2
There was indeed a Russian submarine present by the time the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk
reached the splashdown site, and the Brazilian cruise ship was visible on the horizon,
coming closer. The Kitty Hawk held station one kilometer from the alien ship, the hull of
which was still flashing through the colors of the rainbow. The Russian sub was slightly
farther away on the opposite side.
The alien ship seemed to be about two-thirds submerged in the water, but it was bobbing
enough that intermittently most of its upper surface was visible. Frank, Clete, and a
young Navy pilot boarded one of the Kitty Hawk's SH-60F Seahawk helicopters and
took off from the aircraft carrier for a flight over the vessel.
"It sure is streamlined," shouted Clete, over the noise of the chopper's rotor.
Frank nodded. "It must be just a landing craft," he shouted back. Since the ship had first
been spotted entering Earth's atmosphere, NORAD had been scanning the heavens,
looking for any sign of the mothership. Meanwhile, Canaveral was readying Atlantis for
flight. No American or Russian Shuttle was currently in orbit; Atlantis was the next one
scheduled to fly, but it wasn't supposed to go up for another eighteen days.
The alien ship's hull seemed to be one continuous piece. It had neither the riveted metal
plates that made up the Kitty Hawk's exterior nor the ceramic tiles that covered a Space
Shuttle. There were four mirrored surfaces that might have been windows across the
pointed end of the shield, and there was something in grayish green that might have been
writing going down one side of the upper hull, but it was difficult to make out,
especially with the background constantly changing color.
"I bet they see into the infrared," shouted Clete. "It's probably still changin' colors while
it seems to be black before turning red, but we just can't see it."
"Perhaps," said Frank, "but—"
"Look at that!" shouted the chopper's pilot.
A narrow cylinder was rising out of the center of the spaceship's hull. At its apex was a
bright yellow light that was winking on and off. Blink, pause, blink-blink, pause, blink-
blink-blink.
"Counting," said Clete.
But the next sequence was five blinks, not four, and the one after that was seven blinks.
And then the sequence started cycling over and over again: one, two, three, five, seven;
one, two, three, five, seven.
"Prime numbers!" said Frank. He shouted at the pilot, "Does this copter have a
searchlight?"
The man shook his head.
"Get us back to the aircraft carrier as fast as possible. Hurry!"
The pilot nodded and took the chopper through a wide, banking turn.
Frank looked over at the Russian sub. It was already returning the signal: the first five
prime numbers in sequence, cycling repeatedly.
The pilot was wearing a radio headset. Frank shouted at him. "Get the Kitty Hawk to use
its searchlights. Tell it to blink out a reply at the ship. The first five prime numbers, over
and over."
The pilot relayed the message. It seemed to take forever—with Frank fidgeting through
each second—but eventually a large searchlight just below the carrier's radar antenna
started flashing out the sequence.
The yellow beacon sticking up from the lander went dark.
"Could we have said the wrong thing?" asked Clete.
The Seahawk touched down on the flight deck. As the rotor was twirling down, Frank
got out, the wind from the blades whipping his hair. Clete followed a moment later.
Hunching over, they hustled away from the chopper. The captain, a bald-headed black
man of about fifty, was waiting for them just inside the base of the conning tower. "The
Russians are still signaling the same thing, too," he said.
Frank frowned, thinking. Why had the aliens shut up? They'd replied exactly as the
aliens had, showing that humans understood prime numbers, and—
No. All they'd shown is that humans can parrot things back at them. "Try continuing the
sequence," said Frank.
Clete nodded, immediately seeing it as well. "They gave us the first five primes; give
'em the next five."
The captain nodded and lifted a small intercom handset off the wall, pulling it close to
him. "Signaling room—continue the sequence. Give them the next five prime numbers."
"Sir, yes sir," said a staticky voice, "but, ah, sir, what are the next five?"
The captain looked at Frank, eyebrows lifted. Frank made a disgusted frown. Clete
rolled his eyes. "Eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-three," Frank said.
The captain repeated the numbers into the microphone. "Sir, yes sir," said the seaman's
voice.
"We better get up there," said Clete.
Frank nodded. "How do we get from here to where the controls for the searchlight are?"
"Come with me," said the captain. He led them to a circular metal stairwell and took
them up to the radio room. As they entered, Frank saw the seaman who had been
operating the light. He was a young white fellow, maybe nineteen, with a half centimeter
of blond hair. "The aliens have started flashing again," he said.
"What was the sequence?" said Clete.
"They repeated back all ten prime numbers," the seaman said.
A wide grin spread across Frank's face. "Contact."
The captain was looking out the window. "The Russian sub is signaling the ten numbers,
too."
Frank pointed. "And here comes that damned cruise ship."
The yellow beacon started flashing again. One. Four. Nine. And then so many flashes
that Frank lost track.
"It's gotta be squares," said Clete. "One squared; two squared; three squared; four
squared."
"Give them five-squared as a response," said Frank, looking at the young fellow. "That's
twenty-five."
The seaman started clicking the trigger button for the searchlight as he counted out loud.
"God," said Clete, pointing out the window. "God."
The alien craft was lifting out of the ocean. It rose about twenty meters above the waves,
water streaming off it. Its hull had stopped changing colors; it was now a uniform dark
green. There seemed to be four jets of some sort positioned on its underbelly. They
churned up the ocean surface beneath. The ship started moving slowly horizontally. It
flew in the direction of the Russian submarine, but stopped just short of the vessel,
apparently to prevent its jet exhaust from blasting down on the sub. The lander then flew
over to near the cruise ship. With binoculars, Frank could see people on its deck taking
photographs and home videos. Then the spaceship changed direction and headed toward
the Kitty Hawk. It stopped about five meters off the projecting bow of the flight deck,
and just hovered there.
"What's it doing?" shouted Frank.
Clete shrugged.
But the seaman spoke up. "Sir, I believe it's waiting for permission to land, sir."
Frank looked at the young man. Perhaps he'd dismissed him too quickly.
"I believe the boy is right, Frankie," said Clete. "They know this is an aircraft carrier.
They've seen our helicopter take off and land from it, and they can probably tell just by
looking at the planes out on the flight deck what they are —they're clearly designed
according to aerodynamic principles."
"By all means they can land," said Frank. "But how do we tell them that?"
"Well, if the question is obvious, the answer must be, too," said Clete.
"Give 'em the prime numbers again. Do it correctly, and that's 'yes.' Do it incorrectly—
say, one, two, three, five, eight—and that's 'no.' "
Frank nodded. "Signal the first five primes," he said.
The seaman looked at his captain for confirmation. The captain nodded, and the seaman
used his thumb to operate the light trigger. In the window, Frank could see the alien ship
moving over the flight deck.
The intercom whistled. The captain picked up the hand unit. "Raintree here."
"Sir," said a husky voice, "the Russian sub has radioed us, asking that we send a
helicopter to bring three observers over here immediately, sir."
The captain looked at Frank, who frowned. "Christ, I don't want—"
Clete interrupted. "Now, Frankie, they chose international waters. You can't really—"
"No, no, I suppose not. Okay, Captain."
"Take care of it, Mr. Coltrane," said the captain, and he replaced the hand unit in its clip.
"I want video equipment set up on the flight deck," said Frank. "I want everything
recorded."