Fenrir, page 5
The quiet little street, with its rows of similar, two- to three-story apartments and houses, was quiet no more. Ahead of her, the streetside parking was full up—at least in one case, by someone who’d parked in front of a hydrant. There were multiple people standing . . . Right in front of my house?
Belatedly, she remembered her own thoughts before the conference, and scanned the road more carefully. Sure enough, a couple of the vans had familiar logos—the local Channel 10 News, Fox, CNN. Jesus. I . . . I’d known it might get to be a pain, but this fast?
She was exhausted from the prior few days and the flight; all she wanted was to get home, take a nice long shower, and go to bed, but how was she going to get past that mob?
Someone rapped on her window.
She jumped in her seat, nearly popping the clutch. Shit, one of them’s recognized me!
But instead, to her surprise it was Joel, her landlord, grinning at her with sympathy in his dark eyes. She rolled down the window.
“Looks like the circus is already in town, Steph,” he said, running his hand through the thinning brown hair.
“Sure does,” she said with a sigh. “But I’ve got to get in there. I’m due back at work tomorrow—assuming I don’t get shipped back to Washington.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve got yourself a tiger by the tail, and no sense in letting go now that you’ve got him running. But tell you what.” He reached out, dropped a set of keys into her hand. “Turn yourself around and go to 457 East Sandalwood. I’ve got a nice little apartment there you can use—get yourself cleaned up, get a rest. If these news-vultures keep circling, well, I’ll just get your stuff moved over there, a bit at a time so’s they don’t catch on.”
She stared at him. “Joel, I . . . that’s really sweet of you, but I can’t—”
“You’re my tenant, right?”
“Well . . . yes, of course I am, but—”
“No buts. You’re paying me for a place to live, and it’s not your fault that you can’t get into it. Seems to me that makes it my responsibility to make sure you find a place.” He grinned. “Not like I don’t have a dozen or three places to offer, just around this town.”
Oddly, she believed him. Not about the places—of course she believed that, Joel owned a lot of real estate, and not all of it in this state or maybe even the country. She believed him when he said he really felt responsible for making sure she had a safe place to stay. “All right. Joel, I can’t thank you enough.”
“Oh, don’t go thanking me too much. I’m not that different from all those clowns. The idea I’m going to be the only person who knows where Stephanie Bronson, discoverer of the first aliens, is, while CNN and company squat in front of my lawn? Ha, that’s something to treasure right there!”
He glanced down at her purse. “Let me guess: you never turned your phone back on after you got down?”
“No, I was in a rush to get home.”
“Heh. Don’t turn it back on until you get settled; I’ll bet they’ve found your number by now.”
“You can’t be . . .” She paused. Her number was on her business cards and usually attached to her emails. Of course they could find it. “Crap.”
“Sorry, Steph, but them’s the breaks; you get shoved in front of the world’s eye, it’ll keep tracking you. Now get moving, before some of ’em decide to find out what you’re doing stopped at the corner.”
“Right. Thanks, Joel. I don’t know how to—”
“Just go, and have yourself a quiet night. I’ll bet it’ll be one of the last you have.”
As she drove away, she was afraid Joel was right. People like the President had whole divisions of people assigned to keeping casual questioners away. No one was going to corner her, or the Joint Chiefs, that easily. So who were the newsbite hunters going to come? After the newest face on the block.
And I can’t really avoid them all for long anyway. The fact was that they wanted the news spread, the right news, and if they didn’t get real answers, history showed that the people started making their own, usually paranoid, guesses.
Four fifty-seven East Sandalwood turned out to be an entire house—a very nice little house tucked away in the suburbs, already furnished, power on, water on and, when she checked, Wi-Fi already on, with the password stuck on a Post-it note on the fridge. A vacation rental home? Airbnb? It was the only immediate explanation that came to her; rich or not, she doubted even Joel could have arranged all that in the few hours between the time he realized the problem and Stephanie’s arrival.
First time I’ve been sleeping over at someone else’s house in years, and it’s because I’m avoiding people.
That was a pretty pathetic truth, she had to admit. Other than the professional and office friendships that came with pursuing a competitive doctorate, she’d had precious little personal contact lately. It wasn’t that she didn’t have any interest, but most of the guys she knew were either crazy-busy themselves, or taken—or were way older than her and in some kind of position of authority that made any more personal interaction very suspect.
Stephanie threw together a quick mac-and-cheese from stuff already in the fridge and cabinets. Looking at her cell phone, she debated calling her parents, but decided against it. That’s for later—Mom and Dad will want to hear everything and ask a thousand questions, and much as I love them, I’m questioned out.
That was the one downside to having parents who were genuinely interested in your career: you weren’t ever having a short conversation about your work. But all the rest is upside. Her mother, a chemistry professor for the last twenty-five years, and her father, a high school science teacher for even longer, had showered her with every book she’d ever wanted, worked to get her through college, and even overcome their generation’s computer aversion to become part of her online support.
And she knew they’d both understand what it meant to be in the spotlight like she was. So instead of worrying about them, she went to the bathroom, which was also stocked reasonably well, including individual-use bottles and packets of shampoo and toothpaste that gave strong credence to the rental unit theory.
It was in the shower, her immediate concerns gone and the day behind her, that it really hit her, and Steph found herself standing immobile beneath the showerhead.
I just changed the world. I stood up in front of every news network there is, and told the world that we are not alone. Told them that aliens are literally on their way and they’ll be here, not in years or decades, but months.
She’d known that was going to happen, but she hadn’t known it, not the way it suddenly just exploded in understanding within her. Jesus. I . . . of course they’re chasing after me. The President put me up there. I’m the authority, even though I don’t even know half of what I ought to.
Shaken by the acceptance of her not-entirely-thought-through celebrity, Stephanie got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed for bed in a white T-shirt and drawstring lounging pants from her small suitcase. Then she took a deep breath and turned on her phone.
The screen immediately turned into a scrolling fountain of notifications.
“Ugh.” She glanced at the bed, which looked very inviting at the moment, but decided she should at least sort through what she had so far.
Most of the messages were questions or requests for interviews—some laughable, some interesting, a couple absolutely gobsmacking; in the latter category was a personal invite to call the producers of the most popular morning show in America for an immediate on-camera special spot.
Another category were congratulations, questions, and general messages of support from her own colleagues. That at least was comforting.
One message caught her eye: Please Open and Respond Immediately, from Sean Haley, the SNIT director himself.
That took priority, as far as she was concerned, and she opened the message.
Based on your unique work, the prior known progress in your basic research, and specific requests and recommendations, it began, it is the signal pleasure of the University to award you the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Infrared Astronomy and Astrophysics.
She reread that incredible sentence again, then forced herself to go on.
The University recognizes the irregularity of these circumstances, and a traditional awarding of the degree will be performed as circumstances permit, but it is viewed both by the University and others that for professional and political purposes it is advantageous to you and others in the profession that you be accorded the degree immediately. Please reply to this message with your acceptance.
I’ve been texted my doctorate?
It wasn’t hard to guess where the decision had been made; the President herself had made her opinion on the matter clear. And it was true that Steph was very near to the point where she’d have made her thesis defense and, presumably, won her doctorate.
It was still farcical, to have received her doctorate the same way she might have been sent a funny cat video.
Still . . . they’re dead right. Being “Dr. Bronson” carried a weight that “Ms. Bronson” wouldn’t, and right now? She needed all the weight she could throw around.
Taking a deep breath, she texted, Accepted with great thanks.
Minutes later, as she was getting ready to lie down, the conversation pinged.
Congratulations, Dr. Stephanie Bronson.
And appended was a tiny image . . . of a doctoral certificate.
Chapter 7:
An Uncomfortable
Silence
“This is the weirdest professional presentation I’ve ever worked on,” said Dr. Faye Athena Brown as she popped the first references slide onto the screen. “I mean, look at that. We’re referencing sixteen papers from eight different disciplines, three science-fiction novels, one video game, and an Internet discussion. And that’s just for this section of the presentation.”
Dr. Brown was an archivist and researcher that Stephanie had stolen—well, requested—from UCal at Berkeley, because her work with SNIT had shown her to be not just responsive but smart, finding not only the material requested but also relevant, related material that sometimes put your question in a new perspective. And she’s sure doing that here, giving us useful cross-references in disparate fields.
“Not unexpected,” Dr. Dobyns said, reviewing notes on his laptop. “We are faced with the strangest and most exciting event in human history, after all. If our speculative fiction writers didn’t have something relevant to say, they’d be very poor at their job, wouldn’t they?”
“How long until Fenrir arrives, again?” That was Dr. Chris Thompson, whose wide-ranging scientific experience included microbiology, ornithology, and ecology; he was working on trying to wring every possible guess about the biology of their visitors from the very limited clues available.
“You mean when it settles into orbit?” Stephanie asked. “About—”
“Here!” Faye tapped a few keys and suddenly there was a running countdown just above the presentation slide: fenrir arrival: 45 days, 17 hours, 27 minutes. As they all looked up, the twenty-seven turned to twenty-six.
Stephanie grinned. “Exactly. Or about one and a half months.” Has it really been just a bit over six weeks since this all started? “I don’t suppose we’ve gotten any response?”
Dr. Dobyns shook his head, his beard emphasizing the motion. “Nothing.”
“Which makes me extremely concerned,” came a voice from the doorway.
Stephanie glanced, did a double take, and leapt to her feet. “Madam President!”
“Please, not that formality here. Call me Jeanne and I’ll call you Stephanie.”
That’s going to be a challenge. But nice gesture! “I’ll . . . try, Jeanne. So what are you doing here? We’re working on the next briefing presentation now.”
“Honestly? I hate PowerPoint. Oh, it has its place, no doubt, but I’d rather just discuss the results. And since I am the President, I can get away with that, can’t I?”
“Absolutely, Madam Jeanne President!” said York with a grin.
“Wiseass,” Jeanne responded with a smile of her own. “Dr. Thompson—”
“Chris, if I’m calling you Jeanne.”
“Chris, then. Anything on our visitors’ likely nature? I know I’m asking a ridiculous question given the circumstances.”
“I’m glad you said it, Jeanne. As my one uncle said, there’s only so much stew you can make from one oyster.
“So . . . yeah. We assume they’re accelerating at something equal to, or less than, their normal gravity on their homeworld. You can argue some reasons for trying to exceed their normal gravity acceleration, but I don’t think they’d be reasonable for a long-term transit like this.”
“So they come from a planet with roughly our gravity?”
“Or higher, but they’re accelerating slower because it’s more comfortable, or maybe this is the maximum acceleration their drive can manage. Handwaving even faster from what we know, though, I would guess that they do have gravity about like ours. Main reason is that if you’re doing an interstellar jump, you’re going to want to get moving as fast as you can. If we agree that they’re not going to risk dangerous acceleration for their population, then that says that they’re likely running right at their normal comfort level.”
Chris touched some buttons and a little set of images appeared. “Of course, just because it has the same gravity doesn’t mean it’s much like Earth; it could be a lot less dense, and larger in diameter, or really dense and smaller, both of which have implications for atmospheric density, scale height, and so on.” He indicated another image, showing several stars.
“On the positive side, we are almost certain that Fenrir came from this particular star. It’s a K-class dwarf, so somewhat cooler than our own Sun. I would guess that their planet orbits more closely to their star than the Earth, and they might have a range of vision that dips a bit more into the infrared than ours, as its spectrum peaks more closely to orange than yellow, which is where old Sol peaks.”
“How certain are we that they have vision at all?”
“Madam . . . Jeanne, we’re not certain of anything other than they’re technologically advanced. But the ability to sense light is extremely widespread in our own biology, from single-celled organisms and up, and it makes sense that they have to have some kind of way to perceive the light spectrum, because they have astronomy. Maybe they see radio waves, but I’d doubt it for a number of reasons; the way atmospheres that support life like ours block various wavelengths, I’d bet on visible light and near-infrared, so maybe between about four hundred or five hundred nanometers up to about twelve hundred or so.”
“Will they have radio, then?”
He shrugged. “I can’t imagine that they don’t, really. To get to the level of technology they’re at, they’d have to have a really comprehensive understanding of the universe, at least as good as ours, and the utility of all the different wavelengths, from long-wave radio all the way to the gamma and cosmic ray spectra, would be obvious.”
The President’s mouth tightened. “Which returns me to the concern. If they are that advanced, they must be receiving our signals. They must be able to tell that these particular signals are directed at them; we’re beaming them through our most powerful systems, focused on them. These signals would have to be the strongest they’re receiving from us, yes?”
“Absolutely,” agreed York. “Probably by a couple of orders of magnitude.”
“Could they be so alien that they can’t understand the progressions we’re sending?”
York and Chris glanced at each other, then York spread his hands in a who knows? gesture. “Could they? We know so little that we have to admit it’s possible. But . . . they appear to have made technology that goes along lines we mostly understand. They had to have encountered the same basic problems, with the same answers, to thousands, to millions, of scientific, technological, engineering-related issues. They would have to have gained an intimate understanding of mathematics and its connection to the behavior of the natural world. So I would find it unlikely in the extreme that they couldn’t understand our transmissions, given any effort to do so.”
Stephanie felt a chill that had nothing to do with room temperature. “So either they don’t consider it worth the effort to bother understanding our signal, or they’re deliberately refusing to answer.”
“That . . .” York hesitated, then grimaced, running fingers through hair sparser than it had been when he won his first Nobel. “I am afraid I have to agree with that assessment.”
“So in your view, I am right to be concerned?” That was the tone of the President, not “Jeanne.”
“I don’t . . .” York glanced to Stephanie.
You’re throwing this at me?
But Dr. Dobyns had been throwing things her way ever since he appeared, and she realized that this was the point. If she wanted to stay “Dr. Stephanie Bronson, discoverer of Fenrir,” she couldn’t let other people—even those ostensibly more educated and qualified—become the primary voice and face of Fenrir.
All right. Grab on for the ride. “What Dr. Dobyns would like to say,” Stephanie began, “is that as scientists we really don’t like making those kind of statements. But you need one, so . . .” She took a deep breath. “Yes. You are. We only have experience with a few intelligent species of any kind—humanity, some cetaceans, birds, apes, and possibly cephalopods. Of those, only one is technologically advanced, so it’s the only guide we have to work from.
“If they aren’t even bothering to decode it, it means that our presence or absence literally doesn’t matter to them. Since they have come here, at considerable effort and expense however they might measure it, they had to know there was a living, if not at the time technologically advanced, planet here. Any reason I can come up with for them to not care that we’re here is at the least worrisome.”
“And if they’ve interpreted it, but aren’t answering?” the President asked when she paused.
