It was almost three o'clock ship's time when I saw her, just below Sirius. She couldn't escape the Dog Star's luminous embrace for a long time. The minutes passed, and the tiny dot, though almost imperceptibly, continued to grow. After a while, it stretched slightly, like an egg. I was familiar with this slow transformation and knew that a lot of time still remained before it was complete. For lack of a better plan, I decided to descend to the lower level and examine old star maps.
On the way, the main computer, in the voice of my favorite singer, informed me that in half an hour a descent maneuver to the system's equatorial plane would begin – I carelessly ignored this warning. After more than twenty minutes spent among hologram maps projected in the air under the light of blue and green lamps, I figured my destination must be clearly visible. Without a moment's hesitation, I shut down the program and, deep in thought, hurriedly exited.
I was climbing the stairs when the walls and floor began to tremble slightly. I guessed the ship was already "down." I quickened my pace, mentally cursing the broken elevator I hadn't had time to fix before the voyage. I was already on the second level when I noticed I was getting heavier. This surprised me, as I had a really good G-stabilizer. I hadn't taken five steps when the ship suddenly began to rock violently. For a few moments, I tried to move while standing, and only when the first aid kit door, suddenly opened, scraped a thin edge across my eye, did I give up and, seeing no other option, continued on my way, almost lying down, which wasn't any easier. Finally, I crawled to the stairs and, gripping the railing with both hands, began to wonder what had possessed me to move from the control room. The shaking stopped, and I could continue.
The ship rocked again as I entered the control room. Luckily, I managed to jump in and strap myself into my seat. Breathing a sigh of relief, I tried to gather my thoughts. We must have passed a sizable asteroid belt, because it took two minutes for everything to quiet down. The screen turned on automatically, and before my eyes appeared an impressive, dark golden crescent, with three gleaming rings of ice and rock. It was Beta Hydri 1—the system's only planet.
The two inner rings, less than a thousand kilometers wide, seemed like a thin spiderweb thread entwining the gas colossus in apparent stillness. My imagination suggested that if even the slightest gust of wind were to occur (which, of course, was impossible in a vacuum), both loops would ripple and dissolve like a dream.
The band closest to the planet glowed with a pure white luster, unlike its neighbor, which took on a delicate rose hue as it approached. The third, outer ring seemed enormous compared to its companions. Observations I made several years ago indicated its width was close to thirty-two thousand kilometers. It also differed in color. It began with an inconspicuous pink, like its neighbor, but quickly whitened, and at the other edge, it became saturated with blue, darkening with each kilometer. From a distance, it looked as if it were slowly thinning and fading into space.
As I approached the pink gap—as I called it because it lay between the second and third rings—a shapeless black spot began to appear on the edge of the latter. I saw it only briefly, as moments later I descended below the planet's equator. Clouds swirled in stripes, moving in opposite directions, across its disc, bathed in the glow of a blue sun. Here and there, playful swirls disrupted the harmony of their motion, and the largest of these hurricane-like beasts, the local equivalent of Jupiter's "Red Spot," emerged from the shadow zone.
I was flying at a very slow speed, barely a dozen or so Machs, appropriate for the circumstances, as the surrounding planetary vacuum was thick with rock and ice debris. The rings on the unlit side were impossible to find, and only a few glimpses of starlight betrayed their presence high above the ship.
When the blue rays of a nearby star struck me again, I noticed a dark rocky mass above my head, the same one I'd previously observed on the other side of the rings. The ship sped upward, and before I knew it, a flattened purple ellipse appeared on the small side screen, previously black. I was there.
For a long moment, I gazed at the ravines and craters that adorned its surface, familiar to me from previous visits – there were a few new impact scars. I photographed them and described them in detail. I had always been curious about the circumstances of their formation, but any hope of ever delving into this mystery was, unfortunately, completely unrealistic.
I was supposed to go to the mess hall because it was already nearly five o'clock and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, but I preferred to satisfy my craving for peace and quiet. I couldn't experience them at the Institute, but here I had them in abundance.
Instead of this trip, I probably would have wasted my time on some three-star orbital rest station if it weren't for my sadly deceased college friend, Marck Greentown.
He was a talented planetologist and was predicted to have a bright future, but his career was suddenly cut short by an accident. He was part of a team exploring new systems and conducting reconnaissance of a distant rocky planet when, a week before they were supposed to leave, the research base was wiped out by an unexpected meteor shower. It was a big deal at the time.
I had last met him a year and a half earlier at the Interplanetary Astronomical Conference organized by the Federation of Jovian Moons. He showed me several images of Beta Hydri 1 taken by a mining team working in that system a quarter of a century ago. Their primary target was the small, underdeveloped planet I was orbiting, orbiting the gas giant alone. After a while, the operation was abandoned because the cost of transporting the ore proved too high.
The system received renewed attention ten years later during the "Colonization Revolution." The idea of establishing settlements on the local asteroids quickly fell through when scientists' pessimistic predictions about frequent and difficult-to-predict dust and rock swarms affecting an area extending many astronomical units from the central star were confirmed. The system was deemed hostile, and no one has visited it since.
***
After lunch, which I ate at six, I went to the miniature observatory located on the top floor. I wanted to examine Hydria's chromosphere and the violent prominences characteristic of this young star, but the computer informed me of several stray comets. They were about to collide with the gas planet. Not wanting to miss this rare spectacle, I rotated the telescope lens so I could observe them closely.
After ten minutes, I spotted the first one. It wasn't very large. However, its long, thin, spiraling tail added to its charm. Close-ups revealed its delicate structure, immersed in a luminous green haze. I pondered this sight for a moment and would have missed the moment of her "death" if it weren't for the computer, which, in its soprano voice, practically sang the news of a slight course change. Suddenly sobered by this trivial news, I finally managed to capture the moment.
I waited fifteen minutes before I saw the next ones. They appeared in a whole pack, so bizarre that I was stunned. There were over three dozen of them; huddled together, they orbited each other, leaving behind a common tail, long but remarkably sparse. Sure, I'd seen many similar systems before: binaries, triples, maybe even quadruples, but not forty! The entire intricate structure centered around the two largest masses moving in the core of this "thing." Much smaller ones whizzed outside, orbited by even smaller ones, truly microscopic by cosmic standards. I gazed at this cosmic oddity and only regretted that it had to rest amidst the hurricanes of Hydri 1.
Among them was one very different one. If it hadn't been part of this interstellar pack, I wouldn't have even suspected it of being a comet. Its shape resembled a long spindle. I was amazed that in close-ups, not even the smallest scratches or craters were visible on its surface. Moreover, it maintained the same position constantly (changing it only when threatened with collision with another body). However, there was no trace of engines or shield generators that could have identified it as a ship. Nothing but a smooth, snow-white surface.
The front of the group was almost touching the atmosphere when the unforeseen happened. Instead of engulfing its companions, the quasi-comet made a sharp turn, hurtled at full speed toward the terminator line, and disappeared, obscured by the planet's shield.
As a radical opponent of the SETI III program and the search for alien intelligent life, I found myself in a bind. I hurriedly searched through computer catalogs of starships. The computer gave me the closest approximation, in shape and size, to a model of a rocket launched into space by the Soviet Union at the dawn of the early information age, a very long time ago. I could only imagine two explanations for this situation: either I was going crazy, or I had just had a photographically documented encounter with the product of another civilization. The first theory was difficult for me to accept, as it was dangerous, to say the least, to lose one's mind five light-years from the nearest human settlement. The second, though contrary to my previous views, unexpectedly quickly took root in my imagination. As a result, however, the most incredible visions opened up before me. The stars I gazed at time and again no longer seemed like safe havens for thought, because the further I looked, the stranger worlds appeared before my eyes. I would have lost myself completely in the compulsive imagination of projecting luminous sparks onto the planets I encountered in the sky, and creating intelligent races and civilizations on them, if my attention hadn't been caught by a small flash, very similar to the directional beacons placed along busy interplanetary routes. Another, slightly longer flash appeared in the first gap between the rings from the planet. Five seconds later, it reappeared between the second and third, and after another thirty-five seconds, it repeated for the final time at the outer edge. I examined the spot carefully. For a moment, I saw nothing but the blackness of space. Over time, a faint outline began to emerge, marked by the light of a nearby star. It slowly filled in, and finally I was certain – the stranger had returned.
He slowed for a moment, then turned and, accelerating rapidly, sped towards me. I watched, frozen, no longer knowing whether it was real or just an unreal, dreamlike mirage. It passed me by a few hundred meters, but at such a speed that even the external cameras didn't register a thing. I quickly turned the telescope's tube. It continued flying, another thousandth of an astronomical unit. It took a mere eight seconds. Then it veered again, flew beyond the planet's shield, and moments later emerged on the other side. And when it had traveled another hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, it turned back toward me. Eight seconds later, having covered the same distance for the third time, it was right next to me.
I sat for a long time, unsure what to do next. On the small side screen transmitting images from outside the ship, I could see its elongated, snow-white hull. It was still flying two hundred meters away. It looked as if it were waiting for a response. The thought occurred to me to try radio contact. I sent a short message, but not even the slightest ping of a response broke the silence. I tried again, but again in vain. So I decided on more radical measures. Since the ship I'd borrowed from the Institute, it had a full range of research equipment, including a beamer of a, b, and c rays. I pelted the white ship with all of them, in various configurations and with varying intensity, but it was just as fruitless as the previous attempt.
I was about to give up when it suddenly dawned on me. I had been orbiting the planetoid since the stranger's appearance. Aside from my signals, which he clearly hadn't picked up, the stream of ionized particles extracting you from engines he didn't have, so it was hard to imagine he knew their purpose, and the active shield he miraculously managed without, nothing distinguished me from some abandoned wreck or perhaps even, in his eyes—if he had any—a mere hunk of iron space rock. So I had to move in a way that would clearly define who I was. A seemingly simple task, in the face of the acrobatics the newcomer had performed, began to become complicated. After a moment's reflection, I decided it would be best to repeat the feat on a different scale. I commanded the computer to prepare for the maneuver, and I ran down the corridor to the control room.
In the room filled with screens and monitors, I familiarized myself with all the scenarios the computer had prepared for further action. I selected the most effective one. I set a few more flight parameters, confirmed everything, and the autopilot went to work.
The triangle I had drawn in space was an almost perfect miniature copy of my white companion's handiwork. As soon as I resumed my previous course, the alien suddenly moved sideways, moving several hundred kilometers away. Then, it made a series of movements, marking several polygons, each perfectly formed, against the background of the stars. Some of them were repetitive, so I assumed it was some kind of writing, specially prepared for such an occasion. After a moment's reflection, I decided that I couldn't do without consulting the SETI 3 database. I looked with distaste at the monitor, which was about to reveal the secrets of an organization that, not long ago, had inspired contempt and laughter in me. I slowly lowered my hand and pressed the transparent yellow button, which immediately glowed with a faint, dim light. The monitor lit up as well. Strings of words, combinations of numbers, large and small photographs, and images scrolled across it. Finally, everything stopped, and the screen was filled with a comprehensive list of all kinds of alphabets and languages developed by cosmolinguistics specialists. It took me fifteen minutes to find the one about writing using geometric shapes. However, none of them proved entirely effective. After combining several that individually yielded some results, I managed to decipher the riddle, albeit somewhat imprecisely.
The stranger asked me where I came from. In reality, I was born on a small asteroid – a satellite of Alpha Centauri II – but I should have said I came from Earth. However, this created a problem. There was no way to translate the name of the Blue Planet or its location. I pondered this for a long time until a rather original idea finally struck me.
I drew two circles in space, one inside the other, with their centers at a single point. I also marked two lines intersecting at right angles at the heart of the resulting figure. It resembled a crosshair, in the center of which an observer in the stranger's position would see the Sun. I waited a moment. He replied in several characters, some of which, however, I failed to decipher correctly.
The exchange of information lasted a long time. We mainly inquired about the level of development of various sciences. It was astonishing that he knew the answers to all the questions I posed (though not all of them were decipherable), while I had to almost constantly say "I don't know," drawing the same triangle as at the beginning, but in the opposite direction. This increasingly worried me, because if he deemed our civilization underdeveloped, it could even end in war between the two races, with the inevitable extermination or conquest of the Humans. While this may seem like an exaggerated fear now, at the time I felt that the fate of billions of beings was at stake. I hurriedly searched for a question that would give me an advantage in at least one field. Mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry—he seemed superior in everything. I was ready to concede absolute superiority to him when, quite unexpectedly, from the confusion of my thoughts, I grasped the last question, one that still held a shred of hope. The alien was a rational creature, so I allowed myself to assume that curiosity drove him to acquire knowledge. This desire for knowledge is partly expressed in philosophy, encompassing issues that defy unequivocal resolution, containing a fragment of each science, so that it would appeal to both the hopeless romantic and the physicist or mathematician.
The risk of answering any question in this field was 50%, so it was worth a try. I quickly typed the first sentence that came to mind: "Do you exist?" Enter. A brief moment of waiting for the translation. Enter again, and the ship was hurtling through the void, drawing character after character. It stopped and returned to orbit. I stared at the main screen. The white one didn't respond for a moment, then drew a triangle like the one at the beginning, signifying "yes." My last hope was gone. I wanted to turn off all the monitors and retire to my cabin in helpless anger and despair, when with a last, sad glance, I saw the stranger writing again. I slowly raised my head. One more line, he was finished. I stared in disbelief. It was a triangle, but different from the other one, the opposite. Before I could even think, he began drawing again. Another "yes," then "no," and again, and again. He didn't stop at all. He kept accelerating, drawing larger and larger triangles. He couldn't decide, like a machine, which he wasn't, because the shapes were no longer precise, and the variation in side lengths seemed completely random. Finally, instead of triangles, a widening zigzag began to form. I saw the white one for a few moments more, until it diminished completely and disappeared into the blackness of the sky.
I sat down, no longer knowing whether it was good or bad. Fears and their denials still simmered in my mind, but I felt a surge of evening peace approaching. I gazed at the starry sky, the million-year-old suns that had surely brought civilizations into being with their life-giving warmth, silently observing their blossoming—victory over the limitations imposed by the Universe—and their twilight—slow agony or sudden decline.
Only after some time did I begin to understand the force of the blow I had dealt the stranger. Somehow, evolution had robbed him of the ability to ask himself questions like that one. They didn't exist for him until someone else posed them. If so, it could mean that we too share a similar gap in consciousness. Nature hadn't given us the final piece in the puzzle of knowledge, the key to omniscience insidiously eroding the foundations of existence. These were difficult issues, and fatigue increasingly entangled me with its thread. Finally, as I nearly reached the heart of the mystery, sleep flooded my mind like a wide river, purging it of the last dying sparks of thought, left over from a tiring day.
It was four o'clock when the computer roused me from sleep. "Unidentified object on collision course. Distance two million kilometers. Velocity 299.99 thousand kilometers per second. Autopilot inoperative. Cause of malfunction unknown," came the message, hummed, of course, in a soprano voice. I immediately rushed to the helm. I jerked it violently toward me and to the right. I turned and was already flying toward the rings when a bright explosion illuminated the main screen; it was Him, the Stranger. He had struck the asteroid, tearing it into shreds of cosmic dust, the cloud of which rapidly expanded in all directions. I watched in horror, knowing I wouldn't have time to escape. I was about to activate additional shields when suddenly one of the speeding fragments struck the port side. The jolt threw me across the control room. I hit my head on something hard and lost consciousness.
I woke up several hours later. The ship was flying high above the equatorial plane. I stood up slowly and looked around the control room. The autopilot light glowed a pale green. The gaseous Beta Hydri I had long since disappeared from the screens, and only its parent star still dominated the sky. I turned off the smaller screens and, with another wave of drowsiness, sank into a deep armchair. As I fell asleep, I felt completely at peace. I was returning home.
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