Back To Earth

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rhythm accompanied an Oud

melody, gently filled the room.

A perfect evening.

A tall, slim waiter approached them politely, and with a bow, invited them to take a seat. The colonel let Elisa sit down first whilst he concentrated on arranging his chair, then he sat opposite her, taking care not to let his tie slide onto the plate.

“It really is very nice here,” said Elisa, looking around her.

“Thank you,” said the colonel. “I must confess I was a little worried that you wouldn’t like it. But then I remembered your passion for this area and I thought it would be the best choice.”

“You guessed correctly!” said Elisa, showing off her marvellous smile yet again.

The waiter uncorked a bottle of champagne, and whilst he was filling both goblets, another arrived, carrying a tray. “Would you like to try a Most-o-bademjun

”.

The two diners looked at one another with delight. Picking up their respective glasses they toasted once again.

In a dark car approximately one hundred metres away from the restaurant, two strange people were tinkering with a sophisticated surveillance system.

“Have you seen how the colonel’s pampering that chick?” said the decidedly overweight one in the driver’s seat with a grin. He was chewing an enormous sandwich and filling his belly and trousers with crumbs.

“It was a brilliant idea, inserting a transmitter into the professor’s earring,” replied the other, much thinner one, who had large, dark eyes and was sipping coffee from a large, brownish paper cup. “We can hear everything they’re saying from here.”

“Make sure you don’t mess this up, and record everything,” scolded the other, “otherwise they’ll make us eat those earrings for breakfast.”

“Don’t worry. I’m very familiar with this equipment. We won’t even miss a whisper.”

“We have to find out exactly what it is that the lady has discovered,” added the fatter one. “The boss has invested a whole lot of money to follow this research in secret.”

“That certainly won’t be easy considering the tight security structure the colonel has put in place.” The thin man looked up at the sky as if in a dream, then added “If they gave me even a fraction of that money right now I’d be stretched out under a palm tree in Cuba, and the only thing I’d have to worry about would be whether to order a Margarita or a Pina Colada.”

“And maybe even a few girls in bikinis to smear you with sunscreen,” said the big man, who burst out laughing, making the crumbs fall off the belly that was wobbling up and down.

“This appetiser is delicious.” The professor's voice was slightly distorted by the small speaker on the panel. “I must confess I never thought there’d be such a sophisticated man hiding behind that hard, military exterior.”

“Why, thank you, Elisa. And I would never have thought that such a highly qualified academic, as well as being beautiful, could be so friendly and charming,” said the colonel, whose voice was again somewhat distorted, but slightly lower.

“Listen to them flirting,” exclaimed the big man in the driver’s seat. “I reckon they’ll end up in bed.”

“I’m not so sure,” asserted the other. “Our doctor is clearly a clever woman, and I don’t believe that dinner and a sleazy compliment like that will be enough to make her fall into his arms.”

“I’ll bet you ten dollars they do it tonight,” said the fat man, extending his right hand towards his colleague.

“Okay, you’re on,” agreed the other, shaking the large hand that had been offered.

Theos spacecraft – The mysterious object

The object that had materialised in front of the two astonished travellers was like nothing that nature could ever have created, in spite of its infinite imagination. It had the appearance of a metallic flower with three long petals and no stem, and a central, slightly conical pistil. The rear side of the pistil took the form of a hexagonal prism, the basal surface of which was slightly larger than that of the cone positioned at the opposite side, which served as a support for the whole structure. The rectangular petals branched out from the three evenly-spaced sides of the hexagon, with a length of at least four times that of the base.

“It looks like some kind of old windmill. Like the ones they used in the big eastern prairies centuries ago,” cried Petri, without removing his eyes from the object displayed on the large screen.

Azakis felt a shiver run down his spine. He was remembering some old prototypes that the Elders had suggested he study before their departure.

“It must be a space probe,” he concluded. “I’ve seen a few of these with more or less the same design in old GCS archives,” he went on, hastening to extract as much information on the matter as he could from the N^COM.

“A space probe?” asked Petri, turning towards his companion with a look of astonishment. “And when would we have launched it?”

“I don’t think it’s ours.”

“Not one of ours? What do you mean?”

“I mean that it was neither built nor launched by inhabitants of the planet Nibiru.”

Petri’s expression was becoming increasingly dazed. “What do you mean? Don’t tell me you believe this bullshit about aliens as well?”

“What I do know is that nothing like this has ever been built on our planet. I checked the GCS archives and nothing corresponds to the object we have here. Not even among the plans for projects that were never realised.”

“That's not possible!” cried Petri. “That N^COM of yours must be out of phase. Check again.”

“I’m sorry, Petri. I’ve already checked it twice and I’m absolutely certain that this isn’t our work.”

The short-range viewing system generated a three-dimensional image of the object, meticulously reconstructing every minute detail. The hologram floated in the centre of the control room, suspended half a metre above the floor.

With a movement of his right hand, Petri began to rotate it slowly, closely examining every detail.

“It would appear to be made of a low density metal alloy,” he remarked in a decidedly more technical tone than the one adopted moments before when he’d been overwhelmed with amazement. “The engines must be powered by those three petals. They seem to have been covered with some kind of light-sensitive material.” He had finally begun to fiddle with the system controls. “The pistil must be some kind of radio antenna, and the hexagonal prism is definitely the “brain” of this thing.”

Petri was moving the hologram increasingly quickly, turning it over in all directions. Suddenly he stopped, and called out “Look here. What do you think this is?” he asked, zooming in on a small area.

Azakis approached as closely as he could. “They seem to be symbols.”

“I'd say there were two symbols,” Petri corrected, “or better still, one drawing and four symbols close together.”

Azakis was still eagerly searching on the N^COM, trying to find something on the GCS. Yet there was absolutely nothing that matched the object in front of them.

The drawing represented a rectangle composed of fifteen horizontal red and white stripes. In the upper left-hand corner was another blue rectangle containing fifty white five-pointed stars. To the right of this were four symbols:

JUNO

“It seems like some kind of writing,” Azakis guessed. “Maybe the symbols represent the name of the people who made the probe.”

“Or maybe that its name,” argued Petri. “The probe is called ‘JUNO’, and that coloured rectangle is the symbol of its creators.”

“Whatever it is, it wasn’t made by us,” declared Azakis. “Do you think there could be some life form inside it?”

“I really don't think so. At least, nothing that we know. The only place where there could be something is the rear capsule, and that’s too small to accommodate a living being.”

Even as he spoke, Petri had already begun to scan the probe, looking for some sign of life inside it. After a few moments, a series of symbols appeared on the screen, and he quickly tried to translate these to his companion.

“According to our sensors there’s nothing living inside. There doesn't seem to be any kind of weapon either. From a preliminary analysis, I’d say that this thing is some kind of scout ship exploring the middle part of the solar system, in search of who knows what.”

“It could be,” agreed Azakis. “But the question we should be asking is: Sent by whom?”

“Well,” said Petri, “if we rule out the presence of mysterious aliens, I’d say that the only ones capable of constructing something like that would be your old ‘terrestrial friends’.”

“But what are you saying? The last time we left them they were still travelling on horseback. How could they have reached this stage in their development in such a short time? Sending a probe to go roaming around in space is no small feat.”

“Short time?” said Petri, looking him straight in the eyes. “Don't forget that, for them, almost 3,600 years have passed since then. Considering that their average lifespan is fifty to sixty years at the most, at least sixty generations have come and gone. Maybe they've become much more intelligent than we imagined they would.”

“And perhaps that’s why the Elders were so worried about this mission,” added Azakis, attempting to follow his friend’s line of reasoning. They’d expected this, or at least considered the possibility.”

“Well, they might have mentioned something to us. The sight of this thing almost gave me a stroke.”

“This is mere speculation,” said Azakis, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, “but it seems to make sense. I’ll try and contact the Elders. Try to get some more information out of them, if they have any. In the meantime, you try to find out more about this thing. Analyse its current course, velocity, mass, etcetera, and try to make some predictions about its destination, when it left and any data it’s recorded. I want to know as much as possible about what’s waiting for us there.”

“Okay, Zak,” agreed Petri, while colourful holograms with an infinite number of numbers and formulae fluttered in the air around him.

“And don't forget to analyse the part you identified as an antenna. If it really is as you say, it will also be able to transmit and receive. I wouldn’t be happy if our encounter had already been communicated to whoever sent that probe.”

Having said that, Azakis made his way to the H^COM cabin, the only place on the ship equipped for long-distance communication. It was located between gates eighteen and nineteen of the internal transfer modules. The door opened with a slight hiss, and Azakis slid into the narrow cabin.

Goodness knows why they made this thing so small... he wondered, trying to settle into the equally narrow seat, which lowered automatically. Maybe they didn’t want us to use it too often...

While the door reclosed behind him, he began to make a series of commands on the console in front of him. It took several seconds for the signal to stabilise. Suddenly, in the holographic display similar to the one he had in his room, the hollow, lined face of his Elder superior began to take shape.

“Azakis,” said the man, smiling and slowly lifting a bony hand in acknowledgement. “What has made you call a poor old man with such urgency?”

He had never managed to find out the exact age of his superior. No one was permitted to know such private information about the Elders. They had certainly witnessed many revolutions around the sun. In spite of this, his eyes were darting from left to right with even more vitality than he possessed himself.

“We have made contact with something surprising, at least to us,” began Azakis, dispensing with preliminaries, trying to look straight into the other’s eyes. “We almost collided with an unidentified object,” he continued, studying the expression on the face of the Elder.

“An object? Tell me more, my boy.”

“Petri is still analysing it, but we think it could be a kind of probe, and we’re certain that it’s not ours.” The Elder’s eyes widened. Even he seemed surprised.

We found some strange symbols engraved on the hull in a language we don't know,” he added. “I’m sending over all the data.”

For an instant, the Elder looked absent. Using his O^COM he analysed the flow of information coming in.

After several long moments, his eyes turned to look at Azakis. Finally, in a tone that belied no emotion, he replied, “I will call an emergency meeting of the Council of Elders. All indications are that your initial deductions are accurate. If this is in fact the case, we will need to revise our plans immediately.”

“I’ll await instructions,” and so saying, Azakis broke off the communication.

Nasiriyya – The dinner

The colonel and Elisa were already draining their third glass of champagne, and the atmosphere between them had become decidedly less formal.

“I must say, Jack, this Masgouf is divine. I won’t be able to finish it. It’s huge.”

“Yes. It’s truly wonderful. We should send our compliments to the chef.”

“Maybe I should marry him so he can cook for me,” said Elisa, laughing a little too excessively. The alcohol was already beginning to take effect.

“No. He will have to wait in line. I was first.” He risked making this joke, hoping it would not be too inappropriate. Elisa pretended not to notice and continued to nibble at her sturgeon.

“Are you really not married?”

“No. I’ve never had the time for that.”

“That’s an old excuse,” she said, giving him a sly look.

“Well actually, I came very close once, but the military life doesn’t work too well with marriage. And you?” he added, changing a subject that was still painful to him. “Have you ever been married?”

“Are you joking? And who would put up with a woman who spends most of her time going around the world digging underground like a mole and enjoys desecrating thousands of year old tombs?”

“I see,” said Jack, smiling bitterly. “You’re obviously not cut out for marriage.” And raising a glass, he offered a melancholy “To us.”

The waiter arrived with a few more Samoons

fresh from the oven, which fortunately interrupted that moment of sadness.

Grateful for this interruption, Jack tried to quickly banish a series of memories that had suddenly come into his mind. It was water under the bridge. Right now he had a beautiful woman sitting with him and he had to pay attention to her. This was not proving too difficult.

The gentle background music around them was just right. In the light of the three candles positioned at the centre of the table, Elisa looked wonderful. Her hair had gold and copper highlights, and her smooth skin was bronzed by the sun. Her penetrating eyes were of the deepest green. Using her soft lips, she was trying to pull a piece of sturgeon off the bone that she was holding between her fingers. So sexy.

Elisa was certainly not going to let the colonel’s moment of weakness go by. She placed the bone on the edge of her plate, and sucked the juice from her thumb and fingers with apparent nonchalance. Lowering her head, she gazed at him so intensely that Jack feared that his heart would leap out of his chest and land on his plate.

Realising that he was no longer in control of the situation, the colonel tried to pull himself together. He was much too old to behave like a lovesick school boy, but there was something about her that he found irresistibly attractive.

Taking a deep breath, he wiped his face with his hands and tried to say “Do you think we can finish this last piece?”

She smiled, gently took the last morsel of sturgeon and, leaning forward in her seat, moved it towards his mouth. In that position, the neckline of her dress fell away slightly, revealing her generous breasts. Jack, visibly embarrassed, took only a bite. He did not, however, manage to avoid her touching his lips with her fingers. He felt a growing sense of excitement. Elisa was playing with him like a cat with a mouse, and Jack was unable to defend himself.

Then, with the air of an innocent girl, she sat back in her chair as though nothing had happened and signalled to the tall, thin waiter, who arrived promptly.

“I think it’s time for some nice cardamom tea. What do you say, Jack?”

Still recovering from the previous incident, he stammered something like “Er, yes. Okay...” Straightening his jacket, he tried to adopt a more casual tone, adding “I believe it’s great for the digestion.”

He realised he had said something ridiculous, but at that time nothing else came to mind.

“This is all very pleasant, Jack. It’s been a lovely evening. But we mustn't forget the reason for our meeting tonight. There's something I have to show you, remember?”

In that moment, the Colonel was thinking of anything but work. She was right, however. There were more important things at stake than a foolish flirtation. The truth was that, to him, the flirting did not seem foolish.

“Sure,” he replied, trying to recover his authoritative expression. “I can’t wait to find out what you've discovered.”