Tau Ceti Read online

  “Yes sir, we have a lot of video of Goldy and Silver walking through the forest and there are huge numbers of small flyers in amongst the trees. And if you watch carefully, when they were in the meadow there were little flyers popping up here and there. I think there might normally be more but they could have been scared away by the descent of the rocket.”

  “Wait, how in the world are you following Goldy and… Silver?” At Ell’s nod he continued, “around with a rocket? Something like that should scare primitives half to death.”

  Donsaii smiled at him, “Goldy picked it up, strapped it to its chest, and took it along.”

  Wheat leaned back in his chair, flabbergasted. After a moment he waved weakly at the screen for Ell to continue.

  Goldy cut the rest of the way through the body, exposing a body cavity front and back of the cut. He pulled the two halves apart and coils of material fell free. “Those tubes look like intestines of course. It’s hard to imagine a body plan that doesn’t follow some kind of ‘tube structure’ wherein the food is pulled through the central tube for digestion. Food needs to go inside somewhere to be exposed to enzymes, etcetera, for digestion and pulling it in and pushing it back out of the same hole is less efficient than passing it through a long tube with different things being done to the food at different stages.” Donsaii nodded her understanding. She’d stopped the video to listen and he waved to start it up again. As the video resumed Goldy reached into the front half of the body with his knife. He deftly made some cuts and pulled stuff out. Wheat quickly put his hand up to halt the video. “I’ll bet that mass of soft pink stuff is for oxygen exchange. It seems kind of flimsy like our lungs.” He tilted his head, “though it doesn’t look as soft as mammalian lung tissue is. A little more like gill tissue I’d say. That solid chunk that came out might be a heart analogue, or liver or kidney I suppose. We have no way to even guess about solid organs.” He waved to start the video again, “Same for those solid looking chunks.” Goldy had deftly spun the knife inside the back half of the body cavity pulling out more intestine and several more solid looking structures. “Wait! Go back!” He had Ell move the video back and forth some. “Look at that! The pulmonary tissue has a tube coming off the front and another off the back. I’ll bet that the air comes in through the front tube and out through the one in the back. That’s more efficient than going in and out the same passage like our lungs do, mixing old air with new. Gills obviously do it that way for fish, but birds also have a mechanism to pump air through their lungs instead of pulling it in and back out the same way. He’s a fascinating bugger!”

  “Dr. Wheat?”

  “Yes?”

  “You keep referring to Goldy as ‘him.’ Is there something you’re seeing that tells you Goldy’s male?”

  “Hah! No, sorry, just ingrained habit. A bad one. I’ve seen nothing suggesting maleness and it might not even be a reasonable concept. For all I know these guys split like yeast.”

  ***

  “And so,” Ell said to the group, “Dr. Wheat is everything I could have hoped for. He had great insights into the alien’s anatomic structure, etcetera. Once he believed it wasn’t some kind of new sci-fi movie anyway.”

  Everyone had a good laugh as Ell described Wheat’s initial assumption. Then Ell resumed, “I swear, he’s so excited he’d try to watch the video 24/7 if he could. In any case, he would really love to take some shifts and get our feeds of all the bits we think are interesting. I suspect that he’ll even be watching a lot of the parts we think are boring trying to classify the flora and fauna that we aren’t interested in.” She looked at Emma, “He’s going to take your shift this evening so we can go to the Velos concert.”

  Emma did a little fist pump and then the group worked on finalizing the design of the followup rocket now that the parts Emma had ordered had come in by overnight express.

  ***

  Syrdian stirred the fire with a stick from their pile, bringing up a coal and starting the new stick itself on fire with it. Hie laid another stick on the burning one and turned to the second burrower from Dex’s snares of the night before. Hie peeled off the skin. The night before hie’d only cut out the innards, leaving the skin on to keep little crawlers out of the meat. As hie skinned the burrower, Syrdian looked at Dex in the firelight, still sleeping. It seemed surprising that hie’d really never noticed Dex before yesterday. Sure hie’d know who Dex was, but never really talked to himr. Dex ranked low in the tribe but as far as Syrdian knew that may only be due to Dex’s drunken parent Genex, not any doings or lack of accomplishments of Dex’s own. In fact, Dex’s leatherwork impressed Syrdian and would suggest that hies rank would rise given time.

  Spitting the parts of the burrower on two slender sticks like hie’d seen Dex do, Syrdian mused that Dex had a handsome configuration. Powerful arms and elegant wings. Long graceful body and powerful looking legs. And, Syrdian thought, Dex seemed very confident in hies ability to care for himrself. And, for that matter, for Syrdian too. Much more confident than most young dalin their age. Syrdian turned the spits and thought about Qes. Wouldn’t Qes be surprised if hie came back at the end of the summer and found Syrdian still alive? How had hie ever thought hie loved Qes? Dex stirred. “Hello Dex.” Syrdian said.

  Dex used a wing to push himrself up a little. Tilting hies head hie said, “You’re cooking?” Hie sounded delighted.

  Syrdian felt immensely proud, “Yes, I watched you carefully last night so I could learn how.”

  They packed up, but before they resumed their hike up the mountain Dex examined several of the small saplings that were growing up in the meadow. The little trees were on their way to turning the meadow back into forest. Syrdian said, “What are you looking for?”

  “I had an idea in the night,” hie said pulling hies heavy knife out of its scabbard and hacking off the top of a small sapling a little shorter than hies arm. Hie hacked off some of the smaller branches and the leaves, leaving a stick that branched several times into a wide brush of sticks at the end. Hie swished it back and forth a few times. “Remember those annoying little flyers that kept attacking us yesterday?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is going to be my ‘flyer swatter.’”

  “They’re awfully fast, do you really think you’ll be able to hit one?”

  Dex’s wings shrugged, “We’ll see I guess.” Hie strapped hies meteorite to hies chest and they started up the mountain.

  ***

  Deltain lifted off for another day searching. Bultaken had decided to delay the migration for one day to allow the tribe to search for Syrdian and Dex. Actually, the tenor of the tribe’s talk left Dex a definite afterthought. Deltain felt certain that the migration wouldn’t have been delayed for Dex alone. Dalins had spent the night before packing up most of the goods that would have to be left here because they couldn’t be carried on the long migration. The last of the packing would occur tomorrow morning and if Dex wasn’t back they would be leaving. His hearts filled with blackness, Deltain again considered waiting, but if Dex couldn’t return and Deltain couldn’t find himr what was the point. Syrdian’s parents had Syrdian’s two younger siblings but Deltain had no one else.

  Maybe hie should stay, hie wasn’t sure hie wanted to live without Dex. Despite Genex’s problems Deltain had loved himr and Dex was hies last link to Genex. Dex… Deltain thought that Dex had inherited Genex’s artistic genius. Pain filled hies chest.

  ***

  Ell walked up to the doors to the White House Entrance Hall. “Hello, I’m…”

  The Marine sentry said, “Yes, Ms. Donsaii, we’re expecting you.”

  President Flood looked up as the door to the Entrance Hall opened and a young lady stepped inside. He recognized the short strawberry blond hair. As he’d requested a staffer stepped in with her and announced in a stentorian voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Ms. Ell Donsaii.”

  She stopped inside the door, startled. She covered her mouth and in the sudden silence they could all hear he
r say, “Oh! Am I late?”

  Someone began to clap. The assembled guests joined in, building to thunderous applause.

  Flood turned to former President Teller, whom he’d invited, “My God, you’re right, she is astonishingly beautiful. I would never have dreamed it wasn’t all retouching.”

  Teller shook his head, “And I’ve never seen her all dressed up in a ‘little black dress,’ so I really had no idea just how… gorgeous she could be.”

  Like everyone else in the room, Teller stared. Medium heels made her long slender legs even more lissome. The aforesaid black dress was a simple sheath dress set off with a single string of white pearls. Matching small single pearls adorned each earlobe. And that was all…

  The very simplicity of the outfit, with her slender form made the gowns of the other ladies attending seem gaudy and somehow tawdry.

  Flood walked toward her, holding out his hand. “Ms. Donsaii.”

  She held out her hand, still looked horrified, “I thought it was at 6:30? How… I must be so late.”

  Flood took her hand, covering it with his other hand, “Ms. Donsaii, the guest of honor is never late.”

  “Oh my,” her hand went to the base of her neck, “no one told me. I’m so sorry. And I can see I should have worn something… more formal.”

  Flood leaned closer, “I guarantee you,” he whispered, “that every person in this room wishes they had once in their lives looked half as good as you do. Now I need to introduce you to them.”

  Taking her hand, he led her around and began introducing her to his cabinet, the leaders of the Senate and the House, the Chief Justice, and the ambassadors from many countries, though the Prime Ministers of England, Australia and Canada were present in person. Wide eyed, nonetheless she met each of the guests with aplomb, and obviously knew exactly who each person was prior to the introduction, murmuring appropriate words to each.

  When the President turned to his last two guests, her eyes flashed wider than before. He said, “And I believe you know…” eyes shining, Ell threw her arms around them, “your mother and grandmother.”

  Flood heard her hiss, “You knew and you didn’t tell me!”

  The news anchor said, “And now we take you to the White House where a special announcement is to be made by President Flood.”

  The screen faded to the White House State Dining Room, then zoomed in on President Flood at the head table as he rose to speak at a lectern. “Hello, I would like to welcome the world to this dinner, held in honor of a most astonishing young woman.”

  He cleared his throat, “On March 1st of this year our planet Earth had a date with destiny… Comet Hearth-Daster’s trajectory… had at the very least, scheduled the end of civilization as we know it.” He reached up and rubbed the corner of one eye with a forefinger, then continued huskily. “It is highly probable that most major life forms, including man, would have become extinct on that fateful day.”

  He looked around the room, and then into the camera, “Just a few short years ago, there would have been nothing we could have done to prevent the impact of that comet. Because, that would have been prior to the advent of the astonishing young woman we honor tonight.” He turned to Ell, “Please stand.” The President waited while she did so and the room again burst into spontaneous applause. She stood blushing demurely, nonetheless drawing the eye with her startlingly simple but flawless appearance. Flood turned back to the cameras, “Bursting into our awareness five years ago at the summer Olympics, Ms. Ell Donsaii not only won four gold medals in the gymnastic portion of the Olympics, she single handedly stopped a terrorist attack directed at our Olympic athletes. For this, President Teller,” he waved a hand at Teller in the seat to his left, “awarded this young lady the Medal of Honor, our highest military honor, for ‘acts of valor, above and beyond the call of duty.’”

  When the applause subsided the President continued, “Having begun her college career at the United States Air Force Academy under a special dispensation allowing her to start at the unheard of age of 15, she then completed the requirements for graduation within two years, graduating at the age of 17. During her time there she wrote a paper entitled ‘A Possible Mechanism for Quantum Entanglement through an Unperceived Dimension.’ A paper destined to shake the world of physics to its very core. A paper for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics this last December.”

  Flood paused again for the applause, surveying the room. He turned back to the cameras, “Within six months of entering a graduate program in physics at North Carolina State University she had designed the quantum based PGR chips many of you have already incorporated into your lives.” He chuckled, “Having accomplished that minor task, she dropped out, though I understand that NCSU intends to award her, not an honorary degree, but a full doctorate in physics for the work she did there, including a separate paper explaining the dual slit experiment, a conundrum which has beleaguered physicists since 1803.” The room again filled with applause and the President waited for it to die out.

  “In any case, she dropped out of school, every parent’s worst nightmare,” he winked and turned indicating, Ell’s mother Kristen Donsaii with a hand, “right Ms. Donsaii?” he chuckled. With a grin she nodded and this time laughter, rather than applause broke out.

  The President continued, “At this point, Ell Donsaii returned to active duty as a Lieutenant in the Air Force, where her country, in its wisdom, used her prodigious talents to fly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs. You might think we had successfully shelved her in a location where she could no longer astound us? But, no, no, in less than one year on active duty in a minor post, Ms. Donsaii had, believe it or not, solved an enormous sociopolitical problem. The details of these events must remain confidential for now, but suffice it to say that she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest honor other than the Medal of Honor, which I’ll remind you,” he raised a finger and made a checking off motion, “she already had.” Flood laughed with his audience.

  “Now, mind you, while on active duty as a UAV pilot, in her evenings, just to keep herself busy, the young lady did the research that confirmed the principles on which her ‘ports’ are founded.”

  “Those ports, my friends, are what the intrepid Ms. Donsaii used to save the Space Station the next year... Those ports are what she has provided to us, with which to explore the resources of our solar system. Those ports are what are going to replace pipes and ships, and power lines, and tanker trucks, and… innumerable other things in this world. They… they are what saved us from Comet Hearth-Daster!” he said hoarsely.

  Bracing himself on the podium and taking a deep breath, “Almost all of you know that the comet broke up into large fragments which were taken out by NASA using nuclear weapons provided by our military. You know that, unfortunately this left hundreds of smaller fragments, which, though they wouldn’t have wiped us out, would have caused untold destruction and loss of life. You are aware that Ms. Donsaii’s company, using her small rocket technology, took out those small fragments so that only two fragments reached the ground that were large enough to cause significant damage, however, no loss of life! Even more astonishingly, she and D5R did this without asking for compensation from we, the taxpayers.”

  “What you almost certainly don’t know is that NASA could not have reached the comet with the nuclear weapons in time—without using rockets powered by Ms. Donsaii’s ports!

  “Ladies and gentlemen, every living person on this world of ours owes this young woman their life. If that comet had struck and you had survived, it would have been a mean and lonely existence.

  “Therefore it is with some embarrassment that I tell you we are gathered here on this somber, yet joyful occasion to award Ms. Donsaii a second Presidential Medal of Freedom, with distinction. It is our country’s highest honor yet…” his voice broke, “and yet, it seems not nearly enough for… for what this young woman has,” he finished in a hoarse whisper, “done for us.”

&n
bsp; The standing ovation lasted through the time it took the President to remove her pearls and put the ribbon of the medal around her neck. Silence fell as Flood gestured her to the microphone. Blushing again, she cleared her throat and in a voice barely louder than a whisper, said, “Thank you so much for this honor. Really… I have been so lucky… to have been born where I could get an education, where my dreams were not stifled, where I was lucky enough to become a part of some amazing teams. From West Carteret High School, to the Air Force, to the Olympics, to the teachers at NCSU, to the team we have at D5R, to this country as a whole. I’ve been unbelievably lucky to have guessed right about how some things might work in physics. And I’m so grateful that this, miraculous streak of luck… allowed us to stop Hearth-Daster. I continue to believe, that I have simply been blessed by being in just the right place at the right time.” Her voice had faded to a whisper at that point. Nonetheless, she could be clearly heard in the dead silent room. Stiffening her shoulders she stepped closer to the mike and in a trembling voice said, “Thank you.”

  As she stepped away the room, still on its feet, built to thunderous applause once again, tears streaming down the cheeks of many in attendance.

  Chapter Five

  Harald Wheat settled in for his first session watching the aliens. He’d begged off his usual Friday night “date” with his wife and set himself up in his den with three screens from around his house. The biggest one he was dedicating to his main view. The second one he’d divided into quarters for the top and the other three side cameras. A little portable screen that he’d borrowed from his son was showing the view from the bottom camera. Per his promise to Donsaii, he’d locked the door hoping that his wife wouldn’t try to open it. It would be difficult convincing her that any of his work as a biologist deserved to be kept a secret from her.