Contact across the Solar System

First Contact

On board the Aurora, Orthon and crewman Reznan were waiting in their scoutcraft, listening to the chatter in the ship's control center. Reznan looked much like Orthon, but with paler skin and shorter hair.

Kalna called them up from there, saying "Kalna here. Orthon, Reznan, are you ready to go?"

Orthon said "Orthon here. The scout is ready. I'm ready."

Reznan said "Reznan here. I'm ready."

Kalna was on duty in that control center, along with Ilmuth and some other crewpeople. Kalna was navigating and coordinating, Ilmuth was at the controls, crewman Maathak, a sort-of Central-Asian-looking man was observing with the high-resolution telescope cameras, and crewwoman Kurati, a sort-of South-Asian-looking woman, was listening on various radio frequencies.

All of them, women as well as men, were wearing jumpsuits. Orthon was wearing a dark-brown one that George would make him famous for wearing.

Orthon's and Reznan's scoutcraft was the sort of vehicle that the Earthers were calling a flying saucer, though it might also be called a flying bell or a flying lampshade. The RV-sized vehicle had a cylindrical cabin with a domed roof and a downwards-curving circular skirt around it. Underneath were three sizable evenly-spaced spheres. The cabin had one door and portholes around it. The control station was on the opposite side from the door, and between it and the door was a bench on each side. In the center of the cabin was a pillar that extended from the floor to the ceiling. Orthon and Reznan were both at the scout's control station.

As the Aurora moved past Desert Center, a small collection of buildings near a highway intersection, Maathak said "Looking at Desert Center. It's so tiny that it's barely worth calling a town."

Kalna said "Well, it's their maps and their idea of a town. Ilmuth, follow the northward road. George must be somewhere along it."

Ilmuth did so, and Kalna asked "Any road signs?"

Maathak looked and found a sign stating "177".

Kalna checked a scan of an Earther map and said "That's the one. We're going the right way."

Ilmuth said "The camo's at neutral. George should be able to see us", referring to the Aurora's active camouflage.

The terrain was flatland dotted with scrubby, dead-looking vegetation, with hills here and there, hills with dry canyons in them. Maathak looked at this desert and sarcastically said "This is supposed to be a garden planet."

They saw two cars up ahead with some people near them. Maathak looked at them and said "One of the cars looks like George's. The people are looking at us. I can resolve their faces. Trying to identify them. Using known Adamski associates."

Ilmuth brought the ship to a stop, and Maathak updated with "I can't resolve them very well, but as far as I can tell, one of them is George himself, one is Alice Wells, and one is Lucy McGinnis. I can't identify the four others. So it's George and two associates and four unknowns."

Kalna announced "Orthon, we found George!"

On the ground, George Adamski and his friends were excitedly discussing the huge silvery spaceship that they were seeing high up in the sky, observing it with binoculars and trying to photograph it without much success.

On the Aurora, Kurati reported that she was hearing some chatter in the military frequencies about an "unidentified".

Kalna asked "An 'unidentified'? Do they mean us?"

"Hard to tell. But we're big."

"Let's not take any chances. Get ready to get out of here if they come."