Contact across the Solar System

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On their way to the Earth, the Aurora did another flyby of the Moon, and Arlene and Brad got more video of it. The ship went on to the Earth, and Kurati told the two "We should be arriving at the Earth in a few hours. So here's your last chance to get video of it." They did.

The Aurora entered the Earth's atmosphere, and its crew got permission to proceed to the landing site. As before, it hovered in the stratosphere over the Delmarva Peninsula near Annapolis and put on a color-change show. Hordes of curious people besieged the Annapolis landing site, where several dignitaries had gathered. Some of them took to the air, flying in private planes, but were unable to reach the ship's altitude.

Then three scoutcraft came out of the ship and two of them landed at the site with the third one hovering overhead. The landed ones' doors opened, and in one of them was Arlene and Brad, dressed in SSC clothes. Brad was wearing a ruffled and shiny pinstriped shirt and loose dark gray pants, while Arlene was wearing a pale orange long dress with a jeweled belt. When Arlene came out, her belt's jewels sparkled in the sun. The two travelers had a tearful and huggy reunion with their families, as millions of people the world over watched. They also demonstrated palm-to-palm greetings, something that they'd learned from their recent hosts.

Meanwhile, Reznan, Kurati, and the other scoutcraft's crewmembers unloaded all the two travelers' luggage and lined it up. The two travelers then looked it over and then told everybody "We have everything here." After some speeches by some politicians, the two travelers and the two tour guides had a press conference on the spot, with reporters asking them about lots of things. The anti-espionagers showed up there also, outraged at the "treason" of Arlene and Brad, and demanding that Reznan and Kurati be made to talk about SSC espionage and whatever plans the SSC had for the Earth.

When they were done, the two tour guides returned to their scoutcraft, and the two other crewmembers returned to theirs, and all three scouts flew back to the Aurora. But the ship stayed above the Delmarva Peninsula, and it radioed to air traffic control that it would be giving a consolation prize to all those nations whose citizens did not make the trip: flyovers of major cities of the world. It had been widely rumored, but here was confirmation from the crew of the ship that would be doing the flyovers. That announcement got lots of reactions, like

"Is that what they are giving us? What an insult."

"Why are they such USA-lovers? Do they have some secret deal with the USA military-industrial complex?"

"They are starting out, and they want to start simple. The two kids only went to Venus and Mars."

"Let's face it. Whether we like it or not, the United States is the most powerful nation in the world. Visitors from elsewhere will naturally be very interested in that nation."

A politician who preferred to go unnamed stated "I am on the horns of a dilemma. I don't like how the Solar System Community seems to be favoring the United States. Look at how their contact team has American accents rather than British accents. Look at how their first contacts were Americans. Look at how the recent travelers were all Americans. But if we refuse passage, we will seem unfriendly and petty, and they have stated that they will instead pass overhead at outer-space altitudes. So I have reluctantly gone along with my colleagues' decision to allow passage of the SSC ship."

The Aurora went first to Washington, DC, being careful to avoid directly overflying such sensitive structures as the Congress building, the White House, and the Pentagon. It then went to New York City and Boston, then along the US - Canada border to Vancouver BC, then along the west coast to San Diego, then to Mexico City and Central America, then around South America, first its west coast then its east coast. After overflying some Caribbean islands, it went to western, then southern, then eastern, then northern Africa. It went on a complicated path over several of Europe's big cities, and then went to Israel's Mediterranean coast. Its pilots then delivered this message:

"To the people of Israel: Rumor has it that everybody hates you. We wish to show that we don't hate you. If you feel slighted by not having had a capsule drop, there is no need to do so. We did not want to drop our capsules on war zones, but we had no good way of explaining it at the time."

Then Turkey, Iran, and southern Asia, stopping near Mt. Everest. Some crewpeople debated whether or not to go to that mountain's peak by scoutcraft, but after realizing that the air is cold and thin there, they decided against it.

They then went on to southeast Asia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, some of the smaller Pacific islands, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea.

The two remaining nations were China and Russia, and neither of them allowed the Aurora to enter their airspace, claiming security reasons. So the Aurora went into outer space and overflew those nations from low-Earth-orbit altitude.

After that, it headed for Venus.

In many places, large numbers of people turned out to watch the Aurora as it flew by them. Even in Russia and China. As it flew over major cities, it would stop and put on a color-change show, a big crowd pleaser. Its crew would put on different ones in different cities, and for some cities, they even made the Aurora multicolored.

Mark Schmidt and Joe Patel got a second career, doing research into SSC technology. After the Aurora departed, Mark stated in a press conference that

"The mystery continues. We have been unable to determine what propulsion mechanisms that the Aurora and its scoutcraft have. We don't detect any unusual luminosity or thermal emissions from them, and we don't detect any strong magnetic fields from them. In fact, we slipped some instruments and a data recorder into the travelers' luggage, and they recorded nothing unusual. They weren't even tampered with."

After discussing various other SSC technologies, he continued with

"In any case, the SSC people are right that George Adamski's books are mixtures of fact and fiction. Contrary to what Adamski wrote, the propulsion mechanisms are clearly not magnetic. They themselves are rather vague about it, calling it something like gravitic propulsion or antigravity."