Illegal Alien

"That’s hooey, Woody," said the TV Calhoun. "Ain’t nothin’ optimized about our form — y’all only get optimization when you’ve got an ultimate design goal in mind, and there wasn’t one. Evolution takes advantage of what’s handy, that’s all. You know, five hundred million years ago, durin’ the Cambrian explosion, dozens o’ different body plans appeared simultaneously in the fossil record. The one that gave rise to us — the ancestor of modern vertebrates — weren’t no better than any of the others; it was just plum lucky, is all. If a different one had survived, nothin’ on this planet would look the way it does today. No, I bet there’s some critter inside unlike anything we’ve ever seen before."

"Clearly we have some differing points of view here," said O’Brien. "But—"

"Well, that’s the whole point, ain’t it?" said Clete. "For decades, guys like Woody been getting grants to think about alien life. It was all a good game till today. It wasn’t real science — you could never test a one of their propositions. But now, today, it all goes from being a theoretical science to an empirical one. Gonna be pretty embarrassing if everything they’ve been saying turns out to be wrong."

"Now, hang on, Clete," said Smathers. "I’m at least willing to put my cards on the table, and—"

"Well, if you want to hear my — what? Crying out loud, hon, can’t you see I’m on TV?"

A muffled female voice, off camera; Frank recognized it as Clete’s secretary, Bonnie: "Clete, it’s the White House."

"White House?" He looked directly into the camera and lifted his red eyebrows. The shot widened, showing more of Clete’s cluttered study.

Bonnie crossed into the frame, holding a cordless phone. Clete took it from her. "Calhoun here. What — Frankie! How good to — no, no. Sure, yeah, I can do that. Sure, sure. I’ll be ready. Bye." Clete put down the phone and looked into the camera again. "I gotta go, Miles — sorry ’bout this. They’re sending a car for me. I’m off to rendezvous with the alien ship." He undipped his microphone and moved out of the shot.

Cut back to O’Brien. "Well, obviously we’ve lost Dr. Calhoun. We’ll continue our conversation with Dr. Smathers. Doctor, can you—"

Clete hit the remote, and the TV went dead.

*2*

There was indeed a Russian submarine present by the time the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk reached the splashdown site, and the Brazilian cruise ship was visible on the horizon, coming closer. The Kitty Hawk held station one kilometer from the alien ship, the hull of which was still flashing through the colors of the rainbow. The Russian sub was slightly farther away on the opposite side.

The alien ship seemed to be about two-thirds submerged in the water, but it was bobbing enough that intermittently most of its upper surface was visible. Frank, Clete, and a young Navy pilot boarded one of the Kitty Hawk’ s SH-60F Seahawk helicopters and took off from the aircraft carrier for a flight over the vessel.

"It sure is streamlined," shouted Clete, over the noise of the chopper’s rotor.

Frank nodded. "It must be just a landing craft," he shouted back. Since the ship had first been spotted entering Earth’s atmosphere, NORAD had been scanning the heavens, looking for any sign of the mothership. Meanwhile, Canaveral was readying Atlantis for flight. No American or Russian Shuttle was currently in orbit; Atlantis was the next one scheduled to fly, but it wasn’t supposed to go up for another eighteen days.

The alien ship’s hull seemed to be one continuous piece. It had neither the riveted metal plates that made up the Kitty Hawk’ s exterior nor the ceramic tiles that covered a Space Shuttle. There were four mirrored surfaces that might have been windows across the pointed end of the shield, and there was something in grayish green that might have been writing going down one side of the upper hull, but it was difficult to make out, especially with the background constantly changing color.

"I bet they see into the infrared," shouted Clete. "It’s probably still changin’ colors while it seems to be black before turning red, but we just can’t see it."

"Perhaps," said Frank, "but—"

"Look at that!" shouted the chopper’s pilot.

A narrow cylinder was rising out of the center of the spaceship’s hull. At its apex was a bright yellow light that was winking on and off. Blink, pause, blink-blink, pause, blink-blink-blink.

"Counting," said Clete.

But the next sequence was five blinks, not four, and the one after that was seven blinks. And then the sequence started cycling over and over again: one, two, three, five, seven; one, two, three, five, seven.

"Prime numbers!" said Frank. He shouted at the pilot, "Does this copter have a searchlight?"

The man shook his head.

"Get us back to the aircraft carrier as fast as possible. Hurry!"

The pilot nodded and took the chopper through a wide, banking turn.