Captain Stern tentatively disembarked from the landing module, which had changed little since the early days of lunar exploration. One would find it hard to believe that the craft which he lovingly captained, the Victory VI, was even from the same civilisation that produced the original, primitive Apollo program. Nevertheless, whilst the Victory was powered by lightweight atomic motors, and moved through Nearspace with the aid of a second generation Jumpdrive, the landing module was basically the same as the original design implemented on the Moon, two centuries ago. It was a long way from the old science fiction movies where crews would teleport down to a planet, but that technology was centuries away.
Flanked by his partner, the slightly detestable Professor Gimlet, Stern was at first shocked that such a large delegation had been sent to greet his craft. Row upon row of squat humanoids raised their right hands in the Reticulian symbol of greeting. Their putrid green pallor, Stern understood, was an evolutionary measure which allowed them to gain part of their energy through photosynthetic means. Did this mean that the Reticulians had evolved from their planet's plant life? Stern didn't know, and it wasn't his job to. He was here to captain the ship, and to lead a two-man landing party. He had to exchange pleasantries with the leader of the Reticulian settlement, whilst the insufferable Gimlet liased with their scientists.
There had only been five previous missions to Reticuli, and the Victory and its sister ship (named, imaginatively, Victory VII) were on the world to open 'advanced diplomatic relations'. Gimlet was here to talk science, and an unnamed sociologist was talking politics to the aliens in a different settlement.
Stern took a glance right, towards his scientific companion, who grinned straight back at him with the sickening childishness of a scientist with the opportunity to learn hitherto unknown information. It struck the captain that, rather than the cat that got the cream, he resembled a Cheshire cat that had inherited a dairy. Whilst the previous missions had established the Reticulians to be technologically inferior, there was still hope that there may be aspects in which their knowledge superseded that of Earth men.
The lead Reticulian, whose fine fur cloak almost obscured the entire of its body's coating of downy fluff, took a step forward. The stunted creature raised a staff held in its left, six fingered hand, and held it in the air ahead of him. It appeared to be made of gold, or some similar metal, and, Stern presumed, fulfilled some ceremonial role. Slowly, the alien began to spin the rod between two of its thumbs, and the assembled mass broke out into whooping cries.
Rather unsettled by the enormous crowd of toothless faces, and the dreadful din, Stern found himself placing his hand nearer to his belt, and to the holster of his blaster, until he was stopped by Gimlet.
"Don't worry, Cap," remarked the scientist, leaning in, "This is their way of expressing delight or congratulations."
"They're clapping?"
"In a way, I guess they are," he chuckled.
"In that case…will you get out of my face, man? There's really no need to lean in when you whisper, if we're communicating by radio." Stern rapped a gloved knuckle hard on Gimlet's helmet. "And I told you not to call me 'Cap'. For Christ sakes, 'Stern' will do, or 'John' if you like."
"Okay Ca-John," replied Gimlet, with all the ease of a scientist in a social situation.
The creatures had stopped harping by this time, and their leader, having gifted his staff to a bearer in similarly resplendent clothing, stepped forward, clutching a tiny black box. He raised the device to what passed for his lips and spoke.
Instantaneously, the translator converted his words to English. "Welcome to our capital!", the artificial male voice exclaimed, with a surprising amount of emotion, "I understand that you are Delegation One, the scientific party, yes?"
Stern hesitated before clearing his throat and stepping forward. "Yes," e replied, his own voice translated equally well by the device built into his suit, "It's a pleasure to be here."
At this, more feverish whooping ensued, and Stern began to consider that that was one particular custom which would soon wear thin. When the noise died down it was once again the alien's turn to speak.
"I am President Fior. My Minister of Learning, Tokan, is ready to receive your man of learning, and you, I hope, will be under my hospitality during your short stay."
Stern nodded, and then, as an afterthought, added a, "Yes", when he realised that such gestures probably did not transcend the interstellar barrier. "I understand your Minister has a two hour tour for my 'man of learning'?
"Yes", the creature answered, "I believe you have enough oxygen for the duration."
"Yes", Stern replied, without nodding this time.
"M'taluka!," exclaimed the President, which presumably the translator could find no equivalent term for in English, "Then come with me. My minister will attend to your man." It indicated the creature to which it had previously handed its staff. "Come! To my office!"
"I hope you like the chair, Captain," remarked President Fior, "We had it made especially for your… size."
Stern squirmed slightly in his seat. It had the texture of wood, but it was a similar hue to that of the President's skin, which made him slightly uncomfortable. The walls of the office seemed to be composed of the same strange substance, though all the buildings he had seen seemed to be constructed out of red or grey stone. "Yes. Thank you," he answered, "But please Sir, just call me Stern."
"Ah, a man after my own-", the translator whirred for a second before finally deciding on, "-heart." He continued, "I would prefer it if you called me by my given name only, Fior. Now, my dear Stern, normally if I was meeting a visiting dignitary of my own race I would offer a drink, but since you could not consume it without dying from nitrogen poisoning, it would seem imprudent. Nor can we together partake of afos gib'a, so it seems that we are reduced to talking during our time here."
Stern laughed. "You are a man who speaks straight, Fior."
The president made a gesture that suggested somehow the connotation of a raised eyebrow. "Indeed, and so are you. That having been established, what would you have us speak of?"
"Well, unlike my companion, I am not a scientist, I am a military man. My men serve me well, and I keep them safe - the classic officer-soldier relationship. I'm here to make sure everything runs smoothly, and to pilot our landing craft. Maybe, while Gimlet is seeing scientific interests, I could view some of your military interests?"
Fior laughed, a gesture that needed no translation. "Oh dear Stern! Espionage? I am disappointed."
The Earth-man countered with a grin. "But I had to try."
"That I appreciate, my friend, but you must also appreciate that I was expecting it. I hope you will not resent me for this any more than I do you for the attempt. I like you Stern; I'm an old soldier myself, and I know what the pressure's like from the superiors to be something you're not. I think my resistance to everyday political 'gestures' such as spying rather endears me to the electorate."
"An honest politician?"
"I didn't say that"
Man and Reticulian laughed together, and Fior continued. "Listen. I noticed that the request for a program for you, separate from that of your scientist, arrived as an addendum to the request for a tour. Why was that?"
"Man to man," began Stern, not registering the mistake, "I know that your guy and mine will be talking tech. Hell, you know that the translator we gave you was of a different type to the one we sent for your Minister of Science. The one he has is programmed with over 600,000 additional scientific words. I wouldn't have understood what they were discussing if it was in my language. With half the words untranslated, all chance would have been eliminated. I sent the extra message so I could talk with a more down-to-earth man."
"What is this expression, 'down-to-earth'?"
Stern grunted. "Never mind. You get my meaning, I trust?"
"I think so. You are not totally disinterested in science?"
"Oh no, certainly not."
"Then how about you and I go out into the technical toto of the city, and we can compare our science."
Stern ignored the untranslated word and smiled again. "That would be great."
"Good, then it shall be so."
Stern was slightly surprised that the President travelled without bodyguard, but nevertheless it was alone that the unlikely pair made their way across a broad field, toward a towering structure made of the same red stone that Stern had observed before. The structure must be at least 15 earth stories high, Stern reckoned, and as long as an aircraft hanger. From the very top, just about within vision, the captain could see thick black smoke pouring from a chimney.
"Where are we going?"
Fior looked up at him. "This is one of our power plants. This, along with two others like it, provides all the electricity we need for the capital. It is pumped to the main settlement by a network of very small-bore pipes underground. You have such power plants?"
"Yes, ours are driven by nuclear…" Stern paused, "Should you be showing me all this? It would seem to be verging on the disclosure of military strength you mentioned earlier."
The Reticulian repeated his grin. "Thank you for noticing. It doesn't matter. In fact, it probably wouldn't matter if I showed you any of our military equipment. We are aware that we are far behind you in military technology, and Earth knows this too. Do you think your government would be as friendly and open towards us if it were not so? Anyway. There is no danger. I'm sure that if there is any technology that your government wants from us, a price can be arranged."
"I'm glad you feel that way. I'll continue. Our plants, and the engines in my ship, run on the principle of nuclear fission."
The translator stretched to nuclear, but gave out on fission.
"Hmm," grunted Stern, seeing the puzzled look on Fior's face, "I'll try to define that word. Fission is where a substance breaks up, releasing energy."
The president whooped for a second. "Yes, yes, our power plants work on the same process. Nuclear fis'un," he tried to pronounce the English, tentatively.
Stern was shocked. "What's with the smoke? Uranium fission doesn't produce smoke."
Fior looked puzzled, though, the Earth-man noticed, the word 'uranium' had been translated fine. "I'm sorry, Stern, but we don't use uranium. It is not common on our planet, thankfully, as it is dangerous to us. We use carbon."
Now it was Stern's turn to look puzzled, but his look quickly turned to one of shock. "There is a radioactive isotope of carbon!" he began, oblivious to the fact that two of his words had not been translated, "You use carbon-14 somehow, yes?"
Another quizzical look issued from the Rigellian. "I do not know this use of carbon with a number…"
"Sorry. There are two types of carbon. We call them carbon-12 and carbon-14."
"Oh yes." Realisation spread across his face, "We call them carbon ya and carbon eb. Carbon ya is used in our power plants. We use carbon eb for other purposes."
They had, by this time, arrived at the front wall of the plant, adorned only by a single, low doorway. "You should be all right in here. The ceilings are high, but you'll have to duck to get in." The president shuffled inside the building.
Stern bowed his head and followed him in.
The inside of the plant was dark and dirty, as well as hot, although Stern only registered the latter as the temperature dial on his suit shifted a couple of degrees.
"I take it you will want to see the process at work, Stern."
"What?", the captain was shocked, "Actually inside the reactor? I don't know if my suit will be able to stand the radiation, but I'll warn you if the rad-count gets to high for me."
Fior made an odd noise. "I did not understand all of that, but I accept we will go only as far as you desire."
Fior led Stern along several corridors, past control rooms, down some stairs, and finally out onto a metal balcony, overlooking what was presumably an underground chamber.
"I present to you, our plant-engine!" he exclaimed proudly.
The huge cave that extended below and ahead of Stern was certainly nothing like any reactor he had seen. It was too labour intensive! Scores of Reticulians, lightly dressed, were shovelling coal from huge piles into the mouths of seven vast sets of furnace doors. Occasionally one would pause and mop his brow or take a drink from a canister tied at his waist. Stern could not fathom the purpose of their feverish work. Surely…
The Earth-man turned to the Reticulian. "Those piles are carbon ya? What does carbon eb look like?"
"Oh, it is very valuable. There are several pieces of carbon eb set into my park'fo sepe, my ceremonial staff, but in industry carbon eb is used to make drill tips. It is the hardest substance known to Reticulian."
Stern's face fell as he realised that he had been mistaken. "I wish to leave now."
"A problem with your suit?"
"Something like that."
"Very well, we shall leave."
On the way out of the labyrinthine coal-fired power station of the Reticulians, Stern came clean.
"I'm afraid that our power stations are very different. We stopped using chemical power a century ago. Yours does not, as you said, work on the substance breaking apart."
"It does," nodded Fior, "The pieces of carbon ya come off and become a gas: smoke."
"Well, perhaps, but in nuclear fission, the actual atoms come apart, to an extent, down to the level of protons and neutrons." The last few words caused trouble for the translator, which eventually gave up.
"No," said Fior, "You don't understand. An atom is the smallest possible unit of a substance."
They emerged into the bluish light of the Reticulian day, and Stern turned solemnly to Fior. "We thought so, too. We split the atom over 200 years ago."
Stern thought he saw a tear in Fior's eye. Poor guy, he thought.
It took ten minutes to get back to the outskirts of the capital, at which point Fior apologised that they had been unable to take a raugaj (apparently like a taxi), due to Stern's size.
"But never mind," said the Reticulian, who seemed to have got over his disappointment at the apparent obsolescence of his power plant, "You will be impressed by our observatory."
"Is that an astronomical observatory?", asked Stern.
"Yes. You are interested?"
The Earth-man chuckled. "Fior, it is my living and my calling to travel amongst the stars."
"Ah. Yes. I have often dreamed of doing so myself. You know that my people have not developed interstellar travel? Of course. And without a moon, and no other planets in our system, there is little we can explore without it. We have not even the rudiments of the flying technology we understand that you have had for some time. We hope one day, however, to open up a dialogue with the Erifnoseno."
Stern stopped. "The what?"
"Sorry. A literal translation would be -", he paused, "- 'the ones that burn'."
"Who are they?"
"Have you not encountered them? I thought you would have intercepted their transmissions as soon as you entered our system. They are the other intelligent race that reside here."
"Here on the planet?" Stern was suddenly anxious. How could the previous missions have failed to notice such a thing?
The Reticulian chuckled. "No, of course not. My people have colonised every known continent of our planet, which is quite a feat, I can tell you. The far eastern continent that your colleagues will be visiting is separated from us by an ocean spanning 3000 of your miles, and none of our sea-craft can travel faster than 5 of your miles every hour. But I digress, the Erifnoseno live on our Sun."
"Good grief," exclaimed Stern, not believing his ears.
"Ah, here we are, the Ema'L observatory. Named after one of our greatest astronomers of many years ago. It's going to be more cramped than the plant, I'm afraid, but I encourage you to bear it."
The observatory was, in contrast to the plant, squat and round, with an interesting array of what Stern guessed were astronomical instruments. He would have liked to have taken a longer look at them, but the president had entered, so the Earth-man followed quickly.
The bulk of the observatory seemed also to be underground, and Stern had to stagger like a hunchback down several flights of stairs, before he found himself in a low-ceilinged room, full of pale-skinned Reticulians. The aliens, presumably astronomical scientists, were huddled around computer screens that resembled nothing so much as upturned dustbins.
"This is where we receive the transmissions from the Sun." exclaimed Fior proudly, and then he added in a more ashamed way, "Unfortunately, we have been trying to decode them for ten years without success."
"May I?", enquired Stern, motioning towards one screen.
"Of course." A scientist stood up from a stool he was kneeling on, smiled and indicated the screen.
Stern looked at the chart therein displayed critically for a few seconds, and then turned to speak to the obliging scientist.
"Well, for starters, this part here," he said, tapping a red line, "Is interference from a sunspot." The last word did not translate properly, but the Reticulian nodded, with an understanding. By now the entire lab was watching and listening to the captain.
"And this," he continued, indicating the blue line, "Is the sun's natural gamma ray emission. The yellow line would appear to be due to a slight misalignment in your sensors." Stern grinned, and looked up from the screen. The scientists did not look pleased.
"We must leave now," said the president quickly, and manhandled the captain up the stairs.
"Sorry," apologised Stern, once they were outside, "I didn't think…"
"No, no.", muttered Fior, tiredly, "I should have realised that you would have detected the Erifnoseno if they existed. I don't know how that will effect those poor souls. Their lives were devoted to that project."
"Still, I'm sorry."
Suddenly, the president cheered up. "When is your second delegation going to touch down on our Eastern continent?"
"Hmm. About eight hours time."
"Marvellous! Tell me Stern, what does your planet know about time travel?"
Stern raised both eyebrows. "Some experiments, high level ones, with Asimovium, have managed to slightly warp the flow of time."
"Zeemoviom?"
"A very heavy element. You know how elements get heavier, and eventually unstable?"
"Yes."
"Well, beyond that they become stable again, and Asimovium has some very interesting properties to do with time, but no; that's all we know of time travel."
"Well, accompany me into that building," Fior pointed to a tall grey tower a few yards away. "The Toidi Institute Of Temporal Science!"
"Oh, lead on!"
The two of them, Stern once again crouched, entered the tower.
After a cramped ride in what must have been a lift, Fior led Stern out onto the roof of the tower. A wizened old Reticulian sat at a desk of the green material, speaking stuttering syllables into a microphone, attached to a strange apparatus which included what seemed to be a large radio mast.
"Right," announced Fior, "This is basically a normal radio transmitter-receiver, but it is tuned to communicate with a station on the eastern continent
"In itself this is nothing, but, due to the chemical makeup of the ocean between the continents, we think, we can communicate with approximately eight hours in the future! Try it! Spero, get out of the way of the microphone. Observe, Stern, here the sun is high in the sky. It is more or less midday.
"Ahem", the Reticulian cleared his airway and spoke into the microphone, "What time is it, Station Two?"
The crackly response came back, and Fior held his translator over the speaker.
"It is just after sundown."
No sooner had the eastern operator finished speaking than the president cut in, excitedly. "You see? We think that it is something to do with the ocean's ammonia content! The… how do I explain? The plus and minus of the atoms…"
"Ions," muttered Stern.
"…are aligned one way, and not the other, so they can talk to us eight hours previous, but we can only contact them eight hours in the future!"
Stern looked down at the gibbering, Reticulian president, beaming with pride and spoke to him without tone.
"Your planet orbits your sun. Consequently, only half the planet is illuminated at one time. When it is day on one side of the planet, it is night on the other. I'm sorry.
Fior's grin faded. They spoke little in their remaining hour together.
When the time came to leave, Stern was waiting at the landing module, as the agonisingly agonising Professor Gimlet hurried up to him.
"Well Cap! I have been in conference with the Minister of Learning for some hours! The technology he has described to me!"
"Let me guess. Time travel?"
"Yes! And Carbon fission! And a race that lives on the sun. And…"
Stern cut him off. "Gimlet. Two things."
"Yes?"
"Firstly, don't call me 'Cap'. Secondly, you are a bloody idiot. Now shut up."
They boarded the craft together.
The Minister of Learning, Tokan, slumped in his seat in the president's office, flabbergasted. "And you believe him, Mr. President?"
"He seems certain, and he is an honest man, Tokan. Frankly, I see no reason not to. In one day, our industry has been shown to be pitiful, and our two most highly advanced research projects have been rubbished. I understand that those from the observatory who have not killed themselves are organising a protest against any further relations with Earth."
"What will we do?"
"I don't know. But right now I must visit my mother. She is very ill, and I sincerely hope she has heard none of this. It may upset her."
"Shall I call you a raugaj, sir?"
"No, Tokan, I will take the teleporter, it will be quicker.
The president opened his door and left the office. He paused and stuck his head back through the door.
"I expect the human ones have twice the range."
