Life on Earth never settled down to doing anything good. Science ran too
far ahead of us too quickly, and the people got lost in a mechanical
wilderness, like children making over pretty things, gadgets,
helicopters, rockets; emphasizing the wrong items, emphasizing machines
instead instead of how to run the machines. Wars got bigger and bigger
and finally killed Earth.
        - Ray Bradbury


Survival and Destruction - Part 1
        Survival
   by Scott Kelly

The sun cast its bright, cheerful rays upon the canopy of the Great
Forest, upon the planet Mobius. Tiny gaps in the leaves and branches of
the forest allowed thin lances of light to dart down to the forest floor
far below. The ground level of this carefully balanced ecosystem was
always calm, cool, and damp, with the songs of birds, the rustle of
foliage, and the occasional cricket chirp as the music of nature. On
this particular afternoon, the tranquillity was suddenly broken by the
arrival of two new strange creatures to the forest. Creatures stirred
uneasily and bird ceased their songs to inspect and shy away from the
odd new visitors.
        One of them, a hedgehog with a tuft of brown hair on his blue head,
looked blankly at the featureless forest. "I think we're lost," he
informed his companion. "Let's just head back; this is crazy anyway."
        The other, a downy white duck with green sandals on his feet, tapped
some buttons on a handheld computer in his palm.
        "This is Shalin calling Mobius base. Mobius base, come in. Naita, can
you give us a fix here?" he said into a concealed microphone. "Some of
us are getting a little bored."
        "Shalin, the radar here says the inbound is about a kilometer and a
half above sea level," a female's voice replied through the computer's
speaker. "The trajectory is getting steeper; the computer has to keep
re-crunching the numbers, but right now, the projected point of
collision is still inside the forest, about a hundred meters to your
south-southwest. The speed is increasing, too, but taking that into
account, give the inbound thirty seconds or so. If it doesn't show up,
it's been incinerated. Sit tight, people. Jules, I know you hate the
forest, but give this time. This has never happened before, you know."
        "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." The one named Jules knelt down and picked
weeds out of the moist soil. 
        "Thanks, base. We'll keep you informed." Shalin, the duck, cut the
transmission and looked eagerly up to the treetops, to the patches of
sky that showed themselves. Soon, he spoke softly to Jules, as if he was
in a dream that could end with the slightest commotion.
        "I think I hear it! I can hear it!" were his words. "Can you?"
        Jules tilted an ear towards the sky, and indeed, he could hear a new
sound among those of the forest: a dull, soft rumble, like a far-off
thunderstorm. He stood up and joined his friend in looking to the sky.
        The noise that was the final descent of the debris began to grow,
slowly first, then it crescendoed to a deafeningly loud crackling scream
of death--a large glimmering object crashed through the canopy, and off
to the duo's right, an explosion occurred.
        Actually, it wasn't a real explosion, but something of a bursting of
matter. No flame billowed, no trees collapsed, no smoke gushed upwards
in belching bursts, but instead leaves, twigs, and other natural debris
flew upwards and outwards in all directions to the accompaniment of a
resounding thud. The hedgehog dove for shelter, but too late. A tiny
pebble glanced off his forehead, making a large welt which throbbed and
turned red instantly.
        Then, after the flying pieces of forest had settled, there was silence
again.
        Jules gingerly felt the wound and uttered a Mobian expletive not worth
repeating, but his uninjured friend dashed towards the disaster area as
fast as his skinny legs would take him. Jules, still muttering, hurried
to join him.
        A ring had been made around the crashed object, and the ground was
completely bare; stripped of saplings, grass, and any form of life at
all. Shalin stepped into this eerie wasteland and walked up to the
strange glowing object.
        The mysterious object in question was a ten-foot high, unwieldy metal
cylinder with curious wings that were cracked and bent. The shiny hull
of the craft was crumpled like paper, and the only outer markings on it
were a medium-sized colorful square and some tiny black letters.
        Jules knelt a safe distance away from the scorching hot metal and
inspected the square. It made no sense to him: a nice pattern with some
horizontal stripes and lots of small pointy stars, but still nonsense to
both of them. Then he slowly and carefully read the lettering aloud, as
if he were telling the whole forest about the strange craft's identity:
        "Chimera Interplanetary Satellite 6, SETI Program of the United States,
Planet Earth."

In an arm of Milky Way, orbiting the star Sol, upon the planet Earth, in
the tiny corner of the universe that is theirs, human race has
demonstrated an amazing ability to stretch their minds far beyond their
own insignificant little sphere. In fact, the most widespread belief
among humans is that among the countless points of light that compose
the night sky, many of them are inhabited by aliens. This is not
entirely incorrect, but the homo sapiens, in truth the most intelligent
species in the universe, have made fools of themselves in thinking that
the aliens they hope to discover will possess intelligence far beyond
their own; they will bring to Earth fantastic devices light-years beyond
human understanding; they will increase the technological boundaries of
their world, and the newfound aliens will create an era of peace and
prosperity that will stretch far into the future.
        Actually, this is wrong. Although one civilization's advancement is
usually slowed down by meeting another civilization, a particular group
of aliens somewhere in space has the capacity to get along with and
eventually help the human race. Ironically, the humans never found this
out until it was far, far too late. Never will the humans find a race
beyond theirs.
        The human race does not know it is all one big and horrendous
evolutionary mistake.
        Because of their naïveté, the human race thinks there are just as many
big, horrendous mistakes out there in the universe. For this reason,
they instituted an outer space program as soon as their technology could
allow it. Wishing for hopeful news, humans sent satellites to speak for
them, built transmitters to listen for them, created rockets to
transport them, and waited for a reply from outer space. Still, they
never knew they would not receive one.
        Time went on. The Earth still had its ear tuned to a universe that
ignored it, and on the face of the planet, things happened. As the human
race evolved, the higher beings that were still humans were slightly
smarter, more curious, and much more passive. Subsequently, the
Earthlings stopped having their useless fights called "wars" and focused
their minds on more worthwhile ideas. The humans' pursuits now turned to
those of the mind, rather than impotent struggles of warfare. Fields
like particle science, quantum physics, and others advanced with the
leap in research labor and funding. The movement and hope that aliens
existed grew in size and popularity. And still nothing happened.
        And so as Earth years passed, and people became more and more
pessimistic about the possibility of outer space life, the leaders of
several countries took it selfishly into their hands to look around
themselves. The United States of America, the most prominent of all
these self-centered nations, made satellites composed of lightweight
metal and moved by a solar-powered engine that created tachyons and shot
them out in concentrated bursts. These small satellites, dubbed
Chimeras, were given cameras and had sound capabilities in order to get
pictures of the imaginary aliens. In the Earth year three thousand, the
United States blasted ten Chimeras in ten different directions in space,
towards ten different stars, in the hopes that some of them would land
on a inhabited planet and broadcast information back to earth about it.
        One did.
        Chimera 6, though completely normal and different in no other way from
its nine companions, led a drastically different life. Because of a
stupid trigonometric error, the satellite, which was meant to fly past
the Earth's sun and towards Epsilon Eridiani, instead was pulled into
orbit around the sun. When this was noticed, however, the humans fired
the tachyon jets and sent the Chimera 6 out of orbit and on a straight
path again.
        In this new situation, though, the Chimera had been thrown hopelessly
off course, and now was careening off into a random direction in space.
The Chimera 6 project was a failure.
        Well, it would have been a failure if there wasn't a planet in the way.
        This particular planet was never even thought of as existing before,
because of the incredible coincidences involved in its existence. The
planet in question has exactly the same interstellar habits as Earth,
orbiting the sun on the same path, at the same speed, and turning only
slightly more slowly. The two planets were completely blind to each
other's presence because all the time, the sun was directly between the
two. Probes had never been launched to search for a planet on the far
side of the sun, and it was only because of blind luck, a shot in the
dark, as it were, that this satellite happened to find this one. Chimera
6 hit the planet head-on and was sent hurtling down towards the planet's
surface.
        Earth Mark II, as Earthlings later called it, was a giant blue and
green planet with swirling clouds that bore a shocking resemblance to
Earth. It was also inhabited, but Earth never found this out until
transmissions of the natives reached Earth. It was, even more
coincidentally, temperate, tilted on its axis, lush with jungles, and
similar to Earth in every way except its actual name.
        Its name was Mobius.

The Mount Olympus Universal Observatory, in a military base in the
California lowlands, was staffed by only a few apathetic junior
scientists and one Professor William Hardy, an outer space fanatic who
eagerly scanned the skies each day, waiting for the sign he knew would
come. He manned the laboratory's one telescope, its three scanning
electrographs, and its lone Chimera monitor while the juniors played
practical jokes on the interns. But for all its look of inefficiency,
NASA had honored this tiny station as one of the ten in the United
States to monitor the progress of one of the famous Chimera satellites.
The monitor stationed on a card table in a corner of the room had
"CHIMERA #6" scrawled on a piece of tape as a reminder. Next to the
television-style screen was a small panel of tiny multicolored lights
that lit up in case any number of things should happen to the satellite.
This setup was usually ignored, except by Professor Hardy, who would
stare at the rows of lights and dream about them blazing into life with
the message that the aliens had finally been discovered.
        On this particular afternoon, late in the spring of 3000, it was a
normal day at the Observatory. The professor was in his favorite swivel
chair, flipping through the late great Stephen Hawking's autobiography,
The Universe and I, and the rest of the staff were passing around a
bottle of old scotch and playing seven-card stud for extra swigs. 
        Day became evening, and evening became night. The card players's talk
was beginning to turn to that of home and wives and kids who awaited
their arrival. The deck of cards had just been stacked up and put away
when on the panel, a small green light had begun silently to blink.
        On and off, on and off.
        The professor didn't notice this until one intern looked up and,
noticing the anomaly, called out, "Hey, what's that over there?"
        "Mm?" the professor's grunt was one of that who didn't want to be
disturbed, but when he spied the light, he dashed across the floor and
put his face inches from the blinking panel.
        "PLANETARY INTRUSION," the caption below the tiny bulb read.
        The same instant he realized what had just happened, a buzz sounded. It
reverberated throughout the tensely silent lab, attracting everyone's
attention. Suddenly, there was a short, loud tone, followed by others.
Eleven tones, then silence.
        "What's going on now?" then same intern asked. Just then, a squawk, and
the hiss of electronic static.
        A junior scientist looked at the inquisitive one. His eyes shone with
eagerness and wonder. "The mainframe is calling NASA," he said
reverently. "We've found the aliens."
        "Hot damn," the professor whispered, then, screaming, "Hot damn!!!" He
whirled around to face his shocked assistants, his eyes afire, his face
flushed with adrenaline. A foolish-looking grin spread over his
clean-shaven face. He straightened up slowly and grandly, feeling like
some otherworldly God, on top of the world. "This is for real."

Looking small and pathetic in its rumpled, scorched state, Chimera 6 sat
in the middle of a cushioned table usually used for operations. The
table was situated in the operating room of the Mobotropolis Public
Infirmary, yet none of the four Mobians who were currently scrutinizing
the spacecraft were doctors. But then again, this was no ordinary
patient.
        "We should destroy it," said a hedgehog in an official tone of voice.
His bit said, he now stared out the window, as if the satellite wasn't
even worth looking at.
        "I think Chakiver's right," chimed in Jules, who was standing next to
him, looking self-important. Everyone hated it when he was like this.
His job was a good one, and he knew it: Jules had been appointed for
several cycles to the King's personal scientific board. But he didn't
have to act so high and mighty about it all the time. He always spoke a
little to loudly and officially, and always got bored with anything
outside his job. Presently, he took a step forward to continue his idea,
but he was restrained by the sudden, firm grip of a little female
hedgehog standing nearby.
        "Stay away from that! It's probably still a little warm from crashing,"
she warned. Jules looked like he was about to say something about being
spoken to like that, but thought better of it and shut up. Naita, for
that was the female's name, then stepped forward, closing one eye and
squinting with the other in careful assessment. She was a very short
hedgehog, a lighter blue than most of her species, and young too, but
her genius skills gave her a placement on the King's scientific board.
She took it well for someone of her age. "I'm really not sure about all
this yet," she announced finally to the rest of them. "Let me hear what
the rest of you have to say."
        "Well, it's must be from another planet, of course," added Chakiver.
This was his name, but he thought it sounded like someone sneezing, so
he preferred to be called "Chuck." He was a dear friend of the King and
as a result was his chief scientific advisor.  He took his job
diligently and with humility. That's why he had been there for nearly
twelve cycles. "Y'know this is the biggest thing to happen here since
the Mass Expulsion last cycle," he continued. "We should maybe try to
start building some kind of craft to see if we can find someone out
there."
        "I'd like to cut it up first," added Shalin, who was holding some of
his dissecting tools eagerly. He was adept in both technological and
anatomical matters, and held both jobs assisting the scientific board
and working in the Infirmary where they were now. The laser tools were
usually used in delicate surgery, but they could serve any purpose,
including this one. "The electronics inside may be way beyond what we've
harnessed so far. This technology might finally help us stop the Leper
raids."
        Everyone paused at this idea. Jules was looking at the crumpled craft
as if it held diamonds inside. "You're absolutely right, Shalin. The
technology could be beneficial. Everyone, clear out so Shalin can
inspect the spacecraft."
        The group left through the hospital's large double doors, abandoning
the eager duck with the ruined satellite.
        He rubbed his webbed hands together with delight. This was probably the
most important project he'd undertook; he needed to be relaxed. Just to
be sure, he left the room and quietly crossed the hall. Inside a dim
larger room, he went to a bank of lockers. This was the medical staff
room, where Shalin worked part-time as a medical technician. Placing
himself in front of locker 23, he keyed in his six-digit code and the
locker clicked silently open, the yellow lighting clicking on.
        Shalin's locker contained a pair of blue sandals, a small group of
medical instruments, a white coat with an ID badge, and a first aid kit.
Opening the first aid kit, Shalin soon found a roll of gauze bandage.
>From inside the tube, he pushed a small bottle into the palm of his
hand.

        Inside the bottle, he found one of the blue-and-green tablets he so
desperately craved. One, then another of the capsules went into his
mouth. He leaned against the lockers, already feeling better. As the
pills spread though his body, his senses sharpened; every corner of the
dark room jumped out at him and details sprang forth crystal clear. He
sighed contentedly. Now he was ready. Feeling very light all of a
sudden, Shalin closed his locker and ran across the room, feeling like
some kind of God, eager to get to work on his creation.

"Hey, hey everyone, come look at this!" Shalin cried, running out of the
double doors at top speed. He nearly collided with Jules, standing just
outside. He was the only one there; everyone else had gone home for
mid-day meal.
        "Find anything yet?" Jules asked.
        Shalin was breathless from his mad dash. Gulping for air, he signaled
to his friend to follow him.
        Into the hospital the two Mobians went, to the operating room, where
the gutted Chimera lay. Small pieces of equipment, wires and gadgetry
were strewn across the tables and floor. Jules accidentally crushed one
under his boot as he entered the room. Shalin, not noticing, walked
across the room to where a terminal was situated. The terminal was
hooked up to the hospital network, and in turn, all public buildings
were linked to the Mobian Interfacility Urban Database mainframe.
        "Look," said Shalin, with some of his breath returning. "I looked
inside that thing, and practically all the wires led to this board." He
laid a finger on a six-inch square motherboard that was hooked up to the
terminal. "Anyone could figure out that this is the heart of the
spacecraft. I hooked it up to the terminal and was able to scan its
contents. See here?" he hit a button on the terminal and the screen lit
up with line after line of machine code. "I tried to have the mainframe
decipher it as a code, and it found out these are instructions for the
propulsion, navigation, and transmissions of the craft. Besides the
code, there was only one runnable program. The crash erased the section
of code that was supposed to decide when to run it, but I managed to
have the mainframe run it for me. Listen." With great relish, Rotor
highlighted an item on the screen and hit EXECUTE.
        The screen went momentarily blank, but a split second later the tiny
speaker next to the screen crackled into life. A friendly but monotonous
voice began to read an announcement in, surprisingly enough, a strange
dialect of the Mobian tongue.
        "Greetings to you from Planet Earth."
        "It's in our language! They're speaking Mobian!" interrupted Jules.
        "Shh. I know. Listen."
        This interplanetary satellite, Chimera number six, was launched in the
year three thousand by the National Air and Space Administration of the
United States. We have launched these satellites to search for
intelligent life on other planets. We ask your forgiveness in the abrupt
crash of our spacecraft on your planet, but now that you are hearing
from us, on behalf of our planet, we invite you to visit us that we may
enjoy an inter-cultural exchange of ideas and customs with you. We hope
the meeting will be mutually beneficial for both sides. Here are some
images of our home planet, for your edification." The screen flickered
and some hi-resolution images flashed across the screen. A human being,
shown standing on two feet in a loose white shirt and blue jeans and
neatly coifed hair. A meadow, dotted with tiny flowers, puffy clouds
crawling across the light blue sky. A city in the evening, with
elongated spires and skyscrapers with millions of tiny lights blazing
across the jagged skyline.
        "If you accept our invitation," the voice continued, "our planet is
located in the spiral galaxy Milky Way, in the galactic east spiral arm,
the third planet in orbit around the star Sol. Good luck in finding us,
and we hope to hear from you soon."

"Absolutely fantastic." Chuck said, after hearing the message herself.
"So there really is another civilization out there."
        "Isn't it awesome?" cheered Shalin, who was sitting on a doctor's
stool, looking at the satellite proudly, as if he made it himself. Jules
was standing at the window, looking up at the cloudy sky and thinking to
himself about what the planet Earth might be like. The others were still
at home, but Naita had come right over when she heard the news, and now
the four scientific experts sat around the operating room among the
hardware and discussed what to do. Chuck diplomatically suggested a
meeting, but Shalin pointed out that this discovery would publicize the
fact and create panic. This must be kept a great secret, to only be
shared with King Acorn himself. They all agreed that this occurrence was
good and that inter-planetary relations would help them in the fight
against the Lepers and the other unknowns. The big question was, what to
do about it?
        Talk went on for some time before a short-term plan was created. Find
the aliens, contact them and let them know where they were.
        Shalin, eager to stop talking and start working, hopped over to the
console, which, it may need reminding, was hooked up to the
Mobotropolian mainframe and all of its faculties. Among these many
bundles of hardware was a longwave radio meant to provide Mobotropolis
Electronic Database Network updates to handheld computer units across
the continent of Mobius and beyond. Temporarily, this radio ceased its
usual job and looked to the stars. The mainframe began to transmit its
message of acknowledgment into outer space. Before the first waves
reached past the atmosphere, however, there was a problem.
        "Problem? What kind of problem?" asked Naita. She squinted at the
console and tried to read the tiny messages flashing urgently across its
screen.
        Shalin, with a pair of headphones on, didn't hear the question, but
minutes later, he took them off and answered everyone's fears.
        "I can't send the message past the atmosphere. I tried all the ranges
the radio can use, but I keep getting this new interference. The
motherboard here seems to be some kind of antenna for pulling in these
odd radio waves from outer space. Here, on this particular frequency it
comes through as audio. Listen."
        Shalin pulled out the headphone jack, redirecting the sound to the main
speakers. The surprising noise that was heard was a woman's voice,
speaking clearly and officially in the same strangely accented language
as Mobians used. Aside from a slight static from the interplanetary
trip, an annoying tap-tap noise was in the background.
        "WKXR news radio time," the woman droned, "is five forty-five. In
sports news at this hour, baseball spring training camps begin across
the nation, The University of Colorado comes out on top in Division I
March Madness, and the St. Paul Supernova defeated old rival--"
        "Or here, a little higher up, it comes through as audio and video. I
can't sort out the visual yet, but listen here." He clicked the
frequency dial up and turned up the volume. This time, a man and a woman
were arguing, with tense music playing in the background.
        "Lisa, can't you trust me?" the man was saying. "I mean, the wedding is
tomorrow afternoon--"
        "I don't care when the wedding is!" the woman raged. "I don't want to
be married to some slime who gets engaged, then sleeps with her fiancé's
best friend! I don't even want to have anything to do with you! I'm
leaving, Brad, and that's final!" There were scuffling noises that
sounded like the woman packing a bag.
        "No!" the man protested. "Honey, listen to me! You know I would never
do a thing like that! You know I love you..."
        Abruptly, a door slammed, an engine started, and the music became slow
and sad. Then, a deep voice announced that "One Life to Live" would
continue next week, and there was silence.
        "Well, that's stupid," Jules opined from across the room, and resumed
picking away at pieces of satellite.
        "Well, can't you get past the interference?" Chuck asked, showing a
hint of nervousness.
        "No," Shalin announced sadly. "The transmissions come from somewhere
out past Mobius, and they cover all the frequencies the mainframe can
broadcast at. I--I can't send any acknowledgment at all." Shalin
switched off the mainframe and stared at the floor.
        Among the Mobians, there was a long moment of stillness. It was Jules
who broke it with a sudden inspiration.
        "You guys," he began, "I've been thinking about all this stuff, and
there are too many coincidences involved in all this. I mean, these
supposed aliens... what are the chances that they speak our language,
walk the same way, dress like us, use the same technology, have the same
climate--did you see that phony video over there? I mean, look! This has
to be a trick." Like a debater who has just delivered the last word, he
sat back confidently and added, "How about that?"
        Shalin spoke up. "Y'know, I think Jules's right. Just think about the
odds; they have to be in the millions. And the interference is probably
made up, and the machine is made for pulling it in towards us, just to
jam our transmissions. And the whole fact that this thing attracts radio
waves makes us a sitting duck to be located by the Lepers's scanners. I
agree; this has to be one of their plots. We should burn the machine and
forget this ever happened."
        "Jules is right,"  Chuck suggested flatly. "We should get rid of all
this." He swept a hand around the room, indicating the scattered pieces
of alien machinery.
        "What about you, Naita?" Jules turned his head towards the young one,
who was sitting silent and pensive on the tabletop next to the
motherboard.
        Naita said nothing at first. She knew that something about this wasn't
right. How could the Lepers have got the Chimera satellite into the
upper atmosphere without them noticing? Why bother to send messages and
dialogue as interference instead of static? It didn't make sense to her,
but her friends' evidence outweighed her suspicions. Finally, she nodded
her head once, very slowly.
        "Okay, you guys," Shalin ordered, turning around. "Let's get these
electronics into a wheelbarrow and take them outside. I'll carry the
shell with you. We'll have a space junk cookout tonight!" the duck
laughed as he trotted out the door to find a suitable spot to burn the
trash. Unfortunately, the Mobians, even Naita, the most apprehensive of
them, would have no idea of how this pile of trash would come back to
affect them and their race for the rest of time.

"Let's see what we've got here," muttered NASA technician Carl Higgins
to himself, as he leaned over the tiny monitor at NASA Headquarters in
Cape Canaveral on Planet Earth. He took the cigar from his mouth between
two fingers and made three tiny rings of smoke in short puffs. The
hand-sized screen in front of him, the sixth in a row of ten, crackled
with static and showed a tiny landscape: a dense, lush forest with
debris still settling from the crash. Higgins brought his face closer
until his dark, beady eyes hovered a few inches from the monitor. He
held in a long, smoke-laden breath as a large shiny white mass, blurred
by the smoke and haze, came into the camera range. The full impact of
what he was seeing finally came to him.
        "Aliens," he breathed in wonder. "Honest-to-God aliens." A foolish,
child-like grin slowly appeared on his face as he saw another smaller
being, this one blue, come into the picture. The blue one knelt down in
front of the camera, and he had a wonderfully close-up shot of large
white eyes, a tan snout, smooth cobalt-blue skin, and a small mouth that
moved silently with the recitation of some phrase.
        "No sound, sir. The recorder broke in the crash." Higgins turned to
face the voice and found himself looking into Professor Hardy's fearful
face.
        "Hell, son, that doesn't matter!" Higgins bellowed. "What matters is
that we've succeeded! For once, we've actually done it!" The jubilant
man grabbed Hardy's hand and gave it a painfully energetic shake.
Workers all around them were standing on chairs, cheering heartily, and
making a wonderfully festive air in the stuffy room. "The aliens are
here," he roared, jabbing a finger at the screen. "And we've found
them!"
        "But sir," the professor ventured meekly. "You haven't seen all of the
tape yet."
        The celebration was smothered by this remark, and all eyes turned to
Higgins. The room crackled with silence, and someone coughed in the back
of the room. Higgins, suddenly grim and businesslike, turned to the
monitor and caught a fleeting glimpse of what seemed to be a laser
pointer, as the camera was lifted from its place and dropped somewhat
roughly on the floor. A sideways view of a large, well-lit room was
laced with fuzz as the camera's circuits sustained minor damage.
        "Here's the interesting part," offered Hardy, stepping forward and
putting his face next to Higgins'. "See what he finds in there? See,
right there."
        The white thing at the time was holding and inspecting a large green
board that was on the table next to the camera. Higgins drew in a quick
breath when he saw it.
        "The motherboard."
        "Yes. See, then he picks it up, walks away from us, and hooks it up to
that terminal over there."
        Indeed, the creature had taken the motherboard to a half-visible
computer terminal across the room. He disappeared from view for a
moment, then was seen again at the terminal's screen, working on a small
set of buttons below it.
        "Look, here's the good part. Can you enhance this picture?"
        "Certainly," Higgins said, whirling around to a junior technician. "Get
this up on the movie screen, and crop to the computer monitor in the
image there."
        A few seconds, and the small square of the alien computer was projected
onto a large white portion of wall across the room.
        "Zoom," Higgins ordered. The wall was suddenly dominated by a
pixellated mess of colors that created the picture. "Enhance, and
restart the movie."
        The picture shifted and the greatly enlarged, computer-generated view
of the terminal's screen was now shown. The film began again, and on the
screen, a sudden sequence of pictures were flashed up: a human being, a
meadow, a city skyline.
        "They got our message," Higgins said with sudden realization. He
exploded with joy again. "Christ, that's not bad, that's spectacular!
Why didn't you just say--"
        "But sir," interrupted Hardy once more. "The end of the transmission
shows them burning the entire satellite--without responding to our
message."
        Silence, crushing and apprehensive, fell upon one and all. Higgins
heard someone cough again in the next room. Higgins turned slowly
around, a glazed look in his eyes. "They burned it? You mean they're
hostile?" His voice rang with disappointment and disbelief.
        "Yes, sir." Hardy stared at a spot on his shoe and swallowed with a dry
throat. "My recommendation is to... is to... to destroy them."
        "Destroy them?" Higgins repeated, crestfallen.
        "They have the technology, sir, as you saw. And they must know where we
are, too, and what we look like, and how we speak. I mean, sir, if you
just think it over for a second, you'll see that we are in great
danger."
        Higgins sat down slowly, as if his body had shut off. He hung like an
unused puppet, a man with his life's greatest hope suddenly dashed away.
He slumped forward and placed his head in his hands, drawing in and
releasing a long, heavy breath. After a moment he said, muffled and
haltingly, "Call Washington. Let them know what's happened."

There were no secrets this time. The aliens were found, but Earth's
innocent hope of friendly neighbors and interplanetary peace was once
and for all shattered. The leaders of the United States immediately
created a special spaceship, big enough for an army. The commoners of
the country, and soon, the whole world, panicked at the terrifying news,
and hallucinations of great alien warships in the sky began to surface
around the world. Mistrust, fear, and loathing began to grow towards the
evil aliens and the world cried out for their annihilation. Of course,
the human race's fears were totally unfounded, but they would not find
this out until much later, perhaps, not until it was too late. In
several months, the ship, the Heracles, was finished, loaded with its
human cargo, and shot into space. A new, but familiar urge to destroy
came upon the humans as the ship flew silently through the starry void
of space towards the ignorant planet of Mobius.
        For the first time in over a millennium, the human race was once again
retracing its steps to war. And they loved it.

"Captain? Sir, are you there?" An Earth soldier, tall, thin, and
pale-faced, stood awkwardly outside the captain's cabin. He straightened
up from the intercom he had just spoken into, and heard the reply,
"Certainly, young man. Come on in." The door irised smoothly open, and
the soldier took a long stride through it.
        The captain's quarters on the Hercules were spotless, partly because
they were brand-new. The captain of the army himself, a well-built,
chubby man named Gregory Vosper, sat on his perfectly made bed, watching
a news broadcast from Earth.
        "The reception ain't bad at all out here, is it Soldier?" he asked
amiably, smiling and pointing to the screen. He sat up and accepted the
soldier's salute. "What can I help you with, friend?"
        The planet Earth Mark II is in visual range, sir," the soldier said in
snappy military speech. "We will be in orbit in about an hour, using the
sub-tachyon jets. Do you approve of our current status, sir?"
        "Sure, sure," Vosper said, standing up. "Tell the pilot to keep speed
and direction." He suddenly noticed the uneasiness in the man's face,
and then asked, "Something the matter, my friend?"
        "Well," the soldier began, shifting his body from one foot to the
other, "I . . . I just don't feel right about what we're doing. It
doesn't . . . seem fair to me."
        "Fair? Really?" the captain's face seemed to show relief, but he
quickly disguised it as contemplation. There was a second or two of
silence. "I don't know that there's anything to be worried about. We
know that the aliens are a threat to us, now that they know where we
are, and they have technology like ours. They could easily start a
worldwide takeover back home, and we have to stop them first." He was
only repeating what NASA had told him. He really couldn't think of
anything else to say.
        The soldier clearly wasn't satisfied. He wrapped a lock of his dark
hair around a long finger and frowned. Finally, he replied, "Yes, sir.
That seems to explain our mission. Thank you, sir." He turned slowly and
walked out the door, which slid closed in his wake.
        The captain sat on his bed, staring at the floor. The television,
sensing the visitor's leave, started once more, and the cheerful news
anchor's voice piped into the suddenly gloomy room.
        Just one more hour, the captain thought to himself. One hour until . .
. until what? None of us could know what's down on that planet that's so
much like ours. I can't think of . . . that young soldier was right.
This doesn't have to happen. And yet . . .
        That was where he stopped. And yet what? A drink, he concluded. I
really need a drink. To stop these stupid thoughts. Why should we be
afraid of them? A drink should help me relax for a minute, before we . .
.
        He didn't finish his thought. Rising from his bed and stepping out into
the long corridor, he walked sluggishly down the hall, towards the bar.

One hour later, Captain Vosper stood at the head of his entourage on the
ship's bridge, with the swirling aqua-and-green face of the world lying
outside the great front porthole. How pretty it looks, the captain mused
happily. Like well-done abstract art. . .
        "Captain Vosper," the pilot suddenly announced loudly, so as to make it
official. "We have attained a stable orbit around the alien planet of
Earth Mark II. The men stand ready and armed, the land cruisers are idle
and ready to leave the main bay with their land fighter squadrons, and
the entire ship awaits your word. What are your orders, sir?"
        The captain, so close to the truth in his private thoughts, now put on
his public face. He straightened up a tiny bit more, to make it clear he
was about to speak. Then, with all his men behind him, with all of
Earth's killing power under his command, and seeing the unknown enemy
spread out on the great planet below him, Captain Vosper felt the
ancient killing urge of his species take him over once more, and an
unholy smile danced across his glowing face.
        "Begin the attack."
        Standing before his captain, the first mate saluted.
        "With pleasure, sir."