Hot/Cold War

"Oh, damn son of..." Tech Sergeant Bigelow's current duty had her keep an eye on the base's AI supervision of the American satellites orbiting Mercury. This was widely regarded as the easiest assignment on the planet since the satellites always performed perfectly. So why a notice that a satellite had gone dark? She called up the thing's ID data. Primarily keeping watch on 64 thousand square kilometers of southeastern Caloris Basin and neighboring territory. Nothing of known importance, and the Chinese at the South Pole seemed to agree.

She called up info on any satellites that might have had the dark one in view. There was just one, at 67,508.2 kilometers. She called up its views from just before the time hers went dark. All she got was a brief flash, four frames on the 30/second feed. After a deep sigh she called up the final feeds of the dark satellite. Little to contribute to understanding until she ran each frame from one of its side cameras individually. This had two frames showing a silvery blob coming directly at the satellite.

"This is getting way beyond me! Up we go." Bigelow hit a few buttons, notifying First Lieutenant Dean, and forwarding the video frames. Dean was back to her in two minutes.

"Bigelow, what the hell is this? You pranking me? Because if you are..."

"No, sir, the satellite went dark about six minutes ago. What I sent you were the results of my search for a cause."

Dean's response introduced Mercury to some new and more creative curses. "Stand by, you may be needed to answer some questions." He punched some buttons, sending a summary to the base commander, General Gomez.

One hour later an announcement went to all base personnel, both military and civilian, including those off duty. "Now hear this: All category 4 personnel are to report to Conference Room 3 in ten minutes." This repeated several times. At 85 decibels, after the second time it was annoying. By the fourth it was sure to have awakened anyone asleep.

Conference Room 3 had a crowd gathered outside its locked door. A Sergeant said, "Alright, move along, the meeting is in Conference Room 2."

Dr. Aubrey, responsible for design and construction of base facilities, muttered to the man nearest him "Can't whoever called this waste of time decide where to meet?"

Henry Hoppfer, a base cryptologist involved in monitoring the Chinese, shrugged. "Just extra security if our south polar friends were listening." He subtly moved away, as the 57-year-old Aubrey was somewhat controversial for having linked up with Marge, a 23-year-old communications aide.

General Gomez waited until the roughly fifty-member crowd was seated, then strode to a lectern in the front, followed by four military (Lt. Dean by far the lowest ranked) and two civilians. The General gave a brief explanation of the dark satellite, its job, and its fate. He gestured at Dean, who played the brief tapes on the room's AV screens.

"Is this a Chinese action? If it is, why this satellite? Have they some special interest in that section in or near Caloris? Or is this a diversion? Or an attempt to lure us into some sort of improper response? I want to hear from you both pro and con on all these possibilities, with recommendations on our follow up."

The first comment came from Aubrey. "Shouldn't we try to recover whatever is left of the satellite?"

Gomez replied, "I launched a recovery team 72 minutes ago." He turned to the next speaker. The room maintained enough order to prove the General's success in establishing rules for meetings. After several comments a message from the Communications Center halted discussion. Gomez said, "Why break into this meeting?"

"Sir, you have an Omega call." That meant it came from the Chinese base.

"Put it through to this room, and make sure there is no sound from this direction except my voice when I'm speaking. Record everything, especially from their end, voice and video."

"Yes, sir!"

Ten seconds later the screen blinked, and a man in People's Liberation Army uniform appeared.

General Gomez looked for a moment, and then said in excellent Mandarin, "Shaojiang Wu, greetings. To what fortunate event do I enjoy the honor of your appearance?"

General Wu smiled thinly, and replied in equally excellent English, "We have observed the apparent deliberate destruction of one of your satellites, and are concerned whether you were testing a new weapon."

Gomez returned to English. "At an impact speed we have measured as in excess of fifty thousand kilometers per second we also were concerned it was a test of a new weapon, as we have nothing like it."

"Nor have we."

"I doubt most other nations on Earth have the ability to develop such a weapon."

Wu nodded slightly. "I must agree. We slightly tracked this object before it struck your satellite. We measured speed at just under sixty thousand kilometers per second at impact."

"You would seem to have more tracking data than we do. Have you any indication where it launched from?"

General Wu gestured off screen, which suddenly split into three images, with Wu occupying a smaller fourth in the upper right corner. One section showed the crude Chinese track, with considerable gaps. The second section showed a computer-smoothed track running backward from the impact to the presumptive launch site. The third section was a maximum blow-up frame of a satellite photo of the supposed launch area.

"Very interesting, and I appreciate your sharing that with us. May I make a proposal to resolve this mystery?"

"The People's Liberation Army Base Mao would be pleased to hear your proposal."

"In a reasonable time, say 36 hours, we each launch a team of perhaps six members each to explore this site, and share whatever we find there."

Wu hesitated for the first time. He appeared to be getting a message as the screen reverted to showing only his image. After two minutes he spoke. "Your proposal is accepted. We will be back in touch in 35 hours." His image vanished.

With communications ended the General turned back to his audience. A moment for thought, then "The staff for visiting this site is as follows, and you will each pack personally appropriate life support and professional materials. In charge is Major Kennedy. For construction materials and methods Dr. Aubrey," he droned on through four more charges, ending with "Be here in 34 hours, packed and ready to go, to receive final available information and orders."

The next meeting came after the six selected had all rested, packed, eaten. As Aubrey approached the next meeting a much younger woman came from a side hall and embraced him. "Is this safe? I don't want to lose you."

He returned the embrace. "If the Chinese are really innocent, they'd have no reason to threaten us. Marge, the most likely danger is equipment failure. I've checked mine, but I have to depend on crew for our ship." He stroked her hair and would have kissed her except a small audience seemed to be watching.

The Chinese resumed contact as scheduled, but with a new spokesperson. General Wu appeared only for a moment to introduce Col. Fong. It was quickly agreed that the Americans would land in the northern area, the Chinese in the southern part of the anomalous region. An agreement to share results drew some cynical off-screen comments, but Aubrey and his five companions had already left the conference room for the launch.

Launch was ordinary (or "nominal" in the long-established jargon), and the 25-minute flight as boring as ever. At 30 kilometers from landing the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "What the hell is going on down there?" He flipped a switch so everyone on board as well as back at the American base could see what he was looking at.

Aubrey and the others saw that the entire crater was glowing brightly. As they watched, the crater walls dissolved and flowed into the crater, which within one minute turned into a bubbling cauldron of molten materials. A voice came over the radio. "This is General Wu aboard the China 5 service craft. We are 27 kilometers from target. It appears to be involved in volcanic type activity. Does this agree with your observation?"

Major Kennedy responded. "Major Kennedy in command of the American craft. Yes, we are observing what appears to be a violent volcanic eruption. I would need confirmation from base as to whether our seismographs confirm."

A third voice interrupted. "American seismographs indicate some minor ground movement similar to that expected with lava flow.

Kennedy said, "What is the closest we can land safely?"

"Try 20 kilometers from the closest lava but be ready for an emergency launch at any time."

General Wu said, "China 5 will land at 10 kilometers. We land in four point two minutes."

The radio fell silent. Radar tracked the Chinese vehicle as the Americans sought a reasonably flat area for their landing.

Kennedy grabbed the microphone. "General Wu, our instruments indicate the area you intend to land in is rapidly warming."

Wu muttered something in his native dialect, and then issued orders in Mandarin. The Americans watched as radar showed the Chinese spacecraft abort to orbit. Kennedy checked his equipment, and said to their pilot, "We. a have the same problem, our landing site is about to turn into lava."

"Your orders?"

"Release autonomous probes one through five and return us to base."

The pilot sighed. "Yes, sir."

Over the next four days the Chinese and American bases each evacuated, with crews heading back to Earth as Mercury reached temperatures that melted all the surface.

POSTSCRIPT

The hearing was being held at a NASA facility. Each American from the Mercury base was interviewed separately and secretly. Dr. Aubrey sneered at his examiners. "It is obvious what happened. The Aliens told us two things."

And what would that be?"

"They are watching, and they want us to know as little as possible about them."

THE END

Bio: Thomas Wm. Hamilton taught astronomy for 32 years. He has devoted his efforts since retiring to writing about astronomy as well as three books of science fiction. The author lived most of his life in big cities including San Francisco and New York, “which are about as bad for viewing the sky as living in a cave. The year I spent in New Hampshire was the best time for getting personally acquainted with the night sky. The asteroid 4897 was named by the International Astronomical Union Tomhamilton for me.”

E-mail: Thomas Wm. Hamilton

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