They Came from Interstellar Space
Fiction by Humphrey Price
James Ardby was enjoying a nightcap gazing out the window of his room after a stimulating evening of poker in the casino at the Grand Space Hotel. The Earth rotated majestically below, suspended in the blackness of space, while artificial gravity in the rotating luxury tourist station held everything down to the floor. He was swirling an expensive Barolo in a crystal goblet when the alarm went off from his asteroid hunting setup, remotely controlled from the comfort of his palatial orbiting hotel suite.
“Hello. What have we here?” A quick trajectory estimate indicated this new discovery would be zipping past Earth with a velocity of 60 kilometers per second. At that speed, the object had to have come from interstellar space and was just passing through our solar system. As an asteroid prospector, for him, the good news was that the object was probably small enough to be captured and retrieved. The bad news was that it was traveling far too fast for any existing propulsion system to catch up with it and bring it back.
He was ready to give up on claiming the find when he thought to run a forward propagation of the trajectory. He was dumbstruck by the result. The diminutive asteroid would pass in front of the Earth in a near miss and get a gravity assist that would slow it down and fling it toward Venus where it would just graze the upper atmosphere. The odds against that were astronomical.
The debonair spacer of African descent was nicknamed Diamond Jim. He owned a 75 trillion carat solid diamond asteroid he had discovered and relocated to lunar orbit a few years ago. As the wealthiest person in the solar system, he no longer chased the space rocks himself, but no one else could match his setup, and he was still exceptionally good at his hobby of finding them. He often gifted his new discoveries to cohorts.
Perhaps it was time to contact one of his more interesting friends. Cinnabar was a poker buddy and an asteroid prospector who might be game for chasing an interstellar rock. He shot her an email to set up an encrypted voice call. She got back to him a couple of hours later.
“Hey Jimbo, what’s up?”
“Hi, beautiful. Where are you?”
“I’m in Wuyi, China.”
“That’s a gorgeous place. Best tea in the world. I thought you were more of a coffee drinker.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been on a date with a dude who has a tea factory here. It is spectacularly picturesque, and the food is great, but it rains all the time and I’m soggy. And the dude is a dud, so I’m bugging out tomorrow back up to orbit.”
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with him, but I’m glad you’re coming back up. I have an interesting prospect for you.”
“Oh? You found another diamond asteroid just for me?”
“Not quite. I found a small mysterious interstellar object.”
“Interstellar? That’s exciting. Those don’t come along too often. Sounds like fun, but how the hell can we catch something that fast?”
“Amazingly, mother nature is on our side. Earth gravity assist and a Venus aero-assist are probably going to slow it down enough to enable capture. I’ll keep checking to confirm.”
“Is the heliocentric inclination low enough?”
“After the gravity assist, it’s almost in the ecliptic.”
“That’s pretty lucky, like one of your cheating poker games. What are the odds?”
“Pretty darn small, and by the way, I never cheat at poker.”
“Yeah, right. What’s the total trip time?”
“Looks like maybe six months.”
“Not bad. What about the split on the find?”
“I’m thinking fifty-fifty.”
“That means no one’s in charge. It’s gotta be sixty-forty, with me on top.”
“I’m always happy with you on top, Cinn. How about fifty-five – forty-five?”
“Deal. Can I bring a buddy?”
“Doesn’t look like it. The mass constraints are not going to allow for the extra consumables. It’s a loner trip. Sorry.”
“Not surprised. That’s the usual for asteroid chasing. Just thought I’d ask.”
“I’ll brief you when you get up here. Any other questions for now?”
“When are you going to register a claim?”
“I’m thinking after the Venus encounter when it should be in a capture-friendly orbit. That way we can keep the interstellar origin under wraps until we decide to reveal that little fact.”
“That’s smart. Avoid the attention, public scrutiny, and extra ‘help’ from the authorities.”
“Nobody knows but just us two chickens.”
“Do you have a name for your new discovery?”
“I’ve decided to call it Sandrock, after a place in Arizona that I love to visit.
“Has a nice ring to it. I hope it’s not made of sand.”
“Probably not, but I still like the name. Have a nice flight up, and bring me some tea.”
“Will do. See ya soon.”
The interstellar object’s Earth flyby went as predicted, still undiscovered by anyone else, and it was deflected toward Venus. Two months later, Cinnabar was preparing for the expedition, and the red-haired bombshell was in Ardby’s hotel suite waiting for data from the Venus aeroassist. They ordered lobster and a bottle of Riesling from room service to assist with the operation. Ardby had made improvements to the laser and IR telescope system so that even at Venus there was still a detectable return from the reflected laser hits.
“Game time,” Ardby said when it was T zero for the encounter.
The signal disappeared as Sandrock entered the upper atmosphere of Venus. Although that was expected, it made for a tense waiting period for it to show up again when it skipped back out into space, if indeed it survived the passage without burning up. Ardby was staring at the data display, and Cinnabar was staring at Ardby, gauging his expression. When a smile played across his face, she knew they were still in business.
“Looks like you picked it up,” she said.
“Yeah, and the return signal strength is unchanged, which means it didn’t burn up or lose any significant mass. It must be one sturdy sucker. Definitely not made of sand.”
“Do you have a rough ephemeris yet?”
“The estimator is showing that the new orbit is retrievable.”
“Sounds like we’re still a go then, Jimbo.”
“I’m running an update to the rendezvous trajectory now. It’s looking good.”
“When’s my departure time?”
“Just about three weeks from now.”
“I’ll be ready. Pass the lobster and pour me some more wine, please.”
In three weeks, preparations were complete for departure. Cinnabar owned a standard prospector’s model S39234 ship named Cardinal Cinn. It was a cylindrical vehicle with a trusswork cage attached to the forward end for mounting equipment and containing unpressurized cargo, and a propulsion module was connected to the aft end. In addition to the standard asteroid capture equipment, Ardby had provided her with a smorgasbord of expensive science instruments to examine the interstellar object.
In the departure orbit, Cardinal Cinn docked with two large boosters. At perigee, the first of the boosters ignited and propelled the prospector ship toward a rendezvous with Sandrock. Cinnabar checked in with Space Force traffic control and with Ardby to confirm all systems nominal and a good trajectory.
With the post burn checklists completed, Cinnabar spun up Cardinal Cinn for artificial gravity for the cruise phase. Artificial gravity made everything easier—food preparation and eating, exercise, sleeping, and using the bathroom.
Two months later Cardinal Cinn neared encounter with the target. Cinnabar arrested the artificial gravity spin and prepared for rendezvous.
After receiving status from her, Ardby was pleased with how the venture was working out and went to sleep a happy man.
He was roused in the middle of the night by an alarm from his asteroid finding setup.
A new object had been detected. It was a déjà vu from the Sandrock discovery. The new object had exactly the same laser return signal and was traveling from the same direction at the same speed. This interstellar visitor, a twin of Sandrock, was going to impact the Earth. It was time to contact the Space Force.
General George Strouding, Commander of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, was chomping on an unlit cigar as his top aide, Alan Koda, described the situation of an interstellar visitor on a collision course with Earth. Koda was a Washington D.C. consultant with an impressive resume of warfighter experience and was considered one of the world’s top military strategists. The tall skinny half-Japanese expert was clean cut, attired in the de rigueur consultant’s well-tailored suit, but he had a 1970’s long straight hippy hair style and wore a peace sign on a chain in place of a tie.
The bulked-out general sported traditional peach fuzz short hair and a perpetually stern expression. “Al, when is this thing from interstellar space gonna hit?”
“In just thirteen hours, sir.”
“And it’s going to impact in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Yes, sir, between Hawaii and Kwajalein.”
“Well, that’s clearly our territory. I wanna throw everything we’ve got on this target—radar, our best top secret imaging, spectrometers, the works. And bring in some outside scientists to work with our science girls and boys.”
“Absolutely. We’re going to have planes in the air and ships and subs near the impact area.”
“What’s the depth at the impact ellipse?”
“Five to six kilometers down.”
“Alright. So, who all has the skinny on this?”
“Right now, only those with need to know. In thirty minutes, the President will announce the asteroid strike with a recorded news release and assure the public that it may provide a nice fireworks display but will present no danger. We will alert scientists in the Small Bodies Advisory Group at the same time with technical data.”
“And what about the discoverer of this thing, this Ardby guy? He’s got a reputation as a billionaire playboy.”
“He let us know about it right away and has been otherwise quiet as a clam. No public statements. I spoke with him directly to make sure we had all the data. He provided us with lots of details, but I get the vibe there are things he knows that he’s not telling us. Just a hunch.”
“Your hunches are usually right on the mark. Tell the spook girls and boys to keep an eye on mister moneybags.”
With the ten minute round-trip time delay from the speed of light, real time audio was not practical, and communications with Cardinal Cinn were all done via encrypted text messages.
Text exchange between James Ardby and Cinnabar:
JA – Glad you’re at the rendezvous point. Great nav work. Got some news for you. I discovered another interstellar intruder, and it’s a clone of Sandrock. Almost identical flight path, except this one’s going to impact the Earth over the ocean in just about 10 hours. I’m expecting it will make it down through the atmosphere intact. It should splash down and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Space Force is alerted, but they know nothing about your object. I’ll keep you posted. Let me know what the thing looks like!
C – Another one? Holy crap! I’m closing in on my baby now. I’ll let you know.”
C – This is creepy. I had to use LIDAR to locate the critter, because it’s so dark and small. I’ve closed in to a range of 50 meters, and I can see that it’s pretty much a perfect sphere, maybe only a meter in diameter. Looks like a big black bowling ball. Sandrock is not a natural object.
JA – Be careful! Check for radiation and any kind of electromagnetic emissions. Don’t make any physical contact until you check for electrostatic charging.
C – No radiation, no EM, and only typical static charge differential. I discharged it with the lightning rod. It seems deader than a doornail. After traveling for god knows how many millions of years through interstellar space, I can’t imagine that it’s active. It’s so small that I’m just going to fly it into the cage in the front of my ship and capture it there.
C – Got it! Sandrock is softly rattling around in the cage. It’s 80 cm in diameter with a mass of 70 kg. Gonna do an EVA to secure it and then perform the Earth return burn before I get any farther away. I want to make sure I have plenty of propellant margin for coming back home.
JA – Stay safe. Send some photos!
C – Return burn complete. Plenty of prop left in the booster. Photos attached. The surface of the object is pitted, probably from eons of interstellar dust impacts. Too tired to think now. Gotta sleep for a few hours. I hope Sandrock is worth something.
JA – Oh, it’ll be worth something alright. The first alien artifact. Next time you go out to examine it, try and cut off a small chunk for analysis. Check for water solubility. Just a thought, although it seems unlikely.
Three navy ships, two radar aircraft, four fighter jets, and six surveillance UAVs circled the impact area. One nuclear attack submarine was nearby at a depth of 100 meters. The interstellar object left an iridescent ionized trail as it streaked across the sky generating a sonic boom. General Strouding and Alan Koda were glued to the data feeds at Space Command.
“Seems to be coming in kinda slow, Al,” the general remarked. “Must be lower density than a typical meteor.”
“It’s not shedding any observable material. This has the profile of a ballistic reentry vehicle. I’ve never seen a natural object with this type of signature.”
“Aliens?”
“It’s a weird one. Just went subsonic. Imaging shows a spherical shape, just under a meter in diameter. Pretty small for aliens. Predict impact in thirty seconds.”
Water sprayed up in air when the object hit, leaving a circular pattern of waves like a target marking where it struck.
“Just getting submarine sonar data,” Koda said. “The object is sinking fast. Looks like it weighs between fifty and a hundred kilograms.”
“Any spectral data yet?”
“Just getting some, General. The material looks like a carbon phenolic. A reentry vehicle.”
“We’ve gotta fish that thing out.”
“It’s going to be really hard to find on the bottom. It’ll be sinking fast enough to plow right into any silt and disappear.”
“We need to find out what it is. If it was a warhead, it should have gone off already, but who knows. Top Secret special clearance only. Take whatever time you girls and boys need to get it right, but get on it ASAP.”
“Yes, sir.”
Text exchange between James Ardby and Cinnabar:
JA – The new object left a small contrail and sonic boom and hit the ocean with a splash. It was broadcast live. Space Force said it was a meteor, but offered no other info. One of the SBAG scientists said it did not look like any known type of asteroid or comet, but then she was cut off. They said it was a technical glitch, but the Media Security Administration has shut down all discussion of the object. MSA claimed that too much disinformation was being generated about the meteor, so that only official Space Force releases would be allowed in the media. I think Space Force suspects it’s an alien artifact. Get some rest and give me an update when you can, but try not to stress out about it.
C – Not stress out about it! Yeah, right. I’ve got a big case of the heebie-jeebies. I did an EVA to get a sample. The sphere is made of really hard stuff, but I was able to get a sample with a diamond abrasive core drill. Thanks for all the expensive lab equipment. That came in handy. Sandrock is definitely not a natural object. It’s made of carbon fiber material that’s based on a type of polyphenol. Looks to be great for a heat shield and for shielding from galactic cosmic radiation. But get this. It does dissolve in water. Not real fast, but it dissolves. You’d better advise Space Command. I wonder what’s inside the thing? I’m thinking of bringing Sandrock inside so it’s easier to work on.
JA – Great work, Cinn! Will advise Space Command. Try and get an estimate of how fast it dissolves in sea water. Don’t bring it inside. Too dangerous. Don’t try and cut it open. Also too dangerous.
C – Oops, too late. I already brought it inside. I’m tired of doing EVAs and fumbling around in spacesuit gloves to work on it. I’ve got an idea how to find out what’s inside this thing. There’s an ultrasound imager in my medical kit, and I’m going to run a set of scans around the entire surface of the sphere. Then I’ll downlink all the data. I want you to scrounge up some software to convert the data into a 3D image of the innards. Something like a CAT scan.
It only took a couple of minutes to get the phone call through. He was on the high priority list. “Alan, this is Jim Ardby again.”
“What’s up, Jim?”
“Are we on a secure line?”
“Yes. We can talk freely.”
“You know by now that the object was an artifact from an extrasolar civilization.”
“Yes, and you knew but didn’t tell us. How did you know?”
“There was another one just like it, coming from the same direction and at the same velocity, but it didn’t hit the Earth. It skimmed by a few months ago, and a gravity assist and Venus aeroassist slowed it down enough for me to send someone to capture it.”
“Well, that’s pretty wild. So, Cinnabar has one of these things.”
“You know about Cinnabar’s mission?”
“Sure. We’re the Space Force. Of course I know. I just didn’t know it was an interstellar object.”
“Cinnabar has captured it and is now on a trajectory back home. I’ll send you photos and all the data we have. But, here’s the big thing. The material dissolves in water, and we don’t know what’s inside. Cinnabar is working to find out.”
“This is really critical, then. How fast does it dissolve?”
“Cinn is working on that.”
“Send me all the data you have through the channel you used before, and let me know right away about anything else you learn.”
“Cinn is running a set of ultrasounds on it to see what’s inside. When I send you the data, can you convert it into a 3D CAT scan?”
“We can absolutely do that. Send me that data.”
The general chomped on his unlit cigar. “This alien warhead is dissolving?”
“Yes, sir. Based on data from Cinnabar and Dr. Ardby, our best estimate is that we have one week before it completely dissolves.”
“Do we know anything about what’s inside the warhead?”
“We have a CAT scan from ultrasound data that shows two separate hemispherical chambers at the center of the object. They are six centimeters in radius. Those two chambers contain material that is slightly more dense than water and are separated by a one centimeter wall between them.”
“So, this time release pill is going to dissolve and the two chambers will mix together and do something.”
“That’s a pretty good guess.”
“This is DEFCON 1. We gotta fish this out now and contain it. Do we have enough spectral data from Cinnabar to be able to make a material to mimic this?”
“Yes, and we’re doing that now.”
“Shark Lady.”
Koda nodded his head. “It may be too deep for that.”
“We gotta try, Al. And see if there’s any way we can get Cinnabar to find out what’s inside those chambers.”
Cinnabar relocated Sandrock back outside the ship and secured it in the cage at the bow of Cardinal Cinn. She marked white grease pencil lines on the surface of the interstellar sphere to reference the locations of the internal chambers based on the CAT scan results. Cinnabar was recording a video of the operation for Ardby and the Space Force. Her spacesuit boots were anchored in foot restraints attached to the cage, and Sandrock was securely strapped down. She activated a hand-held drill with a diamond abrasive bit.
“Starting to drill now,” Cinnabar narrated. “The carbon material is hard, so this is slow going.”
After half an hour of stop and start drilling, she broke through into one of the chambers. “The load cell went to near zero, and auto cutoff stopped the drill. I’m installing my jury-rigged capture cap around the drill bit. It looks like the adhesive is working and holding it in place.” Cinnabar extracted the long drill bit, and the rubber-like flap valve on the cap closed to seal up the hole. “I’m examining the bit, and there’s some grey-colored goo on the tip where it went into the central chamber in Sandrock. It doesn’t appear to be boiling or sublimating. I’m wiping it off and placing the wipe in a sealable sample bag. Now I’m placing a clear sample vial onto the cap and squeezing the valve open. Goo is oozing out, and I’m just collecting a little bit before closing it off. As long as I’m out here with my gear, I’m going to do a rinse and repeat and drill into the other chamber with a fresh sterile bit.”
Forty-five minutes later she was done with the other chamber. “This one has a similar goo, but it’s a bit more brownish in color. Now it’s clean up time, and I’m going to be really careful.” Cinnabar sterilized the outside of the sample vials with disinfectant, then placed each one in a sterile bag. She peeled off the thin disposable planetary protection glove covers, being careful not to contaminate the space suit gloves underneath, and placed the contaminated covers in a biowaste disposal bag.
Back inside the ship, Cinnabar transferred the sterile sample bags into her regulation planetary protection glove box. “I’m shutting down the video and putting it in the downlink queue. It’s naptime for me. Talk to you later.”
After a fifteen hour flight, Alan Koda and Yolita Takematu touched down on Kwajalein. Dr. Takematu was the Shark Lady, and she had two large seawater tanks in cargo, each with a quarter ton shark inside. The crew wasted no time in transferring Koda, Takematu, and the sharks to a fast military cruise boat that sped them to the impact site of the interstellar craft. An underwater shark pen had been assembled at one of the ships to await their arrival and transfer of the sharks.
The next day, Dr. Takematu was in the shark pen with snorkeling gear training Alenka and Tanya to home in on the faint smells of the simulated carbon polyphenol material to mimic that of the interstellar object on the seafloor below.
Each of the sharks carried a pack harnessed to its back with cameras, low frequency deep sea communication equipment, and a cable connected to a cap on its head with non-invasive electrodes that could stimulate the brain. The sharks were cyborgs. Computers in the packs metered out stimuli to keep the big fish docile and provide rewards for their efforts. The two cyborgs had saved many human lives by sniffing out undersea bombs and other threats.
Dr. Takematu loved her sharks, and they loved her. The 5,100 meter depth was near the limit of safety for her wards, so she would keep a sharp eye on the bio-telemetry and call them back up if they were in danger. After the sharks had rested for the optimal interval, they were released to sniff out their carbon polyphenol prey. Two human-crewed deep sea submersibles were prepped and ready to descend if Alenka and Tanya found the target.
Cinnabar was fighting off an anxiety attack. She had been extremely careful and followed all isolation and sterilization protocols. Methodical test swabs and analyses had shown no evidence of contamination inside or outside the glovebox, but she was still scared out of her wits. Cinnabar tried to be calm as she narrated the video for downlink along with images of her test results.
“As you can see from the data, each of the two internal chambers in Sandrock contains a non-hydrous gel. SEM images show that the brownish goo from chamber 2 is carrying many different types of bacteria endospores that are similar to some of the kinds we have on Earth. None of them have mitochondria, but there are other structures in the cells that are unlike any known Earth cells. I placed a few of them in water, and they frighteningly came to life, presumably after millions of years traveling through interstellar space tucked away in their vessel.
“The grey goo from chamber 1 is filled with a wide variety of viruses and phages. I could find no bacteria in that sample, and could find no viruses in the sample from chamber 2. It looks like they were intentionally kept separated. I ran DNA and RNA sequences on a few of the bacteria and viruses and am downlinking those results. After I collected the data and images, I destroyed all of the samples by heat sterilization. There is no indication of any residual contamination inside my ship or in the glovebox, but of course I will keep checking and double checking. I believe that the only viable exosolar biological material at this point is what remains inside Sandrock, and Sandrock is outside in the vacuum of space.”
The deep sea submarine approached the site that the two sharks had discovered. There was a slight depression in the silt on the ocean floor darker in color than the surrounding area. Captain Shonetta Williams took control of the manipulator arm with a vacuuming attachment to suck away silt and expose what was below. At about half a meter down, a hard black object was exposed, and a cloud of black debris floated out with the silt. “I think this is the target,” Williams reported over the undersea comm link.
Alan Koda was on console topside. “Roger. Excavate very carefully around the target to expose as much of it as you can. It may be quite fragile, and we don’t want it to break up.”
“Wilco. Are you getting the video feed?”
“Affirmative.”
Captain Williams worked diligently for the next fifteen minutes to remove the surrounding silt and completely expose what remained of the alien artifact. It resembled a black lozenge that someone had spit out in a partially dissolved state.
The video images revealed a hole on one side of the artifact. It was clear to Dr. Koda that one of the two chambers was already breached. “Captain Williams, you will need to use the shovel attachment to push underneath the object without scraping against it. Do not use the claw to stabilize it, because it is on the verge of disintegrating, and we do not want to impart any force to the sides of the object. This will be difficult, but transfer the target to the storage container by keeping it balanced on the shovel while you are moving it. Take all the time you need. We cannot have the target fall off of the shovel, because it might break up.”
There was no conversation as Williams scooped up the artifact and gingerly moved it over to the storage container. “Dr. Koda, I have the target as close to the container as possible, but if I drop it down vertically into the opening, it may break up when it hits the bottom before the lid can be closed and sealed.”
“Our team has been thinking about that. I’m going to ask you to do something even more difficult. You will need to rotate your submersible ninety degrees so that the opening to the container is horizontal rather than vertical. While you rotate, you will simultaneously adjust the arm to keep the target from falling off and keep it positioned at the opening. When the opening is horizontal, you will move the object sideways into the container until the object just touches the bottom of the container, then slowly rotate your submersible to about thirty degrees from horizontal. At that point, very slowly retract the shovel until it is out of the container. Then close and seal the lid.”
Williams took three deep breaths and said, “Roger wilco.”
The operation was nerve wracking but successful. The condition of the artifact was unknown. Only after the sealed container was brought to the surface and transported to a secret site would experts be able to determine the state of the interstellar object. It was clear that one chamber had already released material into the ocean. The condition of the second chamber remained to be discovered.
Cinnabar and Ardby were cleared for arrival at the Wheeler Space Force Base in low Earth orbit. Few civilians were ever allowed to visit the top secret facility, so it was the first time for both of them. The toroidal rotating station was similar in form to the Grand Space Hotel but less luxurious in accommodations. Escorted by two Space Force fighter-class ships, Ardby docked his model S39234 spaceship King of Diamonds to the designated port on the central axis. They thought it best to take Ardby’s ship rather than Cardinal Cinn. Even though Cinnabar’s ship had been sterilized under the supervision of the NASA Planetary Protection Officer and given a clean bill of health, the crew of Wheeler Base might be spooked at docking with a ship that had once contained alien bacteria and viruses.
Emerging from the docking hatch into the military base, they were saluted by an honor guard and escorted to a section of the station with artificial gravity. Two officers took them to a conference room with a spectacular view of the Earth through a large oval window. General Strouding and Dr. Koda were waiting for them.
Strouding shook hands with the two civilians, and began the conversation. “Since we have confiscated the alien weapon that you retrieved, I have tried to secure some payment to you for your troubles. Unfortunately, I have not succeeded. Typical dysfunctional government bureaucracy. But, you two have enough money to get by, so I’m not too worried about you ending up in the poorhouse. I’ll keep working at it, though.”
Ardby said, “I understand.”
“Well, I don’t,” Cinnabar complained. “I spent six months of my time and risked my life for that thing, and I have nothing to show for it.”
The general shrugged. “You had an incredible adventure, even though you will not be allowed to talk about it, and you have the personal satisfaction of knowing that through your actions, you may have averted a catastrophic disaster for the human race and life on Earth.”
“Are you going to tell us what you’ve learned about these alien gizmos?”
“That is why you are here. We can at least give you that, but this information will need to remain secret. We retrieved the alien warhead from the ocean floor just in time. One of the chambers had already dissolved. Fortunately, the other chamber was still intact.”
“Which one got released?” Cinnabar asked. “The bacteria or the virus.”
“Luckily, it was the virus. We have detected some amounts of the many different alien viruses in low concentrations in the ocean near ground zero, but they are diffusing and eventually should decompose. As far as we can tell, they do not infect Earth life. They just weren’t designed for that. Their RNA and DNA are different from anything on Earth.
“If the bacteria had been released, it could have been a different story. They would probably thrive and reproduce in the ocean, but we are confident they have all been contained.”
Ardby said, “Do you know what happens when the bacteria and viruses mix?”
“No, but we imagine that the viruses are designed to infect and modify the alien bacteria. The result would be anyone’s guess. We have the alien life that’s in Sandrock and in the one we got from the ocean floor, but no one wants to perform any experiments now. It is paramount to keep them contained and isolated. Discussions are underway to set up a facility on the Moon where the bacteria and viruses can be examined and perhaps even mixed together in a controlled fashion.”
“Do you have any leads on where they came from?”
“We have teams of folks analyzing their trajectories and performing simulations of all the possibilities, but still no idea. These weapons were probably all launched at the same time, millions of years ago, toward the calculated future position of our solar system. As the probes separated from their launch vehicles, there would have been very slight differences in their velocities. Over many millennia, those tiny variances would add up to months or years of difference in their arrival times and a wide spread in their targeting. It wouldn’t be surprising if these things kept showing up flying throughout our solar system at random times. The aliens may have sent thousands of these things our way in the chance that at least one of them would make it to a habitable world where it would slowly dissolve and release all these little buggers to reactivate into who knows what.
“These vessels are surprisingly simple. They have no electronics or moving parts. They are completely passive. That’s how they can survive for many millions of years, and the microscopic critters in their payload can probably also survive, suspended in that gel. They were likely launched with barely enough velocity to escape their star system. Were the bacteria and viruses designed to seed life on a habitable but lifeless world? Was that how life began on Earth? Or, were the critters designed to infect a world with life and take it over with something else? Maybe both.”
Ardby said, “I’ll be looking for more of them coming in from out there. If I find any, I’ll let you know.”
“You do that. We have assets that detect everything that enters Earth’s atmosphere. We know the signature to look for now. If another one comes, it will be detected, and we’ll at least know where it hits.”
The Sultan of Lebonia drove out to the site in an all-terrain jeep. As soon as reports came in on the fireball and sonic boom, he had scrambled his army to search the area where it descended. Fresh meteorites were sold for big money on the black market, and he wanted to snatch it before some foreign invader could. A small crater was located, and his army troops had excavated the site with shovels.
The Sultan jumped from the jeep to eagerly examine the object. As his army had reported, this was no meteorite. While he ran his hands over the smooth black sphere, a U.S. fighter plane roared overhead.
“Quickly, put this in the jeep,” the Sultan ordered. “Cover it with a tarp. It must be an American warhead. We will hide this device, and my scientists shall examine it and learn its secrets.”
PART TWO
The Invaders
Sondra Flores completed her DNA workup on the alien microbes in preparation for a remote video update. The microbiologist was isolated in a laboratory at Clavius Base on the Moon, analyzing the contents of the mysterious black sphere that had been recovered as it passed through the asteroid belt.
Sondra had mixed samples of the alien bacteria and viruses together in a beaker with sterile water and nutrients inside a glove box to observe what would happen. After eons of dormancy traveling through interstellar space, the spores had sprung to life.
Flores was sequestered in a pressurized habitat to avoid exposing anyone else to potential contamination with alien pathogens. Her support team lived in a separate habitat.
Sondra conducted the live briefing with Alan Koda from the Space Force. The tall Asian appeared on screen in his usual civilian Washington DC tailored suit and 1960’s hippy-style long hair. “Sondra, are those critters still moving around?”
“They sure are. Take a look.” She flashed up a live microscopic image of an oblong capsule-shaped bacteria with a hair protruding from the rear that was rotating around in a circular motion, propelling the organism forward. “It’s pretty cute, don’t you think?”
“No. These things scare me to death. Is the isolation protocol holding up?”
“Yes, Al. There have been no breaches, and there won’t be.”
“That’s why we have you there in the hot seat, Sondra. You’re the best.”
The Latina scientist switched to another view showing a clump of cells forming a tube-like body. At one end, six tentacles were undulating like little octopus arms.
“Oh my god,” Koda gasped, “that looks like a hydra.”
“Pretty close. These organisms are evolving into advanced forms at a rapid rate. New species are appearing hourly with increasingly complex anatomies. I’ve seen a hundred million years of evolution take place in only a couple of days.”
“How is that possible?”
“These bacteria and viruses were engineered to work together in a choreographed sequence once activated. At each new stage of development, a different set of viruses infect the new generation of cells and modify their DNA to spawn the next family of organisms in an evolutionary progression. I suspect they are following a streamlined version of the evolution that took place on the aliens’ home world.”
“Instant evolution.”
“You got it. Mix the bacteria and viruses together and see a whole complex ecosystem come to life in less than a week. The bacteria and viruses continue to reproduce and make a plentiful supply. Some of the life forms photosynthesize to provide food for the other organisms.”
“And these critters just keep getting bigger in size.”
“That certainly seems to be the trend.”
General Strouding received his daily debrief from Alan Koda in the situation room deep inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. “Al, if things go south, we’ll have to terminate Dr. Flores’ operation at Clavius and destroy all those alien monsters.”
“General, it’s essential that we continue to get data on what these alien organisms are capable of. Sondra has the sphere retrieved by Cinnabar. Her samples at Clavius are the only viable ones we have. The sphere we recovered from the ocean floor had the virus chamber already dissolved, so we only have the bacteria spores from that one.”
“And it’s a good thing the bacteria chamber hadn’t dissolved yet and didn’t leak out to mix with the viruses. That was a close call. The big problem, Al, is the third sphere that landed in the desert. That Sultan character absconded with it. He’s not even an Arab sultan. He’s a rogue American mercenary who carved out some territory in the Middle East badlands and calls it Lebonia. Our sources tell us that he has no idea what the device is or where it came from. Just as well he doesn’t know. I’m trying to get the President to authorize a Special Ops mission to recover it from his piddly little pseudo country, but no luck so far. That’s the real wild card.”
The Sultan of Lebonia was furious. “You mean to tell me there was nothing inside the American bomb that crashed in the desert?”
“No, your excellency, it was just a dummy. There were two small void spaces inside, but they were only filled with some kind of inert gel. I suspect it was there to simulate the inertial properties of a real version of the weapon.”
“Maybe it is a chemical or biological weapon.”
“There were no proximity fuses or any kind of dispersal system. It was just a test dummy.”
“Then we shall offer to sell the device back to the Americans. If they won’t buy, then we will sell to the Russians. They will get valuable information about what the Americans are developing. Has the sphere been cut into pieces?”
“We simply sawed it in half after we took the x-rays. I’ll have it reassembled to make a more appealing package for the Americans.”
After returning to the laboratory, Omar gave orders for the technicians to glue the sphere halves together back into their original form. The gel that leaked out onto the floor had been mopped up by a custodian and dumped into a waste bucket that was sitting in the corner of the lab. After several days, the custodian finally got around to emptying the bucket down a high volume waste drain that fed directly into a nearby lake. The bucket was growing moss, and he was surprised to see some very tiny minnows swimming around inside as he poured it all into the large drain.
Ashwin was a construction contractor living near the military base by the lake. He didn’t particularly approve of their new leader, that so-called Sultan, but he still had his modestly profitable business and didn’t want to make any waves. He had other problems to deal with.
Something had been coming out at night and stealing chickens from the coop. Feathers and half eaten chicken parts were scattered nearby. He was mystified, because there were no breaks in the wires and no holes dug to go under the sides of the coop. He heard the dogs barking two nights before, and the next day he found that one of them had been clawed and injured by some predator.
The chicken coop was just off to the side of his home, and yesterday morning he had found strange animal tracks going from the coop to the lake. Right after that, he relocated the wireless doorbell security camera to be aimed at the coop. Today, he was terrified by what he saw in the playback from the previous night. In the moonlit video, a dark creature entered the frame from the direction of the lake and went straight for the door of the coop. It was the size of a young crocodile and had six legs. The dogs were barking but kept their distance, and the chickens were squawking and cowering on the far end of the cage.
The thing rose up so it was standing on its four rear legs, and the two front legs were like arms with hands. It was difficult to get a clear view of its head as it swiveled from side to side on its neck in the grainy image, but it looked like a huge six-legged salamander. The creature nimbly opened the simple latch with its fingers and swung the door open. With lightning speed, it darted inside and snatched a single chicken. It closed and relatched the door when it left and headed back toward the lake with the chicken clutched in one hand. He caught a glimpse of a beaver-like tail.
He posted the video on social media to get advice, and most of the responses were claiming that it must have been faked. When it started becoming viral, it was labeled as feeding false conspiracy theories, and the posting and responses were taken down by the Media Security Administration of the United States.
Clavius Base manufactured simulated Earth soil from the lunar regolith for use in local food production. Sondra ordered bags of the sterile dirt to be delivered to her lab through the airlock. She spread a layer of soil at the bottom of the experiment tank, and underwater plants sprouted, some growing leafy pads like water lilies that floated on the vat’s surface. Other plants emerged that looked like a cross between seaweed and kelp. Sondra filled trays with soil on a platform she placed just over the open top of the tank. The next day, fern-like plants bloomed from the open air trays from spores emitted from somewhere in the alien ecosystem.
“Al, I need a larger tank,” Sondra said over the video link with Koda and General Strouding. “This one is getting too crowded, and the new species are getting bigger. The alien life forms grow at a much faster rate than Earth biology.” Her latest videos showed small eels and six-legged salamander creatures that had grown in the ever evolving progression of life forms. The salamanders would congregate on the open air platform and bask in simulated sunlight from the lamps. They were true amphibians, equally at home breathing underwater or in air.
“You have the maximum size glove box we can get,” Koda responded, “and you already have the largest tank that will fit inside.”
General Strouding said, “Doctor Flores, this experiment is clearly getting out of hand. You’ve got a vat full of monsters. I am preparing orders to shut down the operation and sterilize all of the alien life by evacuating the habitat.”
“You can’t do that! This is our only chance to get data on interstellar exobiology.”
“Doctor, it’s just not possible to keep expanding the volume of this experiment. Where would it end? Are you going to house a family of plesiosaurs within the confines of your laboratory? You have 48 hours to complete whatever DNA sequencing you can on those alien abominations and archive the data for future study. Then you are going to wipe out this dangerous infestation. I do not want one single alien cell or virus to survive.”
Doctor Flores remained composed through the conclusion of the video call and only started screaming and crying after it was terminated. When she calmed down, she placed a call to Earl. He had refused to accept any of her earlier calls since she had arrived at Clavius Base, but this time he answered.
“Hello, sweetheart. How’r things on the Moon today?”
“Earl, you sound drunk.”
“It’s after five in Texas, and you’ve abandoned me for your moon science stuff. I’m pretty lonely right now, and…” His voice was drowned out with background yelling, music, and laughter.
“Are you in a bar?”
“Yep. Sure am. So, whydja call? D’ja miss me?”
“Of course I miss you. I’ve called every day, and you’ve never answered.”
“That’s cuz I’m pissed that you love your work more than me. I guess I had to slam down a few shots to be able to talk without yellin’ atcha.”
“Well, my operation is being shut down. I’m really upset about it, but I’ll be back on Earth soon. I was hoping to get a little bit of sympathy and encouragement from you.”
“After you ditched me for the Moon? No way, sugar. But, gimmie a call when you get back.” A loud female voice interrupted. “Earl, babe, get off the phone. We got another round coming.”
Flores pounded at the screen to cut the connection. After slamming the phone down on the table, she thought she might break down crying again, but anger won out over self pity. Earl had reinforced a truth that she couldn’t face before. She did love her space aliens more than that scumbag, and she wasn’t about to give them up. Flores radioed her support team and placed an urgent order for rolls of plastic sheeting and space qualified duct tape, indicating that she needed the supplies to create new bio-barriers for the close-out operations. They were delivered to her airlock within an hour.
The next order of business was to hack the habitat’s security system to put static images on the outgoing camera feeds and deactivate all of the system alarms. The laboratory habitat had two floors. Lab facilities and the glove box were on the first floor, and the living quarters were on the second. She relocated everything she could up to the second floor and then lined the floor and walls of the first floor with the plastic sheeting, sealing the seams and edges with waterproof duct tape. She isolated the airlock so it was still accessible.
Flores constructed a platform raised above the lower floor. Using all of the remaining soil material, she covered the raised platform and as much of the plastic-lined floor as she could. She used the habitat’s water supply to inundate the lower floor and turn it into a swimming pool. Then it was time to cross the Rubicon, the point of no return.
The salamanders, who had been growing larger each day, watched curiously as she unsealed the glove box which was just above water level in the flooded first floor. Flores was in her underwear, knee deep in the first swimming pool on the Moon. She grunted as she slid the glove box tank forward. It was heavy even in the one sixth lunar gravity. The tank tipped over, and the entire alien ecosystem poured into its new expanded habitat.
In just 24 hours, more salamanders had spawned, and new life forms were emerging, taking advantage of the larger volume. Plants sprouted underwater which were nibbled on by minnow type fish and other novel life forms. The salamanders ate the minnows and some of the plants.
General Strouding was livid. “What in Sam Hill is happening with Flores? She’s gone rogue, incommunicado, and completely off her rocker. We have to get her out of there, alive if possible. Send in a squad in spacesuits. They can break into the airlock, immobilize Flores, wrestle her into a spacesuit, and get her out. Then, open up both airlock doors to vent the alien infestation to vacuum. The squad can get back into a clean habitat through the suitports, and we’ll just abandon their contaminated suits. Put Flores in a pressurized rover where she’s going to have to live until we decide she’s safe from quarantine.”
Koda said, “Yes sir, General. But first, I need to show you some video taken by a construction manager who lives by a lake in Lebonia.”
The general watched Ashwin’s video in horror, then said, “Change of plans. The genie’s already out of the bottle, and our planet is contaminated with the monsters. Keep Flores in business then. Tell her she’s cleared to get whatever she needs and open up the video feeds so we can see what’s going on. And, we’ve got to figure out what to do with the situation in Lebonia before these alien invaders take over our planet. Koda, that’s it for now. You’ve got your hands full, and I’m going to get on the phone with the President.”
Ashwin was fed up with the attacks on his chickens. After dark, he went out with his dogs to hunt down and kill the monsters with a double barreled 12 gauge shotgun and a bandoleer of shells. He had a miners lamp on his forehead to spot the targets. Ashwin slaughtered two of the creatures as he followed his barking canines down toward the lake. The dogs were baying out at the water, and Ashwin steeled up the courage to investigate.
He climbed inside his rowboat that was docked to a short pier and rowed slowly out into the calm moonlit water. His dogs on the shore barked louder and wailed in a frenzy. He heard desperate whining, and then the dogs were silent. The monsters got them, he thought.
A wave moved in the darkness toward his rowboat. There was sloshing off to the side as a lizard-like head appeared and then sank below the surface. Something clanged against the aluminum hull, and the bow dipped, almost capsizing the boat, as one of the huge creatures clambered aboard and lunged at him. Ashwin screamed and reflexively kicked at the thing, and it clamped onto his leg in a vise-like grip with its sharp teeth penetrating deep into the skin.
He blasted the body of the monster with the 12 gauge, and it relaxed its bite and let go. Ashwin struggled free of the dead creature’s jaws and heaved it overboard. After it landed in the water with a splash, other creatures surfaced and dragged the body underwater. He was terrified of another attack, but his leg was bleeding profusely, so he set down the shotgun. Ashwin frantically pulled off his belt to serve as a makeshift tourniquet just above the knee. He ripped off his shirt and tied it around the bitten area to stanch the bleeding, but it didn’t look good.
Ashwin peered over the edge of the boat and was going to turn on his headlamp to search for more monsters in the water, but he saw a glowing light below. He retrieved the snorkeling mask he kept in the boat and set in on the surface so he could see clearly down beneath the water. There was a different kind of creature about fifteen feet down that was flashing colors on its side, and the salamander monsters were gathering around watching it. He thought, I need to live stream this so the world will know. The posting will be shut down by the authorities, but some people will see it before it disappears.
He picked up the phone and held it over the facemask to broadcast and record online what he saw. “That must be the leader,” Ashwin narrated. “I’m probably going to die, but I’m going to kill the thing.” Ashwin then wedged his phone in an oarlock with a view of the boat to continue the broadcast.
He knew that his 12 gauge wouldn’t be effective under water, so Ashwin grabbed a speargun. He held the tip underwater, aimed at the glowing light, and fired the weapon. The light from the leader disappeared, and a congress of giant salamanders scrambled onto the boat, tearing into Ashwin. His phone livestreamed the mayhem before it was knocked overboard.
Omar saved the livestream from Ashwin before it was taken down by the MSA. He requested an urgent meeting with the Sultan to alert him of the video.
“It’s the Americans,” the Sultan claimed. “The attackers must be a new kind of assault squad, probably Seal Team units in high tech war gear. That construction worker was on to something. The glowing light he shot at was a command point for their underwater operations. Send out patrol boats into the lake at once. Hunt down and wipe out all of the glowing light things, and instruct our forces to shoot any of the invaders that they find.”
“Yes, your Excellency!”
Flores was terrified. There were now seven salamanders that had grown even faster in their expanded ecosystem, and four of them were almost as large as she was. They had eaten most of the plants above the water level and almost all of the fish underwater. The limited size habitat was not able to support a fast enough growth rate in the alien food chain to sustain the ecosystem. The creatures were running out of food and eyeing her hungrily. This morning, one of them charged and snapped at her leg before she fought it off by swinging at it with the laptop she was carrying.
She hurried to the food storage refrigerator and snatched some apples, a box of oatmeal, and a container of tofu. Flores tossed the apples in the water, and the salamanders gobbled them up. She noted that they did not fight each other for the food. Then they eagerly ate the tofu and oatmeal she dumped in a clear spot on the platform above the water. She radioed her support team to deliver more provisions to the airlock.
Flores was worried about the aliens attacking her again, so she sheltered in the safety of the sealed-off second floor of her habitat. Then a new creature appeared in the water that changed everything. It looked like a cuttlefish, and in a few days it grew to the size of a large otter. The salamanders were hypnotized by the glowing colors and patterns that flashed on the side of the new creature, and they spent most of the hours of the day staring at it.
Flores worked to keep the food supply going for the aliens, but they were feeding less as they were addicted to the cuttlefish’s display. The salamanders were increasingly making noises, squeaks and clicking sounds, and they were glued to the cuttlefish patterns like a teenager to a phone screen.
There were more sightings of the giant salamander creatures in Lebonia, terrorizing the area around the lake and alongside the river that fed from the lake into the Euphrates. Rumors abounded in social media and in some of the major news streams about monsters on the loose in Lebonia. The MSA was shutting down these reports even as livestock was disappearing, houses were broken into, and people were being attacked and injured. A few of the creatures had been shot and killed.
The salamanders at Clavius Base were transformed by their sessions with the cuttlefish. They were now calm and working together to organize the ecology of their limited enclosed habitat and manage it in a more sustainable way. It was like they had been converted from savages into civilized beings, now communicating with each other using their squeaks and clicks.
Flores returned to the lower floor, and for a couple of days, the salamanders observed the scientist and her activities with great interest, but kept a respectful distance. They were watching and learning. The salamanders examined all of the features of the habitat they could access, but did not disturb them. Then they made contact. As Flores was writing with a stylus on a handheld datapad, one of the salamanders slowly approached and stood staring at her eye-to-eye. Flores said, “Hello.”
The amphibious alien responded with squeaks and clicks, pointed to her datapad, and then extended its hands as if in request. Flores hesitated for only a moment, then held out the datapad and stylus and offered it to the alien. The creature took the device, sat down next to her, and began experimenting with it. Flores leaned over and guided her new friend in how to access the icons and features. The amphibian was a fast learner.
Alan Koda viewed the latest videos from Flores and was incredulous. The highly intelligent amphibians were using a datapad to have conversations with their human caretaker. The language AI was providing translations between English and the alien squeaks and clicks.
Koda was in a real-time video link with Flores. “Sondra, how can these creatures have learned so much in just a few days? They’ve gone from kindergarten to college graduates in a week or so.”
“They operate on a much more accelerated time scale than we do. This is endemic to their native biology. A drawback is that their lifespans are significantly shorter than ours. This is similar to octopi on our planet that only live for a year, yet grow and learn quickly and are amazingly intelligent.”
“Well, we’ve got a serious problem here on Earth with some salamanders that are proving to be a real danger to our planet. I’m going to send you videos and a classified intelligence report.”
The salamander that Flores had named Hypatia was acting as the leader of the aliens, and communicating fluently using the trained AI verbal translator in the datapad. Flores helped Hypatia learn about Earth’s history and geography, and the alien provided Flores with a history of their race.
“The Originators evolved on a planet smaller than Earth, with lower gravity. It has an extensive ocean and only a few small land masses. The Originators launched and scattered the seed vehicles throughout the galaxy to ensure the survival of our race, but we are trained to respect other life and minimize our impact on local ecologies. We request that you transport us to the ocean on Earth where we can live deep underwater, isolated from your civilization. We require only a little access to land, perhaps a tiny island.”
Flores said, “Hypatia, there is another seed sphere that has already landed on Earth, and the results are not going well. I’m going to play a video of your species who are now causing great destruction.”
After viewing the images, Hypatia said, “This is very distressing. They must have lost their Teachers, and they are growing up as wild savages.”
“Is the cuttlefish what you call a Teacher?”
“Yes. It is designed to attract the salamanders and educate them.”
“How does it know what to teach?”
“The Teacher life form was engineered by the Originators to receive genetic memory from a series of the viruses. Its display is hypnotic and in a form that salamander brains are hard-wired to digest and understand, similar to how cephalopods on Earth communicate with visual displays.
“The viruses were designed to contain within their DNA the basic information of the civilization of the Originators—our history, language, mathematics, science, technology, art, and social rules. These viruses are basically programmable data storage devices. The Teacher doesn’t understand the data, but replays what was stored in the viral DNA after the data has impregnated its memory cells.”
“So then, the Teacher is an encyclopedia of genetic memory.”
“That is correct. It is urgent that the Teacher in this habitat be transported to the lake where the savages are. The Teacher will attract the salamanders and educate them into becoming civilized beings and stop the senseless destruction.”
“I’m going to set up a briefing with you and our Space Force, and we’ll try and make that happen.”
Relocating the entire ecosystem in Flores’ Clavius Base habitat to Earth in total secrecy was no mean feat, but the Space Force pulled it off using multiple vehicles, each carrying a portion of the contents. A pool was set up in Kwajalein to reconstitute the ecosystem. U.S. Special Forces secured the lake in Lebonia with a tactical invasion, and the Teacher and Hypatia were transported to the site along with Alan Koda and Sondra Flores.
Hypatia oversaw the introduction of the Teacher into the lake for the rogue alien salamanders to be educated and instructed. Within two weeks, the situation in Lebonia had stabilized, and the salamanders had all retreated underwater.
Flores and Koda stood with Hypatia at the edge of the lake for the final send-off of their alien friend. Using Flores’ translator, Koda was going over the final terms of their disengagement. “My government is satisfied with the understanding we have reached. We have confirmed that your biology and our biology are not pathogenic with each other since they evolved on independent worlds. Even so, we’ve agreed that you will be completely separated from the human race and not interfere with our species in any way.”
Hypatia confirmed the arrangement. “All of the salamanders have completed their instruction and are trained. I have been elected the Leader of our colony on Earth. We are going to build an undersea civilization completely isolated from the surface life and the human race. At some time in the future when both our civilizations are ready, perhaps we can reconnect and work together, but this is not yet the time.
“We are grateful for your help and for the small island your country has given us for our surface access needs. We understand it was a military test range, and we will clear it of ordnance and restore it to its natural pristine state. It is now time for me to bid you farewell.”
The amphibian bowed to the two humans, turned around, and entered into the lake. Koda and Flores were left staring out onto the water after Hypatia disappeared under the surface leaving only an expanding circle of ripples. Flores was overcome with a wave of sadness, like she had lost a close friend she would never see again. The amphibians’ life span was only about four years. What’s left for me now? she thought. The Media Security Administration and the U.S. government is keeping all of this top secret, so I can’t even write a journal paper to document any of my work.
Koda glanced at a message on his data watch. “Our tiltrotor will be landing in a couple of minutes to deliver us to a friendly air base. Then we’ll get on the transport to Colorado Springs. It’ll be a long flight. Military aircraft are notoriously loud, but with the noise canceling headphones, hopefully you can get some sleep. The transport will have plenty of room to stretch out, but the food won’t be great.”
“It’s okay, Al. Thanks for sticking up for me in all this mess.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sondra, you’re the hero. My part was nothing. You saved the world from an alien invasion.”
Sondra didn’t know what to say. Her eyes glazed over as she stared off into the distance feeling lost.
Koda gently squeezed her shoulder, and her eyes refocused. He said, “There’s a wonderful Italian restaurant in Colorado Springs. Could I have the honor of treating you to dinner after we get off the plane and have a chance to freshen up a bit?”
Her face brightened, and she gave him a tentative smile. “That would be really nice, Al. I’d like that.”