7293Weeb, the Archon of Space Centre, is convulsed with laughter: so much so that his eyestalks have become twisted into a knot. 1232Artoz, 4565Magnik, 1300Mogt, and 5866Deezu, who have flown as a team on the shuttle to Space Station 22 in order to confer with him, wait patiently for him to recover himself.

  Eventually his eyestalks straighten themselves out and he gazes at the four visitors, temporarily lost for words.

  It is 5866Deezu who breaks the hiatus. She is one of the few Nautu’s employed in the Surveillance Centre: females have always found it hard to pass the ‘glass ceiling’ and get a job in the foremost science and technology industries. Anyway, with eyestalks half-bent, signifying her annoyance, she queries:

  “What’s so funny, then, about wanting to dock with X4038?”

  “My dear 5866Deezu,” replies 7293Weeb, with a hint of patronising in his gestures, “just consider the size of the thing. Do you imagine there’s a spacecraft anywhere in the Solus system, big enough to be able to move that object? And also consider the speed at which it’s moving! We’d need to expend all the fuel we have in our reserves, and then some, just to slow it down to interplanetary velocity – let alone Nautsphere orbit. Didn’t you think of all this before?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting capturing the object,” retorts 5866Deezu. “What we’re asking for is to send a crewed ship to rendezvous with it; to match speeds and dock with it, so that Nauts can board it – inspect it in close-up. Yes we know P2835 sent us a whole wealth of valuable information, but that’s nothing compared to getting a Naut team on board the visitor. Would that be possible?”

  7293Weeb ponders for a while. “None of our ships could possibly match its speed – not on their own, at least. Even P2835, one of our most advanced probes, could only manage a flyby at a high relative velocity.”

  It is 1232Artoz who puts in the obvious question. “So what do you mean when you say ‘not on their own’?”

  “Ah – maybe you don’t know all the history of space flight. In the very early period, more than seven hundred Cycles ago, we used to launch multi-stage rockets. A large rocket at the base; when it used up all its fuel it was jettisoned; then a medium-sized rocket took up the thrust until it too was exhausted and jettisoned; finally a small rocket completed the drive to Nautsphere orbit. That was the only way it could be done back then: of course with the better fuel and more advanced drives we have now, we don’t have to do it any more...”

  “And your point is?” puts in 4565Magnik.

  “I’ve been thinking outside the shell, here,” continues 7293Weeb. “The problem is, matching velocity with our visitor – and then reducing velocity again so as to be able to dock with a Space Station on the return voyage. So we’ll have to go back to the technology of those early Cycles. We build two booster ships – uncrewed of course. One of them has six times the fuel and thrust of a standard spaceship; the other has twice the fuel and thrust. My figures are guesswork at this stage, of course. Both boosters are attached to a reduced-payload spaceship at launch. The larger booster is employed first, to accelerate the combined smaller booster and spaceship to match X4038’s velocity. Once its fuel is exhausted it has to be jettisoned. Then after the rendezvous is complete, the smaller booster is used to decelerate the spaceship to interplanetary speed; then it too is jettisoned. Finally the spaceship uses its own fuel to dock with whichever Space Station is best placed. I need to get my Engineers to check all this over and refine the calculations, but I think it will work.

  “But it’ll be a very expensive operation. I estimate that the fuel requirements will all but exhaust our current reserves of deuterium and tritium. And we may not even be able to recover the jettisoned boosters How can we possibly justify all this?”

  “Archon, we’re talking about an alien artefact here!” insists 1232Artoz. “Launched into interstellar space by extraterrestrials who may be as advanced in technology as we are – or even more so. This is the nearest we’ve come to First Contact with aliens in all the history of Nautkind. And who knows? X4038 may be uninhabitable itself, but there’s a possibility that there’s a follow-up ship with real live aliens aboard approaching us at this very moment. And in the meantime, X4038 surely carries a wealth of information about itself and its makers, as well as technology we can only dream of. We can’t let it escape without a rendezvous!”

  “Isn’t there a risk in all this?” queries 5866Deezu. “This X4038 whatever-it-is must surely have some pretty advanced AI controlling it. Suppose it’s been programmed not to want anyone boarding it? It may even have been designed to self-destruct, in the worst-case scenario.”

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  “Hmmm. Should we not just live with that slight risk?” puts in 4565Magnik.

  But 1232Artoz’s eloquence has driven home, it seems. After a long pause 7293Weeb signals: “I guess you’ve come a long way towards convincing me. But, to get that sort of budget, I’ll have to seek an audience with the Superarchon, planetside. What he’ll make of all this I can only guess...”

  *

  As things turn out, the usually dour and uncompromising supreme Archon of the whole of Nautsphere displays a rare burst of enthusiasm, once he has been persuaded that this is not yet another hoax or false alarm – or attention-seeking caper by another low-ranking Naut Engineer – but quite likely a genuine First Contact with alien beings from another star system. He at once orders that representatives from Surveillance Centre be summoned to his presence for a meeting.

  So it happens that a few mini-Cycles later, 1232Artoz and 4565Magnik, their shells scrupulously polished for the occasion, are waiting in the palace’s ante-room, along with 7293Weeb, for their audience with the leader. After only a short while, the Superarchon slides out and greets them cordially with little ceremony.

  “I am delighted and honoured to make your acquaintance, 1232Artoz and 4565Magnik. So you are absolutely convinced that this visitor to our system is indeed an artefact built by beings from another planet? A planet outside the Solus System?”

  “Indeed we are, Superarchon,” replies 4565Magnik. “The scans we have received from the probe P2835 place the question in no doubt.” And he fills in the Superarchon on the details of what they have discovered, and what could be learnt from the proposed mission.

  “Well, this could be a momentous occasion for the the entire planet Nautsphere – a turning-point in our history,” declares the Superarchon after taking a short while to digest the information. “I shall have to authorise independent checks, of course, but at the same time I shall consult with the Treasury to see how funds may be released for the mission you propose.”

  “Please understand, Superarchon,” puts in 1232Artoz, “that time is of the essence here. X4038 is a fast mover, as you know well! We estimate that after less than two Cycles it will have passed peri-Solus and be retreating from our system. In a little over two-and-a-half Cycles after that, it will be out of reach of any spaceship, no matter how powerfully it is boosted. Please let us not lose this opportunity!”

  “I’ll do what I can,” replies the Superarchon. And with a brief gesture of his eyestalks he signals that the audience is over.

  *

  The agony of waiting is almost unendurable, but some things cannot be rushed: 1232Artoz knows that full well. He is hoping, of course, that he will be selected as one of those aboard the multi-stage spaceship now being assembled – he believes he has a duty to see this thing out at close hand – and maybe that’s his automatic ‘right’ – but nothing has yet been announced about the crew.

  4565Magnik is reluctant to grant him too much leave of absence: 1232Artoz still has his routine duties in the Surveillance Centre. But the Archon recognises that the news of the momentous discovery is occupying almost all of his senior Engineer’s thoughts, and making it difficult for him to focus on more mundane matters like monitoring near-Nautsphere asteroids. So 4565Magnik accepts that he’d better let matters take their natural course. He allows 1232Artoz to visit Space Station 22 at times to see how things are progressing.

  *

  At last the roster for the crewed mission, codenamed S3115, is announced. Because of the need to limit payload as far as possible, there will be only four cosmonauts aboard, instead of the usual ship’s complement of seven crew.

  1232Artoz can hardly contain his delight on seeing his name on the list – and this is much to 4565Magnik’s relief, too. Although he’d forwarded 1232Artoz’s name to the selection board, he had no way of influencing their choice. At least he won’t have to deal with a resentful and disenchanted senior Engineer, grumbling and disrupting the work of others, on his watch! The other crew members will be 5866Deezu and two Nauts from the Space Centre, 2613Kzaak, who will pilot the craft, and 0253Nadavu, who will serve as medic and life support technician.

  4565Magnik is not too put out on learning that the Superarchon has vetoed his own inclusion, as well as that of 7293Weeb, on the voyage. Evidently he doesn’t care to spare or risk even one Archon, let alone two. And Engineers will be better equipped to carry out the tasks.

  Two males and two females on the voyage make for an interesting and unusual team, to say the least. 1232Artoz assumes, of course, that checks will have been made: neither Nautu will enter her fertile, breeding period at any time during the next three or four Cycles. Otherwise things could get a bit ... ‘unplanned for’ – to say the least! But nonetheless, the interactions between the crew members will probably be the subject of close study by psychologists back on Nautsphere. 5866Deezu he knows well, of course: they have worked alongside each other for many Cycles and know each other’s ways. But he has never met either of the other two crew members until now.

  He is just a little disappointed that his close friend 1300Mogt has not been selected. But you can’t have it all your way!