Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(39)

Grigory is uncharacteristically cautious when he responds. “If needed, I believe I could repurpose reactor. If given time, I could rig a casing and program an overload.”

The reactor is composed of two chambers that each attach to one of the escape pods when activated. The implication of Grigory’s plan is that the escape pods would effectively be disabled, leaving us no way to return to Earth.

“That’s a question for another day,” Min says. “At the moment, let’s focus on the advance drone fleet. What’s the plan after it locates the artifact?”

“Well,” Harry says, “that’s when it gets interesting. The two scout drones will monitor the other three drones as they make a staggered approach to the artifact. The observation drone will be first. It’s designed to look like an asteroid. It’ll do a fly-by of the artifact but make no contact. Along the way, it’ll collect readings—visual, radiation, microwave, radio wave, whatever else anyone wants to scan. We’ll get our first look at its outer material up close, maybe even form a theory about what it’s made of. We’ll see the far side of it as well.”

“See if it has soft underbelly,” Grigory mumbles.

“Exactly.” Harry brings up another image, this one with flight vectors. “After the scans, the scout drone will comm-patch the readings to us—assuming it’s in telescope range of the Pax. The larger data files, like high-res images, will have to travel back to us. After its fly-by, the observation drone will get coordinates for the Pax from the scout drone, then travel back to us with the data.”

I look over at Charlotte. “The comm drone would approach next and initiate contact.”

“And how exactly will it do that?” She asks. Charlotte’s tone is harsh. I think she feels that first contact is her purview and that Harry and I are yanking it away from her because we control the drones and can get there first.

I do my best to keep my voice even, a sharp contrast to Charlotte’s. “That’s not our call.”

Harry shrugs. “Hey, we’re just the drone guys.”

“Have you finished your first contact protocol?” I ask.

Charlotte’s aggression instantly turns to defensiveness. “Well, no, not exactly. This kind of work takes time. It’s not like assembling a robot. We need to be very thoughtful about how we go about this. We get one shot.”

“What’s your current thinking about how we’ll proceed?” Min asks.

“My… current thinking is that we need to establish communications and then develop a lexicon.”

It’s clear that not everyone is familiar with the word “lexicon.” I sometimes forget that English is a second language for some of our crew. Grigory squints. Min’s eyes drift, also trying to place the word. Izumi stares at Charlotte. Lina makes no reaction.

“Ah,” says Charlotte, “we need to devise a vocabulary with which to communicate with the artifact.”

Grigory rolls his eyes. “Which assumes it wants to communicate.”

“Yes. I’m assuming that. I assume you want to shoot first?”

I hold up a hand. “No one’s saying that.”

Charlotte turns to me. “What are you saying, James?”

“That our mission is broader than communicating with the artifact. We’re here to figure what we’re dealing with and to notify Earth.” I wait, but no one says anything. “If the artifact wants to communicate, that’s a best-case scenario. But if it doesn’t, Earth needs to know that. And how to fight it. As you’ve noted, we get one chance to make first contact. After we initiate communication, it will be aware of our drones. We lose the element of surprise.”

“Which is why you want to study it first—with the observation drone?” Min asks.

“Yes. We observe first. Then try to communicate. And if that fails, the intervention drone will probe its defenses. To us, that seems the only logical approach.”



Charlotte chews her lip. “Yeah. All right. I like this. It’s a good idea. Once we initiate communication, the artifact will likely identify the drones. We may not get another chance to get close to it—the observation drone needs to go first.”

“That’s our thinking as well,” I say. “Again, we’re deferring to you on first contact protocol. Any details would be helpful at this point.”

Charlotte interlocks her fingers and sets them on the table. “Okay. My protocol, what I’m thinking, is that we try a series of broadcast modalities. Microwave, radio wave, light, radiation—we keep going down the list until we get a response.”

“What’s the initial message?” I ask.

“Something simple. A non-random number sequence. Fibonacci numbers. Figurative numbers: triangular, square, pentagonal. Central polygonal numbers. Magic square. The idea is that we give it a logical sequence of numbers and wait to see if it responds with the next number in the sequence. If so, that tells us it’s willing to talk. The next part is tougher.”

“How to talk,” I say.

“Exactly. I’m still working on that.”

“Fair enough. My feeling—” I gesture to Harry and Emma. “Our feeling is that establishing a rudimentary initial contact is sufficient for this first pass. It could even inform how you go about creating a more complex lexicon with the artifact.”