`We have great skills,’ the Leader was saying. `Great skills in computation, in cosmological trigonometry, in three-dimensional navigational calculus. Great skills. Great, great skills. Only we have lost them. It is too bad. We like to have skills only they have gone. They are in space somewhere, hurtling. With our names and the details of our homes and loved ones. Please,’ he said, gesturing her forward to sit at the computer’s console, `be skilful for us.’
Obviously what happened next was that Tricia quickly set the video camera up on its tripod to capture the whole scene. She then walked into shot herself and sat down calmly in front of the giant computer display, spent a few moments familiarising herself with the interface and then started smoothly and com- petently to pretend that she had the faintest idea what she was doing.
It hadn’t been that difficult, in fact.
She was, after all, a mathematician and astrophysicist by training and a television presenter by experience, and what science she had forgotten over the years she was more than capable of making up by bluffing.
The computer she was working on was clear evidence that the Grebulons came from a far more advanced and sophisticated culture than their current vacuous state suggested, and with its aid she was able, within about half an hour, to cobble together a rough working model of the solar system.
It wasn’t particularly accurate or anything, but it looked good. The planets were whizzing around in reasonably good simulations of their orbits, and you could watch the movement of the whole piece of virtual cosmological clockwork from any point within the system – very roughly. You could watch from Earth, you could watch from Mars, etc. You could watch from the surface of the planet Rupert. Tricia had been quite impressed with herself, but also very impressed with the computer system she was working on. Using a computer workstation on Earth the task would probably have taken a year or so of programming.
When she was finished, the Leader came up behind her and watched. He was very pleased and delighted with what she had achieved.
`Good,’ he said. `And now, please, I would like you to demonstrate how to use the system you have just designed to translate the information in this book for me.’
Quietly he put a book down in front of her.
It was You and Your Planets by Gail Andrews.
Tricia stopped the tape again.
She was definitely feeling very wobbly indeed. The feeling that she was hallucinating had now receded, but had not left anything any easier or clearer in her head.
She pushed her seat back from the editing desk and wondered what to do. Years ago she had left the field of astronomical research because she knew, without any doubt whatsoever, that she had met a being from another planet. At a par- ty. And she had also known, without any doubt whatsoever, that she would have made herself a laughing stock if she had ever said so. But how could she study cosmology and not say anything about the single most important thing she knew about it? She had done the only thing she could do. She had left.
Now she worked in television and the same thing had happened again.
She had videotape, actual videotape of the most astounding story in the history of, well anything: a forgotten outpost of an alien civilisation marooned on the outermost planet of our own solar system.
She had the story.
She had been there.
She had seen it.
She had the videotape for God’s sake.
And if she ever showed it to anybody, she would be a laughing stock.
How could she prove any of this? It wasn’t even worth thinking about. The whole thing was a nightmare from virtually any angle she cared to look at it from. Her head was beginning to throb.
She had some aspirin in her bag. She went out of the little editing suite to the water dispenser down the corridor. She took the aspirin and drank several cups of water.
The place seemed to be very quiet. Usually there were more people bustling about the place, or at least some people bustling around the place. She popped her head round the door of the editing suite next to hers but there was no one there.