Storrel’s commentary came through on audio. “I’m at the top of the ramp now. There’s a drop of about a foot down to the deck inside. There’s an inner door on the other side of the entrance compartment and it’s open. Looks like an airlock.” The TV picture closed in as the camera operator moved up beside Storrel; it confirmed his description and the general impression of cramped and cluttered surroundings that had been gained from the catwalk. A glow of warm, yellowy light penetrated the lock from beyond the inner door.
“I’m going through into the inner compartment. . . .” A pause. “This looks like the control cabin. It has seats for two occupants sitting side by side, facing forward. Could be pilot and copilot stations-all kinds of controls and instruments . . . No sign of anybody, though . . . just one other door, leading aft, closed. The seats are very large, in scale with everything else about the general design. Must be big guys. . . Oberman, come on through~and get a shot of it for the folks back home.”
The view showed the scene as Storrel had described, then began sweeping slowly around the cabin to record close-ups of the alien equipment. Suddenly Hunt pointed toward the screen.
“Chris!” he exclaimed, catching Danchekker’s sleeve. “That long gray panel with the switches on. . . did you notice it? I’ve seen those same markings before! They were on-”
He abruptly stopped speaking as the camera swung sharply upward and focused on a large display screen that was set directly in front of the egg’s two empty seats. Something was happening on it. A second later they were staring speechlessly at the image of three alien beings. Every pair of eyes on the bridge of Jupiter Five opened wide in stunned disbelief.
There was not a man present who had not seen that form before-the long, protruding lower face broadening into the elon
gated skull. . . the massive torsos and the incredible six-fingered hand with two thumbs. . . • Danchekker himself had constructed the first eight-feet-tall, full-scale model of that same form, not long after Jupiter Four had sent back details of its finds. Everybody had seen the artist’s impressions of what the shapes that had contained those skeletons must have looked like.
The artists had done a fine job . . . as everybody could now see.
The aliens were Ganymeans!
chapter five
The evidence amassed to that time indicated that the Ganymean presence in the Solar System had ceased some twenty-five million years in the past. Their home planet no longer existed, except as an ice ball beyond Neptune and the debris that constituted the Asteroid Belt, and had not for fifty thousand years. So how could Ganymeans appear on the screen in the egg? The first possibility to flash through Hunt’s mind was that they were looking at an ancient recording that had been triggered when the egg was entered. This idea was quickly dispelled. Behind the three Ganymeans, they could see a large display screen not unlike the main display on 15’s bridge; it held a view of Jupiter Five, seen from the angle at which the large alien ship was lying. The Ganymeans were out there, now, inside that ship. . . just five miles away. Then things began happening inside the egg that left no time for more philosophic speculation as to the meaning of it all.
Nobody could be sure what the changes of expression on the alien faces meant, but the general impression was that they were every bit as astonished as the Earthmen. The Ganymeans began gesticulating, and at the same time meaningless speech issued from the audio grille. There was no air inside the egg to carry sound. Evidently the Ganymeans had been monitoring the transmissions from the reception party and were now using the same frequencies and modulation.
The picture of the aliens focused on the middle one of the trio. Then an alien voice spoke again, pronouncing just two syllables. It said something that sounded like “Gar-ruth.” The figure on the screen inclined its head slightly, in a way that unmistakably conveyed a combination of politeness and dignity rarely seen on Earth. “Gar-ruth,” the alien voice repeated. Then again, “Garuth.” A similar process took place to introduce the other two, at which point the view widened out to embrace all three. They remained unmoving, staring from the screen, as if waiting for something.