Maybe I was also lucky that psychologist picked up the bridge and used it first on the L’vrai. It made the alien fourth in sensitivity, rather than third. And that was bad enough.
Still can’t describe it. It was like seeing a color you’ve never seen before, a new primary color. The only thing familiar about the alien’s thoughts was hate, and I’ve never felt any emotion so strongly with bridge. Not even from the Thanos people.
What will they do now? They got their autopsy and a little more behavioral information. And gave the L’vrai some information about us, I guess. Maybe they’ll keep repeating the one-Tamer/minimum-time expedition until they stop learning new things.
Or they might take action. Gus told me there was some talk about attacking the aliens via the LMT. Pushing nuclear bombs through, dirty ones that would fill the planet’s atmosphere with deadly isotopes.
Sounds stupid to me. What would we do if some aliens wiped out 61 Cygnus A? We’d have to go find them, and fight them, out of self-preservation.
And with the L’vrai we’d certainly lose the fight. They’re technologically superior to us in most ways, as well as being shape-changers and natural telepaths. Naturally bloodthirsty, too. And when they go to a planet, they stay there, even if it takes them longer to get there.
It’s enough to keep you awake nights. As Sweeney’s report said, they might be in our backyard right now.
Carol’s home.
41 – All I Know Is What I Read in the Papers
SIRIUS WAVES
ALIEN THREAT?
PARIS, 13 JULY (WPI). Scientists here confirmed today that the gravity waves recently received from the vicinity of Sirius are of the same form and intensity as those which last October revealed the presence of L’vrai space ships near Achernar.
Sirius, less than nine light-years distant, is one of the closest stars to the Earth. It has a white dwarf companion and, so far as is known, no planetary system. It is too close to have been explored by the AED via the Levant-Meyer Translation.
The gravity waves were detected Monday by the Legrange satellites of Institut Fermi, at whose headquarters here an emergency conference met this morning.
An AED spokesman refused to comment on this new development, saying that an official statement is being prepared. . . .
AED FOES CLAIM
SIRIUS HOAX
LOS ANGELES, 14 July (IP). In a press conference here today the Union of Independent Scientists charged that a conspiracy exists between Institut Fermi and the Agency for Extraterrestrial Development.
They claim that the AED plans to capitalize on public hysteria over the threat of a L’vrai invasion to greatly increase their annual appropriation from the World Order Council. This appropriation will come to a vote next Wednesday, they point out; the coincidence is striking.
While admitting the existence of gravity waves from Sirius, the UIS claims that Institut Fermi has exaggerated the similarity between these and the Achernar disturbance that last year led to the discovery of the L’vrai.
They explained that the companion of Sirius is an extremely dense white dwarf star. A minute change in the angular momentum of the system could generate gravity waves similar to the ones detected by Institut Fermi….
AED ON SIRIUS HOAX:
NO COMMENT?
COLORADO SPRINGS, 14 July (WPI). An angry spokesman for the AED at first refused to comment today on the UIS charge that his organization had deliberately misinterpreted data for the purpose of increasing AED’s appropriation next week.
John T. Riley, Director of AED Colorado Springs, was reached at his home early this afternoon. When queried on the UIS allegations, he said that they were “beneath the attention of any intelligent person.”
Riley at first refused to elaborate, but then gave his opinion as a private citizen (noting that his views did not necessarily agree with the official AED position), accusing the UIS of “criminal cynicism,” charging that the twenty-year-old union is “playing politics with the very survival of the human race.”
Riley further claimed that the explanation of the Sirius gravity waves advanced by the UIS “could be disproved by a retarded undergraduate with a blunt pencil.” He challenged the UIS to “come up with a mechanism, however absurd” that could change the total angular momentum of a stellar system without affecting the rotation and revolution rates of one of the stars.