Probe
It was just a slightly-streaked speck of light.
Initially, they thought it was a comet, despite its odd angle off the plane of the ecliptic. The albedo was about right, even if the spectrography was all off.
Next, they decided it was an extra-solar mass that had come into the sun's gravitational influence; attempts to plot an orbit for it invariably failed. It had too much velocity to have ever been part of our system before.
Then, of course, it started decelerating, and all bets were off.
Slowing enough to drop below solar escape velocity, it made a wide pass around the backside of the sun, gravitationally shedding an enormous amount of velocity the whole way. As it did so, every major nation on Earth scrambled to get something, anything, ready for space flight. And when it emerged into view on the other side, at half its previous speed, the first phase began: Radio transmissions of every sort, in every language, from anyone and everyone who could send. What a noisy storm that must have been, with every nation on the planet trying to be heard above the others.
The alien craft-- what else could it be?-- continued to decelerate substantially on a wide arc that silently bypassed Earth and continued out toward Jupiter, bombarded by communication from Earth the whole way. Every government that could manage a space program scrambled to get something, anything on its way to the alien visitor-- what if it went back out never to return?-- but it was a lost cause. The ship was clearly plotting and re-plotting courses and it would have been impossible to intercept it with something fired off into the void on a simple rocket.
It was unnecessary, anyway, because the course to Jupiter turned out to be a final gravity-deceleration. The vessel once again appeared from around the backside, back into Earth's sight, and this time it was on a course that any halfway decent astronomer could calculate: it was coming to Earth.
By the time it entered Earth orbit, half a dozen nations had put craft up there in a race to get to it. There was a collision between the Chinese and American craft in their over-eager jockeying for approach, but the tragedy of death in space was overshadowed by the greater mania that had seized humanity:
The Aliens Were Here.
The ship was large, large like an ocean liner. It looked like carved stone, but its surface was pitted with millions of scratches and holes. The scars of an uncountable number of collisions in the long voyage across space. How long had it been out there? The first eyes that looked directly on it could tell, somehow they could just tell, that this ship had been a long time coming. It had been a great many places.
The first humans tentatively approached to attach themselves to it-- Russians, not that it mattered it the grand scheme anymore-- when suddenly it spoke. The messages was broadcast to Earth in every language it had heard from, to every nation that had tried to contact it. The message was short and simple:
"I have consumed the last of my fuel. I seek shelter and asylum. Please help me."
And it was then, in the ensuing period of puzzled confusion, that someone thought to turn their telescopes away from the visitor for the first time in weeks-- they turned their instruments back out toward the volume of space from which the visitor had emerged, and there they saw something that would make this alien visitor seem as unimportant as all of human history had seemed before it arrived:
A million slightly-streaked specks of light, coming in from an odd angle above the plane of the ecliptic.
No one thought for even a moment that these were just comets.
------
For consideration: alien invasion, predators and prey, radio noise, desperation
Initially, they thought it was a comet, despite its odd angle off the plane of the ecliptic. The albedo was about right, even if the spectrography was all off.
Next, they decided it was an extra-solar mass that had come into the sun's gravitational influence; attempts to plot an orbit for it invariably failed. It had too much velocity to have ever been part of our system before.
Then, of course, it started decelerating, and all bets were off.
Slowing enough to drop below solar escape velocity, it made a wide pass around the backside of the sun, gravitationally shedding an enormous amount of velocity the whole way. As it did so, every major nation on Earth scrambled to get something, anything, ready for space flight. And when it emerged into view on the other side, at half its previous speed, the first phase began: Radio transmissions of every sort, in every language, from anyone and everyone who could send. What a noisy storm that must have been, with every nation on the planet trying to be heard above the others.
The alien craft-- what else could it be?-- continued to decelerate substantially on a wide arc that silently bypassed Earth and continued out toward Jupiter, bombarded by communication from Earth the whole way. Every government that could manage a space program scrambled to get something, anything on its way to the alien visitor-- what if it went back out never to return?-- but it was a lost cause. The ship was clearly plotting and re-plotting courses and it would have been impossible to intercept it with something fired off into the void on a simple rocket.
It was unnecessary, anyway, because the course to Jupiter turned out to be a final gravity-deceleration. The vessel once again appeared from around the backside, back into Earth's sight, and this time it was on a course that any halfway decent astronomer could calculate: it was coming to Earth.
By the time it entered Earth orbit, half a dozen nations had put craft up there in a race to get to it. There was a collision between the Chinese and American craft in their over-eager jockeying for approach, but the tragedy of death in space was overshadowed by the greater mania that had seized humanity:
The Aliens Were Here.
The ship was large, large like an ocean liner. It looked like carved stone, but its surface was pitted with millions of scratches and holes. The scars of an uncountable number of collisions in the long voyage across space. How long had it been out there? The first eyes that looked directly on it could tell, somehow they could just tell, that this ship had been a long time coming. It had been a great many places.
The first humans tentatively approached to attach themselves to it-- Russians, not that it mattered it the grand scheme anymore-- when suddenly it spoke. The messages was broadcast to Earth in every language it had heard from, to every nation that had tried to contact it. The message was short and simple:
"I have consumed the last of my fuel. I seek shelter and asylum. Please help me."
And it was then, in the ensuing period of puzzled confusion, that someone thought to turn their telescopes away from the visitor for the first time in weeks-- they turned their instruments back out toward the volume of space from which the visitor had emerged, and there they saw something that would make this alien visitor seem as unimportant as all of human history had seemed before it arrived:
A million slightly-streaked specks of light, coming in from an odd angle above the plane of the ecliptic.
No one thought for even a moment that these were just comets.
------
For consideration: alien invasion, predators and prey, radio noise, desperation