REPORT 8: The Return


Hypernet News Service : 22 Sept 2199 : @ 1830 wst

THEY'RE BACK!

THE COSMIC COUPLE RETURNS!

After 33 years of silence from the planet Jupiter a signal has just come up from the static a few moments ago. The observation station on Callisto Base has reported receiving this message:

"This is Jupship One, Captain Tordenskjold speaking. We are ascending, should be clear of the atmosphere in 8 hours, arriving Callisto Base 1030 wst. Do you read us?"

Reply was sent: "Callisto Base reads you...uh...Jupship. Is that really you? We'd sorta given up on you a long time ago."

Message: "Understood. We've been locked in another relative time frame, according to our calculations we've been gone over 33 years of your time. Exactly what IS the Earth-reference date just now?"

Callisto informed them that it was 22 Sept 2199.


Then the visual-band vidiex transmission cut in as well and the observation crew saw Niels Tordenskjold and Marucia Alexandre sitting at the controls of their ship, apparently still about same age as when they had descended so long ago.

Marucia: "According to our own instruments we've only been down there for little over a year. Has it really been 33 years?"

At this point the vidiex communication with Callisto Base was cut off. The Solar Ranger HQ informs us that Callisto Base is now in radio QUARANTINE.

A statement from Brigadir General D. Brin:
"Until we really know just who or what that is ascending out of Jupiter, we're taking no chances of contamination. The signals could be recordings made 33 years ago, the original crew could be dead--and these returning "space heroes" could be Jupiterian clones, copies of humans to pass as human, or changed, or diseased--they're certainly not as they should be."

Professor B. Bova of Lunar University submitted an opinion:
"The SR may be overracting, but it's probably a very good idea to do just that at this point, until we are sure that this is indeed our Cosmic Couple come back, and without alien bacteria or baby monsters incubating inside them...we've all seen the movies. Just because the idea of alien threat is so cliched is no guarantee that it can't happen. However, it is most likely that these people have simply been in another time-frame, such as experienced by interstellar travellers travelling faster than light, who can be gone hundreds or our years, but have themselves only lived a year or two of their own time.."



Hypernet News Service : 23 Sept 2199 : @ 0100 wst

WSS JUPSHIP arrived Callisto Base, immediately quarantined. A vacuum-packed 4-man security team led by Lt R. Sheckley boarded JUPSHIP with decontamination equipment, but found only crew Tordenskjold and Alexandre aboard. Apparently healthy and unchanged--except that Miss Alexandre was visibly in the final stage of pregnancy.

Radiation check negative. Biocontamination scan negative. DNA Identification positive. Crew co-operative, this procedure had been specified 33 years before. Telemetric readings recorded. Code Words requested and delivered.

NIELS TORDENSKJOLD: Christmas Pudding. I guess Dr. Jeena Asimov isn't here on Callisto Base now? She was our liason officer.

LT SHECKLEY: Dr Asimov? She gave up waiting. I don't know if she's even alive after 33 years, but we can check on it. I'm your liason for now. So where you guys been?

MARUCIA ALEXANDRE: We've been down there, in Jupiter's oceanic atmosphere, where there are no definable geographic locations or actual places, it's all fluid flow and the only solid ground is on the backs of the Jupiterians themselves, they're like swimming cities, constantly wandering.

NIELS: What have we come back to? Any serious political changes? Like Utopia? Or war? What is our status?

LT SHECKLEY: Not too bad right now. The Jupitarians have given us so many scientific advances that we've been able to solve most of Earth's technical problems, so no wars going on these days.

MARU: Can we go to Earth soon? I want to see my family before they get too old.

LT SHECKLEY: Oh we'll getyou there, but first you'll be quarantined until declared clean, and declassified, once we hear what you've got to report. The World Government has been rather stable, and we'd like to keep it that way, if you don't mind. Did you actually meet the Jupiterians?

MARU: Yes.

NIELS: Yes, and it was a bonafide contact with an alien intelligence...

LT SHECKLEY: Then stop, what you say next may be classified information and we are under live media coverage.

NIELS: Understood. We know the protocall.
MARU: Yes, fine, but this must not remain classified; the Jupitarians have requested us to transmit their knowledge to all the people of Earth, not just the power elites...

LT SHECKLEY: Yes, well, don't say any more now. By order of the Government, we are now CLASSIFIED!!

end of broadcast



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