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