Part One:
Hazel’s Story
1
I remember arriving at Zero Station. I had grown up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and thought I knew what cold meant. I knew nothing. The Antarctic winds burned my face as I exited the helicopter and raced toward my new home, a solid white building on a solid white landscape. It was as though the cold had sapped all color from the scene. Despite the harsh temperatures, I felt my blood boiling with excitement. I was racing toward my dream.
My name is Hazel Brown. Yes, I was teased because of it in elementary school. Fortunately, my classmates grew tired of the jokes by about third or fourth grade. I was seven years old when the first alien race made contact with Earth. The Seedidites had studied us long enough to learn our language before the meeting. Some humans perceived this as an invasion of privacy and found it unnerving. There was a lingering level of mistrust, though the relationship had so far remained peaceful. I found the contact fascinating and even at that tender age I hoped to one day be the first to study a new language, as the Seedidites had studied ours.
My father came from Quebec and taught me French as my mother taught me English. This must have been what sparked my love of languages. I also became fluent in Spanish and Italian before I finished high school, and continued to study languages in college, including computer languages. Several degrees later, I joined a team of programmers working on what was hoped to one day be a universal translator, making communication with new races easier. Some of the senior members of my team had the privilege of working with a group of Seedidites to train our translator with their language.
When a second alien race made contact nearly twenty-five years after the first, our translator was put to the test. I had been on the project for only a few months. Our project founder was the only one directly involved and I made him tell me the story over and over. He was able to work closely with one of the Vine’s scientists. They spent several days entering words from their language into our translator before using it at a formal dinner between the Vine and many state dignitaries. When the captain of the Vine ship spoke a greeting in her native tongue, it was interpreted as “Bring cake!” The flustered dignitaries sent someone to a nearby bakeshop and presented her with a sweet confection, which sent the Vine into fits of laughter. Though our side didn’t understand the joke, both sides knew it was a good faith effort to communicate and a tentative relationship developed. In fact, relations with the Vine soon become friendlier than with Seedidites. The accepted reason for this was because the Vine arrived knowing very little about humans, which did not breed the mistrust of the Seedidites’ lengthy surveillance. Few would admit it might have had more to do with the Vine physical appearance, which was far more similar to humans.
A third race made contact about five years after the Vine. Attempts to contact the ship as soon as it was detected were either ignored or not received, and scans of the fifthspace field around the ship showed that its engine was damaged and no longer capable of long distance travel. The ugly landing in Antarctica would indicate that other parts of the ship may not have been functioning properly either. It was this accidental contact that brought me to Zero Station. I was chosen from our team to bring the most recent software updates and work with the other scientists to communicate with the newcomers. I’d like to say it was because I was the most qualified, but it had far more to do with the fact that I had the least family to leave behind. I was the only unmarried team member. My father, who had been fifty when I was born, passed away a few years earlier, shortly after my mother started showing signs of dementia. She was eighty now, and had not recognized me for nearly a year. I was still sad to leave her, but she would not know I was gone and had actually been afraid of me when I went to say goodbye.
Zero Station was typically inhabited by about fifty people, mostly engineers and their families. It was an experimental housing compound existing primarily in caverns carved underneath several feet of ice and snow. When the alien ship crashed only five miles from Zero, everyone was evacuated except two lead engineers left to maintain the station during this contact attempt. These engineers were Fred Elliot and Bucky Russ. I had read their bios before coming to the station, but still felt I knew nothing about them when I arrived. Also at the station were two brothers, Aaron and Eli Trelane. They were both pilots and fifthspace engineers and had arrived less than a day ahead of me. Their job would be to study the alien craft in the hopes that once we were able to establish communication the brothers could assist in repairing their ship, even if only in a perfunctory role, to further solidify ourselves as allies.
It was important that I had no family to miss me because the military had created a perimeter of defense to make sure no one else came into or out of the area until the government was satisfied that these new aliens did not pose a threat, and no one knew how long that might take. The part of the compound visible from the surface was dome-shaped with a silo near the rear, making it look somewhat like a very large igloo. I slid my government issued ID badge into the slot by the doors and they slid open to admit me. The massive structure appeared even larger from the inside. The floor was gently sloped with an occasional step so that you were underground, or more accurately under ice, by the time you reached the three hallways opposite. The right hallway was labeled A, the middle B, and the left C.
I was greeted by Fred Elliot, the commander of the station. “Dr. Brown, welcome to Zero.”
“Thank you, sir. Please call me Hazel.”
“Only if you call me Fred.”
“Fair enough.”
“I’ll show you to your rooms so you can get settled. When Dr. Jadzee gets here, I’ll call a meeting so we can get started.”
Dr. Luke Jadzee would be the sixth and final member of our contact team. He was a doctor specializing in communicable diseases who also held a degree in veterinary medicine. He had been selected to study the aliens’ physiology, mostly because of the fear that they could be carrying some new disease.
I walked the long A hallway carved in ice with my new colleague. It was a strange sensation to walk the hallway and not feel cold. I had read about the heating system. There was a complex matrix of heat lasers, each one programmed to emit heat a specific distance to keep the interior warm without risk of melting the icy walls. I understood that there was approximately two centimeters buffer between the lasers and the walls and couldn’t resist putting my fingers near the wall. I felt the line where the heat stopped. The cold nipped at my fingertips and I was amazed at how precisely the lasers worked. This heating system was the primary reason the complex was dubbed experimental. There were some who felt that long-term exposure to the heat lasers would pose certain health risks. Most, including myself, believed the concerns to be unwarranted. The lasers had been in use in other settings without incident for many years.
My guide had noticed my curiosity and I felt slightly childish. He smiled though, and said, “That was the first thing I did when I got here, too. Here we are.” We had arrived at what would evidently be my home for however long it would be my home. Fred opened the door and led me inside.
“Since the place is going to be practically deserted for the time being, I went ahead and assigned everyone family-sized quarters. You have this living area here with a small kitchen and there are three bedrooms in the back, each with a private bath.”
I nodded as I looked around, feeling uncomfortable about the family I didn’t know that had been forced to leave just a few days earlier. It seemed a little as though I was intruding in someone else’s house. Fred seemed to sense my unease.
“Everyone who left was told to bring all personal effects in case something would happen and they couldn’t return. Of course, most of us had doubts that it would come to that, but when the government tells you to pack everything…”
I nodded again.
“I’m going to let you get settled now, but it was nice to meet you.” He extended a hand to me.
“You, too,” I said, as I took his hand. “I’m looking forward to working with you.” The truth was I was dying to get started, but wanted to be respectful as this was his turf. He handed me a key and left the room.
Dr. Jadzee was expected to arrive at any time. It seemed unlikely, however, that Fred would call the meeting the moment he arrived so I tried to busy myself unpacking. I had one large suitcase and a small bag still hanging over my shoulder. Since my luggage had been limited, a few pictures were all I had brought to personalize my living space. I unpacked those first and placed them on a desk. It seemed like a good idea to familiarize myself with my new rooms before I decided where to put everything else.
The kitchen was very small, but cooking space was not necessary since we would be eating only pre-packaged meals anyway. I opened all three bedroom doors and found that the one on the right was the largest, and put my suitcase in that one. I was too restless to unpack it. I walked through the middle bedroom, which looked very much the same only smaller and with twin beds instead of a larger one. The third room was essentially identical to the middle. As I walked through it, a horrible sensation welled up from the pit of my stomach. This was not the same feeling of unease as I felt taking over someone else’s quarters. This was a feeling that someone else was still here!
I looked around frantically and saw no one, nothing unusual. The feeling was not going away though. I tried to stand perfectly still and listen. I heard only my own breathing, which had become shallow and quick. I backed slowly out of the room and closed the door behind me.
Once I was back in the living room, I no longer felt I was being watched and began instead to feel childish for the second time that day. Since I had nothing to do except unpack or think about what had just happened, I went back to my suitcase.