<It’s just so much more complicated than you can possibly imagine,> Minerva tells me the following afternoon. I’m sat in my office again, pretending to be helping with the decoding efforts. <We are concentrating our efforts on one side of the communications net, but even so, it’s close to impossible.>

“I’m pretty sure that it’s beyond me,” I agree readily. “I’m far from being an expert in encryption. Sure, when I was learning about the rest of the world of communications, we touched on some of it as an historical footnote. Much more time was spent on learning about error correction, transmission protocols and such-like.”

<Even with what you think is limited knowledge, you are far ahead of most other people. So far, we have figured out that all the transmissions are encrypted with some sort of high-level cypher scheme or other. We don’t know what any of these cypher schemes are, never mind what the key technologies might be. We also have no idea what any of the transmissions might be.>

“Right, so you need to brute-force as many possibilities as you can think of and see if one of them works?”

<Yes, but how do we know if we’ve got it to work at all? We don’t really know what we’re decoding. It’s not like those first computers working on Enigma. They at least knew that they were using a Latin alphabet and were looking for a German plaintext in a message. We have no such guides.>

“I never even thought of that,” I admit. “Does that leave you just looking for the shortest messages and assuming they are simple protocol packets or whatever?”

<Something like that. We are looking for patterns of repeatable data and assuming that we might just find something that is either mathematical or semantically common enough to give us a clue. Even in our modern world, huge quantities of data are sent as text. Even a Nexima video feed has headers and metadata that only ever need to be machine-readable but are just sent as human-readable text for simplicity and as a legacy of 550 years of doing it the same way. We’re looking for the mundane. Finding a display resolution in numbers would be a godsend.>

“We’re going to have to put boots on the ground, aren’t we?”

<It would simplify things considerably, but there’s no way that will happen without further study. If we can’t crack the code, we will fly through. Axios and Nexi are already talking about switching roles if that happens.>

“Yeah, I figured Nexi would not be interested in another long flight right away.”

<Exactly. Axios is keen to have a change of scene from local administration and Nexi wants to have a bit more time to spend with their human and AI friends.>

“I can’t say I’m keen for us to skip this one. There’s going to be a bit of a lull if we have to miss a mission. Not sure what I’ll do with myself for three years.”

<None of us are. Clearly, we can only have so many ships en-route to suitable star systems at any one time, but we do seem to have dropped the ball on timings here. The Valatan offering to look at that last world makes it even more difficult. Even with another approach in just a few months, there’s not much work available.>

“I’m not complaining about that one, Flix is a weird world and none of the humans wanted to try 1.3G for anything more than a cursory visit. It’s pushing the limits of what we can work with.”

<From what I’ve seen, it is a beautiful world, but you’re probably right. Never experienced gravity myself, but I do understand the principals.>

I’m pretty sure that the two of us could go on talking about this stuff for the rest of the day – or even the rest of the week – but Melina decides to interrupt my relaxation by poking her head into my office instead.

“Are you two still talking about encryption?” she asks when she sees Minerva’s avatar in the chair by the window. “Don’t you have any real work to do?”

<Actually, I was just leaving,> Minerva tells her and winks out, even as I call “Coward” behind her dissipating avatar.

“Well, I am in a bit of a limbo,” I admit. “Can’t do much communication without any means of communication.”

“Good, because I have a new job for you.” Melina waves towards someone outside the office and gestures for them to come in.

The man who enters my office is a few centimetres shorter than I am – I do, after all, have the advantage of being born and mostly raised on Sevrin – but still close to two metres. He is about my age with short-cropped blond hair, a pleasant, if somewhat rugged face and the build of an athlete.

“Doctor Darren Quilliam, this is Doctor Robert Evans. Rob, this is Darren, our communications expert and linguist.” We shake hands cordially. Rob’s grip is firm, but not demanding. 

“Quilliam?” Rob asks with a raised eyebrow. It’s a normal reaction and one that I’m very used to having to respond to. His voice is deep, yet sonorous with a clipped accent.

“Yes. Peter and Andrew are my uncles. And, also yes, I joined because of them, at least in part.”

“Darren, I’m leaving Rob in your charge for a few days. Can you go over the current status of the mission with him for me and then show him around properly?” Melina asks. “Obviously, drop everything and get back to work if the AIs have a breakthrough.”

“Sure, boss,” I manage, gesturing for Rob to come further into the office and take a seat. Melina barely manages to nod before dashing off back along the corridor towards the stairs and her own office.

“She seems to be under a bit of pressure,” Rob suggests once he has made himself comfortable.

“It’s hard to quantify. There is always pressure to have a successful mission and this one is looking far from being that right now.”

“She also seems a little uncomfortable with me being here? I can’t think of anything I’ve said or done that might cause upset.”

“I’m sorry. Don’t read too much into it. Many on the program like to think that they are at the sharp end of the human condition. Finding out that there is a proper military, no matter how small, came as a shock to many. She recognises that we do need your expertise, just not necessarily your skills.”

“It doesn’t bother you, though?”

“I don’t think so. Actually, I’m relieved that there are possibly others who can handle any difficulties if needed.”

“Do you actually think it will come to that?” Rob asks.

“No, but right now we are working almost totally on assumptions and conjecture. That was partly what I was discussing with Minerva. She’s trying to keep me up-to-speed on their decryption efforts.”

“I have read through the situational briefings. I don’t see that much can be done one way or another until there’s some sort of break-through.”

“No,” I agree readily. “We all have to play the waiting game. That does give you a little time, hopefully, to get settled in and meet some of the team.”

“Yes, it is a bit of a whirlwind arrival. I think I begin to see what it was like for your uncle Andrew.”

“Well, I hope they’ve at least found you some accommodation?”

“Yes, but I’ve not had a chance to get anything to eat yet.”

“You’re on European time still?”

“Yes, it’s probably around my time for dinner.”

“Well, it’s about lunch-time for me. Come on, I’ll take you down to the square, find us something to eat and then I can show you more of the campus and let you rest to help with the time differences.”

It takes us quite some time to even get out of the building. Lunch means that many of the members of the team are out and about and I have to stop perhaps half-a-dozen times to introduce Rob to numerous groups of colleagues. At least it means that most of the introductions are made by the time we finally leave the building.

Reactions to his presence are as mixed as I expected them to be. There’s a definite undercurrent of distrust that’s barely detectable, but obvious if you know what to look and listen for. Often, it is little more than a barely-supressed smirk or just the tone of acknowledgement that his skill-set receives. If they don’t like his military training, then they should just concentrate on the fact that his specialisation in military history will be very helpful.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Rob picks up on it quickly, he’s not stupid by any means and some of the staff are a little more obvious than others. As quickly as seemly, I usher him out of the building and down to the main square. Maria and her helper for the day seem to be pretty busy, but there are a couple of seats at the counter, just round the corner and out of the way. Beggars can’t be choosers and we are a little late.

“Rob’s here to help us with some historical perspective,” I tell her as we take these last two seats and I try to remain neutral.

“Oh, so you’re the soldier?” she asks with genuine interest. “That must be fascinating. Training for something you might never need?”

“I’m not so sure if others around here see my work in quite those terms,” Rob replies with a grin. “Seems like half the campus want a fight with me.”

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, keeping my eyes cast down. “I didn’t realize there was this much feeling one way or another.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s your fault,” Rob reassures. “It is also a reaction that I’ve grown used to. Don’t worry about it.”

“What’s the big deal?” Maria asks. “Do people really think that there’s something wrong with being prepared?”

Rob’s thoughtful for a moment before answering. “Apparently, yes, they do. I do get it. We live in a society that has almost totally done away with conflict, violence and most crime. Let’s face the truth here, if I walked away without paying for lunch, Nexima would just pay the bill and tell me I messed up. I couldn’t get away with dropping litter.”

Both Maria and myself nod, pausing for a moment to pick what we want for lunch before Rob continues.

“I also understand your thoughts on my training for no purpose, but how is that any different from any elite athlete. We still have competitive karate, judo and taekwondo, among many other martial arts. Then there is competitive archery and shooting. None of these things have ever been out of the Olympic agenda.”

“I’ve never been sure why the fact that we have a military isn’t more common knowledge,” he continues. “Sure, we don’t have a need for them here on Earth or in any of the current colony and associate worlds, but would you like to bet our whole civilisation on us being the only creatures in the galaxy with space-faring aspirations? Not all of them may be so altruistic.”

“Of course not,” I admit. “Once my uncles met the Valatan, we knew for certain what we had suspected for a few hundred years. There was sentient life out there. It would be naïve indeed to assume that we’re the pinnacle of development in a galaxy that’s at least ten billion years old.”

“But we’ve had no visitors yet,” Maria points out, appearing back at the counter with a selection of plates and serving bowls.

“Well, even with gateway fuelling, we can only manage a percentage of light speed for our exploration. Each generation of ship goes a little faster, but the galaxy is just so big that time is the limiting factor,” I point out.

“Agreed,” Rob replies, nodding in appreciation at the chilli that he is now eating. “We would be wrong to assume this is a hard limit to expansion – there may be other methods of inter-stellar travel out there that we haven’t even though possible. Still, it is a complex technology that might only be possible once intra-racial conflicts have been abandoned.”

“The in-fighting that Earth went through five hundred years ago needs to happen, but needs to lead to lasting peace?” I ask.

“It is a popular theory,” Rob agrees. “Now, we’re adding colony worlds at a steady pace. It was only a matter of time until we met another race that were in that planetary war – or cold war – situation. As a historian, I recognise the need to catalogue their civilisation and, if necessary, move on. As a soldier, I can recognise their potential danger and think of containment.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like they’re quite at the stage of interplanetary travel, let alone interstellar journeys,” I assure him. “There’s no indication they’ve even begun to explore their own solar system.”

“And we should be grateful for it. This is probably close to the ideal time to make contact with them. It would be nice to get there just after peace breaks out, but this will have to do.”

“So, what exactly do modern soldiers train to do?” Maria asks, slightly changing the subject.

“The same things as they have always done. How to fight, how to shoot. Logistics, tactics, survival. It again might not be common knowledge or even obvious, but weapons have advanced since the twenty-first century.”

“Not bows and arrows then?” I ask with a grin.

“No, more powered body armour and pulse rifles,” Rob replies with a similar smile. “I can use a bow, though. I’m pretty good with one actually.”

“That explains the shoulder muscles,” I mutter with a slight blush. “Don’t forget, however, that I have family friends who live from day to day with a bow and a spear.

“Actually, that’s mostly weight training and jiu-jitsu.”