Alien Alliance Read Free Page B

of specialists and enthusiasts. She had trouble
believing this could be happening despite all her foresight and
preparation. She had organised a savings fund, sitting at interest,
which had now been transferred to a debit card, ready to fund this.
Alan had even managed to get them cheap flights even though it was
summer and peak tourist season in New Zealand in February. She
would bet Alan had just beat the price rise. They had on sold the
remaining three pre-paid tickets, to CNN for ten times the price
they had paid. That also was Alan’s doing. His qualification for
joining SETI was “retired business manager.” Sarah often commented
that his budget/calculator/best buy sense was hard-wired in. She
felt her heart beat even faster as they started to board. No visas.
She hoped that New Zealand immigration had a sense of occasion and
wouldn’t refuse them entry.
    The jet had left full. Alan had beaten the
rush to buy tickets by mere minutes. During the flight, the pilot
announced, “We will be landing at Dunedin for security reasons.”
But Sarah informed the pilots that SETI were on board. After some
discussion, a vote was held on the plane and it was a unanimous
decision to land in Christchurch, so long as Air Traffic Control
felt it was safe. They landed in Christchurch, shocked at the
prodigious size of the spaceship. The Press were right, Sarah
thought. It did look a little like a cruise ship but nearly three
times the size.
    Alan watched Sarah in amusement as she dealt
with the New Zealand officials, wondering how she did it. He noted
that as usual she Sarah was not pushy or rude, but quietly got her
way without upsetting anyone. Sarah was one of those people, Alan
had frequently said, who could tell you to go to hell so politely
that you would look forward to the scenery.
    On arrival, Sarah calmly presented her SETI
credentials to still-shocked airport officials. Alan watched her
calm demeanour and her assumption that these people would realise
that the experts were here and SETI could handle it. Sarah was
right. They did. She handed over the names and qualifications of
all the team and he was amused to see that no one mentioned
visas.
    “Don, Bruce, Fiona, Gina and Terri, please
organise the luggage and get it to the motels, then get back here.
The rest of you follow me,” said Sarah. Looking much calmer than
she felt, she went straight to the hangar where the Aliens now
were.
    Nothing really prepared her for the sight of
four Aliens, large creatures, each about the size of a horse, but
more the shape and look of a seal with four legs and two arms, but
the more familiar two eyes, head in the expected place, a sort of
recognizable nose, ears, short fat tails and each a different
colour from fawn, to red, with two being slightly different shades
of brown. They were sitting on backless concrete park benches that
had been brought in for them. There were large foam pads forming
the cushions. They were trying to learn English with Jolene the
steward, the woman Paswalda had spoken to first, and the three
school teachers she had persuaded to help her. Four people who were
now instantly recognisable on every media source.
    Sarah tried not to stare as she calmly and
quietly led her Team in. Sarah had instructed them to quickly sit
down, to try to reduce any threat perceived by the Aliens. Sarah
eased over, as close to Jolene as she could without crowding any
one.
    “Are you Sarah?” Asked the uniformed
woman.
    “Yes. Jolene?”
    “Yes. You don’t know how relieved I am to
see you! I don’t know what I’m doing here! This is Mary Thompson
and Hine Smith, both English teachers and Tom Sutton is a teacher
of Latin and English. They were the only volunteers. I was lousy at
languages at school.”
    “What kind of a working vocabulary do you
have?”
    “They started with nouns, then verbs, then
adjectives. Their knowledge of sentence structure seems to be
similar or they, I mean their Translator machines, seem