<In this chapter, the 'authorities' learn of the rescue of the astronauts by Beverly but are left completely in the dark about the identity of the rescuer nor if the rescuer is alien.>

NEW SPACETRAN

Chapter 2

The debriefing team sat staring at the astronauts for they simply had to believe what they were being told. The American general pressed again just to be certain as both French and American de-briefers listened incredulously.

“And she was just one alien, a single being wandering around our space like some sort of gypsy. You’re sure it was a female?”
The astronaut commander had little time for the blinkered military mind facing him across the table and he was getting a little impatient with the crass naivety of the de-briefers.

“Shit general, does it matter what gender it was? It wasn’t just ‘a being’! It was a human being! That’s what we all saw, that’s what rescued us, and that’s what brought us safely back to earth.”

The astronaut commander glanced around at his crew who were all nodding agreeably as he continued.

“Listen gentlemen oh, and lady,” he nodded respectfully to the French psychiatrist at the end of the table. “We all heard her, we all saw her; she spoke of some sort of intergalactic community and she was obviously part of it. Hell it even had laws and stuff.”

He turned to the French Captain who was chairing the meeting in the wardroom of the aircraft carrier.

“We all saw her ship, for God’s sake commandant’, your own ship’s watch-keepers saw the damned thing as well. It was light years ahead of anything we’ve got! She mentioned all sorts of stuff like warp drives and God knows what else. Ask any of us. We were all there, we all heard her and we all saw what that ship could do. Whilst travelling at what was obviously tens of thousands of miles per hour, she simply reversed direction as if she was parking a bloody car, then she definitely crossed several million miles in as few minutes when she brought us back,- back here,- back to Earth, - back to safety!”

“So you’re sticking with the woman thing.” The general pressed.

“Well she certainly looked like a woman to us, the astronaut’s lady doctor replied.”

“Yeah and a real babe to boot.” The navigator added. “All this and three, no, - nearly four million miles from earth. We were nearly at the end of our life support facilities.”

The Astronaut commander brought order to the de-briefing again.

“Yes, let’s not be forgetting that everybody had given us up for lost. Hurtling away from Earth at over twenty thousand miles per hour, we were well reconciled to our own deaths. Doctor Austin here had already handed out the suicide pills when this thing, - this ship, this unearthly alien apparition, suddenly pulls up alongside us like a bloody breakdown truck and promptly offered to assist us. We’re not making this up! The bloody ship reeled us in like some bloody fish on a line then, once we’re in its hold, she turns around without any apparent deceleration and sets off, in the opposite direction mind you, back towards Earth.

“Well no,” replied the general somewhat apologetically, “you couldn’t make it up. The evidence is out there on the flight deck.”

The French captain took control of the meeting as the chairman.

“So Messieurs and Madams, we know now that we are facing an advanced technology though not apparently, an aggressive one. Shall we return to the main issue at hand? We now know for certain that here really is an intergalactic community of aliens out there. Does anybody think they mean us harm?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” the lady psychiatrist interjected, “she rescued them and returned them; - safely I might add. If any aliens were contemplating some sort of invasion then I should think they would more probably have kidnapped them for research purposes or something.”

“I think that’s a bit far-fetched ma-am,” the general replied.

The French doctor bridled at the put down.

“Listen general, a bloody alien space ship has just saved and returned seven castaways from deep space, how far-fetched do you want it to be?”

“And piloted by a single woman to boot,” Doctor Austin added pointedly.

“So you’re convinced she was a woman then.”

“She looked like a woman, she behaved like a woman and she treated us like a woman would. By my medical definitions it would seem reasonable to deem her a woman and a human woman at that. It’s the duck thing.”

As she said this, Doctor Austin looked pointedly at the French Lady Psychiatrist and remarked.

“She was cautious, she was more afraid of my crewmates than we were of her, she locked herself behind an armoured door when we climbed out of our capsule, finally she reassured us when we approached the earth at some impossible speed and then decelerated without any apparent Newtonian effects. She mothered us! Yes! That’s the only word I can use to describe her care of us; - she mothered us! We none of us felt any deceleration but we pulled up short and tight after crossing those four million miles in just a few minutes. We were convinced we were going to crash into the planet or something. Normally a speed reduction like that would have flattened us into jam! Whatever that bloody craft is, it’s got Newton cooked.”

“Yes,” concurred the astronaut’s flight engineer, “and Einstein. Whatever that ship is, it’s years ahead of us; - more probably centuries. Oh and another thing; that ship had its own gravity. We were walking when we stepped out into her cargo bay. Just ask your physicists when you get back how a ship that small could generate One Gee internally, that is inside the cabin and cargo space.”

“So what are we to tell our respective leaders?” The general wondered.

“Well you can tell them that we are not alone and they look like us; - well, they look like human women.” Finished the commander. “Everything else is pure conjecture.”

“So for now gentlemen, oh and ladies, are we to keep the lid on this?”

A general consensus of yes'es rippled around the table. Everybody was nervous for this was big, really big!
The committee reluctantly adjourned and they went to dine in the Admiral’s cabin for privacy. There the conversation rocked back and forth as ideas, theories, proposals and beliefs juxtaposed for discussion and rejection or acceptance. The conversation was one of the most stimulating any one there had ever participated in; - and one of the most worrying.

The general mood was, - ‘Were there aliens out there and if so, what were they up to?’ They still had no idea if the elfin, feminine creature was human or alien. They had not actually made physical contact with it for it had remained behind the bulkhead door throughout the encounter. It certainly looked human but what morphing abilities existed, out there in the whole damned universe?

Later that Afternoon, an American super carrier rendezvoused with the French ship and the damaged remains of the capsule was transferred with consents and good will on all sides. Both the American and French governments were now in deep and much divided discussions about releasing the facts to the rest of the world.

The general consensus for the short term, after much secret discussion with other governments was that a release of the news would probably serve to unite the peoples of the Earth under some unquantifiable but clearly perceived threat from alien visitors. However, until the governments could agree a united policy and strategy to go forward, it would be best to keep the lid on the whole affair. The American astronauts were transferred to the super carrier, detained there and ordered to remain quiet until a suitable opportunity arose to reveal their rescue. They were certainly not happy about this, but government policy took precedence and they were bound by military oaths of secrecy. Similarly and for the same reasons of secrecy, the French Aircraft Carrier remained at sea.

Meanwhile on the other side of America a drunken vagrant thought he saw an alien space ship come down to earth and a single occupant come floating down on a silver beam. Then the door to the department store simply un-clicked itself and an alien that looked like a woman went stealing large amounts of knickers, bras, panty-hose and assorted female clothing. As the woman left with several trollies full of clothing, the vagrant availed himself of the opportunity to steal a pile of booze and put that on another trolley. He was caught pushing the trolley down the street and wildly protested his innocence about somehow unlocking the doors to the shop.

Nobody believed the drunk at first but slowly rumours started to gain credibility. Little things began to add up as the fashion store reported a considerable stock loss with no obvious evidence of forced entry. Then families on both sides of the Atlantic wondered why their loved ones hadn’t returned home after their rostered turns of duty and ‘why their ships were were still active on extra operations’. Slowly, ever so slowly, the rumours began to grow. Most importantly the news coverage of the doomed spacemen hurtling towards Jupiter had ceased to continue as the Government tried to suppress all speculation as to whether the astronauts were still alive or already dead in their coffin. America and the world finally concluded they were dead as experts predicted their end and the world went into mourning.

Beverly was oblivious to all this. With a well stocked space ship, she had slipped behind the moon and landed her beloved Albatross in a large artificially excavated cavern to be invisible to any orbiting eyes or unexposed to the sun’s rays. At the end of the huge cave, Beverly had her own private lair. It was one of several bolt holes she had scattered about the universe. In that lair, a bore hole had located ice, a useful source of hydrogen for the fusion engines that powered Cold Albatross and oxygen to refresh her recycled atmosphere. While her ship refuelled she would savour a few days total relaxation.
The days turned to weeks as she recharged her batteries and debated who of her alien friends she would next visit. Beverly was beginning to pall of wandering around the universe. Despite her disabling paranoia of going near Earth and the childhood horrors it held for her, something, some vestigial connection seemed always to be pulling her back like a moth to the flame. The truth was; Beverly was lonely.

For a few more Earth days she sat around moping then she became agitated.

‘Why the hell shouldn’t she visit Earth?’ She asked herself. ‘Despite the long years spent away from the place, it was still her mother planet. By intergalactic law she still had absolute right of return and abode. She’d never broken any laws, had she?

In fit of pique she decided to take the bull by the horns and lay her demons to rest, once and for all! Carefully she 'reversed' the Cold Albatross out of the cave and a few minutes later, a fully recharged and replenished Cold Albatross was easing her nose around and then streaking Earthwards.