Visitors

The Mission Commander joined Viktor and Sally at the main observation window for the umpteenth time on the shift. “Any changes, Vic?”he asked.

“Nope. It’s still just sitting there. Silent as a clam. Not responding to calls, hails, smoke signals or carrier pigeons. Still roughly a hundred meters out, just pacing us. Ken tells us he hasn’t detected anything from it. He’s almost as obnoxious as Sally is… wanting to take a jaunt outside, go over and get a closer look at it. Anything useful coming up from dirtside?”

The Mission Comander sighed. “Nope. They won’t authorize any contact either, until they know what that thing is or who or what’s inside. They don’t want to provoke anyone or anything who might see a friendly visit as an attack. The world’s going nuts right now. The Russians, the Chinese, the Euros and the Americans are all beaming messages at it, trying to get it to talk. They’re almost in fistfights wanting a prominent place in any discussions that might involve ETs. They’re all accusing each other of collusion and conspiracy and trying to hog the ET’s to themselves. It’s going to get ugly if something doesn’t happen soon. There’s even talk about shooting at it…” 

“Great. They’re gonna shoot at it with us literally standing right next to it?” Sally did the face/palm thing in disgust. “Chief - this is bullshit. Let’s go mustang - Ken and I can hop over and knock and just see what’s what? We could be there and back-“

“For the 20th time - no. Not a chance.” 

The Chief stared angrily at The Artifact parked almost on top of them. “But…Vic, I want at least one set of eyeballs on that thing at all times. Sally… off the record…it IS bullshit. Get Ken and go prep your suits for EVA. If everything checks, suit up and stand by. I’m getting tired of the BS too. If they don’t start making sense dirtside… we’ll make our own decisions.” Inwardly the Chief was furious. Nobody even knew how that thing worked. There were no rocket nozzles or attitude jets, no visible means of propulsion, and some people already wanted to destroy it without a second thought.

Sally didn’t even acknowledge the Chief - she was already barrelling down the corridor to the airlocks and calling for Kenji. “Gawddammit! You WAIT FOR MY CALL, SALLY!!!” The Chief sighed in frustration. “I better go chase after her. She’s about ready to jump out of her skin. We all are, I guess. You good here, Vic?”

Viktor nodded and the Chief set off down the corridor, shouting after Sally. He’d just made it round the corner when Viktor called out,”We got movement on The Artifact! Everyone look sharp! Comms! You recording this?!? On the aft end - a hatch opened up -“

“Roger, we have telemetry. Chief! We have Houston on the line! Please come to Ops - on the double! Everyone else - hold and stand by!” Around the globe, the world held its collective breath and entire govt bureaucracies froze, waiting for the world to change.

Halfway down the length of his mystery ship a hatch had indeed opened. A man. He flipped himself out of the lock, and propelled himself down along the length of his spacecraft. The figure grasped a protuberance and stopped his forward motion.Carefully he placed his feet down on the bulkhead and looked across the gulf between them. “Holy shit!” the Chief gasped, “The crazy bastard’s gonna jump!!! No tethers! Can anybody ID him?! Where’s this nut from???”

****

“Well shit,” Sally said. “Theyre humans” The disappointment was echoed by everyone else. “We don’t know that for sure,” Kenji said, “They could be humanoid aliens…” he said half hopefully.

“The goof just jumped - no tethers, no EVA thrusters, nothing… the guy must have balls of steel! If he misses us… he’s literally on his way to the moon…”

The figure had launched himself out across the void towards the station, and time seemed to stop as he traversed the gap between them. Comms lit up again as thousands dirtside demanded information and answers to inquiries. They went unanswered as everyone’s attention was riveted to the visitor on his way to meet them. After a seeming eternity in flight - he banged hard into the ISS. Obviously stunned by the impact, he floated, apparently lifeless. “Oh jeez - Sally! Ken! Can you two get outside pronto? The stupid bastard almost took out the microwave mast! He probably broke his bloody neck…!” The Chief  was not having his best day.

“Hang on Chief! He’s moving!” Cheers broke out. Somehow everyone had become emotionally invested in the unknown astronaut. The spacewalker uncoiled a rope and magnet - and promptly affixed himself to the ISS. He started looking carefully about as if seeking something. His face wasn’t visible behind the polarized visor of his helmet. At length he spied one of the external cameras on the antenna mast and gave a cheerful wave.

“Still nothing on comms, Vic? What in hell are these guys up to?” The Chief demanded. The figure outside started clambering up the side of the Habitat Module… and stopped at the viewport. 

And knocked politely on the plexiglass.

****

The ISS astronauts studied their visitor through the viewport. Outside, the stranger waved again, and started rummaging through his belt and suit pockets. The astronauts inside watched him and marvelled at the crudity of his suit. “I think I have seen suits like that before, Chief. I’m thinking it’s either Harbour Freight or maybe Peavey Mart..” 

“Shut up, Ken. I wonder what in hell he’s looking for?”

Outside, the spaceman had disgorged the contents of his pockets. In front of him, a veritable junkyard floated serenely: a pack of cigarettes and a zippo, an exacto knife, a wallet, pliers, a calculator, a roll of duct tape, some gum … at length he victoriously produced - a grease pencil. Carefully he gathered up all his junk and placed it back into his various pockets. “The guy’s got more junk in his pockets than Sally does!” Vic quipped. Sally cuffed him across the back of his head. “Knock it off!” the Chief barked.

But the faceless visitor was in motion again. In the corner of the viewport, he took his grease pencil and wrote:

465 MHz

“What?!?! Where did he get his comms from? Fisher Price? Chief - I gotta figure this out. we can do it but we’re gonna need a transducer and …maybe a jury rigged frequency generator…?” Viktor slapped himself on the forehead. “Screw that, we’ll just use the relay sat that Sally’s working on…it has everything we need! I’ll have him on the blower in 20 minutes-“

“Quiet, Vic! He’s writing again!”

In the lower corner, the visitor did a quick doodle. And then, without a word, he uncoiled a rope, affixed it to the ISS with a magnet - and launched himself back toward his own vessel, spooling out the rope behind him. Back at his own craft, he tied off the rope, joining the two structures.

The chief laughed. “Well…I’ll be damned. The guy got that one right with no painful impact! How long for those comms again, Vic? And what’s that last scrawl all about?”

“Have a look for yourself, Chief…” Vic moved aside, and the Chief drew up close to the thick borosilicate glass. Down in the corner was a little crude scribble.

A first in space exploration - the ISS had been tagged with the first case of orbital vandalism and graffiti.