ARIA Read Online Free

life on Earth.”
    Ryder didn’t want to take his eyes off the screen in case he missed something. “Good point. But how would you like to be head of a new department? You could call it—”
    “Faculty of Little Green Men and Other Mental Disorders. Hey, is that your computer?” said Teresa.
    “Great. It’s the patch into the Dryden Lab at Edwards. Look, there’s the case.”
    “There are some like it on special offer in Lo-Cost.”
    “Funny girl. But can you see that logo?”
    “No. You see, Ryder, there’s a known condition where the part of your brain that interprets signals from the optic nerve is overridden by wishful thinking. Oh...I see it now. It’s holographic yet looks solid. I assume you’re referring to the chevron symbol that appears to hover just above the lid—if that’s a lid.” She raised an eyebrow at him.
    He was relieved she was interested at last. Apart from needing a fellow human to share ideas and wonderment, Teresa’s biological expertise could be useful.
    “I assume that the lab’s glove-box will prevent back-contamination in the event of putative organisms getting into the atmosphere?” she asked.
    “Manuel says they’re using sterile nitrogen.”
    “Not a vacuum?”
    “Back in the late sixties, when they built the first NASA lab to handle moon rocks, the technicians found a vacuum glove-box unworkable. And the gloves leaked. In fact, no one’s been able to make a completely leak-proof containment lab. They concentrate on attempting to prevent the escape of infectious diseases.”
    “Yes, Ryder, the best place for doing this opening-the-case stuff is out in space.”
    “Can you guess why they didn’t?”
    “It has to be politics.”
    “No flies on you, kid. The US government doesn’t want anyone else to know what’s in it.”
    “That begs two questions, Ryder. Aren’t they going to be a bit peeved at us, in London, being able to watch it being opened?”
    “What they don’t know...and the second?” he asked.
    “Are they so naïve as to think aliens have put blueprints in the case? Maybe to end all diseases, a perfect weapon and a mass hypnosis machine so that mad woman, Caroline Diazem, can stay president forever.”
    “You’re right, Teresa. Look, they’re using a robotic probe to open it.”
    “Looks like they’re trying the knock-three-times method.”
    “I think they’ve already tried sending it please open messages, using all the frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. Usual codes. Prime numbers, pi, Fibonacci series, our DNA sequence—everything.”
    “Have they tried human speech with open sesame?”
    “As if the residents of Alpha Centauri or wherever would be conversant in English and—”
    “D’oh! Listen up, Homer. If an intelligent alien species left a package for us to find on our doorstep, deliberately, on one of our most sophisticated pieces of technology, they must have researched us. They’d know our languages, history, and legends. What would be the point of using non-human means of opening it?”
    Ryder threw apart his hands. “As a test?”
    “Haven’t you been listening? They already know how dumb we are. So it should be easy to open the case.” When Teresa used logic, it was always impeccable.
    They watched the futile attempts to use the robotic arm until boredom won. Even so, long after Teresa called it a night, he stayed up.
    In spite of the swallowed double espressos and Pro-Plus intake, Ryder drifted in and out of sleep in the lounge while a static screen washed his face in fluorescent pale blue.
    He sat bolt upright. A technician must have gone into the containment lab beyond the gloves. He wore a protective suit, complete with helmet and air supply. He placed his gloved hand on the case.
    “No vibrations,” the technician’s voice came through.
    Ryder grabbed both sides of the screen, desperate not to miss a single pixel. It would’ve been eleven p.m. at the American lab. Maybe they chose this time because