I asked for coffee. The worst thing that could possibly happen to me is I get woken up before 10am, which means that I'm completely useless until noon. It was 6:30am when I got to the office of the transit agent at Port Authority, and when the big chinless man in a grey suit asked me if I wanted anything to drink, I asked for coffee.
By the time I woke up, I was behind a giant mahogany desk, a steaming cup of coffee was in front of me on a ceramic coaster, and next to it was a stack of papers thicker than my arm. “Would you...” the man gestured towards the stack. I burned myself with the coffee, briefly wondered why government agencies are still so adamant about using paper documents, and tried to look innocent.
“Could you summarize it for me?” I said, frantically searching my memory for anything I may have done that would warrant this sort of paperwork.
The man shrugged. “Three months ago,” he began, “on August 14th, a ship docked in Jersey.”
He paused, as if to give me time to process the information. I made a concerned face and nodded several times. I had docked in Jersey on August 14th. “A ship,” I said. “Damn.”
The man's eyes grew a little wider, but he continued. “The chirp was not in the FAA database, but it pinged the tower before entering the airspace, identified itself as freight vessel, transmitted a flight plan and requested permission to land.”
Good, not me. I took another sip of the coffee, nodded sagely and tried to think about Janie. If I could get out of there within half an hour, then it'd take me another half an hour to get back, and so we'd have an hour and a half before she had to go to work, which would...
“Three months,” said the man loudly, ending a very long sentence that I had missed entirely.
“Should be enough,” I agreed. “Listen, can we...”
“And it's not just the manifest, but no one has even left the ship in three months. It's in a sealed hangar due to quarantine regulations on interstellar vessels, and no one's as much as approached the airlock.”
“You're doing a fantastic job, sir,” I said, and stood up from my chair. “An important job,” I added, and nodded enthusiastically, extending my hand. “We will be in touch.”
“Listen, you idiot,” the man hissed, which was unexpected enough to make me sit back down. “They just sent a transmission. They're asking for you.” He slammed a printout down on the table.
The printout was titled “Request for Assistance”, and read as follows:
“WHEREAS, the Earth Customs Office requires a cargo manifest to be submitted by transiting vessels, with the signature of the vessel's chief officer,
WHEREAS, the AHS-299 Q'auaxatan is subject to the Galactic Law and thereby obligated to respect the regulations of local shipping jurisdictions,
WHEREAS, the AHS-299 Q'auaxatan is an autonomous shipping vessel of the Kingdom of Akan, and has no corporeal crew whose signature could be obtained for the purpose of the cargo manifest,
REQUEST, Earth Captain 1st Class Brian Carlow to board AHS-299 Q'auaxatan for the purpose of discussing his employment in the capacity of chief officer, thereby enabling AHS-299 Q'auaxatan to submit the required paperwork with the chief officer's signature.”
I looked at the man across from me, and wondered if I was being filmed. “This is not a prank,” he said. I kept staring. “Trust me,” he said, “I know what this looks like, but I really have better things to do.”
“Why exactly me?” I asked.
The man shrugged. “You landed right before them. We think they got hold of your ATC traffic somehow as they were landing, and you're the only captain they know of by name.”
I took another sip of my coffee and asked a dumb question. “Yes,” said the man. “Not an Earth ship. Built by aliens.”
A long time passed before he spoke again. “Listen,” he said. “We can't guarantee your safety, and we can't force you to do anything.”
When I got home, Janie was already up and watching TV. “How'd it go?” she said. “Alright,” I replied. “We should drop by your old apartment tonight. Get the rest of the boxes.”