ARIA (34 page)

“Somehow, it knows the case has been opened, yet it needs us to relay a code to it,” Ryder said.

“It could be that some alert could get from the opened case, through the cave rocks, and off to them at Saturn,” Derek said, “but they can’t get a more sophisticated radio instruction code back through all that hard rock. So—”

“They send it to the ISS and us, hoping we’ll pass it on,” Ryder said.

“Do we?” Teresa said.

“This is a first, isn’t it?” Derek said. “The aliens effectively asking for our help to activate something?”

“Not really,” Ryder said. “They needed a human to agree to open both cases. However, I agree there is a subtle difference in that they need us to take an extra step. What does that tell us?”

“You’re going to say that it means they expect us to cooperate with something that is going to be beneficial to us,” Teresa said. “Or it could mean they realize we’re too curious to have restraint. Tell them to go to hell.”

“Hoorah,” Jena said, finding an ally.

Dan turned to Ryder. “I presume it’s a code that would unlock something else in the case. As far as we know, they hadn’t used radio before, but we weren’t listening for it back in April. As Derek suggests, the case is inside a mountain, they need us to relay it on.”

Teresa, who had become agitated walking around, said, “We should ask Antonio. Give him the option whether he wants the message or not.”

Ryder ignored her. “What does the message sound like?”

Teresa shouted, “Is anybody listening to me?”

Derek twiddled with a sound analyser. “Sounds like static in repeated bursts. It’s never going to make any sense to us. It is probably alien machine code talking to another machine. Except that the receiving machine should be the case.”

Megan had come in to find out why Teresa was shouting. “Does that mean the alien ship is a machine? No little green men in it?”

Dan put an arm around her shoulders. “No, Megan. For instance, when you talk on your phone, your message goes through the air as coded data to be received by someone else’s phone. You’re not a machine, but your phone is.”

Megan brightened. “So there might be little green men on the alien ship out at Saturn who are phoning their luggage in the mine. Can’t you get through and phone your Space Station instead to pass on the message?”

“You got it,” Dan said, who turned to Teresa. “We’ve not overlooked what you’re saying, Teresa. But he’s volunteered for this job.”

“Exactly,” Ryder said. “We need to send on the code for the case to respond and for Antonio to report any effects. That’s what this is all about.”

“Suppose the code is a signal to detonate it?”

“They’re not likely to have sent a bomb. What would be the point?” Dan said.

Teresa clenched her fists. “Suppose they know this group is the last uninfected group on the planet. They’ve obliterated humans without contaminating the environment with ARIA but need to take more direct action to see us off.”

Jena said, “I hate to pour cold water on your theory, Teresa, especially since I didn’t agree with bringing the fucking case here. But there are bound to be hundreds if not thousands of uninfected groups. Think of all those isolated mountain villages in the Andes, Himalayas, even the Rockies. They don’t all have international airports, railways, or motorways. Intended visitors with ARIA would have forgotten where they were going long before reaching their destination.”

“Okay, I accept that,” Teresa said, clearly annoyed Jena would appear to support Ryder and Dan. “But apart from the single person Charlotte, no other group have been in touch with the ISS website.”

“There have been others logging in,” Vlad said, tapping at his console. “Five unknown contacts in the last three months. When someone looks at our website, it is logged. One could be the aliens, but I’d expect them to be able to scan it without us noticing.”

Dan said, “We should alert Antonio and give him time to suit up.”

“Do you want to tell him, Teresa?” Ryder said.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Let me tell him he’s about to blow up.” She ran out of the room.

“He knows anyway,” Vlad said. “He’s been listening in. Thinks it is very funny, don’t you, Doc?”

“Bring it on, Derek, after I’ve finished with my visor and gloves.”

“Okay, say when.” Derek set up the signal and waited with his finger over a touchpad, waiting.

“Just a minute,” Jena said. “I’m getting Teresa, let her know Antonio is all right with this.”

The others waited for stretched minutes. The two women returned.

“Ready, Antonio?” Derek said.

“As ever.”

“Counting down. Three...two...one.” Derek tapped the touchpad, sending the short radio burst to Antonio’s receiver. Speakers in the centre and the mine played the sound although it came over as a grandfather’s wheezy cough.

The case looked no different after the signal, nor five minutes later.

“How are you feeling, Antonio?” Dan said. “The instruments show no change. But unless you talk to us, we’ve little idea about how you feel.”

“An anticlimax, Commander. I’m beginning to wish I’d brought more books to read.”

“Don’t get complacent,” Ryder said. “Suppose the case is waiting for you to remove a glove or your visor.”

“I could try asking it. Hang on. Hey, case,
Ciao
! Are you waiting for me? No answer, Ryder. I am removing my headgear. I’m far too hot anyway. I’m back as far as I can get. On the count of three: one...two...three. Nothing different. I will walk slowly towards the case. From the case I am three metres...two metres...one. Maybe it needs me to actually touch or breathe on it. I’m removing a glove. There. Nothing. I am going to hover my hand over it like I did before the radio signal. Here goes. Twenty centimetres above it. Ten—
che cosa
!”

Ryder saw Antonio reel backwards as a shock-wave emanated from the case—like circular ripples from a stone thrown in a pond, distorting the image. As Teresa screamed, a tremor rippled through the centre.

Dust fell from the ceiling, but the lights stayed on.

“Antonio, are you all right?” screamed Teresa. The monitor showed Antonio sitting on the floor.

“I need the kiss of life, Teresa,” he said, before getting to his feet. He approached the case. “Anyone want to see that again?”

“No, Antonio.” Dan said, “A shockwave came from the case and went through us here. God knows where it’s going.”

Vlad tapped at his console. “It reached us 2.3 seconds after Antonio said
‘che cosa
.
’
That’s a horizontal velocity of 1,565 miles per hour.”

“Quite slow, then,” Abdul said, to Ryder’s surprise.

“Yes, earthquake waves are much faster,” Vladmir said. “It’s a pity the seismograph centres around the world are all offline. We’ve no way of telling if it petered out a few miles away or maintained itself for a complete wrap around the planet.”

“We’ll be able to tell in sixteen hours’ time,” Abdul said.

“Oh, yes,” said Vlad. “It will take that long for that slow wave to circumnavigate the globe. I wonder if we have anything on the ISS.”

“I’ve just been checking,” Dan said. “We have sea-surface radar imaging continuously for oceanography research. It wasn’t turned off or redirected, but it’ll take me some time to detect any additional ripples.”

Tuesday 22 September 2015:

Anafon

D
EREK
STOOD
AT
THE
LAB
DOOR
AND
SHOUTED
, “W
E
’
VE
HAD
ANOTHER
ALERT
FROM
THE
ISS!”

“Can we take any more?” Laurette said.

Megan and Bronwyn came in carrying mugs of strong coffee.

“Is it another signal?” Ryder said.

“No,” Derek said, taking his time sitting while tapping at his console. “The Hubble was programmed to send us an alert if there was any change to the image of the alien ship.”

“So, instead of a brown fuzz ball, it’s now a standard flying saucer?” Abdul said.

“It’s still fuzzy, but it’s on the move. There, I have an image.”

“Derek, it looks the same,” Ryder said.

“Its movement is slow, only just over five thousand miles per hour, but it is accelerating. There is an ion trail.”

“Oh God, they’re coming for their protégée,” Ryder said.

“No,” Derek said, “the trail shows they are going out of the solar system.”

Jena said, “It could mean they are leaving to go round Saturn in a slingshot, through the Kirkwood Gap, to come back here.”

“Good point,” Abdul said, grabbing a seat at a console. “I’m downloading the Hubble data and running a program. Give me the time it takes to drink half your coffee.”

“Is it good news they’re leaving?” Teresa said. “It would imply their task is done. The main invasion force could be on its way.”

“Or it could mean they’ve tried a biology experiment and they’ve received enough data. Happy or not, they’re off to report back,” Gustav said.

“You make it sound like all this has been a school project from Alpha Centauri,” Ryder said. “More likely an attempt to help that’s gone horribly wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the same aliens who brought the first amino acid life-building blocks to our planet.”

“I thought life rode in on the tails of comets,” Abdul said.

“Or even from God,” Bronwyn said, as she collected dirty mugs.

“God might have told the aliens to bring life here a billion years ago,” Ryder said, teasing Bronwyn as he gave her his mug.

“Finished the first run-through of the data,” Abdul said. “It’s not on a slingshot route. It’s heading out of the solar system at forty-five degrees to the ecliptic plane. No, it’s not going to Alpha Centauri, but it might change. It’s gone. Hubble has lost it.”

“Told you we should have sent a rocket to it,” Jena said. “We could have planted a homing device on it.”

B
RIAN
CHARGED
IN
THROUGH
THE
LAB
DOOR
. “Why is no one answering the bloody phone?”

“Sorry Brian,” Bronwyn said. “I’m on office duty, but what with all the excitement...”

“Never mind that, there’s trouble.”

“I know, Brian love. Did you feel the earthquake up on the road?”

“Earthquake? What bloody earthquake?”

“Interesting,” said Vlad, tapping on his console. “It must have attenuated really quickly. A controlled local event.”

“Don’t you go believing my stupid husband. You’d have to knock his legs from under him first.” Vlad stopped calculating.

Brian glared. “No, listen. Ryder, there’s people on the lane.”

“What? Why didn’t you say? Which side of the double gate?”

“The other side. I don’t think they saw me. They were about half a mile, on foot, away from the gate. The zoom on the south hill camera should have them.”

Derek tapped his computer and the screen flickered to show a long-distance view of the two gates a hundred metres apart and the winding, narrow lane going down the heather-covered slopes. A small group showed on the lane.

“Awful timing,” Ryder said.

“They might just go away,” Dan said, “having two razor-wired and locked gates is a pretty good deterrent.”

“We can’t take the chance,” Ryder said. “Abdul and Vlad, get tooled up—you know where the firearms are—get me the updated AK4S rifle and ammo. I’ll meet you out front in the Volvo Estate—it’s quieter than the other vehicles. Derek, monitor us; keep a special eye on the other cams and sensors in case there are others.”

“It’s very unlikely that infected people could organise a co-ordinated raid, Ryder,” Dan said. “But you’re right to be prepared. I’ll stop here to talk to Antonio, with Teresa and Jena.”

“Yes, fine, but have your weapons on you. Gustav and Laurette, arm yourselves too, and do a continuous close patrol of the centre. Everyone keep their mobile phones on.”

“What about me?” Brian said. “They might be Welsh speakers.”

“Good point.” Ryder noted Brian already had a pistol in its holster at his waist. “Come with us.”

Vlad said, “I’m coming in case they speak Russian, and Abdul—”

“Funny men,” Brian said, leaving to have a word with Bronwyn.

“Have I missed anything?” Ryder said.

“Antonio?” Teresa said. “What do you want him to do?”

Ryder looked at her, confused. “He
has
to stay down there. Derek, Dan, and you will be here to keep talking to him. It would be a good idea to ask him to shut the case, put it back in its padded bag and lock it in its cage.”

R
YDER
PARKED
THE
V
OLVO
TWO
-
HUNDRED
METRES
FROM
THE
GATE
. A bluff of the mountain hid the lane on the other side. A laptop screen in the car gave him a clear view from the camera on the hill. He zoomed in on four people in the lane. It wasn’t possible to tell their gender. They’d dropped large bags on the ground.