The Serene Invasion (15 page)

“It’s coming down slowly, silently,” Thirkell said in a wavering voice. “I... it looks as if it will land, or hit the ground... in the exact place where the invisible barrier or force-field prevented our forward progress...”

Beside him, Sally murmured something in wonder.

The halo of white light, perhaps a hundred metres high, reached the ground and settled. Three or four reporters – and then more and more – began to walk towards the effulgent light, their shapes silhouetted against the glow.

One or two reached out, touched the wall of light; the camera zoomed in, catching their expressions of wonder as they looked back and smiled.

Suddenly, the light began to lift. The cameraman followed its ascent to the circumference of the interlocked starships.

A chorus of cries greeted the ascent. Thirkell was saying, “I... I’ve never seen anything like it. This is miraculous! I don’t know how to describe what has happened here in the middle of the Sahara, one of the driest, most inhospitable areas on the face of the Earth...”

The image on the screen showed the light settling around the rear of the ships and moving inwards, retracing its path towards the conjoined nose-cones.

The image, blurred, danced, as the cameraman panned down to show what was revealed on the ground.

Sally gasped, fingers to her lips, and Allen just stared in silent wonder.

The sands of the Sahara had been transformed. What before had been an undulating landscape of limitless sand was now a vast expanse of rolling green meadows, occasional oases, or lakes, with clusters of what appeared to be low-level domes occupying the glades and meadows.

The more audacious reporters, the same ones who had approached the white light earlier, now stepped forward and walked towards the margin of the paradise that had appeared as if by magic. Hesitantly, Thirkell followed them, tracked by her cameraman.

She approached the edge of the greening, rimmed by a circular silver collar that came to the height of her knees, and stepped over it. She climbed the gradient of a grassy knoll, staring about her in wonder, and when she came to the crest she turned and beamed at the camera.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry... This is the most amazing... Excuse me, I’m overcome by the most... I can only describe it as... as a feeling of optimism. I know that must sound crazy, even in the context of what has happened here, but...” She shook her head, words at last failing her.

The cameraman joined her on the summit of the knoll and panned, then zoomed in on the nearest dome. It was surrounded by what appeared to be a ring of cultivated land, where plants and shrubs grew in profusion.

And all around, hardened reporters were coming together and hugging. The image wobbled, showed a blur of Thirkell’s blouse as she embraced her cameraman. She pulled away and looked into the sky, at the underside of the starships. “And as I stand here in this... this wonderland... I can’t help but wonder when they might communicate with us...”

“And on that note,” Sue said back in the London studio, “we’ll leave it there. Let’s stay with the images from the Sahara, the momentous images I might say, while we discuss recent events with my studio guests. Ladies, gentlemen, what is to be made of these developments...?”

Allen sat back in his seat, staring into the northern darkness where the incredible events were being played out.

Sally found his hand. “What’s happening, Geoff?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I do know that we’ll find out, in time.”

They sat side by side long into the evening, sipping their beers and watching events unfold on the softscreen.

It was after midnight when a wave of lassitude swept over him, a sudden incredible tiredness, and he tried to think back to the last time he’d slept. He’d snatched a couple of hours on the flight, and before that a few hours back in London.

He switched off the ’screen and they moved back into the hut.

They lay face to face on the bed, holding each other, and within minutes Allen was asleep.

S
OMETHING WOKE HIM
from a dreamless sleep.

He lay on his back, blinking up at the ceiling, and it was a few seconds before he became aware of the soft golden glow emanating from the adjacent lounge.

He sat up carefully, so as not to disturb Sally, pulled on a pair of shorts and moved to the open door. On the way he took the softscreen from where he’d left it on the bedside table, an instinctive action he was hardly aware of making.

He moved to the threshold of the lounge, and stopped.

Someone...
something
... was sitting on the edge of an armchair on the far side of the room.

Allen took a step forward, then another, and dropped into a chair opposite the figure.

It was humanoid and glowed with a golden lustre, its surface seamless and unmarked, but beneath its surface,
within
the creature, paler golden lights moved and roiled. It sat forward on the chair, its elbows on its knees, hands clasped, and seemed to be staring across at Allen.
Seemed
to be, for its face was without eyes or other features.

Allen thought of the head-and-shoulders shape that had stared down at him during his episode aboard the plane, and now, as then, felt an abiding sense of peace.

He surprised himself by asking, “Why don’t I feel in the least frightened?”

The figure stared at him. He had the odd, inexplicable impression that it was somehow larger than the dimensions it presented here.

It replied, but he was unable to tell if he heard the words, or if they somehow simply manifested in his head.

“Because there is nothing to be frightened about, Geoffrey Allen.”

“This... why you are here... it’s about what happened to me on the flight out?”

“This is the corollary of that experience, yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“We mean, I am here because of what we did to you then, Geoffrey Allen.”

He sat back in the chair. He needed its support. He took deep breaths and asked, “And what did you do to me?”

“We chose you,” it said.

Allen nodded, as if this were a very reasonable explanation. “And why did you choose me?”

“Because you were deemed suitable.”

“Suitable...?” he echoed. He glanced back at the bedroom door, slightly ajar, and considered Sally sleeping in there. Was this a hallucination, a hypnagogic episode brought about by lack of sleep and the excitement of recent events?

“Suitable for what?”

The figure did not answer at once, and the wait was almost unbearable.

“Suitable for what lies ahead, for the changes that will visit your race, your planet. We need people like you to present the human face of that change.”

His blood felt as if it had turned to a slurry that his heart was having difficulty pumping around his body. He said, “Who are you, and why are you here, and... and what changes are you speaking of?”

“We are in the employ of the S’rene, or the Serene, as you will come to call them.”

“But... but you’re not one of the S’rene yourself?”

The figure inclined its featureless domed head. “I am a self-aware entity in the employ of the S’rene,” it said.

“And the S’rene? Who are they? What are they?”

“The S’rene are a race that hails from a star known as Delta Pavonis. They are peaceable, and benign.”

“And the reason you, they... are here?”

A pause. Then, “To help you,” it said.

“To help us?” he echoed, with the first stirrings of excitement.

“To help you, before you destroy yourselves,” said the golden figure.

“That would be inevitable?”

The figure, the self-aware entity as it called itself, inclined its head again. “That would be inevitable. The S’rene have seen it happen before, to other races, before they were in any position to help.”

“Other races...?” Allen said, his mind spinning.

“Hundreds...” It paused, then went on, “The galaxy teems with life, with civilisations, a concordance rich beyond your imagining.”

His cheeks felt suddenly wet. He realised he was weeping.

“And how will you help us?”

“We have started already,” it said. “But that is only the start. Much work lies ahead, much change. The world, life as you know it, will alter for you out of all recognition.”

Allen nodded. “And how can I help?”

The figure stood suddenly. When seated, it had given no indication of its true dimensions. Standing, it appeared at least seven feet tall, as proportionally broad, and it reached out a hand to him now.

“Your softscreen...”

He fumbled with it, standing before this towering giant, and held out the softscreen. The golden figure touched it, then dropped its hand to its side.

“That is all?” Allen asked.

“You will go to Entebbe at eleven in the morning. Present your ’screen at the information desk in terminal two. A vessel will be waiting to take you to the Nexus.”

“The Nexus?”

The figure gestured to the screen in Allen’s hand. It flared, startling him. Upon the screen, he saw, was an image of the conjoined starships above the greened Sahara.

“The Nexus,” said the figure.

“And there?”

“There, you will learn how you and others like you will help to bring about the change.”

Allen sat back down again, or rather slumped, and when he looked up he saw that the figure that had stood before him, so imposing and dominant, had vanished.

He was aware of another figure on the edge of his vision.

Sally stood, naked, in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Geoff... I heard you talking, and when I...” She came to him. He stood quickly and hugged her to him, needing her reassurance.

“Christ, Sally...”

“What happened?”

“You didn’t see...?” He gestured to the opposite chair.

“I saw you talking to yourself. You seemed agitated, overcome with emotion. I saw you stand, and then you held out the ’screen, and moments later it suddenly flared, and you gasped.”

He stared into her eyes in the semi-darkness of the room. “Sally,” he said, “they are the Serene, and they have come to help us.”

She took his hand and led him gently back into the bedroom.

“Come to bed,” she said, “and tell me all about it.”

T
HEY LEFT THE
park at first light and drove south-east to Entebbe.

“Apprehensive?”

He thought about it for all of three seconds. “Oddly, no. Like last night, that figure... had someone said beforehand that I’d be confronted by an extraterrestrial... self-aware entity, as it called itself, I would have thought I’d’ve been scared to death. As it was...” He shook his head. “They instil reassurance in us, Sally. We have nothing to be apprehensive about.”

“It’s a lot to take on trust.”

He agreed. “It is.” But how to explain the sensation of benignity that the representative of the Serene had emanated last night?

They arrived at Entebbe fifteen minutes before eleven and parked in the shadow of terminal two. Allen had no idea what to expect as he entered the airport and approached the information desk, Sally at his side.

A smiling Ugandan woman took his ’screen, scanned it and passed it back. “If you would like to make your way to departure lounge three, there will be a representative waiting.”

They crossed the busy concourse and hesitated before the check-in.

“So much for a week’s quiet holiday together,” she said.

They stood facing each other, Geoff began to speak, then fell silent.

“What?” Sally asked.

He laughed. “Oddly, I don’t want to go, Sal. I don’t want to leave you.”

She pushed him playfully. “Don’t be silly. You’ve got to go.”

“I know. It’s just...”

They kissed.

“I’ll be in touch just as soon as...” he shrugged, “as it’s all over.”

“I’ll go back to Kallani,” Sally said, “settle a few things there, then take the first available flight to London.”

“I’ll tell Catherine you’re on your way. She’ll give you the spare pass key to my place. And then...” He smiled and drew her to him. “Why do we always have less time together than we want? If it’s not work, it’s blessed extraterrestrials!”

They laughed, then kissed farewell.

He presented his softscreen at the check-in, turned to wave at Sally, and passed through.

He was alone in a vast lounge. A sliding door at the far end, giving onto the tarmac, opened and a figure stepped through. A tall, dark European woman, in her thirties, strode through and fixed him with a professional smile. “Mr Allen, if you would care to follow me.”

They left the lounge and stepped into the blistering sunlight, and crossed the tarmac.

“Are you...?”