The Visitor

by Tony Harmsworth

  'We already knew something had happened as the Cluster was given a vector towards us. It won't hit us though and we'll get the Scaffy Wagon to correct it later.

  'When the Scaffy Wagon arrived at the ISS, we broke protocols to get the hatch open quickly and Göran is now in Kibo, which we're using as a recompression chamber. Reg and Martin's decompression is being dealt with separately in the Quest airlock. They’re due out shortly.'

  ‘Is the Cluster repairable? Any critical damage?’ I asked.

  ‘Should be, but I don’t know how long it’ll be out of action.’

  'Any idea what caused it?'

  'Martin says Hans was working on a fuel sample at the time. We'll watch the video of the event with them when they're out of decompression.'

  'I had a call booked to Reg for four o'clock. I'd like to still make it if possible, but at a time to suit him.'

  'Yes. I'll make sure he knows, Eve. We've seen your presentation, by the way.'

  'I didn't want to bring it up after what has happened, but what did you guys up there think?'

  'Not sure if the Cluster crew have seen it, but those of us on the ISS believe there should be a name. We don't like to think of him/her/it as no more than an alien creature.'

  'Right, thanks. A name is an interesting idea. Get Reg to call me when it’s convenient. I won't go anywhere until he does, but deal with safety issues first, of course. Any suggestions for a name?'

  She smiled. 'Allen might be appropriate, transposing the L for the I.'

  'He might be a she or have no gender at all.'

  'Add a Russian a for Alana. If he has no gender Allen would still work.'

  'Good idea. I'll see what I can do,' I said.

  There was a call from behind her and her face revolved sharply to the right, causing her to spin off screen slightly. 'They're coming out of Quest. I'll get Reg to call you as soon as he can, Eve,' she said, simultaneously cutting the connection.

  I used my thimball to summon Janet.

  'Get Tim and Paul to my office, please, Janet, and come in yourself as soon as you've called them.'

  A minute later Janet and Tim entered my room. 'Paul's on the way,' she said.

  'Janet, it’s been suggested our alien might deserve a name and that Allen with two Ls and an E would be appropriate. Feel the staff out on it. Thanks.'

  'I like the name idea,' said Tim as Janet returned to her office.

  'Yes, I do too.' I was too preoccupied to be chatty. 'Where’s Paul? Do you know?'

  'In the communications room. Ah, here he is,' said Tim as Paul entered, a little out of breath.

  'Take a seat,' I said, waiting for them to settle before giving them the bad news about the Cluster.

  I continued, 'We've never talked about lines of communication in an event such as this. Paul, can you find out what NASA knows and when they found out – they surely should have been first to know. Get together with Tim and work out how this sort of information should be disseminated around the group with Cluster clearance. I'm going to call the Prime Minister's office and find out what they know and from where. Okay?'

  They both gave a positive response and quickly left my office. I dialled Number Ten and got the Prime Minister’s parliamentary private secretary.

  Apparently, NASA had, a few minutes previously, provided the information about the explosion. It had taken far too long and I asked the secretary to let the Prime Minister and Home Secretary know we were putting in place a faster and more comprehensive communication system.

  A light flashed on my monitor. I told the parliamentary secretary a call was coming in from the ISS and we ended our conversation.

  Reg came onto the screen. He didn’t look well, haggard, pale and drawn.

  'Reg, how are you?'

  'Not too bad, Eve. My hands and feet swelled up but back to normal now. My eyes hurt. Martin wasn't so badly affected but Göran’s in a bad way. He put his hand in the hole – probably saved the three of us. He might lose it. Poor Hans is dead though.'

  'How did it happen?'

  'I'm lucky to be alive, Eve. We’d taken some samples of fuel from the rear spheroids in AD1 and were experimenting with it. I'd left an instrument I needed in the living quarters and had just got through the airlock when the sample Hans was working on exploded.

  'I wasn't in a fit state to see too much after our decompression. My eyes are still sore, but Martin watched Hans' body floating away. We've lost almost an entire segment of the laboratory structure. I think Valeria currently has the Scaffy Wagon trying to find and collect Hans and other items thrown into space by the explosion.'

  'Was it the fuel?'

  'The only thing possible. We knew it was powerful stuff. The chemical composition is extraordinary and yet it can be manufactured relatively simply from carbon, chlorine, fluorine, hydrogen and nitrogen. Hans had two microlitres for his experiment, only point nought nought two millilitres. This stuff is the rocket fuel for which we've always been searching. Sell any oil shares you have,' he said, 'not that they’ve much value anyway since the commitment to all electric vehicles.'

  I laughed. 'If I had oil shares, I would. Thanks for taking the time to update me, Reg. My main call about the alien can wait but I wanted to make sure you were aware of the video. Have you seen it?'

  'Yes, you’re a clever lady, Eve. Your presentation was spot-on perfect. You imparted exactly what was necessary to prevent ignorance and prejudice taking hold. Hans saw it too. Nice to know that he was aware of what our alien looked like. The presentation was exactly how I’d have done it.'

  'Thanks. I can tell you something else we might have discovered. I don't want to hold you up from whatever you need to do up there though.'

  'No. Tell me, please.'

  'A couple of my guys down here think AD1 contained a computerised alien. His mind was in some of those cylinders and it was planned for him to awaken to communicate with us. Not a robot, not a cyborg, but an artificially stored alien mind.'

  'Fascinating. Which cylinders?'

  'I'll get them to let you know. Why?'

  'I don't want to be cutting into any part of its mind. We'll keep those cylinders separate in case we need to put them back in situ. That there could be a mind in AD1 is possible, I suppose... but I’d have to say that wouldn’t I, having heard your presentation.' He laughed.

  'Yes, everything and anything is possible, and these hackers claim to be fairly sure. It is circumstantial though.'

  I gazed into Reg's bloodshot eyes and saggy eyelids and continued, 'You need some sleep. So sorry about Hans. Let everyone up there know we're thinking of you all.'

  'I will, Eve. Let's talk tomorrow.'

  I said goodbye and cut the connection.

  Dying in space had been one of my nightmares when participating in astronaut training. Not being able to breathe. One of the astronauts running the programme told me if it did happen, I’d barely have time to know I was dying. Instantaneous, he said, was an age compared with dying in space. I guess the knowledge put my mind at ease. Poor Hans wouldn't have had time to realise what was happening, then lights out.

  ««o»»

  Over the next week, I was being hit with information from every direction. The hackers had found a simple switching computer program within one batch of data. The language boys had put together a comprehensive alphabet but were still struggling with an interpretation of the language, despite the department now being four strong. Tim and Paul had been negotiating furiously with NASA and Roscosmos over how to ensure communications were more rapidly disseminated to the appropriate people.

  Valeria informed me they’d four spare segments for the Cluster and three were being used to repair the damage in the laboratory. Eight more spares were being sent up on the next Ariane. The other holes in the laboratory and living quarters were being patched as we spoke. None of the research equipment had been too badly damaged and replacements for those that were, were on their way u
p on a Dragon supply vessel.

  Brainwave specialists were given the data isolated by David and Jack to study. They didn’t know it was from an alien – they didn't even know about the alien craft, yet they came back with the fact it was a brainwave without the slightest doubt. They were curious as to where it had originated as it had some unusual features regarding the number of cycles per second being rather odd. It was certainly enough evidence for me. David's theory that AD1 was intended to deliver a message and interact with us, personally, was accepted as the most likely scenario.

  The possibility that the brain was not completely dead had worrying implications about dismantling it. I wondered about the ethics and discussed it fully with the Home Secretary and Science Minister. It was decided that we still had to press on with the study of the device but wouldn’t do anything invasive with the cylinders which contained "mind" type data. Reg assured me that they knew exactly which cylinders were attached to which wires coming from the strange hub in AD1, so everything could be reassembled to the original situation in which we’d found it.

  The supply of images dried up because of the accident, of course, and wouldn’t recommence until the Cluster was back in operation. I had a niggling worry about the replacement crew not being on the same wavelength as Reg and me, but not much could be done about that. Despite their objections, Reg and Martin were put on the next Crew Dragon back to Earth, while Göran was still being treated at the ISS. He'd lost most of his arm from decompression and wouldn’t be in a fit state for the return journey for a few weeks. Valeria, as station commander, had had to do the amputation under instruction from surgeons on Earth – rather her than me, for sure. Not the sort of thing astronaut training prepared you for.

  Down at Goonhilly, we had a visit from the Prime Minister and French Science Minister and I took the opportunity to ask about a general release. I made the case it should be released soon or there was likely to be a security breach and we’d lose the initiative. He said they wanted to know more about AD1 before making an announcement. Language would be good, he said. I knew my language team were still fishing in the dark. He made it pretty clear the ball was in my court. Solve the language problem and decipher the computer programs and he'd reconsider.

  Again, I warned that our chance to drip-feed information was disappearing the more we discovered, but his mind was made up. Both Tim and Mario agreed with me. I believed he was making a big mistake and, at one point, actually told him he was wrong in no uncertain terms.

  'Dame Evelyn!' he said, looking at me with anger in his expression. He didn't complete whatever he was going to say, but I considered myself well and truly slapped down.

  Some of the alien fuel and hull structure had been brought to Earth and Reg had been spot-on with the importance of the liquid. Despite being simple to make, the chemical composition had been missed over the last couple of centuries. It packed a punch far above its mass and would soon be used for rocket launches. The small volume needed to produce the same thrust meant lighter launch vehicles, fewer launch stages, and heavier payloads. Space was quickly becoming a less formidable frontier. It was amazing the discovery had not been made on Earth. It seemed scientists might have been side-tracked away from its discovery by the abundance of oil in the world. Within weeks, there were test-launches using the new fuel, including an Orion launched on a rocket only a tenth as large as the space launch system. There was a new urgency about space research which seemed to be being driven by our need to try to match the technology of AD1 as quickly as possible, although most people working on the project still had no knowledge of the existence of the alien craft. How long before a leak gave the game away, I wondered.

  The hull structure had similarly amazing properties. A group of metallurgists had joined NASA and were now assessing how the alloy would be incorporated within our own space programme. ESA had insisted that there be no patents issued for any developments. They wanted it free for all. As AD1 was an ESA/Roscosmos discovery, they won the argument.

  Beyond all our wildest dreams, however, was the conductivity of the alien wires and their strange ability to polarise electric current. So far, many universities had been steered in the direction of how to make the wire and there were already benefits being produced. Surprisingly, no one guessed it was an alien technology. A story had been released that it was a manufacturing technique discovered simultaneously by MIT and Oxford universities and the world in general seemed to accept it.

  My frantic work life was tempered on the domestic front. Mario and I had bought our lovely little thatched cottage at the end of the creek in Helford and he did get down on one knee in a posh restaurant to ask me to marry him. I said yes, of course! It was to be an August wedding. Our two sets of parents were excited fit to burst.

  Nevertheless, one Sunday, in the middle of the night, work invaded our domestic paradise. The news was from, of all places, Phobos, the Martian moon. It immediately turned my world topsy-turvy.

  20 Phobos

  After a nine-month journey, ESA's latest Hawking Explorer craft landed on Phobos, the larger and innermost of Mars' two moons. There was much celebration when it landed successfully and was able to anchor. The Hawking Explorer had explosive bolts in its legs and the moment contact was made, spikes were blasted down into the rock to hold it in position. On a previous occasion it had failed, and the probe had been lost. This time it worked and Phobos, orbiting just four thousand miles from Mars, became a base from which further probes would be launched.

  Set within the Hawking Explorer were eight smaller landers which would eventually be deployed to different parts of the surface where human landings were being considered for 2040.

  The first of those exploratory landers was despatched on the third of March 2036, and it was extreme good fortune that the controller monitoring the video feed also had Cluster security clearance, because the Hawking Lander had a near-miss with AD2, a second alien device.

  Of course, a near-miss was not feet or yards, or even a mile. AD2 flew across the field of view of the descending lander at a closest range of about three miles. Video was enhanced, and it was clearly identical to our own AD1, but without any outward signs of damage. Perhaps, if we collected this one, we’d be able to learn its true purpose.

  The video sequence was immediately classified and I received one of the first copies. The rear tailfins and gold nose were obvious and, although the greatest magnification plus enhancement didn't make it clear enough to compare with AD1, there was a blurred area which might be the same sort of hieroglyphs as we'd found on ours.

  Within forty-eight hours an ESA conference was organised, and Janet was booking me on a flight from Exeter to Paris.

  ««o»»

  It was a bigger conference than I’d expected. The room at the Hȏtel Plaza Athénée was large, luxurious, and wonderfully equipped. It was, of course, secure and the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure had scoured it for any bugs.

  The most senior people present were Home Secretary Jenny Rae, US Secretary of State Parker, Leblanc, the French Minister of the Interior, Russian Defence Secretary Poliak, and Tanuki, the Japanese Foreign Secretary.

  More scientifically, we had the heads of NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, CSA, JAXA, and UKSA, plus Sir Henry Edwards, head of Jodrell Bank and heads of other observatories who had Cluster security clearance. I was honoured to be sitting between Jenny Rae and Sir Henry. I was still coming to terms with my elevated status in the scientific community.

  In addition, there were numerous astronomers who were in-the-know about AD1, and some top civil servants.

  The head of ESA began proceedings as it had been an ESA probe which had discovered AD2 and, of course, the Scaffy Wagon I had been commanding when we found AD1 had also been an ESA/Roscosmos expedition.

  There was much discussion about how to deal with the new discovery. This fell into two camps. Those who wanted to send an expedition to Mars and investigate it in orbit there, and those who p
referred to collect it and bring it here to study. The latter were soon clearly in the majority.

  I did point out that we should consider the ethics of moving an alien intelligence from its orbit around Mars without its permission. I suggested we should try to contact it in situ to ask if it would mind?

  This resulted in a heated debate, but it was considered too expensive to send a full diplomatic team to Mars. I was realistic enough to know I couldn't win every argument and discussion moved on to how to capture it and bring it back to Earth. There was concern about its protection, so it was not lost either by some catastrophe during the flight from Mars or during the eventual re-entry. Many said it might be better to take it to the Cluster and have it examined there. It was at this point I was able to bring up another possibility.

  I spoke with growing confidence these days and all eyes were upon me again, 'Our team and the original Cluster team, before the explosion, had been talking about the purpose of AD1 in some detail and, in our opinion, it was intended to recognise intelligence and perform its function. If we aren't going to attempt contact in Mars orbit, then, in our opinion, it should be taken to the Cluster and held for a while to find out if it will wake.

  'I took a straw poll of my team at Goonhilly before flying into Paris. When it is captured, we believe it might react to us there and then. We would still strongly advise a small science team accompany the collection mission to be able to deal with such an occurrence.'

  Whichever method was used, it would be expensive. It wasn't a project which robots should be allowed to undertake, and my advice was quickly adopted. A manned mission to Mars was finally on the cards after so many hopes and false starts, but a landing on the red planet would still have to remain a future project. So near yet so far. Scientists were desperate to get to the surface now that they knew there had once been life there.

  The new fuel discovered on AD1 would help. It gave us the facility to launch larger vessels into orbit and accelerate more quickly, far exceeding speeds of one hundred thousand miles per hour.