The Visitor

by Tony Harmsworth

  ‘I’m sorry, Dame Evelyn, but it’s pretty ugly.’

  ‘How dare you? He is a beautiful person with friendly eyes and a harmless appearance. I assume it is your personal racial prejudice which allows you to be so derogatory! Your editor will be hearing from me immediately. I will not discuss this any further with a racist!’ I said loudly and cut him off.

  It would have been so much more satisfying to have been able to slam down the telephone receiver, but these days there were no receivers to slam down and all I had was the tiny red icon which represented a receiver on my handset. Mind you, I did press it fiercely!

  I rarely got so riled. I sat at my desk fuming, almost shaking, over his attitude, especially after all our careful stage-managing of the release. I was true to my word and telephoned his editor, extracting a grovelling apology. Sometimes status truly can work in your favour. It was impossible for the editor to refuse a call from Dame Evelyn Slater.

  The attitude of people worried me. No matter how thoughtfully arguments are constructed, many people still seem to imagine the worst and refuse to listen to reason. I knew this, of course, from my doctorate, but that didn’t stop it infuriating me. Why, oh why, hadn’t Mr Clarke allowed us to drip-feed the story from the original discovery. Despite our careful announcement, I had ominous worries about public reaction.

  ««o»»

  On Sunday evening, the news was released. My presentation was introduced by the Prime Minister and the programme was billed as being of international importance.

  On Monday evening, the shit hit the fan.

  22 Chat Show Star

  Succeeding in preventing prejudice against the aliens was becoming my sole raison d'être. We had a real opportunity to defuse discrimination before it began and my determination to be the instrument which achieved it was now my overriding priority.

  I was invited to appear on the Monday evening edition of Armstrong, a regular prime time chat show. Naturally, the moment the news had broken on Sunday and Allen had been introduced to the world, the chat show programme became a must-see for anyone who wanted the inside story.

  Previously, I’d appeared briefly on news programmes and occasional children's television, but this was on a whole new level. Armstrong was a top show with an audience of millions, and he was an incisive and clever host. The previous day's announcement made it almost unmissable and it was being syndicated worldwide and streamed over the Internet. There could be billions watching.

  I was nervous, but Mario came with me for support and we arrived at the BBC headquarters at six in the evening. We enjoyed some hospitality before I was whisked off to make-up twenty minutes before the show, to be powdered down so I wouldn't appear shiny under the studio lights.

  Godfrey Armstrong popped in while I was in make-up and we briefly discussed the images we'd agreed we’d use. The orbital photographs of Mars and Earth one hundred million years ago would be side by side to the rear of where we would be seated. It would be only me, him, and a coffee table, upon which there would be a model of the Scaffy Wagon. Normally his shows had two guests and a music item, but tonight it was just us for the whole forty minutes. I’d been warned he might try to make changes to images on the night and I was relieved he didn't ask. I didn't want to be caught off-guard on someone else’s home ground.

  Mario popped in, wished me luck, and we kissed briefly before hospitality took him off to his seat. We were booked into a top hotel and restaurant for dinner and were both looking forward to relaxing, after a week when love and marriage-planning had been forced onto the back-burner by the pressure of my work.

  Mario got so frustrated with how Allen was taking over my life, sometimes, but our lovely thatched cottage relieved the tensions. We often walked alongside the creek at Helford, almost in silence, holding hands and marvelling at the beauty of the Cornish village. This morning, sunbeams were slanting through the trees, dappling the bridge and sparkling in the brook as it trickled towards the creek. Not a sound reached us, but for the gently tumbling water, birdsong, and the breeze rustling the beech leaves. So relaxing, putting us both at ease with the world.

  It was a world apart from the television studio theatre. There was a live audience of about four hundred here. At seven on the dot I was standing in the wings. Godfrey was sitting in the left-hand chair and the show's distinctive theme music introduced the scene. I glanced at the monitor beside me which showed the live television feed.

  Godfrey opened the show, 'Good evening and welcome. He paused for applause.

  'I am truly honoured tonight to have on the show a lady who is currently the most famous person in the world.

  'These images,' he turned and waved in the general direction of the backdrop, 'have now been seen by almost everyone on the planet. Never previously has there been such an important and historic worldwide news release, nor has one been so quickly disseminated. My guest tonight is not only responsible for bringing this sensational news to us all, but also, she is the actual person who discovered Allen's craft. Let me introduce her, she is Dame – Doctor – Evelyn – Slater.'

  He stood, which was my cue to walk onto the set. I tried to steady my nerves and not to trip over cables on the floor as I heard a massive burst of applause.

  He marched towards me, shook my hand, and kissed me on both cheeks.

  'Welcome, Dame Evelyn, welcome,' he said, leading me back to the raised area where the seats and coffee table were located.

  'Simply Evelyn, please, Godfrey. It’s wonderful to be invited onto your show.'

  'The pleasure's all mine, Evelyn,' he said as he indicated the seat.

  'These photographs are amazing,' he said, waving towards the images again.

  'Yes, before we found these, all we’d seen before from Allen's craft were orbital pictures of the moon and Venus. Frankly, a hundred million years ago, they were much the same as they are today. These two images however, were a revelation, especially as they proved to us Allen's craft was over one hundred million years old.'

  'The papers tell us our ancestors then were smaller than mice. It’s a long time indeed.'

  'Yes, indeed! He’s been waiting eons for us to find him.'

  'Why do you call him Allen? Might he not be female or have no gender at all?'

  'You are exactly right, Godfrey. At this moment, we don’t know anything about him or his species. The name Allen came from Valeria Misalova on the space station. They'd been discussing it and wanted to personalise him. If you change the I in alien to an L, you get Allen. So, Allen it was. We hope to discover his real name soon.'

  'How can you find out his real name?'

  I spoke more seriously and quietly. 'During our investigation of his craft we had a mishap. A sample of the rocket fuel caused an explosion in the Cluster laboratory. Sadly, one of the scientists, Doctor Hans Meyer, was killed during the accident. It has taken us all this time to repair the Cluster laboratory and to send new scientists into orbit to study the craft. So far we’ve only examined fourteen of the memory cylinders and there are several dozen more we haven't even looked at yet.'

  'And they will contain more photographs?'

  'Yes, almost certainly and we’re hoping for video and perhaps even a message.'

  'What have we gained from your discovery of Allen's craft?' I was pleased he was always calling the alien artefact "Allen's craft" as I had asked him to do. I wanted to personalise the discovery as being Allen's property.

  'It is not just my discovery, of course. Yuri Bulgakov was my pilot at the time, so we consider it a mutual discovery and we mustn't forget it was a European Space Agency expedition in conjunction with Roscosmos.'

  'Yes, so what have we learned from it?' he asked, anxious to move on, but I’d made an important point for international viewers.

  'The fuel is exciting. It’s inexpensive to produce and will allow far greater payloads to be launched. Otherwise progress is slow. We believe most of the cylinders were part of a stored mind,
an artificial brain if you will, perhaps of one of Allen's compatriots. The problem is the extent of the destruction when a meteor struck the craft back in antiquity. It means we’re struggling despite having a fantastic team of hackers and linguists working on it constantly at Goonhilly.'

  'You made the discovery of Allen's spaceship back in May 2035. Why was it kept secret for so long?'

  'Our governments were concerned about its nature and wanted the study to begin before a release was made. We found the images, including the one of Allen, in January this year and we’ve been thinking about how best to release the news since then.'

  'And what made the difference? You've heard the rumours?'

  Now he had me on the back foot. I’d no idea which rumours he was talking about. Was he trying to set me up?

  'There are always rumours, Godfrey. To which ones in particular do you refer?'

  'The discovery of another craft orbiting Mars,' he said triumphantly as if sure he would put me in a spot – and indeed he had. Where had he got that from? Someone must have leaked it. What should I do? There was no clearance to talk about AD2, but to deny it would give the lie to our openness. If I denied it, he might quote sources which would prove I was lying. I had to make a snap decision and hope it was the correct one.

  'Oh, the discovery by the Hawking Explorer of a second craft. Yes, it made it more important to present the whole picture to the people.'

  'So, you admit to hiding the news about the Mars craft?'

  'Well no, not hiding it exactly. We didn't want to overload people with too much information. It’ll be many months before we can get to Mars and recover the second ship.'

  'Yes. Well, it seems like it was being hidden.'

  It was clear he was miffed that I'd defused his question.

  'Not at all. You’re being paranoid,’ I said and laughed. ‘I'm being open about it right now. You simply needed to ask the question. So far, I can't tell you much about it other than Allen's people might have one orbiting each of our planets. We don't know though, we're guessing, but it would explain why we found images from other solar system worlds in Allen's memory banks. However, I've come here tonight to answer questions about Allen and the craft which we found in Earth orbit.'

  He changed tack. 'What do you think Allen's craft was planned to do?'

  'We think he was meant to talk to us and tell us about himself, his people and his home world. The damage prevented it and we do have high hopes the second device, which appears to be intact, will be more informative.'

  'Okay, Evelyn, we'll leave the Martian craft for now. So, what type of world does Allen come from?'

  'Perhaps we can have image three,' I said and, in a second or so, the correct image appeared.

  'This third image shows their world. From the few images we have of it, we’re unable to ascertain too much, but it appears to be an old world which has lost much of its atmosphere.

  'Notice the plateaus are almost cloudless, which indicates a lack of atmosphere at altitude and we believe they now live on the shallow seabeds which remain. It’s fairly clear Allen's world is short of water.'

  'Were they coming to colonise Earth?'

  'If they were, they'd have arrived long before the rise of humankind. We think their star system is about seventy light years away from us. If they'd been intending to colonise us, they would have done so millions of years ago, despite the huge distance. No, we believe they’re explorers. However, I've not finished answering your previous question,' I'd got past the colonising invasion possibility quite well. It had been one of my worries.

  'Sorry, do please continue.'

  'In photograph four there is a truly beautiful companion planet which has all the attributes of Earth. Clouds, a lot of water, thick atmosphere and so on. What we don't yet know is if this orb or the dry planet we are seeing in the foreground is their home world. We also wonder, but it’s only speculation, whether they might have terraformed the companion world. The problem when working from photographs is judging the relative size of the two planets. We simply don't know enough about them, and our lack of knowledge is one of the reasons we wanted to bring Allen's world into the public domain – so universities can bring their researchers and theorists into the mix.'

  'So, what about Allen, himself?' he asked, and the image of the alien appeared over my shoulder.

  I answered more slowly and softly. I wanted to give the impression I was talking about family. 'When she first saw the picture of Allen, one of my team said, "he has the friendliest eyes" and this seems to strike everyone when they first see him.'

  'But you must admit he is like nothing on Earth?'

  'It would be pretty strange if he was,' I said with amusement. 'Science fiction, at least the popular variety, has most aliens with two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Okay, sometimes they'll throw in a second or third pair of arms, some horns, strange markings on the head or even extra eyes, but the format is usually pretty similar. Makes it possible for human actors to play the roles.'

  'Yes, I understand, but what natural selection processes might have produced him?'

  'We can only guess at the moment. He appears bulky, but we don't know how big he is. Binocular vision is expected as there are so many advantages to it, and we wonder whether the organs above his eyes allow him to see through certain materials. Notice, if we can go back to the image of the city, please, the egg-like craft and the buildings have no apparent windows.'

  'They can see through walls? You wouldn't have much privacy in a hotel there!' The audience laughed.

  I laughed too. 'No, you wouldn't, but of course it depends on what is taking place. Is the material like one-way mirrors? If we lived in a house made of one-way mirrors and could control the lighting, we wouldn’t have to worry at all about our privacy. Perhaps they can polarise their materials in the same way they can polarise electricity, so only people you want to be able to see in can actually see in.'

  'Sorry. What do you mean by polarising electricity?'

  I'd thrown in the gem about polarising electricity to try to regain the initiative. It seemed to have worked.

  'Allen's people have wires which they treat in a particular way. It causes electricity to polarise so if you touch two of their bare wires together there is no short-circuit. The polarised electricity cannot jump from one wire to another. It is a brilliant discovery by Doctor Reg Naughton on the original Cluster science team. It’ll offer amazing benefits to the whole world.'

  'So how much other stuff haven’t we been told about?'

  'Oh, lots, Godfrey, but don't get worried. It’s all now in the public domain, but much of it’ll take a while to filter through. It’s another reason for us being so open about Allen and his craft.'

  There seemed to be a disturbance off in the wings, followed by some shouting. I noticed Godfrey was ignoring it, so I shut it out of my mind. It was more important I didn't trip up on any of his questions.

  'Could there be anything sinister about his craft observing—' Godfrey never got to finish his question. There were loud cracks and several searing pains in my shoulders and chest. The world went black.

  23 Recovery

  There were lights. My eyelids were heavy. I couldn’t open them. I gave up the struggle.

  The beep sounded about once a second, so I guessed it was probably my pulse being monitored. Why would that be? I listened intently. Somewhere away from me, I heard voices, an Indian sounding woman. I recognised the clipped sentences and unusual syllable emphasis. She was speaking to a young woman with a lilting accent and who rolled her Rs, possibly Scottish. There were other noises. A trolley being wheeled somewhere nearby, a door opening and closing. There was pressure on my left hand as if it was being squeezed. Perhaps Mario was holding it. The back of my other hand was hurting. My shoulder hurt. My neck and throat were sore. Why so much pain? I struggled again to open my eyes. One opened easier than the other. They were both a little gummy.

  O
oh, too bright! Far too bright. There were LED strip lights along the ceiling causing me to screw up my eyes again. I squinted. The décor was eggshell and white. I was in hospital. My hand was gripped tighter.

  ‘Eve. Eve, it’s Dad,’ a voice said.

  I smiled. My dad had come to rescue me. I tried to squeeze his hand back, but I was too weak. I managed to turn my head slightly. He was indistinct but becoming clearer by the minute. He shouted, ‘Nurse!’

  ‘Can you hear me, Eve?’ he asked me gently.

  ‘Mmm,’ was all I capable of uttering. I forced a smile.

  I seemed to hurt all over, but particularly my neck. Shortly a nurse was leaning over me, wiping sleep from my eyes and checking my vital signs on the monitors.

  ‘Hello, Dame Evelyn, I’m Nurse MacPherson. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. I’ll page the consultant. Try to relax.’

  I smiled at my dad again but could do no more. I tried to say Dad but nothing would come out. I coughed, and it hurt me all over. I grimaced.

  ‘You’ll be sore, Eve,’ he said.

  ‘Dad.’ I finally managed to get the word out.

  There were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ I said, hoarsely.

  Mum came into the room and she ran around to my other side, leaned over and kissed me, ‘Oh Eve, Eve, we thought we’d lost you.’

  ‘What happened?’ I was able to whisper the question.

  ‘There was a gunman. He shot you,’ said Dad.

  ‘Yes. Heard bangs,’ I was still struggling to form my words. My throat was so sore.

  I pulled my hand away from Dad’s grip and put it to my neck. I was bandaged. I lifted my other hand. There was a drip strapped to it which explained why it was hurting.

  The consultant arrived. With a reassuring smile, she shone lights into my eyes, checked my vitals on the monitors and said, ‘Dame Evelyn, you are a lucky lady indeed. My name is Indra Masinghe. We’ve been waiting for you to regain consciousness. We were losing hope.’