by Zoe Drake
“The only thing I sent you was the letter from Northwestern. Have you asked Brian? Maybe it was him or someone in his group.”
“No, I already asked. He said he knew nothing about it.”
“They’re pictures of UFOs? Well, you didn’t mention them before. Can I have a look?”
“Sure. Well, I thought you or Brian sent them to me, so you knew all about them. Some old cases from your files, like… oh hell.” Gareth opened his briefcase, then looked up in embarrassment. “They’re not here. I left the envelope in my B&B.”
“Shame. I’d like to take a look at them. They were probably sent to you by someone who’d seen something strange, and knew you were about to start work on the same subject.”
“Yes, but nobody…” Suddenly weary of puzzling over it, Gareth let the subject drop. “Yeah, you must be right. Whoever sent them will get in touch.”
They made enough coffee for two thermos flasks with the B&B kettle and the American’s jar of instant coffee, and then they set off shortly after eleven. Bennings dropped Gareth off at his B & B; Gareth had said that he needed to pick up more equipment, but in truth, all he needed was to spend some time sitting by the radiator and watching TV before venturing out onto the farmer’s fields again. A few minutes after twelve, he locked up the room and headed out to his car, and into the cold.
Arriving at the barn, Gareth opened the door to find a capsule of warmth, with Bennings standing in front of the heater, reading a sheaf of documents.
“Are the boys not here yet?” Gareth asked.
“No, I was expecting them to… oh hang on, I think there’s a car coming down the lane.”
“Maybe that’s Winslow. He got scared by last night’s saucers and he’s come to kick us out.”
A few moments later the door opened and Littlewood entered, at the center of a bubble of cold air that also held three students behind him. “Well, gentlemen, a very good evening to you,” he said, beaming under his moustache. “Are we ready?”
“It looks like you’re up for it,” said Gareth.
“Doug.” Littlewood sidled closer to Bennings, while the three students began to check their equipment. “I’ve been getting some emails concerning our sightings, already.”
“What?” Bennings looked up in alarm. “You posted what happened last night on the Net? Brian, I specifically told you not to do that!”
“Yes, Doug, I know, and I’m sorry, but I figured it was worth doing now. I think I’ve found someone who can verify the sightings.”
Gareth saw the angry look on the American’s face vanish in an instant. “Someone local?” asked Bennings.
“Someone in Cambridge. It’s been picked up by BUFORA, so the horse was already out of the stable.”
“Aw, hell.” Bennings turned away and stared at the equipment on the bench. “This is earlier than I planned, but I guess if BUFORA already know about it, it doesn’t matter. At least if they come down and see us, we have some time to try to verify our findings.”
Even though Littlewood wasn’t smiling, the smugness behind his spectacles was apparent. I guess that’s what you call geek politics, thought Gareth.
At twelve thirty, they went outside to take up their positions at each point of the compass. After about an hour Gareth went back in to get the football, and they all kicked it around in a leisurely fashion, but nobody was really concentrating on the ball this time. Every so often, their eyes flicked up to scan the heavens, a quick glance upwards before looking at each other. Everyone was getting caught up in the expectancy, the hope that such an extraordinary event would be repeated, and the fear of disappointment if it wasn’t.
At two thirty, Gareth found himself taking a break with Andy again, and he listened while the student went into a lot of extraneous detail about astronomy.
Out of nowhere, Andy suddenly asked, “Why is the night sky black?”
“Pardon?”
“Why is the night sky as dark as it is?”
Taken aback, Gareth blustered, “Well… erm… because it’s night, of course. I mean, this side of the Earth isn’t facing the sun.”
“Ah well, the interesting thing is, it’s not as simple as that. After Isaac Newton’s time, most educated people believed in a steady-state universe, that is, everything operated according to certain rules and those rules were consistent throughout the universe. But there was a problem; that meant there should be stars spread in a uniform way across the heavens, and so light would be approaching the Earth from every point in space, but from different distances. Which means that the night sky should be filled with stars, and it should be bright as day. Do you see?”
“I think so,” Gareth said after a pause.
“Well, nobody could figure out why it wasn’t like that. Then one day, someone came up with the theory of the expanding universe. Do you know what I mean by Big Bang?”
“Oh yes, I know that theory,” Gareth said quickly. Meaning that he had watched a BBC2 Horizon program on the subject one night when there was nothing else to watch.
“That new theory put forward the view that the universe is constantly expanding,” Andy continued, warming to his theme, “and so stars and galaxies are constantly moving away from each other, and away from us. That’s why astronomers look for red shifts and blue shifts, and why the stars are in clusters at different parts of the sky. The stars are actually getting further away from us, and so the sky between the stars is only darkness. That’s what the exponents of the Big Bang theory say, anyway, and if they’re right – the evidence has been in front of us all the time.”
“I see,” Gareth muttered, his brow furrowed. His eyes flicked upwards, as if searching for the stars to confirm what Andy had said, but he could only see dust motes, floating in the glare of the lamps beneath the barn roof.
And then – very suddenly – he did see. Gareth imagined a Stone Age family, covered in hair and dressed in animal skins, sitting around a wood fire in the middle of a cave, waiting for TV to be invented. When they had looked outside, and glanced at those points of light in the night sky, they must have thought they were gods or demons. But really, they were looking at the origin of the universe. How it all began.
Could that be the truth?
As a kid, on a day trip to London, Gareth’s parents had taken him to the Planetarium. As part of the show, the projector had lit up the dome in the shape of a huge lion – the constellation Leo. Glowing above the audience, points of light on parts of the animal’s body marked each corresponding star, and lines stretched out to connect each point. That’s what those ancient people were trying to do, when they were mapping out the Zodiac. Trying to make sense out of things, trying to see the patterns that underlay the universe. Drawing pictures. Connecting dots. It was like those old puzzle books; join the dots, and the picture will be revealed.
But was there really a picture?
The more Gareth thought about it, the more he realized that if you stared at a random collection of points for long enough, you could join the dots to find some sort of pattern. That’s how people were. Human beings seemed to have an innate need to look for a pattern in things, and sometimes make them up when they couldn’t find any.
So was Big Bang theory all in our heads, like the Zodiac? Once the dots were joined up, was it a different picture every time, depending on who looked at it?
Gareth suddenly realized Andy was grinning at him. “Quite fascinating, isn’t it?”
“I’ll have to think about it a bit more,” Gareth said quietly.
Approaching four in the morning, however, crouching over his camera in the darkness and holding a hairdryer, Gareth could only think about going home. Let’s call it a night, he thought. We’ve got last night’s findings. No sense in pushing our luck.
“I’ve got something!”
Gareth looked up at where the shout had come from. It was Greg, one of the students. It was the first time Gareth had heard him speak.
; “Where?” called Littlewood.
“To the east,” said Greg, his voice panicked. “Above the horizon, about twenty degrees!”
Gareth screwed up his eyes against the wind.
Nothing there. Everyone was getting jumpy, that’s all, he thought. Our nerves are frazzled. No, wait…
There was something there! Two objects flickered in and out of focus in Gareth’s line of vision, blurred and indistinct, but obscuring the stars.
Everyone started shouting at once.
Sitting by the tripod, Gareth came to his senses and triggered the cable release. He heard the unmistakable click-whirr of the aperture opening and closing. He put his eye to the viewfinder and tried to study the objects but they started moving, weaving to and fro erratically. They jerked across the sky in quick, unpredictable bursts. Two luminous objects, side by side, like the ones the night before; glowing a soft amber, indistinct in shape, no wings or tail.
Both objects suddenly skipped out of the viewfinder’s range, and Gareth pulled his head up to keep track of them. In a second, they had reached the field and the sky above the barn, and hung there, as if taunting the men below.
Gareth stared upward, dumbstruck.
Someone bumped into him, then he heard Doug’s voice in his ear saying, “I’ve got a few shots of them with the Polaroid. Pretty crazy, isn’t it?”
“It’s bloody unbelievable,” Gareth said hoarsely.
“They’re not moving,” another student shouted.
“I’ve got ’em on the camcorder.”
“Hey! Beam us up!”
Gareth narrowed his eyes and stared hard at the glittering shapes far above him, trying to focus. What was he supposed to see? Windows? Engines? A pilot waving down to him? He kept staring, blinking away the tears caused by the air’s stinging coldness. Was there something up there? Like shadows on the face of the moon, was there an inner shape, something under the surface of the light…
“Keep watching, Gareth. The others are still filming. I’m going to try something else.”
Turning slightly, he saw Bennings take something from his pocket, something that looked like a pen, and held it up in front of his face.
“What are you going to do?” asked Gareth. “Write them a note?”
Bennings indicated the lights above with a nod of his head. “I’m going to try and signal them with a laser.”
“What? You can’t go firing lasers across the countryside. Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Gareth, a laser is not the same as a death ray! And anyway, nobody’s going to be outside in the cold at four in the morning.”
“Except us.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, his voice sounding hollow. “Well, I won’t point it at the students.”
“What if it damages their ship? If it is a ship? What if they think we’re attacking?” As cold as it was, Gareth was sweating. Now they’d found what they’d been searching for, they still had no idea – no idea – what they were dealing with.
“Now you’re sounding like Brian,” said Bennings, a little testily. “Look, it’s perfectly safe. They did this at Hessdalen.”
As he raised the slim cylinder, Gareth saw a thin streak of ruby light lancing upwards. It spun a narrow crimson thread through the twilight.
One short pulse. Then another.
“One more for luck,” Bennings called. “Keep the camcorder running, boys.”
Gareth stood with the cable release clutched in his hand as he stared at the objects in the sky. They hung, without a sound, without any disturbance in the air, with the impossible grace of a brick hovering above a refrigerator.
Then something changed…
The object above Gareth to the left suddenly increased in brightness, as if a switch had been thrown. A second later, it faded back to its previous level – and a second after that, it flared up again.
“It’s signaling back!” someone yelled.
Beside Gareth, Bennings was counting off; “One… two…”
Three.
Flaring from amber to white, both of the objects dropped out of the sky. They moved with a curving, saw-tooth motion, fluttering down like giant glowing leaves, swelling up in Gareth’s vision–
And then darkness. Lights out.
Nobody home.
The first thing Gareth became aware of was the voices: a long way off, but getting closer.
“Is it him?”
“I think so.”
“Must be.”
Then the cold. An awkward position, the coldness of the earth seeping into his back and neck. Something hard pressing against his chest, and hands clasping both his arms.
“Gareth? Gareth, are you okay?”
“Let’s try to lift him.”
“Should we? Won’t that damage his spine or something?”
On the ground.
He was lying on the ground.
He felt himself being eased into a sitting position, his body limp, his backside numb with the cruel frost of the Fens. He blinked again and again, trying to make sense of the pale blobby thing in front of his eyes.
A pale, reddening blob. Rough features taking shape. Nose. Moustache. Glasses.
It was Littlewood, shining his torch – which was covered with red polythene – onto his own face.
“Boo!” the face said.
“Cut that out!” Bennings’ voice. “Gareth, are you okay?”
Gareth tried to speak; his tongue felt clumsy and furred up, his lips were cold and refused to move properly. “I think so.”
“You fainted when the UFO buzzed us,” one of the students said.
“Claude, shut up! You fell over, Gareth. Did you knock your head?”
“No…” With an effort, and with help from the small crowd around him, he staggered to his feet and brushed himself down. “Did I knock over the camera?”
“Ha! Worried about the camera! What a professional. No, you didn’t.”
“Did I miss anything?”
“Not much,” Littlewood said airily. “The UFOs made a close pass overhead, and you fell over backwards, and then they sped off towards the north. They were gone in an instant. They must have been travelling about… ooooh… Andy, how fast were they travelling?”
“About a thousand miles per hour, I’d say. Maybe faster. They were out of range almost immediately.”
“Brilliant,” muttered Gareth, his teeth chattering. “Can we get out of the cold now?”
“Sorry, Yes, of course,” said Bennings. “Let’s get into the barn.”
Inside the barn, over the last of the tea, they talked animatedly about what they had seen. Despite their successes, Gareth found it difficult to keep his enthusiasm up. He felt a headache coming on, and there were aches and pains in his back, sudden twinges that were only there for a second and then returned later. Must have been from lying on that cold earth, he thought, even though I was only out for a few seconds.
Did I really faint? Why should I have done that? I’m not a ‘fainting’ kind of guy. I must have overbalanced when I was looking up at the sky, and then hit my head on a stone. Looking for confirmation, he rubbed his hand over his scalp, feeling for sore and swollen flesh. Must be there somewhere…
It was nearly five o’clock when they finally decided to end the Skywatch. They quickly packed everything away, said their farewells, walked to their cars, as if they were in a hurry to get home and reflect on what they had seen, leaving the barn forlorn and desolate under a dark, cold, and empty sky.
I could sleep for a week, Gareth thought, as he drove slowly toward Coveney. Tomorrow I’ll sleep late and then take a look at those Polaroids when I get up. See if they can tell us what we saw.
His car pulled onto the main street leading to the B & B. Someone’s up early, Gareth thought. The lights are on.
As he drove closer, he realized that a great many lights were on, far more than there should have been at that hour of the morning…
One of them – directly outside the front entrance to the B& B – was red. And flashing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Thursday, April 18th
The next morning, Gareth awoke with a headache and a strong feeling of surprise. He was back in his Oakington home, and it was almost seven o’clock. He lay blinking in the spring sunlight for a while, and then dragged himself out of bed.
He’d slept heavily, thanks to the beers downed in the Barley Mow the night before. He’d probably told too many jokes, spoke too loudly. But he had managed to get some sleep, as the fog in his head and the grit in his eyes testified. He must have dreamed, but he couldn’t remember his dreams… which was a blessing.
He ordered a taxi and, after a half-hearted breakfast, took the cab to Lynval Price’s office. They both loaded the equipment into two flight cases and then into the taxi’s trunk. The panoramic camera was something that both of them had designed and built in collaboration several years ago. It consisted of the back of a Fuji 6x17, an interface plate, a light trap, and a variety of lenses. The whole thing had taken three months and a thousand pounds to put together. It had also caused a few hairy moments, when they’d taken turns in removing the Fuji viewfinder with a hacksaw. After a few good-natured admonishments from Price, Gareth headed into town.
Arriving at Gonville & Caius College, Gareth paid the taxi and walked into the reception area at the porter’s lodge, bracing himself for the usual humiliation from the college staff. After some huffing and puffing and head-scratching from the tweed-jacketed porter – “This was booked a month ago, you say? Hmmm – really…” – the gent eventually picked up the phone and called the woman Gareth was supposed to meet.
The door opened and Gareth turned round, and then looked down, at the woman who rolled into the office seated in an electric wheelchair.
Ms. Harris was a middle-aged woman with a puffy, overly made-up face framed with wavy blonde hair. She greeted her guest with a facial tic that wasn’t quite a smile. Leaving the camera cases in the lodge, for the porters to frown over, Gareth let her take him around the building on a short tour of inspection.