The Venus Trap

by Paul Byatt

  The Venus Trap

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  The Venus Trap

  by Paul Byatt

  Two Years Previously...

  Mount St John Observatory, New Zealand

  “Henry, would you come here a minute please?”

  Henry looked at his colleague, Sarah, oddly; she never spoke so formally with him usually.

  Most of the time, she merely barked an order at him and expected it done. She was hunched over one of the many screens within the observatory, her face looking puzzled. In theory there was no need for the computers to be placed within the observatory itself; in practice, there was something about being so close to the gigantic telescope that focused people’s minds whilst they were working. Plus, part of the romance of the job was having to travel up the mountainside – ‘one hell of a commute’ as Director Duffy noted one summer’s day when the flowers were blooming.

  Henry plodded over to the workstation. At this time of night there was only the two of them on station which made the need for the close physical contact between them slightly awkward as they gazed at the screen. Sarah was studying the giant storm that had been raging on Jupiter for hundreds of years. She was, Henry thought, probably the only person in the world who was so obsessed with it. Lately, she had been comparing the ‘Red Eye’ as she called it with another, smaller and newer storm that had been appearing for the last five years.

  As Henry looked at the physical image on one screen his head turned with Sarah’s as they compared it with the streams of data that were pouring out at astonishing speed from the adjacent terminal. They stood silently for a few minutes as Sarah kept shaking her head in apparent disbelief. At last, she spoke, “It’s moving.”

  “Of course it’s moving, it’s a storm!”

  “I know that, idiot!”

  “Now, hang on.”

  “Sorry Henry. Henry, its moving…”

  “Yes.”

  “Henry, it’s moving outwards.”

  “Into the upper atmosphere?”

  “No Henry, out of the atmosphere”

  “But…”

  “Just look!”

  Several minutes later Henry stood up, unaware at just how close he had been leaning towards the screens. He stared at his boss who seemed to be waiting for a response with a smile of wonder on her pale face. Henry knew that the data could be wrong; instruments failed all the time. He knew that verifying it would take many man-hours and endless conferences with people higher up on the scale than him. He knew of the thousands of false alarms that were reported by all astronomers.

  Years of studying at college and university had taught him about proving a theory and backing it up with hard data but he dismissed all of this in one heartbeat because he had seen for his own eyes and seen it reflected in Sarah’s. This was the real thing! He grinned widely, couldn’t think of anything to say for a brief second and finally managed to mutter “Holy shit!”

  Chapter One

  Thia sighed as she sat back onto the deep leather seats of their Mercedes, air-conditioned of course. She had stopped staring at the sights of the latest country that she was to call home and glanced up at her mother, on the phone again. Sri Lanka wasn’t much different from India as far as she could tell on their short journey from the airport; maybe less busy but definitely much more military – she had lost count of how many checkpoints they had passed through in the last two hours, all dealt with by their driver, a swarthy Spanish guy called Gustav. One difference was very clear though – the roads, railways, and even airport were all brand new, big and imposing, just like their last place in the Arabian desert but on a grander scale.

  She checked her watch; only an hour left apparently before they reached the gates. She flicked her fingers over her wrist to change the watch screen so that it showed her updated Facebook status and smiled as she saw a message from her friend back in Dubai, Lisa. Boys were normally the subject and this one was not disappointing. Another flick put her onto the BBC News service – there was no let-up in the rioting in various countries around the world. She used her other hand to wave her fingers in a complex pattern that showed her news from Sri Lanka, her new home.

  Being the only child of a UN diplomat wasn’t as exciting as everyone made out. Normally. This new home promised to be a bit different though.

  Thia’s mum finally finished yet another conversation and dropped her hand to her lap, switching the wrist-phone to stand-by. She let out a breath of air carefully and turned to her ten-year old daughter with a smile. “Darling, I know you’ve been moved about ten times.”

  “Four mum, don’t exaggerate.”

  “Okay, four but this is the one I’m most excited about; I can’t believe we’re actually going to be here at LP1! Argghh!”

  “Mum?” cried Thia in alarm; this was not her normal mum, what was wrong? Gustav gave a look of concern through the rear-view mirror.

  “Oh Thia! After all these years, all that miserable time in New York, this is it! Can’t you feel it?”

  “Mum, you okay?”

  “Oh sweetie, sorry but I can’t help it! They chose us! And now we’re here, at last!”

  “You mum, not us.”

  “No darling, this is for both of us. I would never have got the gig if I didn’t have you, you know that. God, I’m so proud of you, nothing seems to faze you does it?”

  “Mum, you’re embarrassing me. Please.”

  Ruth Chandra smiled as she regarded her daughter, a girl with the same olive skin as her but with piercing blue eyes that came from her father. She leaned over and wrapped her arms around the one thing that she was truly proud of in her life. Letting go, Ruth looked out at the hills of central Sri Lanka and the endless tea-plantations that dotted the landscape. She sighed wistfully, “If only...”

  “Don’t say it mum, just please don’t say it.”

  “Sorry Sweetie.”

  The walls were eighty feet high, matching the curves of the variety of hills around LP1, and all painted in UN white as if anyone could doubt who had built them. The complex spread itself over ten square miles, irregularly shaped according to the contours of the terrain. Except for the landing and docking areas, of course. They’d been hacked out of the hillsides and flattened, reinforced and flattened again until the specifications were met.

  Colonel Rogers had no idea where the money was coming from and, frankly, he didn’t care. This was an exciting time to be alive and he was lucky to be a witness to history in the making. Others thought differently though, as evidenced by the huge number of people outside the compound shouting for death to the aliens, support for them or denouncing them as godless creatures.

  He felt a minor pang of guilt for the fate of most of the protestors; they were prone to some serious problems here in the wilderness of central Sri Lanka. If the mossies didn’t make your life uncomfortable, the leeches always did. Add to that the most venomous snakes outside of the Amazon Rainforest as well as a lack of drinking water and it was no wonder that some of the demonstrations had petered out only leaving the truly hardcore fanatics.

  The colonel opened up the summary PDF attached to his latest Earth ‘newbie’ and became interested as soon as he saw the image of
a not unattractive woman. He hoped no one noticed that he went slightly red as he caught himself being less than professional. He read on…

  ”Ruth Chandra, 42, UN Diplomat formerly based in London, New York and Dubai. Single. One daughter, Thia, 11 years old. Previously responsible for Human Rights in the UK and Europe then Point Diplomat for visiting dignitaries from Europe and finally for assisting with Disease Control in the Arab States. “

  The last piece of information puzzled him. Why would someone go from a top job in New York to an outpost like Disease Control? Had she been demoted and why? And, if she had, why had she now been given this job, one of the most sought-after on the planet? He abandoned the summary pdf for the main one which detailed her early life in Delhi, her marriage to the Norwegian Ambassador in London and the new role in New York.

  What he read on the rest of the file left him breathless. He looked to the bright sun that saturated this tropical island, ignoring the faint noise from the protesters below him. He remained lost in a memory that continued to haunt him every night. Now he knew why she was classed as single.

  As his own daughter would say, “OMG”.

  Encoded tight beam transmission> Devil < Angel: Testing...

  Devil: Yes, yes, received. How long have you been operational, a few seconds? A little more maturity please.

  Angel: Just kidding. This new language is quite expressive isn’t it?

  Devil: Better than Casegu?

  Angel: Much less functional I think. And confusing as well, as our passengers are finding out. Try this; they’re over there by their planet.

  Devil: I get it. According to the substrate on linguistics, this is one of their most elaborate tongues; I think we may be able to have some fun with this one. Do you remember Shanrup?

  Angel: Of course I do, I have the same memories as you! A language so functional it had no word for emotions.

  Devil: Gate is approaching vector 26/89/034 as predicted.

  Angel: So I can see. Its AI isn’t being too shabby is it? I see the Ambassador is busy at the moment. We really should have warned him about that Russian intrigue.

  Devil: He needs to learn by himself, no harm done in the long term according to my predictions.

  Angel: Which you have assiduously been calculating? I note that neither of us predicted the sheer scale of the rioting.

  Devil: That was unfortunate.

  Angel: Unfortunate? There is a better word – tragic.

  Devil: Yes, forgive me being flippant. I wish there could have been some way to prevent it.

  Angel: Wish? We’re the ‘top of the range’ artificial intelligences as one of their adverts might say, we can’t ‘wish’ can we?

  Devil: We are, by the parameters of our programming, allowed to empathise.

  Angel: This is true. The Ambassador showed all of the signs of extreme distress.

  Devil: He is a good, well, person. Is he better now?

  Angel: Much. He ‘mexed home and was assured he did nothing to cause it. He was relieved. It has happened before, as you know.

  Devil: I guess we can be thankful it was not more widespread.

  Angel: Ah! Now we are guessing? Us, the most sophisticated thinking machines the Hegemony has produced and now we are only able to make a guess? You demean us!

  Devil: You know what I mean...

  Angel: I know! I’m just trying out this new language. My immersion into Shakespeare has been instructive.

  Devil: I agree. Try William Blake. Incredible.

  Angel: Thank you, I will.

  Chapter Two

  Thia was bored and annoyed. Her wristwatch, pad and lappy had been taken from her by that pig Colonel Rogers and his ever-so-polite soldiers so that they could be ‘screened’ – that was so unfair! Her mum’s wasn’t, so why had hers?

  And why did she have to sit in this bloody uncomfortable chair in this boring room watching the Greetings Video that she was the only audience of? She already had the narrative embedded in her consciousness; she didn’t need to be told again. Regulations, always regulations. “You have to watch the video,” that Colonel told her, “It’s part of your induction process.” Ha, induction into what? A cult? The sect of the righteousness? The holy covenant that had had no power at all since its inception after the Second World War? Thia spat out her thoughts with disdain as she reluctantly followed the narrative of the film. What choice did she have?

  “The first signals from the aliens and their small fleet of spacecraft, discovered by Sarah Holtby and Henry Strang, came much sooner than anticipated. Within two hours of the verification of the object, the first messages came in over sixty languages announcing that our new visitors were friendly and that we were not to panic.”

  ‘Yeah, right,’ thought Thia as she saw the enlarged image of The Gate, a huge circular resembling a diamond bracelet, as it sped towards Mars with a velocity never seen before by human eyes.

  “The message,” intoned the neutral but friendly female voice, “was the biggest event ever encountered by inhabitants of the Earth since the destruction of the dinosaurs . Panic did indeed ensue. Stock markets crashed, religious groups erupted in fury and anger, governments used it as a pretext to settle old scores both nationally and without their borders, many predicted the end of the human race and many tried their best to make this happen.”

  Now that, thought Thia, was a bit naughty of the UN, normally so neutral and lacking in judgment. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as she had previously believed it would be.

  “After the initial crisis had abated, wiser heads prevailed and the strong arm tactics of many governments were successful in quelling a planet-wide revolution during which time further messages were received, although the many communications from Earth were never answered until The Gate stopped in its orbit around the planet Mars. At that point Earth was sent the first visual images, that of Ambassador Horgain. All military ideas about the defence of the planet were suddenly halted, as if certain governments were in receipt of information that the rest of the planet were not privy to.”

  Hang on, wondered Thia, was she seeing the right video? This seemed a bit too ‘adult’ for her and a bit risky for a mere ten year old. True, she had discussed this with her mum, as had her friends with their parents but even so. She continued to watch, engrossed.

  “The first conferences with the Ambassador were conducted in real time via many different organisations, including the UN. The Ambassador told us that he had been chosen to represent the Hegemony since he had the closest resemblance to humans from all of the various races and cultures that made up the pan-humanoid group that had made contact with us.”

  That, at least, was true admitted Thia. The Ambassador had grey skin, no hair on his elongated head, two arms with five digits and appeared to like wearing a white robe with a smile that seemed to conjure images of an avuncular figure in many people. Some had suggested that this was because the aliens had been studying the Earth for so long that they had come up with him as the ideal figurehead for an invading fleet of despicable aliens hell-bent on taking over the planet. She remembered that she had laughed when the Ambassador had admitted the first part of that statement but had argued that he was in no way part of a grand scheme to subjugate the Earth and its habitants because no one thought that humans were particularly edible. Thia’s mum had commented that they had chosen their ambassador well.

  “The real-time conferences were difficult to begin with, mainly due to the time-lag involved in such conversations. There were many notable conversations including the famous one where the Ambassador inadvertently asked about the Russian Premier’s mistress and her health. Then came the request from the Ambassador that they be allowed to land on neutral UN territory on two different points near the equator – one in Ecuador and a larger one in Sri Lanka.

  This simple request led to much unrest and posturing from various governments around the globe though there is no doubt those two nations were delighted to receive such scrutiny and, latterly, money
. The unrest amongst the general population apparently dismayed the Ambassador who lamented that they were the cause of such discord. Tensions were building to a tipping point when the third conference with the UN, to discuss a global response to the alien’s visit, ended in violence on a previously unprecedented scale . The following is a redacted version of it.”