Fade Out

by Patrick Tilley

  ‘Who, the research group?’

  ‘Not all of them. You won’t be involved.’

  Wetherby smiled. ‘You’ve been reading the coffee grounds again…’

  ‘Has anything new come in?’

  ‘Yes, you’re in luck,’ said Wetherby, ‘Thillippe Kerjac just sent us the data from the Prince Albert.’

  Named after the royal Monegasque patron of oceanography, the Prince Albert was a French research ship operating in the Indian Ocean.

  ‘Does it fit into the pattern?’ asked Wedderkind.

  ‘George is just finding out now. He’s over in the research block. It’s not far, but we’d better drive there. I know you hate getting wet.’

  From experience, Wedderkind knew that by Wetherby’s standard of measurement, not far meant anything up to three miles. Years ago, when he’d first met Wetherby in London, he had found himself striding beside him across Hampstead Heath without a coat, with the winddriven midsummer rain cutting into them horizontally. He had never forgotten Wetherby turning to him with a happy grin and saying, ‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ There were a lot of Englishmen like that.

  It was a mile and a half to the research block. The rain had stopped by the time they got there. Wetherby unlocked the front door and led the way down to the basement and through the double set of doors into the faintly antiseptic environment that housed the computer.

  ‘I loathe these damn things,’ said Wetherby. ‘But they really are amazing, Wait till you see what George has produced.’

  York was sitting in front of a large twenty-one-inch visual display screen. Below it was an IBM keyboard which he was using to interrogate the computer. He gave them a little wave as they walked in but didn’t get up.

  ‘Hi, Arnold. Got some real goodies here for you.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve come to see.’

  ‘We’ve fed Shirley the various measurements of the magnetic field – declination, horizontal and vertical intensity, etcetera, together with the geographical co-ordinates of the measuring station,’ explained York. Shirley was his pet name for the computer. ‘She then plots these on a map of the world and joins up the points of equal force or variation giving us a magnetic contour map.’

  York keyed a short message to the computer.

  A series of bright green contour lines began to curve across a map of the world.

  ‘This map shows the magnetic declination. The lines connect points of equal variation of compass north from true, or geographic, north. This was the situation on August first. You can see the situation is fairly normal. There’s the usual bunching of the lines in the high latitudes round the two poles. Now – ’York punched some more keys. ‘What we’ve done is to feed in the data we’ve gathered in the last six weeks. I asked Shirley to interpolate the changes on an hourly basis and project the results at twenty-four frames a second. The result is rather like an animated film. The whole sequence lasts forty-two seconds. Yell out if there’s any point you want to stop at and take a closer look. Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Okay, hang on to your hat. The double figures top right of screen show the date, by the way.’ York pressed the start button. The date numerals began to build like the digital clock at an Olympic track event. At first, the lines hardly moved, then on the tenth of August, they began to shift and sway across the map, finally breaking apart and reforming into a totally new pattern. Wedderkind stared at the map in disbelief.

  York grinned. ‘It’s pretty wild, isn’t it?’

  ‘Makes a real mess of compass navigation,’ said Wetherby. ‘Fortunately it’s been superseded by other systems.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘There’s never been anything like it,’ said York.

  In the last thirty days, the north and south magnetic poles had shifted east and west respectively to align themselves with the geographic poles. The movement, as such, was not unusual. During severe magnetic storms, magnetic north had been known to wander up to two hundred miles across the Arctic wastes, and since the beginning of the century, it had moved several hundred miles nearer true north. This was the first time, however, since observations began in the 1800s that both poles had coincided so precisely.

  What was even more remarkable was that now the magnetic contour lines converged on six more ‘polar’ regions. Two of them were on the equator, one south of the Caroline Islands in the Pacific, the other on the reciprocal longitude off the coast of West Africa. Of the other four, two lay 45 degrees south of the equator, in the southern Indian Ocean, and in the Pacific off the southern province of Chile. The other two, on the same opposing lines of longitude, were sited 47 degrees north of the equator. Despite the bare outlines of the map, Wedderkind recognized the locations – Lake Balkash in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, and Crow Ridge, Montana.

  Wetherby tapped the screen with his finger. ‘Interesting pattern… If you ignore the terrestrial poles, these six points are all situated at approximately ninety degrees of arc from one another.’

  ‘Three are north poles and three are south,’ said York. ‘It’s as if we had four dipole magnets intersecting each other within the Earth’s core. The whole thing dovetails together quite beautifully.’

  That was one way of describing it, thought Wedderkind. But whatever emotive words one used, the facts were staring out of York’s map. Crusoe had arrived with five companions. They had split up like the multiple warheads of a nuclear rocket, had landed in a geometrically precise pattern, and had buried themselves under cover of the second fade-out. After a three-week period of incubation, they had burrowed back up through the Earth’s crust. But during that three weeks, they had harnessed the Earth’s magnetic field, and had used it to spin their own alien web around the globe. Crusoe and his companions knew how to control one of the mysterious, primal forces of the universe. Wedderkind wondered how he could break the news to Connors.

  ‘As far as I can see, the only problem is that four of these six sub-poles appear to be under water. Doesn’t that ruin your theory?’

  Wedderkind snapped out of his reverie to answer York. ‘Not necessarily. Now we are more sure of the approximate locations, we can get a more accurate fix on the sites and check the seabed with submersibles. Al, how deep is it in those places?’

  ‘Six to nine thousand feet.’ Wetherby waved at the screen. ‘They are all on undersea mountain ridges.’

  ‘Will we need the help of the Navy?’

  ‘Yes. They’re funding most of the research by the privately-owned submersibles.’

  ‘Which means Fraser is bound to get his grubby hands on it,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘It’s not going to stop there,’ said Wetherby. ‘There are quite a few craft that can operate at these depths but they are not all American. You’ll probably have to let the French in on this. Apart from their experience, that site in the Indian Ocean is in the middle of a group of islands that belongs to them. And this one here below the Carolines could also be a problem. There are two islands nearby, one administered by Australia, and the other by us.’

  ‘And the one off Chile?’

  ‘That’s just empty ocean. The same applies to this other one here in the Atlantic.’ Wetherby tapped the screen. ‘This is rapidly becoming a United Nations exercise.’

  ‘I’m not averse to spreading the load,’ said Wedderkind. ‘This situation transcends the interests of national security, but what chance is there of concerted international action? Right from the beginning we set up a bilateral deal with the Russians, which neither of us had any intention of honouring. Both sides were hoping to make contact first in order to cream off any scientific or technical knowhow that could put them ahead. Not one of my contacts over there has put out so much as a squeak – and we’ve behaved just as badly.’

  ‘We didn’t have a lot of choice,’ said Wetherby. ‘Connors made the position quite clear – our silence was a precondition for joining the project.’


  ‘Bob’s a good boy,’ said Wedderkind. ‘But he doesn’t always think for himself – although usually, he thinks of nothing else. I don’t know whether we would be safer to tell the world what is happening. We’re already running a risk concealing information from our own masters.’

  York grinned. ‘What are you going to do, Arnold? If you want to push this thing any further, you’re going to have to tell people what they are looking for.’

  ‘I know.’ Wedderkind frowned. ‘I need some time to think about it. George, how do these new sub-poles fit in with what we know about the coded earth tremors?’

  ‘They correlate almost exactly,’ replied York. He cleared the screen and tapped out a new order to the computer. Shirley set up six small circles on the map. ‘These are the new sub-poles you saw on the previous projection. I’ll now key in the epicentres of the coded tremors …’

  York tapped out a five-part code on the keyboard. Six green crosses blipped on to the screen. Some were off centre, but all were within the green circles.

  ‘These seismographic readings provide a more accurate fix on the landing sites – if that’s what they are.’

  In Wedderkind’s mind, there was no longer any room for doubt. Six spacecraft had landed in an almost precise pattern around the globe, had sent underground messages to one another to signal their position and safe arrival, and had woven the Earth’s magentic field into a new pattern. But for what purpose?

  Wedderkind knew that the answer would not be found in York’s computer, or at the White House. It was waiting for him on Crow Ridge.

  CROW RIDGE/MONTANA

  About ten o’clock in the evening, Page thought he might take a walk. He had read all the scientific journals and beaten everybody at chess, and conversation was hard to find. Everyone seemed to be sunk in gloomy contemplation.

  Page noted the disagreeable behaviour of his colleagues in his diary and locked it in his briefcase. He wrapped carefully around his neck the woollen scarf his mother had knitted and tucked it into the front of his short topcoat, then stepped out of the trailer into the bright moonlight.

  Page walked along the path to Rockville, then cut up the slope and headed southward across the plateau.

  Ahead of him, Crusoe’s huge black curving shape rose out of the ground. Page stopped. There was something not quite right, something different about Crusoe. He walked slowly around the hull, then realized what it was. The proportions had altered. Crusoe’s hull was higher in relation to its width, and the domed hatch on top seemed to be smaller, flatter somehow…

  As Page continued to circle Crusoe, the moonlight revealed that the hull was no longer one smooth, continuous, curved surface. He could see a faint edge where two planes joined one another. Page walked up on to the hull and went down on one knee to catch the light at the right angle. He found three more edges. They marked the joints between four curved, triangular-shaped surfaces. The angular difference was slight, but unmistakable. Crusoe was changing shape and – Page bent an ear to the hull – he was doing it to music. A high-pitched, continuous, tinkling sound like a cascade of crystals, and beneath it, a deep, wavering hum. Page hurried happily across the plateau to announce the news to Professor Lovell. The others could wait till morning.

  Thursday/September 20

  WASHINGTON DC

  Wedderkind was in the middle of breakfast when the specially-installed scrambler phone rang in his study. It was Lovell, phoning from the base camp on Highway 22.

  Lovell told him about Page’s discovery.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lovell. ‘Neame and the other engineers are out taking measurements now.’

  ‘Okay, stay where you are. I’ll call you back.’

  Wedderkind picked up his house phone and keyed in Charlotte Annhauser’s number. ‘Hello, Charly? It’s Arnold. Listen, I realize it’s rather an indiscreet question at this time in the morning, but is Bob there?’

  ‘Yes, hang on, he’s in the shower.’ Charly’s voice was filled with laughter.

  Connors came on the line. ‘Hi, what’s new?’

  ‘I just had a call from Lovell.’

  ‘Uh-huh…’

  ‘From the base camp.’

  ‘What was he doing down there?’

  ‘Using the only available phone. Crusoe blacked out the whole Ridge at three o’clock yesterday afternoon. About half an hour before we got word that radar wavelengths had been hit by the fade-out.’

  ‘How bad – I mean, how big is it?’

  ‘The cutoff zone? About seven miles in diameter.’

  ‘Jesus wept.’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t panic, there’s no problem at the moment. The only people without power are up on the Ridge. Nobody in the surrounding area is affected. The edge of the cutoff zone is still nearly four miles clear of the base camp.’

  ‘Is that the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘The good news. Our friend has developed growing pains.’

  Connors felt a cold shiver run up his spine. ‘Christ, what does it mean, Arnold?’

  ‘I don’t know. It may be the good news you’ve been waiting for. Lovell said the dome appears to be shrinking back into the hull. Taking an optimistic view, one could interpret that as an indication that Crusoe was battening down the hatches, so to speak – prior to takeoff.’ Wedderkind didn’t pass on the news that Crusoe’s hull had grown several feet higher. ‘In Allbright’s language, it would be described as “adopting flight configuration”.’

  ‘You’d better make sure someone tells him that,’ said Connors. Charly draped a towel over his dripping head and went back into the kitchen.

  ‘What do you think we ought to do?’

  ‘Well, I realize that you can’t say too much on the phone,’ said Wedderkind. I’d like to get back to the Ridge right away to see what the problems are. What are the chances of getting a plane back this morning?’

  ‘There’s one on standby at Andrews Field. All you have to do is call Greg and he’ll arrange a pickup. But what about the meeting? We’re heading into big trouble.’

  ‘Over the fade-out?’

  ‘Over everything.’

  ‘What’s happening? Is Fraser moving in for the kill?’

  ‘He could be. And frankly, we don’t have a lot to stop him with. All we have to throw back is a catalogue of failures and a barrage of question marks.’

  ‘Okay, we’ve bungled it. I picked some of the best brains in the country and they screwed up. Fraser couldn’t have picked a team that would have done any better. This isn’t just an inert lump of machinery. Crusoe’s resisting analysis. He’s sabotaged our research efforts, ruined our instruments, and robbed us of electric power. No one can carry out any meaningful research under conditions like that. All one can produce is armchair theories.’

  ‘Arnold, I know what the difficulties have been. The point is, where do we go from here?’

  ‘We keep trying, of course. The alternative is unthinkable. In fact, there is no alternative.’

  ‘But what about the fade-out?’

  ‘The fade-out, the fade-out… My God, is that the only thing people can think about?’ said Wedderkind heatedly. ‘There is still some radio communication possible. All right, so there is some temporary inconvenience. Look on the bright side – at least it’s impossible to start World War Three, we’re spared the daily drivel being pumped out on TV, and a few hundred people who might have been killed in aeroplanes will – ’

  ‘– get the chance to die in automobile accidents,’ said Connors. ‘Okay, I’m convinced. What do you want me to do, Arnold?’

  ‘Stall them. We need more time to find out what Crusoe is up to. You can flimflam Fraser.’

  ‘Yes, sure. Did you turn up anything of interest in Baltimore?’

  ‘Nothing conclusive,’ said Wedderkind. ‘We’re still working on the data. But it looks interesting.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, there are indication
s of some large directional variations in the Earth’s magnetic field. It confirms our hunch that Crusoe could be using the Earth’s field as a source of power.’

  ‘To generate the cutoff zone and the fade-out?’

  ‘Yes. The trouble is, since we don’t know how the Earth’s field is generated, there’s little chance of being able to cut off his power supply.’

  No, thought Connors. But if you can’t get at the flashlight battery, you can always try removing the bulb. ‘What do you want me to say, Arnold?’

  ‘As little as possible.’

  ‘There’s no point in hiding anything.’

  ‘I’m not trying to hide anything,’ said Wedderkind. ‘In any case, Allbright will probably have semaphored the news to Fraser. Just put the best possible construction on it, that’s all. Don’t let Fraser stampede the Old Man.’

  ‘Into what?’

  ‘Into trying to destroy Crusoe. For God’s sake, Bob, I’m not that naive. I know how Mel Fraser’s mind works. He’s not going to come up with any constructive suggestions.’

  ‘Okay, Arnold,’ said Connors. ‘I’ll do my best to hold the line. But watch your step.’

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as I’ve assessed the situation on the Ridge.’

  ‘Fine. If I’m not in the office, leave a message with Greg.’

  ‘Okay.’ Wedderkind hung up.

  Connors went back under the shower. It had all worked out rather well. The meeting Wedderkind would miss had been cancelled anyway. All the decisions had been made the night before. While Wedderkind was winging his way westward, Connors would be heading eastward, with Mel Fraser, aboard Air Force One. To Moscow. With a message from the President of the United States and copies of the pictures the Air Force had taken of the second spacecraft in Kazakhstan.

  CROW RIDGE/MONTANA

  The dawn examination of the hull by the research group revealed some startling changes.There was no longer any visible line separating the sinking dome and the hull. The two shapes now flowed together to form one continuous surface. The shadowy pressure patches that had once activated the hatch were no longer visible on Crusoe’s black crystal skin, and the hull had grown four and a half feet taller overnight.