Secret of The Red Planet

by Chris Hawley

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  INTERROGATION

  When I woke up the sun was already above the horizon, shining dimly through the curtains. I parted one side and looked out over a patch of waste ground to a tall wire fence. Further off I could see a distant range of mountains, blue-grey in the early morning light. There were only a few stunted trees. Where can I be, I wondered. What is today going to bring? Why is Michu so quiet?

  I went to the toilet and then rinsed my face and hands in the bowl on the table. At that moment, the key turned in the lock and Alexei entered. He was wearing the same clothes as the night before. His face was expressionless. He beckoned to me to follow him. He led me down a corridor into the dining room, where there were three rectangular tables surrounded by hard, wooden chairs. I was surprised to see Sonia sitting at one of the tables with Svetlana. Sonia looked up as I entered the room and she smiled. She looked happy to see me but she was clearly troubled. Her face was pale and her red hair was roughly combed back. I attempted to cross over to where she was sitting but Alexei pulled me to one side and sat me on a chair at another table, so that I was facing away from Sonia. I desperately wanted to talk to her and I was angry at him for not letting me.

  After a breakfast of coarse bread and tea, Alexei took me back to the room where Ivan had been the night before. I sat on the same chair and waited. Soon Ivan came into the room and sat opposite me. He was wearing a blue jacket over a cream shirt.

  ‘Good morning, I hope you had a good sleep. Now you are fresh we can get on with the business.’ He shifted a few papers around the table and then, arms on the desk in front of him, he looked straight at me.

  ‘Begin!’

  I looked down at my hands and wondered what I should say.

  ‘Please begin,’ repeated Ivan, softly but with a sharp edge to his voice.

  I glanced quickly at his face and then away. I still said nothing.

  ‘I let you sleep: that was kind of me. Now it is your turn.’

  I was in turmoil inside. How much longer before he loses his patience?

  ‘I am a patient man, but I am human,’ he said quietly.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. It was all a game.’ I knew he wouldn’t believe me.

  ‘That will not do, my friend. So who is the girl in the picture?’

  I looked at his face. How did he know I had a photo of Michu?

  ‘Do not deny the picture! It will not do!’ he said louder. He flipped through the file on his desk and drew out a sheet, which he turned to face me.

  I was stunned. I looked blankly at the photo of Michu that he held up in front of me.

  ‘Our people searched your room, my friend. They found nothing much of interest except……’ he tapped the top of the paper with one finger, ‘……this picture hanging on your wall. Who is she? Where does she come from?

  ‘She’s just a friend,’ I said.

  ‘Your Martian friend; the one you wrote the letter to.’

  ‘No! That letter was made up. It’s from my head.’

  ‘Michu, Michu is her name, is it not?’

  ‘Michu only exists in my imagination,’ I said hopelessly.

  ‘No, Michu is as real as you and me.

  I said nothing.

  ‘How did the reporter get your letter?’ he asked.

  ‘He searched my room.’

  ‘And he found the strange clothes that belonged to Michu, I suppose,’ Ivan said.

  I nodded.

  ‘So they did belong to Michu?’ He smiled.

  I realised I had said the wrong thing. I had admitted the tunic was Michu’s.

  ‘And he had the material analysed. He is sharp, that one! Of course, if you look at the picture carefully you can see that she is wearing the same clothes. That settles the matter, does it not, my friend?’

  I knew there was no point in denying it.

  ‘Our people are at this moment searching for the clothes. We will have them analysed by our own methods.’

  I wondered if they had found Albert Smith and what they would do to him to get him to hand over the tunic to them.

  ‘You said in your letter to your Martian girl that you hoped you would soon go back to Mars.’

  I remembered saying so. I waited for the next question.

  ‘How did you travel to Mars?’

  ‘I made a spaceship in the shed in the back garden.’

  The put his head back and laughed. ‘You did what?’

  ‘I made a spaceship in the shed.’

  ‘And you went to Mars in it?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘And what kind of fuel did you use?’

  ‘Petrol.’

  ‘Petrol! Come on my friend! Pull the other arm!’ Ivan suddenly became serious. He leant forward with his arms folded on the table and put his face as close to mine as he could.

  ‘You are wasting my time,’ he said through clenched teeth.

  I squirmed in my chair but said nothing.

  ‘We have other methods, as I told you last night,’ he said threateningly.

  ‘I won’t tell you anything!’ I cried, the anger building up in me. ‘You can do what you like to me!’

  ‘I intend to do nothing to you.’ He paused. ‘But your young friend, you do not want anything to happen to her, do you?’

  I stared at him in horror. ‘Don’t touch Sonia!’ I cried.

  ‘Then talk!’ he said angrily.

  ‘I made a promise not to tell,’ I said.

  ‘Tch. Never make promises you cannot keep, my friend.’

  ‘Stop calling me ‘my friend!’ I’m no friend of yours!’ I was really angry now.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, stretching out his hands with the palms facing me.

  He went to the door and called out for Svetlana. He stepped outside and I could hear him talking to her in Russian. Then he came back inside, closed the door and sat down again.

  ‘I have asked for the girl to be brought here. Maybe your tongue will become loose.’

  We waited a few moments and then Svetlana appeared at the door, pushing Sonia before her. They crossed to the other side of the table and sat on hard chairs. I looked at Sonia and ventured a smile through my inner rage. She looked anxiously around her. I was sorry that I had involved her in all this.

  Ivan turned to face Sonia. ‘Tell your friend what Svetlana has told you.’

  Sonia spoke hesitantly. ‘Bill, they will not let us eat or sleep until you tell them.’

  ‘Sonia, I’m sorry I got you into this mess.’

  ‘I am glad I am here with you,’ she said softly and a tear ran down her cheek.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Ivan, thumping the table with his fist.

  I jumped and Sonia let out a sharp cry.

  ‘Start talking,’ he said, controlling himself.

  ‘If I tell you, will you let us go?’ I asked.

  ‘I make no promises I may not keep. We shall see.’

  ‘At least you must release Sonia,’ I said hopefully.

  ‘We shall see,’ was all he would say.

  I began to tell him of my trip to Mars, omitting the part about my homemade spaceship. He was not ready to listen to miracles. I tried to give away as little as possible but when there was something he didn’t understand he would stop me and put a question to me. I managed to avoid describing the bubble and its capabilities but he was clearly mystified how the Martians breathed and coped with the iciness and thinness of the Martian atmosphere. I told him I didn’t know about those things. He listened intently as I told him how the people had been exiled from Earth all those thousands of years ago. He appeared to believe everything I said. When I came to tell him about their fear of invasion from another planet he shook his head and made tutting sounds.

  ‘The Zoggs you call them?’

  ‘Yes, they say that the Zoggs are not really interested in Mars but actually in the Earth. They say that Mars has nothing to offer them that they don’t have already, but Earth would be a planet worth conquering.’
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br />   Ivan looked momentarily worried. ‘Mmm. Mars may not be their final prize but what a good jumping-off place. If they control Mars they can launch attacks on the Earth from there. That must be their plan, and a very good one too.’ Ivan paused and his face became animated. ‘Russia must become strong to prepare for this threat. You must find out more about these Zoggs! That is your task,’ Ivan banged the table with the flat of his hand.

  He was quiet for a moment. I looked again at Sonia, who was following every word Ivan said.

  ‘Where to find the technology?’ he pondered.

  I thought of Hermann. Should I reveal his name? Would I be sentencing him to permanent slavery in the hands of the Russians? I had a strange feeling that Russia might just help Similaria fight the Zoggs, with Hermann’s brilliant ideas in exchange for the technology to lead the world. I would be taking a huge risk, which, if it backfired, may cause endless misery to millions, on Earth and on Mars. This may be the most difficult decision I will ever have to make, I said to myself. But it might just work. I looked across at Sonia, as if to find inspiration in her face. Yes, it might work. I suddenly had a question for Ivan.

  ‘What is your Government’s attitude to the environment? Do you believe our world is in danger of being poisoned, you know, by how we are abusing it?

  He didn’t answer the question immediately, but searched my face for a few moments before lifting his eyes to the ceiling and saying, ‘The Soviet Union under communism totally neglected the environment. Pollution was allowed to go on unchecked.’ He levelled his eyes at me again. ‘We believe it is vital to preserve the environment for our own survival. Does that answer your question?’ He smiled at me.

  I nodded. ‘Martians want to help us with that,’ I told him.

  ‘How will they do that?’

  I hesitated to tell him that there were Martians on Earth at that moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said vaguely, ‘but I believe they mean what they say.’

  ‘Your Martians are very interested in the Earth.’

  ‘Being neighbours, they believe it is in their interest as well as ours,’ I said.

  ‘That is very sensible of them and they are right. In a hundred years or so Mars and Earth will be like London and Moscow are today.’

  I decided to mention Hermann.

  ‘Have you heard of a scientist called Hermann?’ I said.

  ‘Hermann who?’ he asked.

  I felt foolish. I didn’t even know his second name or where he was from.

  ‘The name sounds German,’ he said.

  He got up from his chair and went to the door. ‘Alexei!’

  Alexei appeared and Ivan spoke to him briefly. Ivan returned to his seat and Alexei went off down the corridor.

  ‘We will find out just now who this Hermann is,’ said Ivan. ‘How do you know this scientist?’

  ‘He came to my house,’ I replied.

  ‘Why did he do that?’ His eyes narrowed and he looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘He said he read the newspaper and wanted to meet me.’

  ‘Because you had been to Mars? And what did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing much. But he had a theory he was working on, something to do with electromagnetism.’

  ‘Interesting!’ said Ivan, scratching his face. ‘And you believe in him?’

  ‘It’s hard to say, but my Martian friends do.’

  A young woman brought in a tray with mugs of steaming tea and set it down on the table. Ivan said something to her in Russian and she gave each one of us a mug. We sat sipping the hot tea for five minutes.

  There were footsteps in the corridor and the door opened. It was Alexei with a piece of paper in his hand. He handed it to Ivan and stood waiting to be dismissed. Ivan read the paper, smiling occasionally to himself. Then he translated it for us.

  ‘Hermann Winke, German born scientist, born 13th July 1939, now living in the UK, naturalised British citizen, known for his research into electromagnetism. Works on the edge of the scientific, you say ‘establishment?’ he looked at me and I nodded. ‘….establishment. His ideas are not taken seriously by the main body of scientists. There is more but well, so what is he like?’’

  ‘He’s very odd but I’d like to believe he’s a brilliant man,’ I said.

  ‘And how would you know?’ he asked.

  I had to admit I didn’t. I just had a crazy idea Hermann could have hit on something.

  ‘Anyway, if my superiors agree, we will have the man brought in and our scientists can question him. We will assume that he is genuine. We have nothing to lose.’

  ‘How will you find him?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘The Russian Secret Service will not take long. We have a lot of experience with these things.’

  Ivan turned to Alexei and gave him some orders. Alexei went out and I heard his footsteps fade away down the corridor.

  ‘I have something else to say,’ I told him.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The Martians are very concerned that comets, asteroids might one day destroy or damage the Earth. They say we must start watching all bodies that cross the Earth’s path and develop the technology to deflect them before they strike.’

  Ivan leaned forward in his chair. ‘You may not know this but we have started a programme to do just that, to put a satellite into orbit with a powerful telescope to do nothing but catalogue all Earth-crossing asteroids. What we do not have and what we are a long way from having, is the technology to deal with them.’ He scratched his face.

  ‘What about Hermann’s theories of attraction and repulsion?’ I ventured.

  ‘Perhaps, but let the technical people look into that one,’ he said. ‘Now I think we have had a good morning. I am beginning to see a great future for our motherland, not forgetting, of course all the people on Earth and let us not forget Mars. I begin to see how valuable Mars is to us. Let us not forget them.’

  Ivan smiled and put out his hand.

  ‘Especially Mars,‘ I said.