ARIA

by Geoff Nelder

  “We’ve had zilch parts for months, we have minimal manufacturing facility, and no, Dan, you are not saying you know, again.” They all refrained from laughing. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll run a systems diagnostic yet again. But I have a feeling there is nothing wrong with the proximity sensor.”

  Dan became serious. “Right, Vlad, send our roving cam out to cover our blind spots.”

  As Vlad left to his task, Jena put a hand on Dan’s arm.

  “I was right, Dan, there’s nothing wrong with our equipment—well, not this bit. Look at the Situation screen.”

  “So it indicates there is something unplanned out there but not where it is. How is that possible? It must be instrumental error. Sorry, Jena, I know you are the best engineer—”

  “We have up here. Thanks for your moving endorsement. I’ll update my CV for a non-existent future job, but my money is on Vlad’s roving cam finding some wayward satellite.”

  “Not quite.” Vlad thumped his console bench. “We’ve had a visitor all right. Look here.”

  It was one of those occasions when a theatre-sized screen would have prevented banged heads as the four other crew crowded around the seated Vlad. But unlike the crowd-gasp of witnessing a goal, they were shocked into silence.

  Glinting in the sunlight and lethal radiation, looking brand new and as if mocking them, was an alien case.

  Jena recovered first. “It’s just like the other one. You don’t suppose it is the other one, somehow brought back?”

  “No, it is a different case,” Abdul said. “Although that side is at an acute angle from here, you can just make out a double chevron logo.”

  “Yes,” said Dan, “the first one had just the one. Vlad, bring the roving cam to get a better look at the logo or whatever the chevron is supposed to be.”

  “Nyet problem.” Vlad enjoyed playing with his million-dollar toys and soon, they had unequivocal proof it was the successor to the other case. “If anyone asks, I didn’t see who left it.”

  “Good point,” said Jena, turning and running back to her console. “The proximity sensor is indicating normal status now. See? I told you…”

  “Yes,” Dan said. “Now what, folks?”

  “No rushing in,” Antonio said, his medical training alerting him. “Just because the other case showed no emissions or harmful indications, just consider what it did once opened on Earth.”

  “Yes,” Dan said, “we were damned lucky not to follow our pioneering instincts there, though if we had, it might have just been us infected instead of a whole planet. So, advice please, people.”

  “Give it a push out into a farther-out orbit,” Jena said, screwing her face up.

  “A moment,” said her junior engineer, Abdul. “Suppose the aliens have been monitoring TV and radio transmissions from Earth. Allah, they could be one of the web users peeking at our website. Suppose the first case, when opened, was intended to emit some health-giving particles but their project has gone wrong…”

  “And they want to make amends?” snarled Jena. “Send us an antidote? Are you crazy, Abdul? You are anthropomorphising, giving the devil a human heart. It’s probably a double dose, hence a double chevron, to make sure no humans are left alive. Or too few in number to resist an invasion.”

  “Now who’s letting their emotions rule?” retorted Abdul. “Why do all aliens have to be green-skinned and with evil intentions?”

  “Have we known any that aren’t?” Jena said, to derision.

  Dan held up peace hands. “It’s good to air your opinions. We need to consider all the options no matter how bizarre. And they can hardly get stranger than what has already happened. Antonio, you and Vlad are staying quiet so far, but I’d value your opinions.”

  Antonio, who’d been staring at the case, started first. “Difficile. I see both points of view. I also think it is odd they have not tried to contact us in the conventional way. Like you, Dan, I think it is likely they are monitoring our transmissions and have been doing so since the early twentieth century. So, why not contact us via a radio? Suppose they don’t communicate that way? They might be telepathic and never need to use speech or ears.”

  Jena interrupted. “They’d have to be powerful telepaths to think each others’ stupid thoughts over millions of miles, and how would they be able to focus just on thoughts from one person they wanted to communicate with? Doesn’t make sense at extreme or even medium distances.” She despaired at the supposed geniuses she was trapped with.

  “I am only saying,” continued Antonio, waving aside the fractious interruption. “Their mode of communication could be a mass one to everyone spontaneously, who knows? We don’t and that is the point. Si? If they pick up our weak signals, attenuating over astronomical distances, they might only conclude there is some kind of technology on Earth. Not necessarily intelligent, by their standards, and not civilised. Good heavens, we cannot pretend to be civilised the way we treat our planet and her occupants.”

  “Indeed,” Vlad said, “they probably want to exterminate us because we are vermin and they don’t want us to contaminate other planets.”

  “See? I’m not the only one who thinks they are evil,” Jena said.

  “That isn’t what Vlad meant,” Antonio said. “If I am right, he meant they might have a point in considering humans as only worthy of exterminating. And not to occupy our spoiled planet but to prevent us spreading.”

  “Oh, give us a break,” Jena said. “I know there are evil bastards down there, and God knows how much environmental damage, but there are a lot of marvellous achievements in music, art, and literature.”

  “I agree,” Antonio said, “but they might not. Their interpretation of the Arts might be completely different, if it exists at all. And the same goes for what they consider to be acts of nobility. However, getting back to why they have not sent a message, we have to consider that they might have.”

  “True,” said Abdul, “they might be operating on a different timescale to us, such that a long spiel to them arrived as a microdot on the screen or radio noise as far as we were concerned.”

  “Not if they’ve been monitoring our transmissions. Oh, I see, they might have, but only see them as evidence of our existence and not understanding them,” Jena said.

  “In another way,” Antonio said, “the fact we haven’t had intelligible messages from them only vindicates the point that they have not understood our transmissions. Hence the cases.”

  “Run that last sentence by me again,” Dan said.

  “Simple,” Antonio said. “The cases are their communication to us. Or a test.”

  “Now you’ve lost me too,” Abdul said.

  Antonio examined his fingernails. “Suppose they were waiting to see what mankind would do with the first case as a kind of intelligence test.”

  “Well we fucked that one up,” said Jena.

  “The aliens failed our first test,” Dan said. “Let us suppose the first case was an intelligence test. It assumed the most intelligent and reasoned approach to the case would prevail. They didn’t take into account some idiot opening it without the rest of us having a say.”

  “And so,” Abdul said, gleefully, “my conjecture that the second case might be to put right the error of the first could be the correct one.”

  “On your bike if you think we’re opening it on such a flimsy hypothesis,” Jena said.

  “Quite,” Dan said, “we shouldn’t open it. Certainly not in the station.”

  “But you’re thinking it or you wouldn’t have mentioned it,” Jena said, heating up inside.

  “I have to consider all the possibilities,” Dan said. “Including destroying it.”

  “Hey,” Vlad said.

  “Hey from me too,” Abdul said, “just suppose it had the antidote to ARIA and we blew it up!”

  “I just wanted to say,” Vlad said, “can I be the one to blow it up, if we’re going to? After all, I found it.”

  Ignoring him, Dan turned to Antonio again. “
What are the chances it might have some kind of antidote?”

  “Let us consider the options, bearing in mind the ARIA pathogen that the first case contained. If such a virus as ARIA could infect mammals so that they progressively lost memory and new information was also difficult to retain post infection, then they might be able to do something similar in a second infection. But if you are asking me if someone who has had their memory erased can pick up a new virus that would give them their memory back, I would bet my Verdi collection on saying no. I don’t know how ARIA works. Biopsy studies and brain scans would have been helpful. The blood samples Ryder arranged showed a common-cold-type virus but not how the brain was affected. Are synapses short-circuited? Or are memories stored in neural webs lost forever? In that case, if a new virus in the second case allowed regeneration of the brain, it would allow that person to start remembering new information but not recall information he had already lost.”

  Jena jumped in. “That’s probably it, isn’t it? The aliens have wiped mankind’s brains and sent a new set of information to replace it. To turn us all into their slaves.”

  “Thank you, Jena,” Dan said. “I’ll add your thoughts to our various scenarios of what might be happening here.”

  “Well thank you, sir,” she said. “But I can’t believe the bullshit about them realizing they’ve made a mistake and sent us a fucking case load of Grannie’s Cure All!”

  Abdul said, “I doubt if we’ve even got close to what is really in the second case.”

  “I agree,” said Antonio. “It could be a different strain of ARIA, designed to halt its spread before the first one wiped out the ability of the oldest from using language. Or it—”

  “I don’t buy that,” Jena said. “When the first case arrived, ARIA spread real quick because of the vast amount of air travel. Now nothing is flying or sailing. Incidentally, would submarine officers remember to surface, assuming one of the crew caught the bug before boarding? Just threw that in to remind us how nasty ARIA is.”

  “I would hope, speaking as an ex-sub commander,” said Dan, “that they would keep referring to onboard computers, and in any case, they would only lose fifty days memory per day so the next day they should still all know to get to the surface. This is a red herring, isn’t it? Thought so. We still have a problem, folks. What should we do with the case?”

  “Destroy it,” Jena said.

  “Test for emissions, all the tests we have without opening or physically touching it with our hands. And take it to Earth with us,” Antonio said.

  “It’s what the aliens would want us to do with it,” said Vlad.

  “And what NASA would want us to do,” Abdul said.

  “A vote then,” said Dan, surprising Jena as he never flinched from a difficult decision, but she realized he just wanted to know for sure who would agree with his eventual decision.

  “Destroy,” Jena said, again.

  “Take it Earthside,” Antonio said.

  Vlad clenched then unclenched his fist. “Destroy, I suppose.”

  “Take it with us to Allah knows who and God knows where,” Abdul said.

  “Casting vote, Dan,” Jena said, curious about the sudden pseudo-democracy.

  “Take it with us. Sorry, Jena, but if we destroy it, we’d never know if we killed something lifesaving.”

  “Wimp,” she said.

  Silence filled the station apart from the sharp intakes of breath, which were then held. No one should be so disrespectful to their captain.

  Vlad recovered first. “Show her the door, Commander.”

  Dan coughed into his fist.

  “Fine, just let me get into my pressure suit first,” said Jena, continuing her obstinacy.

  Antonio, writing in his NoteCom, said, “We are all under considerable strain.”

  “Don’t patronise me. I’ve said my piece. Don’t wait for an apology.” Jena stormed off to the Earthside porthole again, but she could still hear them.

  “Crew members have fallen out before now,” Abdul said. “Shall I go and prepare the extension arm to pick up the case?”

  “Not yet,” Dan said. “I’m asking Jena to work with Vlad to do a full radiometer battery of tests including any emissions.”

  Jena shouted over from her porthole, “Keeping me busy, sir?”

  “There’s plenty for all of us to do,” Dan said. “Abdul, last time we knew something was wrong because the station rotated when it shouldn’t. Check for any positional abnormalities we might need to correct. Antonio, work out a containment plan for the case in the Marimar. I imagine the cargo bay would be the optimum place but go through the options. Jena, book us an interview appointment in, say, three hours when we’re less busy.”

  “Who with? There’s no mission control to guide us,” she said.

  “With you. We have issues to sort out and I will communicate what we’ve found, with cam shots, to both Ryder and Charlotte. They might have ideas too.”

  Jena pouted, but her intelligence told her she couldn’t go round shouting and behaving like a spoilt child in such a confined environment. They were in a crucible and had to prevent boiling over. He was so clever, that Dan. He knew she’d know to cool down, compose herself, so they could all get on with the job in hand.

  UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HAND, and having shown no hostile intentions via radiation or other emanations, the case was stored in a sealed section of the Marimar’s cargo bay. But Jena hadn’t finished fighting as the crew prepared for another strategy meeting.

  She regretted losing her rag with Dan over the case, and she damned Antonio for being right about stress affecting her stability.

  Last to take a seat at their oval, aluminium dining table with only just room for their NoteComs, she budged up Vlad so she could sit next to Dan. She reasoned that she would appear less confrontational if she didn’t sit opposite him.

  Dan opened. “The computer is waiting for us to tell it which landing site we are to aim for in order to calculate the optimum re-entry point. Whether we select North Wales, Western Australia, or a desert island—one with an airfield and some survival possibilities—we can be away within two hours.”

  “Or not,” Jena said.

  Abdul waved exasperated hands in the air. “Last time it was you who was ready to fight us to return.”

  “Yeah, well, I still had hopes my folks would be around uninfected. Now that isn’t likely, there’s even more an argument for staying up here out of harm’s way for as long as possible.”

  Antonio wagged a finger. “But that is exactly the problem, Jena. It is not possible for us to stay longer. Our stores of food, water, and air as well as spare equipment are dangerously low.”

  “That’s because we haven’t tried hard enough with the environment extension programme.” She put her elbows on the table and continued. “I’ve worked out a much more efficient water re-cycling program, which makes use of solar electrolysis apparatus not yet used.”

  “It’s untried out here,” Abdul said.

  “And the same equipment can generate more air, plus we can get away with a lower percentage of oxygen—even two percent less would add a week. As for food—”

  Antonio interrupted, “Are you hanging onto the optimistic possibility of ARIA losing its virility before we return?”

  Vlad said, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if that second case needs to be opened to do just that?”

  “That could always be an option later,” Jena said. “Whereas, if we leave now, we commit ourselves irrevocably to becoming infected within days of landing.”

  “Not if we are careful where we land,” Antonio said.

  “Then there is the bigger picture,” Jena said. “We may be humanity’s only chance of surviving ARIA. We have a duty to stay uninfected and use our communication skills to co-ordinate research and survivors down there.” She tried to stop smiling at her clincher, but her mouth gave her away.

  Abdul wasn’t taken in. “Personally, I don’t want to be gasping for breath at the la
st minute. I’d rather have some leeway with somewhere to come back to.”

  Vlad laughed. “Abdul, my friend, once we leave this station, we won’t be coming back.”

  “At least not once we re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. We have barely enough fuel to have full choice of a landing spot as it is,” said Dan. “However, Jena has a point. But not hoping for ARIA to die out. If the case does have an antidote, it would be irresponsible to delay using it, and for all we know, it has a shelf life of days and will be useless by next week. Her worthier point is that the case is more than just us. We must get it to people who can do something useful with it. To me, that only leaves us going to Ryder in North Wales. They have lab facilities and infection-free people who know how to use it. Anyone with a stronger argument for Charlotte in Western Australia?”

  Antonio spoke up. “Charlotte is the only person on the planet who appears to have been exposed to ARIA yet not infected herself. This makes her both very interesting and a potential salvation.”

  Abdul said, “After talking to her more than you guys. Oh shut up. It’s possible the girl she met might not have had ARIA.”

  Charlotte’s plight tugged at Jena, but she was afraid to say too much, considering her appalling success rate in winning recent arguments. “So you’re saying she isn’t immune to ARIA, just lucky. That’s mean.”

  Dan patted her hand. She glowered at him.

  “I’m not writing her off as a possible medical breakthrough,” Dan said, “but there would be no point landing there. We’d have landing co-ordinates, and there’s a long runway but no lab facilities, and we might attract attention from demented or desperate people.”

  “Allah,” Abdul said, “that could happen wherever we land. They might attack us thinking we’re the alien perpetrators of this madness.”

  Antonio prodded a finger at his temple. “It isn’t madness, just a loss of memory. People still have all their other mental faculties although I admit that as time passes, intelligence will suffer. And I suppose with the confusion and loss of livelihood, starvation, seeing death, knowing that they must have loved ones but not how—si, they would see it as madness...”