by A M Kirk
“Like some prophet of old,” his mother remarked. She curled her legs under her in the chair and sipped the tea, grimacing. “Tell me.”
“There’s something about magnetic fields. I don’t think we really understand about them. They can affect things, animals, people.”
Janette nodded. “Magnets have been known to assist in healing. Some birds use the earth’s magnetic field to navigate over the globe, but no one knows exactly how it’s done. Obviously it’s to do with –“
“Something in the brain,” Mark finished for her. “It’s two weeks since I visited the Museum and every day the feelings have been getting stronger. There’s obviously some connection.”
“Did you go to the Museum on your own?” asked Janette.
“No, Carrie came with me.”
Janette arched an eyebrow ironically. “Oh?”
“Never mind my love life. I know what you’re thinking, you dirty old woman.”
Janette laughed softly.
Mark continued, more sombrely now. “As we passed through the entrance to the field… ”
**********
As Carrie and Mark disembarked from the coach that had brought them to McIntyre’s Field, Mark was struck again by the technology of the craft. Neither he nor Carrie paid any attention to the toffee apple vendors, souvenir sellers or the smells from the hamburger and hot-dog stalls that proliferated in McIntyre’s Field. Each of them paid the owner a franchise fee, naturally.
Visitors passed through a visitors’ centre and paid their entrance money at the set of turnstiles. The area of the field was completely fenced off by strong tungsten wire barriers twelve feet high topped by barbed wire. Armed military guards patrolled the fence. It was felt a military presence had to be maintained, even though no harm had ever come to anyone from the craft or its crew. A barracks and a Command Centre had been set up nearby and the occasional buzz of military helicopters came and went in the background.
Road links to the farm had been drastically improved to cope with the huge volume of traffic bringing the curious to gawp at “The Ship from Across the Universe”. A rail link from Falkirk was being built; hotels were springing up; property values had increased by more than a hundred per cent.
The ship itself was a smooth, flattened spherical structure, like an enormous discus. It had to be smooth, because anything fixed to the outside could be a problem with the friction caused by entering a planet’s atmosphere; only in human science-fiction films did space craft have pipes, junction boxes and antennae bristling on their outsides.
It was, however, huge. Several football pitches could have been laid out inside its area.
It seemed to hang in the air. Three legs provided support, but they were thin, weak-looking structures. The ship had rested in the same spot for five years but the legs had not begun to sink into the soft soil. Some anti-grav effect was being used, but no human understood how. That technology the Soros had not begun to share yet.
A silver metal ramp descended from the shell of the craft to the ground, and this was the entrance to the Museum. Mark could see no other doors or openings. Indeed, the metallic shell appeared to be seamless, as if made from a single massive piece.
With a couple of hundred others, Carrie and Mark made their way up this ramp and passed under the arch of the portal.
At that moment the first dizzy spell overwhelmed Mark.
Carrie half bore him up as he leaned on the ramp safety rail. “What is it?”
“Dizzy. Feel a bit sick.”
Carrie stood by him as others passed them by. Presently a guide – all the guides were human - came over. He wore a grey-blue uniform that was crossed from right shoulder to left hip by a stiff pale yellow sash. Despite his nausea Mark could not help thinking the guide looked like a Thunderbirds puppet from the old TV show. A metallic name tag informed that the guide’s name was Jason.
“Are you all right? Some visitors do experience a bit of giddiness on their first visit. We think it may be something to do with the anti-grav. Once you get inside it will pass. Can you make it into the reception hall? Come on, I’ll help you. If your girlfriend takes that arm…”
The guide led them under the portal and, as predicted, the dizziness went away. The incident was soon forgotten as the reception hall opened up before them. The guide led them to their pre-arranged group and another guide, this one wearing a white sash, began to talk them through the sights.
3-D images on the walls displayed far-off galaxies and nebulae, all brilliantly illuminated; star charts portrayed the Soros’ journey through space; interactive displays showed the Soros home world, a vast planet circling an orange sun. The planet’s surface teemed with life, and above great plains or fertile land, giant cities reared, miles high. Yet there seemed to be no overcrowding, or population problems of any kind, and indeed the voice of the tour guide assured the party of visitors that this was the case. The Soros seemed to have solved all of the problems twenty-first century mankind had inherited from his predecessors and was currently grappling with.
Mark’s eyes lost focus. He was looking into the display of the Soros home world.
Carrie squeezed his arm. “You look funny again. Dizzy?” her voice was a whisper.
“No,” Mark also spoke in low tones. “This is something else. For a moment there I saw something else. Like a shadow of something on the display.”
“A shadow of what?”
“A different reality,” replied Mark simply. His eyes came back into focus. She could see he was afraid, and she grew frightened too. “I see that planet, and I see the orange sun, but it’s like they are laid over another image, a different image. It’s like a puzzle or one of those trick pictures you get, where if you look at it long enough – “
“Oh, yes, I know the kind you mean. All dots and blobs and suddenly a blue dolphin on a motorbike appears in it and it’s been there all the time. Gin and Bitter used to have one in the upstairs loo.”
“That’s it. This picture of their home world is like that. Keep an eye out for dolphins,” said Mark.
“Let’s walk on,” she said, linking arms and moving towards the rest of the group. Carrie did not know where the instinct to appear normal in this place came from, but Mark felt it too. They tried not to look out of place.
“I heard the guide’s voice,” said Mark in a low tone, “and I was looking at the images when suddenly it all seemed fake, and it was like I could hear other voices, voices behind these walls and screens, saying something completely different, something that made all this be – a lie.”
“What voices? What were they saying?”
His eyes unfocused again. “Not human voices… but I could understand them. The Soros, I think. It’s all very weird.”
“You’re telling me!”
The guide was saying, “And this door leads into other parts of the ship – the crew quarters, their rest rooms, their games facilities – for the Soros love to play games, ladies and gentlemen…”
That part is true, thought Mark.
“… and although access is not permitted, for fear of contamination, we are allowed to see the Soros at work and play by means of these viewscreens…”
But the beings they saw were wearing space suits and helmets. No features could be seen. There were six figures, some of them at some kind of work at consoles carrying out some alien programming, or holding what seemed to be checklists. Two in particular, Mark noticed, were engrossed in a board game whose patterned colours and odd carved shapes set out in an incomprehensible pattern, reminded him of chess.
“Don’t they ever take those suits off?” one of the visitors asked.
“The Soros can take no risk of infection while on this planet. The slightest germ that would be perfectly harmless to you and me might have a catastrophic effect on them. Why, among our own species the common cold wiped out whole populations of South Pacific Islanders in the eighteenth century simply because the col
d germ was unknown to the Islanders. European sailors had brought it there. So no, the Soros will take no chances. Deep within the craft, I understand, there is the “Inner Sanctum”, where they can take off their suits, but no human can go there or camera show it.”
“Why not?” someone asked.
“In the same way as come of our religious priests observe the idea of an inner sanctum, so the Soros like to have their privacy. In the Jewish religion, for example…”
“Do you see how everything is related to human experience?” whispered Mark.
Carrie nodded. “Makes it all seem plausible,” she murmured. “And it doesn’t sound right. What do you think?” asked Mark.
“I don’t know. The guide’s obviously spouting a prepared speech…”
“And it doesn’t sound like the truth.”
“No, I think I agree with you. Now that you’ve said that, I think I see what you mean. It’s blue dolphins, boy, on motorbikes!”
Other wonders were there to behold. The births and deaths of stars, the bizarre views from the ship as it travelled near the speed of light, the strange creatures existing on other worlds – but nowhere, not in all the cosmos, were species as intelligent as the Soros or humankind. Intelligence was a slow attribute to evolve, and only occurred in very rare places.
“For the universe,” rounded off the guide, “as the Soros assure us, at six billion years, is still a very young place.”
Mark looked at the door that led to the so-called Inner Sanctum. He felt drawn to it for reasons he could not explain. Something seemed to call him to it, softly urging him to take the risk and press the panel at the side that would cause the doors to slide up.
“Come on,” said Carrie. “Come on! What are you so nosy about that door for? You’re getting that look again. Let’s go.”
Finally as they passed through the portal by the way they had come, Mark looked up. A small semi-sphere, half the size of a gold ball, was embedded in the metal-work above the reception area. It did not move, it did not flash red like any CCTV camera, it just glinted dully in the reception hall’s light. But Mark had the certain feeling that someone or something was observing him very closely.
It was not a good feeling.
But the idea of it passed when the dizziness assailed him again, worse than before, as he left the ship. Carrie struggled to help him down the rampway and away from the craft’s shadow.
12Dreams
The evening light had deepened as Janette listened to her son’s story.
“There was some kind of force, I think, on that ship, that changed me in some way, and made me more receptive to… things,” said Mark. “And when you wired me up to the magnetic resonance imager this morning, that gave it an extra push.”
Janette had made another cup of tea during Mark’s account of his visit, the first being finally undrinkable. She stirred sugar into it.
“So to sum up: you think the Soros are up to something. The trip to their ship has set something off in your head, some ‘sensory organ’ and when I passed the magnetic resonator over you that augmented the effect. Somehow the Soros know you know something and they want to kill you. To do that they aim a satellite beam weapon at our house and make a hole in the landscape. Yes. It all makes wonderful sense now. Let’s go to the police.”
Mark laughed. “It’s all a bit tricky, isn’t it?” He smiled, but then his smile faded, and he said simply, “I know these things, mum. I know them.” He stood up impatiently and moved to the window, looking out. “ I’d like to give Carrie a call. Just to let her know we’re all right.”
Janette said nothing. She looked out of the window too, lost in her own thoughts.
“I’ll give her a call,” said Mark. “But I don’t want to use a mobile. I’ll use the call box just outside, in that car park there. Can you lend me a euro?”
“Sure. Mark, you know... I do believe you. I have to. I’ve seen the proof. You’re it. The proof is you. Give her my best.” She handed over her wallet and Mark took out the small silver coin. He could have used a phone card, but he wasn’t sure if that could be traced or not, and there was no knowing what the Soros might try next.
The clouds in his mind were still clearing but there were many of them. Outside, the sky was a clear July evening blue. He crossed the road to the phone box, put in the coin and dialled Carrie’s number.
Her father picked it up, and without identifying himself Mark asked for Carrie. He didn’t want to stay on the phone too long, and speaking to Mr Jenkins would take up time. In a moment she picked up what Mark felt (knew) was the extension in the upstairs landing.
“Hello? Who is it?”
“It’s me – Mark.”
“Mark? Mark!” A lot of noise came from the receiver, whoops and general exclamations of relief. Once Carrie had calmed down a little she said, “It’s been on all the news programmes – a gas explosion, two feared dead, etc, etc. But I knew you were all right. I just knew it. Boy, I’m glad to hear your voice.”
“Carrie – “ He was about to tell her about it all when an almost tangible fear, invaded the call box. Images, very fast but very vivid, flooded his mind.
Printed circuits and CPUs; electrons moving and being moved at the speed of light; information flowing; an alien face, indescribable, looking up from programming at a console, horribly certain; cold space and a satellite turning on an axis; Carrie’s phone line, connected to a larger network; everything connected to the larger network; someone, an American army officer, jumping up from his console deep inside a mountain and shouting angrily; and the satellite, turning, turning.
“Carrie! I have to go! I’ll call you later!”
He flung the phone down, lunged out of the door.
“Mum! Mu – um!” His shouts shattered the peace of the street.
Across the road, tearing the door open. “Mum!”
His mother’s slim form moves fast at the top of the stairs. She knows. She has grabbed the little bags containing all their worldly goods. She has presence of mind and she is racing down the stairs to join him. She pauses at the foot for two seconds, for though she knows destruction is imminent she cannot let the other people in the bed and breakfast house die.
Mark has stopped at the street door, holding it open. His face is wide-eyed with panic. “Come ON!”
She shouts one word: “FIRE!” and smashes the glass alarm at her side. The alarm sounds and voices are heard, but Janette is away and out, and the two are running, running.
Twenty-five metres.
Behind them puzzled residents are emerging from the b & b.
Fifty metres now.
They had parked the car a couple of streets away and they run to it now. They bend breathlessly, wheezing over the bonnet. Three minutes have passed and behind them, behind the houses of a couple of streets a gas main ignites and a family’s livelihood is blown in pieces through the air. The explosion rocks Janette and Mark and makes them move again. They get into the car. Janette flings the bags into the back seat. Chunks of stone, wood and plaster begin to land. The car drives quickly away and inside it Janette and Mark are shivering with terror.
**********
Courage is what comes after fear. You cannot have courage unless you first face fear. It is the power that makes the human get up and keep going; it overrides the emotions and speaks with calm, clear logic, and it says what must be done. Sometimes running away is what must be done.
Mark and Janette fled for an hour. They spoke little in that time, except for swearing occasionally to express shocked disbelief. Janette had no idea where she was aiming the car and didn’t care, just as long as it was away from back there.
But quarter of an hour after leaving Crieff, as they sped out of the little village of St Fillans on the shore of Loch Earn, they did not notice the battered Jeep that emerged from a lay-by and began to follow at a discreet distance.
**********
Clear skies and a s
etting sun as the car sped down the long straight road that leads to the little settlement of Bridge of Orchy, which consists of a railway station, a tiny garage selling both petrol and hydrogen fuel, a handful of houses and a hotel. After that, nothing until Glen Coe except the bleak hypnotic expanse of Rannoch Moor, mile after mile of undulating peat bog, stream and lochan. The unfenced road was the only security for the campers and caravans, the coaches and cars that traversed it by the hundred daily in the summer.
The car slowed on the approach to the settlement – it hardly deserves the name of village – and pulled in to the hotel car park. Only one space remained, recently vacated by a group who had just had dinner in the hotel and were ready to move on. Janette reversed the car into the space. Just in case a quick getaway was required.
“Where are we?“ asked Mark. “I know there was sign back there, but –“
“A place called Bridge of Orchy. Out there’s the Orchy – that’s the name of the river – and behind that corner you come to the bridge. Bridge of Orchy.”
They sat in silence for a while, still too numbed by what had happened.
“You’ve been here before then?” Mark asked.
Janette nodded. “With your father. We used to visit the Highlands quite a lot.”
A massive slope rose steeply in front of them. Its upper reaches were beautifully lit by sun. “What’s that hill?” asked Mark.
“Ben Dorain.”
“Oh. Have you been up it?”
“No. But your dad had.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly Mark yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking, tonsil-shaking mouth-opener. “I’m tired,” he remarked, superfluously.
“We need a good rest,” replied his mother. “You in particular. Dare we check into this hotel?”
“I don’t know.”
Janette drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “You’re tired and I’m starving. Let’s risk it. We can pay cash. Get the bags, will you? A change of clothes might be in order.”