by A M Kirk
You are very near this “truth” that you seek, Mark Daniels. Do you want our help?
Mark glanced behind the Soros. The door was there. He had to go through it. Without moving a muscle he stretched out his thought and made it open.
Ahhhh… Very strong. But are you ready to see what is beyo –
“Never mind the melodrama,” said Mark out loud. He started confidently towards the doorway.
Deep within the space ship a low vibration was suddenly only just perceptible. Mark was at the doorway when he became aware of it.
Striped Arm was beside him and the gloved hand closed around Mark’s upper arm.
I will show you. We will go together.
Mark shrugged off the guiding hand and began to walk straight towards the room he had seen in his dream.
I warn you, said the Soros in Mark’s mind. You must be ready to face what you are about to discover.
“I’m ready.”
The vibration grew slightly in intensity.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
No – you are not.
Suddenly strong hands seized and pinned his arms from behind. He had no time to react. Simultaneously he felt cold sharp pressure on the back of his neck and the prick of a many-pointed syringe. His neck went cold. Mark felt his legs fall from under him and the same strong arms bear him up. Then he lost consciousness…
**********
As they were driving away from McIntyre’s Field, to report to the Field Command Centre and explain themselves, Janette began to scream.
For the past few moments she had been aware of a low humming vibration emanating from the space ship. Now Roberts skewed the car to a halt and the engine stalled. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen movement, then turned. What she then saw, on the other side of the perimeter fence, was the Soros ship effortlessly starting to rise, slowly at first, then with greater velocity.
They all got out of the car and ran to the fence. Janette rattled it furiously and impotently. The ships legs were disappearing into its body. She was still screaming NO! when the ship, moments later, moved smoothly and soundlessly into the sky and vanished entirely from sight. Carrie fell to her knees in the damp grass and her anguish found expression in long, desperate wail.
An army Landrover approached down the narrow road. It stopped before the car, blocking its path. Another vehicle came up behind. Four burly soldiers, armed with rifles, got out. They surrounded the car, rifle barrels trained on Janette and Carrie. Roberts began to reach inside his jacket for his ID but a warning wave from a rifle muzzle brought his movement to an abrupt halt. He raised his hands above his head.
27Cheyenne Mountain
It was 2.15am when the US Defense Control Command Facility was thrown into uproar. Locke came growling from his sleeping quarters in the annexe adjoining his offices and began barking to subordinates to tell him what the hell was going on.
Jack Bruce was not due to come on duty until later that morning, but Sam Webster had come back on three hours previously and it was to him that the General finally came for answers. “This had better be a goddam nuclear attack, boy,” declared Locke, “or I’ll have your ass on a bed of side salad for this goddam hullabaloo. Shut off the alarms for Chrissakes, shut them OFF!”
Someone pressed the mute button and the wailing alarms suddenly dropped in volume but continued to sound less insistently in the background. Throughout the room screens were flicking off and on insanely and perplexed analysts and operators were throwing up their hands and turning to each other in baffled, frustrated confusion.
On the wall was mounted a huge plasma display screen showing the world in detail. A red light was flashing over Scotland, and another winked on and off over Baffin Bay in Canada. Yellow lights converged very slowly on both.
Webster said: “First off, sir, this UFO appeared over the magnetic pole in Northern Canada. The Nunavut Territory up there is bristling with radar installations left over from the Cold War and some of them are still functioning. We have no visual confirmation as to what it is yet, because the magnetic field up there’s going haywire and disrupting everything, but it seems to be that one second there was nothing but sky and the next there was an alien ship the size of Manhattan. It’s enormous, sir! There’s a strike force in the area and a squadron of Eagles is making good time to its location so we should eyeball it in a few minutes. My hunch is it’s the Soros ship we suspected was there all along – the one that’s been sending those electro-magnetic signals to interfere with the Nordik.”
“What’s this other blip?” asked the General, nodding towards the screen. “Is it what I think it is?”
“It’s the Soros ship in Scotland, sir.”
“It’s airborne or it wouldn’t be appearing on the screen!”
“Affirmative, sir. We have audio confirmation that the Soros ship began to lift off two minutes ago. They’re on the move.”
“Satellite surveillance? Have we got the Nordiks on line – any of them?”
“Negative, sir. Telemetry has been totally disrupted. The goddam satellites are acting like they’ve got minds of their own.”
“Scramble all aircraft. Get the President on to Airforce One right away. And patch me through to him right now. I want the codes for DEFCON 1.”
Webster gulped and was aware his hands were shaking. “That’s nuclear attack status. Do you think –“
“Just do it, boy. Then notify Talbot in Scotland of our change in alert status and patch me through to him too. Come on, shake your ass!”
Webster hastened to activate the comm-links; it took only seconds to put Locke into contact with the President, who was already being rushed in his limousine to the nearest airport where Airforce One could pick him up.
In the meantime Locke watched the viewscreen with mounting amazement. The red blip over Scotland suddenly moved with incredible speed away from the yellow lights – they represented RAF jets – leaving them far behind. The larger blip over Canada also increased velocity and headed out over the Atlantic. The blips converged above a point to the south of Iceland, and two became one. That one proceeded to move with gathering speed up over the Arctic Ocean and then…
… vanished.
“President on line, sir,” said Webster.
General Locke picked up the phone.
“Herb? What the hell’s happening? Herb?” President Luis de la Frontera was enjoying his second term in office and had presided over what was sure to go down as one of the most significant eras in human history, yet he could not disguise the apprehension in his voice.
“Mr President,” Locke began, “I have to report that… the Soros have gone.”
Sam Webster called out, “I’ve got the NASA tracking system on-line, sir. The ship’s left earth orbit.”
“I’m sorry, Mr President, things are happening quickly here - hold on, sir. Webby – punch it up on screen.”
What appeared was a computer-generated image produced by earth-bound radar stations and those satellites still functioning. The screen showed the earth as a circle and the moon over eastern Russia. The red light of the Soros ship was moving at a speed no earth craft could have matched. In less than a minute it had crossed the orbit of the moon, 400,000 kilometers away, and then the tracking devices could no longer keep up and it vanished again.
“Mr President – they’ve gone.”
“Gone? What on earth are you talking about, Herb? How can they be ‘gone’?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied the General. “I just do not know.”
Again Webster interrupted: “General Talbot on sec-line 1, sir!”
“Excuse me again, Mr President.” Locke picked up the secure link to Allied Command HQ in Stirling. He listened for a few moments without speaking. Sam Webster thought the General’s face lost even more of its colour.
“I see,” Locke said finally. “Thank you, Andrew.” To de la Frontera, who was still being hastened towards Airforce One, he said, “The Sor
os have indeed gone, it seems. And that fifteen-year old boy we thought they were trying to kill – they’ve taken him with them.”
28The Soros #2
Coming aware again, Mark knew he was not awake. He could not see in the normal sense of the word, but he could perceive things, sense them and know them. He knew above all he was now a prisoner.
His body lay on a kind of trolley. Three of the Soros were gathered round him, still wearing space suits. He understood their words.
Let us do it now, said one. Take what we need! The tone was harsh, impatient, angry.
No, said another. This was Striped Arm. It pleases me to wait a little. We have time.
Mark realised that electrodes and wires led from various parts of his body to a selection of monitors, similar to what he had seen in hospitals or on hospital programmes, but the external designs were noticeably different. Their surfaces looked crusty, rather than smoothly metallic.
His alpha monitor suggests he is now conscious of us. I want to talk to him.
Why? Why talk? Enough of talk. Enough of your games. We must do it now. Take what we need now!
The third Soros, silent until now, said, We have had our fun, fooling the humans.. But now there can be little time despite what you think. The others are coming. What is to be gained by prolonging this further?
The second Soros replied: For me, the final triumph, the greatest satisfaction, comes in the human knowing, finally and helplessly, what this has all been about. I want him to know that, just as he was approaching his greatest power, we took that from him. Just as we approached our greatest power, their ancestors took it from us! I want the whole race to know that. I want them all to know! The game must end here! The Soros’s voice had been rising in vehemence and he banged the trolley forcefully to emphasise his point.
This Soros approached Mark, who felt utterly powerless. Little human boy, it hissed at him. Did you think you could outwit us? Us? We have played you, like reeling in a flapping fish. Our satellites watched almost every step of your so-called ‘escape’ in your primitive vehicles. You have been blindly following our plans all along!
I want to talk to him, repeated Striped Arm, in a gentler tone. There was no emotion in his voice, but there was an authority in it that made the others acquiesce. The two Soros withdrew, albeit with reluctance.
From a small tray at the head of the trolley, Striped Arm took a small needle. He injected it straight into Mark’s carotid artery.
Wakefulness did not return with the drug. Mark had no control over his limbs, but he felt he could now control his face and mouth – he could speak.
You can speak and you can follow me with your perceptive mind,” said Striped Arm. “If I show you something you can see it; if I think of something you can see it. Is this not so? Answer.
“Yes.”
Listen to me, Mark Daniels, and listen well. I am going to tell you what you are. I am going to show you things the like of which you have never seen…
What followed was like a drug-induced hallucination, or a series of mirages, bizarre in content and form. The communication with the Soros was entirely telepathic. Colours were enhanced, shapes rendered strangely distorted and alien, like the machines surrounding his trolley.
Mark could see a map. It was a map following the same principles as a human map, showing a planet, but divided up into orange-like segments to give a more accurate perspective on the land/sea ratio, similar to the Mercator projections Mark had seen in atlases in Geography lessons. Most of this world was sea. On one side, however was a huge, solid-looking land mass, while on the other was a collection of what seemed to be pieces of land, loosely joined together. One piece, vaguely triangular in shape was detached from the rest, a brown and green patch in its setting of blue. There were large water features within the larger collection of land chunks.
And when Mark looked closely at the land formations in this loose conglomeration, he saw shapes that he recognised.
Yes, indeed, said the Soros. This is our map room, you see, and also our Museum. Our little joke. We do love our little jokes and games. We termed our ship a “Museum”. And indeed, the maps you see around you, on the walls and on the tables, are millions of years old. Some of these maps are maps of planets which have, as I speak, ceased to exist. Some of these planets were home to great civilizations, oh yes, very great indeed. Insects, mammals, reptiles, birds – somewhere amongst the infinity of all those stars all life-forms, including a great many not found on Earth, find the upper hand sooner or later. But nowhere did we find any civilization so advanced as ours, or one which even approached our brilliance.
And here is a paradox for you, Mark: this space ship is only three hundred years old.
(Mark saw the Soros ship flying smoothly through dark spaces between stars.)
And yet it is also sixty-five million years old. A paradox, a riddle. Can you riddle me that? I wonder.
“Yes,” said Michael, “I can. You came from Earth. “
You are indeed intelligent! said the Soros
“And you are – “
We are the last survivors of the high culture that flourished on this planet nearly seventy million years ago. If you could have seen what we really look like beneath our suits, you humans would have labelled us “dinosaurs”, and in your supreme ignorant arrogance you would have regarded us as your inferiors. Simply because we do not look like you. Such is human nature.
Soros!
Our idea of a pun. Of course none of you realised it. Di – no – saurs! Take the last syllable, trace it back in your etymology and you will find its meaning. You would call us lizards, reptiles; and you would wrinkle up your smooth faces in disgust as you said those words for we are the creatures most humans fear more than any other. Ah – I see our ship’s environment is re-established now, so I can show you my true form.
Mark looked on as Striped Arm removed first his helmet, which was effected by detaching certain tubes and plugs and lifting it off, and then the body suit, which was removed in the same way a human would.
The Soros stood before him.
The head was larger than a human head, the features flatter, the eyes much larger and hooded with scaly skin. Thick bony ridges surrounded eyes and nose. There was no hair. Thick cords of muscle held up the head, for the Soros was a biped. The arms were similar to human arms only much more muscled and stronger, and the body was sheathed in a thick, scaly armour that would take the skin off human knuckles. The groin area was smooth, the genitalia being held inside the body until the season for use. The legs were well muscled and the knees hinged in the opposite direction from that of humans, which made the Soros look like someone had given the top half a savage twist of 180 degrees so he was facing backwards. There were three toes. The hands, however, had three fingers and an opposing thumb, a feature which anthropologists and biologists had correctly deduced was necessary for the development of tool-handling capability in any species. Behind, there was only the vestige of a tail, for like humans that appendage was no longer needed for balance and so had all but disappeared.
The creature continued:
We are the original civilised beings from Planet Earth. Look at our map. And this point here was our first homeland. It has long since vanished under the surface of the planet, by the constant moving of the planet’s tectonic plates. That is an area you would call the Pacific Ocean. And here is my home. Do you recognise this area?
Mark looked. It’s Scotland, he thought, or what Scotland was millions of years ago. That is why they are here, in this place rather than another.
Yes! But now you will find no more trace of the beautiful cities we built or the wonders we created in our time on earth. Believe me, we have looked. Our high culture, ten million years in the making, which resulted in our ability to fly to the stars, is as if it had never existed.
As our land has vanished, so yours has come to the fore – that triangular shape is what you now call India (he pointed to the map) and, a few mil
lion years after the making of this map, it collided with Asia and formed the Himalayas. This, as you correctly perceive, is Scotland, and the mountains here were the oldest in the world, higher than the Himalayas are now. Yet, like our culture, and our cities, and the people we left behind, even these mountains will be ground down by time and fade away, and all that will remain of them is what you now call the Scottish Highlands.
That little sea – it was only about five hundred kilometres across at one time – is what you call the Atlantic. That small patch of water, no more than a pond really, will become the Mediterranean Sea.
“Pangea, “said Mark. A name recalled from a programme on the Discovery Channel. The name for the original super-continent. “That was the map I drew from my dream…”
Yes. Pangea is your name for it. This was our world. Now gone. Try to imagine what we feel.. Can you imagine that? No, you cannot possibly. Ah – but then, you know what it is like to lose a home. We made sure of that, Michael. Not quite the same thing, but now we can talk on a very slightly more equal footing. You feel sorrow – and there is another of our little jokes. We feel sorrows – the Soros. But our sorrows are deeper and sharper than you can possibly imagine.
Mark saw the image of a small creature being tended by a mother. They were Soros, yet the affection between them was obvious even to his human perceptions. This domestic scene, some kind of recording perhaps, or a memory given 3-D representation, was in a room high up, very high up in some enormous towering building, for behind, through a narrow open window in a thick stone wall, Mark could see out over a magnificent landscape. Behind the mother and baby was evidence of a mighty civilization capable of magnificent creations: a mountainous landscape filled and crowned with wonders indeed.
Then Mark appeared to be flying through this ancient landscape, so different from the one he knew. He could even feel the moist coolness of white clouds on his goose-fleshed arms as he flew between shining towers, kilometres high, and gleaming citadels, fertile valleys, soaring peaks. He crossed, hundreds of feet up, a vast plateau parkland. Gigantic beasts roamed in herds.