by Ian Young
‘Oh, please. Pete, it makes no sense whatsoever. In any case, what if God was a woman?’
Pete’s head jerks back as though Alabama has spat at him. ‘I suppose,’ he says, curling his lip and looking at a space above her head. ‘But women have only recently come to the fore in society. They’ve always been second to man throughout our short history, so if something doesn’t make sense it’s the idea of God being a woman. Why would a female God then grant man the power over women?’
‘Because she allowed man the strength and free will to do so,’ says Alabama wearily. ‘Someone had to be in charge, and someone had to go out and gather food. It’s natural that a female God would put women in charge and send the men out on errands. The only problem was that she had to endow men with the size and strength to take on this role, and, like men do, they took advantage of this physical superiority.’
‘You’ve got a point,’ says Pete, nodding sagely as though seriously considering her argument. ‘And history is written by the victors, so man painted God in his own image, claiming that, in fact, it was the other way round.’
‘I guess.’ Alabama immediately rolls her eyes and sighs. Somehow, this guy has her arguing the case for God. ‘Regardless,’ she says, ‘the only thing that actually makes sense about Adam and Eve is that Eve was able to talk her man into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. But what makes no sense is why the hell she did so.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If I were Eve, I would have eaten the apple, or whatever it was, and kept Adam in the dark. Knowledge is power.’
‘Cunning.’ Pete nods and claps his hands together lightly. ‘So you are Eve.’
Alabama frowns and tilts her head at him. ‘Explain.’
‘You have the knowledge, you’ve eaten more than one apple, that’s clear. You’re a Harvard graduate and a doctor of astrophysics. You’ve eaten from the tree of knowledge but now you’ve deserted God.’
‘I see that as a purpose in life.’
‘I see it as a bad thing. I think it’s clear from our discussion that women should not be educated, and there are religious movements on this planet that pursue that very policy.’
Alabama flushes instantly. She stares at her date, wondering if his words, once they rattled round her head a while, would re-translate into something else. She misunderstood, didn’t she? Surely her neural network got that wrong. He didn’t actually say that women shouldn’t be educated, did he? This is America, for fuck’s sake. But the words that made it into her head remain as they were spoken. Alabama knows her entire face is Plum Perfect now.
‘What the fuck—’ Alabama is cut dead by her cell phone. She grabs it up and thinks seriously of throwing it across the table at Pete. ‘Dr Fox,’ she says, fighting the urge.
‘Hey, Alabama, it’s John Kendrick.’
‘Hey, babe, what can I do for you?’
Alabama listens for a minute then hangs up. ‘I have to go, it’s been … enlightening.’ Alabama stands, grabs her coat and leaves. She gets as far as the door before realising she hasn’t left anything for the check, but then thinks, fuck it.
She rushes into the Harvard lab, all thoughts of religion purged from her mind like a poisoned gas. ‘What’s all this?’ she says. ‘You’ve got me dripping with excitement.’
‘Eloquent as ever,’ says Kendrick, smirking at Steiner. ‘Dr Fox, meet Frank Steiner from LA.’
Alabama slews her head sideways in an expression of scepticism. ‘Frank Steiner?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says the journalist. ‘My mother was a Mary Shelley fan, and my dad was a pushover.’
‘Right.’ Alabama curls her lip and holds Steiner’s gaze for second. ‘So,’ she says, turning quickly to Kendrick. ‘What you got, babe?’
Kendrick shows the astrophysicist the solar map on the monitor, but doesn’t explain where the image came from.
‘Yeah, three planets orbiting a star,’ Alabama looks more closely. ‘Probably a red supergiant, judging by the scale.’
‘We think these two planets are Uranus and Neptune,’ says Kendrick.
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because the sun has expanded and swallowed up the Earth and all the other planets.’
‘What about that one?’ Alabama nods her head at the screen.
‘Pluto?’
‘Too big, and not far enough away.’
‘Well, anyway,’ says Steiner, ‘whatever it is, it isn’t Earth.’
‘No. And that’s not the sun,’ says Alabama. ‘Our sun isn’t and never will be this big. This humongous fucker’s going to pop one day.’
‘You mean supernova?’ asks Steiner, raising his eyebrows at Kendrick, who shrugs.
‘Obviously. Where is this? Which star? Hey, have you guys stumbled on a new system?’
‘I guess,’ says Kendrick. ‘We thought it was our future.’
‘No way.’
‘So, it isn’t human then,’ says Steiner.
‘What isn’t human?’ Alabama jerks her head around to Steiner like she’s been slapped.
‘Uh … shit.’ Kendrick throws his arms up. ‘OK, we gotta show her.’
Alabama’s body tingles like a ghost is passing through her. ‘Show me what, show me what? What’ve you found? Is this some top secret government project?’
‘No,’ says Steiner, ‘but it is top secret. Take a look through the glass there.’ Steiner points at the observer window in the microscope.
‘Yeah, what is it?’
‘A scientist from UCLA found it on a dive to the bottom of the ocean. We think, well, John thinks, it’s what seeded life on Earth.’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ says Alabama, turning sharply away from the window.
‘Charming,’ says Kendrick. ‘You can take the redneck out of Dixie but you can’t—’
‘You know damn well I’m from New York. My dad was from Alabama, not me. And he’s a lawyer, not a redneck.’
‘Anyway,’ says Steiner, carefully, ‘you’re looking at the data held within the artefact.’
Steiner explains the story of the ball and the hidden database stored as DNA. He tells her about the ball’s unusual behaviour and how it came to be in his possession. Alabama is shaking.
‘In which case, it could be our past, our very distant past. That might be a population II star.’
‘Go on.’
‘Population II stars are generally older, bigger and brighter than Population I stars. They contain mostly hydrogen and helium and usually go pop in the end. When a star goes supernova it creates the heavier elements in our universe, the metals, and these then form into population I stars, like our sun.’
‘Yeah, that rings a bell,’ says Steiner.
‘You know, life has started only once on this planet, once in four and a half billion years. Every life form has evolved from one single event. Of course, you know this. Fantastically fluky events contrived to create the razor-thin set of conditions that were needed to allow life to begin and then to flourish. Life began and gained a foothold despite infinitesimally tiny odds.’ Alabama feels like she’s giving a lecture to high school students.
Kendrick nods sagely at Steiner, who pulls an expression of agreement.
‘There are billions of galaxies that contain billions of stars in each. The scope for life elsewhere is infinitely large and it would be crazy to doubt life exists someplace else in our universe. But that possibility is matched and countered by the infinitely small chance of life beginning here. And just as small, the fact it gained a foothold and survived long enough to evolve into intelligent life. For this reason, I’ve always held the belief that we were alone in the universe.’
‘Well, this thing definitely solves a few problems, if it’s for real.’
&nbs
p; Alabama nods. ‘Exactly. Tiny chance or not, life did begin and then flourish on Earth.’
Steiner holds his hand up. ‘Uh, but this isn’t our solar system, so … so life did begin elsewhere in the universe?’
‘Not necessarily,’ says Alabama. ‘The most likely explanation for this thing of yours turning up here is if the solar system in question was right here, before us. To paraphrase someone else: a long time ago, in a galaxy right here. The supernova we’ve just watched created the lumps of rocks that went on to form everything in our solar system. And this little guy was there to see it all.’
‘So this is a record of someone else’s lifecycle?’ Steiner glances from Kendrick to Alabama.
‘Weird, isn’t it?’ says Alabama, gazing at the ball.
‘What’s weird?’ asks Steiner.
‘That evolution’s played out in exactly the same way both times.’
Chapter 14
John Kendrick pushes past the waiting journalists and into his car. He gets the impression they’re more interested in a Harvard professor getting involved in ludicrous claims than the claims themselves.
The artefact contains ribonucleic acid, the molecules that many believe fuelled early cells before evolving into what we might recognise as life. That half of the ball was exposed each time Kendrick dunked the ball in hot water, facing north. It was no leap of science to relate those conditions to those that existed where life is, in some quarters, believed to have started: thermal vents at the bottom of the oceans.
Steiner is already in the car, having been comparatively ignored by the baying journalists. ‘Don’t run over too many as you reverse out,’ he says with a wink as Kendrick climbs into the driver’s seat.
‘Uh, starting with you, Steiner. I mean, why d’ya have to go and open your mouth already?’
‘Relax, we got plenty to show them. Tomorrow we’ll hold a press conference and stun the world. They won’t think we’re wackos then.’
‘Hell, this is exciting,’ says Kendrick. ‘I’ve figured out the facing north conundrum.’
Steiner looks impressed. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s checking there’s a magnetic field.’
‘Because life can’t survive on a planet without one?’
‘Exactly. If we lost our magnetic field we’d be stripped bare like Mars. This thing was programmed to open up and seed life on Earth when conditions were right.’
‘Whoa. And the vibrating?’
The Harvard scientist eases the car through the crowd of journalists, squinting against the myriad flash bulbs. ‘Still working on that one. Obviously it softens the gel, but I don’t know why yet.’
‘But none of this proves anything,’ says Steiner.
Already the rush hour traffic is calming and Kendrick’s route home has been largely trouble-free. He lives only a couple of miles or so from campus, but usually his commute takes twenty minutes. Now, in the late evening, after just a few minutes, he’s nearly home.
‘Remember what Alabama worked out?’ Kendrick stops at some lights. ‘The star in the database might be the one that existed right here before our own sun. We know all this stuff.’
‘So?’
‘Jeez, Frank. This ball ain’t from outer space. It’s from right here, right here before we were here. Whoever made this ball lived right here.’ The light changes from red to green and Kendrick moves. ‘My guess is that this artefact was buried in a lump of rock on a planet that was consumed during the supernova, and somehow found its way into our lump of rock.’
‘I don’t suppose it matters how, just that it did,’ says Steiner. ‘An advanced civilisation that left us a time capsule. Shit! The data that’ll be coded in that DNA, it’s freaking scary.’
‘It’s not a time capsule.’ Kendrick brings the car to a halt in the communal parking lot outside his apartment building. ‘Here we are.’
Kendrick releases his seat belt and grabs the door handle, but the door is wrenched open before he can pull the lever. A gloved hand grabs a handful of his thinning hair and pulls him sideways. As he tumbles from the car, he hears gunfire, a single bullet that smashes into Steiner’s head, killing him instantly.
‘On the floor. Now! Face down. Lie still.’
Kendrick freezes, his cheek against the cold tarmac, heart pounding like he’s been dropped into icy water. He can see the gunman’s booted feet striding around the car then Steiner’s body joins his on the floor. There’s no need to tell Steiner to lie still. The gunman rushes back around to Kendrick and orders him back in the car. He can’t move, his body in shock, his limbs unresponsive.
‘Get in the car, get in the car.’ The gunman yanks him up by the arm and shoves him into the driver’s seat. ‘Where is it?’
‘Wh-what, wh-where is what?’
‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t know, wh—’
‘Don’t fuck with me.’ The gunman climbs in the back and holds the barrel of the pistol to Kendrick’s head. ‘One more time. Where is it?’
‘Wh—’
‘Don’t fucking say “what” again!’
‘The artefact? You mean the artefact.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Shit.’ Kendrick feels his stomach fluttering as his breathing becomes spasmodic. He hasn’t felt like this since Third Grade when an older student waited for him outside school, having threatened to beat him senseless. Kendrick thinks he might cry now as he did then.
‘In the bag, there,’ he says, hoping that’s what the guy is after.
‘Give it me.’
Kendrick hands the bag over without turning round. He hears the gunman rifling through the bag.
‘It that it?’
Kendrick looks in the mirror and nods.
‘Drive.’
‘Where to?’
‘The airport.’
Chapter 15
Albuquerque, New Mexico
What did Mason say to me? ‘Your artefact will be in the hands of the Vrazi sent to kill them. It’s over, Andi, you’re safe now.’ He clearly has no idea about scientists. When Neil Armstrong stepped off that ladder, did he feel safe? I doubt it. But he did it anyway. Darwin certainly didn’t feel safe trekking through my country two hundred years ago, but the pursuit of scientific discovery is rarely safe. It is, though, what we live for – what I live for.
I’m determined to get Howie’s baseball back whatever it takes. I owe it to him, and to myself. And if it turns out to reveal that Adam and Eve is nonsense, and Darwin was right, then I owe it to the world.
In any case the plane has already been chartered and our onward tickets bought. What would I do in LA? There’s a dead body on my carpet and my lover is in the morgue; if these Vrazi guys weren’t after me the cops would be. If I don’t get Howie’s ball back it will be for nothing.
We’ve been in this remote airport for about twenty minutes. I hope the next flight will be more comfortable than the last. Mason sat up front with Joris, like he was the co-pilot, pointing at things on the ground, nodding knowingly when Joris tapped a finger on the satnav display. Two days ago he thought he was a scientist, suggesting how to conduct an experiment on an alien artefact. Now he’s a pilot. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t taken to him (despite him saving my life and being a perfect gentleman), you know, the smug grin, the clipped speech, all so superior.
I’ve never been airsick before, until today. It’s hardly surprising, all things considered. Joris chucked the sick bag out of the window because the nauseous smell was putting him off flying the plane. Jeez, that’s all I needed. I watched the bag shoot past my window on its way down, but below was only desert so I didn’t feel too bad about it. I ran out of sick bags, too, but then again, there’s nothing more in my stomach either. When I last heaved, nothing came out.
/> Joris landed the little plane smoothly, accompanied, perhaps, by that skidding noise you often hear in the movies, but my headphones were pretty effective at blocking out most noises. Except Mason’s voice; there was an intercom I couldn’t switch off. He kept asking if I was OK, providing a commentary like I’m on a fear of flying course.
Anyway, our next flight should be in a proper plane. Double Eagle II Airport is one of those small regional airports where most of the planes are like those at Brackett’s. Only an occasional Boeing drops by to take passengers a little further afield. That’s what we’re waiting for now. The courier was already here, ready to hand Mason an envelope containing the passports and credit card. I really didn’t expect it to happen. The more I think about it, the more puzzled I become. I open the passport and held it up to Mason.
‘Where did they get this photo of me from?’
Mason shrugs. ‘Probably doctored from photos of you on Facebook.’
‘I’m not on Facebook.’
‘From a selfie then, I suppose.’
‘I’ve only ever taken one selfie, and that was on the boat, and I never shared it with anyone.’
Mason says nothing but my mind is racing. ‘Your organisation must have hacked my phone!’
‘Sorry, Andi,’ he says, pulling that consoling face again.
‘You’re as bad as the Pillars of Abraham!’
‘Hardly,’ he says, ‘but sometimes we have to use the same kind of tricks as our enemies.’
‘You mean these religious nuts will have hacked my phone too?’
‘Oh, I expect so, and more besides.’
I could feel the blood deserting my face, draining into my feet like oil settling in the sump after the engine’s been switched off. I clasp my cheeks and think of all the data stored in my phone – and the topless pics I once took for Howie when I was still a student.
