The Dark Freeze

by Peter Gregory

  If that failed, they should wait. Wait for a while and see what developed. As usual, the military pushed for using force to try and destroy the asteroid but, as was pointed out by the scientists, they’d already exploded 40 of the world’s most powerful nuclear weapons close to the asteroid, and that hadn’t destroyed it. Furthermore, it had used up most of the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. Also, if rockets armed with nuclear warheads, or even poisonous chemical weapons, were launched against the aliens, they almost certainly possessed the technology to intercept and destroy them before they reached their target. And, if they wished, to retaliate. Retaliate with weapons of unimaginable power and destruction.

  As the debates continued, astronomers noticed a subtle change in the asteroid. A slight ridge had appeared around its circumference. Around its belly. A ridge that was growing bigger each day.

  21

  Nuclear Winter

  At first, the change was barely perceptible. Just a minute ridge straddling the ‘equator’ of the asteroid. Even viewed through the most powerful telescopes, it was difficult to make out what it was. However, as the days passed and its size increased, it became patently obvious what it was: it was a concentric, fan-like array of interlocked solar panels. A thin fan-like sheet of solar panels spreading out evenly from the asteroid. As the array grew in size, it reminded Liz of the rings around Saturn. An ever expanding halo around the belly of the asteroid.

  ‘There,’ said Viv, studying the image on the telescope. ‘It’s like I said. They’re harnessing the power of the sun to recharge their batteries. To ‘‘refuel’’ the asteroid before moving on.’

  ‘You still think it’s just a fact-finding mission?’ exclaimed Frank incredulously. ‘That they’ll leave when they’ve gathered sufficient data and recharged their batteries?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ replied Viv, feeling less sure after his colleague’s questioning remarks.

  ‘And how long will this fact-finding mission take?’ asked Frank. ‘How long will it take them to gather all the information they need?’

  ‘How long is a piece… I don’t know,’ replied Viv, remembering the Prime Minister’s acerbic response to his glib answer. ‘A week, two weeks, a month. I’ve no idea.’

  ‘That’s bullshit!’ exclaimed Rupert, releasing his pent-up frustration. ‘No fucking way is it a peaceful fact-finding mission. It’s something far more serious than a bloody fact-finding mission. Something… sinister.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Viv, visibly taken aback by Rupert’s blunt outburst.

  ‘Like they’ve come here to destroy us. Destroy us and take over the planet. Colonise it for themselves.’

  As the days turned into weeks, the size of the fan-like array kept on increasing, blocking out more and more of the sunlight. The Earth was getting darker. Not dark enough to worry about, at least not yet – it was just like a cloudy summer’s day – but if the array continued expanding, it would, eventually, block out all the sunlight, creating a total eclipse of the sun. A permanent total eclipse. A state of total darkness. A nuclear winter similar to that which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

  The possibility of that scenario, and its dire consequences, spurred them into action. Had them calculating the time when the array would block out all the sun’s light. But it wasn’t straightforward. The rate of increase of the array wasn’t uniform, but inversely proportional to its size. In other words, the rate of growth became slower as the array grew bigger. To the scientists, this made perfect sense. As the array expanded, its surface area increased exponentially relative to its distance from the asteroid, meaning that the same surface area covered less distance the further it was from the asteroid. Assuming the exponential growth would continue, the calculations predicted they had about six months before the asteroid and its array blocked out all the sun’s light. And heat.

  The world was thrown into a cauldron of activity. Astronomers, physicists, chemists, biologists, scientists of every description worked around the clock deciding on the best way to communicate with the aliens. Politicians and governments formulated contingency plans and did their best to try and placate the public, a public that was getting increasingly restless and worried. Very worried. The military were busy devising plans to attack the asteroid, particularly its more vulnerable array. Everyone was busy doing something or other.

  Along with hundreds of other scientists worldwide, the teams at Jodrell Bank were wrestling with the communication issue. What was the best way to try and make contact with the aliens?

  ‘Just because we communicate using radio and TV,’ said Frank, ‘doesn’t mean the aliens do. They could use other methods, other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.’

  ‘Frank’s right,’ said Rupert. ‘Radio and TV waves only represent a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the long wavelength, low energy end. What if they communicate using other parts, such as microwaves, infrared or ultraviolet?’

  ‘Or even the very high frequency end of the spectrum, the X-rays and gamma rays,’ said Liz.

  ‘And don’t forget the visible region,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s arguably the most important region of all, the region in the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum where the sun’s output is greatest.’

  ‘And the reason why eyes have developed to sense precisely that region,’ said Viv.

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Rupert.

  ‘Do you think aliens have eyes?’ asked Zak, digressing from the main task. ‘I mean eyes similar to ours?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ said Liz, drawing on her biological knowledge. ‘Eyes have developed independently on Earth many times, biological devices to capture the sun’s peak output of energy to aid the survival of the organism. And not just any old eyes, but camera eyes like ours. Did you know that an octopus, a creature that looks remarkably alien, has a camera eye just like ours?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Zak.

  ‘Well, it does. And since the energy profiles of stars are similar, at least those that last long enough for life to have developed, I’d be amazed if intelligent life on other planets didn’t have eyes very similar to ours.’

  ‘That’s all very interesting,’ said Viv, ‘but let’s focus on the task in hand. What are we saying about trying to contact them. What are you saying we should do?’

  ‘Despite what’s been said, radio and TV are still the most likely method of communication,’ said Frank. ‘Therefore, first and foremost we should bombard them with every possible radio and TV frequency containing information and pictograms about Earth and ourselves.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Viv, ‘but we should focus on certain regions, like the natural frequency of hydrogen at 1421 MHz (MegaHertz), and the ‘‘Water Hole’’ between 1420 and 1640 MHz, the gap where space is relatively radio quiet.’

  ‘We should transmit in the microwave too, even the infrared and visible,’ said Rupert. ‘The microwave region from 1,000 to 10,000 MHz has low cosmic background noise, and there are no natural infrared or visible lasers.’

  ‘So,’ said Liz slowly, ‘if ever we detected red, green or infrared laser light emanating from deep space, it must be of alien origin?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Rupert. ‘That’s why SETI teams have started searching for laser light in the Universe.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Liz. ‘You learn something new every day.’

  It was Zak who asked the obvious question. ‘What part of the electromagnetic spectrum do the transmissions from the meteorites use?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Frank. ‘They use different frequencies for each transmission. Short pulses of energy in the radio, TV, ‘‘Water Hole’’ and the microwave regions, but different frequencies each time.’

  ‘But not the visible or infrared?’ asked Rupert.

  ‘No. And nothing in the ultraviolet, X-ray or gamma ray regions either,’ said Fran
k.

  ‘Why pulsed transmissions?’ queried Liz.

  ‘Because a short, intense burst of radiation is the best way to transmit and encode data,’ replied Frank.

  ‘And,’ added Viv, ‘a narrow band width of less than 300 Hz distinguishes them from natural cosmic radiation which, apart from the radiation from hydrogen and the hydroxyl group (OH) in water, is broad.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we just focus on the frequencies they’re using?’ said Zak. ‘Surely that makes the most sense.’

  ‘That’s what everyone’s been doing,’ answered Frank. ‘On those and others in the same regions – the radio, TV and microwave regions. But so far without any response.’

  ‘What if,’ said Liz, gathering her thoughts, ‘what if the aliens were ‘‘cruising’’ the galaxy and just happened to pick up the first radio transmissions from Earth. After all, we’ve been broadcasting ourselves unintentionally to the rest of galaxy for nearly 100 years, ever since the first radio broadcasts in the 1920s, followed by the first TV broadcasts in the 1940s.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Frank. ‘That means the Earth’s radiosphere, the area covered by the broadcasts, is about 200 light years. They could have picked them up and decided to investigate.’

  ‘You mean they’d have picked up the BBC Overseas Service, The Archers and Desert Island Discs,’ said Liz smiling.

  ‘They would,’ said Viv, ‘and the broadcasts from World War II. I’m surprised it didn’t put them off.’

  ‘I’ll bet they had a good laugh over Popeye, Mickey Mouse and The Munsters,’ chimed in Rupert.

  ‘And God knows what they’d have made of Coronation Street and Eastenders,’ said Viv.

  ‘And if they’ve seen the X-Factor, Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here,’ said Frank, drawing curious looks from the rest, ‘they must think we’re bonkers.’

  His comments brought chuckles from the others. Did a respected fifty-odd-year-old Professor really watch such inane TV programmes? They doubted it.

  Liz spoke again. ‘Do you think the aliens come from within a 100 light years of Earth?’ she asked.

  It was Frank who answered. ‘It’s unlikely. One hundred light years is tiny compared to the 100,000 light year diameter of the Milky Way galaxy, a drop in the ocean. I’d say they’re from much farther away but picked up the signals when the asteroid, er, starship, entered the Earth’s radiosphere.’

  Liz’s eyes lit up again. Her thought processes were in overdrive. ‘I’ve just had another thought,’ she gushed, the words tumbling out of her mouth like bullets from a machine gun. ‘The Earth’s radio noise increased rapidly as radio and TV became more and more popular, reaching a peak in the late 1960s. However, since then it has declined due to the spread of cable TV and fibre optics. And…’

  ‘And directed communications, beaming and digital broadcasting,’ interjected Frank, finishing the sentence for her. ‘Compared to what it was, the Earth is now relatively radio quiet. Is that what you were getting at, Liz, that the aliens are so technically advanced that their planet, wherever it is, is radio silent?’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Liz, a little irritated by Frank’s premature interjection. ‘And,’ she continued, ‘I think that’s why they sent the meteorite probes to gather information, so they wouldn’t betray their presence on the asteroid.’

  ‘Good thinking, Liz,’ said Viv, pleased it was his protégé who’d come up with the idea. ‘But why do you think they’re maintaining radio silence now?’

  It was a good question and one to which she didn’t have a satisfactory answer.

  ‘This is all very interesting,’ said Viv, repeating his earlier comment, ‘but we still haven’t decided how to communicate with them? What are our recommendations? What frequencies should we use and what information should we send?’

  ‘Well,’ said Rupert, ‘there’s no need to send data about Earth or ourselves, they can see all that firsthand from their orbit around the Earth. They’re only 100,000 miles away.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Viv, remembering Rupert’s blunt comments about his suggestion. ‘It’s not so simple. The Earth’s atmosphere and the cloud cover make direct viewing difficult. I think we should include some pictograms of ourselves, our culture, our science, even our music. But the main message has to be: WHY ARE YOU HERE? They should have grasped our language by now and be capable of responding – if they want to. Indeed, they may even have picked up some of this information already if they encountered the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Rupert, sensing that Viv was exacting some sort of revenge for his earlier outburst, ‘but I still think…’

  ‘I don’t see any reason not to send it,’ said Viv, cutting him off in mid-sentence. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

  ‘No, it can’t,’ said Frank, sensing the tension between the two of them. ‘Let’s include it.’

  ‘To summarise,’ said Viv, ‘we should focus on the frequencies used by the aliens with their meteorite transmissions, but saturate the rest of the radio, TV and microwave regions too. Also, we should try infrared and visible lasers. Do you all agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rupert, ‘but we’ll have to tread carefully with the lasers. They might think we’re attacking them.’

  ‘Not if the lasers are used at low power,’ replied Frank, doing his best to avoid another confrontation.

  ‘We’ll include that in our recommendations,’ said Viv.

  ‘If we’re using light,’ said Rupert, ‘we may as well try sound.’

  ‘Sound? What do you mean?’ queried Viv.

  ‘Send a range of musical notes, like in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

  Eventually, after further discussions, they agreed their recommendations would be to send pictograms of humans, some science – the structures of DNA, hydrogen and water – some mathematics, like the Arecibo message which used the product of two prime numbers 23 x 73 = 1679 to generate a pictogram, and a musical message. But without a doubt, the two main messages should be: WHY ARE YOU HERE? and WE MEAN YOU NO HARM.

  The final message triggered another thought in Liz’s head. A horrible thought. ‘You don’t think they viewed the act of exploding 40 nuclear bombs right next to the asteroid as an act of aggression, do you?’

  ‘That’s an interesting point, Liz,’ said Frank. ‘I’d never thought of it like that.’ None of them had.

  ‘But why should they interpret trying to deflect an asteroid on course to destroy us as an act of aggression?’ said Viv. ‘After all, we didn’t know it was a starship.’

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ said Liz, ‘but maybe all their starships look like asteroids. And we never tried to make contact, did we?’

  ‘Why on earth would we try and make contact with an asteroid?’ said Rupert, getting irritated at the way the discussion was going.

  ‘Because it wasn’t an asteroid, was it?’ retorted Liz. ‘It was a starship.’

  Their old animosity was beginning to surface again.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Viv, calming the situation. ‘Maybe we should have sent some signals, but everyone thought it was an asteroid, not a starship, including you, Liz,’ he said, shooting her an icy glance. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘So are we all agreed?’ continued Viv, bringing the discussion to a close, ‘that we should send information about ourselves, our culture, science and mathematics on every possible radio, TV and microwave frequency and see what happens?’

  ‘Don’t forget the infrared and visible lasers,’ said Rupert, ‘and the music.’

  ‘Ah, yes. They’re all included,’ said Viv, checking his notes, ‘I just forgot to mention them.’

  ‘Isn’t music a sign of a civilised society?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Some people think so,’ said Frank.

  ‘Are these everyon
e’s views?’ asked Viv one final time, looking at Frank, Rupert, Liz and Zak. He wanted to be absolutely sure he’d got it right. The fate of the world hung in the balance. Four heads nodded their assent. ‘Okay, I’ll relay our findings to Carl. He’s coordinating the work.’

  A few days later, the transmissions were sent. And resent. Time and time again. From transmitting stations around the world. Transmissions not just in the radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum, but also in the microwave, infrared and visible. Over and over again. But there was no response. Just silence. A total, deafening silence.

  Failure to communicate with the aliens prompted a flurry of activity. The world’s leaders engaged in new discussions. Urgent, frantic discussions. Discussions addressing the key issues. Had the aliens come in peace? Were they simply taking their time to contact us? Were the solar panels really to provide energy or was there a more sinister motive? Were the aliens deliberately intending to block out all the sunlight, all the sun’s life-giving rays, plunging the Earth into total darkness and making it a cold, dark, lifeless planet. Because that’s what would happen. Without the sun’s heat and light, all life would be extinguished. First, all the green plants. Green plants which depend on sunlight to survive, using the green pigment chlorophyll to photosynthesise glucose and oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. They’d be the first to go. All the grasses, all the trees, all the flowers. And all the food crops too. Wheat, corn, barley, potatoes, carrots, cabbages, cauliflowers… everything would perish.

  And it wasn’t just the land-based plants that would die. All the green phytoplankton in the world’s oceans, the trillions of tiny organisms at the bottom of the marine food chain, would die too. The organisms that provide most of the world’s oxygen. Oxygen essential for animal life. The lungs of the world. Extinguished.