Immortal

by Nick M Lloyd

  The second piece of paper was a transcript purportedly from many years previously. It was an interview MacKenzie had taken to be accepted into CryoGenInfinite – a company specialising in near-death cryogenic suspension where, close to death, the subject’s head would be removed and stored at temperatures low enough to stop cell degeneration.

  There was a page of interview questions and responses. Almost all of it was factual discussion about MacKenzie’s circumstances: middle-aged, healthy, and rich. However, one short section gave an insight into his outlook.

  ‘Your top five favourite books are history books. We usually get people with a passion for the sciences.’

  ‘I don’t like the feeling of missing out.’

  ‘And that’s your motivation for applying to CryoGenInfinite?’

  ‘I want to see everything.’

  Martel was sure that the sentiment applied to most humans on the planet.

  ‘This is all you have?’ asked Martel.

  ‘We’ll keep looking,’ said Piper. ‘But he’s never been a person of interest to the United States.’

  Disappointed – he’d been hoping for some more seedy information about MacKenzie – Martel turned his attention back to the prime minister.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Piper,’ said Timbers. ‘On a different matter, why hasn’t the US government shared payload information with us?’

  ‘The response team is in lockdown,’ said Piper, shaking his head. ‘We’re almost, although not quite, treating this as a negotiation with a hostile invading force. There is a large contingent of senior people in the White House who are convinced the Ankor don’t have faster-than-light travel and have been studying us for years.’

  ‘Studying us?’ asked Timbers.

  ‘Using an enormous radar array to suck up all the electromagnetic waves we’ve been pumping into space during the last hundred years.’ Piper looked a little ashamed of the position he was defending. ‘There’s not a lot of defensible science in their arguments.’

  Martel knew that even at a distance of a single light year away – closer than any star – there would be no watchable Earth TV signal, unless the alien planet had a receiving radio array the size of a solar system. If the Ankor were a hostile invasion force and did not have faster-than-light travel, then their selection of Earth as an invasion target would have been based on spectral analysis: the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere would be a key indicator of possible life. The Ankor could do that from five hundred light years away. Their invasion would be based on a guess.

  ‘Whereas our official line is that they are benevolent,’ said the prime minister. ‘Although Ben’s job is to prepare for the scenario where that proves to be false.’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ said Piper. ‘We’re at the bottom of a gravity well, they can drop rocks on us all day.’

  Martel agreed. His own team had run wargame scenarios. There was little upside for Earth, with the exception that if, and only if, the Ankor couldn’t land – an assumption highly dependent on them not having faster-than-light travel capability – then a stalemate could be achieved. Humanity would simply be hiding down deep holes eating mushrooms for a long, long time.

  ‘And we have two more days?’ asked the prime minister.

  ‘Yes. They’re not coming straight at us.’ Martel took out a piece of paper with a sketch of the current approach path of the Ankor. ‘This analysis was provided by the Chinese National Space Agency, and my team have confirmed it. The Ankor are moving in an energy-inefficient manner. They are constantly keeping Earth between their own craft and the Sun.’

  Piper chipped in, ‘We’ve come to the same conclusion.’

  ‘Do we have anything more on what the craft looks like?’ Timbers said.

  Martel answered. ‘Just about every telescope based on Earth is pointing at it. Unfortunately, it’s tiny – relative to the size of planets, that is. Most of them either can’t see it, or see it as a single dot. The scientific telescopes in orbit around the Earth are struggling to track it. They’re only designed to look at things hundreds of trillions of miles away, or a few thousand miles away on Earth.’

  However, there was a special case. Martel turned to Piper. ‘Is the Persephone preparation on plan?’

  ‘Persephone is being repointed at the Earth,’ Piper addressed the prime minister. ‘She’s at L2 and usually points into deep space. She’s not easy to move around.’

  Martel drew the equivalent location onto his sketch. Relative to solar system distances, even though outside the orbit of the moon, Persephone was almost touching Earth.

  ‘L2?’ asked the prime minister, clearly not remembering what Martel had told him a few days earlier.

  ‘The L2 is the Lagrange Point 2, it’s a gravitationally stable point relative to the Sun and the Earth. It’s about one and a half million kilometres from Earth, directly away from the Sun – in constant shadow.’ Piper paused. ‘The Ankor should fly straight past Persephone heading for Earth.’

  Two days.

  CHAPTER 11

  Butler Street, Thursday 18th April

  Sitting at his desk in Butler Street, having simply watched the news come in for the whole day, Tim struggled to push down the growing sense of dread. Reports throughout the morning had focused equally on the Ankor’s imminent arrival, and on the recent death in custody of a church’s groundskeeper who had confronted a vigilante gang as they’d been trying to set fire to his church.

  The appeasement brigade …

  A group of ten people – mixed ages, genders, and races – had stormed a church in the leafy suburbs of Guildford. The groundskeeper had confronted them. A scuffle had ensued. The police had arrived quickly, and the groundskeeper had been taken into custody. None of the reports were clear about why he was the one arrested. However, the next thing anyone knew was that the groundskeeper had died in the police station.

  The event, over in a matter of hours, had triggered a wave of anti-Ankor sentiment, with the protestors accusing the ‘establishment’ of being in league with the church-burning Ankor.

  Tim opened a new smart screen on the wall and entered a search.

  London UK riot masses unrest

  ‘It’s everywhere,’ Sam said, indicating her own feed on the wall which was showing angry crowds congregating outside Westminster.

  ‘Those are protestors, not rioters,’ said Tim.

  ‘I’m not sure you’d make the distinction if you were amongst them,’ said Sam.

  ‘What does the hype truth-meter say?’

  ‘It says … ’ said Sam. A new screen sprang to life, red and green blocks high, indicating the media and experts agreed that meltdown was imminent. The blue bar, showing primary evidence, remained slightly lower … but not by a comfortable amount.

  ‘What are the primary evidence sources?’ Tim asked Sam.

  ‘Twitter feeds, live footage analysis,’ replied Sam. ‘Plus, there’s a few pirate sites that claim to hack police radio … and MIDAS analyses background noises of most public live streams for sirens.’

  ‘Nearly time for the prime minister’s evening briefing,’ said Tim, looking up at the main wall. The latest MIDAS summary analysis showed a split decision fifty-fifty.

  Alien intentions

  Trending words: saviours, invaders

  ‘They’re not helping, and they should be,’ said Sam, wheeling herself over to the window. ‘The silence is making it worse.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Tim. ‘We’re being blinkered … and unlike horses, we don’t seem to like it.’

  A smart screen burst to life. The live video feed showed Joshua Timbers standing behind a forest of microphones, immediately outside Number 10.

  ‘Brave of him doing it outside,’ said Sam without a trace of sarcasm.

  In the background, the noise from a large crowd could be heard.

  ‘I do not want to mobilise the army,’ said the prime minister. ‘But if the current tensions continue to escalate, I will have no
choice. I must repeat to the nation: there is no need to be alarmed. The Ankor have done nothing aggressive. On the contrary, they have alerted us to a danger and are coming to support Earth’s defences against the gamma ray burst.’

  The prime minister continued. ‘The Ankor have not explained the workings, or purpose, of the A-Gravs.’

  Sam mouthed the word ‘explained’ to Tim.

  She was right – it was ambiguous use of language.

  ‘All our efforts,’ said the prime minister, ‘must be focused on the production of the gamma ray shield.’

  ‘MacKenzie will like that,’ said Sam, looking over.

  Internally, Tim winced.

  MacKenzie … Maybe I should have told Colonel Martel about the data …

  On the screen the prime minister continued with his address. ‘I have asked the home secretary to put additional police onto the streets to help reassure the population. Please do not regard this as an escalation. I will provide another briefing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘We should get some rest,’ said Tim. ‘Tomorrow is going to be massive. We can’t stay here for the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking about staying here,’ said Sam.

  Tim searched Sam’s face for the hint of a joke. There was none. Knowing that Sam’s pain management routine each day included a long bath and specialised physiotherapy equipment in her flat, Tim got a sense Sam was more nervous than she’d been letting on.

  ‘I’m happy to escort you home,’ said Tim, reaching for his keyboard. ‘Let’s just check for any reported trouble in the area.’

  Sam nodded, studying her screen intently. ‘You could stay at mine.’

  ‘It doesn’t look too bad,’ said Tim. ‘I think …’

  ‘Tim, I will rephrase. Would you please stay at mine?’ Sam turned abruptly in her chair. ‘Late-night wings challenge?’

  Over the years of working late together, the late-night wings challenge had become a custom. They’d compete to see who could eat the hottest. Sam always won. She had a pain tolerance Tim couldn’t match.

  ‘Sure,’ said Tim. It suited him fine: no Tube journey, quick walk, some company. ‘Assuming you don’t take Tramadol to cheat.’

  --------

  Butler Street, Friday 19th April

  Eight o’clock in the morning and, having spent a quiet night on Sam’s sofa, Tim walked with her through mostly deserted streets back to the office.

  ‘Looters are late starters,’ said Sam.

  Tim smiled but kept a watchful eye on every doorway and window as they walked. It did seem quieter, but whether the prime minister had achieved some of this with his personal addresses, or whether it was just primeval instinct to hunker down, Tim was not sure.

  Arrival day.

  The calculations indicated that, unless the Ankor varied their course significantly, they’d arrive in orbit some time during the afternoon. It depended on what altitude they selected.

  Tim and Sam entered the offices, carefully ensuring doors were closed and locked behind them.

  Tim went to make coffee in the breakout area to give Sam a little privacy as she struggled out of her wheelchair and into her office chair – not that he’d ever admit it was the reason.

  And perhaps guilt plays a part too.

  As had been the case for the last few days, every wall of the Butler Street main office was covered with smart screens, and the floor was criss-crossed with cabling – kept as discreet as possible so not to interfere with Sam’s wheelchair.

  Tim took another look around the room. ‘No images projected onto the window blinds, Sam. You missed a trick.’

  Sam smiled. ‘We’re going to need to look through the blinds now and then … to check for mushroom clouds.’

  Tim smiled; a little gallows humour didn’t hurt.

  ‘Is that a real-time image from ground-based telescopes?’ asked Tim, pointing at the Chinese National Space Agency image. The Ankor craft was a rotating blob. ‘Poor resolution due to atmospheric interference?’

  Sam typed on her workstation. ‘Actually, it’s a computer amalgamation,’ she said. ‘The CNSA are building it up from over twenty near-infrared feeds around the world. Most Earth-based telescopes are getting about eight hours of decent exposure before they lose sight of it.’

  ‘And the next big item,’ said Tim. ‘NASA’s Persephone images.’ He checked the time. ‘They should fly past Persephone in just under an hour.’

  ‘That one,’ said Sam, pointing to a blank screen. ‘That’s the NASA feed.’

  Tim continued to scan. Three screens showed constant updates on the alien craft: heading, real-time image, and speed with arrival countdown. Another wall showed MIDAS summarised newsfeeds, and raw newsfeeds from the most cited ones.

  In the corner of the room, a series of six screens showed live feeds from launch sites. Some launch sites had close-up feeds that included countdown clocks. A few launch sites, including Anglesey, USA and France, only provided long-distance shots.

  Like the rest of the world, Tim and Sam simply waited and watched.

  Just after noon, the NASA feed came to life with a simple text message.

  Initial images expected to be poor quality as Persephone needs a separation distance of greater than five hundred thousand kilometres to focus. Camera online from 08:00

  ‘That’s US local time,’ said Sam.

  Tim did the maths. Assuming the Ankor continued their constant deceleration, it would be thirty-four minutes between the alien craft passing Persephone and it reaching five hundred thousand kilometres of separation.

  ‘You’ve not heard anything from Charlie?’ asked Tim.

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got better data here anyway,’ said Sam, indicating all the feeds: the aliens were invading, the aliens were going to bring us eternal life, the aliens were going to judge us individually, they had lied about FTL … the list went on and on.

  Tim’s eyes tracked back to the NASA screen showing a graphical representation of the Ankor’s approach. ‘I wonder why they’re hiding from the Sun?’

  ‘Maybe they’re an intersolar species,’ said Sam. ‘Born in deep space, and constantly travelling between the stars.’

  A beep from the central server was accompanied by a new screen opening. An algorithm monitoring traffic had found a news feed passing a critical trending threshold and displayed an old but familiar image on a newly opened screen.

  It was a NASA Space Shuttle. Although Tim recognised it as the Atlantis, the shuttle that had performed the programme’s last flight, in 2011, it had been renamed.

  Lincoln.

  The shuttle was being wheeled to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.

  ‘It takes about six hours to wheel it out,’ said Tim. ‘But soon, Persephone is going to show us everything.’

  A few minutes later the NASA feed beeped. The screen came to life, showing images from the Persephone telescope. The feed was almost real-time, with NASA providing an image enhancement feed alongside the raw data.

  Sam flicked a few switches on her workstation. The office lights dimmed, as did the luminosity of all the other screens.

  This was it.

  They’d had more complex radar images before, but this would be the first time a truly visual image would be more than a single blob.

  Initially the image provided by NASA was a simply a blurred cubic shape – something they already knew from the radar returns.

  They waited as details were added.

  Within a few minutes, a series of vertical stripes appeared on the splodge of red on the screen. A few minutes after that, horizontal stripes appeared too.

  The NASA image continued to resolve, becoming more and more fine-grained.

  Soon it was showing a very regular cubic shape made up of individual pods, separated by what seemed to be rods protruding from each one at ninety-degree angles. The whole cube was rotating about a single axis.

  There were hundreds of pods. But the NAS
A feed indicated that none of the structure was hotter than a hundred degrees Celsius.

  No obvious engines.

  No front pointy end.

  No wings.

  Just a big cube, slowly rotating and heading directly for Earth at half a million kilometres an hour.

  ‘An hour to go,’ said Sam. ‘Then we’ll see if they do the alien equivalent of a skid, before taking off their motorbike helmet and snogging your sister.’

  ‘I don’t have a sister.’

  The image now showed the craft was made up of spherical pods joined by thin filaments, and more detail had become clear. It was seven pods wide, seven pods deep, and seven pods high.

  ‘Three hundred and forty-three pods,’ said Sam.

  The NASA feed was excellent and provided significant image processing and commentary. Each pod appeared to be a sphere one hundred metres in diameter, and each was joined by either three, four, five, or six connections to its neighbours, dependent on where it fitted in the cube. The separation between pods was just over one thousand metres.

  ‘There are gaps in the heat patterns,’ said Sam.

  Tim saw them. ‘Some of the pods are either missing, or not generating heat.’

  They watched with the rest of the world as, over the period of an hour, the Ankor craft set its orbit at about twenty thousand kilometres above the surface of Earth. Technically, it was a solar orbit not an Earth orbit: the Ankor continued to move such that the Earth was directly between themselves and the Sun; because of the Earth’s gravity, the Ankor would have to expend significant energy to remain in that orbit.

  ‘Twenty thousand is fairly high,’ said Tim.

  ‘Fewer satellites to hit?’ said Sam.

  ‘Out of reach of our rockets,’ said Tim, looking to see how humanity was reacting. Were they all getting the same tight feeling in their chests that he was?

  One of the screens was a composite grid of sixteen live video streams from public areas across London. After mostly remaining at home for the morning, crowds were now gathering at key public locations.

  ‘They’re back again,’ said Tim. It seemed to him that fundamentally people were on edge rather than panicky. Whether that was simply the product of his hope overriding his logic, he was not sure.