Extinction

by Ray Hammond

  The captain lifted his binoculars and gazed intently at the treacherous cargo ship once more. Now he realized that all of the containers were fake – wood or cardboard decoys built and painted simply to trap him. Six men were gathered around each of the missile launchers, and there were at least a dozen missiles remaining in their tubes, aimed directly at his ship and ready to be fired.

  ‘Stop all engines,’ Captain James Monroe ordered.

  London Times

  Monday, 24 June 2055

  DRUIDS DAMAGE STONEHENGE: SOLSTICE SUNRISE ‘OUT OF LINE’

  Police arrested sixty-two members of a modern-day Druid cult early yesterday morning following a riot at Stonehenge, the famous 5,000-year-old stone circle in Wiltshire.

  Druid leaders claimed that the sun had failed to rise in its usual alignment over the ancient monument.

  Astronomer Royal Kevin Jones said yesterday: ‘There are frequent anomalies in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Our calculations show that a variation of point one of a degree in the planet’s orientation was responsible for this phenomenon. Over long periods, such variations are normal, and are to be expected.’

  The old freighter had suddenly burst into life. No sooner had the engines of the Global Haven come to a halt than hordes of armed men appeared on the decks of the Java Trader. At first it seemed as if they numbered in their scores, then Captain Monroe and his officers realized that there had to be many hundreds of them.

  While the container ship’s laser-guided missiles remained firmly trained on their target, a dozen inflatables were launched from jury-rigged derricks mounted along the side of the freighter. Waves of heavily armed men swarmed down ropes into the boats and headed for the mega-cruiser’s stern dock.

  Ten minutes later a dozen members of the boarding party were standing on the bridge, levelling ancient automatic weapons at the captain himself and his officers.

  In the meantime, Monroe had reported the ambush to the ship’s owners in Zurich. He had explained how his defence helicopter had been destroyed and stressed that laser-guided missiles were now aimed directly at his vessel. He quickly dumped all data and video evidence to Switzerland by private satellite link.

  After a short delay he received his instructions: above all, he must do nothing that would put any of his ship’s residents’ lives at risk. Monroe guessed that the Global Haven’s insurers were already calculating the incredible size of the claim they would now be facing for the loss of the vast amounts of art treasures, jewellery, cash and other negotiables that were carried on board. He also knew just how enormous these claims would become if any of the billionaire and trillionaire residents were harmed.

  The Swiss proprietors then told him that they were already alerting the police, coastguard and navy in both Hawaii and Los Angeles.

  Finally Monroe had issued his orders over the ship’s master PA system even as scores of raiders were still clambering up the side of the ship’s floating dock.

  ‘All residents, crew and staff, this is the captain speaking. We are being boarded by a force of unknown origin. Do not offer resistance. Repeat, do not offer resistance. The authorities in Hawaii and Los Angeles have been informed.’

  Monroe turned and stared defiantly at the dozen armed men who had arrived on his bridge.

  ‘What exactly is it you want?’ he asked the bearded youth who seemed to be their leader. ‘Money, I suppose?’

  ‘Your ship, captain,’ replied John Gogotya. ‘We will provide you all with alternative transport.’ He turned and pointed to the western horizon.

  Monroe squinted into the sun, but could see nothing there. He picked up his binoculars and, as he focused, he made out scores of black hulls coming over the horizon, heading straight towards the Global Haven.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘So how does it feel to be one step ahead of the professionals?’ asked Emilia Knight. ‘You did some very good work, Matthew.’

  The geophysicist straightened up from the boy’s computer screens, put her hands on her hips, arched her body backwards to banish the dull ache in her lower spine, and stared up at the implausible richness of stars in the glittering canopy overhead.

  As scheduled, the night was clear, and from this altitude there was visibility for forty miles in all directions. She breathed deeply for a few moments, caught in mystic wonder, as always, then glanced over at Matthew’s father who was hovering a few yards away. They had met for the first time only three hours earlier.

  ‘You should be very proud of your son, Mr Fairfax,’ she told him. ‘NASA has only just announced that there is indeed an axial variation in the Earth’s orbit – but Matthew realized ten days ago that something strange was going on.’

  They were in a small paved parking area beside the Geohazard Observatory, near the summit of Mount Tamalpais, some sixteen miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The mountain was 2,400 feet high and to the south and far below them the distant lights of San Francisco and its satellite cities glowed small as scattered dimes. The air was noticeably thinner and colder at the top of the mountain.

  After meeting Dr Knight at his high school, Matthew had asked his father if the two of them could take up the scientist’s invitation to visit the observatory.

  Michael had cleared the trip with Lucy, promised Ben a special outing to the aquarium to make up for his not being included on their evening jaunt, and had then phoned the woman herself at Geohazard Laboratories.

  They had agreed to meet in the car park beside the old observatory, and as Emilia had shown father and son round the now largely disused but still intact facility, Michael felt increasingly sure that he had met this attractive geophysicist somewhere before. He finally realized what had prompted that notion as he was helping his son to set up his telescopes and computers.

  ‘Didn’t I see you recently on TV, doing a broadcast from the side of that Samoan volcano?’ he asked as Emilia arrived back with a light plastic table she had borrowed from a security hut.

  No sooner had she confessed to the television appearance than Matt blurted, ‘Dad was actually there in Samoa, the night the volcano erupted!’

  This tenuous connection seemed to put the whole outing on another footing and Emilia proceeded to ask a string of questions about the actual sequence of the eruption and what it had felt like being so close. After they had exhausted that topic, Matthew had proudly revealed the process he had used to calculate the tiny misalignment between the Earth and the surrounding night sky.

  Now it was time to pack up. Michael helped his son dismantle his portable computers and telescopes and load them into the BMW. The Geohazard scientist returned the table and various other borrowed items to the security cabin.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Dr Knight,’ said Matthew, shaking their host’s hand.

  ‘It’s been great,’ added Michael, as he too shook hands.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Emilia gave them both a smile.

  Father and son turned towards their car, but as he reached his door the lawyer hesitated. He turned and walked back to where the geophysicist was still standing.

  ‘Dr Knight,’ he said quietly. ‘May I call you sometime?’

  *

  Humans do not thrive in space. In fact, zero-gravity conditions will quickly kill all Earth-evolved animals. This is the main limiting factor to human aspirations for the manned conquest of space. Men and women will not be venturing to the stars – at least, not the sort of humankind currently bred on Earth.

  Nicholas Negromonte was more aware of this than most; he would spend at least four months of every year in Earth orbit or on the moon, and he knew from experience the immense physical effort required to cope with such hostile environments.

  ‘Twenty-five kilometres,’ announced the cycling machine.

  Negromonte blew out his cheeks, exhaled deeply, and raised his sweating torso from the handlebars. His personal trainer arrived beside him instantly, proffering a warm flannel and a towel.

  They were currently in the large, fu
lly equipped gym on board the recently repaired ERGIA Space Station. In each twenty-four-hour cycle, Negromonte and all other resident staff members were obliged to undergo at least two hours of vigorous workout simply to maintain the same muscle tone that would be achieved by a normal day’s activity on the planet down below them. Such schedules meant that meetings had to be conducted under unusual conditions.

  The CEO dismounted and nodded a greeting to the two men and one woman who had been hovering in anticipation of him finishing his stationary bike ride.

  He was about to receive his daily executive briefing on corporate developments. He foot-sucked his way carefully across to a running machine, set the speed to ‘Fast Walk’, and began to stride out as his executive committee gathered round.

  ‘The class action due to be brought against us on behalf of the hulk people and others at the court in The Hague has now been shelved indefinitely,’ said Consuela Ponting, ERGIA’s chief corporate attorney. ‘The senior partner at the law firm involved intends retiring next year, and he’s hoping to run for the Senate. We’ve donated fifteen million US to his campaign fund.’

  ‘Very good,’ approved Negromonte with a slight inclination of the head. ‘Next?’

  ‘We’ve tested public opinion on your proposed solo re-enactment voyage to the moon,’ said Hanoch Biran. ‘We have an over eighty per cent approval rating in all focus groups within our target markets.’

  ‘Excellent.’ The CEO smiled broadly, stepping up his walking speed by two miles an hour.

  To launch ERGIA’s new lunar energy resource, LunaSun, Nick Negromonte had come up with his most audacious extreme-sports stunt yet. He intended to fly single-handedly a refurbished Apollo 11-type spacecraft from Earth-orbit to the moon. The combination four-piece craft had been a spare back-up vehicle from the Apollo programme that Negromonte had purchased from a failing private aerospace museum in Colorado.

  Although the refurbished Apollo had been given modern-day engines, safety systems and navigation aids, he intended to pilot the lunar module down to the moon’s surface manually, just as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had done eighty-six years earlier. Negromonte had already spent many hours in a simulator, learning how to fly such an old-fashioned spacecraft.

  ‘We’re go for you to leave Earth orbit on October sixteen,’ added Biran, the director of corporate communications, unconsciously parodying Houston-speak. ‘You’ll land at Tranquillity Base on October nineteen, just two weeks ahead of our IPO. We’ve sold exclusive world-wide TV broadcast rights to MSN.’

  Negromonte flicked the walking machine’s speed still faster. ‘Excellent,’ he said, beaming. He genuinely loved the adventure in such stunts, and this one would additionally guarantee massive publicity for his LunaSun share flotation.

  ‘Also, we’ve just had a tentative approach from the BBC. As you know, they’re producing a documentary on climate management due to go out shortly before our IPO, and they’ve asked if you will participate in a live studio debate?’

  ‘Conducted where?’

  ‘New York or London, I would think,’ said Biran.

  Negromonte flicked the control three notches faster, till he was suddenly jogging.

  ‘How about our hosting the debate live from our LunaSun building on the moon?’ he gasped between heavy breaths. ‘That would give them a first.’

  *

  Ensconced in the captain’s stateroom on board the Global Haven, John Gogotya used a remote control to turn up the volume on one of the three large entertainment screens. He wanted to catch the latest news.

  ‘And now, the Ten O’Clock News, live from MSN Headquarters in New York.’

  ‘Good evening, I’m Aurora Templeton.

  ‘Over five thousand former residents and crew of the residential luxury ship Global Haven arrived in Honolulu harbour this morning on board a decommissioned oil tanker.

  ‘These wealthy tax exiles reported that pirates had boarded the Global Haven when she was four hundred and fifty miles north-east of Hawaii, and forced them at gunpoint to transfer to the former crude-oil carrier. There are no reports of any injuries or fatalities among either residents or crew.

  ‘Many well-known people own homes on board the Global Haven, and opera star Ormanston Dunne announced that he and many other residents were furious that the US authorities failed to come to the ship’s rescue. The estimated cost of the loss of both the ship and its contents is over five hundred billion dollars.

  ‘We cross now to Congresswoman Maria Mendola, who heads the Congressional subcommittee on international terrorism.

  ‘Miss Mendola, why did the US Navy fail to protect so many US citizens believed to have been the victims of this act of terrorism on the high seas?’

  ‘Aurora, as far as we understand it, this was not an act of terrorism – nobody was hurt and no demands have yet been made. It has to be considered an act of common piracy, and one conducted outside US territorial waters.

  ‘Further, the Global Haven is not in fact a US-registered vessel, nor is the US Navy responsible for the personal safety or protection of property of those who choose to live outside all national boundaries. These people pay no taxes in the United States, nor taxes in any nation with a reciprocal taxation agreement. If they evade their taxes in this way and do not contribute to maintain our military and law-enforcement agencies, they can expect no protection from us. It’s very straightforward.’

  John Gogotya smiled, muted the sound and refilled his brandy glass. He was sampling Captain Monroe’s private stock of Tŕes Vieux, a Premier Cru Grande Champagne-Cognac that, prior to bottling, had been matured in black-oak casks for over sixty years.

  *

  The decorative lights of the double-decked Bay Bridge soared out towards Oakland, almost within touching distance of the lofty window beside the couple – or so it seemed.

  Michael Fairfax was out on a date, his first such social engagement since he had split up with Lucy – in fact, his first proper date in over fifteen years. At thirty-eight years of age, and as an international litigation attorney, he felt himself a little too old and much too worldly-wise to be feeling so nervous.

  He and Emilia Knight were seated together at a window table in Julius’s Castle, a small French restaurant that had perched, eyrie-like, high up on a rocky ledge on the northern side of Telegraph Hill for over a century.

  Below them, dusk was falling across the bay and lights were coming on at points all around their sweeping 270-degree view, turning the darkness into a glittering fairyland.

  Michael had been direct when he had called Emilia, employing a brusque lawyerly manner to mask his nervousness. He had explained rapidly about his own divorced status and, perhaps too eagerly, had added that he would like to get to know her better. ‘If that isn’t an inappropriate request,’ he had added.

  She too had been forthright, almost mocking his businesslike approach. ‘It isn’t at all inappropriate,’ she said, laughingly. ‘And I too would like to see you again.’

  They had met at this restaurant at eight-thirty: the tall man with thick brown hair and a careful manner, the dark-haired, vivacious woman – only a little over five feet four tall – with the bright amber eyes and attractive, ever-mobile face.

  Michael had earlier dropped in on the way to see his boys on the Filbert Steps, only slightly lower down the hill; it was a relief that Lucy no longer demanded advance notice for his visits.

  ‘Matthew’s just getting to that difficult age,’ Michael explained to Emilia. ‘He’s now thirteen and everything he mentions these days seems to relate to sex – when it isn’t about astronomy.’

  ‘He’s very bright,’ observed his dinner partner.

  ‘I suppose he’s pushing the boundaries. I think he actually wants me to discuss sex with him.’

  ‘Are you two close enough to talk about that stuff?’

  Michael shrugged. ‘It’s been difficult since the divorce. I didn’t see much of the boys in the first year or so. Lucy was still very s
ore at me.’ Then, sensing the need for a change of subject: ‘So what’s it like being a risk-assessment seismologist?’

  Emilia laughed. ‘Well, up until the last year or so I would have described it as long periods of boredom mixed with short periods of terror. But now it seems as if the periods of boredom are getting shorter.’

  ‘What does this axial anomaly actually mean, this new tilt in the Earth’s axis?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not a planetary geophysicist, just a humble seismologist, but after NASA confirmed that what your son had spotted was actually occurring, I logged into all the geophys chat rooms to listen to what the experts were saying . . .’

  She tailed off, realigning the cutlery in front of her.

  ‘And?’ prompted Michael.

  ‘Well, nobody really knows what it is,’ admitted Emilia. ‘It seems that the angle of the planet’s tilt varies naturally over time, over very long periods of time. But this is the first occasion a deviation has ever been directly observable – at least since we started being able to measure such things, which isn’t very long, of course. I would guess it’s probably nothing to worry about.’

  During the main course, as their conversation drifted back to Samoa, Michael noticed his guest becoming evasive as she explained how an injury sustained on the slopes of the volcano had led her to being transferred to lighter duties.

  Something in Emilia’s sudden reticence prompted the lawyer in him to probe further, inquiring exactly what sort of injury she’d sustained. He was taken aback when she suddenly snapped at him, ‘Look, I can’t really talk about it, OK? They’ve slapped an NSA on me – I presume you know what that is?’

  For a moment Michael wondered whether she mistook him for some ambulance chaser, the sort of opportunistic attorney who sought to represent people who suffered injury at work. He hadn’t told her much about his own career – his disappointment over the postponed hulk people litigation was still too keen.