Panspermia Deorum

by Hylton Smith

  He sensed that the time to harvest what he’d sown was approaching.

  *

  There had also been a change of plan with the new Delacroix residence. Sophie had become frustrated with the interminable objections from the planning department. It threatened a descent into depression again. Julien nipped it in the bud by convincing her that it was down to corruption, not her design.

  “We could offer a kick-back, but is that really what you want?”

  “No way, but I don’t want what they insist on either. Any other ideas?”

  “I’m sure Eugene has talked to you about his research, Sophie. I want to fund this work as much as possible while we still have time. Now, has he mentioned how his findings could help you?”

  “A bit, but it’s all over my head. Sounds spooky too. Anyway, why don’t you like me the way I am?”

  “Don’t be so touchy. You know fine well that you have difficulty dealing with the wobbles when they come thick and fast, so, get it into your head – it isn’t your fault. Sometimes people are born with miscopied genes. If they were born with one hand they wouldn’t hesitate to ask for a prosthetic. These miscopied genes can affect our mental processes as well as physical attributes. Eugene is certain now that personality traits can be shaped from the same mechanisms. Of course we like you the way you are, that’s why he wants to help you. Because that other Miss Angry can become a bit tiresome, even you don’t like that person.”

  “Still sounds spooky to me. It’s really deep stuff. Anyway, what’s it got to do with the house plans? This is now, you and Eugene are talking whenever.”

  “Well, I’ve thought about this a hell of a lot. I like the idea of ploughing all the money Brandt left me into really good causes. I want you to think about designing a brand new research facility for Eugene. It needs to be for the highly confidential stuff. I want to protect his findings by separating this building from the laboratory in which the ground work is done. We can find a more modest plot of land for you to indulge your house design ideas. The planning authority won’t be so fussy when it’s in your own name, an arty young girl, rather than the daughter of a rich man from whom they think they can extort bribes.”

  He knew that this socially-minded proposal would appeal to his daughter. She smiled and asked if she could choose the plot for the new house.

  *

  Laika, unlike Kepler, appeared to have perfect correlation with Soyuz mission control, and was precisely on schedule for Mars orbit insertion. Kolorov made his first direct announcement to the media.

  “I am delighted to report that Laika will soon be in a position to begin preparations for landing on Mars. I can also reveal future plans in which Soyuz and NERO will participate. However, I would like to begin with a different topic. On its journey, Laika was tasked with scanning continuously in the region where Kepler tragically met its fate. It was a long shot, and it proved to be of no real help in explaining what happened. No debris was encountered, not a single piece of evidence from the vessel. We can only conclude that some catastrophic event occurred. Either a collision or a total system failure. I would like to think this allows the families of the crew to have partial closure with respect to their loved ones. I will now proceed to the next steps for Laika. A habitat module and three of the crew will descend to the surface of Mars. Depending on what information our scientists find in terms of how we can sustain life on the planet, they will either stay or return to Laika. If they stay, the remaining crew will return to Earth at an appropriate departure time and further announcements will be made. Thank you for your patience.”

  Like the curate’s egg, the speech had a chequered reception. The scanning for pieces of Kepler and finding nothing merely confirmed what everyone expected. But, the brief outline of potentially leaving half of the crew on Mars spiked a feeling that something was being held back. No information was forthcoming about precisely when the surface team would return, or why they might stay if Laika was to head back without them.

  *

  The Mercedes pulled into the crescent-shaped drive of the Concorde Hotel in the outskirts of Lyon. It was poorly lit and bordered by tall cypress trees. Two burly bodyguards got out and surveyed the scene with practised efficiency, before opening the rear passenger side door. Henry Fellowes stepped out and the heavies waved the driver toward the exit to the main road. Another car, a stretch limo, suddenly barrelled out of the main car park and the windows slid down. Kalashnikov muzzles protruded into the darkness. Multiple rounds of fire converged to take down Fellowes and his two minders. The limo had barely slowed to discharge the weapons and it hurtled after the departing Mercedes. The brief chase ended with the driver being dispatched with a second hail of bullets. His vehicle careered off the road into a coffee shop full of people. The limo screamed off into the night without anyone noting the licence plate number; it didn’t have any on display. It was found a few minutes later, in three feet of river water. Police arrived late, quoting excuses such as investigating mundane burglaries. In truth, had it not been for the celebrity of Henry Fellowes, the flyby shooting wouldn’t even have made page ten of any newspaper.

  Such was the tide of anarchism that local police would be happy to concede jurisdiction on this one to the spooks. The burglaries were probably a cover for more lucrative investigations, which were the real priority for the local plods.

  Belatedly, winching the limo from the river confirmed that it had no plates, the chassis number and other identifying data had been filed off. The interior had been filled with concentrated bleach foam, thus negating any DNA recovery.

  Chapter 19

  The death of Henry Fellowes was an opportunity not to be missed. Ivan Kolorov had been courting certain Russian oligarchs over the last couple of years. He had always wanted to shake off the shackles of NERO, but inward investment was continually blocked by Fellowes.

  Now that the main roadblock was gone, the nine richest oligarchs were open to independent financial evidence that the two companies could enter into amicable divorce. At the heart of Kolorov’s sales pitch was the realistic chances of VB Aerospace defecting the asteroid. He insisted that it was a case of hit and hope, rather than a scientific probability which Julien Delacroix was offering. Addressing these obscenely wealthy people in a remote location, buried deep in the Ural mountain range, he rolled out his cohesive campaign of fear and opportunity.

  “Gentlemen, unless there is clear and absolute proof that we will survive five years from now, there is only one option left. Leave. I wish I could find more confidence in the work of Delacroix, but to be brutally honest, just listen to his broadcasts to the world. It is all observation. Telling us that the asteroid is showing no deviation from its expected trajectory is put across as being good news. The only preparation which is progressing satisfactorily is the construction of swarms of nuclear warheads. But we are never told exactly when they will be despatched, where they will strike the marauder, or even where the launch silos are. I am offering you two interconnected sub options. First, we urgently build our own battery of nuclear strike force missiles, which we send out as soon as it makes sense. We have to know with some urgency if we can hit this asteroid, and whether it can be dislodged from its impact course. We need to test this out a long way from our planet. Even if we are able to avoid a mass extinction event, it could spawn a far less favourable survival environment. However, if we do indeed survive, but society is so badly impaired that we face apocalypse, your wealth and your offspring will be eliminated by one rebel faction or another. So, its extinction or execution unless we completely destroy the asteroid. We must have another fall back option. In the past two years, I have been working on a Noah’s Ark plan. As soon as we have results from the Mars surface crew of Laika, we can decide whether it is time to launch vessels to Mars on a regular basis. Please do not doubt the need for one launch every three months, until we are sure we have sufficient, acceptable habitat capability for you and your families. We must look at this as an insurance
premium, and the outgoing vessels will require crew and passengers of up to twenty people, plus stockpiles of supplies. These ships will act as shuttle freighters. Only the requisite number will descend to press on with building habitats, the rest will return with the empty vessels for re-supply. As you will no doubt have pondered whether your family lineage will end in 2039, so might that of the entire species. Time is cruelly short, procrastination will soon cut off the choice I’m offering. I therefore ask you to contemplate risking your entire wealth to engage with both plans. If we manage to neutralise the asteroid, Soyuz, by then owned by you, will become ever-stronger. If we fail in this task, your wealth becomes irrelevant unless there is an alternative avenue of escape. I strenuously advocate that Laika holds the key to turning that hope into survival for the brave. If the vessel Kepler had not been lost we would know more, but then there would have been some kind of lottery as to who would be chosen to escape to Mars. I am persuaded that none of you would have been selected. The anarchists would have seen to that. I will now leave you to reflect on what I have said. Whether or not you join me, Soyuz will send as many vessels as possible to Mars after Laika’s return, but without your participation, I fear that will only be one per year, so five in total at most. To summarise, your investment in making Soyuz your future will either bring financial reward, or guarantee your family a trip to Mars City. Step one is to acquire Soyuz and ditch NERO.”

  He left a stunned audience, saying that the entire proposal must stay within the four walls. The oligarchs needed no persuading on that point, as they were already on the radar and receiving end of anarchist terrorism.

  *

  Sophie’s unstinting devotion to the new research complex had left the new Delacroix house plans on the back burner in all but conceptual design. Her ability to take Eugene’s functional specification and overlay her artistic vision resulted in a workplace of outstanding ambience. It managed to combine purpose with recreational diversity. The new workforce which Eugene was continually expanding admitted that the environment was in no small way a factor in wanting to join the mission of reinforcing the human genome.

  Already significant breakthrough had been made in making adjustments in correcting rogue genes responsible for a number of life-threatening conditions. Put in layman’s terms the team had delivered success in snipping out undesirable parts of the genetic ladder and stitching the loose ends back together. The next crucial step was to evaluate inserts of different kinds between the two loose ends.

  *

  Sophie had decided that the new family house could be likened to a bicycle wheel in overall shape. A central hub for common activity, such as cooking, eating, keeping fit, and reading. The four spokes would follow the look of a compass, facing north, east, south and west. Each would reach out from the hub to the wheel rim. There would be one spoke for each of them to customise their living quarters. Space for contemplation, washing, dressing and sleeping. Looking down on the wheel from the sky would reveal two interconnecting sections. The central hub was to have a domed roof. The roof of the spokes were to be hemispherical, running from the hub to the rim. The northeast rim connection was for Eugene and Sophie, and the southwest for Julien and maybe one day, Elise. This left the southeast and the northwest spaces to be sculptured gardens, the part Sophie really wanted to bring to life with statues and mosaics.

  *

  Laika achieved Mars capture without incident, and preparations for descent were underway. The crew was jubilant and those charged with evaluating the surface of Mars were fired up, contemplating the future posterity of being the first of the species to set foot on another world, one which was classified as a true planet. It seemed a fitting tribute to the first man, also a Russian, acknowledged to be the first human in space - Yuri Gagarin. The remaining crew members in orbit were simply impatient to begin collecting data for secret prescribed objectives before any date could even be considered for their return journey. This sequence could only begin after the ‘all clear’ from the descent module, a signal that the exploration group had landed, with both personnel and equipment unimpaired, and were ready to begin their analysis of mankind’s challenge in colonising the planetary body.

  *

  After hours of debate amongst themselves Kolorov was now able to reconvene with the oligarchs. It was ‘make your mind up time’ and he was asked to outline his plans for the acquisition of Soyuz stock, and more importantly, exactly how the authority for appropriating funds to the nuclear strike programme and the colonisation would not be traced back to them. They had many enemies, including the wounded Russian Intelligence Agency.

  *

  Julien Delacroix had given quite a lot of thought to exactly who would benefit most from the death of Henry Fellowes. A professional hit like that would have been orchestrated by some person or group needing to distance themselves from the killing of such a well-known figure. Or perhaps it was the work of the new para-military anarchists. Most of their targets were government personnel, but there had been a distinct rise in anger at the money spent on getting to Mars, and a clamour to divert more exchequer funds to protecting the masses, in the event of the asteroid defying everything humanity could throw at it. The anarchists weren’t interested in listening to arguments that their own actions were undermining social order, and had been the primary cause of government coffers shrinking to an all-time low. There was no doubt that the establishments all over the world were creaking under the seizure of industrial companies by these rebel groups, and subsequently converting the local militia to their cause by threatening to wipe them out. But, regardless of which way Julien ran this through his mind, he wasn’t convinced that Fellowes’ murder was carried out by the tentacles of anarchy. Primarily because they tended to claim responsibility for anything they brought down, using it as propaganda.

  *

  Kolorov wanted Oleg Malenkov do the talking. Unknown to the other oligarchs, it was Malenkov who had actually instigated the idea for Soyuz to sever its tenuous connection with NERO. Kolorov had been thinking along the same lines, and was a ready listener. They also agreed it would be wise for nobody else to know the two of them had discussed this prior to Kolorov inviting the others to meet. As the host, the Soyuz supremo rose to his feet.

  “I could suggest several ways of getting the ball rolling, but I am a man who specialises in propulsion engineering, so I would suggest any one of you would be better placed than myself to suggest the kind of investment and drawdown facilities which would satisfy the entire group. I can easily deal with breaking away from NERO, in fact I can do that whenever we have the rest in place. On the matter of anonymity, I also bow to your experience, in exactly the same way I would if there was any ‘obstruction’ you felt would require removal. Would anyone like to comment?”

  Malenkov raised his hand and took the floor, and made sure it did not look like a rehearsal.

  “I am mainly concerned about protecting my family in the short term. However, I suggest we avoid trying to be too clever with respect to where and how we make the investment. This anarchy movement worries me with respect to certain banks in terms of indiscretion. We have seen how the terrorists accrete assets. Manufacturing units and law enforcement people are just the beginning. The way I see it, during the remaining time we oligarchs have to survive, we must gradually become invisible. I would suggest there is no truly safe way to continue to grow our businesses. And nobody in their right mind would want to take over our burdens by acquisition, otherwise we would not be sitting here today. I will be closing down a few of my operations and bank the liquidity in Switzerland. I will repeat this periodically until I have written off as much as I can afford to withstand. I am sure the anarchists will see this as justification of their cause and maybe they will seize the hardware which has been abandoned. We have to buy time, which correlates to safety. In the meantime, more ‘would be’ leaders of their movement will appear above the parapet. They can be picked off one at a time, and we are all proficient in this
methodology. My anonymous Swiss account would only allow withdrawals by myself. At the times when Soyuz needs a top up of funds, they should also have an anonymous account with the same bank, to which we can make a transfer without a paper trail. It would be similar to a withdrawal, signed only by me. Kolorov then becomes accountable for what that amount will achieve. If all of us have similar accounts we can use one bank to move the projects further along the desired route. The transferred money to the Soyuz Swiss account should be for purchase of shares in the company itself. So, Kolorov has to set up this exchange. I know this will mean I have to give up a hell of a lot of wealth this way, but we cannot trust offshore banks in places like the Cayman Islands, and we have to become low profile people again. Once this is achieved, we either sit out the rest of our time with lesser ambitions, or we head off to Mars if we are confronted with reliable information that the asteroid is going to win. If we do not recognise our current assets as a burden and a threat in this unravelling society, we will surely become victims of it. Even if I am the only one of us to move in this direction, I will do so. I still have enough collateral to acquire a large slice of Soyuz.”

  Malenkov sat down. Nobody spoke until Kolorov suggested he should leave the room again while the rest debated what to do next. Even from the next room he could hear raised voices and banging on the large oak table. It was going to take quite some time for balance to be struck; the air was laden with fear of jumping in or fear of missing out.

  Chapter 20

  Julien was rather surprised to hear Geraldine’s voice when he answered his phone. She never called him directly, always through his wife.

  “Hello, hello, is that you, Julien?”

  “Yes it is, Geraldine. You sound a little bit apprehensive, is there a problem?”

  “I am afraid there is. Elise is in hospital. It is not an accident or anything like that. She has a problem with her kidneys.”