The Spark (White Gates Adventures Book 4)

by Trevor Stubbs

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh… And I’ve just put it down for Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They both laughed. “Ninety-nine per cent, then.”

  “I guess you will want to get back to see your family, now that you’re free,” said Abby thoughtfully after they had stopped giggling.

  “Yeah. We haven’t been for days, with the exams and everything. They will be expecting me… You know, it doesn’t seem so far away with the gate… but when you can’t just call them…”

  “I know. But you can just, like, drop in.”

  “Yeah – but that takes time. It’s not as easy as texting. Tomorrow. Let’s go tomorrow.”

  “Yes. After breakfast.”

  ***

  “Wow, what happened here?” said Bandi open-mouthed at all the get-well cards around the White Gates Cottage living room.

  “You should have seen it here last week,” said Matilda, dryly. “It was like a flower shop.”

  “What’s with the pot, Shaun? Bad tackle?”

  Jalli summarised the events since Shaun’s return. Shaun appeared to be doing well, she said. He seemed fine in himself, getting better each day. But Kakko was taking more time to get back to being her confident self. Kakko gave her mother a withering look.

  Shaun took up the tale. He dug his sister in the side with his crutch. “It was me who gave my loving but weighty sister a soft landing… I saved her.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll admit you probably did,” said Kakko quietly. “But less of the ‘weighty’, thank you.”

  “Wow, sis. It was serious, then?” said Bandi more quietly.

  “Yep… and then when we got back here, someone had a go at us for being aliens,” added Kakko. “Said we didn’t deserve free hospital treatment.”

  “Oh, not that again,” said Bandi irritated. “They’re just jealous.”

  “Said we’re abusing the health service getting injured on other planets.”

  “That wasn’t nice,” said Abby. “This is your home and, anyway, I thought you paid some kind of state insurance?”

  “We have been since the moment they were born,” answered Jack. “We’ve paid in more than we’ve had back, that’s for sure.”

  “They accused us of getting John and Dah treated for free. But we didn’t. Dad paid a bill straightaway,” continued Kakko.

  “So,” smiled Shaun, “because of the fuss, everyone knew about us and hundreds of people have sent cards and presents.”

  “Hundreds?” said Bandi. “You mean literally.”

  “Two hundred and fifty-eight cards, twenty-two letters and fifteen bunches of flowers… oh, and ten boxes of sweets and biscuits, and counting. We’re trying to reply to them all.”

  “Wow!” said Bandi, still amazed.

  “There are things from people we don’t even know because they are disgusted at the whingers,” explained Jalli.

  “And Shaun has lots of football fans, too,” said Jack. “So all in all—”

  “He had to come home because the hospital couldn’t put up with it,” said Kakko.

  “What about Wennai?” asked Bandi.

  “What about her? She came to the hospital with her brother Aril and Gollip,” said Shaun, casually.

  “One of the first – before the hospital stopped people just rocking up,” said Kakko.

  “Gollip? Oh, the centre forward… Wasn’t he dating Wennai?”

  “Yeah. Why’s it so important?” asked Shaun, as casually as he could.

  “You know why,” said Kakko, crossly.

  “You really like her, don’t you?” Bandi gave him a knowing smile. “She’s good for you.”

  “Is she? She’s a friend, that’s all.”

  “So tell us about what you’ve been getting up to, Bandi,” asked Jalli, changing the subject.

  “Oh, nothing… just revision and exams… and the occasional visit to the YAC.”

  “Have you passed the exams?” asked Matilda.

  “Don’t know yet. We have six weeks to wait for Abby and seven for me.”

  “But they went OK?” asked Matilda.

  “Tell you when we get the results.”

  “You’re all the same,” sighed their grandmother. “No-one wants to tell anyone what’s in their hearts these days.”

  “I understand,” said Jack. “It’s not right to ask them to speculate… When I was sitting exams I didn’t want to talk about them. I was dreading the results.”

  “You were positively rude,” said his mother. “I had to nag just to get you to admit you actually sat them… You did well, though.”

  “I did… amazingly… but I don’t think these people want to talk about exams.”

  “No,” agreed Abby. “We’ll know soon enough… I just can’t get over everything you’ve been through here.”

  “And Shaun, Kakko and Tam haven’t told us all about that last adventure, either,” complained Matilda.

  “Some things are best not gone over,” said Jalli cheerfully. “But we’re all together now. Cheerful subjects only allowed… and it’s time for tea.”

  “Hurray!” shouted Yeka, who had been playing quietly in the corner with her dolls. Bandi had been gone so long that she was not going to forgive him for deserting her that easily. But now she sidled over to him and put her arms around his knees, before climbing onto his lap.

  Bandi kissed her. “I’m sure you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Tea was Bandi’s favourite beans. Then it was Yeka’s bath and bedtime which involved about half a dozen people. Everyone had to say goodnight and Bandi and Abby had to go to the bedroom and read stories.

  5

  The following day, Kakko arrived at the spacedrome to find it abuzz with excitement. A tiny, unknown space vehicle was approaching the planet at some speed. What was it? Where was it from? And, more to the point, was it on a collision course with Joh? Assessments indicated that even if it was, and even if it contained fissionable material, it would not prove a hazard to the populace. But it would be disastrous for the craft, as it would almost certainly burn up in the atmosphere.

  The JOT – the Joh Optical Telescope – showed it to be no bigger than a small bus with extending solar panels correctly orientated towards Daan. It clearly possessed functional positioning engines.

  The whole staff at the spacedrome were gathered around their monitors which displayed the optical images plus a data stream. The tower was busy with communicating course suggestions to the craft and trying to get reciprocal contact. But there was no response.

  “If they don’t do something quickly,” said Kakko’s boss, Prof Rob, almost under his breath, “this is not going to be pretty.”

  “Could it be hostile?” asked Kakko.

  “We can’t be sure but I can’t see what anyone would gain by sending an isolated tiny vehicle straight at us.”

  “Plague?” suggested Kakko.

  “You’ve been reading too much sci-fi,” smiled Rob. “You tell me a virus of any description that can survive 2,000 degrees centigrade which is what they’ll encounter even if they hit us at a glance— Ah, it’s changing course… Look.”

  As they watched, the craft veered… two… then three degrees to starboard. The read-out indicated that at the new course it should miss the planet.

  “Are they attempting a slingshot, I wonder?” muttered Prof Rob, thinking aloud. “Ah, no. There is a forward burn. They’re slowing down. Now they will take the atmosphere at the correct angle and speed… Clever.”

  “So, not 2,000 degrees – a virus would survive.”

  “We have to be prepared – but let’s not be too hasty to assume we’re all doomed,” said Rob, half to himself.

  “The tower still hasn’t made contact,” observed Kakko. “They are not acknowledging our signals on a wide radio spectrum… They must be aware by now that the planet is populated.”

  “You’re making two assumptions,” replied the scientist. “The first is tha
t it is equipped with the right kind of ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ to detect us and the second is that they recognise a need to reply. They might simply not be interested in us.”

  “That’s pretty rude of them,” said Kakko with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Now you’re assuming the craft contains sentient beings with a moral compass like the one you were brought up with…”

  “Sorry,” said Kakko, “it wasn’t meant to be serious.” Once again her mouth had preceded her brain. She tried again. “Their ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ might not be based on electromagnetic waves of any frequency. They could be using some advanced technology – quantum transparency, for example, that we are only just experimenting with.”

  “Now you’re talking. But I think the probability is that a craft as small as this is merely a probe that is not equipped or programmed to respond to incoming— Ah! There. There we go. A signal.”

  “On an extremely long frequency,” observed Kakko. “Those waves could travel great distances but we’re well within standard radio wave communication distance.”

  The signal turned out to be an echo of one that they had dispatched when the craft was first detected a week before. “There’s your answer,” said the professor. “They are simply transmitting data from us back to us. It’s a probe. We are probably capturing what are meant to be transmissions back to its home planet.”

  Ten minutes later the atmosphere in the room changed again. The craft was now in interior spectral-scanning distance, and the read-outs were reporting hydrogen, carbon and oxygen consistent with carbon-based life.

  The probe manoeuvred into a high but slowly decaying orbit. The spacedrome computers calculated that it would take four orbits of the planet before it was in a position to enter the atmosphere, and land right outside! So it had been reading the beams all along.

  Sirens sounded in the suburbs bordering the spacedrome, and a speedy evacuation was underway. This was the standard practice for the arrival of an unknown ship which they couldn’t guarantee would lock safely onto the automatic landing beam. It was standard practice but had never been actually employed before. The news was all over the news screens in every home. The excitement across the city, and indeed the whole planet, was high.

  “What do you think it wants here?” asked Kakko, echoing what was in the minds and on the lips of all the residents of Joh.

  “A craft of that size, at the speed it is travelling, could have been in outer space for decades,” suggested Prof Rob. “It is far too small to possess a drive of any description. No, that craft was travelling at the velocity it last left its own system… I think they are simply coming here for a spot of R&R.”

  “How could a carbon-based life form live long enough to complete such a voyage?” wondered Kakko.

  “That is what we are about to find out.”

  The team watched patiently for a further five hours, then the craft retracted its solar panels neatly into casings on each side, turned its back on the planet and safely entered the atmosphere, heat shield first. As the entry burn ceased, it extended a pair of flight wings, banked and lined up with the spacedrome runway. The craft had automatically activated the EMLS, the electromagnetic landing system, and was now in the beam. A second siren in the centre sounded a warning that everyone was to abandon the centre buildings and congregate in several predetermined places beyond the perimeter. Kakko and Prof Rob and the people from their department hadn’t even got as far as the perimeter gate before they were recalled. It was going to land using magnets of alternating poles that served both to arrest and suspend the craft above the tarmac until it came to rest.

  “That makes the craft one of a recent spec,” commented Kakko. “The full EMLS was only installed last year.”

  “And, up to now, used only once,” added her boss.

  “How do they know we have the system?”

  “They may not necessarily,” said Rob. “It could just be artificially intelligent enough to decipher our signals and respond. It may be that this craft has come here by mistake.”

  Its descent was now being controlled entirely from the computer in the tower. All breathed again. Kakko, Prof Rob and their team stood and watched from outside as the craft appeared in the west and descended at the correct speed to make a perfect landing.

  That was the beginning of the adventure. Kakko later reported that the next stage felt like getting a wrapped present that you could not guess the nature of. She had been to some surprising places through the white gates – but this was different; this adventure had come to them. On this occasion, they were the recipients in their own world; they were the visited. What could this mean?

  The craft, measuring no more than ten metres by four, sat silently three-quarters of the way down the runway. The ground crew sent three vehicles to surround the visitors and a fourth immigration team zoomed out with an inflatable immigration bubble that was big enough for a shuttle twice the size – they didn’t possess anything smaller. The bubble was quickly deployed and the immigration team, wearing BIGs – biological isolation garments – entered it and began to examine the outside of the craft. A hatch was discovered above the starboard solar panel retraction pod. It was locked shut; there did not appear to be any conscious life within.

  Kakko and her team were now back inside the building and following the proceedings from their monitors. Etched into the heatproof glass of the hatch window, the immigration team noticed some emergency opening diagrams. The spacedrome commander eventually issued the order to attempt to open the hatch. However, it was decided to drill through the hatch to minimise the impact of anything undesirable inside. It took what seemed like an hour but was probably only a quarter of that time. Trans-metal scanners detected a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. Eventually the hatch was breached – with a slight hiss as air leaked into the craft. The internal gases had been under a pressure just slightly below that on the surface of Planet Joh. The leading immigration officer peered inside with a chemi-camera probe. The readings indicating the chemical composition of the interior atmospheric suspensions were transmitted directly to the lab. Kakko’s screen revealed pictures of what looked like two chests with glass or transparent plastic covers.

  “It’s pretty humid,” commented the professor. “This at least ‘smells’ biological.”

  “There isn’t anything moving,” observed Kakko. “Not that I can see.”

  “Those chests are probably cryogenic chambers,” said Rob.

  “Deep freezers to keep people in a state of hibernation for long-distance space travel?”

  “Correct.”

  “So there might be someone still alive in there?”

  “Maybe. But that craft has been travelling a longer time than any known successful cryogenic suspension. The longest we’ve ever come across is ten years – and even then the results were pretty negative.”

  “Yeah. If I remember rightly they died just weeks after they woke up and they were in constant pain all the time they were conscious.”

  “Which was mercifully short. We know of no-one who has yet mastered the technique for long-term success. The makers of this craft, however, may have known how to do it. Let’s wait and watch… We shall soon see what the chambers contain, if anything…”

  The immigration crew were now inside and lifting the lids of the caskets. First one, then the other. One contained an all-in-one suit for a four-limbed being; the other was empty.

  ***

  “It knew to come here,” observed Kakko to her family gathered that evening. Speculation on Joh was rife. There was unrest in one part of the city where the rumour was circulating that the craft had been sent to infect them all with some kind of virus in advance of an invasion. “But the craft contains no DNA. There is no risk to anyone. You heard the director on the news,” remonstrated Kakko.

  “There’s always someone suspecting a cover-up,” said Jalli. “You can be as transparent as you possibly can be but some people are naturally distrusting and suspicious—”
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  “And some just want to make trouble,” broke in Kakko.

  “This used to be a very open society,” sighed Jack. “I am disappointed by the apparently increasing intolerance.”

  “They’re scared of immigration from elsewhere,” said Shaun. “Joh has been isolated for centuries – but recent improvements in space travel, and the interplanetary co-operation in the development of the fourth generation of the intrahelical drive – not to mention our white gates – have made them feel it is only a matter of time before the whole universe gets here.”

  “That’s silly,” said Kakko. “If anyone comes, it will be in very small numbers. At least in our generation.”

  “Agreed,” said Shaun, “but when the Sponrons came with the prospect of a permanent Sponron population with those young refugees, it was quite a wake-up call for some.”

  “But they didn’t stay!” said Kakko. “We took them back – through a white gate.”

  “But all that proves is that the old barrier of distance no longer exists,” sighed Jalli. “The moat of outer space no longer works. I’ve definitely noticed a change in attitudes since the gates became active again, with all of us coming and going so often… and bringing others in.”

  “Who? You mean Abby?!” Kakko threw her arms in the air. “Abby hardly represents an invasion! Why do people have to be so thick?”

  “It’s only a few,” said Shaun. “Anyway, some people, like Pastor Ruk, think that the planet needs some immigration – new blood, new ideas… He’d love the opportunity to meet people from other parts of the universe. He believes he’s a ‘citizen of heaven’, in temporary residence on this planet, and that all self-aware beings, wherever in the universe they live, are citizens of heaven – and are his brothers and sisters.”

  “I agree with him,” came in Bandi, who up to this time had just been listening quietly. “Those Sponrons were definitely ‘citizens of heaven’.”

  “I’d like to think so but how do you know that?” asked Kakko. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because they knew love. There are three things that are above all constructs of sentient beings—”