SALIENT

by Simon Rosser

  The next message was from Jessica, confirming she’d been discharged, and that she was okay and on her way home. She’d been told he had been put into a medically induced coma but that he was okay. She wanted him to contact her as soon as he woke and hoped he could stop by and stay at her parents’ house for a few nights once he was out of hospital.

  That sounds like a great idea right now, Tom thought.

  The third message was from his friend Gerry over at MIT.

  DID YOU GET THE AUDIO FILE? I MANAGED TO CONVERT THE MESSAGE USING THE TRANSLATION SOFTWARE. NO IDEA IF IT WILL WORK THOUGH. TXT TO CONFIRM YOU MANAGED TO SOMEHOW UPLOAD IT. GERRY.

  There was a second message.

  JESUS, TOM, WHAT’S HAPPENED? NO WORD FROM YOU NOW FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. I’M WORRIED SICK. I FOUND OUT FROM U.S. MILITARY E-MAIL INTERCEPTS THAT SIX F-35’S VANISHED OVER COBALT RIDGE AROUND THE TIME YOU GUYS WERE IN THE CAVERN. ARMY PERSONNEL AND THE SETI CREW ON THE GROUND AT THE TIME ARE ALL SAFE. THERE'S BEEN NO WORD AS TO WHAT HAPPENED ON THE MOON AND DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS TO HACK BACK INTO THE NASA SITE I’VE FOUND NOTHING. THE OFFICIAL STORY THAT’S BEING DISSEMINATED IS THAT A LANDSLIDE FOLLOWING A SMALL ERUPTION OF MOUNT SHASTA BURIED COBALT RIDGE IN FIVE FEET OF SNOW AND ROCK AND THAT A SEARCH AND RESCUE PARTY HAS BEEN SENT OUT.

  Tom scrolled to the third and final message from Gerry and quickly opened it.

  THANK GOD. I’VE JUST MANAGED TO TRACK YOU GUYS TO THE MOUNT VIEW HOSPITAL. BEEN TOLD YOU’RE OK BUT IN AN INDUCED COMA. JESUS, TOM, IT MUST HAVE BEEN CRAZY UP ON THE MOUNTAIN. I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO FILL ME IN ON EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED.

  ONE LAST THING – THERE’S GOING TO BE AN EMERGENCY NASA/ US GOVERNMENT DEBRIEF ENQUIRY AND THEY’RE GOING TO CALL THE BOTH OF US TO GIVE EVIDENCE. SEEMS OUR TEXT MESSAGES WERE INTERCEPTED. ANYWAY, YOU GET BETTER AND I’LL SEE YOU SOON FOR A BEER, MATE.

  Jesus, a NASA/U.S. Government debrief? That will be interesting, Tom thought, reaching over for his tea. He gulped it down, the warm drink spreading through his abdomen. It felt good.

  Suddenly, the door opened and a tall, slim, grey-haired man wearing a suit, walked in. “Good morning, Tom, I’m Dr Holland,” he said, holding out his hand for Tom to shake. “Nurse Alexandra told me you had come around. Just lie back, please, I need to examine you.”

  Tom did as instructed, and Dr Holland placed the stethoscope at various points on his chest and carried out a blood pressure test. “We had to put you into an induced coma due to your head injury. Thankfully, the scans showed no evidence of a bleed to the brain. You were very lucky.”

  “I guess.”

  Dr Holland looked at him. “Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to discuss any of the events that led to you being here, but from what I’ve heard on the news, they sound very intriguing.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “Hmm, yes, you could say that Doctor. I’m feeling a little confused right now to be honest.”

  “I’m sure.”

  As he spoke, there was a knock on the door and another man appeared, wearing a dark suit and looking more official. He beckoned Dr Holland over.

  Dr Holland stood and spoke briefly with the man. Tom heard his name being mentioned, before Dr Holland headed back over, a serious look on his face.

  “Okay, things are moving quicker than I thought. I’ve been advised that a helicopter will be coming to pick you up at four p.m., five hours from now. You’d better have a rest. I’ll check you once more before you leave,” Dr Holland said, then quickly left the room.

  Tom felt his head spinning again and flopped back down onto his pillow, closed his sore eyes, and felt himself quickly drift back to sleep.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE ROTORS OF the Apache attack helicopter produced a rhythmical thump… thump… thump as the craft banked slowly over the town of Shasta and the edge of the Shasta Trinity National Park, before the nose dropped and the twin turboshafts accelerated the chopper towards the southwest, where Tom had been told a small, government scientific team, with the highest level of security clearance, were waiting to see him.

  He’d been woken up in the hospital after his brief sleep and given a final check, as promised by Dr Holland, who’d authorised his discharge, on the basis that he must take things easy for the next forty-eight hours.

  After ninety minutes the Apache started to slow and banked left before quickly descending. Tom looked out the window, but there wasn’t a lot to see. Woodland stretched out on one side, farmland on the other. Wherever they were, it was a fair way from any densely populated urban area.

  The chopper landed on a makeshift helipad in a large field and the rotors immediately started powering down. Within a few minutes, Tom was ushered out of the Apache by the pilot and over to a black 4x4 with the blue and white SETI logo on the side that was waiting a short distance away. The fact that he was meeting with scientists from SETI eased his tension slightly as he thought at least they should be sympathetic to his actions.

  The 4x4 was fitted out with darkened glass, a black leather interior and a central console, filled with an assortment of bottled water, Coke, and some glasses. Fitted to the divider screen between the front cabin and rear section, was a flat monitor, which was showing what looked like a SETI promotional video. Images of rolling farmland, a wooden barn, what looked like a high-tech SETI training centre, and a small array of deep-space radio antennae dishes, together with a vast bank of solar panels that stretched for acres across one of the adjacent fields was being shown.

  The 4x4 drove onto a rural track and headed towards what appeared to be a large, wooden farmhouse about half a mile from the helipad, and pulled up into the courtyard. The driver killed the engine, jumped out, and opened the rear door for Tom. “Just head over there, sir,” he said pointing. “It’s the main entrance. Someone will be there to greet you. I’ll be waiting here to take you back to the helipad.”

  Tom did as he was instructed and was greeted by an auburn-haired female, wearing glasses, and dressed formally in a dark jacket and trousers. “Good evening, Mr. Bishop. Follow me, please,” she said.

  Tom followed the woman along an ultra-modern looking corridor, lit from above by inset, bright strip lighting, which looked totally alien compared with the external appearance of the wooden-structured building. The fake farmhouse was clearly just rural camouflage for the high-tech building it disguised. The walls of the corridor were smooth, white, and adorned with framed photographs of NASA astronauts, and beautiful images of the Milky Way Galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

  The woman stopped by a door with black Perspex plaque on it with white lettering - Meeting Room 1.

  She knocked on the door and opened it. “Please, go in and take a seat.”

  Tom nodded and walked into the white-walled, sterile meeting room where five individuals were seated behind a long, white table at the rear of the room, four men and an attractive, dark-haired woman. Seated on a small, central round table was his best friend Gerry, dressed casually in a blue shirt and jeans. A large, black monitor took up most of the space on one of the four walls.

  Gerry gave Tom a broad smile as he entered. Tom was glad to see him, and he grinned back, and nodded to his good friend and colleague.

  The female stood as Tom entered the room. “Good evening, Mr. Bishop. I’m Dr Lucy Davies. These are my colleagues Professor Fred Beck, and Dr Hans Willems. We are all SETI scientists based over at Mountain View in California. The two gentlemen to my right are Major Joseph Grant from the U.S. Army and Dr Edgar Bond from NASA. We’re very sorry to have whisked you straight over here into this formal setting from your hospital bed. We’re are fully aware of what you’ve been through, but I’m sure you can imagine we needed to speak with you as soon as we could, as there are a number of question we would like answers to, if you have any, in light of the… well the extraordinary series of events that have taken place over the last ten days.”

  Tom took a seat next to his friend. “No problem, Dr Davies. I’m feeling a little tired, but
Dr Holland seems to have looked after me well,” he said, touching the bandage that covered the nasty gash to the right side of his temple.

  “That’s good, and please, you can call me Lucy. Help yourself to a drink. There’s water, tea, and coffee over on the side.”

  Tom saw that Gerry already had a glass of water, so he got up and poured himself a mug of coffee, before sitting back down.

  “So, Tom, we just need you to firstly take us through your background a little, your knowledge of the work SETI does and the reason for you being on Mount Shasta on the weekend of September sixteen last,” Lucy said.

  “Sure,” Tom said, starting by telling them why he and his three friends had gone to the mountain in the first place. The camping trip had been nothing more than an end of summer fun weekend for them all, before his heavy schedule working on the exo-solar planet research he was involved in as part of his Masters over at MIT started again. Tom explained that he was originally from Cardiff, a city in Wales, U.K. He had been drawn to the exciting research in his chosen field of study being carried out at MIT. He then took them through the events that had occurred on the first night, which had led him and Jessica walking into the gun store owned by Casey and his son, and their subsequent return to the mountain to look for their friends and help make a documentary being filmed by Casey’s friend, the U.K. documentary filmmaker, Richard Armstrong.

  The NASA scientist, Dr Bond, then asked him a question. “Can I ask you about the creature that you say attacked you at the campsite? The creature I understand that was also responsible for lassoing two of Mr. Armstrong’s cameramen and dragging them to their deaths in the forest, not to mention the loss of one of the U.S. Military’s Humvees, and I understand the killing of a bear in the forest during which the unfortunate animal had one of its forelimbs ripped off. I mean, do you have any theory on this? Are saying you witnessed a Bigfoot attack up on the mountain, Mr Bishop?”

  Tom cleared his throat. “It sounds extraordinary I know, but we all saw what you just described. The creatures are real, but I believe they come from Earth’s distant past and were somehow able to travel to the present using the device entrapped in the thawing glacier.

  General Grant looked at Tom. “You’re suggesting the Bigfoot was able to use the device to time travel?” he asked, smirking slightly.

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s just a theory,” Tom replied.

  “So, this harpoon weapon you refer to. Do you think there is any chance there could be more of them lying around the Trinity National Park?” The general asked.

  Tom shrugged. “It’s possible for sure, but we didn't see any others.”

  “On the same note, I don’t suppose you can help with what may have happened to our F-35’s?”

  “No, sorry,” Tom said, shrugging his shoulders again.

  The general made a note on a pad he had in front of him and looked over at Lucy and Professor Beck.

  Lucy nodded and then looked at Tom. “Your friend, Gerry, has kindly told us about how he went about deciphering the alien signal. Although we don’t condone his actions, we are, of course, hugely impressed by how he achieved this. We are even more impressed by the message you asked him to translate back using the helium/nitrogen atomic number code. What we wish to know is if you managed to transmit that message before the events that led to you being in hospital?”

  Tom slowly nodded, fearing he was about to be arrested for breaching some kind of UN/government protocol on the transmission of signals to alien civilizations. “Well, I didn’t do anything very technical. I simply placed my phone up against the object and played the audio file. The audio message played out just before my phone’s battery died. I’m figuring that the message got back to Cassiopeia though.”

  “Oh, and what makes you think that, Mr. Bishop?” Dr Edgar Bond asked.

  “It’s just a hunch. A feeling I had as I pressed the phone against the object.”

  “I see.”

  Dr Lucy Davies continued her questioning. “The text from Gerry to yourself which refers to Earth’s population, wars etc., Can you give us your theory on what this means?”

  Tom took in a deep breath. He knew this question was going to be asked and he had been mulling over the answer since he’d read Gerry’s message. “Well, I’ve thought a lot about it and the answer I have come to isn’t very reassuring, I’m afraid. My theory is that whoever sent the signal was transmitting a kind of failed planet notice out to any civilization technologically advanced enough to decipher the message. I believe the coded signal was an alert, confirming the human species have effectively screwed everything up and it’s time to eliminate the threat we and Planet Earth might bring to the solar system, or this region of space if anything catastrophic were to happen. Let’s face it, despite what most politicians say, most climate scientists know the planet is heating up from runaway global warming, Earth’s population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than we can replace them with sustainable alternatives. I guess our neighbours have had enough and are thinking; why wait for us to wipe ourselves out by nuclear extinction when they can do things more effectively and safer themselves?"

  The panel in front looked at him in silence, before General Grant replied. “Those are very serious and profound comments, Tom.”

  Tom shrugged. “You asked my opinion. That’s it.”

  “I think we have come as far as we can with this. We need to wrap things up here. You are free to leave. As you might expect, what happened on the mountain must remain out of the public domain, and all personnel on the mountain, including you and your friends have been sworn to secrecy. Needless to say, prosecution will follow if this protocol is not followed,” The NASA official said.

  Tom stood to leave.

  “Oh, there’s one last thing. Do you have any proof, or evidence for anything you’ve told us, Tom?” General Grant asked.

  “Well, yes, Armstrong’s cameraman captured the entire event on video. There’s plenty of proof.”

  General Grant sighed and shrugged. “Unfortunately, the footage was blank. We’ve examined the camera,” he said, with a wry smile.

  “Well, I guess that means you’ll find your F-35’s soon then,” Tom said, sarcastically.

  The general gave a forced smile. “Touché”

  Lucy cleared her throat to break the ice and smiled. “Thank you both for coming today, our discussion has been very helpful. I'll see you out,” she said, standing up.

  Lucy walked them both back along the corridor. “The driver who brought you here has been instructed to drive you wherever you want to go, within the state. Or you can be driven back to the helicopter and dropped at the nearest airport. It’s up to you.”

  “Where are we, by the way?” Tom asked.

  “Oregon,” Lucy replied, with a smile.

  As they reached the main door, Lucy handed them a business card each. “Listen, I’m hugely impressed with what you guys did, so are my SETI colleagues. It was the right thing in the circumstances. Please give me a call. There are jobs waiting for you both at SETI should you want them. We’re going to be very busy and we need guys like you working with us.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure we’ll give it some serious thought,” Tom said, smiling back.

  The pair of them walked out into the yard. The wind was whipping up loose hay and blowing it over from the adjoining fields where Tom had noticed a number of bales stacked up against the perimeter hedge-row. They walked over to the black 4X4 waiting a short distance away.

  “Where are we heading gentlemen?” The driver asked.

  Tom looked at his friend. "Can you recommend a good bar? We both need a good chat over some beers and good food.”

  The driver nodded and winked. “Not a problem. I know just the place. Jump in.”

  PROLOGUE

  SEA RANCH

  California, October 15

  THE BILLIONS OF stars twinkled in the night sky above them. Apar
t from the occasional “song” from a chirping cicada, the only sound was of the waves breaking gently on the beach below the ragged cliffs a short distance away. Tom took in a deep breath of fresh air and sighed as he turned to Jessica who was lying by his side. “It’s incredibly relaxing out here, and a world away from the events on Mount Shasta. I can’t believe it was all only three weeks ago. It feels like a lifetime away,” he said, still looking up at the night sky.

  Jessica replied in a soft voice. One that he’d not heard since before they’d been attacked at the mountain campsite. “Well, I thought we could do with a proper break. Sea Ranch has always been one of my favourite spots. I just wish we’d all have come here instead of going to that damn mountain,” she said, stifling a yawn.

  “I can’t argue with that comment,” Tom said.

  They were lying on a large blanket outside in the back garden of the wooden chalet they’d rented, the French doors to the lounge open behind them. The John Denver track, Take Me Home, Country Roads, started to play on the radio, the open doors allowing the classic melody to drift out into the garden. “I love this track.”

  “Hmm, talking of which, when will you be going back to the U.K.?” Jessica asked.

  “Well, I promised my folks I’d go and see them as soon as we’d spent some time together, so, in a week or two I guess. But I won’t be gone for long,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the lips.

  “You'd better not!”

  Before Tom could respond, his phone, which was on the blanket next to him, vibrated.

  “Hello, who’s that?” he said, picking up the phone and looking at the screen. He swiped the screen to open the message. The sender’s details were blank. The screen then lit up with a string of numbers, too many to count. As Tom tried to take a screen shot of the odd message, the phone went blank and the text message vanished as quickly as it had appeared.