The Sha'lee Resurrection

by Paul G White

  *

  John Craithie stood atop a newly-built wooden stage with a gnarled and twisted oak tree immediately behind him, framing a picturesque backdrop with a small, weed covered lake. A copse of mixed deciduous trees bordered the meadow to his left, and to his right, a curved line of lime trees formed the second side of a triangle; the third boundary of the meadow was the shore of a long ornamental lake with the plumes of an ornamental fountain climbing into the sky over the deeper water in the middle. And in between the three natural boundaries, the meadow was filled with a sea of colour as more than twenty-thousand converts and would-be acolytes eagerly awaited his sermon. The crowd seated on the grass before him already knew in essence what he was going to say, but it was Craithie’s passionate denouncement of the alien spaceship they had come to experience at first hand. The throng had travelled from all corners of the United Kingdom, and a few hailed from continental Europe; those few hoped to persuade Craithie of the need to spread the gospel in person around Europe, where millions of would-be acolytes awaited.

  Craithie’s four muscular minders stepped aside, allowing him to walk slowly towards the microphone at the front of the stage. As he moved forward, Craithie let his gaze wander over the sea of faces before him, giving everyone the feeling that he had looked into their eyes, even if only for the most fleeting of moments. He reached the stand and unhooked the microphone, pausing just long enough to build up the sense of anticipation. He cleared his throat delicately, and the noise was magnified by the sound system.

  “My friends,” he said softly, and everyone leaned forward slightly, the better to hear what was to follow. “My friends, you have gathered in this beautiful meadow, surrounded by nature’s marvels to hear me denounce the abomination presently being ripped from the ground halfway across the world. What I will say as an introduction, is that the word ‘abomination’ does not come close to describing the monstrosity buried beneath the jungles of Belize. I am a God-fearing man,” he continued, “and whether we be Christian, Muslim, or of any other faith, ultimately we all worship the same deity. I have always been a God-fearing man and I will never accept the notion that the Devil’s spawn from another world could stand beside God’s finest creation, mankind as our equals. The Holy Books tell us that God made man in his likeness. Are we to believe, then that whatever built that abomination will have a human form and a human face?”

  Craithie stared belligerently over the heads of the mass of people. “Do you all not believe that God created Earth to be his Garden of Eden, a home for his most perfect creation? I do; and I also believe that long ago, when the aliens, by their very presence, defiled the land he had prepared for us, he rained down fire from the skies to destroy them. That he did not succeed in their destruction was due to the intercession of the Devil himself, and now all true believers must arise and destroy the abomination or (and I make no apology for saying this) those creatures and their works will usurp mankind’s special place in God’s house.

  He paused for a few moments to permit a wave of muttered denial to pass around the throng. “I see that you all agree with me in this,” he growled and approbation resonated through the crowd. Craithie’s voice rose half a tone. “I believe that what we will find in that ship will be evidence that Satan is very much alive and striving to overthrow our God.” A moan greeted this revelation. “But while I have one atom of breath in my body,” he screamed into the microphone, “I will never permit this to happen.” The moan morphed into a mighty roar of approval. “I am not a prophet,” he screamed, “nor a messiah. I am merely a God-fearing man, frightened to his very core by the prospect of Satan and his forces of evil gaining a foothold in our lives by means of this alien abomination.”

  His voice dropped in volume and even those closest to the huge speakers were barely able to catch his words. “That is why,” he whispered, “the alien artefact, and those ungodly worshippers at its shrine, must be destroyed. The spacecraft cannot be permitted to remain in one piece as a mockery of all that we believe; both the craft and the memory of it must be removed from our consciousness . . . forever.” The last word was a shriek of hatred.

  Craithie stepped away from the microphone to a rising roar of approval from the gathered masses. He smiled benevolently at the throng. It felt good to be received in such a manner. He gave them five minutes to mull over the threat implicit in his statement before returning to the microphone.

  He spread his arms as if striving to embrace everyone in the meadow and the gesture was not lost on the crowd. A concerted sigh arose from the throng.

  When the last murmur had died, Craithie addressed them once again. “My friends,” he rumbled, “we are joined together in a quest, just as firmly as if we were tied to each other with ropes around our wrists. This quest must end in the destruction of the alien abomination or—and I make no excuses for telling you this, despite the terrible nature of my revelation—the calm orderliness of your lives will be lost forever in the chaos sown across our beautiful world by the Devil’s seed.”

  Craithie once again symbolically embraced everyone in the crowd. He became the father figure; the fount of wisdom for his children; the one to whom they could always turn for advice or for knowledge. “You all know from personal experience,” he said softly, “how hard it has been to survive the past two decades of austerity brought upon us by the near collapse of global financial markets; which collapse, I might add, bears the festering fingerprints of Satan’s band of helpers. I feel your pain right here.” He placed a meaty hand on his heart, accompanied by a groan from the crowd. “And yet, despite increased taxes and continuously reducing living standards, vast amounts of money are being spent on disinterring the alien abomination – money which would be better spent on improving the lives of ordinary people such as yourselves.”

  Craithie paused to allow a murmur of disapproval to filter around amongst the crowd and then said quietly, “I know you are hurting. I know that none of you are finding it easy to pay your mortgages or buy food for your tables or put fuel in your cars. But yet—” He paused for almost half a minute, passing his gaze restlessly over the assembly. A tear leaked from the corner of his eye and he dabbed it away with a pristine white handkerchief. “But yet I must come to you with cap in hand, begging you to bleed a little more for the cause. For, you see, no adventure such as ours can aim for success or even hope to survive without a sizeable injection of money.” Another tear glistened in his eye and he said, “It grieves me to the depths of my soul to have to beg from you good people, the salt of the earth, but I am utterly committed to the destruction of the alien abomination and I see no other alternative. Please forgive me.”

  He gave forth a stifled sob, which was picked up by the sound system and amplified across the meadow. Stepping up to the edge of the stage, he lifted the lid of a two-hundred-litre plastic container and laid it on the boards beside him. “Until quite recently,” he said conversationally, “I had a fairly well-paid job. However, since my denouncement of the alien abomination, I am no longer—” he paused and there was a hint of amusement in his tone as he continued, “—welcome amongst the ranks of my former friends and colleagues in the scientific fraternity. Nevertheless—” he withdrew his wallet from inside his jacket and opened it wide for those nearest the stage to see. He pulled out a twenty pound note – the sole content of the wallet – and dropped it with a flourish into the empty bin. “Nevertheless, I am prepared to give every penny I have to the cause.” He stepped back into the middle of the stage to a resounding roar of approbation from the thousands-strong crowd.

  The tumultuous cheering continued for several minutes; every time the applause seemed about to die, a new round would begin until the crowd’s hands and throats were sore from the continuous clapping and cheering. Finally the applause petered out into a few sporadic outbreaks, and Craithie knew the time had come for the physical manifestation of the assembly’s spiritual ecstasy. He glanced at Ben Thomas, his lead minder and flicked his eyes backstage. Thom
as nodded imperceptibly and headed to the rear of the wooden platform, followed by his three colleagues. Moments later, they returned, each carrying a large plastic bin.

  Craithie sat down on the front lip of the stage, with his knees each side of the bin into which he had so theatrically deposited his twenty-pound note. The four minders began to walk amongst the crowd, holding out the plastic containers for offerings, and Craithie was not disappointed by the crowd’s reaction as currency of all denominations, from pennies to fifty-pound notes dropped into the bins. Every donation evoked a murmur of approval from Craithie as he sat, patiently awaiting collection of the final coins and notes.

  His container was overflowing and he slid off the stage to compact the contents, enabling the last of the throng to make their sacrifice. Eventually, all movement ceased with the exception of the four burly minders, who were making their way back to the stage with their containers of hard cash. Two of Craithie’s bodyguards needed assistance to carry the heavy bins back to the stage, but there was no shortage of willing volunteers, because to help meant that they would approach closer to their hero than would otherwise have been possible. Craithie thanked each man personally for his assistance and they returned to their places infused with a sense of well-being, derived from the knowledge that their ‘prophet’ had taken the time to express his gratitude.

  Meanwhile, Craithie knew the time had come to wind up the gathering. He put one hand on the front edge of the platform and vaulted heavily onto the flat surface. The crowd roared their approval at the slight diversion. He grasped the microphone and addressed them, unable to keep the emotion from his voice. He gestured to encompass the throng seated in the grassy meadow.

  “I am humbled by the actions of every one of these generous folk I see before me,” he told them, “every one of whom has been prepared to give for the cause. I know that some will not miss the amount they have donated, but I also know that many will go hungry because of their generosity. I salute you all, because whatever your circumstance – whether well off or virtually penniless – you gave what you could, and I salute you and offer you my gratitude.” He waved his hand in a gesture vaguely reminiscent of a priest’s blessing and finished, “May God bless you all, whatever your faith, creed or belief. Today we have taken the first step on our glorious quest. Your generosity has laid a firm foundation for the future and for that I am immensely in your debt. Thank you all.”

  Waving both arms aloft in a gesture of triumph and gratitude, John Craithie slowly walked backwards off the stage to waves of tumultuous applause. The applause was still ringing out across the parkland as Craithie climbed into a late model Land Rover Discovery, whose luggage compartment and rear seats were filled with containers of the collected donations and, tracked by three minders in a second Discovery, was driven away by Ben Thomas towards a five-star hotel on the outskirts of town.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mike Carter and Phil Makeman watched as the last piece of the landing gear was revealed by the excavator under the skilled hands of Palo Lopez. Each of the five massive legs was inset by almost fifteen metres from the rim of the spacecraft, and there now remained a substantial volume of rock and shale, in a roughly oval shape some ninety metres on the long axis and sixty metres on the short axis, to be excavated in order to bare the underbelly of the ship completely. So far, the excavation of the underside of the ship had proceeded without mishap, and Mike Carter was utterly convinced that the agency which had kept the ship’s systems alive during the unimaginable stretch of time since its burial, had played no small part in controlling the falling rocks every time a section had been weakened by drilling.

  Carter’s mind drifted back to a few days ago, when he had related to a small group of colleagues his theory that ‘something – probably a computer – was still functioning within the ancient spacecraft’. Someone had leaked the information to the press, because Carter’s name had been directly linked to an assertion that something on the ship was still alive. It rankled that such information, even though it was opinion and not proven fact, had been disseminated to the newshawks, who were desperate to glean any kind of advantage – either real or imagined – over their rivals. He sighed and returned his thoughts to the job in hand, namely the removal of the rock beneath the belly of the ship. If the upper and lower halves of the ship proved to be symmetrical, calculations suggested that there were in excess of fifty-thousand cubic metres of rock still to be excavated – a considerable task!

  Carter gave the signal to Lopez and the other driver to continue with their task and nodded to Makeman. “Good work Phil. Due to you and Sven, we’ve managed to avoid damaging the landing gear, although—“ he grinned, “—in truth, I don’t think any of the equipment we’re using could have scratched it, do you?”

  “Probably not,” Makeman replied. His brow furrowed for a moment. “Mike?”

  “Something bothering you, Phil?”

  “Not really. I was just thinking. We haven’t so far seen any sign of a doorway in the hull. Surely we should uncover something like an opening section, or what passes as a door for whoever built the ship? We’ve seen nothing so far that suggests that the hull hasn’t been cast in one immense piece – except, of course, when the hull opened up to reveal the ship’s weapons. Look, I don’t want to appear stupid, but once we knew that the landing gear was underneath, we also knew the ship was the right way up. Is it just me, or has anyone else wondered how they managed to see where they were going? Was it all done by video cameras, or did they have windows they could look out of at the universe? If they had windows, we’ve seen no evidence of them. And if they used video cameras, they’re not exactly sticking out of the hull for everyone to see. You know what I think?”

  “OK, I’m listening.”

  “I think that if the ship itself doesn’t let us in, we’re going to have a hard time getting past the shield. And if we somehow manage to bypass the shield without being vaporised or something equally lethal, how on earth are we going to find a doorway in something like three acres of smooth hull?”

  “We’ll know the answer to that conundrum when we’ve cleared the last of the debris away,” Carter replied, “and if anyone asked me to speculate, I’d be inclined to believe that we’ll be invited in.”

  Makeman stared long and hard at Carter. “You really believe that, don’t you, Mike?”

  “Yeah, I reckon I do. However you look at it, all this—” he gestured to encompass the impressive bulk of the Comora, “—is impossible anyway when you think about it logically. What’s one more impossibility in the overall scheme of things?”

  “What’s impossible?” Hal Kleineman and Enrico Tempi had approached from behind whilst Carter and Makeman were engrossed in their conversation.

  Makeman was first off the mark. “We were discussing potential problems in locating an opening in the hull once we’ve cleared all the rock away from the ship’s underbelly. I wondered how we’d see the outline of a doorway in a surface that seems to be completely seamless and protected by the shield. Mike thinks the ship will eventually open up and invite us in. And he was saying that, as the ship’s presence here in apparently perfect condition and with some of its systems still working after all this time is completely impossible anyway, we shouldn’t discount the possibility of the hull opening up for us.”

  Kleineman laughed good-humouredly. “I think the word is ‘unlikely’ rather than ‘impossible’. If we set a supercomputer to work on the problem, we should be able to define the odds on the spaceship surviving till now intact and with at least some systems still working. But I’ll tell you this: on a probability scale it’s going to be a lot closer to zero than one.”

  His tone became serious. “Y’know, Mike? Ever since you showed us the ship’s reaction to being under attack, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. And of all the theories and ideas that have been bandied about, yours is the only one that makes sense. What I’m saying is that I’m on your side, because nothing else fits the
facts as well as your theory that something is alive in there, most probably a computer.” He grinned mischievously. “I’m not sure how our resident exobiologist and our systems expert will take it if you’re proved right. I think the idea of a sentient – or even a semi-sentient – computer might give them the fits because it would most likely have to be cloned from living tissue . . . alien tissue. We’re so far away from achieving that level of sophistication ourselves despite the immense amount of progress in the field over the past few years. But if push comes to shove, I’m pretty sure Margaret and Ellie will take in their stride. They’ll embrace whatever technology we come up against because they’ve brought open minds with them – as Margaret so eloquently insisted when our Mister Craithie tried to enlist her backing for his condemnation of the project.”

  Carter nodded. “I have to agree with you about Ellie, too. She demonstrated her skill and enthusiasm on her first day on the site by cleaning up the recordings of the events. Without her input we would certainly have experienced greater difficulty in interpreting the video sequences. As for Miss Blythe, we should all be grateful that she refused to be influenced by Mr Craithie. It must have taken a good deal of nerve, especially since she had only just arrived on site.”

  Hal Kleineman had a mischievous twinkle in his eye now that he had manoeuvred the conversation around to the exobiologist. He winked and told Carter, “If I’d been a few years younger, I’d probably have made some kind of move on Margaret by now, but she seems to only have eyes for one of the other guys on the team.”

  Carter’s face mirrored his disappointment. Someone asked, “Who?” and Carter realised belatedly that it was he.

  “Kleineman laughed joyously. “Shall we tell him?”

  Phil Makeman chortled, “I think we’d better. He’s not getting much sleep at the moment, and if he has that on his mind as well he probably won’t sleep at all.”