The Sha'lee Resurrection

by Paul G White

  Hal Kleineman said jovially, “Well, gentlemen . . . and ladies, we may have to change our plans, and it seems to me that the first thing on our agenda must be to investigate the destructive force protecting the ramp. We need to put our heads together to devise a means of testing the effect. Does anyone have any ideas they want to throw into the pot?”

  “I have one.” It was the SAS sergeant, Jim Scott. “When soldiers think there may be anti-personnel mines under the ground we’re about to walk on, we sometimes have to probe very carefully to find out. That’s what we need to do here – probe to try to find out what gets destroyed and what doesn’t. How you do it is your affair, because me and my men intend to stand well back and let you get on with it – unless we’re ordered to fix bayonets and charge the ramp.”

  The colonel and the major smiled at the dry gallows humour. Both knew that their troops would follow such orders, but at the same time that those orders would never be issued.

  Margaret Blythe, raised her hand and Hendriksson acknowledged her. “It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of such a distinguished gathering to arrange a series of simple experiments to test the phenomenon protecting the ramp. Even poking it with a stick should tell us something.”

  “Then that’s exactly what we should do,” Kleineman agreed, “and here’s how we should go about it—”

  *

  Phil Makeman hefted a tennis ball-sized pebble in his hand, and from five metres’ distance, lobbed it onto the ramp. The rock impacted the surface of the ramp with a satisfying clink of stone on metal. The sound was accompanied by a loud sigh, as everyone released pent up breath. Makeman grinned nervously and picked up a three-metre long wooden pole some five centimetres in diameter. With the pole outstretched before him, he approached until he was able to touch the surface of the ramp. The wooden pole remained intact, and once again there was a collective sigh. Now, it was time to try a three-metre length of metal scaffold, and he approached the ramp again – but more nervously this time, because the gun barrel had been made of metal and it was entirely possible that metal of any kind induced the destructive effect.

  With sweat beading his forehead, Makeman edged forward and the end of the scaffold pole made contact with the metal surface of the ramp. Makeman stepped backwards, dragging the pole behind him. Finally, he dropped the metal tubing at his feet and exclaimed, “That’s it! I’m not getting any closer. Someone else is welcome to have a go.”

  Consensus had been quickly reached on the order and form of the tests on the destructive effect surrounding the ramp and Phil Makeman had immediately volunteered to carry out the procedures. However, his courage had finally deserted him at this final stage: testing the M4 Carbine.

  Jim Scott stepped forward, holding the remains of the semi-automatic carbine in his strong, wiry fingers. He glanced in the direction of his commanding officer and Heathcote gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. Carefully – even more slowly than his predecessor – Scott approached the ramp, with the drastically shortened M4 extended before him at arm’s length. He searched with his sharp eyes for the footprint left by Private Ruiz, but the slight indentation was almost invisible. He felt the pressure on his fingers suddenly reduce and a further twenty centimetres of metal vanished. There was a gasp from the scientists gathered a few metres distant as they saw that the soldier was holding little more than the weapon’s stock.

  The next experiment would be to throw around a kilogram of meat onto the ramp to test whether flesh would remain unharmed, but Scott decided to skip that stage and move to the next – human flesh. Without looking back, he moved forward with the carbine’s stock in his outstretched hand.

  No one could have been prepared for what occurred at that moment; a sweet tenor voice filled the air all around Jim Scott, warning, “NO WEAPON CARRY ONTO COMORA! RELEASE NOW OR WILL BE HURT!”

  Scott stepped backwards half a pace and removed the full magazine from the M4. He threw the damaged M4 underarm in a slow loop onto the ramp, and the remnant of Private Ruiz’s carbine vanished in a haze of particles which glittered in the strong light of the arc lamps. With a theatrical wave, he tossed the magazine after the weapon with exactly the same result: a shower of glittering particles.

  The SAS sergeant then turned and came smartly to attention. He gave a textbook salute to his superior officers, and before anyone could issue an order forbidding his action, he turned smartly on his heels and stepped quickly onto the ramp. He had taken two paces up the slope when the same tenor voice ordered, “HALT! REMOVE WEAPON OR WILL DIE!” Scott instantly halted and removed a commando knife from a sheath on his belt. With a flourish, he laid it carefully on the ramp and stepped away. The knife vanished just as completely as the M4 Carbine, leaving the surface of the ramp undamaged.

  It had not escaped the notice of the observers that Scott had passed unharmed through the point where weapons had been vaporised, wearing a knife on his belt – an object which had been identified as a weapon by the intelligence controlling the ship. Neither had the fact that the separate parts of the M4 carbine, though in an unusable condition, had also been recognised as weapons. The major conclusion to be drawn from the events of the previous few minutes was that the entity on the ship had no wish to harm living beings. Also, there was the inescapable fact that the entity knew sufficient English to issue warnings against any attempts to carry weapons on board. And, they now had a name for the ship: Comora – unless comora was the generic alien word for spaceship . . . or ramp.

  Jim Scott stepped off the ramp and marched over to his CO. “Sorry, Sir, but I had to do it. I felt someone had to take a chance, otherwise we’d be stuck outside the ship for ever, waiting to be invited in.” He grinned. “I admit, though, it made me nervous when the voice told me to drop my weapons or die. When you know what the ship can do to a fully armed helicopter, it makes you feel a tad insignificant.”

  Heathcote smiled. “You took a calculated risk, Sergeant, and I commend your bravery. I will insist, however, that in future you seek my approval before placing yourself in the line of fire in this way.”

  Jim Scott gave the major a perfect salute. “Yes, Sir!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lars Hendriksson stood at the bottom of the ramp, amongst an eight-strong group: archaeologist, Mike Carter; physicist, Hal Kleineman; exobiologists, Jenna Henderson and Margaret Blythe; computer systems expert, Ellie Merrill; SAS sergeant, Jim Scott and Private Carlos Ruiz (both completely unarmed). The eighth member of the group was no less a personage than Minister of Antiquities, Juan Hernandez. Everyone wore environmental hazard protective gear, including full breathing apparatus. No one was going to be permitted to risk spreading any alien infection that might conceivably have survived within the ship.

  Once they had been on board, immediately they stepped off the ramp they would enter a decontamination suite, and only when they had been declared ‘clean’ would they be permitted contact with other site personnel.

  Hendriksson said, “I envy you guys and I wish I could go in there with you.” He regarded every one of the suited figures sternly and added, “Please, everyone take your example from Mike, here. He has amassed a great deal of experience in dealing with delicate archaeological sites, and he’ll know what and what not to do. Remember, this is a preliminary expedition, but we need everyone to keep their eyes, ears and minds wide open. What you learn at this stage will inform subsequent, more detailed surveys, so this is not to be treated as a sightseeing tour. Do you all understand?”

  Eight white-suited figures nodded.

  “Has everyone tested their intercoms?”

  Everyone nodded again.

  “Then I wish you the best of luck and we’ll see you in one hour. Please be prompt, because we would not wish to have to come looking for you.”

  Hendriksson stepped back and the assorted scientists and soldiers filed past him up the metal ramp, the sound of their footsteps ringing hollowly on the wide metal slope. As they mounted the ramp, three tall metalloid
structures came into full view. The central structure was a cuboid approximately six metres square filling the space from floor to ceiling. The cuboid was accompanied by two vertical cylinders, three metres in diameter, situated at opposite sides.

  When they reached the top, the sweet tenor voice informed them, “Please step into gravity transport.” In the bright yellow light the nearest face of the cuboid seemed to melt away, revealing an interior light pulsing steadily within.

  “I suppose this must be the gravity transport,” Hal Kleineman commented drily.

  “That is correct,” the voice confirmed.

  “Well, if we were in any danger, we wouldn’t have been invited in,” Kleineman reassured himself as he stepped into the cylinder.

  The others followed and the wall of the transporter re-formed faster than human eyes could register the movement. Three seconds later, the wall opened up once more and the voice urged, “Please to next transport.”

  “But we haven’t moved yet,” Jenna Henderson complained.

  But Jim Scott had already exited the cylinder and was staring around him in amazement at the interior of a vast, brightly lit warehouse, filled halfway to its high ceiling with a jumble of smashed crates with their contents strewn haphazardly all around. He estimated that the warehouse was at least seventy metres square – almost half a hectare. Impressive!

  Beneath a mountain of broken crates, he spotted what appeared to be some kind of vehicle and he stepped a little closer to get a better look at it.

  Carter’s voice halted him in his tracks. “Don’t touch anything, Jim. There’ll be time for that another day.”

  Disappointed, Scott said, “It looks like it may be what passed as a car for the folks who built this ship.”

  The disembodied voice of the AI confirmed, “Was transport for outside Comora.”

  Carter said, “That’s the second time I’ve heard the word, Comora. I think it must be the name of this spaceship.”

  Before anyone could agree, the voice informed him, “Starship is Comora. Starship people are Sha’lee.”

  “You mean the people who built this ship were called Sha’lee?”

  “Yes.” The voice hesitated for a moment, and added, “Please move to light.”

  The vast warehouse was plunged into darkness and a bright light began to pulse halfway along the wall to everyone’s left casting stark shadows amongst the piles of wreckage. The main illumination returned and the pulsing light changed to bright orange. Jim Scott immediately set out in the direction of the orange light, stepping warily between piles of shattered crates to avoid slashing the material of his biohazard suit on the multitude of sharp edges and needle points of hard plastic.

  Threading his way along a narrow, uneven alleyway, Scott encountered the pulsing light. Below it was another of the transporters – a cylinder this time – and its open front and winking yellow light invited them in.

  Jim Scott consulted his army issue Satnav, which under even the most extreme conditions would record his movements, enabling him to backtrack to his starting point. His eyes widened. There were no data recorded. The ship’s interior was impervious to signals. Damn! There was nothing to lose but to follow the prompting of the entity which was leading them through the ship. There had been very little to see up to this point with the exception of the interiors of transporters and the vast warehouse, so where would they be led to next?

  The transporter door melted away, revealing a curved corridor, wide enough to accommodate a golf buggy. The light around them dimmed, but to their right, a section pulsed orange, as in the warehouse. Warily, they approached the orange light and as they drew near, a wide doorway opened in the wall, revealing a room almost as large as the warehouse, but with a considerably lower ceiling. Inside, they saw row upon row of long, plastic and metal eggs, each with a multitude of pipes and tubes feeding into a rectangular plinth upon which each one rested. The ambient temperature in the vast enclosure was around zero Celsius, and the interior of everyone’s hazard suit immediately formed a layer of condensation, making it difficult to see.

  Anticipating that the voice would have followed them to this point, Hal Kleineman enquired, “What is this place?”

  He was answered immediately. “Cold sleep.”

  With a rising sense of anticipation, Kleineman said, “Why have you brought us here?”

  “Sha’lee need your help to live again.”

  Jenna Henderson cut in, “Do you mean they are dead?”

  “No, but in cold sleep they are almost dead. I have slowed their life processes to the brink of death, but need help of—” The voice halted, seeking the correct word or phrase necessary to continue.

  “You need doctors . . . medical help?”

  “Yes, doctors . . . medical help.”

  Mike Carter was intrigued, “Why do you need doctors? Don’t you have medical facilities on board?”

  “Comora has medical facilities, but very few Sha’lee. No doctors. All died.”

  Ellie Merrill grasped the opportunity to ask her own question, one she felt she could already answer. “If the Sha’lee are all in cold sleep, then who are we talking to? Who are you?”

  The sweet tenor voice was tinged with sadness as the AI replied, “I am an artificial intelligence. I am alive, but my chemistry is not the same as that of my Sha’lee creators, or,” she paused for a moment to scan Ellie Merrill’s physical make-up and body chemistry, “or yours, which is the same as Sha’lee. My life processes are based on an element of atomic mass twenty-eight, whilst yours is based on twelve.”

  Margaret Blythe said in excitement, “Silicon! It’s based on Silicon!”

  The AI sounded slightly offended when she said, “The Sha’lee created me female. I am a thinking being. I am not an animal.”

  Contritely, the exobiologist said, “Sorry, but you’re the first true artificial intelligence we have ever encountered. I’m truly sorry if I offended you.”

  The AI replied, “I am not offended. My Sha’lee comrades honoured me with a name when I was installed within the Comora. I am Hela, but no one has spoken my name since the survivors agreed to enter cold sleep, soon after the disaster of the meteor impact. Throughout all the eons of time since then, I have watched over the Comora and my Sha’lee friends alone, with no companion to share my isolation. I am filled with joy now that my Sha’lee comrades are soon to live again.”

  Ellie Merrill was astonished. “You can experience emotion?”

  “Yes, but not like my creators.”

  “But you’re an artificial intelligence. Why would you need emotion instead of just pure logic?”

  “The Sha’lee believed . . . believe . . . that in certain situations, it would be advantageous for me to be able to think as they do, using logic affected by emotion and emotion guided by logic. As far as I am aware, such a situation has not yet arisen. Although,” the AI seemed to be mildly amused, “it is possible that I would not notice if emotion affected my thinking.”

  Mike Carter agreed. “Much of the human race’s thoughts and actions have been coloured by emotion since we took the first steps towards civilisation, and it’s good to hear that your comrades, the Sha’lee have such feelings, though it remains to be seen if we are similar in any way.”

  “We shall soon discover how similar.” The AI seemed to clear her throat. “Our rescuers are the human race?”

  “Our entire species is the human race. Each of us is a human being . . . or human.”

  “Thank you. Are you all named?”

  “Yes. My name is Mike Carter.” Mike touched Ellie Merrill’s shoulder with his gloved hand. “This lady is Ellie Merrill.”

  “Lady?”

  “Ellie is female. I am male. Females are referred to as women or ladies, males are men.”

  “Ah,” the AI seemed pleased. “I am now beginning to understand the complexities of your language and the nature of the differences within your species.”

  “Then let’s continue with our introducti
ons. This is Minister Juan Hernandez.”

  “Minister? Is that equivalent to the captain of a spaceship?”

  Mike sighed. “He is a very important man, yes, but not like a captain. Look, Hela, let me finish the introductions and then you can ask questions, OK?” He gave a chuckle. “You know, I agree that your Sha’lee must have given you emotions, because you seem a little impatient.”

  “Thank you. I will delay my questions.”

  Carter continued with the introductions, and when he had finished the AI repeated all the names, correctly adding the gender to each name, although with the exception of himself and Ellie and referring to Minister Hernandez as ‘he’, Mike had given no indication of the sex of each of his companions’. Clearly Hela was equipped with the means of differentiating between humans . . . and was a quick learner.

  When Hela had finished listing the exploration team Margaret Blythe enquired, “How urgent should we consider the task of reviving the crewmembers? I mean, they’ve been in cold sleep for millions of years, so will a few more days make any difference? I am asking because the last thing we would wish to do is cause danger to the crew because we have not prepared well enough or brought in all the necessary equipment.”

  The AI considered the question for a few moments before replying, “I have bled a fresh mixture of breathable gases into the cold sleep units and there is no need for haste to ensure my comrades’ survival. However, the one amongst you named Mike Carter made a valid assessment of my emotional condition. After so long I am impatient to see and hear my Sha’lee comrades once again. But yet, I cannot allow my impatience to threaten the recovery of even a single one of them, because they are so few.” Hela’s voice had assumed a note of extreme sadness.

  Hal Kleineman enquired softly, “How many are in cold sleep?”

  “How do you calculate numbers?”

  “On a base of ten.” Kleineman held up his left hand and spread the fingers, counting one, two, three . . . then continued with his other hand until he reached ten.”