The Sha'lee Resurrection

by Paul G White

  “I see.” Hela paused for a moment and added, “Two tens of Sha’lee entered cold sleep, but two of the units now contain lifeless remains.”

  “How many crewmembers died in the disaster?”

  “By your reckoning, almost two times ten to the third power.”

  Hal made a quick calculation – two thousand! Less than one per cent of the original crew had survived.

  Each member of the party had made the calculation and reached the same, horrific casualty figure.

  Mike Carter’s voice interrupted Hal’s thoughts. “Time’s up. We need to go back or they’ll come looking for us.” To the AI he said, “We need to discuss your medical requirements for raising your friends from cold sleep. None of us are doctors. In fact there are only two doctors on the whole excavation site, but they are general practitioners, not the specialists this situation demands. We shall need experts from many fields of medicine if we are to succeed . . . the best medical minds on the planet. We will make the necessary arrangements when we get outside, and the medical experts will decide what they require when they have discussed the matter with you. I’m certain that Minister Hernandez will then ensure we get everything we need with the minimum of delay.”

  Hernandez nodded. “There will be no problem in providing what you require.”

  Carter tripped the switch to enable him to speak to Hendriksson, but all he heard was the sound of his own breathing. “Damn,” he growled.

  Hela’s sweet voice interrupted his thoughts. “The Comora’s hull is impervious to your signals, so I have warned Doctor Hendriksson of your imminent arrival at the ramp. Please follow the lights and retrace your journey. I will attempt patience whilst I await your return.”

  The irony would not have been the least bit unusual if the words had been spoken by a human being. Carter felt himself warming to the artificial intelligence, and the quirkiness of her creators who had imbued her with emotion.

  Each filled with their own thoughts concerning their encounter with Hela, the exploration team left the vast enclosure behind and retraced their steps through the warehouse and onto the ramp. A worried looking Lars Hendriksson met them outside and directed them into the ‘decontamination suite’, a large tent erected within twenty metres of the ship’s central ramp and overshadowed by the belly of the huge vessel. Half an hour later they all emerged, cleanly scrubbed and disinfected, their biohazard suits having been incinerated immediately they had been discarded. Hendriksson met them once again.

  “We tried to contact you,” he complained, “but all we could hear was static.”

  “The Comora’s hull is impervious to radio signals,” Carter told him. “Hela informed us when we tried to let you know we were coming out. She said she would pass on the message.”

  “Comora? Hela?” Hendriksson was baffled.

  Carter smiled. “I think another visit to the canteen is called for, Lars, those suits leave you a little dry. Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty to tell you about what we found – and you won’t be disappointed.”

  The two soldiers separated from the group in order to report to their respective commanding officers, and Carter knew there was little he could do about that. He was confident, however, that their discovery would go no further than Colonel Suarez and Major Heathcote. The remaining six explorers accompanied the site director to the canteen for a well-earned drink to ease their dry throats.

  Immediately they were all seated around a table, Hendriksson looked Carter in the eye and demanded, “Now, what have you discovered that is so exciting? And who or what are Comora and Hela?”

  Carter looked at the others at the table. He was just about to launch into an explanation of what they had encountered inside the Comora, when a canteen assistant arrived with a tray of refreshing soft drinks. Carter waited for the tray to be emptied and the assistant to return to his main duties.

  Hendriksson was finding it difficult to hide his impatience, prompting Phil Makeman to comment with a grin, “It looks like the boss is blessed with an impatient nature just like Hela.”

  This proved too much for Hendriksson. His usual calm exterior deserted him and he snarled, “Who the hell is this Hela? And when is someone going to tell me what happened in there?”

  Minister Hernandez, who had always maintained a professional manner throughout his interaction with the site director and his team, compounded the joke, saying, “If an artificial intelligence can experience impatience, then there is little hope for mere humans, is there?”

  Hendriksson stared at the Minister of Antiquities, uncertain if he had heard correctly. “You’re saying the voice at the ramp belongs to an artificial intelligence named Hela?”

  Hernandez’s face broke into an unaccustomed smile. “That is so, Director. But let me not attempt to usurp Dr Carter’s position. As leader of our small group, he must be the person to relate what we have discovered so far. Dr Carter?”

  With the joke now played out, Carter gave an account of their sortie into the spaceship. At one point, he had to defer to Margaret Blythe for confirmation of the element upon which the AI’s life was based. When he was finished, Hendriksson whistled through his teeth.

  “Eighteen Sha’lee still alive, you say?”

  “Eighteen still alive, yes, but almost two thousand died in the meteor strike.” Carter was pensive for a few moments. “You know, I’ve absolutely no idea how memory survives a prolonged period of cold sleep, but I’ll bet that if and when we raise these people from their slumbers, they will need time to grieve their dead comrades. I’m not a psychologist, but I’d suspect that any race of people who would instil emotion into an artificial being are likely to be pretty emotional themselves.”

  “Isn’t that making assumptions, Mike?” Margaret Blythe asked, “after all, they are aliens, from another planet. Even on Earth, the separate races have developed differing ways of expressing emotion, and they do vary between wide extremes.”

  “I accept what you say, Margaret, but Hela stated that the Sha’lee created in her the ability to feel emotion – and I’ll paraphrase here – ‘but not like the Sha’lee’. I took that to mean not as strongly as her creators. In my opinion it wouldn’t make much sense for emotionless beings to create an artificial intelligence with feelings, however dilute those feelings were.”

  Hendriksson sighed. “Then in addition to a medical team for the awakening, we shall also require the services of counsellors – or even psychiatrists.” He sighed once more. “How many more specialist?” he enquired of no one in particular.

  Minister Hernandez said, “In the Prime Minister’s office some months ago, you mentioned that we may need experts in fields which do not exist yet. I believe that time is almost upon us.”

  “Amen to that,” Phil Makeman announced.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  PGWNewspapers

  PublicGovernmentWorldNewsCorporation

  27th June 2028 Correspondent James Whay

  ALIENS ARE ALIVE IN SHIP!

  Incredible as it may seem, sources at the site of the ancient spaceship in Belize have revealed that several aliens are still alive in suspended animation within the ship. One observer commented that the odds against any living being surviving for such an immense period of time are comparable to a person winning the National Lottery for ten consecutive weeks using the same numbers every time. (See page 2 for full report.)

  *

  The crowd in the Stade de France in Paris spread over the famous turf and filled most of the seats in the eighty thousand capacity stadium. From the stage, which had been erected over the centre spot of the rugby pitch, John Craithie let his gaze rove around the throng. His image, magnified on huge screens situated at the four corners of the stands, seemed to fill the entire stadium. Craithie granted himself a few seconds to appraise his appearance on the screens; his outfit of dark suit, white shirt and shiny black shoes gave the impression of a no-nonsense, business-like approach – efficient, dedicated, and above all determined to succeed.
He looked good – and he knew it.

  Stepping up to the microphone, Craithie began to speak. He opened with a few words of French, made almost unintelligible by a strong Scottish accent, which was destined to grow stronger with every rise in his emotional level. Switching to English, he thanked everyone for attending the rally, and assured them that their entry fees would help to give the crusade the financial strength to shake the world. He allowed the throng time to bathe in a warm glow of self-appreciation before launching into a vitriolic denunciation of the Comora and of the Sha’lee.

  “The world has just been informed that a number of the Devil’s spawn are alive within the confines of the spaceship in the jungles of Central America,” he told the throng. “We were not, I might add, informed by means of an official announcement, but by what is tantamount to rumour and gossip. So far, most of the information presently in the public domain has been announced not by official sources, but by the actions of a hero or heroine unknown, who has infiltrated this coven of devil worshippers. Without the intervention of this brave person, we can be certain that every discovery so far would have been shrouded in secrecy, and the world would have been unaware that Satan had infiltrated our lives.”

  Craithie glared over the heads of the crowd, his eyes aflame beneath his luxuriant brows. The cameras picked out the reflection of the sunlight in his eyes and the image blazed on the huge screens. No one present in the stadium could doubt the intensity and abhorrence radiating from him; everyone could almost touch the aura of hatred surrounding him like an invisible bubble. Their prophet was on fire.

  The intensity in Craithie’s eyes gradually diminished as he brought his emotions under control, and after what seemed like minutes but was, in reality, little more than ten seconds, he launched into his denouncement of the aliens and the team of scientists toiling to bring them back to life. He spared no emotional blackmail, no insults, no threats, and all the while he played upon the fears and emotions of the vast crowd like a virtuoso violinist wringing a majestic performance from a beautiful Stradivarius. Craithie had inadvertently discovered within himself an undeniable talent: he was a born rabble-rouser, and the world lay at his feet.

  When he had finished pouring out his fire and brimstone hatred and condemnation of everything alien to Earth, Craithie felt wrung out and weary – but, almost without exception, his audience was even more enervated by the experience.

  Suffused by a feeling of triumph at the manner in which he had dominated the hearts and minds of so many people, John Craithie announced the collection that would swell the coffers of his organisation, and there followed a wildly enthusiastic half-hour of throwing cash of all denominations into the plastic bins. Craithie then trumpeted his closing speech and left the stage to tumultuous applause. He felt certain that even the French national team could never aspire to such adulation even if they were to win the rugby world cup final at the home of French rugby.

  It had been a successful afternoon – and an extremely lucrative one.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The medical teams arrived at the site in two air-conditioned buses. The buses were accompanied by two huge panel trucks provided by the American government and filled with a vast array of medical equipment, including a mobile operating theatre.

  “I hope nobody intends to carry out vivisections,” Phil Makeman commented, “because if they do there’s going to be trouble.”

  Carter laughed at the idea. “Come on, Phil, you’ve been watching too many invasion movies.”

  “It’s not the invasion movies I’m thinking about,” Makeman replied sourly, “it’s the ones where the aliens came in peace and ended up in pieces on the operating table.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen, Phil. And you know the operating theatre has been provided just as a precaution in case surgery is necessary to save alien lives.”

  “Just making the point,” Makeman grunted, “that someone might be working to their own agenda.” He gripped Carter’s elbow lightly in his fingers and guided him a few metres away from the others. “I mentioned this, Mike,” he said almost in a whisper, “because it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that our good friend, Dr Craithie, could have infiltrated the site. You’ve seen the reports on the kind of anti-alien hatred he’s been spouting all over Europe, and it’s conceivable that he’ll have people within his ranks who wouldn’t think twice about murdering any Sha’lee they can lay their hands on.” His voice dropped even lower. “Those people may be on the site even as we’re speaking, because we all know someone is managing to keep Craithie informed about our movements, and even what we’re discussing in closed meetings.” He touched his nose with a fingertip. “I smell a mole, and as far as I can see, it must be someone within or close to the leading people at the site.”

  Carter stared at his friend as if seeing him for the first time. “I can see where you’re coming from, Phil, and I hope to God you’re wrong. I think, though that we should have a chat with Lars about your worries. The way I see it, there’s no sense in keeping it to ourselves.”

  They found Hendriksson in conversation with Minister Hernandez in his office, which had transferred from the large canvas tent to a fairly spacious and well-equipped work area in one of the many new wooden buildings, erected on the level plateau formed from the spoil from the excavation. Carter knocked on the door.

  “Excuse me, Lars . . . Minister. May we have a word?” His eyes flicked around the office as if searching for something or someone. “Outside?”

  The site director raised his eyebrows and said nothing. Minister Hernandez followed the changing direction of Carters glances and said, “Certainly Doctor Carter. Lead on.”

  Carter and Makeman headed for an open area where there was very little activity, and eventually Hernandez enquired, “Is this isolated enough?”

  Carter nodded. “Yes, thank you. Sorry for the cloak and dagger, but Phil has just made a very serious case for security on the site to be increased. In fact, he argues that security may already have been compromised. I’ll let Phil tell it in his own words.”

  Makeman detailed his fears to the site director and the Minister of Antiquities, and when he was finished, he added, “I hope I’m just being alarmist, but the fact that you had no objection to leaving your office tells me that you suspect it’s not entirely safe to discuss sensitive material in there.”

  “That thought had crossed my mind,” Hendriksson admitted.

  “There have been occasions when even casual opinions have found their way to the press – and to Craithie,” Minister Hernandez agreed, “which would suggest that someone amongst a small number of the top people at the site is passing on information.”

  “You can count me out, then,” Phil Makeman growled. “I may be unable to keep my big mouth shut if anyone rubs me up the wrong way, but I’d never risk getting thrown off the site. It’s just too damned exciting here, especially now we know the Sha’lee are alive.”

  “I believe you, Phil,” Carter grinned. “You may be boneheaded sometimes, but you’re not stupid.”

  “Joking apart,” Hendriksson told them, “we must consider everyone as suspect. The minister and I need to talk to Colonel Suarez and Major Heathcote. They should be able to advise on security issues. Meanwhile, I think you should list the leaks to the media over the past few weeks, and if possible, try to recall who was present when the subjects of the leaks took place. Bring in Hal Kleineman. His memory for detail is phenomenal, and I trust him completely.”

  Carter and Makeman hurried off to locate Hal Kleineman. They found him deep in discussion with Enrico Tempi.

  “Can you spare half an hour, Hal?” Carter enquired.

  “Sure. Is there a problem?”

  “We just need to borrow your memory, if that’s ok with you. You might need your notepad and pencil.”

  Grinning, Kleineman excused himself and together they sauntered off to a remote area of the site.

  “What’s so mysterious?” Kleineman
asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  Carter regarded the physicist for a few moments and decided the best path to follow was a straight one. “We think there’s a mole, who is passing information to the press – or even directly to Craithie.”

  Kleineman whistled. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Not entirely, but everything points that way. The thing is, Hal, the rantings coming from our friend Craithie lead us to wonder if he might have somehow infiltrated the site with the idea of planting a bomb under the Comora – or something equally lunatic.”

  Kleineman whistled again. “I suppose it’s possible. But we all know that the AI would destroy any kind of weapon before it could become a threat.”

  “We know that, but I’m pretty certain that Craithie doesn’t. What would happen, though, if a potential bomber decided to switch to an attack on the Sha’lee, once they were up and about outside the ship?”

  Kleineman paled a little. “Now that’s too vile to contemplate. What do you want me to do?”

  “We’d need to think about the information that was leaked and when it must have happened. If we can pinpoint who was present on each occasion, we may find a common denominator. Does that make sense?”

  “Sure, let’s get to it.”

  Over the following half-hour, the three listed the events in question and searched their memories for people who had been present at the time. One name, other than Hendriksson, Carter and Makeman made it onto every list – Margaret Blythe!

  Carter said, “That’s unbelievable. She’s an exobiologist for goodness sake. Anyway, why would Margaret train in that particular discipline if she hated the idea of aliens visiting Earth?”

  “Beats me,” Kleineman said, “but unless it’s one of you three, she’s the prime candidate.”

  Carter was still unable to believe it. “But I like Margaret,” he protested. “Surely she can’t have joined Craithie’s crazy bunch?”