THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  Stan had been part of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command group, until he had been seconded to the Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. His successes were well known within that small organisation, and he was rapidly moved into the Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6. So it was natural when Sir Arthur wanted one or two special operatives to report directly to him, than one of those would be Stanley Charway.

  “I need you to look into something for me,” Sir Arthur told his trusted employee, his chair turned so he could look out of the window and admire an old sailing barge as it made its slow way down the Thames.

  “Certainly Sir Arthur,” Stan nodded. He rubbed his hands together behind his back, just thinking of the complexities that would follow, for no task given by Sir Arthur Coleman was simple or straight forward, and that was just the sort of job Stan liked.

  “What we know is in there,” Sir Arthur told him, turning away from the view to slide a thin envelope towards Stanley. “We hear the Americans have seen something new appear in orbit about the earth.”

  “Alien?” Stan asked, his curiosity growing.

  “No, no. Don’t be silly, Stanley. Something of earth origin has just appeared in orbit, clearly surprising them.”

  “Good of them to tell us, being we’re the poor cousins when it comes to anything to do with space,” Stan observed.

  “They didn’t,” Sir Arthur told him. “But they used the La Palma observatory to take pictures of it,” he explained. “A little bit stupid of them really, but then, that’s the Americans for you.”

  Stan withdrew the pictures from the folder and began turning the topmost photo it in an effort to work out which way was up.

  “Why take pictures of a satellite,” Sir Arthur asked, “unless, of course, you’ve never seen it before, eh?”

  “Quite,” Stanley agreed, deciding on portrait for the orientation while wishing Las Palmas could do a better job with the camera. None of his operatives would dare give him such a badly focused image, and he didn’t care how far away the subject had been from the camera.

  “So find out what you can. See if any of our European friends want to share information with us. Stir things up a bit, if only to cause our dear friends in America a little awkwardness. It may move them to make a full disclosure, and that would be nice,” Sir Arthur observed drily, partly to himself.

  “I’ll get right onto it,” Stan agreed, and rose and left while his superior returned his gaze to the Thames once more.

  +++++++++++++++++

  The invitation had been posted on the Cambridge University web site, and when Professor Rolle entered the smallest of the auditoriums available in the Cavendish Laboratory, it was to find it filled, to the point that students sat on the steps of the aisle too.

  “Well, I’m pleased to see that there is so much interest in a fictitious story about a launch facility developed in the heart of Cambridge University,” he said, invoking laughter from the students.

  He smiled and nodded to the sea of faces, many of whom he knew. Now, though they may not know it, they were possible recruits for his latest project.

  “So,” he told them, and the room fell silent, “following on from that story, let us make a leap of faith and consider it to be true for a moment.”

  There was more laughter and nodding of heads.

  “We have an enormous facility in orbit above the earth. It has gravity, proper food, proper toilet facilities,” and there was more laughter from the students.

  “The issue I want to discuss at today’s meeting is how to command and monitor so large and complicated a craft and all who live in her. How do we monitor movement to and from the craft? How do we ensure such movement is safe, remembering that such movement is three dimensional?”

  Hands raised and Rolle began to listen to the ideas of the students, allowing the forum to develop the ideas among themselves until, at the end of an hour, they had evolved an application that would present data on a table-like monitor, something circular and sufficiently large to represent the craft and all objects within a certain distance. It would be multipurpose with the ability to view all details, or only a subset. It would be intuitive, and therefore use the touch screen facilities common to the Android application.

  It was the stuff of science fiction films, and yet the hardware and software were available. It just needed programming and configuring.

  “Alright!” he called with a clap of his hands as the hour came to an end. “That is all for today. Next week we shall meet again and the topic will be; discrete and purposeful communication among spacemen,” he told them.

  Allan Blake came up to him as the others filed out, still talking about the project and the task for next week.

  “Think you can do it?” the professor asked.

  Allan shrugged. “It’s not that far removed from what the Royal Navy use, although ours will be have the ability to move the display through 360 degrees and work on three planes and not two,” he pointed out. “The interface will be Android, but a lot of the underlying code is going to have to be machine code, for speed if nothing else,” he explained.

  “I have every faith in you,” the professor smiled.

  April 13th

  Michael was surprised by the fondness of the memories his trip to London Dockland brought. He once again walked along St Katherine’s Dock and past the Cape, the nearest pub to his old offices and, by chance, one of the largest in the district. He walked on, remembering other times, happy times in hindsight.

  He crossed Vaughan Way to take the short cut, across the large News International car park, to join the busy main road where, just a hundred metres further and on a corner to a quiet cul-de-sac stood the St George Tavern. It wasn’t the largest of pubs, nor was it the nearest to the newspaper’s offices, but it was the preferred pub. The large double-door entrance was flanked by curved brick walls that were typically 50s in style, as were the metal framed windows that curved with the walls.

  Inside it was oak, leather and pale coffee-coloured walls, unchanged from when Michael had last seen it. Had it really been six months? Newspaper headlines that were deemed world changing had been framed along with a signed photograph of the journalist, and graced the walls at irregular intervals. There were twenty-two the last time Michael had felt the urge to count, and he was up there, somewhere. His story on Syria. It had probably been the last story he had done for that particular newspaper while sober. Wendy had been killed two days later.

  He entered the main bar and smiled as a roar of welcome met him. Old colleagues grinned at him, clapping him on the back and welcoming him, each slap pushing him further and further into the melee of journalists, editors and print room staff.

  He accepted a pint of bitter and pretended to drink as he chatted with various old friends, sharing new anecdotes and laughing again at the often repeated older ones.

  It was about an hour before Michael found himself in a relatively quiet corner of the packed room, his old friend, Oliver Cole in front of him, one hand wrapped protectively around his pint glass, the other deep in the pocket of his worn and baggy corduroy trousers.

  “So you’ve settled in Cambridge, then,” he asked, watery blue eyes gazing at him from under untidy straw blond hair.

  Michael nodded. “It has its surprises though,” he pointed out. A small USB chip slid into Oliver’s pocket.

  “What’s that?” Oliver asked without any other outward sign of having felt it.

  “Some research the university has helped me on. Can’t publish it in Cambridge; it would be pointing the finger, but you could do it, if you were interested,” Michael suggested, touching the glass to his lips and inhaling the fragrant brew.

  “Cambridge University subterfuge,” Oliver chuckled. “University towns are known for it.”

  “There are some new satellites orbiting the earth and sending signals to their masters. No one knows how they got up there, and I mean No One. The US are being very quiet about it, as
are all the other major players; Russia, Europe, China, India.”

  “Unlikely to be China, with their recent run of bad luck,” Oliver noted. “And this is the story?” he asked.

  “The basis for one. The research is all there; Satellite orbits, transmitting frequencies, copies of the requests from USSTRATCOM to La Palma Observatory for photos of them.”

  “My, but haven’t you been busy,” Oliver grinned. “What’s in it for me?” he asked.

  “Exclusivity on the next story. It will be bigger than that one, and that one is big if you treat it right,” Michael suggested.

  Oliver considered, smiled, and sipped his beer. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  April 17th

  Paul Preston kept his head down and his eyes on the information in front of him. It meant he didn’t have to look at the man from the Ministry who sat across from him, outwardly relaxed.

  Mr Stanley Charway had entered the ROLID offices at Duxford early that morning, without notice, an arm outstretched to present his credentials; a letter from the Minister informing everyone of Mr Charway’s rights and privileges under Section 8, paragraph 5 of the Security Act of 1998, Amended 2013.

  He had declined the offer of a coffee or tea, and without any pleasantries at all, had brought Paul’s attention to the case of the weather balloons. “Don’t you think those statistics; the rate of climb, the angle, the size, all speak of a heavy rocket being launched?” he had asked.

  “What, ten and fifteen miles out in the North Sea?” Paul said with a superior smile. Stan Charway frowned and Paul, seeing the sour look on the more senior man’s face, had hurriedly rearranged his expression.

  “Yes, I suppose it could be interpreted that way,” he agreed. “But how and why would a rocket be launched out in the North Sea?” he asked. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his brow that he would have dearly loved to wipe away, but to do so would have shown his fear, tantamount to an admission of failure.

  “That’s hardly our concern. Our concern,” Stan Charway told him, stressing the pronoun, “is to properly interpret the data from the untagged items entering our domain. But you chose to interpret it another way, didn’t you? You chose to tag them as weather balloons; balloons capable of rising against the wind.”

  “Er, not I; my staff. I shall be having sharp words with my staff, I assure you, because this is clearly not good enough!” Paul agreed, his nervousness diminishing as he saw a clear path out of responsibility for the oversight.

  “But this was brought to your attention weeks ago, when they first occurred, or am I mistaken?” Stan asked, a further sheet of information casually placed in front of the sweating manager.

  Paul stared at the log entry and felt bile rise into his throat. He wiped his brow, no longer caring how it would be interpreted.

  The man from the ministry waited a few moments, just in case Paul had anything to say. “You’ll start a review of all items tagged as weather balloons around the British Isles in the last six months. I want details of all those that show any deviation from a normal balloon flight.”

  “That will take us weeks!” Paul groaned.

  “Your staff; yes. You; no. I’ll have someone relieve you of your authority by next week.”

  “Relieve me? But, what will I be doing?” Paul gasped, suddenly aware that this could affect his clandestine meetings with Denise.

  “Mr Preston, I couldn’t care less,” he was told.

  +++++++++++++++++

  Herbert Rolle stood to smile at the tall, slender, but broad shouldered young man who approached him from across Butt Green. Gary Clarke was in his senior year studying History. He had also been one of the team of rowers participating in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, helping to win it that previous year. That, and his good looks and broad shoulders, made him a popular young man on campus.

  Gary’s sport was one of the reasons Professor Rolle had chosen The Fort Saint George as a meeting place. It was on the river and practically next to Peterhouse Boat club. But just as importantly, it was a Greene King pub with some lovely beers.

  “Thanks for meeting with me, Gary,” he told the boy as he sat and pointed to the light beer already waiting for him on the small table.

  “No problem professor. What can I do for you?” Gary asked, an easy smile on his face as he waved towards two pretty first year students who were cycling by, following the river path northward, towards the town.

  “You’re the current Chair of the Cambridge University Spaceflight Society, aren’t you?” the professor asked. The CUSF was a student run society for those interested in promoting low cost spaceflight. Since its start in 2006, it had already developed alternatives to items used by NASA, aimed at reducing costs and to ultimately make space travel more accessible to all.

  “I am,” Gary agreed. “But if it’s anything to do with that article in the Chronicle, then I’m as ignorant as Professor Lark.”

  Rolle chuckled, shook his head and sipped his Greene King Alepril Fool ale. “No, but I noticed you in my weekly forum. You seem particularly interested,” the professor said.

  “Well, the CUSF is interested in anything to do with space,” Gary admitted. “But I’m also interested in the rumours that are going round; that the fictitious story isn’t as fictitious as everybody wants us to believe.

  “On top of that, there’s the question of how Astrophysics got their projects launched.” Gary pointed out.

  “And if I told you that it’s not fictitious; that Cambridge University has got a method of launching goods into space, but because of the dangers posed by just about every large organisation you care to name, we have to keep it secret?”

  “Then I would want to be a part of it,” Gary said without hesitation.

  “Alright then, Gary. I have a project for you,” the professor told him. “We need to find a suit that we can wear. You know what is currently worn?”

  “Well, yes. Those on the International Space Station wear just trousers and vest while inside the station.” Gary told him. “If they need to go outside they wear the full spacesuit, obviously.”

  Rolle nodded. “However, we’re going to have an environment that is radically different. Those who go to our facility will no longer be rare visitors to space. They will live there!

  “We’re going to want to move around in space with greater frequency, and with much greater agility. We don’t want to be totally unprotected, and yet wearing a full spacesuit is going to be too awkward. We’re going to want something less bulky, something that is more easily lived in for safety, but more flexible and reliable, for ease of working,” he pointed out. “That’s putting aside the main issue; we’re going to have gravity, so wearing a suit that weighs 50 kilograms, not to mention the additional 32 kilograms for the life supporting back pack, is just out of the question!”

  Gary was thoughtful. The term ‘spacesuit’ implied it was single garment, which was far from the truth; the modern spacesuit had an incredible 14 layers and, as a result, was time consuming to put on or take off. The suit itself was actually a lower part, and an upper part, with separate arm sections, but as the professor had pointed out, it was extremely heavy, in part because NASA didn’t need to worry about weight when wearing it.

  Leaving aside the difficulty of putting it on, an exercise that took the best part of half a day, it was inconvenient to wear it for any length of time. NASA astronauts wore a garment called a MAG, or Maximum Absorption Garment, that for all intense and purposes was an adult sized diaper. It highlighted the fact that the modern suit was not designed for day-to-day use, but more for the rare occasions when an astronaut had to go outside.

  Because the suit was so bulky and all-encompassing, it gave the astronaut limited versatility. It was the reason why NASA had developed a whole new set of tools for the space industry; a man in a spacesuit couldn’t use a standard spanner or screwdriver.

  “You want something people can almost live in, perhaps just having to add an overcoat for adde
d protection and life support when they go outside,” Gary stated.

  Professor Rolle grinned at him. “I knew you would understand. Have a look at some of the newer materials coming out of the British manufacturing industry; the plastics, carbon and rubber manufacturers,” he suggested. “Dr Cannon may be able to help you with some contacts. Then let me see what you have come up with.”

  +++++++++++++++++

  Michael chose to walk the two kilometres out to Cambridge University Hydroponic facility, close to the Cambridge Business Park. It was a non-descript brown brick building at the end of a narrow concrete road, the front door locked and the windows covered from the inside with a black sealant.

  The entry hall looked empty and unused, so Michael meandered round the back and waved at the modern CCTV installation that covered the small car park and the large but old double wooden doors that were in need of a coat of paint.

  There was a small intercom unit beside the door and he pressed the button to hear it buzz somewhere deep inside.

  “Can I help you?” asked the quiet but hostile, and unmistakably female voice from behind him.

  Michael turned and smiled towards the woman who watched him. She was older than most students he noted, perhaps closer to his own age than that of the bulk of the campus, large eyes framed in a round face accentuated by the curve of her auburn hair. She was short though, having to look up at him.

  “Michael Bennett, journalist with the Cambridge Chronicle,” he introduced himself, his Press card held out for her to look at and read.

  “Really? I didn’t know they had any,” she told him.

  “Oh, I’m a recent signing,” he explained with a straight face. “I’m looking for Professor Rogers,” he told her.

  “You’ve found her,” she told him. “And what can I do for you, Mr Bennett?” she asked, the hostility still behind her eyes.

  “I’m following up on a small piece one of my colleagues published last week,” he explained, and watched her nod while his brain worked to re-categorised her from senior year student to professor.