THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  “As you are aware, the United Nations Outer-Space Treaty was signed in 1967. Even had you not arrived on the scene, it was almost inevitable that one of the major space-going powers would demand it be re-worded. Now, it is almost a certainty that it will be challenged.”

  “How so?” Michael asked.

  “Well, the treaty states that no nation or individual can appropriate territory in space. So, if it is your intent to land on Mars and claim it for Britain, I’m afraid you’d be violating the treaty and no one would recognise your claim.”

  “But if I wanted to remove ice or soil from the moon or planet?” Michael asked.

  “An interesting point. Russia and USA have both removed soil from the moon, and lay claim to that soil. Moon dust has changed hands for sums of money, and therefore it is a commodity that can be bought and sold. However, both parties can claim that the small volume they obtained was for research, and not monetary gain. If you were, for example, to begin mining gold from the moon, then I’m pretty certain several of the United Nation countries would quicken their efforts to change the wording of the treaty to clarify that aspect.”

  “So as it stands now, although they can complain about it, I can gather the natural resources of the planets and not be viewed as breaking the treaty?”

  The professor nodded. “The key phrase here is appropriation, because it is used in the context of whole celestial bodies. As long as you are only laying claim to what you have taken from the body, and lay no claim to the complete moon or planet, then under the current treaty, you can continue.”

  “And if I mined something small, like an asteroid?” Michael asked.

  “What; the whole thing?” the professor asked, and shook his head when Michael nodded. “There is no clear answer to that one. It would need to be argued in a court of law to establish a precedent. My personal view is that the United Nations will seek to change the treaty fairly soon now. To do anything else would be tantamount to giving you space and all its resources on a platter.”

  June 18th.

  The gypsies gathered in small groups as they departed their ARC quarters, meeting up with friends and close family before making their way to the first floor where the large lounge area was situated, newly completed with soft furnishings. Large monitors on the walls played the part of windows, providing information as well as a view of the outside. Michael had introduced a limited availability of alcohol in the restaurant and lounge for two hours in the evening, and Frank had timed the meeting to end as the bar opened, a further incentive for all the travellers to be there.

  They arranged the deep seating into a large semi-circle and made themselves comfortable, most of them settling down to chat about the difficulties they were experiencing in the alien environment of the ship. With the exception of those who had spent odd periods confined in Her Majesty’s prisons, they had no experience of being cooped up for days on end. Those that did had no happy memories of the confinement, nor any wish to repeat it.

  Frankie arrived, waving a goodbye to the hydroponics professor before he moved to come and stand in front of them, patiently waiting for the last among them to fall silent and for their gazes, some curious, some hostile, to turn towards him.

  “We’ve been here a week,” he told them, although he was sure none needed reminding of it. “One week,” he repeated, looking about him. He knew all of them, having been raised with half of them, and having been in trouble with the other half. The older women had helped look after him when he’d been little while some of those closer to his own age he knew better than he’d ever know a real sister.

  “You know, most of the university lads on board, they can go home after their stint is up here. They’ll get better jobs for having been here. They’ll get more money, I’m sure of it. Makes you envious, doesn’t it?

  “Some here can’t go back. The likes of Michael, the Howard twins, perhaps a couple of the others. They’ll be able to visit perhaps, but this is now their home. There’s no going back for them. Earth will just give them grief, pain and grief,” he told his family.

  “What about us?” looking about him as he asked the question. “What group do you think we fit into?” he asked.

  “No, think carefully,” he urged them as a couple moved to answer him. “Do you think the police don’t know who’s here and who isn’t? Do you think they’re going to let you slide back into your old lives, your old ways?

  “We built our lives on keeping low profiles, of keeping ourselves to ourselves, of not letting strangers know our business.

  “I’ll bet you a thousand Euros that at least 5,000 people know Martha now, know where she lived, know her background in every detail. And Bert, and you Sam, Doreen, Andy, Maddy. They know where you lived, and how. They know your ages, and your record. Maddy; they probably know your true hair colour too.

  “We go back now, we’re going to get one week of heavy questioning from the Filth, one month of notoriety from the press, and then absolutely fuck all,” he told them sharply, and watched them as he waited for that to sink in.

  “There’s no going back, don’t ever kid yourself that there is. So stop your bleating, and begin learning what you need to do to make good up here.”

  “And what’s that?” Bert asked sourly.

  “We’re in the scrap business, aren’t we? So to begin with, we need some vehicles.”

  “Where we going to get them, Frankie?” called another voice, Sam’s.

  “You want me to wipe your arse for you too, Sam?” Frankie asked.

  “We’re not here on some holiday,” he explained patiently but bluntly to the sour-faced listeners. “We’re here to do a job, and make ourselves a new home.”

  “This ain’t no fucking home!” Sheila shouted from the back.

  “Then fucking make it one!” Frankie retorted but without anger. “I mean, you’re right. This is a university for fuck’s sake. What are we going to do in a university?

  “We’re going to fucking learn, is what we’re going to do. We’re going to learn all we need to, so we can get our own ship, and run it the way we want to,” he told them, and he saw some of them nod and look to their neighbours.

  “There are tons and tons of scrap out there, just waiting for us to get it, and if we can’t turn a profit from that lot, then we don’t deserve a future,” he spat. And there were a lot more nods, and more emphatic too.

  “So first and foremost, we need to know how to move about in space. I want to see you all out there, every single one of you, yes, you too Martha. Start with just a minute or two and get used to it, but learn how to move, and not move,” and he grinned. Some of them had experienced it and laughed.

  “Learn to use the screens, the tablets. Learn how to operate the ship, and I don’t just mean how to move it, but how the air systems work, how the kitchens work, absolutely everything. Learn as much as you can, because we need to know for ourselves how to run a ship, find the scrap, how to recover it, how to negotiate the sale, and how to transport it to the buyer. We learnt how to do all that down on earth, some of us before we even learnt to walk. Now let’s learn how to do that up here.

  “And if you’re not going out and getting the goods, then you’re here supporting us. Cooking, cleaning, talking to neighbours and keeping an eye out for each other. The things we need to do are the same, it’s just the method that’s changed. It shouldn’t be that hard to do.”

  +++++++++++++

  While the public areas within the Russian Embassy in London were near to being palatial, the basement where most of the staff worked was utilitarian. There was a network of passages with red floor tiles and dull grey walls that serviced a series of small offices and meeting rooms, the furniture basic and hard-wearing, their age helping to testify to that.

  Petrova Elstin needed a guide to take her to the meeting room where her assembled team were waiting to meet her. She had arrived that morning from Moscow and had already met with the Ambassador and the Cultural Attaché. Now she was to
meet the team.

  Their selection had been done with some care. Vasyl Pushnoy for his good looks, a womaniser who might make the difference. Danil Lebed for his seniority, his mature profile that may sway women un-swayed by Vasyl. And Yulia Dubinin, a young professional woman that young British women may admire and want to emulate. Their skills were completely different to those used previously to attack the ARC, and for a reason. Previous teams had all failed.

  They stood as she entered. She nodded and they sat and waited, watching her, no doubt already aware of her position and her accomplishments.

  “Your assignment,” she told them, distributing a thin folder with just a single sheet of paper within it. She watched them open it and looked for an expression that might hint at excitement or dread at their new task.

  “To summarise; we need to find a way into the Cambridge University’s newest college, the Rolle Annex.

  They nodded, reading the details, the sparse details of what was already known.

  “It is my conjecture that the gypsies are the ARCs vulnerability. They will be the most easily swayed by easy money. We must become friends with those that are here on earth first; show them that we can be good employers, friends even, friends who can offer alternatives. Once they make some profit from us, we can suggest further opportunities, and we can suggest those may include items from space.”

  They nodded and returned their gaze towards her.

  “There is no project that is more important to Russia than this one,” she told them, stabbing her own manila folder with her slender index finger. “There is much to be gained by succeeding at it,” she suggested forcefully. She didn’t need to tell them that the reverse was also true. They were senior members of the embassy staff. They knew how things worked.

  “So, let us begin,” she said.

  July 2nd.

  Thomas sat at one of the control-room desks and idled the time by selecting cameras at random to display their images up on the main screen in front of him. Most of the cameras could be rotated too, but he was happy just to use the table-top control board to move the display from one camera to the next, to look at the image until he grew bored, and move to the next.

  He came to the aft of the big ship and stopped, his interest taken by the dozen or so small shapes that moved haphazardly about in space just outside the large open doors. He zoomed in with a slide of his finger and thumb, and stared in amazement at the figures of spacemen as they tried using nitrogen-gas guns to move between two stationary containers that had been positioned 50 metres apart and below the ship’s horizon.

  “What are they doing?” he asked the room at large, watching the gas being released from one gun, causing the person wielding it to tumble and spin backwards.

  “They’re practicing with their new propelling guns; to help move them about in space,” Jake explained, the other person on shift in the control-room at that time.

  Thomas watched another suited person ‘shoot’ their propulsion gun, trying to use instinct to guide him in his efforts to adjust his aim and prevent the mad tumbling and spinning that was the outcome of each attempt.

  “Looks like fun,” Jake chuckled, and brought another camera into play. “That woman looks as if she’s got the hang of it,” he observed.

  Thomas agreed. A distinctly female form was using her gun to better effect, and although her body still rotated, it didn’t do so quite as badly as the others. At least she got to where she wanted to go, even if she did bump into the container a little forcefully. That was more than anyone else achieved.

  “They know we could have turned the gravity off in the docking bay, don’t they?” Thomas asked.

  Jake’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know we could turn the gravity off in just the docking bay area,” he admitted.

  Thomas showed him how it could be done, and then opened his tablet to begin making some notes.

  July 10th.

  Patrova Elstin stopped at the curb of the busy road to look to her left, swearing softly in Russian before looking right to the oncoming traffic before judging when best to cross. The café she wanted was set back a few feet from the curb, a large window beside the door allowing her to glance within before she pushed the door open. No one glanced at her as she made her way between the chairs and tables to the small table beside the wall where Vasyl Pushnoy sat, a can of coke in front of him.

  “Did we have to meet here?” she asked him. “Chelmsford is only two kilometres away,” she chided him.

  He shrugged. “I like these little villages,” he explained, glancing beyond her to smile at the young waitress, lounging close to the till. “And anyway, Great Baddow is not that hard to find. It’s right next to the A12,” he pointed out.

  “That road is terrible!” she told him sharply, and turned to jerk her head towards the smiling waitress and who lost her smile and came across to wait tiredly for Patrova to order.

  “A coffee please, black,” Patrova said, her English perfectly spoken.

  “I hope the trip is worth it,” she threatened as the waitress strolled away, the tossing of her attractive bottom and causing her skirt to sway.

  Vasyl slid his phone across to her so she would see the photograph of a hawkish woman in her mid-forties, her excess weight gathering about her lower body to give her an overall pear shape, heavy makeup around the eyes, her hair carefully arranged, discrete earrings in each ear, not at all what one would expect from a gypsy.

  “That is Emily Trotter, a close cousin of Patrick Miller, Paddy to his friends. They talk regularly. He is close to Frank Hill, perhaps his confidant. I’m not yet certain of the woman’s reliability, but she has offered to keep us informed of what is occurring on the ARC, for a fee, obviously.” Vasyl explained.

  “How much?” Patrova asked.

  “I thought to give her 100 Euros on her first report, but let her see a further four hundred in my wallet,” Vasyl suggested.

  “Yes,” Patrova agreed. “And make further suggestions as to what we might find interesting, but make no mention of the chemical. It is too early. We don’t want to frighten them this early.”

  “I understand,” Vasyl agreed. “Have the others made any contacts?” he asked, trying to judge where he stood in the team.

  “Not your business,” she told him, and sipped at her coffee before she began giving him some ideas about what her masters might want to know. “Have you slept with her yet?”

  Vasyl shook his head but grinned. “But she is easy pickings,” he confirmed, and turned his grin towards the returning waitress.

  July 12th.

  Michael drew in a lung-full of air and smiled as Heather laughed beneath him.

  “You look so lovely,” he sighed, the gentle and dying move of his loins making Heather’s full breasts rock slightly upon her chest, a post coital glow still spreading across her lightly tanned skin, a fine sheen of perspiration between her breasts.

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” she admitted, glowing within.

  He rose and slid to one side of her, gazing at her while she turned on her side to gaze lovingly back at him. For a while nothing was said, but then Heather’s eyes slid to the small clock on the bedside table. “We have a meeting to attend,” she reminded him.

  Michael groaned. “The honeymoon is over, eh?” he surmised. He rose and strode towards the bathroom, glancing with a grin back towards his new partner, knowing she would be staring at his buttocks. “You have the same meeting,” he reminded her.

  Heather made a rude sound and followed Michael into the bathroom to slide into the shower beside him. The spray of water was short, controlled automatically by the faucet, and yet enough to soak them both.

  “We’re going to be busy from now on, aren’t we?” she reflected, taking a moment to stroke Michael’s back, soaping the strong shoulders while she considered the last couple of months and the profound changes it had brought to her life.

  “And we’ve not been busy for the last month?” he asked with a g
runt. There had been a mad scramble to complete the rest of the interior of the ship, innumerable versions of their spacesuits to try and test as it was found that lengthy wear of the first versions caused severe skin irritation, daily updates on health and safety issues, and dozens of little problems that took an age to sort, even longer to communicate.

  “Not that way,” she explained lamely. The truth was that all their efforts had been focused inwards, into the ship and the development of all the empty space they had lifted with and the systems needed to support their new lives. There hadn’t been the time to complete all the living quarters while still on earth, or do all those little things that made the difference between a liveable environment, and comfortable one. There had been systems and procedures to implement, in particular those that created a safe haven deep within the ship where the spacesuit was no longer mandatory, to the great relief of most of the women, and some of the men.

  No, Heather reflected. The last month in space had been pleasant if hard labour, working within a team, painting and decorating, finishing off the plumbing, even erecting some of the partitioning.

  “I know what you mean,” he assured her, smiling in that casual way that he had about him. He pressed the water stud again and the shower spray began afresh, once more just enough to wash away the soap.

  They allowed the warm air jets to dry them while a small disposable towel did the more inaccessible places, and dressed, discussing the meeting and the various topics that needed further dialogue while pulling on the jumpsuits that were now the standard wear for all ship personnel who remained in the heart of the ship, where spacesuits were no longer necessary because of the safety buffer of at least three doors between them and outer-space.

  Heather and Michael continued to talk about the forthcoming meeting, but little was said that was new; they had been reviewing the future for some while.

  The conversations had allowed Michael to get to know Heather all over again, and he found he had to revise his opinion of her; she wasn’t like Wendy at all.