THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX: THE TRILOGY

by Peter Damon

  The town of Dover, Delaware looked quiet at that time of morning as Michael allowed the pre-programmed app to guide the Range Rover quietly downwards, onto the dark cul-de-sac that was the drive to the well secured bungalow Michael wanted, his path circumventing the federal security guards who had taken up position at the entrance to the road.

  Silently, Michael landed on the patio area behind the large ranch-type house that was the home of Glen Schroder, Technical Advisor to the President of the United States of America, and settled down to wait for morning.

  It wasn’t until a good two hours after dawn when he heard a shrill scream from beyond one of the windows that told him one of the family had found a strange vehicle sitting on their patio, right beside their pool.

  Getting out of the car, Michael took a moment to admire the elaborate barbeque equipment and the neatly arranged lawn before smiling towards the startled family members gathered at the large glass doors of their lounge. As he neared, he saw the man he’d come to see looking towards him and the car, recognition making his jaw hang open.

  “Mr Glen Schroder? I thought it time we met. I’m Michael Bennett,” Michael told him, holding out his hand and grinning at the man’s shocked expression.

  “You landed that thing in my back yard!” the American gasped, staring at it.

  Michael nodded. “I wanted our first meeting to be private. Want to come for a drive?” he asked.

  Glen Schroder stepped from the house and turned to nod back at his nervous looking family. “I won’t be long. No need to involve anyone,” he cautioned them and looked again at the very tall, box-like car.

  Michael watched him as he moved to the car and ran his hand across the side of the bonnet. He guessed the man was passionate about space and opened the passenger door for him before going round to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  “He’s going to be fine, honest,” Michael assured Glen’s nervous looking wife and daughter before he climbed in and worked the controls to prepare the car for space flight.

  “I bet you’ve always wanted to do this,” Michael said, smiling at the confused presidential aide as he pressed the accelerator downwards.

  “Oh Lord!” Glen Schroder breathed.

  As the innocent looking Range Rover ascended into the air, the quiet up-market residential estate outside Dover resolved into a network of small roads and cul-de-sacs’, each leading to its own property. Glen watched it all diminish, clouds flashing by them to half obscure the broader view of the east coast of the USA.

  “No inertia!” he gasped.

  “Oh, I thought you knew,” Michael told him. “No, no inertia. We keep below 1,000 kilometres an hour while we’re in the atmosphere because of the speed of sound, but we steadily increase our speed once we rise about 40 kilometres and the atmosphere becomes thinner,” he explained.

  Glen was staring downward, and Michael angled the vehicle to give him a better view as they climbed above 40 kilometres from the ground.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” Glen asked, admiring the deeper blue of the sky.

  “Would you mind that greatly?” Michael grinned.

  Glen didn’t answer but stared ahead as they began moving from earth into space.

  “You’re an astronaut now, by the way,” Michael told him. “I should make some sort of certificate to hand out to those we bring up here. Mind you, pretty soon there’ll be thousands of people who will be astronauts,” he reflected.

  “I’d still like that though, if you could,” Glen admitted.

  “I’ll have one sent in the post to you. Care of the White House,” he agreed.

  “You have a postal system?” Glen asked incredulously.

  “Yes, twice a day except Sundays,” Michael answered, quite prepared to lead the American on.

  “What is it you want of me, Mr Bennett?”

  “Michael, please. Shall we go visit the International Space Station?” he asked. “We could give them a wave,” he chuckled.

  “Don’t belittle their achievement, Michael. It takes guts and determination to sit on top of a ballistic missile and hope to get where you want to go, all in one piece.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Michael agreed. “I’m sorry,” he nodded. “But, you see, I’m here to offer you the ability to go to Mars,” he told him.

  “Mars,” Glen stated.

  Michael nodded and spent a moment putting the vehicle into an earth orbit before turning to give Glen his full attention.

  “We figure the trip will take just weeks at most, using our propulsion method,” he explained. “Say a facility for up to twenty, twenty five people. We’d select about five of those, but the balance would be US research people of your own choosing, but emphasis on research, planetary research.

  “They’d be there for about a year. We can agree details once your people approve of the idea.”

  “What would the facility look like?” Glen asked, half his attention on the earth below him as they began travelling over Eastern Europe.

  “Anything you like,” Michael shrugged. “The US would build it, we’d add our propulsion method, you’d inhabit it, and we’d transport it,” he explained.

  “And no strings?” Glen asked, turning to look towards him.

  Michael laughed. “There are always strings, Glen, but not so demanding as to stop us from agreeing.

  “One; you make no effort to discover the nature of our propulsion mechanism. Anyone attempts it, and we walk away from the deal right there and then,” he warned.

  “Two; we provide the communications medium.”

  “So you control what the earth hears,” Glen accused.

  Michael nodded. “And censorship is limited to any attempts to divulge details of our transportation system,” he explained.

  “Three; we want the United States to vote with the UK on the amendment to the Outer-Space Treaty being put before the UN at the moment.”

  “You want to mine in space,” Glen nodded.

  “We want to mine asteroids,” Michael amended.

  “The treaty would still stop you obtaining water from the moon,” Glen pointed out.

  “Yes, it would, but we’ll agree to that, as long as we can get our water from asteroids,” Michael agreed.

  “Is that it?” Glen asked.

  “And four, we would like the US to permit us to invite one of your academics to join us on the ARC.”

  “Who?” Glen asked, watching parts of China appear from beneath masses of cloud.

  “Professor Don Graves, Professor of Mathematics at Harvard,” Michael said.

  Glen was nodding. He knew the man, or of him, certainly. Professor Don Graves had been involved in leading-edge particle physics, and in particular the study of gravity, for over three decades.

  “Have we a deal?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Glen agreed. He was searching in his pocket for his phone, wanting to take pictures and cursing himself for having forgotten to bring it.

  “I don’t suppose I could ask you to stop moving into the satellite business?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” Michael retorted with a grin, the steering wheel pushed away from him to begin angling down towards the earth once more, the USA appearing over the eastern horizon. He hoped returning Mr Schroder to his home was going to be as easy as picking him up.

  +++++++++++

  Brad Hawker began his day in the Situation Room of the White House Command Centre where there were live feeds to all branches of the Armed Forces, the Pentagon, FBI and CIA.

  His laptop was plugged into an Ethernet cable in order to receive the feeds from government and media. There was no wireless in the White House, not since some bunch of kids from Berkley had broken into it and published massive chunks of classified data. The information hadn’t been embarrassing, but its publication had.

  Plugged in, Brad could watch his mail, CNN and the White House data feeds to stay alert to anything that might be happening in the ‘real’ world, while on the main screen
, the Emma Maersk sailed sedately in space.

  General Mears appeared in the doorway and nodded towards him before taking a seat and reaching for a can of Coke, always available on the table or from the fridge in the corner. God forbid the USA make any life-altering decisions without a can of Coke to hand, Brad thought with unspoken cynicism.

  “Can’t we have something else on the screen?” the General asked.

  Brad ignored him to smile a welcome at the equally cynical James O’Connell as he entered.

  “Seeing it will help us stay focused, perhaps,” James said.

  Now, what did he mean by that remark, Brad wondered?

  The Dow was still depressed, he saw from his feeds on the laptop. Big communications companies were at the forefront of the losses. Conversely, Media was up, no doubt relishing their growth following the news of cheap satellite use. Apple Inc was one of the few technology shares that were holding their own. Their recent advertisement showed one of the Cambridge students now on the ARC carrying their product. A cool statement of the moment. Thoughts of Apple brought his mind to the President’s technical advisor; Glen Schroder. Thankfully he would not be present at this meeting; he had phoned in ill. One less difficulty to manage.

  Colin Witt entered and nodded to each around the table before taking a seat beside the General to whisper something in his ear. Brad wondered if it was related or not. No doubt he’d learn of it sooner or later, either directly from one of those two, or from their aides to whom he gave special perks, for just such titbits of information.

  A Marine entered the room and stood to attention giving the occupants enough time to stand before the President walked in, reading glasses perched on the end of her slender nose while her eyes already searched the faces of those in the room.

  “Alright gentlemen, let’s get this started,” she told them, taking her seat and swivelling it under the table to look at each of them, her expression angry.

  “Do you know how many CEOs are trying to get a hold of me this morning?” she asked pointedly.

  “Ma’am, the ARC have come out and offered some outlandish deals, but they’ve not got a single satellite in orbit yet,” Brad pointed out.

  “So, you’re telling me they can’t deliver?” she asked.

  “They have the technology, and they have the hardware and software. Have they the will?” James said.

  “We’re doing all we can to hamper them, Ma’am, short of anything openly hostile,” Colin added.

  “Such as?” the President asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “They have a complicated life support system up there, as you can imagine for something so big. We have a man on board, and he’s doing all he can to slow things down by small acts of sabotage; nothing lethal, but enough to keep their attention from moving into the commercial market.”

  “What you’re telling me is that you’re stalling them, but not stopping them,” she told them.

  “Ma’am, I would gladly shoot them out of the air,” General Mears admitted, “but at the moment, we don’t have any grounds to do so, nor support from enough countries in the UN to allow us to.”

  “Have we tried the Olive Branch approach?” she asked. “There must be a dozen things they might need from us, in return for some involvement in their future?” she suggested.

  “Glen Schroder has been looking into that side, without much luck to date,” Brad answered.

  The president sighed and looked about her, her steel blue eyes meeting each of them around the table before settling on that of her Chief of Staff. “Find me something, Brad. I don’t care what, but I need something to throw at them, something big enough to keep American companies at the forefront of the communications market. Am I clear?”

  “Yes Ma’am,” he nodded.

  The president rose and tapped the meeting room door to have the Marine open it for her. “Carry on,” she told the men at the meeting, and hurried out.

  “Do we know when they’re likely to launch a commercial satellite?” Brad asked the room.

  +++++++++++

  The reverend Martin Giles sat at the front of the coach and watched the bright sunlight of day turn gradually to darkness as the large vehicle defied the natural laws of earth and moved into space. Behind him sat the 20 Korean men and women who would help operate the Rolle College Annex.

  He didn’t like calling it the ARC. He didn’t like anyone calling it the ARC; it created an alternative to the story of the Noah’s Arc, one that children would learn and remember instead of learning the biblical story and its meaning.

  He sighed and stared. The large windows of the coach remained, supported by this new chemical the Howard twins had discovered. God had blessed them, Martin thought to himself. He must remember that; that all of them were on a Godly mission.

  The Rolle College appeared, growing from just another star-like spec, becoming clearer with each moment as the driver kept the vehicle on course.

  The Koreans were chatting among themselves now, pointing out the large ship to their neighbours and talking excitedly about its size.

  Martin chose to pray. He prayed, not for their safety, but in homage to the glory of God, that such things should be possible.

  The coach glided smoothly forward, coming down onto its wheels on the bay floor, and then moving smoothly into one of the garage bays where an atmosphere could be quickly provided. The new staff could then disembark, pick up their luggage, and be guided to the lounge to meet any of their kin who were already on board, before beginning their introduction to living in space.

  +++++++++++

  As the 20 Korean workers settled down to tea and biscuits and a video show of the ship’s facilities, Paddy Miller was in the Cambridge Industrial park, not far from where they had created the first vehicles to go into space. Professor Rogers’s supplier was carefully loading sixty hydroponic tables into the box van.

  While he waited, he took a large brown envelope from the cab and sauntered over to the nearby post box to slide it in, then took out his mobile to make a quick phone call. “Hello Emily, it’s me,” he told one of his cousins. “I’ve just posted the stuff to you, First Class. Get it off as quickly as you can, and I’ll get some other stuff to you when I can. Alright?”

  He smiled as he finished the call and strolled back to the van.

  “They made of glass or something, mate?” he asked the man supervising the slow loading of the tables.

  “Have you met Professor Rogers?” he was asked in return by the sour faced man.

  Paddy chuckled and nodded, his attention diverted by the leggy young woman walking rapidly towards him. She was pretty, he reflected, even with her hair cut so badly, the tips still blond as the rest of her hair returned to a dark brown.

  “Are you Mr Miller?” she asked, retrieving a piece of paper from her pocket.

  “Paddy,” he told her, his hand outstretched. “You must be Doctor Barber,” he told her, chuckling as she moved the paper to her left hand to shake his with her right.

  “I’m to catch a lift with you, right?” she asked.

  “That you are,” he agreed, noticing the last of the tables being stored soundly in the back. “Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be right along,” he promised, pointing to the cab of the van.

  He checked the tables weren’t going to move, and slid the back door down, making sure it was locked and wouldn’t open again while in transit before returning to the cab to sit behind the wheel.

  “We’ve got to go to the airport,” he told her, starting the diesel motor and putting it into gear before moving off, into traffic.

  “Is that where the shuttle is?” she asked excitedly.

  Paddy looked across to her and smiled as he nodded. “Yes. The shuttle,” he agreed, pulling out onto the roundabout and taking the road signposted for the airport. This was going to be more fun than he had at first thought.

  July 28th.

  Cheryl and Gary were at their shared desk when the call came in. Cheryl pounced on to
it as soon as she saw that the call was coming from the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, a small but important department of NASA based at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. It not only correlated much of the data concerning orbital debris, but acted as a springboard for initiatives to reduce debris by implementing new processes in the way satellites were launched.

  “Cheryl Hall speaking,” she said aloud.

  “Hello, this is Dan Braxted, Operations Manager at the Orbital Debris Program Office, NASA. My staff tell me someone on this number is claiming to want to remove or destroy orbital debris, is that right?” he asked, his suspicion loud in the tone of his voice.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she answered. “I work for the Cambridge University Annex, Rolle College,” she explained.

  “You’re on the ARC?” he gasped excitedly over the phone link, all hint of suspicion gone from his tone. “You’re actually talking to me from the ARC?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I am,” she laughed, and put him on the speaker phone so Gary could participate in the conversation too.

  “My God, this is so exciting. I’m talking to someone living in space. How are things? You alright up there?”

  “We’re fine, thank you for asking. No, I’ve been phoning and talking to various people in the Orbital Debris Program Office to try and find someone who can authorise the removal of some of it,” she explained.

  “Well, sure, you go right ahead!” he told her.

  “I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” she laughed. “I mean, we’d hate to remove something you were actually using,” she explained.

  “Well, what would you like? I can give you a dump of our database, but it’s now over 50,000 items. Where you looking for particular items, or what would be of most value to us, to you, to someone as scrap?” he asked.

  “Hello Dan. This is Gary Clarke, also on the ARC and working with Cheryl,” Gary said. “We’re offering a free service, so we’re willing to remove whatever items you, your boss or your government think would benefit them the most,” he explained.

  “Ah, all right then. Give me a couple of days to talk this over with some of my team, and we’ll get right back to you. Have a good day now,” he told them before closing the conversation.