Copyright © 2016 Colin Weldon
All rights reserved.
ISBN 1519139683
ISBN-13: 9781519139689
For Lorena, for keeping the ship on course.
On August 15 1977 Jerry R. Ehman detected a signal while working on the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project. The transmission was a strong narrowband radio signal coming from the constellation Sagittarius. It was determined to be of non-Terrestrial and non-solar origin. It lasted for seventy-two seconds.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
PART 2
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
PART 3
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
1
September 3 2339 – Mars Colony 1
Gamma Event T Minus Forty-Seven Minutes
Carrie Barrington stood at the edge of the lake of black liquid and watched her mother die.
“John! I love you. Save Carrie.” The black liquid covered her mother’s reddened eyes, as she clawed at the soil trying to escape. She gave one final muffled scream before the violent scene calmed and she relinquished control to the inevitable. “Goodbye, Carrie,” she whispered with her last breath.
Carrie opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She gripped her soaked t-shirt and held her hand against her chest. Her heart was beating so quickly that her breathing was laboured. Every night was the same dream but this one had been more intense. It seemed so real. The smell of burning in the room alerted her to look around to make sure nothing was on fire. She examined her sheets to find small burn holes scattered throughout them.
“Not again,” she sighed. She looked at the palm of her hands and saw how red the tips of her fingers were. She closed her eyes and clenched them.
She sat up and stared out through her blurry eyes at the lights of the colony laid out across the red Martian soil. She looked at the clock that read nine p.m. She was late. Again. In the distance a burst of blue light rose from one of the Atmo processors. It cast a momentary blanket of blue and silver shimmer over the living pods and curved domes of the main habitat. She swung her legs out from under the sheets and placed them gently onto the ground. The hard cold surface of the metallic floor sent a shiver up her legs as the residual images of the night’s memories lingered behind her eyes. Her voice echoed off the walls of her quarters, as she recited the mantra her mother had taught her as a child. The gentle hum of the life support duct overhead helped slow her speeding heart. She opened her eyes and stood up slowly from the bed. She made her way to the bathroom, removing her soaked shirt in the process, before stepping into the sonic shower. She placed her head against the wall and activated it.
The comm link chirped next to her. She paused the washing cycle and tapped the pad next to the mirror.
“This is Carrie,” she said.
“Ms Barrington, the data relay from the Jycorp orbital began twenty minutes ago,” a stern male voice said over the comm system.
“Sorry, Doctor Tyrell, I’m on my way. Five minutes.”
“Hmm,” he said gruffly as the comms clicked off. Carrie sighed and reactivated the shower. She looked at the palms of her hands again and turned them over. She thought that maybe the time had come to talk to Meridian about what had been happening to her. Before someone got hurt.
Main Observatory Mars Colony 1
Gama Event -T minus Thirty-Three Minutes
“Computer initialise array diagnostic phase two. Authorisation Doctor Tyrone Tyrell, alpha one seven three,” Tyrell said into his console, as the main doors to the lab opened.
“Yes Doctor Tyrell,” the computer’s female voice said. He raised his head and watched Carrie Barrington enter. He sighed quietly to himself.
“What was it this time?” he said, looking back at the console. He felt her sigh as she moved across the lab to the viewing chamber.
“My apologies, Doctor Tyrell. It will not happen again,” she said, tapping some commands into a console attached to a large transparent chamber that lay in the centre of the lab. “Imaging chamber is powering up,” she said.
“Hmm,” Tyrell grunted back, as he attended to his readings. “A good scientist is a punctual scientist, Ms Barrington,” he said. “Your father assured me you would be reliable.” He knew that arguing with John Barrington was futile and, in the end, he would have resented him for not taking his daughter on and that simply would not do. He kept his gaze fixed on the incoming data stream that was scrolling across the screen on his workstation. There was a moment of silence and when Tyrell raised his head he found Carrie standing next to his desk, looking intently at him. There was something in her striking blue eyes that unsettled him, but he made sure never to show it.
“Doctor Tyrell, I assure you it will not happen again. I have been having some difficulty sleeping lately, but Doctor Brubaker has given me some medication that is working a little too well. I will be seeing her later on tomorrow morning to discuss this. I apologise for my tardiness. Now would you like me to continue with my analysis or would you like to report me to my father who can have me reassigned?”
Tyrell cleared his throat.
“Please,” he said, motioning to the imaging chamber. She nodded politely and walked calmly back to the chamber. He was surprised at her tone. She hadn’t shown a hint of frustration with him in the six months that she had been his assistant. He would of course not be reporting her to her father.
“Any change in the signal data from the Monolith today?” Carrie asked, keeping her attention on her control panel.
“Same old, same old,” Tyrell replied. He was not winning any popularity contests with the rest of the colonists and as such kept a noted distance from them and almost never attended social gatherings. A point the commander had raised on more than one occasion with him, but he had always found a way of deflecting the conversation with some new discovery on some other Earth-like world light years away. His distance had been respected by most and even Meridian had given up, after a few weeks of calling the lab with idle threats of dragging him to some silly event or other aimed at improving the social bonds of the colonists.
He loved this time of night usually, when the colony was quiet, and the power output levels were low. There were months where he would go undisturbed, observing and cataloguing the cosmos. He felt connected with it somehow. On the edge of understanding yet knowing nothing. The signal from the structure on the small moon orbiting above refused to give up its secrets. He loved working at night. It had the added benefit of limiting his interaction with the rest of the colonists. At sixty-one years of age, he had availed himself of Jycorp augmentation therapies, which had given him the appearance of a man in his late thirties. He wore a well-trimmed silver beard and was classically handsome with dark brown eyes.
The lights of the imaging chamber caught his attention and he glanced up at Carrie, who was now sitting in one of the elevated chairs in front of it.
“Le
t me guess,” he said looking over at her. Carrie didn’t look back.
“Just taking some rotational readings, Doctor. It won’t take long,” she said. Tyrell raised his eyebrows. The chamber went black as it activated and seconds later its centre burst to life, with flickers of bright lights that reflected off the walls of the lab. The transparent chamber filled with the three-dimensional image of a spiral galaxy. Its leading edges touched the inside walls of the enclosed space. Carrie tapped some commands into a hovering panel just above her head. The stars raced towards the walls of the viewing chamber, as if it were travelling through the galaxy itself. It passed through planets and gas clouds and asteroid belts in a matter of seconds, before coming to a stop. Earth filled the room. Represented in perfect holographic form. The blue planet rotated slowly in front of them. Tyrell hated it.
“I really do not know why you waste so much time on that silly little planet. You weren’t even born there,” he said. Carrie looked around at him.
“I just like the colour blue,” she said, smiling. “Why have you such a dislike for it?” she asked. Tyrell did not know how to best answer her question. Was it Meretti? he thought to himself. Was it the fools at Berkley? He wanted to tell her that he thought the entire planet was a petri dish long past its sell by date, but decided to keep it to himself. Anyway he had the feeling she already knew the answer to his question.
Jycorp wanted “progressive thinkers” on the Phobos and colonial projects and so Tyrell had played along.
“There are over a million catalogued star systems, so far as we know, that have habitable worlds capable of supporting life. I just think our attention should be focused on the future of the human race, not its past, don’t you?” he finally said.
“That’s easy for you to say,” Carrie replied, turning her head back to the image. “You’ve been there.”
“You’re not missing much, Ms Barrington. Believe me.” There was a moment of silence as Tyrell turned his attention back to his readings.
“It looks so peaceful,” Carrie said.
“Well it isn’t,” Tyrell said. “Don’t be fooled, Carrie, much blood has been spilt on your little dream world. More than you can possibly imagine.” Carrie didn’t answer.
“By the way, I need you to run a containment diagnostic on the sample of The Black, when you’re done there. Your father needs it by the morning.” He knew that would bring her back to reality.
He knew that there was something different about this girl. The tragic loss of her mother to ‘The Black’ as it was now known, weighed heavy on all the inhabitants, but her father had been clear that she was to be given no special treatment. Tyrell had been a member of the scientific council that had begun its investigation into The Black following its gruesome discovery. Her aptitude for the sciences was off the scale, even by Tyrell’s standards. She consumed information and regurgitated it with creativity and a level of understanding that was unheard of for someone so young.
Tyrell watched her, as she stared at the slowly rotating ball. Fascinated that someone could be so interested in something so completely unimpressive and even repugnant, yet here she was, eyes unmoving and with a wonder and stillness that secretly he found soothing. Tyrell made his way across the lab. It was one of the largest structures at Colonial 1 and he was very protective over it. At the centre of the room stood the enormous viewing chamber. Like an empty glass box, it stood as his gateway into the universe. Jerome Young himself had designed and commissioned the impressive piece of technology and had cut the ribbon when it had been first activated in a ceremony six years earlier. The backdrop had been the very same image that Carrie had been watching a moment earlier, as the packed lab had ooo’d and aah’d at its capabilities and astonishing image resolution.
Tyrell remembered Chase Meridian cheering, “I can see my house,” to laughter and toasts.
He approached the young woman and stood by her side.
“Did you hear me?” he said. She jumped slightly.
“Sorry, Doctor, I didn’t hear you come over. Yes, I heard you, I will run the diagnostic.” Tyrell nodded.
Carrie’s gaze returned to the image as she raised a hand and tapped several commands into the free-floating control panel. The image in the viewing chamber began to expand outwards, past the outer boundaries. Landmasses began to reveal intricate detail of the continent she was focusing on. Tyrell always found the accuracy of the motion to be unsettling, especially now following a particularly heavy meal. The holographic image showed floating cities and thousands of vast tubular formations that connected to each landmass.
“The planetary connection grid is spectacular to see at this height,” Carrie said, as she paused the image and sat back. Across the viewing area was a sea of activity. Billions of humans travelling in glass pods like a luminescent bloodstream. Carrie smiled.
“At night the harmonic resonance of the charged particles inside the tubes makes each pod luminescent,” she said.
“Yes, I am familiar with the phenomenon,” said Tyrell. “I would have thought your focus would be on the prevailing Monolith signal. Why are you so fixated on a planet that is so backwards you refuse to look forward at the wondrous possibility of other sentience in the galaxy? Your father will not be happy about you spending this valuable time studying this planet. You know how important The Agathon project is to him, not to mention this colony.” He paused and looked Carrie in eye.
“Doctor, why do you try and decode the signal?” she said, meeting his gaze.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“What do you hope to learn from it? You have been analysing the alien transmission for most of your life, have you not?”
Tyrell crossed his arms. “I have,” he replied.
“Why?” she said, looking at him with her almost glowing blue eyes. Tyrell had never seen anything like them and had concluded that they must have been a result of a chemical reaction with something in the Martian atmosphere, when she was born.
“Because whoever they are, they may know the answers to it all,” he finally said.
“You mean your answers to it all,” she said. He smiled.
“Perhaps.” He kept his eyes on her.
“By the way, the computer logged you into the containment chamber yesterday morning for two hours?”
She looked up at him. “Yes, Doctor, I thought I would get a head start on that diagnostic. I remembered it was due shortly. I was just taking atmospheric readings,” she said.
“I see,” he replied, not believing a word of it. “Carrie, you are not supposed to enter that room without my authorisation. Another thing your father was quite clear about. And you need not lie to me, Carrie. I know very well why you went in there.”
She lowered her head. “Yes, Doctor, I apologise. You are right. I went in to take some readings of The Black. I had a thought a few nights ago that it may react to barrionic particle saturation. I didn’t want to wake you.”
Tyrell sighed. All he needed was the commander’s daughter to be killed in some insane experiment on his watch. That wouldn’t do at all. And there was something different about this girl. Something that had intrigued him since she was a little girl. At colonial functions she had had a little party trick her father used to make her perform in front of other guests. She would be handed a pad and without any questions, draw perfect renderings of colonial family members back on Earth. All she did was look into the eyes of the person. It was a party trick that stopped after her mother’s death. He had seen her exchange glances with her father on numerous occasions, as if they were speaking to each other. But only briefly. He was sure she was telepathic on some level. He had never asked directly. Science was observation. So he quietly observed.
“It could have killed you,” he said quietly. She turned and looked at him with an unsettling gaze. She looked off into the distance.
“I have to know what
it is,” she said.
“We all have to know what it is, Carrie, but that knowledge will not do either of us any good if that thing liquefies you in the middle of my lab,” he said, his voice raised.
“Can you imagine that conversation with your father?” She didn’t answer. “I’ve entered a code word clearance, only on the containment lab. You are not permitted back in again without my explicit permission,” he said, turning away from her and heading back to his main workstation. She turned back to the viewing chamber slowly.
“Yes, Doctor Tyrell, I understand,” she said.
“Now, if you wouldn’t mind, we don’t have that much time this evening, so if you could reposition the orbital array towards Phobos. I would like to get a visual on the Monolith quickly, on its next orbit.”
“Of course,” Carrie said, tapping some commands into her control panel. The image of the Earth regressed in the viewing chamber, as Carrie pulled back from the blue planet. The stars zipped by as the Earth vanished from sight. Seconds later the image filled with the familiar red planet. An oddly shaped orbiting ball of rock began to appear from behind the Martian haze. As the imaging chamber crept closer, the surface of the orbiting moon became more detailed. A computer voice confirmed the target lock of Phobos. Miles of fluorescent pipes spidered across its surface, crisscrossing at large cubical structures, making it look like a pebble trapped in a glowing spider’s web. Tyrell frowned. While his access to the Monolith structure and signal data had been unrestricted, he was never given permission for data from any other structures that Jycorp had attached to the base of it. Jycorp had been busy the last century, spending much of its resources on this mysterious little hunk of rock.
It was rumoured that over three quarters of Jycorp’s research and development division were now stationed here, along with entrenched military bases and orbited by two space stations, Phobos One and the Jycorp orbital platform, which was restricted to military personnel only. Observing the Jycorp station was restricted by the viewing chamber at the behest of the supreme chancellor and CEO of Jycorp, Jerome Young. The image of the moon filled the viewing chamber. As it reached the surface, both observers looked on at the focus of Carrie’s attention, which became the prominent feature in the chamber.
The Agathon: Book One Page 1
