What follows is an extract from the next Scifi book, When the children come. I've already shown the first two chapters in this blog, this section occurs a bit later, when Nathan and others have detected the spaceship responsible for the catastrophe afflicting Earth (children are being eradicated, though no one yet knows why). Nathan, a vet from Afghanistan, actually detests kids, but he's the only one who can save them. In this scene he travels with his recent girlfriend and Dave, an astrophysics professor, to try to see what they are up against. Almost all infrastructure is shut down worldwide. Trescoe is Nathan's ex-sergeant, who never made it back from Afghanistan, and Raphaela is Dave's wife, who is interested in Nathan.
Fatigue
dogged Nathan’s footsteps as he climbed the hill to the observatory, its dome
outlined by the stars. He paused a moment to survey the surrounding terrain, seeking
the warm electric glow of cities. But it was as dark as the Hindu Kush
mountains of Afghanistan.
Dave cursed, tripping on the steps.
“Maybe you should hold the
handrail,” Lara offered, directly behind Dave. Edris and another of Akhbal’s
men had stayed in the Hummer, to keep watch.
“Holding handrails makes us less
safe,” Dave retorted. “Turns us into idiots, like most safety measures.” He dug
out a hip flask, popped it open, and inhaled deeply. Nathan caught a whiff of
strong coffee on the air.
“Then again,” Lara tried, but Dave cut
her off.
“Animals do fine,” he said. “We superior
beings, on the other hand, mollycoddle ourselves to the point we’re clueless on
how to survive when things… things like this happen.” He took three gulps.
Lara gave up. Nathan had some
sympathy with Dave’s point of view, having had to survive in the mountains for
two weeks after his platoon had been ambushed. He hoped never to have to eat
bugs again. A taste never acquired.
Dave stooped down to a wooden box
and fiddled with something. Floodlights ignited from the surrounding lawn and bathed
the building in stark white light. The dome was turquoise, sections marked by
meridians curving down from its apex, two sections raised above the rest.
Nathan guessed they could open to allow the telescope inside to peer upwards. He’d
always looked to the stars as a source of comfort. Now they sent a chill down
his spine.
“Dave,” he said. “I know it’s pretty,
all lit up, but maybe not such a good idea.”
“Wanted to take one last look at my
baby.” Dave shut off the lights.
Nathan waited until his eyes re-adjusted, to find Dave
unlocking a door. Nathan caught up with Lara, and followed them both inside,
rifle at the ready.
Once Dave found the interior lights,
it was clear the place hadn’t been touched. Whoever had been here had simply
left. Nathan was relieved he wouldn’t have to deal with any corpses or
‘infected’, as the Colonel had called them. He leant the AK-47 up against a
table covered in sheets of print-out, and pulled out two chairs on wheels. He
and Lara sat down facing the centrepiece, the shaft of a large diameter slate-grey
telescope that stretched diagonally from head height to just shy of the domed
roof. It was mounted on massive brass-coloured gears. The smell of hydraulic
oil was sharp in his nostrils.
Dave wandered about purposefully for a couple of minutes,
flicked switches on a tall dark cabinet panel with pulsing small red diodes,
then plumped himself into a well-worn black leather office chair. He folded his
hands on top of his belly. Grinding noises filled the air. Dave was in his
element, a motionless conductor commanding the choreographed movements around
him.
Nathan gazed upwards as a slit
opened in the domed roof, revealing stars. The gash widened as it tracked
anti-clockwise, even as the telescopic shaft drifted clockwise and extended,
giving Nathan the illusion he was moving. Dave’s seat reclined and a boom slid
towards him with a split keyboard. The lights dimmed, and Nathan half-expected a
planetarium show. But things slowed down and stopped. A thin brass tube extended
towards Dave’s head. He peered into the eyepiece.
Nathan held his breath, but as time
ticked on, he returned to breathing normally, and then began getting bored. Maybe
there was no alien spaceship after all. “Dave, what can you –”
Dave jabbed a finger twice to the
left of him, towards two broad computer monitors. Lara got there first. It was
hard to make out anything. It looked to Nathan like a series of blocks fixed
around one long cylinder which branched into two stubby cylinders at one end –
the engines he assumed, though he really had no clue, just banal ideas based on
comics he’d read as a kid. No lights. What had he expected? A window with a
little green man staring back at him?
“How big –” he began, then stopped
as three white axes superimposed themselves around the shape.
“Holy shit! Is that scale in miles?”
Lara asked.
Dave’s non-reply affirmed it. Nathan measured the object. Ten
miles long, by two to three wide, with shorter and fatter sections here and
there. The size of an island. Even if the long cylinder was all engines, that
still left an awful lot of living space. Words echoed back to him. When the children come. Would a single nuke
missile be enough?
“What’s my next question, Dave?” Nathan asked. Something
Trescoe used to say.
Lara gave him a quizzical look.
Dave took his eye from the lens. “First intelligent thing
you’ve asked.” He clambered out of the chair, and gesticulated towards the
vacated seat. Nathan didn’t move, so Lara climbed into it, pulling the eyepiece
closer, though she still had to arch her back to reach her eye to the lens.
Nathan’s gaze lingered on her.
“Electromagnetic waves, emissions, things we can’t see with
the naked eye, but…” Dave operated another keyboard at a different desk, and an
image formed on its wide monitor, first the object in black, and then a slow
motion explosion of garish colours radiating outwards. Dave hit some more keys
and the image zoomed out, showing the radiation – or whatever it was – flowing
towards Earth, but always the dark side. Another monitor showed the ship’s
position relative to the Earth and the sun. It remained behind the Earth, always
in the darkness. What would ‘they’ see? A permanent eclipse. A sleeping
vulnerable world. He wanted to reach out and crush the ship with his bare
hands.
Nathan peered over Dave’s shoulder. “How far away is it? Could
the orbital rail gun shoot it down?”
Dave’s brow creased as he peered at a smaller monitor to his
left with rows of figures slowly climbing from bottom to top, like ultra-dense
film credits.
“Yes,” Dave murmured, apparently deciding the questions were
linked. “Though a ship that size…”
“Several nukes?”
“Mechanical
engineering’s not my strong point. Nor materials science.”
Nathan stood up straight. “What?” Dave didn’t answer for a
while. The big telescope moved, the gears grinding and whining. Lara’s left eye
clamped to the brass eyepiece. She was operating a small joystick with her
right hand. She seems to know what she was doing, and Nathan reminded himself
he knew almost nothing about her.
“You see,” Dave said, still staring at the figures, “the
ship seems to be made of one incredibly long piece of material. Its tensile
strength is unlike any element or alloy on this planet. I can’t say how it
would react to a nuke.”
“Does the ship have any weapons?” As soon as he’d asked, he
knew it was a dumb question.
Dave turned to face him, and said, deadpan, “None that I can
see.” Then, “Why did you send my wife back?”
Lara disengaged and turned to face him, and Nathan felt his
cheeks redden slightly. “Division of tasks,” he said, a little loud. “She needs
to get started with her equipment, we need to be here.”
“Is that all?” Dave seemed to have lost interest in the
spaceship.
“That’s all.” He said no more. Lara returned to her scope,
and Dave turned back to his screens.
Talking of the mission – and Raphaela – reminded Nathan they
were on the clock. “What else can we do here, Professor?”
“What I’m doing. Won’t take long. I’m as anxious to see my
wife as you are, Nathan.”
Nathan’s eyes flicked to Lara, but there was no reaction. “Seriously,
what are –”
“I’m tagging the spaceship. It has a unique spectroscopic
signature that the rail gun’s missiles – assuming they’re functional and have
sufficient range – can home onto. But I’m giving them an extra hand. I’m using
a micro-laser pulse to determine its precise position relative to Earth, since
it stays in exactly the same place. Probably optimum for firing its neural
attack on us.”
The gears ground into action again, the telescope tracking
back towards its original location, as far as Nathan could tell. There was a
short but loud click.
“There,” Dave said. “Gotcha!”
“Did you see that?” Lara said.
They both turned to her. “What did you see?” Dave asked.
“A flash, from the ship. It’s gone now.”
Nathan gripped Dave’s shoulder. “Can it detect us?”
Dave didn’t answer, but his brow creased and he began chopping
his two forefingers onto the keyboard. The printer burst into action again,
hammering ink onto hole-punched paper.
Nathan swallowed. The
laser. The ship now knew where they were. “How long have we got? Did it
fire at us? Some kind of ray?” It sounded stupid, but he didn’t care. Lara was
out of the chair, suddenly next to him.
“No, we’d be dead already, Dave said. “A missile, most likely.
A minute maybe. I don’t know.”
“Then let’s go. Lara, run back to the car. We’ll be right
behind you.”
She didn’t move. They all stared at the printer. No need to
ask. The signature. Dave pulled out a data key from the computer. The printer
stopped. He dashed to it, read it once, tore it off, and ran for the door.
Outside, Nathan and Lara were faster. Dave thrust the paper towards Nathan, the
key towards Lara.
“Run! I’ll catch up!”
They ran, ignoring the curving walkway, instead running
straight down towards the Hummer. Nathan yelled to Edris to start the engine.
Lara slipped and fell headlong and slid down the grassy slope. Nathan braked
and went back for her, and they set off again. Dave was making slow progress, shuffling
along, zig-zagging down the walkway, having to use the handrail. Lara shrieked “Come
on Dave!” as they reached the Hummer and jumped inside.
“Get ready to get the hell out of here!” Nathan said to
Edris. They watched Dave’s bulky form, lit by the car’s headlights, loping down
the slope towards them. He had an almost boyish grin, as if he was somehow
enjoying this. Thirty yards. He was going to make it.
A bolt of blue lightning shattered the dome three hundred
yards away. A sound like an axe cleaving a block of wood rang loud in Nathan’s
ears. The observatory imploded, like a macabre conjurer’s trick, a whole
building sucked in on itself. Dave kept running, his grin replaced by fear.
Blue light blossomed around the hole where the observatory had been, and then
rushed outwards in all directions.
“Reverse!” Nathan shouted. “Now!”
“No!” Lara screamed.
But Edris slammed the transmission into reverse. The wheels
skidded at first, then found traction. The Hummer barrelled away from Dave, who
slowed, and stopped. He turned to face the blue wave. He opened his arms. It
swept over him.
Edris kept going, the engine shrill in Nathan’s ears. Luckily
the road was dead straight. Edris only stopped when the blue light had faded.
Nathan and Lara got out of the car and ran back. A crater, half a mile wide.
Smooth and empty, steam rising from its vitrified surface. Lara handed him the
data key without saying a word, and they both headed back to the car. On the
way back, he tried to think of the right words to say to Raphaela. He came up
with nothing.
