2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) (49 page)

‘Are there anymore?’ Steiner said, his tone urgent.

Brett regained her composure and shook her head. ‘That’s it. I only heard three voices.’

‘You’re both lucky to be alive.’

Brett looked down at the man she’d killed. ‘I wonder if he had any family.’

‘Don’t do that to yourself,’ Steiner said. ‘You did what you had to do.’

‘Did I?’ she said, eyes fierce. ‘And what do you know? This probably makes you happy, makes you think we’re the same,’ – she prodded him with a finger – ‘but I’m nothing like you, do you hear me? Nothing!’ She gazed at them all. ‘I’m a federal agent and you’re wanted criminals, nothing has changed.’

Jessica steadied herself by avoiding looking at the bodies around them. ‘Then why did you save me?’

A glimpse of confusion suppressed Brett’s anger.

She didn’t know.

Jessica could see the tortured expression on Brett’s face, an expression that must have mirrored her own.
I’ve just killed two men
.
Two people won’t get up tomorrow – because of me
. The thought horrified her and she lent against a wall and retched.

♦

Brett Taylor walked over to the police officer and bent down next to him. The smell of blood and the faint whiff of excrement wafted over her, turning her stomach. The collar on his uniform had folded back on itself so she rearranged it back to neatness. Her eyes worked their way up to his face and the blank expression that stared off into the infinity of death. An image of Colonel Samson flashed before her eyes.

‘I’m not my father,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I’m not a killer.’

With a steady hand she closed the man’s eyelids and remained by his side as the living moved away, her melancholic thoughts haunted by the whisperings of dread.

♦

Professor Steiner guided the traumatised newsreader away from the scene. ‘Let’s get back to the control room. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.’

The young German gave a nod while Steiner led Jessica back to where they’d been conversing with Bic.

‘I don’t think she’s right in the head,’ Eric said when they were out of earshot of the FBI agent.

‘Like father, like daughter,’ Steiner said.

Eric gave him a look of incomprehension. ‘I don’t understand this expression.’

‘
Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm
,’ Jessica said in translation, her voice weary.

Eric nodded in understanding. ‘Were your parents from Germany, Professor?’

‘My great-grandfather, I believe.’

Eric brightened. ‘Maybe we’re related.’

‘Maybe,’ Steiner said, leading them on, his thoughts anywhere but in the past.

As they reached their destination, the lights in the room blazed bright and the wallscreen glowed to life.

Steiner’s expression turned guarded as he saw a new face on-screen, a dark-haired man of middle years, with intelligent eyes.

‘Is everyone okay, Professor Steiner?’ the man said.

Steiner sat Jessica down on a chair, removed his jacket and draped it round her shoulders. ‘None of us is okay, but we’re alive.’

‘Alive is better than dead, Professor Steiner.’

‘So this is the real you, is it?’ Steiner said. ‘The elusive B.I.C., in the flesh?’

‘It is.’ A self-deprecating smile crept across Bic’s face. ‘Am I such the disappointment?’

‘I don’t care what you look like. We need to hear this message of yours and get out of here.’

The hacker’s expression turned serious. ‘You are correct. Time is ticking. I am just finalising the array’s realignment coding as we speak.’ Bic turned away from the camera and the sound of keystrokes could be heard.

Seconds passed before the noise ceased.

‘There,’ he said, facing forward again, ‘it is done.’

A number of consoles in the room came out of hibernation, their screens blinking on one by one. Data windows cascaded across them while a great metallic groan sent a shudder through the building.

Eric looked around in alarm. ‘What’s happening?’

Steiner pointed out of the window at the vast array of dishes. ‘The radio telescopes are repositioning, along with the one on top of this building.’

Akin to some kind of mechanical ballet, the huge white saucer-like antennas shifted as one, swivelling up and round to face in the opposite direction.

Once their movement ceased, a strange oscillating noise came through the room’s speakers.

‘Turn it down!’ Jessica said, putting her hands to her ears.

The volume decreased before the signal repeated itself.

Steiner moved to look at one of the screens. ‘That’s the signal?’

‘Yes,’ Bic said. ‘Why? Do you recognise it?’

Steiner wasn’t sure. It did seem familiar somehow. He sat down at the console and brought up a piece of software to analyse it. After a minute or so he had it. A message was buried within, waiting to be pieced together from its fractured state. ‘I think it’s Morse code.’

‘Well done, Professor Steiner,’ Bic said. ‘You are correct.’

‘And you’re telling me you didn’t figure that out?’

‘It appears to be a set of co-ordinates in three dimensions,’ Bic continued, ignoring the question. ‘A trajectory, to be precise.’ Bic’s image disappeared to be replaced by a graphical representation of the Earth. Above it a small line traced an arc in the black of space. ‘Do you still believe the signal is fake, Professor Steiner?’

‘I never doubted it for second,’ Steiner said, his tone dry.

Bic chuckled. ‘You doubt it now, do you not?’

‘We’ll see,’ he said, before noticing something else.

‘There seems to be another aspect to the information,’ Bic said, seeing it too.

Steiner studied the data and then realised what it represented. ‘It’s a fourth dimension.’

‘Indeed – time.’

‘Which allows us to pinpoint the velocity of the source,’ Steiner said, ‘along with its exact location as it moves through space.’

‘Just so, Professor Steiner, just so. I’ll enter the new parameters and we will track its flight.’ Bic adjusted the input into the room’s computer consoles and the information displayed on their screens altered to match.

‘Whatever it is,’ Steiner said, ‘it’s in deep orbit.’

The radio dishes in the array shifted a short distance, sending another groan reverberating through the building. Bic then set them to track the signal’s source as it moved.

Steiner waited, listening. He glanced at Eric, who sat stock still, ears pricked.

A new sound pulsed through the speaker system.

‘It is a live video transmission,’ Bic said, sounding excited. ‘I’ll put it on-screen.’

The trajectory representation shrank to a smaller window while Bic reappeared in another section of the wallscreen. A third window then popped up in the middle with a green progress bar in the centre and a flashing word above it:

PROCESSING SIGNAL

The bar flashed solid green and disappeared to be replaced by a fuzzy image. Lines of static cut across the screen and the occasional flash of grey and white pixels produced a stuttering, disjointed picture.

Steiner could just make out a mass of buttons, dials and switches in the background.

‘That looks a bit like the cockpit of our drone,’ Jessica said.

A shadow moved across the camera and a man positioned himself in front of it. He reached out to adjust a dial and his image came into focus.

His lips moved as he spoke, but no sound came through.

Jessica moved forward, her arms hugging her body as if cold. ‘Can he see us?’

‘He can, Jessica Klein,’ Bic said.

‘This is—’ The transmission crackled. ‘—nusson. Can you … me?’

Steiner moved to the centre of the room as Brett rejoined them. ‘Please repeat your last,’ he said, ‘your audio is breaking up.’

The man pressed a couple of buttons and turned another dial. ‘Can you hear me now, over?’

‘Roger that,’ Steiner said. ‘Five by five.’

A look of relief passed over the man’s face. ‘Thank the gods. I’d given up hope anyone would answer.’

‘You’re lucky,’ Steiner said, ‘your signal was well hidden.’

The man’s expression turned guarded. ‘Who do you work for? I don’t recognise your output.’

‘We’re civilians.’

‘And you’re in charge?’

Steiner looked around him. He was so used to authority he’d just assumed control, but no one appeared to mind. ‘Of a sort,’ he said, realising his hands felt steady and relaxed.

‘Do any of you work for the GMRC?’

Steiner shifted his stance. ‘I used to, but we had a difference of opinion. Everyone else you see has no affiliation to the GMRC whatsoever. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they are as far from the GRMC as can be.’

The man considered him for a moment. ‘What happened to make you leave?’

‘It seems certain people thought me an inconvenience, and believed that I’d be of better service dead.’

‘What was your position?’

Steiner hesitated. He didn’t want to scare the man off, but equally he didn’t want to give information away to Bic either. ‘I worked on the Subterranean Programme as an engineer.’ And it was the truth. That he was also the Director General of the whole division was best left unsaid.

‘If that’s true you’ll know the name of the base in Colorado.’

Steiner grimaced in recollection. ‘USSB Steadfast.’

The man nodded in satisfaction.

‘Who are you?’ Steiner said. ‘Why are you trying to hide?’

‘My name is Pilot Commander Tyler Magnusson, I’m a NASA astronaut and acting Captain of the United States Space Station Archimedes of which,’ he paused, composing himself, ‘of which I am the sole survivor.’

Steiner’s expression grew grim. Bic hadn’t been telling lies, at least in part. The rest had to be confirmed, but Steiner knew the truth when he heard it. ‘Commander, what happened up there? What of the other space stations?’

The man shook his head. ‘Gone, they’re all gone.’

‘How?’

The commander hung his head before looking back up. ‘The GMRC. They sabotaged the intercept missions. All four space stations had been rafted together. Nothing is left.’ He shook his head, his expression one of loss. ‘Why would they want to do such a thing?’

The man was clearly in a state of distress. He had no idea Steiner could know about the missions planned to try and divert the next wave of asteroids. But as Steiner was on the Directorate –
had been on the Directorate
, he reminded himself – he was well aware of the plans. His problem now was working out how to prevent the astronaut from revealing to Bic and everyone else information about the asteroids. He cursed himself. His task was almost impossible. Anything the man said could reveal all in an instant. He’d already disclosed that something was to be intercepted, and it wouldn’t take a genius to put two and two together and make six, not with Bic around, anyway.

‘I don’t know why anyone would want to do that, Commander,’ Steiner said. ‘Are you sure it was intentional and not an accident?’

‘Positive. I overheard the leader of the GMRC delegation. They laid explosives, disabled all the escape pods and jammed the hatches. I saw it happen with my own eyes.’

Steiner couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘What was the name of the GMRC delegate?’

‘Sylvia Lindegaard. Do you recognise the name?’

Steiner didn’t. ‘I know people who worked in the GMRC’s Space Programme, but I don’t recall her.’

‘How did you escape?’ Jessica said.

‘Luck. I should be dead. I thought I was dead. I woke up drifting through space with debris all around me. No one replied to my calls for help. I feared I’d die alone in the cold, in the dark, but not everything was destroyed by the blasts. My momentum carried me to a Sabre space-aircraft and I was able to board it; that’s where I am now.’

‘Can’t you return to Earth?’ Steiner said.

The astronaut shook his head. ‘Not enough fuel. I’m drifting in deep orbit. It won’t be long before I run out of air. I have no food and hardly any water.’

‘Could we go up in our drone?’ Eric asked.

‘No, Eric,’ Bic said, ‘it was damaged by the dust, and even if it hadn’t been, it isn’t designed for extended space flight and even I couldn’t steal one that is.’

‘The duplicity of the GMRC doesn’t stop there,’ Tyler said. ‘They were experimenting with things, unnatural things.’

Steiner didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What sort of things?’

‘I’m not sure. I saw … something. It was like some kind of plasma, I don’t know.’ He rubbed his head. ‘I’ve been getting headaches, it’s hard to recall.’

Steiner guessed he was concussed. ‘Did you hit your head, Commander?’

‘I was hit by something; I think it was a solar panel.’

‘Try to remember what you saw, Tyler Magnusson,’ Bic said. ‘It could be important.’

‘It’s too difficult.’ He rubbed an eye. ‘I know what it did, though. It caused some of my colleagues to lose their minds. They ended up in quarantine. Some of them died. My captain died just listening to it. Have you heard of Project Ares?’

Steiner thought back. ‘I think I have. Wasn’t it a collaboration across multiple organisations? I seem to remember it being mentioned, something about satellites and communications.’

‘That may have been the official line,’ Tyler said, ‘but believe me, it’s not what they told you it is. It’s military, a weapon maybe, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous. The GMRC made sure it was removed from the Archimedes before they set off their charges. You find out what Ares is and you find out why they did what they did. Something isn’t right, something is very, very wrong. The GMRC is not what it appears to be.’

Steiner wanted to say the GMRC was protecting the species and anything they did was for that end, but ever since he’d been outmanoeuvred by Joiner, his doubts had grown. And what with the confirmation of Steadfast’s destruction and now the space stations, too, he was no longer sure of anything.
What the hell is happening?
How he wished he still wielded the power he once took for granted.
Perhaps that’s why I was removed, to make way for such actions without anyone offering up resistance.
He crushed the assumption. He was by no means the only person in the GMRC with a conscience and the clout to stand up to Joiner and those that sided with him. He knew there were those that had come to covet the power he’d enjoyed, Joiner amongst them. Perhaps it was those people who had decided to take action. These imaginings flashed through his mind like quicksilver, but he’d thought them through before, round and round the theories went until he could see no end and no beginning, like a snake that consumed its own tail.