Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series) (34 page)

“What! The
Enigma
 . . . if it is the
Enigma
, has come back to us after having journeyed to a distant star . . . Come on . . . ?”

“Well, not that distant, relatively speaking of course . . . eight point six light years or two point six parsecs to be precise. It is one of our nearest neighbours, Commander, and the back course is right on the nose. As I said, the results have been independently checked.”

“The
Enigma
has been gone for . . . what . . . four-and-a-half years at most?”

“That’s why it corroborates with the data from the ALMA telescope – the inter-dimensional hypothesis. But it’s more interesting than that, Commander.”

“Go on!”

“What the naked eye perceives as a single star is actually a binary star system, consisting of a white main sequence star of spectral type A1Vm, called
Sirius A
, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed
Sirius B
. They were originally two bright bluish stars, but the more massive of these, Sirius B, became a red giant by consuming its resources. In astronomical terms that happened amazingly recently. It shed its outer layers and collapsed into its current white dwarf state only ten thousand to twenty thousand years ago. I’ve an interest in astronomy and some of the ancient civilisations on Earth knew of this star’s fate. Related text was found in both Egypt and South America.”

Tom nodded sceptically and looked up at Paul. “Okay, let’s run with this. “The
Enigma
paid a visit to either Sirius A or Sirius B . . . why?”

“In my view it is unlikely to be Sirius A, Commander. Why? Because that star is twenty-five times more luminous than our sun and has three times the mass – it is one to avoid. Also, it’s unlikely to be Sirius B, because that star packs the equivalent mass of our sun into an incredibly dense globe only four times the diameter of our Earth. The extent of the gravitational pull would be difficult to calculate and impractical to anticipate, and once ensnared it would be impossible to break free – at any speed.”

“I don’t understand, you said Sirius . . .”

“Commander, Sirius B has a solar system similar to our own sun, with currently seven planets in orbit. These planets were originally detected, and only ‘visible’ by, radio telescope. That was until the thirties, when the second generation optical converters were devised. I did some homework on this system. These planets can be seen as very faint bodies now, and the nearest one is about equivalent to the position of Saturn in our solar system. When Sirius B was a normal-sized blue star it is believed that three, perhaps four, other planets occupied much closer orbits. This is theorised because of the unusual eccentricity of the remaining planets – all the planets in a solar system have an effect on each other, no matter how slight. The current nearest planet was once believed to be in the ‘hot zone’; however, when Sirius B became a red giant it engulfed the nearest planets and although not getting close enough to destroy the one in question, the physical conditions became similar to that on
our
second nearest planet, Venus. In other words, very hot, certainly not conducive to life. Now, our triangulation program is accurate, but not accurate enough to calculate the exact location that our incoming body originated from . . . only that it was in the vicinity of Sirius B. But with such a massive gravitational effect around Sirius B it would not have escaped that star, and so it must have originated from somewhere close, but far enough away from it to be able to escape from it. My informed guess is that it is on its way to us from the current innermost planet in that system.”

Tom took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “Larissa,” he started, looking out of frame for a moment and then back at her, “remind me, the Hot Zone . . .”

“It was devised by the renowned American astrophysicist Professor Rupert Hotling forty years ago. After three decades of study he developed a system of detecting accurately whether a planet orbiting a star, nominally of similar size to ours, has in the past or is presently experiencing similar conditions to those that define our home planet. He explained the hot zone as a belt or ring of defined dimensions where there is a high probability of human life evolving. The required parameters are incredibly limiting actually: the distance from the sun; relative position to other planets and moons; orbital concentricity; planetary inclination; density of cosmic radiation; interactive magnetism. He took everything into account and came up with a simple scale: H+1 through H+10, where 10 is equivalent to Earth and therefore the highest probability of human life evolving. Of the billions of stars in the universe that have orbiting planets, there are surprisingly few that make even the lowest category. In fact he graded only a handful in the +10 zone.”

“So what about this particular planet – the innermost one to Sirius B?”

“Well that’s just it, Commander. Amazingly, this planet, or to be more precise, its exact location, was well known to the ancient Egyptians . . . there is even a small, perfectly aligned, shaft from the Queens Chamber inside the Great Pyramid near Cairo that points directly to this body. Originally it was thought to point to the star itself, but a few years ago its direction was more closely measured. The ancient Egyptians shared something with this planet, as did the Mayans and the Mesopotamians. Although contact between these civilisations is not thought possible, because of geography and time, they each had the same name for it.” Larissa paused.

“Go on . . .”

“They called it Homer, Commander, and Hotling graded it +10 before the sun went red giant!”

“Are you sure about this Larissa? I mean, really sure? It seems . . .”

“There is more. I downloaded some astrophysical data from the people’s library and also opened a few historical files.”

“Okay, what else have you got?”

“I learnt that Sirius B traces an elliptical orbit around Sirius A and that their common axis of rotation about their centre of gravity is directed towards Earth. It’s a fifty-year orbit and the period of closest connection is called the
periastron
. There is an enormous magnetic interaction and gravitational attraction between these two bodies and it is particularly intense during the periastron. It is a time when the radiated energies given off by these two stars are beyond imagination. Vast amounts of electromagnetic radiation including X-rays, gamma rays, ultraviolet light and visible light is thrown into space. Matter pulled from Sirius A reignites fusion reactions within Sirius B.”

“That would account for their combined luminosity.”

Larissa nodded. “Correct, Commander, and this amazing system is what astronomers describe as being directly ‘upstream’ of our solar system within the galactic arm of our galaxy. As a result it is known that the polarised energies of these stars wash over us. The Ancient Egyptians were aware of the orbital dynamics of the Sirian system and its unique relationship with our solar system. By coming directly towards us, Sirius creates an axis of rotation with Earth relative to the stars we see in the night sky. For this reason, and of all the countless astral bodies, only the annual heliacal rising of Sirius exactly matches the length of Earth’s solar year – 365.25 days. The Egyptians set the first day of their calendar year by this event, because it marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt. Even our celebrations two nights ago on New Year’s Eve are a continuation of a most ancient ritual, one honouring the return of Sirius to the mid-heaven position at midnight around 1st January.”

Tom was jostled in his seat for a moment as the PTSV traversed a rocky depression. “Well thank you for all that, Larissa, you’ve done your homework, but where does it get us with regards to the incoming?”

Larissa paused and took stock. “I think there is a link, Commander, between that planet, the incoming and Earth. There was a report I read a few years back; one of the contributors was a former Mars Planetary Surveyor, a man called Richard Reece. He originally discovered the Kalahari crystals over in the East Sector. The report speculated on the common ancestry of Earth’s first recorded civilisations. An ancient artefact called the ‘Ark of the Light’, that was found in Italy and that contained the largest of the recovered crystals, was clear evidence. On the face of it, that Ark appeared to have Egyptian origins, because of markings and hieroglyphic engravings, but the materials used in its construction were not from home, Commander – that was clearly documented. And there are other theories of a nomadic race that arrived on Earth as colonists more than ten thousand years ago and who it is said spawned the Ancient Egyptians and the Mayans amongst others. There
is
a link, Commander; I have no doubt about that.”

“But the colonist theory was dismissed!”

“Only on religious grounds, because it undermined many fundamental beliefs – the creation theory being one of them. The whole affair was subsequently brushed under the carpet, as you say.”

“So you think EMILY has steered the
Enigma
back to Sirius B, or more precisely the planet
Homer
, because she felt, well, homesick . . . ? I don’t think we can go to the ISSF with that, Larissa.”

Larissa Pavlikova shook her head. “The capability is there to make such a journey, we know that now. You yourself, Commander, said that EMILY’s memory banks contained almost the sum total of humans’ knowledge to that time, and that she had ‘inherited’ some human traits – albeit not the best ones – through her part-organic makeup. There could be a number of reasons why she would attempt to go back to her origins.”

“She’s got a point, Commander,” interrupted Paul. “I mean, EMILY would have access to all the knowledge available to all the historians down through the years, and that, as of what . . . four or five years ago . . . when her memory facility was last updated . . . Files on everything we know would have been instantly available – archaeology; demographic data from the earliest times; unprecedented information on the first civilisations. That’s scientific data with such integration she may have discovered common links that evaded more singular appraisals.”

Tom shook his head. “I knew EMILY well, Paul, better than anyone in fact – except perhaps for Professor Nieve himself, her programme designer. She had a mean streak. She was vindictive. And to make matters worse we . . . we humans . . . we double-crossed her and tried to destroy her. I think she’s coming back to settle a score. But how do you get that across to the ISSF?” Tom pressed a button on the console and went to open microphone. “Listen up people,” he said, and he smiled at Larissa, whose image still filled the screen on the console, “we tell Earth what we know, including our hunches; they can make what they will of it – although I think the ISSF Council will dismiss our findings as pure conjecture. Our priority remains Earth’s energy crisis. With the disappearance of the
Hera
there will be no more crystals. We need practical solutions and we need them fast; the Elysium Pyramids may hold vital information and we’ve less than twenty-two hours to run to their location. We have to concentrate on getting inside those structures, particularly Zeta Three, and for now anyway, we leave the Icarus problem to Earth.”

London – same day
13:54 Greenwich Mean Time

It was a particularly gloomy and blustery afternoon in the city as Peter Rothschild stood silently by the windows of his office staring out, somewhat blankly, at the fast-moving River Thames. Its troubled waters brimmed full and chaotic. He was mindful of the necessity to contain a number of recent events that had unsettling security implications. They seemed, on the face of it, to be totally unrelated, but in correspondence to the International Space and Science Federation he had noted them as “too consistent to be coincidental”. However, branded an eternal pessimist by the ISSF Council, his irritability had gone unheeded.
Security is essential,
they had replied a day earlier,
but not to the detriment of freedom of rights and international unity.
He pondered where the freedom of rights agenda would get them when all the world’s lights had gone out.
And the two recent breeches in the SERON Space Net defence system were an inevitable result of the sheer intensity and ingenious nature of the current cyber-attack – not to mention a little ‘insider dealing’.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted his uneasy musing. Rothschild turned. “Yes, come in,” he said.

The door partially opened and Laura Bellingham, his ever-efficient PA, pushed her head through the gap.

“Brian Grant has arrived; he’s on his way up.”

“Good. Ask him to take a seat in the lounge would you. No, second thoughts, just bring him in and ask Abbey to come in too, please – and what about the call to Commander Reece?”

“Miss Hennessy is making some arrangements regarding a private flight home for the CIA’s Remote Viewing team, Mr Smith and Mr Perram . . . I’ll tell her to come through, Peter. The call to Commander Reece is on request; we should hear back very soon. Apparently, he is over the Eastern Mediterranean, in the area of Cyprus. I’ll show Mr Grant in immediately.”

A few moments later Brian Grant stepped into Rothschild’s office. He was smartly dressed in a dark blue suit but a stubbly greying beard, grown since their last meeting, added a few unwanted years to his appearance.

Rothschild stepped over to him and offered his hand. “Hello there Brian, thank you for coming in. Please, take a seat.”

“Afternoon, Peter, thanks . . .”

“I understand that you have some information for the Cabinet regarding the
Hera
? I can’t make that meeting I’m afraid, so I’m grateful to you for stopping off on your way to Downing Street.”

“That’s quite alright; there’s plenty of time. Some of it is out already, in any case.”

Rothschild nodded. “Let’s just wait for Abbey, Brian. She won’t be long. Listen, I’m just about to take a call from Richard Reece – he’s on a flight from Saudi Arabia. It’s routed via our own military net and not that of SERON’s; there is a slight delay while the security coding is ratified. I’d like you to listen in; perhaps make some comments if need be. Ah, here’s Abbey now.”