ARIA (30 page)

Saturday 19 September 2015:

Anafon Field Centre. Many people outside the valley will have lost up to twenty-three years of memory.

A
FTER
THE
UNEASY
START
WITH
THE
ISS
CREW
arguing with the centre staff, Ryder woke determined to make a positive, new beginning. They’d sorted a few ground rules then split up into three tour groups. Tour one looked at the centre’s facilities. Tour two took in a long walk around the Anafon valley perimeter with additional advice to keep away from the sheep and feral ponies in case they have ARIA. Tour three, led by Ryder, took astro-engineers Jena and Dan to the abandoned mine where they’d put the case yesterday.

“It’s a mile,” Ryder said, stuffing a rucksack. “Not far but enough to get soaked in a sudden Welsh storm. The mine goes under the mountain for at least another mile, which is why we’re packing rubber boots and head-torches.”

Jena pointed at the trolley Ryder had brought round, loaded with the white NASA space-pressure suits. “I assume you want these to act as biohazard protection suits for when we open the case?”

Ryder tried not to stare at her. Her slim features and model-like Euro-Asian face matched an ideal-woman formula in his hormones. Her deep blue eyes shone, but he hadn’t dared be drawn into them.

A clearing-throat cough later, Ryder responded. “Yes, even though they won’t fit all of us, they’re better than our thin disposable suits.”

To his astonishment, once ready to go, she linked arms with him as they set off. He glanced back to check Teresa hadn’t seen them. Then he remembered she led the valley and perimeter tour with Dr Antonio Menzies and Vlad. Of course, she had binoculars...

It must have been her being cooped up for so long that put Jena in an exuberant mood as she pulled Ryder along. He’d not been chatted up by an American woman before.

“Come on then, what’s all the goss?”

“Pardon?”

“Let’r rip, Ryder. Are you and Teresa serious, married and with children?”

“Good Lord, no. But, we—”

“I didn’t think so. Nor am I, and I am delicious, aren’t I, Dan?” She turned to her commander, who pulled the luggage trolley along the rough track.

Dan looked up, shaking his head in a mild rebuke at her outrageous flirting.

“Just agree, Dan. Actually, he never makes a decision along lines I suggest, so I’ll have to rely on your judgement. Am I gorgeous?”

After another cough. “I thought you astronauts would have trouble walking after being in orbit so long. Have you been exercising up there?”

“Ryder, you must have been eyeing me up. I don’t mind, did you think I would?”

“No. Yes. I mean—”

“Leave the poor man alone,” said Dan. “That’s one of those ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ questions. This is a beautiful valley, Ryder. Incredible, isn’t it, Jena?”

“To be honest, the bleakest of wide-open moorland would feel like heaven compared to that tin can with four morons. No offence, Dan.”

“We chose this valley because of its difficult access rather than any intrinsic beauty but, yes, we’re lucky to be in one of Wales’s best kept secrets.”

Dan beat Jena to another question. “How many intruders have you had to kill?”

Ryder raised an eyebrow.

Jena said, “Hey, why the surprise? Oh, I get it, you told the centre group you all had to be tough on strangers and they objected. Yeah?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Ryder said. “You guys are used to making life-and-death decisions. Trained to be hard, whereas my friends have had hardness thrust open them.”

“So to speak, eh Ryder?” Jena said, laughing. She spotted the mine entrance and disengaging Ryder’s arm, broke into a jog.

“Take no notice of her. She ate men for breakfast before our ISS mission. Then had to behave, cooped up with four men married to their work. Well, except for Antonio, but Jena isn’t his type.”

Ryder laughed. “And who is his type? Vlad?”

“No. Antonio isn’t gay, as far as I know, but he’s attracted to European women with unusual features.”

“Hah. What? Like no eyebrows or long noses?”

Dan looked away. “More like straw hair, freckles...”

Ryder stopped walking. He didn’t need to say that Dan had just described Teresa. Even less did he want to mention their rocky relationship. On the other hand, their relationship thrived on friction. He smiled more when he concentrated on physical problems to solve rather than second guess what Teresa wanted. Relief at reaching the mine entrance washed over him.

“Jena!” He had to shout at her. “No, don’t hit the padlock with a stone. I have a key.”

Dan shook his head as if to apologise for the lack of behavioural control over his crew. Ryder acknowledged the gesture with a knowing look. They’d both had to deal with difficult people.

“If you had broken the padlock, you wouldn’t have been able to get in
—
”

“Nothing can stop me getting what I want, Ryder.”

“—without security cameras seeing you, and by the time you came across the next locked gate, you would have two or more firearms pointing at you.”

“Excellent,” Dan said. “And as we discussed earlier, it’s safer to shoot first and ask questions after, so give it a go, Jena.”

“Maybe not on this occasion,” she said, taken down a notch. “You don’t want us suited up for this excursion, do you?”

“I’m going to show you the emergency isolation facility we’ve set up here, for what it’s worth. And where we’ve hidden the case.”

Ryder looked forward to this little tour. He knew aspects of it unnerved those unused to grubbing around in a dark, subterranean world. He and Brian had set up a string of lights powered by a small hydro-generator embedded in a nearby mountain stream. Not enough to read by, but enough light to know when to duck or step around bottomless pits. Augmented by their head torches, the dim lights allowed the three to stow the suits in waterproof bags near the entrance.

“Hey, Jena, let me go first,” shouted Ryder, as she darted like a rabbit into its hole. She let him catch up.

“I thought you were going to do that typically English tour where you led from behind,” she said. “What kept you?”

“I had to relock the gate behind us.”

“Impressive,” Dan said. “Do we need to watch our heads?”

“Absolutely. It goes in more or less horizontal, but the miners must have been only five feet tall a couple of centuries ago, so watch the ceiling, the floor and the walls. There are rusty iron brackets waiting to catch your head. Follow me.”

Thirty minutes later, they’d reached a gap in the left wall.

“We are going into a small gallery on your left,” Ryder said. “There’s a small step but it means the floor is dry. Here we are.”

Contrary to the low tunnel on the way in, this room had at least a twenty-foot headroom. The extra volume allowed other senses to taste the air. A slight musty smell from bat droppings and the ever-present dampness took the edge off considering the mine as a holiday destination.

“Cosy,” said Jena. “A home from home. Hey, cute armchair and, my God, beds. Is this your secret love nest, Ryder?”

“I guess this is a kind of isolation dormitory in case anyone gets infected,” Dan said. “Excellent, Ryder. You have a heater, fridge, water filter, first aid...”

“Hey, now this is luxury,” Jena said. “A computer! For playing games?”

“Why not?” Ryder said. “They’ll need to pass the time.”

Jena wore a look of disgust. “Give them a pack of cards. What a waste of a resource.”

“Am I right in thinking it’s networked to the centre?” Dan said. “So it can be used for communication? Cell phones won’t work this deep in the mountain. This webcam works too? Of course it would and the medical sensors. You’ve thought of everything. Cool, huh, Jena?”

“Got you,” said Ryder to Jena, who had stood with folded arms while the two men’s voices echoed.

“Fancy thinking it was for games,” Dan said and then laughed with Ryder.

“Shut up. Shaddup! You’ll have the whole goddamn mountain shaking to bits,” she cried then laughed too.

“It’s not finished and so far not needed. Both of you come over here and give me your head torches.” Ryder led them to the centre of the room. After a moment, the lights went out. If Ryder was expecting a scream, a shout, even a gasp in the complete pitch blackness, he had to be disappointed.

“Cool.”

Dan said, “Astronaut training is pretty tough, Ryder.”

After a minute, Ryder said, “Few people experience total blackness in their lives. Outside at night, with no mains electricity, a moonless overcast sky will still have a glimmer of light from the odd lamp. Of course, we don’t see complete blackness. There are often floaters or something stimulating the optic nerve, making us see spots. Yes?”

“Can’t say I do. How about you, Jena?”

“Nope.”

“Must be because I’m older than you two, I suppose,” Ryder said, putting the lights back on, and then he saw their smiles. “Touché, bastards.”

When the laughter reverberated away, Jena looked under a tarpaulin. “Where have you hidden our luggage, Ryder?”

“This way.” Ryder returned to the gallery. He couldn’t resist looking back down the thousand metres to the mine entrance. A fingernail of bright light. A sight that gave him both inexplicable elation and a tinge of entrapment.

After another hundred metres walking and fending off an increasing frequency of jutting rocks, he stopped and looked back once more. He could no longer see the mine entrance. There must have been enough of a kink to deny him the exit light.

“Careful here,” Ryder said, with Dan and Jena on either side. At their feet was a sharp edge to a deep pit stretching side to side and ten metres in front. Light bulbs lit down and up, casting shadows between illuminated rock segments.

“Wow,” exclaimed Jena. “It looks like a bottomless pit. This is beautiful, Ryder.”

“It sure is,” Dan said. “Takes your breath away, the soft yellow mixed with cold greys and spooky shadows. People would pay to see this. Amazing. I take it this is where the tour ends. I can’t see an easy way round.”

“We have to get across,” Ryder said. “Because the case is in a cavern on the other side.”

“A hidden bridge?” Jena said.

“Watch and be amazed,” Ryder said. “It’s surprisingly easy to jump.”

“No way. You’ll kill yourself. And I’m only just getting to like you.”

He laughed, took a few steps back, ran to the brink, and jumped. He landed in the pit, but it was an illusion. An inch of water. The pit was a perfect reflection in a shallow pool of undisturbed water.

The two astronauts, after their initial shock, laughed and then jumped too, splashing like children at the seaside.

Across the pool, they rounded a bend to an end cavern. It had similar equipment to the isolation room, with the addition of a padlocked steel cage. Although used by miners to store their more valuable tools, it served the new owners as a safe. The padded container looked no different than when they enclosed the case with it out in orbit. A light and a camera looked at it from high up on the wall. Ryder waved and thumbed up at the camera.

“Derek is monitoring it, especially since we would have triggered a couple of motion-sensor alarms since entering the mine.”

The three stood looking at the wrapped case.

Dan started. “We didn’t get round to discussing what to do with this beastie.”

“I know what we should do with it,” Jena said. “Throw away the key to that padlock.”

Ryder dragged over a couple of wooden chairs to add to the one facing the case’s prison. They all sat while Ryder extracted a flask of hot coffee and Bronwyn-made biscuits from his rucksack. They munched and sipped in quiet contemplation.

“It needs to be opened and soon,” Dan said.

“I agree,” said Ryder. “It could be mankind’s salvation.”

“Or its end,” Jena said.

Ryder said, “Certainly humans are going to be wiped out in a year or so at the present rate. People have dropped like flies with the lack of medication to overcome their pre-ARIA conditions and post-ARIA epidemics. Soon, there’ll be none who can read or remember basic skills.”

Jena offered a wry smile. “They’ll still be able to make babies.”

“Yes, instinct and hormones will see to that,” Dan said. “But ARIA means the day after, they’ll forget they’ve had a baby, or where it is. They’ll wonder why they’re sore, look for a reason and, with luck, find a baby in a cot. How many babies will starve to death within days? Or fall prey to the packs of dogs we’ve heard about?”

“That’s sure worse than when humans dropped out of the trees,” Jena said.

“Yes,” said Ryder. “Those early humans were able to remember what they learned.”

“If it’s just down to us uninfected humans to regenerate the race,” said Jena, edging her chair closer to Ryder. “We’d better get started right away.”

“Umm,” Ryder said, “you have a point. Are you ready to be a baby factory?”

“Oh my God, I hadn’t thought this one through.” Jena edged her chair equidistant from both men.

Dan added to her angst. “Of uninfected people, we only know of this group in North Wales and Charlotte, on her own in Australia. How many is that?”

“Fourteen altogether,” Ryder said. “According to the biologists here, that is too small a base for a sustainable population regeneration since only four women here are of child-bearing age. I’m afraid I don’t fancy driving all the way to Australia to get Charlotte pregnant.”

“We could store eggs from the women before we make them pregnant,” said Dan. “Then use our sperm and cloning technology to set up a kinda human embryo factory to impregnate the four women with, say, six at a time.”

Ryder, sneaked Dan a sly wink. “Then the women would have to be more or less permanently pregnant with sextuplets.”

“Who would look after all the infants?” Jena was aghast.

“You women, of course,” Ryder said. “We’d be needed doing other physical work. Women are the natural child rearers. Of course all this might be unnecessary if, somehow, ARIA could be reversed or at least stopped in time.”