INTERVENTION (18 page)

  
Agent Andretta’s remains were quickly spirited away by Bureau vehicle to an undisclosed destination; her family would later receive a small wooden commemorative plaque. The accompanying letter would contain no details of cause of death, nor would it say where the death had occurred or the circumstances; it would state simply that the Internal Administrator had died ‘on service’. 

  
The woman and the child smiled as they admired the small wooden plaque on the wall of their accommodation. The common feature they shared was the jet black coloration of the irises of their eyes. 

  
Ms. Andretta spoke softly to her granddaughter, “Your mother performed her task well my dear; the project will have been put back twenty years or more, so perhaps in your turn you may also be successful, or perchance, your daughter.”

  
Glancing down at the recently-turned eight-year-old, she asked “Have you decided which field you may enter yet?  Shall you follow me into bio-chemical Engineering? or will you follow your mother into the Bureau?”

  
The little girl, still regarding the plaque, shook her head and replied “Oh no gran, I shall enrol into the Pilot Academy, I quite like the blue/green insignia.”

  
The woman smiled contentedly, “Good choice darling, good choice.”

Agent Avery and his colleagues would find no further evidence from Andretta’s corpse; and were totally mystified as to the reason that there were no conversational logs on the ships’ database, not even doorcom requests. They were also stumped as to why there was no residue of, nor even sign of the perpetrator of the deaths.

They
were not to know that the substance placed onto the seals of the Biohibernation units by Agent Andretta would immediately evaporate into the surrounding atmosphere once the covers were eventually opened by the inspection team, due to the pressure and temperature difference. The molecules had been absorbed into and destroyed by the lungs of the very people who were searching for them.

  
They did, however, when searching the Bureau’s main information interception facility, discover reference to the Commander’s advice to the Missions Finance Director not to proceed with a manned flight until more data had been gathered from the wormhole, and that this advice had been rejected. 

  
Acting upon this evidence Agent Avery would later visit the Director unannounced, who would then spend the next two years of his life analysing and documenting space

debris
within the ice rings of Saturn; the space equivalent to the old Siberian salt mines.

The Commander was enjoying his retirement, fishing by the old lake; this was where he always used to come for a few days relaxation when on leave; his father had first brought him here almost a lifetime ago.

  
Gazing up at the clouds he remembered one time when he was around ten years of age; he had looked up then and seen what he could only describe as a weird shimmering effect in a small part of the sky, as though a small cloud was moving slowly in opposition to the rest, but viewed through a slightly distorted lens.

  
He had pointed it out to his father who had grinned mischievously and said “Aw, it’s probably just some old alien trying to learn how to fish.” 

  
They had both laughed at such an idea.

  
And then it was gone.

END