The Serene Invasion (32 page)

“Do you mean,” Kath asked, “can we see into the future?”

“I suppose I do mean that, yes.”

“Well, of course not. The Serene are powerful, that I will admit, and much of our science might seem to you like magic, but there are some things that are even beyond the remit of the Serene.”

“So our friendship?”

“Is nothing more than friendship, and nothing less. A coming together of like souls, if you will. We... are encouraged by our overseers to
inhabit
our lives as humans, to live and think and feel as you do. Part of that is to experience what makes being human so often rewarding, to share friendships and...”

“And love?”

Kath nodded. “That too, occasionally.”

Sally asked, “And you have known love?”

“Not this time, Sally. For the past thirty years I have been so busy with... with laying the groundwork, that I have had little time left for affairs of the heart. But in a previous life...yes, I loved a woman.”

Sally sipped her tea and regarded her friend. “That must have been hard.”

“In some ways it was, but in others it was not. We were together for twenty years. We self-aware entities are... developed with an aging capability, for want of a better expression. I grew old and watched my lover grow old too, and I felt sadness that her time was so brief while mine, comparatively, was so extended. To watch her die was painful, but an experience, I told myself, that was essential in order to fully understand what it is to be human.”

Sally looked at her friend, wondering at her past lives. “When was this?”

“In the middle of the last century. My guise was that of a British diplomat working at various postings around the world. I met and fell in love with a wonderful woman, a novelist whose work I still keep, and read. It’s a comfort to have her voice to hand.”

They drank their tea in silence for a time. A slight wind stirred the boughs of the cherry tree, and its scent descended like a balm.

Sally said at last, “I would have thought, when you ‘died’ this time, that... I don’t know; that the life you had would have ceased and you would have started a new incarnation.”

Kath nodded. “It sometimes does happen like that, Sally. It’s a ‘natural’ transition, so to speak. But not this time. I have important work which it is essential I continue in my guise as Kathryn Kemp.”

“And I suppose you can’t tell me of this work?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. The work is sensitive and confidential.”

She looked at her friend, who was holding the small china teacup in both hands before her wide lips and smiling across the garden, considering who knew what memories? Sally said, “But you need not have told me all this, Kath. You could have been resurrected, and gone back to your life and our paths might never have crossed again.”

What did she hope would be Kath’s reply? That their friendship meant so much that she, Kath, could not continue living without telling Sally that she had not in fact met her end in a leafy English lane?

Kath was nodding. “I could have done that, but I would have been uncomfortable, both on a personal level and on a more fundamental, logistical level. I, Kath, your friend, would have been distressed at your pain, your grief – quite apart from the fact that, one day, our paths might have crossed... and I am human enough to envisage the hurt this would have caused you.” She reached out and squeezed Sally’s hand. “Also, I wanted to tell you what really happened last night.”

“What really happened? But I saw what happened? The speeding truck...”

Kath was regarding her earnestly. “Didn’t it occur to you that the truck came out of nowhere rather fast?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“And the rapid response of the ambulance and the police? They arrived in minutes after your call – a world record, wouldn’t you say?”

“I... I don’t know. I was in shock. Numbed. I lost all track of time.” She stared at her friend. “But I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“The ambulance and the paramedics, the young police officer who questioned you, they were all, like me, self-aware entities.”

Sally said tentatively, “Yes, that makes sense. When one of their own dies, I can see that it’s best that they respond to the incident themselves.”

“That’s true, and we do institute such procedures, but in this instance there were... special circumstances, is perhaps the best way to put it.”

Sally repeated the phrase.

Kath paused for a second or two, regarding her tea. She looked up. “This is what I, we, wanted you to know. You, and people around the world like your husband Geoff, the special representatives of the Serene, are essential to our regime on Earth and beyond. It is only fair that we share with you the facts of the situation.”

“Now you’re sounding like a character from a bad spy novel.”

They both laughed. Back in their twenties, in their student days, as a relief from course work Kath had taken refuge in spy novels of the fifties and sixties, often reading out lurid passages to Sally over breakfast.

It was one of the many hundreds, thousands, of memories Sally had of her friend which she would be forced to reassess, in light of recent revelations. Why was an alien self-aware entity reading cold war spy novels? As part of her deep cover guise, as an attempt to understand the machinations of human politics?

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and asked, “And what are the facts of the situation?”

Kath regarded her half-empty cup. It was a while before she spoke. “The Serene, in what they are doing here on Earth and elsewhere, have opposition; enemies, if you like.”

“Enemies?”

“The universe is vast. This small galaxy alone has at least a hundred sentient, space-faring races, though only two as evolved as the Serene.”

“And one of these...?”

Kath nodded. “I’ll spare you the lurid details, but the Serene and our opponents have been pitched against each other for millennia.”

“And they oppose what you are doing here on Earth?”

“One day, Sally, when I have more time, I will tell you the history of our mutual opposition, our mutually exclusive philosophies of species evolution. Suffice it to say that they will do everything to halt our progress here on Earth and across the solar system.”

“And last night – how did they manage to...?” She thought of the truck, and what Kath had said about it appearing from nowhere.

“Sally, our opponents are not here, physically. That eventuality would be a disaster – but they infiltrate our ranks on a virtual level, let’s say.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

Kath nodded, and paused to consider her explanation. “The way the Serene have turned the human race against violence is to... manipulate reality on a quantum level. To use a crude analogy, they re-program the ‘strings’ that are the fundamental building blocks of reality. Now, on occasions, our opponents are able to get past our defences and infiltrate this virtuality, re-program events to their own desires. Last night was one small, and very insignificant example – but they are becoming more frequent of late and what we fear is that they are a precursor to a greater, more sustained attack. Last night’s incident and others like it was our enemy testing the waters, so to speak, stretching the parameters of our defences. My death was trivial, but we fear what they are building up to.”

Sally finished her tea and set the cup on the seat beside her. “Geoff and I... over the years we’d lie awake and stare out at the stars, and do you know what? We’d speculate about the Serene... what was out there, what the Serene were doing. I think Geoff even surmised that the Serene must have enemies, political, if not military.”

She looked at her friend. “I believe that the Serene are working for the best interests of humanity, Kath.” She shrugged and smiled. “I suppose I have to believe that, don’t I? I have only the evidence of my experience, limited though that is, and the parameters of my prejudice. But, really, what as human beings do we know?” She thought of the fishpond analogy and said, “We are like fish being fed crumbs by vastly superior benefactors. We know nothing, really, of what lies beyond our pond.”

“I can only tell you what you would expect to hear from the representative of the Serene,” she said, “and that is that we have the best interests of the human race at heart. You are destined for great things; please believe me when I say this, and that your destiny lies beyond the bounds of your home planet, and will be determined by the success of the Serene in defeating the objectives of our enemy.”

“Which is why you told me about the push to Mars?”

“And beyond. We will move from Earth, terraforming and inhabiting the planets, first Mars, then Venus; we will set up colonies among the asteroids – vaster and more complex than the mining outposts that exist out there now – and then you will colonise the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and beyond.”

“And one day, the stars?”

“Not for a long, long time, Sally,” Kath said. “There is much to be done before then, much to prepare the human race for. There is work to be done in the solar system itself.”

“Work?”

“One day, when we are on Mars or beyond, it might be safe to confide in you. For the present, and especially after last night’s events, I must be wary.”

“So... your enemies don’t know of your ultimate objectives?”

Kath smiled, then laughed. “It is always unwise, and dangerous, to underestimate the knowledge of one’s opponents. I sincerely hope that they are unaware of what we plan, but who can tell?” She stood. “I mentioned an e-brochure last night, about the colonisation of Mars. I have it in the car. I’ll fetch it and then, maybe, it would be nice to prepare lunch together, yes?”

“That would be wonderful.”

Kath set off across the lawn, and Sally called after her. “Kath, be careful...”

Her friend turned and beamed her a wonderful smile. “I’ll do my best.”

Sally sat in silence in the shifting sunlight and realised that she felt an odd, lazy contentment; Kath, her best friend, was back from the dead, and the Serene were leading the human race towards its destiny...

And, tomorrow, Geoff would return.

Kath was back minutes later with the brochure. “In a couple of days I’ll drop by and we’ll discuss everything,” she said.

“And when Geoff gets back I can tell him about last night?”

Kath nodded. “Everything.”

They passed into the house and, together, prepared lunch.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HE
F
UJIYAMA ARBOREAL
city occupied the entirety of the coastal valley basin and the hills on the far side. It appeared on the horizon as the monotrain rounded a long bend, and a murmur of appreciation passed through the carriage. Allen stared, attempting to make sense of what he saw. He had expected a large forest of trees similar to sequoia, but each one tall and broad enough to house thousands of citizens, set in an idyllic garden vale.

What he saw was a series of silver-grey skyscrapers, each one several kilometres high, tapering to points. Located at intervals on the flanks of each tower were what looked like platforms, similar to bracket fungus, and above each platform an array of silver antennae that sprouted from the side of the tree and terminated in large crimson globes.

It was a sight eerily alien, he thought.

“It’s not what I was expecting,” he admitted to Nina Ricci.

She looked at him. “You haven’t seen pictures of them before?”

He shook his head. “I wanted to come to this project fresh, with no preconceived views of what I was about to see. It sometimes helps me to see things from a new, fresh angle.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I’m not sure. It’s visually arresting. Very alien. I wonder what it’d be like to live in one of those things?”

“That’s what I hope to find out when I interview the first people selected for the honour.”

He glanced at her. “And who are they?”

“Coastal farmers, mainly, and fisher-folk. The people who lost everything in the last tsunami.”

“Makes sense. But with the proscription on fishing...?”

“The Serene found occupations for everyone in a profession hit by the
charea
. The fisher-folk became farmers, along with many of the world’s formerly unemployed.”

He looked at the bristling city of alien trees. “And they farm what...?”

“See the vast green area at the base of each tree?” She pointed. “From a distance, the arboreal city appears closely packed, but in actual fact there is something like a kilometre between each one. This makes for a lot of land to farm. Also, see those platforms climbing the towers in a helical formation?”

“I was wondering what they were.”

“Well, I suppose you might call them fields, though it would be something of a misnomer. They grow micro-protein spores that are processed into a high protein food – each platform provides sufficient food to supply its section of the tower’s inhabitants all the year round. Not that this is what they solely live on. Much of the processed spores are exported – I’m sure you’ve eaten it at some point.”