And the World Changes - A M Kirk (books to read fiction txt) 📗

a bed of side salad for this goddam hullabaloo. Shut off the alarms for Chrissakes, shut them OFF!”
Someone pressed the mute button and the wailing alarms suddenly dropped in volume but continued to sound less insistently in the background. Throughout the room screens were flicking off and on insanely and perplexed analysts and operators were throwing up their hands and turning to each other in baffled, frustrated confusion.
On the wall was mounted a huge plasma display screen showing the world in detail. A red light was flashing over Scotland, and another winked on and off over Baffin Bay in Canada. Yellow lights converged very slowly on both.
Webster said: “First off, sir, this UFO appeared over the magnetic pole in Northern Canada. The Nunavut Territory up there is bristling with radar installations left over from the Cold War and some of them are still functioning. We have no visual confirmation as to what it is yet, because the magnetic field up there’s going haywire and disrupting everything, but it seems to be that one second there was nothing but sky and the next there was an alien ship the size of Manhattan. It’s enormous, sir! There’s a strike force in the area and a squadron of Eagles is making good time to its location so we should eyeball it in a few minutes. My hunch is it’s the Soros ship we suspected was there all along – the one that’s been sending those electro-magnetic signals to interfere with the Nordik.”
“What’s this other blip?” asked the General, nodding towards the screen. “Is it what I think it is?”
“It’s the Soros ship in Scotland, sir.”
“It’s airborne or it wouldn’t be appearing on the screen!”
“Affirmative, sir. We have audio confirmation that the Soros ship began to lift off two minutes ago. They’re on the move.”
“Satellite surveillance? Have we got the Nordiks on line – any of them?”
“Negative, sir. Telemetry has been totally disrupted. The goddam satellites are acting like they’ve got minds of their own.”
“Scramble all aircraft. Get the President on to Airforce One right away. And patch me through to him right now. I want the codes for DEFCON 1.”
Webster gulped and was aware his hands were shaking. “That’s nuclear attack status. Do you think –“
“Just do it, boy. Then notify Talbot in Scotland of our change in alert status and patch me through to him too. Come on, shake your ass!”
Webster hastened to activate the comm-links; it took only seconds to put Locke into contact with the President, who was already being rushed in his limousine to the nearest airport where Airforce One could pick him up.
In the meantime Locke watched the viewscreen with mounting amazement. The red blip over Scotland suddenly moved with incredible speed away from the yellow lights – they represented RAF jets – leaving them far behind. The larger blip over Canada also increased velocity and headed out over the Atlantic. The blips converged above a point to the south of Iceland, and two became one. That one proceeded to move with gathering speed up over the Arctic Ocean and then…
… vanished.
“President on line, sir,” said Webster.
General Locke picked up the phone.
“Herb? What the hell’s happening? Herb?” President Luis de la Frontera was enjoying his second term in office and had presided over what was sure to go down as one of the most significant eras in human history, yet he could not disguise the apprehension in his voice.
“Mr President,” Locke began, “I have to report that… the Soros have gone.”
Sam Webster called out, “I’ve got the NASA tracking system on-line, sir. The ship’s left earth orbit.”
“I’m sorry, Mr President, things are happening quickly here - hold on, sir. Webby – punch it up on screen.”
What appeared was a computer-generated image produced by earth-bound radar stations and those satellites still functioning. The screen showed the earth as a circle and the moon over eastern Russia. The red light of the Soros ship was moving at a speed no earth craft could have matched. In less than a minute it had crossed the orbit of the moon, 400,000 kilometers away, and then the tracking devices could no longer keep up and it vanished again.
“Mr President – they’ve gone.”
“Gone? What on earth are you talking about, Herb? How can they be ‘gone’?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied the General. “I just do not know.”
Again Webster interrupted: “General Talbot on sec-line 1, sir!”
“Excuse me again, Mr President.” Locke picked up the secure link to Allied Command HQ in Stirling. He listened for a few moments without speaking. Sam Webster thought the General’s face lost even more of its colour.
“I see,” Locke said finally. “Thank you, Andrew.” To de la Frontera, who was still being hastened towards Airforce One, he said, “The Soros have indeed gone, it seems. And that fifteen-year old boy we thought they were trying to kill – they’ve taken him with them.”


28 The Soros #2

Coming aware again, Mark knew he was not awake. He could not see in the normal sense of the word, but he could perceive things, sense them and know them. He knew above all he was now a prisoner.
His body lay on a kind of trolley. Three of the Soros were gathered round him, still wearing space suits. He understood their words.
Let us do it now, said one. Take what we need! The tone was harsh, impatient, angry.
No, said another. This was Striped Arm. It pleases me to wait a little. We have time.
Mark realised that electrodes and wires led from various parts of his body to a selection of monitors, similar to what he had seen in hospitals or on hospital programmes, but the external designs were noticeably different. Their surfaces looked crusty, rather than smoothly metallic.
His alpha monitor suggests he is now conscious of us. I want to talk to him.
Why? Why talk? Enough of talk. Enough of your games. We must do it now. Take what we need now!
The third Soros, silent until now, said, We have had our fun, fooling the humans.. But now there can be little time despite what you think. The others are coming. What is to be gained by prolonging this further?
The second Soros replied: For me, the final triumph, the greatest satisfaction, comes in the human knowing, finally and helplessly, what this has all been about. I want him to know that, just as he was approaching his greatest power, we took that from him. Just as we approached our greatest power, their ancestors took it from us! I want the whole race to know that. I want them all to know! The game must end here! The Soros’s voice had been rising in vehemence and he banged the trolley forcefully to emphasise his point.
This Soros approached Mark, who felt utterly powerless. Little human boy, it hissed at him. Did you think you could outwit us? Us? We have played you, like reeling in a flapping fish. Our satellites watched almost every step of your so-called ‘escape’ in your primitive vehicles. You have been blindly following our plans all along!
I want to talk to him, repeated Striped Arm, in a gentler tone. There was no emotion in his voice, but there was an authority in it that made the others acquiesce. The two Soros withdrew, albeit with reluctance.
From a small tray at the head of the trolley, Striped Arm took a small needle. He injected it straight into Mark’s carotid artery.
Wakefulness did not return with the drug. Mark had no control over his limbs, but he felt he could now control his face and mouth – he could speak.
You can speak and you can follow me with your perceptive mind,” said Striped Arm. “If I show you something you can see it; if I think of something you can see it. Is this not so? Answer.
“Yes.”
Listen to me, Mark Daniels, and listen well. I am going to tell you what you are. I am going to show you things the like of which you have never seen…

What followed was like a drug-induced hallucination, or a series of mirages, bizarre in content and form. The communication with the Soros was entirely telepathic. Colours were enhanced, shapes rendered strangely distorted and alien, like the machines surrounding his trolley.
Mark could see a map. It was a map following the same principles as a human map, showing a planet, but divided up into orange-like segments to give a more accurate perspective on the land/sea ratio, similar to the Mercator projections Mark had seen in atlases in Geography lessons. Most of this world was sea. On one side, however was a huge, solid-looking land mass, while on the other was a collection of what seemed to be pieces of land, loosely joined together. One piece, vaguely triangular in shape was detached from the rest, a brown and green patch in its setting of blue. There were large water features within the larger collection of land chunks.
And when Mark looked closely at the land formations in this loose conglomeration, he saw shapes that he recognised.
Yes, indeed, said the Soros. This is our map room, you see, and also our Museum. Our little joke. We do love our little jokes and games. We termed our ship a “Museum”. And indeed, the maps you see around you, on the walls and on the tables, are millions of years old. Some of these maps are maps of planets which have, as I speak, ceased to exist. Some of these planets were home to great civilizations, oh yes, very great indeed. Insects, mammals, reptiles, birds – somewhere amongst the infinity of all those stars all life-forms, including a great many not found on Earth, find the upper hand sooner or later. But nowhere did we find any civilization so advanced as ours, or one which even approached our brilliance.
And here is a paradox for you, Mark: this space ship is only three hundred years old.
(Mark saw the Soros ship flying smoothly through dark spaces between stars.)
And yet it is also sixty-five million years old. A paradox, a riddle. Can you riddle me that? I wonder.
“Yes,” said Michael, “I can. You came from Earth. “
You are indeed intelligent! said the Soros
“And you are – “
We are the last survivors of the high culture that flourished on this planet nearly seventy million years ago. If you could have seen what we really look like beneath our suits, you humans would have labelled us “dinosaurs”, and in your supreme ignorant arrogance you would have regarded us as your inferiors. Simply because we do not look like you. Such is human nature.
Soros!
Our idea of a pun. Of course none of you realised it. Di – no – saurs! Take the last syllable, trace it back in your etymology and you will find its meaning. You would call us lizards, reptiles; and you would wrinkle up your smooth faces in disgust as you said those words for we