Panspermia Deorum (16 page)

He sensed that
the time to harvest what he’d sown was approaching.

*

There had also
been a change of plan with the new Delacroix residence. Sophie had
become frustrated with the interminable objections from the
planning department. It threatened a descent into depression again.
Julien nipped it in the bud by convincing her that it was down to
corruption, not her design.

“We could offer
a kick-back, but is that really what you want?”

“No way, but I
don’t want what they insist on either. Any other ideas?”

“I’m sure
Eugene has talked to you about his research, Sophie. I want to fund
this work as much as possible while we still have time. Now, has he
mentioned how his findings could help you?”

“A bit, but
it’s all over my head. Sounds spooky too. Anyway, why don’t you
like me the way I am?”

“Don’t be so
touchy. You know fine well that you have difficulty dealing with
the wobbles when they come thick and fast, so, get it into your
head – it isn’t your fault. Sometimes people are born with
miscopied genes. If they were born with one hand they wouldn’t
hesitate to ask for a prosthetic. These miscopied genes can affect
our mental processes as well as physical attributes. Eugene is
certain now that personality traits can be shaped from the same
mechanisms. Of course we like you the way you are, that’s why he
wants to help you. Because that other Miss Angry can become a bit
tiresome, even you don’t like that person.”

“Still sounds
spooky to me. It’s really deep stuff. Anyway, what’s it got to do
with the house plans? This is now, you and Eugene are talking
whenever.”

“Well, I’ve
thought about this a hell of a lot. I like the idea of ploughing
all the money Brandt left me into really good causes. I want you to
think about designing a brand new research facility for Eugene. It
needs to be for the highly confidential stuff. I want to protect
his findings by separating this building from the laboratory in
which the ground work is done. We can find a more modest plot of
land for you to indulge your house design ideas. The planning
authority won’t be so fussy when it’s in your own name, an arty
young girl, rather than the daughter of a rich man from whom they
think they can extort bribes.”

He knew that
this socially-minded proposal would appeal to his daughter. She
smiled and asked if she could choose the plot for the new
house.

*

Laika, unlike
Kepler, appeared to have perfect correlation with Soyuz mission
control, and was precisely on schedule for Mars orbit insertion.
Kolorov made his first direct announcement to the media.

“I am delighted
to report that Laika will soon be in a position to begin
preparations for landing on Mars. I can also reveal future plans in
which Soyuz and NERO will participate. However, I would like to
begin with a different topic. On its journey, Laika was tasked with
scanning continuously in the region where Kepler tragically met its
fate. It was a long shot, and it proved to be of no real help in
explaining what happened. No debris was encountered, not a single
piece of evidence from the vessel. We can only conclude that some
catastrophic event occurred. Either a collision or a total system
failure. I would like to think this allows the families of the crew
to have partial closure with respect to their loved ones. I will
now proceed to the next steps for Laika. A habitat module and three
of the crew will descend to the surface of Mars. Depending on what
information our scientists find in terms of how we can sustain life
on the planet, they will either stay or return to Laika. If they
stay, the remaining crew will return to Earth at an appropriate
departure time and further announcements will be made. Thank you
for your patience.”

Like the
curate’s egg, the speech had a chequered reception. The scanning
for pieces of Kepler and finding nothing merely confirmed what
everyone expected. But, the brief outline of potentially leaving
half of the crew on Mars spiked a feeling that something was being
held back. No information was forthcoming about precisely when the
surface team would return, or why they might stay if Laika was to
head back without them.

*

The Mercedes
pulled into the crescent-shaped drive of the Concorde Hotel in the
outskirts of Lyon. It was poorly lit and bordered by tall cypress
trees. Two burly bodyguards got out and surveyed the scene with
practised efficiency, before opening the rear passenger side door.
Henry Fellowes stepped out and the heavies waved the driver toward
the exit to the main road. Another car, a stretch limo, suddenly
barrelled out of the main car park and the windows slid down.
Kalashnikov muzzles protruded into the darkness. Multiple rounds of
fire converged to take down Fellowes and his two minders. The limo
had barely slowed to discharge the weapons and it hurtled after the
departing Mercedes. The brief chase ended with the driver being
dispatched with a second hail of bullets. His vehicle careered off
the road into a coffee shop full of people. The limo screamed off
into the night without anyone noting the licence plate number; it
didn’t have any on display. It was found a few minutes later, in
three feet of river water. Police arrived late, quoting excuses
such as investigating mundane burglaries. In truth, had it not been
for the celebrity of Henry Fellowes, the flyby shooting wouldn’t
even have made page ten of any newspaper.

Such was the
tide of anarchism that local police would be happy to concede
jurisdiction on this one to the spooks. The burglaries were
probably a cover for more lucrative investigations, which were the
real priority for the local plods.

Belatedly,
winching the limo from the river confirmed that it had no plates,
the chassis number and other identifying data had been filed off.
The interior had been filled with concentrated bleach foam, thus
negating any DNA recovery.

T
he death of Henry Fellowes was an opportunity not to
be missed. Ivan Kolorov had been courting certain Russian oligarchs
over the last couple of years. He had always wanted to shake off
the shackles of NERO, but inward investment was continually blocked
by Fellowes.

Now that the
main roadblock was gone, the nine richest oligarchs were open to
independent financial evidence that the two companies could enter
into amicable divorce. At the heart of Kolorov’s sales pitch was
the realistic chances of VB Aerospace defecting the asteroid. He
insisted that it was a case of hit and hope, rather than a
scientific probability which Julien Delacroix was offering.
Addressing these obscenely wealthy people in a remote location,
buried deep in the Ural mountain range, he rolled out his cohesive
campaign of fear and opportunity.

“Gentlemen,
unless there is clear and absolute proof that we will survive five
years from now, there is only one option left. Leave. I wish I
could find more confidence in the work of Delacroix, but to be
brutally honest, just listen to his broadcasts to the world. It is
all observation. Telling us that the asteroid is showing no
deviation from its expected trajectory is put across as being good
news. The only preparation which is progressing satisfactorily is
the construction of swarms of nuclear warheads. But we are never
told exactly when they will be despatched, where they will strike
the marauder, or even where the launch silos are. I am offering you
two interconnected sub options. First, we urgently build our own
battery of nuclear strike force missiles, which we send out as soon
as it makes sense. We have to know with some urgency if we can hit
this asteroid, and whether it can be dislodged from its impact
course. We need to test this out a long way from our planet. Even
if we are able to avoid a mass extinction event, it could spawn a
far less favourable survival environment. However, if we do indeed
survive, but society is so badly impaired that we face apocalypse,
your wealth and your offspring will be eliminated by one rebel
faction or another. So, its extinction or execution unless we
completely destroy the asteroid. We have to another fall back
option. In the past two years, I have been working on a Noah’s Ark
plan. As soon as we have results from the Mars surface crew of
Laika, we can decide whether it is time to launch vessels to Mars
on a regular basis. Please do not doubt the need for one launch
every three months, until we are sure we have sufficient,
acceptable habitat capability for you and your families. We must
look at this as an insurance premium, and the outgoing vessels will
require crew and passengers of up to twenty people, plus stockpiles
of supplies. These ships will act as shuttle freighters. Only the
requisite number will descend to press on with building habitats,
the rest will return with the empty vessels for re-supply. As you
will no doubt have pondered whether your family lineage will end in
2039, so might that of the entire species. Time is cruelly short,
procrastination will soon cut off the choice I’m offering. I
therefore ask you to contemplate risking your entire wealth to
engage with both plans. If we manage to neutralise the asteroid,
Soyuz, by then owned by you, will become ever-stronger. If we fail
in this task, your wealth becomes irrelevant unless there is an
alternative avenue of escape. I strenuously advocate that Laika
holds the key to turning that hope into survival for the brave. If
the vessel Kepler had not been lost we would know more, but then
there would have been some kind of lottery as to who would be
chosen to escape to Mars. I am persuaded that none of you would
have been selected. The anarchists would have seen to that. I will
now leave you to reflect on what I have said. Whether or not you
join me, Soyuz will send as many vessels as possible to Mars after
Laika’s return, but without your participation, I fear that will
only be one per year, so five in total at most. To summarise, your
investment in making Soyuz your future will either bring financial
reward, or guarantee your family a trip to Mars City. Step one is
to acquire Soyuz and ditch NERO.”

He left a
stunned audience, saying that the entire proposal must stay within
the four walls. The oligarchs needed no persuading on that point,
as they were already on the radar and receiving end of anarchist
terrorism.

*

Sophie’s
unstinting devotion to the new research complex had left the new
Delacroix house plans on the back burner in all but conceptual
design. Her ability to take Eugene’s functional specification and
overlay her artistic vision resulted in a workplace of outstanding
ambience. It managed to combine purpose with recreational
diversity. The new workforce which Eugene was continually expanding
admitted that the environment was in no small way a factor in
wanting to join the mission of reinforcing the human genome.

Already
significant breakthrough had been made in making adjustments in
correcting rogue genes responsible for a number of life-threatening
conditions. Put in layman’s terms the team had delivered success in
snipping out undesirable parts of the genetic ladder and stitching
the loose ends back together. The next crucial step was to evaluate
inserts of different kinds between the two loose ends.

*

Sophie had
decided that the new family house could be likened to a bicycle
wheel in overall shape. A central hub for common activity, such as
cooking, eating, keeping fit, and reading. The four spokes would
follow the look of a compass, facing north, east, south and west.
Each would reach out from the hub to the wheel rim. There would be
one spoke for each of them to customise their living quarters.
Space for contemplation, washing, dressing and sleeping. Looking
down on the wheel from the sky would reveal two interconnecting
sections. The central hub was to have a domed roof. The roof of the
spokes were to be hemispherical, running from the hub to the rim.
The northeast rim connection was for Eugene and Sophie, and the
southwest for Julien and maybe one day, Elise. This left the
southeast and the northwest spaces to be sculptured gardens, the
part Sophie really wanted to bring to life with statues and
mosaics.

*

Laika achieved
Mars capture without incident, and preparations for descent were
underway. The crew was jubilant and those charged with evaluating
the surface of Mars were fired up, contemplating the future
posterity of being the first of the species to set foot on another
world, one which was classified as a true planet. It seemed a
fitting tribute to the first man, also a Russian, acknowledged to
be the first human in space - Yuri Gagarin. The remaining crew
members in orbit were simply impatient to begin collecting data for
secret prescribed objectives before any date could even be
considered for their return journey. This sequence could only begin
after the ‘all clear’ from the descent module, a signal that the
exploration group had landed, with both personnel and equipment
unimpaired, and were ready to begin their analysis of mankind’s
challenge in colonising the planetary body.

*

After hours of
debate amongst themselves Kolorov was now able to reconvene with
the oligarchs. It was ‘make your mind up time’ and he was asked to
outline his plans for the acquisition of Soyuz stock, and more
importantly, exactly how the authority for appropriating funds to
the nuclear strike programme and the colonisation would not be
traced back to them. They had many enemies, including the wounded
Russian Intelligence Agency.

*

Julien
Delacroix had given quite a lot of thought to exactly who would
benefit most from the death of Henry Fellowes. A professional hit
like that would have been orchestrated by some person or group
needing to distance themselves from the killing of such a
well-known figure. Or perhaps it was the work of the new
para-military anarchists. Most of their targets were government
personnel, but there had been a distinct rise in anger at the money
spent on getting to Mars, and a clamour to divert more exchequer
funds to protecting the masses, in the event of the asteroid
defying everything humanity could throw at it. The anarchists
weren’t interested in listening to arguments that their own actions
were undermining social order, and had been the primary cause of
government coffers shrinking to an all-time low. There was no doubt
that the establishments all over the world were creaking under the
seizure of industrial companies by these rebel groups, and
subsequently converting the local militia to their cause by
threatening to wipe them out. But, regardless of which way Julien
ran this through his mind, he wasn’t convinced that Fellowes’
murder was carried out by the tentacles of anarchy. Primarily
because they tended to claim responsibility for anything they
brought down, using it as propaganda.