THE FOREVER GENE (THE SCIONS OF EARTH Book 1) (6 page)

Vi didn't seem to mind answering questions.  She pressed a long finger to the side of her neck.  "The implant we all wear to lower the tone of our voices also serves as a communication device.  It is a little like the ear-motes you use, although ours operate sub-vocally.  The ambassador is able to navigate by obtaining direction signals from our facility."

The slope grew steeper as they continued to wind their way through the trees.  The wind from the steppes had picked up, blowing in sharp and cold.  By late afternoon it would take the temperature down to freezing and Qara hoped that the Faerie Folk's camp, or facility as Vi called it, was big enough to provide shelter for everyone.  The translator didn't seem to be bothered by the cold and Qara wondered if the fabric of her robes was warmer than it looked.  She closed up the front of her leather jacket and spoke up again.

"Why did you land in Mongolia, instead of one of the main centres of our planet?"

"When contacting another race for the first time we try to avoid any approach which may be perceived as aggressive or threatening.  We are not a warlike race, but many of our client races are.  We have learned from experience that appearing suddenly from space, particularly in a densely populated area, causes anxiety amongst the people we wish to contact.  They are almost always fearful that our intentions are not peaceful and are often driven to gear themselves up for conflict with us.  Once this happens, it becomes very difficult for us to break through their fears in order to introduce our programme of technological mentorship."

"When we evaluated the dynamics of your planet, we decided that Mongolia was an ideal place for us to land.  It is geographically removed from the major centres of your planet, which reduces the risk of your most powerful nations seeing us as invaders.  It also has large unpopulated areas where we could establish ourselves without interference until we were ready to reveal our presence.  This park has the added benefit of being very close to your capital city, which made it easy for us to contact you once we were ready to do so."

It made sense, Qara had to admit.  Imagine the frenzy which would have ensued had the Faerie Folk popped up in New York or Beijing or Mumbai.

"How long ago did you arrive?"

"We have been here for approximately six of your weeks," Vi answered.  Qara was suitably taken aback and wondered what the president's military advisers would think of that piece of information.

"As you will see shortly, we are able to cloak our presence", Vi explained.  She stopped and listened to a sub-vocal message.  "We are nearing the facility," she said.  "I must re-join the ambassador.  I hope to speak with you again once we are inside."  With that, she lengthened her stride and disappeared into the trees ahead.

Batu dropped back to walk alongside Qara, glancing repeatedly from side to side.  "It's too quiet here," he said apprehensively.

Qara looked around.  Apart from the muffled sounds of the people walking ahead of and behind them, the forest was eerily still.  No insects hopped or slithered across the ground and no birds could be seen or heard through the trees.  Even the wind seemed to have died away.

Abruptly, they stepped into a small glade where the ambassador had stopped to wait for the rest of the party.  The dense forest on the other side of the glade was silent.  The trees were motionless except for the occasional stirring of leaves and Qara found herself thinking that there was something unnatural about the scene.  She glanced at the president, who didn't seem to have noticed.  Even the curator, standing alongside him, did nothing but stare gloomily at the ground.  There was no sign of any facility and Qara began to wonder what the ambassador was playing at.

Batu had positioned himself between Qara and the rest of the party and she saw him adopt the deceptively relaxed stance she had seen once before; on the day the Pink Pony had been trashed.  Qara's uneasiness grew.  Now she was concerned not only about whatever the ambassador was about to reveal, but also about what her camera-man's reaction might be.  And yet her conversation with Vi had been oddly reassuring.  Although she could hardly be sure of the young stranger's motives, she had seemed perfectly sincere.  If this was nothing but an elaborate trap, surely the translator would have sought to distract more influential members of the party.

The ambassador waited until everyone was present, and then gave a sub-vocal command.  What happened next surprised everyone but the Faerie Folk.  The dense forest behind the ambassador shimmered, like a particularly strong heat wave, and vanished.  A large, squat structure, constructed of a dark blue substance unlike anything Qara had ever seen, materialised in its place.  She couldn't judge its size from where she stood, other than to realise that it was much larger than anyone had been expecting. 

The curator flinched visibly at the sudden disappearance of such a large section of the protected forest under his care, while everyone else simply gaped in astonishment.  The facility seemed to have materialized out of thin air.

At another sub-vocal command from the ambassador, the main door of the building, which resembled a sheet of glass with a light blue tint, slid silently aside.  The faint hum of machinery and the occasional burst of high-pitched conversation could be heard through the opening.

Qara surreptitiously activated her 'mote, and hoped that Tol was paying attention.

"Welcome to our research facility," said the ambassador.  "Please, do not be alarmed.  For reasons which I will explain shortly, it has been kept cloaked since we arrived.  Once we are inside I shall ensure that President Ganzorig has every opportunity to inspect it.  Once he has, I hope that he will allow us to retain it, despite the fact that we have built it without permission and in conflict with your environmental laws.  Analyst Ko is the head of the facility and I shall ask him to guide you through the complex."

Ko stepped forward but, before he could enter the facility, the president spoke.  "Ambassador, I am afraid that you have taken me by surprise.  There is no-one in my party qualified to inspect such a facility.  I am more than happy to accept your kind invitation of a guided tour, but before I do, I shall call for a team of technicians to be sent from the city to join us."

The president's statement was not phrased as a request.  It was clear that he wanted to test that his lines of communication were still open and that the Faerie Folk would not attempt to prevent him from calling for reinforcements.  There was a tense moment until the ambassador replied.

"Of course Mr President, I should have anticipated that.  Perhaps you and your companions would care to make yourselves comfortable in our refreshment area while we await the arrival of your technicians.  In the meantime, I will use the time to inform you of the purpose of the facility.  I would be grateful if your Personet crew would broadcast the interview as I believe that, the sooner our actions are fully explained, the less chance there will be of any form of conflict arising."

The president activated his 'mote and relayed instructions to his staff in the city.  He sent Tegus and the 'copter pilot back to the 'copters so that they could guide the technicians to the facility upon their arrival.  He ordered the members of the riot squad to remain outside and they fanned out among the trees.  Then he indicated to Ko that he was ready to proceed and the slender analyst led the way through the entrance.  The president stepped boldly through the doorway after him, and the rest of the group followed.

Qara waited until most of the party had entered before doing so herself.  She found herself walking down a wide corridor which led away from the entrance towards the centre of the building.  It was pleasantly warm inside and she re-opened her jacket.  Batu hadn't begun filming yet so she began to describe the surroundings to Tol in a low murmur.  The walls of the corridor were about three metres high, after which they arched inwards and met each other seamlessly overhead.  They were constructed of the same blue material as the outer walls.  The whole place was warm and well-lit, although there were no light fittings or heating ducts that she could see.  The light and heat seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.

She struggled to find the right words to describe the floor she was walking on and eventually settled on 'firm but springy'.  It seemed to be made of the same material as the rest of the building, but felt a lot like a sprung wooden floor.  Unlike a wooden floor, however, it made very little noise to walk on.  On impulse, she knocked on a wall and found that it was the same consistency as the floor.  It was also slightly warm to the touch.

The corridor was full of Faerie Folk bustling to and fro.  They were all dressed in what she had come to think of as 'shimmer-robes', although the colours varied.  The most common were purple-pink and red-orange.  She discovered later that the facility's analysts wore the former and its researchers the latter.  The translators wore green-yellow and the physicians wore white-grey.  The blue-green colour worn by the ambassador and his three companions was reserved for members of command.

The rooms flanking the corridor on either side were spacious and packed with unearthly equipment, the purpose of which she couldn't begin to guess. 

After walking for a few minutes, the corridor opened into a massive central space, oval in shape and about twice the height of the corridor.  The roof was a transparent dome, lightly tinted, which let in the sunlight but kept out the autumn cold.  The area had a natural, open feel to it, accentuated by a copse of young birch trees, which had been left standing when the facility was constructed.  The curator stopped and gave them a careful, if sorrowful, examination, while Ko led the rest of the group towards the right-hand end of the area.

Impressed by the ethereal beauty of the dome, Qara almost walked into Batu and Oyugun, who had stopped and were gazing open-mouthed at the left-hand end of the area.  She followed the direction of their stares and did a double-take, her whispered commentary for Tol's benefit tailing off into baffled silence.  Her first impression was that she was looking at a series of frameless shower cubicles, each containing a member of the Faerie Folk.  Thankfully, all of them were fully clothed.

Each cubicle rose out of a base about three metres square and ten centimetres high, which was constructed of the same blue material as the floor.  The transparent sides of the cubicles appeared to be sheets of energy stemming from the edges of the base and rising to a height of approximately three metres.  The floor of each structure shone with a pale green light, which bathed its internal space in a misty glow.  Insubstantial patterns of light and colour floated throughout the space, some of them reflecting unfamiliar symbols which could have been letters or numbers.

She counted twenty of the cubicles, which were arranged in a circle around a large metallic cube.  It occurred to her that the cube was the first metallic object she had seen within the facility.  It was approximately four or five metres square and seemed to be the source of the faint humming sound which permeated the building.  Metal pipes protruded from its sides and extended over the top of each cubicle, each pipe ending in a flat disc which looked a lot like a large shower rose.

The users of the cubicles stood beneath the discs, moving and altering the patterns around them with intricate actions of their heads and fingers.  Occasionally one of them would move out of or into a cubicle, simply stepping through one of its translucent walls.  Apart from the hum of the central cube and an occasional burst of what sounded like high-pitched static, the whole operation was silent.

"That is our central information processor," said a voice alongside her.  Qara started and turned to see Vi standing there.  She seemed to have appointed herself Qara's personal guide.  "It contains the data we brought with us to your planet and our researchers constantly feed new information into it.  Our analysts draw the information they require for their studies into the three-dimensional interface modules where they can interact with it."

Oyugun, a painfully shy young man who was fascinated by all things technological, temporarily overcame his customary reticence.  "How are the, er, people inside the modules able to access the information they are working with?" he asked hesitantly.

"I'm not an analyst, so I am not really qualified to explain the technicalities of the system," Vi replied.  "I am sure Ko will explain it to your technicians when they arrive.  As I understand it, the information is converted by the processor into electronic signals, which are fed into the modules through the overhead pylons.  The signals intersect the light particles rising from the base, which causes the information to be represented three-dimensionally within the modules.  Some of the information is represented sonically, which you probably hear as bursts of static.  The analysts using the modules wear tiny laser emitting devices in their eyes and on their fingertips, which enable them to manipulate the information."

It was a lot to digest and Qara hoped that Tol was recording every word.  Knowing him, he was probably already halfway through converting the material into an 'Insight' feature.

Oyugun looked suitably impressed by the Faerie Folk's computer system but, before he could ask for further details, Vi shepherded them towards the right-hand end of the domed room where Ko and the ambassador were waiting for everyone to assemble.

The others were settling into what resembled comfortable armchairs arranged in a large semi-circle facing the centre of the room.  Qara sat in one of the chairs and felt it begin moulding itself to fit her figure.  She leapt out of the chair with a yelp.  Everyone else seemed delighted and Batu quickly discovered that if he wanted to sit back or lie down the chair automatically adjusted itself to the required angle.  Sheepishly, she sat down again and kept as still as she could.