Amalfi Echo Read online

“It’s okay. He’s not my type. He’s not yours either.”

  “Yes, you’ve nailed that one.” Marion sent a warning glance to Digby. “Get the message? If you have any ideas about playing happy little families, forget it.”

  “I don’t mate with aliens. We humans do have our standards.”

  “Get out of here,” Marion said, heaving a small branch at him. This got a second smile from Tessa so things were definitely looking up.

  Digby solved the problem of food and a lot of other issues straightaway. He opened his hand, offering it out to them, and they saw that two objects had appeared in his palm. These also looked like ornaments or jewellery, but were not Amalfi. “These will give you access to a limited range of the ship’s resources. I’d suggest the best location to place them is behind one ear but anywhere on your head will do.”

  They took one each. “How do they work?” Marion said dubiously. Then she looked at Tessa and they both said together, “They come with instructions!”

  “Now you’re getting the idea,” Digby said.

  Nevertheless, Marion stalled, cupping the little silver filigreed device in the palm of her hand. “It isn’t doing anything.”

  Tessa also was unsure whether she wanted this or not.

  “It won’t activate until you place it somewhere with definite intent,” Digby said.

  “What happened to the terribly vital information you were going to give us?” Marion said.

  “We’ve had a big day and it can wait until tomorrow. No decision is required of you straightaway and even if you make no decision, that in itself will still be the most important decision you will ever make. Perhaps we could go to the ship, unwind, watch the news which probably will be most interesting today, and you can eat.”

  “Yeah,” Tessa said, becoming excited again. “An alien spaceship. It’ll be all over the news.”

  “No, not the ship. That’s in orbit on the dark side of the Moon. But they are having a field day with the pictures of the shuttle.”

  “What does the ship look like?” Tessa asked.

  Digby pointed to the top of the shuttle visible above the trees. “Exactly like that only a lot bigger…you know, we could continue to hide away in this less than interesting place or we could be lazing about on the ship, munching liver pâté and sipping good wine, safely out of their reach. Given that they are likely to arrest you two on sight, you might want to give that some thought.”

  “Not giving up on getting us up to the ship are you Digby?” Marion said, beginning to cave-in. She was suddenly very tired of the little pond and the dust and the heat and the day was beginning to crash in on her.

  “It so comfy and an all-round nice place to be,” Digby said winningly.

  Marion and Tessa bowed to the inevitable and followed Digby to the shuttle.

  -oOo-

  And the ship was beautifully furnished. Marion relaxed in a deep and undeniably comfortable sofa, looking out through enormous curved windows at the dark side of the Moon which was, well, dark. She had eaten herself silly on chicken and salads, rich, aromatic bread, and freshly squeezed juice. Now she felt full and was even in danger of dozing off. Tessa was off exploring the ship and giving her a running commentary which mostly consisted of utterances like, “That is so freaking huge,” or “How can that be so crazy big, Marion?” or “That is so incredibly cool,” and endless variants of these, interspersed with ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs.’ The ship faithfully relayed every little excited squeal through the silver filigreed interface device which had melted into her skin behind her ear, although the silver outline could still be seen. Her personal living quarters had proved to be spartan but could be modified in any way that she wanted. The ship had not yet talked to her although this was apparently normal. If she wanted something she only had to think of it and the ship supplied it, hardly before the thought had formed. Digby had gone off somewhere to do something arcane and, for the moment, Marion was happy to be alone, enjoying the almost peace and quiet. Even this was rudely shattered with the return of Tessa who had finally worn herself out. She flopped onto the sofa beside Marion, threw her feet up onto the arm of the sofa and put her head in Marion’s lap.

  “Chocolate milkshake please,” Tessa said. A milkshake appeared on the occasional table in front of the sofa. “No, make that a triple strawberry, chocolate, and passion fruit sundae.” Obediently the ship replaced the milkshake with the sundae. Tessa reached out and dragged a finger through the sundae, had a little taste and said, “Delete all that.” The sundae vanished.

  “That’s just wasteful,” Marion said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tessa said and screamed with laughter.

  Digby returned. “Are we doing the news now?”

  “S’pose,” Marion said, finding that she didn’t care one way or another. She looked at Digby suspiciously. “Is this food drugged?”

  “Think about where you were this morning and where you are now. In between, a huge amount has happened. A yearning for bed at this point would be completely understandable.” He sat down on nothing but before he could fall very far, a webbed arrangement enveloped him and he settled back into that. In front, the curved windows were replaced by a multitude of screens displaying news presentations from every corner of the globe. Tessa tried mucking around with them but nothing much happened and she assumed that either Digby or the ship was overriding her thoughts. They watched the news.

  Only some of the airline passengers would talk to the media, the rest were either too traumatised to face the public, or afraid of being disbelieved or ridiculed. The latter was a real fear. The world had only the passengers’ testimony and hasty phone shots of the shuttle which had been taken at night-time. The U.S. Department of Defense refused to even acknowledge that it had footage from the jets and helicopters at the airport. No one had seen aliens. There were no alien spaceships in orbit around the planet. The sketches of the jellyfish couldn’t be substantiated. Much of what the passengers said was ascribed to the stress and trauma of their ordeal which itself was in doubt. The big mystery was how the airline passengers came to be in Washington, D.C., having taken off at Heathrow a week before, the plane then disappearing without trace.

  Arrest warrants had been issued for both Marion and Tessa. Digby was regarded as a person they wanted to interview although ‘person’ was being used in quotation marks and they were arguing over jurisdiction.

  Much yawning later, it was bedtime.

  -oOo-

  In the morning, which was now a relative term as they were on a spaceship, the three of them had breakfast on a stone rotunda. The stone columns of the rotunda were garnished with ivy and supported a marble dome roof. Steps led down to a lush garden which spread out all around, giving way to forest in the distance. A brook ran tinkling through the garden. Birds sang joyfully. It was, as you would expect, idyllic.

  After breakfast, they relaxed with coffee.

  “Is today the day we finally get told why we’re really here?” Marion said, idly stirring her coffee with a spoon.

  “Yes. But let’s cover some other ground first,” Digby replied, ignoring the long-suffering and cynical look from Marion.

  The lush garden disappeared and now the rotunda was sitting in a giant hangar crammed with little lethal looking Starfighters and other high-tech military equipment spreading out all around them into the distance.

  “These are really cool,” Tessa said. “It’s my favourite place on the whole ship.”

  “I had sorta gathered that,” Marion said.

  “Do the Starfighters look familiar to you?” Digby said to Tessa.

  “Yeah. I was trying to figure that out.”

  “Think movie, specifically, ‘Revenge of the Gorgons.’”

  “That was it!” Tessa said, snapping her fingers. And then her face fell. “Oh. Is this just a made-up thing from my mind? I thought they were real. I didn’t ask for this to be made.”

  “The Starfighters are very real,” Digby said. “You cou
ld fly them out in space and all the weapons work just fine.”

  “Digby, it was a movie. The Starfighters were CGI. They don’t exist. I’m not totally stupid.”

  “Think about the movie. It was never explained how the technology worked which means that the ship was free to put in whatever technology was required to actually make them work—.”

  “Digby,” Marion cut in, “you are not seriously thinking for even one moment of letting Tessa fly one of these?”

  “Oh my God,” Tessa said, rushing to the balustrade to look at the fighters. “I’m going to fly a Starfighter.”

  “Maybe later,” Digby said. “Right now, in my own long-winded way, I’m trying to make a point about something else. Come and sit back down, Tessa.”

  Tessa seated herself at the table again but her eyes didn’t stop shining.

  Digby went on. “The ship creates real, physical objects, which are fully functioning. This hanger does not consist of images generated using virtual reality. It really does exist. Now, a ship that is a sphere eight kilometres across has quite a lot of internal space but if you think about objects the size of this hangar, the ship will, eventually, run out of space. So what it does, is create an object and then destroy it when it is no longer required.” Digby turned to Marion. “When you came on this ship yesterday you had the expectation that it would have corridors and rooms and when you went to your living quarters you expected that you would walk down corridors to get there, so the ship created corridors for you, creating them in front of you as you walked and then destroying them behind you. When you left your quarters again, they ceased to exist. All that existed was the piece of corridor you were walking along.”

  “You are kidding, right?” Marion said.

  “No, I am not kidding,” Digby said. “Now that you know this, unless you really want to walk down corridors, the next time you want to go to your quarters, they will simply be created around you.”

  “But what if I’m here with you?”

  Digby shrugged. “You might want me there as well.”

  “I really wouldn’t.”

  “In which case, the ship would move you somewhere else and then recreate your quarters around you.”

  “If the ship was reading my mind, why were my rooms so bare?”

  “Because that’s what you expected.”

  Both Tessa and Marion silently chewed on this, struggling to work out the implications. Digby went on. “Think about the shuttle. It was an empty sphere apart from the floor. This ship is a bigger version, minus the floor. The mind of the ship is contained in a thin layer on the inside surface of the sphere and the rest of the ship is completely empty. Or rather, it is filled with a matter, or substance, that the ship uses to create anything that it needs.”

  “The shuttle was an object created like that?” asked Marion.

  “Yes.”

  “When can I fly the Starfighter?” Tessa said.

  “When you finish High School,” Digby said. “I expect by then, though, you’ll want something much more dangerous.”

  “I have to go back to school?” Tessa said in dismay.

  “Yes, of course. You are only 16,” Digby said.

  “Please don’t turn into a parent,” Tessa said. “I like you better when you’re mysterious, from a distant galaxy, you know, a long time ago and far far away.”

  “You’ll like school. You’ll do pilot training, weapons training, combat in zero gravity, celestial navigation, lots of cool stuff.”

  “I won’t accept you turning Tessa into an Amalfi warrior, Digby,” Marion said.

  “And also, maths, physics, chemistry, English studies and so on. Probably won’t bother with geography for reasons which, unfortunately, we’re about to get to,” Digby finished.

  “Which brings us to why we are here,” Marion said. “It’s about time you told us what this is all about, Digby.”

  “It is kinda obvious you want us to stay on the ship,” Tessa said. She reached out and took Marion’s hand, looking for support. “There’s no way I’m staying on the ship by myself. No offence, Digby. I don’t trust guys.”

  “My people don’t prey on the young,” Digby said. “Nor do any of the other human civilisations that I have come across. That seems to be unique to your planet. Not a good look from where I’m standing.”

  “Like I said, no offence. I’ve heard those promises before.”

  “I’d like both of you to stay but the decision is yours. You have a free choice in this and I won’t stand in your way if you decide to return permanently to Earth. I have reasons for wanting you to stay on the ship and it isn’t anything to do with playing happy families.”

  “You have our undivided attention, Digby,” Marion said.

  “I have an obligation to the Amalfi. Perhaps we’ll talk about that later, and perhaps not. Anyway, I’m obligated to protect the Amalfi Echo and I could simply stick around and protect you from a distance, keeping out of your hair, except that, unfortunately, that isn’t going to work for the same reason that Tessa isn’t going to need geography. I have some very bad news for you. Do you want the short version or the long version?”

  “Give us the short version,” Marion said.

  “An alien fleet is on its way here and when it arrives everyone is going to die.”

  For a while there was absolute silence until Marion said, “Does the long version contain hope or rescue? Not that I’m believing any of this just right now if you don’t mind.”

  “No. The long version has all the gory detail.”

  Again there was silence. Eventually Marion said, “Would you leave Tessa and me alone for a while?”

  Digby’s response was to vanish. Marion disappeared the hangar and returned to the comfortable sofas and view of the Moon which Tessa promptly changed to pods of whales lumbering about majestically. Marion ordered a cup of coffee and sat sipping it. Tessa gazed at the whales, yet not seeing them at all. “Do you believe that shit?” she said.

  “I don’t know what to believe any more.”

  Tessa snuggled into Marion causing her to slop her coffee on her dress.

  “Tessa!” Marion said, automatically looking around for a cloth. They both watched the coffee stains fade and disappear.

  “C’mon, Adult,” Tessa said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “Oh, right. Give someone else the responsibility when it suits you.”

  “I’m just a little girl, all alone in the world.”

  “I don’t have any answers for you, Tessa.”

  “You’ve got a life down there on Earth but I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Tessa said. “But I don’t want to stay here on my own.”

  “Not as much life as you’d think. I was making a fresh start,” Marion said. “I ditched my man and my job in London and I didn’t even have a new job to go to. I did have some people I could look up in New York so I was going to try that. I don’t know how it would have worked out.”

  “We go back and they’ll throw us in jail forever.”

  “It could be a lot worse than that. They’ll want to know about Digby and the ship. Probably also the Amalfi Echo and they might not be too fussy about how they find out.”

  Tessa hadn’t thought of that. “Like, experiments?” she said horrified. She shook her head. “There’s no way we can go back.”

  And as simply as that the decision was made.

  “I still don’t believe all that crap about the alien fleet…I guess we’ll know soon enough,” Marion said.

  “We’ve got to warn them,” Tessa said.

  “I don’t even believe it myself,” Marion said.

  “We’ve got to warn them and even if nothing happens on the date the world’s supposed to end, don’t matter, life goes on and they won’t even give it a thought. How many times has that happened before?”

  “Probably means they won’t take much notice either.”

  “We need more information,” Tessa said. “Let’s see what’s in the long
version.”

  In her mind, Marion could hear Tessa hailing Digby who appeared moments later, chewing on a sandwich.

  “We had breakfast not 45 minutes ago,” Marion said, looking at the sandwich.

  “If you need to, the ship can do a little trick with time, so for me breakfast feels like ages ago. Maybe we can talk about that later. You want the long version?”

  Marion and Tessa indicated agreement.

  “Actually, it’s not so long. Essentially, there is a species, let’s call them, ‘Bugs’, simply because it is a time-honoured name for a species like this. The bugs are a two-stage species. The first stage is a diamond-clad pupa that hatches from a diamond egg. The second stage is a creature that is partly organic and partly crystalline and is happiest breathing an atmosphere of sulphuric acid vapours. It is the second stage which has built and occupies the fleets slowly colonising the galaxy and now they are arriving in your neck of the woods. When the fleet gets here it’ll install atmospheric engines which will, over several decades, transform the Earth’s atmosphere to sulphuric acid. However, this is not so they can colonise your planet. Their real interest in your star system are the two gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter which will provide ideal incubation and nursery conditions for their eggs and pupae. Their only interest in Earth is to provide a forward base for their long-term project, constructing and operating the nurseries on, or more properly in, the gas giants—.”

  “They’ll kill seven billion people just so they can build a base?” Marion said in disbelief.

  “You don’t exist. You don’t even figure in their thinking.”

  “Mars is closer to Jupiter and Saturn,” Tessa said, hoping they would notice her new research skills with the ship’s database.

  “It certainly is,” Digby agreed, “but building an atmosphere on Mars would be a big ask and the extra distance to Earth is insignificant. They could also use Venus and wouldn’t have to change the atmosphere much but it’s a dangerous place to get in and out of and they’ll need armoured pressure suits on the surface which is not very relaxing when you’re on R&R—they’ll get enough of that on Jupiter and Saturn. Earth is the ideal compromise for their forward operating base. They’ll be here in about two years if they stick to the speed and trajectories they were following when I last looked in on them.”