“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been thirteen days since my last confession.”
“What would you like to confess this time, my son?”
“I’ve had impure thoughts.”
“Go on.”
“About one of my work colleagues.”
“What kind of impure thoughts?”
“There’s more than one kind?”
“Have you acted upon these thoughts?”
“You think I should? She doesn’t have a boyfriend, I know that much.”
“She is unmarried?”
“Yes.”
“And how does this woman feel about you?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
Father Shilo emits a deliberately audible sigh. “Perhaps you should ask her?”
“You mean ask her out on a date or something?”
“To get to know her better, of course.”
“What if she says no?”
“Then that answers your question. And hopefully puts an end to your impure thoughts. Nevertheless, you should endeavour to control them, of course.”
“Impure thoughts best left for the marriage chamber then, eh?”
“Thoughts of such nature within a sanctified union are never impure.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Do you have anything else you wish to confess?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Then I suggest you pray to the Blessed Virgin for guidance. She, after all, was immune to impurity.”
“Yes, I shall. Thank you, Father.”
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the blessings of the Lord be upon you.”
“Amen.”
Vassily suddenly, and genuinely, felt much better, a great weight off his mind. Confession turned out to be not so bad in the end after all. He wondered why he was ever anxious about it. Impure thoughts, he smiled. Works every time.
And he didn’t even have to lie.
Anja never liked being in the observation chamber. Located on the static part of the outer ring it was one of the few places not covered in additional reinforced shielding. It was deemed mandatory that everyone must spend at least one hour each week in there. There were cameras too, she knew, to ensure people weren’t spending the entire hour with their eyes shut. They wanted people to be constantly reminded of their black planet and how it was their duty to survive and, of course, procreate to ensure the continued existence of the species.
Anja had learned how not to see with her eyes open. Just meditate on something else. Katrina’s interview was going through her head constantly, so it wasn’t difficult this time. She was certain there was something important there she had to remember. Something Katrina said.
She wanted to stop a catastrophe. But she was talking about a war, not The Event.
What was it? Remember.
And then she did. Thirty years! She said thirty years! And that was 1994. Event Day was in 2024.
She knew. Anja was certain of it.
And so she flew out of the room, heedless of the security cameras, uncaring whether her hour was up, unhooked her gravity belt, straight into the elevator and was back down in the archive two minutes later. She hastily clicked open her console, located the interview file, then scrolled across the time bar with her finger and pressed play.
“As I was saying, Britain is the most important diplomatic power in the world.”
No. A bit further on.
“…The fate of the world, therefore, depends on the kind of government Britain has when the time comes in I’d say about thirty years from now. 2024.”
There!
“Kay, is the reverse side of this tape digitised in the archive?”
“Affirmative. Approximately five minutes in duration.”
“Only five minutes?”
“Affirmative.”
Anja thought that a little odd, given those sorts of tapes could fit forty-five minutes each side.
“Well, let’s see what she has to say. Start the recording.”
“Interview with Katrina Meyer, tape one, side two. Resumed at – 10.16 am local time.”
“10.16? I like that number. It’s ironic.”
“Why is it ironic?”
“10.16 pm local time is when the Wow! signal was received.”
“What’s the Wow! signal?”
“It was a message from an extra-terrestrial intelligence received by SETI via the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University 17 years ago. Well, 17 years plus 35 days.”
“Into all that stuff are you?”
“Yes. I was hoping to use some of my money to found the Department for Exo-Studies at Cambridge next year. Humanity needs to overcome its xenophobia if it wants to be part of a community of galactic civilisations. DEXOS would’ve prepared humanity for contact.”
“Believe in aliens then, do you?” K7/D5.
“Don’t you?”
“I’m agnostic.”
From his tone it was clear he was going for the tactic of annoying Katrina into talking. He should’ve known that kind of thing wouldn’t work with someone of her emotional intelligence. But he enjoyed it, so he wasn’t going to stop.
“What makes you think this signal was from aliens, Katrina?” Amanda. She also knew Katrina wouldn’t fall for her colleague’s tactics, let alone the good cop bad cop routine. Better to treat her with respect. Be diplomatic.
“Metadata analysis.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what metadata analysis is.”
“Of course. But what do you mean in this context?”
“The Wow! signal was received on the 228th day of the year, 16th August 1977 at 02:16 UTC. Add up the individual year numbers and you get 24. So that’s 16:8:24, which reduces to 213. Not to mention the harmonic ratios there. At 02:16. Six cubed. 666. Then there’s the alphanumeric sequence, which adds up to precisely 100. Furthermore 10.16 pm local time was 18:21 local sidereal time.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because 18-21 cm is a quiet part of the cosmic radiation spectrum. 21 cm being the hydrogen line. SETI decided that aliens would use that frequency range to send messages. So by sending them something at precisely that time the ETI is telling SETI they’re aware of how they’re thinking. Meaning they know all about this planet, and are watching.”
“That must’ve terrified the living daylights out of them, if it’s true.”
“Of course it’s true. That’s partly why the Wow! message also contains a musical gift which should’ve suggested friendly intentions. The highest intensity part of the signal was 30-31 standard deviations above the baseline, represented by the letter U. Look at the printout and you’ll see U31 clearly standing out. 31 is the harmonic series. So you can relate those numbers to notes, in other words. It produces a lovely musical key, albeit without the missing C-sharp, which would be obvious to any musician. That part of the message was intended to be a gift, obviously, to show they’re not hostile. But the real clincher is the time relationship with the launch of the Voyager 1 probe.”
“In what way?”
“It was precisely 20 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes and one second later. Remove the zeroes and you get 214. Add your one second remainder and that’s 215. I think that’s what you call time travel. Unless you think it was all just uncanny coincidence?”
“Well, if what you say is true then that is uncanny, sure.” Amanda is still a little sceptical, though. Part of her thinks Katrina’s just making all this up.
K7/D5 emits an audible sigh. “This is all very interesting, Katrina, but it’s hardly relevant to you betraying your country, is it?”
“It’s completely relevant. Actually.”
Amanda. “How so?”
“Like I said, I want to prevent a catastrophe.”
“World War Three, you mean?”
“For example, yes. But a hundred years from now humanity will have the technology to travel between the stars and manipulate gravity. Remember what the Americans did with atomic theory? They built a bomb and dropped it on innocent people. Twice. And don’t give me any of that propaganda rubbish that it ended the war sooner. Japan had been wanting to surrender the entire year.”
“Maybe they just wanted to send a message to Stalin.”
“They already did that with Dresden and Tokyo. Also innocent people. But like I said, if humanity is governed by a fascist, totalitarian state by that time then any aliens would consider that a serious threat, wouldn’t they? If I was in their position, I’d intervene.”
Anja’s mouth was wide open, her eyes staring at the screen.
“You’re seriously trying to tell us that aliens are going to invade if we don’t start behaving and – what, renounce our decadent capitalist ways?” K7/D5’s voice was showing clear signs of exasperation. Maybe he suspected Katrina was setting up some kind of insanity defence here.
“All advanced spacefaring civilisations are communist utopias, simply by virtue of the technology. I already explained that, I think.”
“In which case they don’t need to worry about us, do they? We’ll all end up being good little comrades when the time comes.”
“That’s not inevitable. The future is either socialism or barbarism.”
“Spoken like a true Marxist.”
“It’s one of the few things I don’t disagree with Marx about. But believe me, the bad guys in this world, the self-styled elite, do understand this, because they’re not adapted for survival in a utopia. They’d have no socio-economic advantage anymore. So they have to prevent utopia at all costs, simply for their own survival. In thirty years’ time they will have the technological means to enact their totalitarianism. Like I said, if Britain is a fascist country at that time, alien intervention would become necessary. Their prime directive would be the opposite of non-interference.”
Another audible sigh. “So you think, what, aliens are going to start World War Three? Give me a break.”
“I don’t think they would allow humanity to destroy Dannuih’s body with nuclear weapons. Mind you the dystopians might provoke an alien intervention simply to create a new enemy against which to unite mankind under their fascist, species-ist banner.”
Amanda interrupts, clearly trying to calm things down diplomatically. “You really believe all of this will happen, Katrina? And that’s your motivation for what you’ve done?”
“Yes. Starting a nuclear war with Russia and/or China would be easy for them. They’d just need to do another false flag, launch one of their hypersonic missiles at a city on their Pacific coast, blame it on Russia or China and then retaliate. After another thirty years of anti-Russian propaganda the people won’t believe Russia’s denials. Besides, it’ll be too late by then.”
“But aliens wouldn’t let this happen?”
“No.”
“You really believe all this? You’re certain about it?”
“I seem certain and serious, don’t I?”
“Yes. But how can you possibly know all this? You’re being extremely specific?”
Pause. “Stop the tape and I’ll tell you. Off the record.”
“Absolutely not.” K7/D5.
“How do you know, Katrina?”
“Stop the tape.”
“Please answer the question. What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’m not human! STOP THE BLOODY TAPE!”
Beat. Click. Recording ends.
Anja is shocked. Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. Wouldn’t you agree?
“Kay it’s true, isn’t it? Alien intervention? I was right! Please tell me there’s more of this interview?”
“I am afraid not, Mistress Anja. These are the only interview recordings in the archive.”
“The others are all the missing files?”
“Affirmative.”
“So it can’t have been the aliens responsible for the missing files?”
“I am unable to answer this question.”
“What I mean is, they’d want us to know, wouldn’t they?”
“I am unable to answer this question.”
“And why wasn’t this file also missing?”
“Analysis suggests it was misreferenced.”
“So someone filed it in the wrong place, is what you’re saying?”
“Affirmative.”
“Who?”
“File reference issued 10 February 2019 by Archivist Ti-Kala Lei.”
“That’s my great-grandmother!”
“Affirmative.”
“Maybe she did the same with the other files!”
“I will conduct a search anal- I have a communication coming through, Mistress Anja.”
Startled. “Who is it?”
“Security.”
Anja did not have time to calm herself. Delays are suspicious.
“On screen.”
“They wish to speak to you in person, Mistress Anja. You are being summoned…”
##