The Serene Invasion

Chapter SEVEN





TO ALLEN, THE process of stepping into the obelisk on Mars and stepping out again on Titan seemed instantaneous.

He knew intellectually that a day, perhaps two, had elapsed, but always as he completed his stride through the black wall and stepped out on the other side, he found it hard to believe. He always had to check the calendar on his softscreen to confirm how much time had passed, and always he felt renewed respect for Serene science. This time, thanks to Nina Ricci, he also experienced curiosity at what the Serene might be doing with the human representatives in the Titan obelisk.

The sight that confronted him on emerging from the obelisk never failed to halt him in his tracks. He had seen many an artist’s representation of the rings of Saturn as seen from the moon of Titan, spectacular landscapes of methane plains with the mighty ringed planet canted at varying angles above the horizon, but the reality stunned him. It was the colours, he thought. Saturn itself was a vast pastel swirl and the rings, tipped so that they presented a great multi-stranded girdle encompassing the planet, ranged the spectrum. In the foreground the moon’s electric-blue plains provided a vivid contrast.

The city itself was situated on a plateau on the moon’s southern pole, a collection of what looked like blown-glass habitats occupied by scientific teams huddled around the rearing tower of the obelisk, and all protected from the moon’s hostile hydrocarbon atmosphere by a bell-jar dome.

For the past five years or so the routine had always been the same. Allen, Ana Devi and Nina Ricci, sometimes accompanied by other representatives, would meet at a café bar across the plaza from the obelisk. There, while admiring the views across the plain far below, they would chat for an hour or two before entering the obelisk again and finding themselves back on Mars. It was a time to catch up – if they hadn’t seen each other on Mars for a while – though oddly they never speculated about what they might have undergone in the day or two that had elapsed within the obelisk.

Allen crossed the plaza and made his way to the table beside the far rail, where Sally, Ana and Kapil were seated. Ana was subdued, far from her usual voluble, talkative self. Kapil was gripping her hand beneath the table, murmuring something to her. Ana stared out across the jagged, frozen plain, but looked up and smiled briefly as Allen sat down next to Sally.

He ordered coffee and, to break the ice, commented that the sight of the southern polar plain never failed to excite him.

Sally said, “I didn’t think it would be so... vivid. The pictures I’ve seen failed to do it justice.”

“Vivid and inimical,” Kapil put in, ever the scientist. “It might look beautiful, but it’s one of the most hostile environments known to man.”

Ana said in a small voice, “I wonder why the obelisk is this far out – I mean this obelisk, the biggest in the system, the one every representative now goes to? Why couldn’t it be situated on Earth?”

Kapil shrugged. “Security?”

Sally said, “But secure from whom? The Obterek, presumably? Surely they can access anywhere in the system, always assuming they can breach Serene defences in the first place?”

“Perhaps the defences are harder to breach this far out?” Ana suggested.

“Or maybe,” Allen said lightly, “the Serene just like the view.”

Sally looked up and said. “Here are Nina and Natascha.”

They rearranged themselves around the table and pulled up a couple of chairs. Natascha was tiny, blonde, quiet and undemonstrative – a complete contrast in every respect to her Italian lover. She worked as an engineer on the Martian atmosphere plants, and had been a regular at the Allens’ monthly soirées, gracing the gatherings with her quiet, deadpan wit. She and Nina had been together for almost ten years, as unlikely a pairing intellectually as they were physically.

They sat and ordered white wine and Allen said, “We were just wondering why the obelisk was situated this far out from Earth, Nina. I was about to say that no doubt you’d have a theory.”

Natascha smiled into her glass. “Nina has a theory for everything, believe me.”

Nina listened to what Kapil had suggested about security, then dismissed the idea with a wave. “The entire question as to why the obelisk is here is redundant, my friends. It could be here or anywhere – it would be equally as vulnerable on Earth as it would be here, or on Mars or Venus. The concept of distance, to Serene minds habituated to the idea of teleportation, is irrelevant. More important,” she went on, “is its function. It’s in some way more important to the Serene, because of its size and the fact that the human representatives come here now solely and far more often than we ever visited the other obelisks.”

Natascha said, “But do you have a theory for that, my darling?”

“For once, you’ll be surprised to learn, I do not. That’s what I hope we’ll find out from Kathryn, when she deigns to turn up.”

Nina turned to Ana and murmured her condolences, touching the Indian woman’s hand.

Ana smiled and said, “I have had time to think about it, Nina, and perhaps it was meant to be. Bilal had come to a peaceful period in his life, a period of contentment, I think. He had left behind the person he was, and was helping others. It was better that he die now than before, when he had not realised his... his potential.”

Allen looked at her, wondering how much this was Ana rationalising the tragedy for the sake of her grief – or perhaps, in some way known only to the Hindu mind, she really believed this. To Allen, Bilal’s death was an unmitigated tragedy, a murder made all the more horrible because of the fact that no one, these days, met intentionally violent ends.

Ana went on, “What frightens me is that it might be the start of more violence from the Obterek. It’s bad enough that Bilal is dead, but let it be the last.”

Natascha said, “And you are certain that you saw Bilal’s old boss, Morwell, enter the orphanage as you left?”

Ana smiled. “His old boss, yes – but he was in some way younger. As if the Obterek had made him so.”

“You said that a self-aware entity told you that Morwell was working for the Obterek?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“But it didn’t say why Morwell was doing this?” Nina Ricci asked. “Why, in other words, the Obterek might want your brother dead?”

Ana shook her head. “It said nothing about this, and I was too shocked to ask.”

Into the following silence, Sally asked quietly, “But why would the Obterek want Bilal dead?”

Nina Ricci cleared her throat, and heads turned to her. “In my opinion,” she said, “they didn’t specifically want Bilal dead. I know this might be hard to accept, Ana, but I think that anyone would have sufficed.”

Natascha looked at her lover. “I don’t follow...”

Nina went on, “The Obterek used Morwell as a tool to see if they could succeed in breaching the Serene’s charea, however briefly. To see if it could be done again.”

They sat in silence for a time, digesting the corollary of this idea.

At last Ana said, “You are right, I do find it hard to accept, even though it might be the truth. Bilal told me, when we met three days ago, that he and Morwell had parted on bad terms. Perhaps it was Morwell who suggested to the Obterek that it might be Bilal who... who should serve as the... the test case.” She stopped, Kapil gripping her hand, then looked up bravely and said, “He was reading a book about Gandhi when he died, which would have been hard to imagine him doing ten years ago.”

Allen ventured, “Perhaps, if his death served to warn the Serene that the Obterek have returned to the fray, then it might not have been in vain?”

Ana nodded. “Yes, that would be a nice thought, wouldn’t it?”

Nina Ricci sat up and said, “I think this is Kathryn, if I’m not mistaken.”

Allen turned and watched Kath Kemp approach from the obelisk across the plaza.

Nina was in the process of pulling up a chair for her, but Kath said, “That won’t be necessary, but thank you. We won’t be stopping here. I have a more... secure venue for our meeting. Please, if you would care to follow me.”

Exchanging glances, they rose and trooped from the café area.





KATH LED THEM across the plaza to a section of the flooring marked with black and white squares like a chess board. When they were all standing upon the ‘board’, Allen felt the ground give beneath his feet.

Ana let out a small gasp of surprise and reached out for Kapil. Kath smiled and said, “An elevator. We will be travelling only a short way.”

“Where to?” Nina Ricci asked.

“Beneath the surface of the moon,” Kath replied, “and then out again.”

Her answer provoked a murmur of surprise amongst the group, and Sally caught Allen’s eye and smiled tentatively. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they dropped.

Seconds later the elevator halted, and Kath Kemp stepped from it and led the way along a lighted corridor. They arrived at a black door, not dissimilar to the surface of the obelisk. For a second Allen thought that it might indeed be a subterranean extension of the obelisk, then had second thoughts: if his orientation was correct, then when they stepped off the elevator they had been heading away from the obelisk, towards the face of the cliff overlooking the plain. This was confirmed a second later as Kath palmed a sensor and the black door slid aside to reveal the frozen methane plain stretching ahead to the horizon.

For a shocking second Allen thought that they were stepping onto the very surface of the moon. Then he made out, perhaps thirty metres away, an arrangement of loungers and foam-forms, surrounded by what looked like the inner membrane of a dome. Clutching Sally’s hand, he followed Kath through the entrance and found himself in a long bolus of what appeared to be glass extruded from the wall of the cliff.

They came to the loungers and Kath invited them to be seated.

Allen sat down and looked up through the ceiling at the stars twinkling high overhead. If he looked back, he could see the domed city arcing above the lip of the cliff-face, and the summit of the obelisk. Ahead, high above the horizon, Saturn cast its light across the methane ice plain.

“Very spectacular,” Ricci commented, “but I’d like to know just why we have been brought down here?”

Kath Kemp stood before them, silhouetted against Saturn’s light. She inclined her head. “Despite its appearance of insubstantiality, this is a secure area. We cannot be overheard or observed.”

“This gets better and better,” Ricci smiled. “So you’re really going to divulge...”

Kath held up a hand. “It has never been the policy to keep from you the information you needed to know. We had, and have, and will continue to have, the best interests of the human race at heart.”

Ricci interrupted. “But it is you, or rather the Serene, who decide what we ‘need’ to know – which begs the question...”

It was Kath’s turn to interject. “We told you everything which was necessary for your understanding relevant to an ongoing and unfolding situation.”

Allen smiled to himself at Kath’s convoluted politician’s spiel. She went on, “However, due to recent developments in the Serene’s management of the situation, it has been deemed necessary to inform, little by little, the human representatives, and their loved ones, of their larger role in the scheme of things.”

She fell silent and looked around the group, and Allen was aware of the increasing tension in the room. Sally squeezed his hand as she stared at her friend.

Ana said quietly, “Does this have something to do with what happened to Bilal?”

Kath shook her head. “Not directly, no. But indirectly, yes, everything is linked.”

“Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?” Ricci asked.

Kath paused, staring down at her feet, then raised her head and looked around the group. She said, “Twenty years ago the Serene came to Earth and changed everything. The Serene stopped you harming each other – in effect, we saved you from inevitable self-destruction, just as we’d saved many other races across the millennia. In order to do this, and to facilitate the changes that would inevitably eventuate, we required the help of the human race itself to work as our representatives, on Earth to begin with, and then across the solar system.”

“Yes,” Ricci said, “but what actually did we do – or rather, what did you do to us? Just what went on – goes on – in the obelisks?”

Kath paused, looking from one to the other of the six humans seated before her, then said, “You must consider that the Serene’s concern is the long-term welfare of the human race. Not only did we wish to save you from yourself, but from the attention of our opponents, the Obterek. To this end we deemed it necessary to take a sample of the finest human beings your race had to offer and... study you.”

Natascha sat forward. “Study us?”

“It was a long and laborious process. Within the obelisks, every month, we...” She paused, then said, “I will resort here to brutal terminology, but there is no other way of explaining what we did. Very well, in order to study you we had to take you apart, strip you down, and then build you back up. But in doing so we... we incorporated several fundamental changes in your molecular and genetic make-up.”

Allen sat back, heart racing. He said, “Changes...?”

“We made alterations in order to improve you, to give you capabilities that will serve you, the human race, in the decades and centuries to come.”

Ricci sprang to her feet and paced to the curving glass wall and back. She stopped and looked at Kath Kemp, and Allen was unable to work out if her expression was one of anger, resentment, or excitement. It seemed that all three reactions passed across her face in the seconds that followed, before she said, “You’ve changed us? Changed me? But into what?”

“To someone who will be better able to serve your race in the years to come,” Kath said.

Kapil glanced at Ana, then said, “And how will that be?”

Kath Kemp smiled. “To answer that, I must first answer a question that Nina asked me a month ago, about the diminution in the stars.”

Sally laughed. “But how can that be related...?”

“Please believe me, Sal – it is,” Kath said. “You see, it is all tied in to the need to protect you from the Obterek, and to do that we need to protect your habitat – the solar system.”

Nina Ricci cried, “You’re talking in riddles!”

Kath stared around the group, and seemed to be considering what she said next. “Very well, I think a practical demonstration is required. What we are about to do you might find shocking, unbelievable, but let me reassure you that you are at no risk whatsoever during the process.”

Several of them began to speak at once, but Kath held up a hand and said, “Please follow my instructions. Now, Ana, Nina and Geoff... If you would kindly stand and move into the centre of the room.”

Allen glanced at Sally, shrugged, and did as instructed, curiosity intermingled with a slight sense of foolishness; he was a schoolboy again, manipulated by the teacher in order to demonstrate some scientific principle.

He stood between Ana and Nina, and looked to Kath for further instructions.

She said, “Stand a little further apart, so that you are separated by about one metre.”

Ricci protested, “Just what is all this about?”

Kath ignored her. “Now, Sally, Kapil and Natascha, please join your partners and hold hands.”

Sally climbed from the lounger and joined him. Her hand found his and squeezed.

“Ana, Nina and Geoff, your softscreens are activated. I have initiated a program that will allow you to hear my instructions mentally.”

“But how the hell did you do that?” Nina murmured.

Kath said, “In five seconds, you will hear me ‘think’ a set of co-ordinates. You will repeat them to yourself, mentally. And that will initiate the procedure...”

Allen watched as Kath stepped forward and took Nina Ricci’s hand.

Before he could even begin to wonder what was going on, he heard Kath’s voice in his head. “75-438-779... Now repeat.”

Allen did so. He felt a split-second of disorientation, and then something flashed in his vision and he was forced to close his eyes.

He staggered, as if the ground beneath his feet had shifted, and then opened his eyes.

And he saw that he was no longer on Titan.





HE WAS STANDING in a sunlit vale or meadow, a warm breeze lapping over him. He was still gripping Sally’s hand, and turned to her.

Her face wore an expression of enraptured wonder that was beautiful to behold.

Then he saw that the others were alongside Sally and himself. All of them were staring around in awe, open-mouthed; they looked at each other and could not help but laugh.

Allen turned to Kath, who was watching them with amusement

“What the hell,” Nina Ricci said, “is going on?”

“Where are we?” asked Ana.

“This simple demonstration,” Kath Kemp said, “should answer your first and fundamental question: what was it that the Serene were doing with you representatives for twenty years, every month initially, and then every two weeks. We were, little by little, installing you with the ability to shift, as we call it – or perhaps you would prefer the term teleport.”

Allen felt dizzy and sat down on the grass. Sally flopped beside him and found his hand. Ana and Kapil were embracing. Nina and Natascha stared at each other and laughed.

“You’re kidding, right?” Nina said.

“I think,” Allen said, “that what we just did proves to us that this is no joke.”

“Let me explain,” said Kath. “We have invested in over ten thousand individuals – you human representatives – the ability to shift to any point within your solar system instantaneously. The science, the mechanics, of this we need not go into now; suffice to say that we have employed the same laws of quantum mechanics to effect this ability as we did to enable the charea edict. Programmed into your softscreens is an almost limitless cache of co-ordinates that will enable you, at the speed of thought, to select a destination and shift yourselves there. To access this cache you merely have to ‘think’ of your destination; for example a certain street in a certain city. Instantly the program will decode your thought and supply a destination code, which you will repeat. A nano-second later, you will find yourself there.”

Sally was shaking her head. “But how did I... and Kapil and Natascha...?”

“The shifter will have the ability to take with them a maximum of three other people, and will do so by the simple expedient of ensuring that all three are physically connected.”

“Right,” said Nina with determination. She was staring ahead, at a stand of trees some five hundred metres away.

Allen then had the disconcerting experience of seeing a human being vanish from before his eyes. Nina appeared, instantly, beside the trees half a kilometre away. She lifted a hand and waved.

A second later she was back beside Natascha, shaking her head in wonder at what she had just done.

Allen heard his heartbeat hammer out his shock and elation. He closed his eyes, and into his head came a vision of a pub garden, millions of miles away; the Three Horseshoes in Wem, Shropshire, where many years ago he and Sally had spent many a pleasant evening.

A string of co-ordinates entered his head. 32-779-043...

He opened his eyes and stared at Sally. “Hold my hand,” he said.

Tentatively, she reached out and took his hand, and Allen repeated the co-ordinates.

He heard Sally gasp, and then he was in the garden of the Three Horseshoes, seated beside the fishpond. It was early morning in England, and the sun was rising over the elms which bordered the garden.

“I’m dreaming this,” Sally said, “Please, Geoff, tell me I’m dreaming...”

“Then so am I,” he said, and reached out and hugged his wife.

“The thing is,” she said, “do you know your way back to the others?”

That was a point. He closed his eyes and recalled the grassy vale, and immediately the program responded with a string of co-ordinates.

Sally said, “Do you realise what this means, Geoff? In the wrong hands...”

“Shall we go back?” he said.

“The silly thing is that I’d like to stay a while, have a stroll around, explore again... But there will be plenty of time for that in future, won’t there?”

He smiled. “We can explore everywhere you’ve ever wanted to explore,” he said, and squeezed her hand.

He repeated the co-ordinates mentally, and a split-second later they were seated on the breast of the meadowed vale, Nina and Natascha staring at them in amazement.

Seconds later Ana and Kapil popped into existence before them, and Ana gasped, “We were in India, revisiting the farm where we first met. Oh, it was...” She turned to her husband and wept on his shoulder.

Nina said to Kath Kemp, “You do realise that if the wrong kind of people...?” she began.

Kath looked at the Italian with all the forbearance of a wise school-teacher. “Nina, we have invested the ability only in you representatives. We know you, on the most fundamental level. You are not the kind of people to abuse the gift bequeathed to you. Look into your hearts, each of you, and ask yourselves if that is not true.”

Allen smiled to himself, overcome by the weight of trust the Serene had granted him. Then again, he asked himself, how could it be trust when the Serene knew him, and the other representatives, intimately? He felt not so much trusted, then, as blessed.

Nina Ricci stared across the greensward at the diminutive Kath, and said, “You have graced us with a power beyond our expectations, an ability none of us could have dreamed of... But – and far be it for me to sound suspicious, or ungrateful – but why have the Serene done this? What exactly do you want from us?”

Kath gestured, raising both her hands candidly. “As I told you, our desires are the continuance of the human race, the protection of your species, initially from yourselves, and then from the threat of the Obterek. With your ability, you can assist the Serene in this.”

Ana said, “In what way? I don’t understand how our ability to... shift... can help protect us.”

“Your ability will not protect you, but it will help towards setting up a system, an environment, in which the human race will be safe.”

“Again,” asked Nina Ricci, “how?”

“To answer that,” Kath said, “I need you to ask a question. And the question is this: where are we now?”

All six humans looked around them. Natascha said, “It looks like a meadow in Georgia where I went on holiday as a child.”

“The hills of Tuscany,” Ricci laughed.

Ana said, “Or the vale of Kashmir.”

“It could easily be somewhere in Shropshire,” Sally said.

Kath smiled. “You are all wrong, but right in that it is a place of surpassing beauty. We are not on Earth; nor are we on any planet or moon in the solar system.”

More to himself, Geoff said, “The dimming of the stars...” And aloud, “Then where?”

“Look into the sky,” Kath said, “and tell me what you see.”

Allen looked up. The sky was cloudless. “The sun,” he said.

“How many?” Kath asked.

Allen laughed. “One...”

“No!” Nina Ricci said. “Two...”

“Three... four!” Kapil exclaimed.

Allen saw that they were right; high above, a series of small, bright yellow suns marched across the heavens.

He shook his head. “But that’s impossible, isn’t it? Where are we?” He had a sudden, explosive thought, and said, “On the home planet of the Serene?”

Kath shook her head. “We are still within the confines of your solar system, but only just.”

Nina Ricci pointed to the sky. “But the suns?”

“The dimming of the stars,” Allen said, but aloud this time. He had the inkling of an idea. “On the edge of our system, Kath? On some kind of... of artificial platform?”

She smiled. “Almost. We are on the edge of the solar system, but the structure is somewhat more impressive than a mere platform. Imagine the skin of an orange, or rather a more oblate satsuma, cut into sections. Imagine the sections reformed into an oblate whole.”

The idea was dizzying. Allen laughed. “And this... this is one of those sections?”

Kath Kemp nodded. “It is. From point to point it measures one astronomical unit, and the same across at its widest point.”

Nina Ricci was shaking her head. “But it’s... vast.”

Kapil said, “That’s the distance from the sun to the Earth!”

“In surface area,” Kath said, “it equates to forty million Earths.”

“And you say that this is just one section?” Kapil asked.

“The first,” Kath said. “Soon, others will join it, and in five of your years, the entire solar system will be enclosed.”

Kapil was shaking his head in wonder. “And the number of sections it will take to do this?” he asked.

“The Serene estimate approximately two million,” Kath said.

Allen laughed. “My maths isn’t up to it...”

Kapil said in awed tones, “So there will be the equivalent of eighty trillion planet Earths on the inner surface of the shell, give or take a handful.”

“How?” Sally asked. “The energy required, the material...”

Kath said, “We beam the energy from the far stars of the core, and utilise takrea technology to transport the rock and iron of distant planets. Surrounding the solar system are thousands of vast quantum engines, fabricators, which take the energy and reconstruct it.” She gestured about her. “Forming the shell, which is in the region of fifteen thousand kilometres thick.”

Natascha asked, “But why, Kath? Why are the Serene doing this?”

Kath nodded, as if the question were entirely reasonable. “Think about it,” she said. “Think about what is happening to the human race. There are no more wars, no more crimes of violence, no more murders. Also, with the coming of the Serene and the advance of pharmaceutical sciences, many deadly diseases are no more. The human race is expanding, hence the outward push from Earth, the establishment of colonies on Venus, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.”

Kapil finished for her. “And we need space into which to expand,” he said.

Kath looked around the astonished faces of the humans before her. “This is not the first time the Serene have built a habitat shell around a solar system,” she said. “It is one of the corollaries of saving a race from itself.”

“But will there come a time, in the far, far future,” Nina Ricci wanted to know, “when the human race will expand to fill all the available land within the shell?”

“That is very doubtful,” Kath said. “It has not happened so far with any of the other races the Serene have assisted; they have instituted measures to curb their populations.”

Beside Allen, Sally opened her mouth with an exclamation of understanding. “Ah, I see now...” she said.

The others looked at her.

“I understand why the representatives have been granted the ability to... shift,” she said.

Kath Kemp was nodding. “When the shell is complete, the distances between areas of population across the inner surface will be so vast that we will need people, individuals, to travel back and forth, as envoys, messengers – couriers, if you like. To create and sustain a system of obelisks to perform this function would be an energy drain beyond even the resources of the Serene, hence the creation of a cadre of shifters, as you will come to be known.”

Allen slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulder and smiled at her.

“Of course,” Kath went on, “as twenty years ago when the Serene recruited the representatives, we gave you the option of withdrawing, without fear of prejudice. We offer you the same option now; if any of you do not wish to enjoy the facility of shifting, or do not wish to carry through the work of the Serene, please say so and you will be returned to Mars with no memory of what has taken place here.”

Allen laughed. “You are,” he said, “joking, right? As if I could turn my back on the ability to...” He shook his head, suddenly speechless at the thought of what the Serene had granted him.

Kath turned to Ana Devi. “Ana?”

She smiled and clutched Kapil’s hand. “I agree with Geoff,” she said.

“And you, Nina?” Kath asked.

“I would not turn my back on the ability to shift for all the world,” she said.

Kath Kemp smiled. “Thank you all,” she said. “You have made me very happy.”

Allen asked, “And the other representatives? Have the Serene told all ten thousand of us?”

She smiled. “We are in the process of doing so,” she said. She gestured around her at the meadow. “As we speak there are groups of representatives, with their attendant self-aware entities, being told just what I have just told you.”

She paused, then went on, “In celebration, I suggest we return to the plaza at Titan. I’ve had the presumption to order a magnum of champagne in readiness for our return.”

Nina Ricci said, “But won’t our sudden arrival, out of the blue, cause a little consternation?”

“Until a formal announcement is made regarding the shifters,” Kath said, “the Serene have ensured that your arrival, anywhere, will go unnoticed by those in the vicinity.”

Allen smiled to himself; the Serene had thought of everything.

She stepped forward and held out her hand to Allen, and he understood then why she had taken Nina Ricci’s hand on Titan.

“You can’t shift?” he said.

She smiled. “We can do many things, Geoff, but the Serene have not endowed us with that ability.”

She looked around the group as the representatives linked hands with their partners. “If you visualise the plaza...”

Allen did so, and the co-ordinates entered his consciousness.

Gripping Sally’s hand, he closed his eyes and repeated them.

And when he opened his eyes again he was on the plaza beneath the dome on Titan, and the others were already making their way to the café bar.