Visitation - Exodus (book 2 of 2)

"Intercept in two point five minutes,” Ivan announced. “Seventy five thousand kilometres and closing very fast.”

“No, wait one”

“Correction.”

“That’s strange,”

Ivan’s words were coming in short bursts.

“It’s stopping.”

“The Ark is slowing down. It’s going to come to a halt; it’s actually going to stop for us.”

From what I could see, a series of lights or small displays were illuminating on Ivan’s console. I had no idea what they meant but Ivan was sounding excited as they changed colour and pattern.

“The Ark knows we are here and heading towards it,” he went on. “It recognises us as one of its own, I am sure it does. The incoming information is altering the calibration of my instruments.”

“O, klassno!” he suddenly exclaimed in great excitement.

This was the first time I had heard him speak in other than English. I had no idea what it meant, I don’t think anyone else did, but Ivan was clearly most excited as he burst out with this word, or was it two words; I had no idea.

“It’s even better,” he continued, “or perhaps worse; I really don’t know.”

He calmed down a little.

“What I do know, is that it’s taking control of us, but that’s OK, I think.”

He was still smiling and I felt assured. I had to have confidence in what he was doing and saying, there was no other option.

“Do you think that’s safe, Ivan?” Caterin asked. “Can you not take back control yourself, so can we determine what action we should, or may have to take?”

Ivan lifted his hands clear of the console. with, "It doesn’t matter what I try to do, everything is overridden. Whatever is going to happen now is going to happen. Let’s hope it’s for the best.”

His smile did not break and I guessed from his unchanging attitude of joyful surprise that everything was still just about OK. By the twitching in their seats I guessed that my fellow travellers were not that convinced and by association, I felt my confidence become a little dented. We had to trust Ivan’s judgement, he was the pilot after all and we simply had to put our faith in him.

Then there it was in view, coming out of the darkness of space at what seemed to be a crazy speed. A large, grey pock marked asteroid type thing, about the rough shape of a potato, somewhat lumpy with grooves along its surface as though it had suffered from high speed impacts. It was coming straight for us, or were we going straight for it. Either way we were approaching each other and it seemed, at some quite disconcerting speed.

“I’m now concerned,” said Caterin. “Ivan, are you sure you cannot take back control?” Her voice showed her concern and I felt it too, inside my head.

“There is nothing I can do,” replied a now, perhaps starting-to-panic Ivan, his smile gone, as it was clear we were approaching this lump of rock at an increasingly and alarming speed. The view grew larger until it filled the viewing window and still we didn’t seem to slow down.

With the lack of inertia when travelling in one of these craft, it was hard to tell what speed we were doing. Perhaps Ivan knew but if he did he still wasn’t saying or perhaps thought better of telling us.

Then the ever-increasing enlargement, as the detail sharpened and it felt as though it could almost be touched, seemed to slow, but not completely. I couldn’t tell the distance we were from the surface but we were still moving towards it and I felt certain that we were about to crash at any moment.

Then I heard Ivan’s mental message, “Calm Ian, calm. It’s OK, we’re still a good kilometre above the surface and we have almost stopped. We are coming in ever closer but at a gentle cruising speed. Stop panicking.”

Ivan’s out-of-the-blue message had been directed straight at me. Was I transmitting signs of panic when others were not? Why tell me and not everyone else? At the point that I was sure we were going to bump into the surface, what happened was the same as when a local craft approached the base through the external cliff face.

My first experience of that had been disturbing and this was becoming a repeat. As I felt certain we were about to impact the grey pocked, gravel faced grey surface, we seemed to pass straight through it as though there was nothing more there than the remnants of a cold morning’s mist.

Was it an illusion or something else, I did not know? We had not passed through a mirage or a rainbow or something equally silly or strange, but it certainly gave me the same indistinct sensation and combined with a hollow stomach sensation was not at all pleasant.

I should have been familiar with the strangeness of some of the technology by now but I found myself still being surprised and alarmed by the process; I could feel my heart pounding, more than a little. My intake of breath as we passed through the greyness caused John to look at me and produce one of his smiles.

“It’s something else,” Ivan spoke again, but now verbally with a chuckle in his voice. “It’s not mist and it’s not an illusion.”

John picked up on this and continued for my benefit, “Something that is really solid except when approached by a recognised and friendly object, as ourselves, can be made to ‘dissolve’ to let us through. This is exactly what happens at the base. We are looking at technology thousands, no, possibly hundreds of thousands of years old, and, it appears to still work, as you might say, like clockwork. If it had not, we would now be spread all over the surface like strawberry jam,” as he chuckled at my expense.

This reminded me of an old military song that as young cadets we belted out in the back of the ‘four-tonners’ en-route to wherever. I couldn’t remember any of the words but in mind’s eye saw the faces of my young companions from those many years ago in full song; Oh happy days.

John had picked up on Ivan’s sense of humour and was keeping the joke running for my benefit, or was it everybody else’s? Did they have some sort of knowledge of my younger days?

I glanced at John and his smile said everything.

“This bodes very well,” Caterin interjected to change the mood and my reminiscing.

We found ourselves inside a very well lit hanger, “Who turned on the lights?”

We were soon brought to a halt and the craft gently sat down.

This hanger was enormous, what I could see of it, and it contained, besides ourselves, several very large craft of a similar design as this local craft, but many times larger. If we could carry about twenty passengers and crew, one of these must surely have the capacity of, at a guess, perhaps a thousand. From my seated vantage point, I could see two of these enormous things and I was sure that there were more because of the brief glimpse I had as we came in.

“We have made contact and we are now stationary, the power is reducing to a minimum,” Ivan formally reported.

“Now is the moment of truth ‘suits’,” Caterin stated simply.

“Ivan de-pressurise this control cabin and we shall all go outside to attend to our allotted tasks. Franz, you will stay where you are and make your own decisions if you consider it appropriate. Take whatever action to need to preserve this craft, your life and those of our passengers. Please do not get jittery to disappear when you should not, but stay calm and keep assessing the situation.”

Caterin’s instructions were coming distinct and clear as she assumed her command role in earnest again.

“There is no need to de-pressurise,” Ivan replied. “We are in a breathable atmosphere at the correct pressure, here inside this hangar.”

“Are you sure, how can that be?” Caterin queried.

“Why would the Ark ‘think’ that the atmosphere required by us would be the same as that on Earth?”

“I wish I knew,” Ivan replied. “I get the impression that the Ark recognises our local craft as one of its own. That’s why it stopped in mid-flight to a well-engineered rendezvous, attracted us and brought us in to this hanger safely. It expects, or rather it must have been programmed to expect, the occupants of a local craft to be of the same race of people that built all this. I would guess also that the original atmosphere of our home planet, Mars, was very similar when our ancestors left for the one we have enjoyed for so long on the Earth.”

“Interesting ideas,” Caterin pondered the implications.

“Never the less, suits stay on with visors fully closed for the immediate future. Our travelling companions are to stay where they are until I am satisfied we are completely safe. Ivan, your co-pilot Franz, is to stay in the craft and at the controls as I have just instructed,” Caterin repeated herself.

Did I detect a nervous edge to Caterin, was she showing a little fragility?

She glared at me and I felt her cold thoughts penetrate mine. No clearly not, how could I have let such a thought cross my mind? Her head turned back to Ivan and I sighed a little relief. The situation we had arrived at was now making us all a little nervous and I guess, understandably so.

“Yes Caterin,” he replied, “and his orders remain unchanged. If this stage goes wrong, then he is to depart, if the Ark allows, and save the lives of the passengers. We would then be abandoned. I just hope that it does not come to that.”

Ivan looking in the direction of Franz received a simple affirmative nod.

“Lower the ramp and suits move outside,” Caterin ordered.

We walked gently out of the cabin and glided down the lowered ramp as if on a Sunday stroll. How could everyone be this calm or was it that we were all bluffing each other? My heart was beating hard as I stepped out into the unknown.

We stood at the base of the ramp as a close group looking, no staring at our surroundings. Our local craft was positioned central to four of these enormous parked crafts in the adequate space between them. They did indeed appear to be of a similar shape and design as the local craft we had just disembarked from, but scaled up enormously. I guessed that perhaps fifty or sixty of our small craft would fit into the volume of just one of these monsters.

“Dr. Jarinda, where are you?” Caterin called out.

She had wandered away and was standing over by the far wall reading a wall covered in a series of coloured shapes.

“Over here, over here,” the Doctor called back excitedly.

“I think this says, more or less, or something like, ‘Command Centre’ this way or perhaps a ‘Control Deck’, in fact I’m sure it does; one or the other.”

Despite her advanced and comprehensive understanding of the ancient language she was still being a little vague or perhaps broad in what she read.

We all hurried to where she was stood and looked at the same display of brightly coloured swirls and, I guess, some sort of symbols. In fact, I got the impression that some of it looked remarkably similar to some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs I had seen somewhere or other.

“You’re the expert, Doctor,” Caterin confirmed. “We have to believe you; lead on please. Everyone be cautious, we do not know what we might encounter. Ivan, go back quickly to have a brief word with Franz, now please, his instructions still stand.”

Ivan made a swift return to the local craft then disappeared up the ramp to reappear a few moments later. As he came back to us the ramp was raised.

“Franz has started his countdown again, we have one hour to return or he will leave without us,” Ivan advised.

Caterin did not contradict Ivan, she seemed content with the single hour but I got the impression that a few of us thought otherwise; we had better get a move on, whatever Caterin intended we should do.

Dr. Jarinda turned and ran her white suited fingers down the wall adjacent to the hieroglyphs whereupon a wide door glided open simply and without a sound. This was the same method used at the base but the installation here had to be many, many thousands of years older, yet it operated smoothly as though it had been installed only a week ago.

Through this wide opening, we all filed one after the other, into a corridor where the illumination started immediately.That was no great technical feat to me as this sort of system was common back at Earth. Most of the buildings I had worked in included for PIR lighting but as with the base, I again could not determine the source of the illumination or the sensors. This fascinated me. The walls, floor and ceiling were all evenly lit but without the assistance of a single light fitting, none that I was aware of anyway.

I was lagging behind the swift pace, mostly because of my curiosity of the lighting but also because my lower standard of fitness. All the others of the party were striding away with a confidence I didn’t expect. I was experiencing something akin to the sensation to be felt when watching a sci-fi horror movie, not keeping up with pace and being gradually left behind.

Who knows what might befall ‘Tail-end Charlie’ or was that only in movies?

My physical condition may have been ‘improved’ by my treatment at the base but I was still, probably, the oldest person in the group and this did not help either. The events in Jamaica came to mind, dream or no dream, where I had to move fast and I had a hard time keeping up with John and Ivan.

I had been told the experience had not been real, only part of a vision, but it still seemed real enough to me. Now I was wearing the encumbrance of a space suit, allegedly of little weight, as I had been told it was, but I could not stay at the pace of the others. I had to put any experience of my vision well and truly behind me or it might just come to the fore when it was least required. I had to stick with reality.

“Ian, you had better keep up, we do not want to come looking for you if you become lost,” someone called back. I think it might have been John who was waiting for me and was holding open another door for me.

Looking past him, I could see the rest of the party and, I believed, a rather impatient Caterin. She did not say anything as I joined them, just glared in my direction. The helmet visor did not stop her glares or the mental accompaniment that she impressed upon me.

“What are we waiting for?” I queried, tongue in cheek, as I rejoined the party. We all stood in a bunch looking back in the direction of where the door had been which I assumed had closed behind me. John returned the silly smile edging across my face and I’m sure would have broken out into laughter had Caterin not been with us.

“We are stood inside a lift,” he explained, “that is actually moving very quickly towards the Command Deck, as the good Doctor has just advised us. She says she can read the gibberish on the walls, and we have to believe her. Just go with the flow, Ian, this is not some kind of horror ‘Alien’ film. Relax. Everything will be fine. Have I ever let you down before?”

Was he reading minds with that reference to horror movies that had crossed my mind only a short while ago? I was still unsure if he could actually read minds.I felt as though he was going through the kind of process that may have been used for a child to calm them down in the face of some adversity; kind gentle lies to placate young fears. However there again, this was John in action and he had helped me a few times before and I was grateful for his style. Alternatively, this may just be his silly sense of humour; I was certain that I detected the start of a smile.

“Enough Ian,” Caterin barked at me mentally. “We are all a little nervous and your flippant worry is being communicated to those able but unfortunate enough not to prevent themselves from receiving it, mainly because of your recurring lack of volume control. Sort it out now.”

I acknowledged the instruction and remained quiet, verbally and mentally.

I had been rebuked.

I had to admit that John and Ivan had risked their lives to save mine not so long ago, in real terms not just the vision. I had to have confidence in them and shake off my trepidations but I was now mixing up my visionary experience with reality; this was most confusing. I forced myself to clear all thoughts from my mind, as a teacher may wipe the blackboard clean.

“Thank you Ian,” Ivan chipped in with a mental smile.

I guessed that everyone with a talent similar to mine had no choice but to listen in to me mentally whether they wished to or not. I had gained some mastery over my new gained talent but not sufficient to claim some sort of competence nor suppress the volume if my emotions were up and I was not concentrating.

I guessed I must have been the equivalent of a very noisy drunk in a quietly crowded bar or, more probably, a very noisy and disruptive child in a quiet classroom. I offered my apologies to anyone who was listening in and couldn’t blank me out. I felt Ivan smile but not Caterin; she was cold, in charge and expressing her authority.

The door suddenly opened behind us in a different location to that by which we entered. We had arrived at wherever Doctor Jarinda was taking us. She had been the one to interpret the symbols, and we all trusted her to know what she was doing.

We all spun round and out we went, meaning that I was to the rear again.

This time we did not have to travel far because there in front of us, in a large, sort of elliptically shaped, high ceiling room which had the distinct appearance of a flight control deck. It was laid out in a manner very similar to the one that Ivan normally sat in, in a local craft, but much, much larger and, so it seemed to me, with a multitude of additional features.

“Ivan, take a look without touching and tell me what we have, you’re our flight expert,” Caterin directed.

He didn’t need asking a second time and immediately headed towards the sweeping console. Dr. Jarinda hovered a short distance behind Ivan but otherwise did not interfere with his concentrated examination. Ivan seated himself in the centre one of the five seats in front of the console. As he sat down, the large curving wall to his front changed to the view of the deep space that surrounded us. It was as though a large and very wide, curved window had just opened before us. He had not touched anything and it seemed as though the Ark was aware that a pilot was now sat at the controls.

The expanse of stars that filled the screen appeared stationary except one, a bright shimmering one that seemed to be approaching us.

“This is not a window of any sort,” said Ivan. “It is similar to the vision panels we had back at the base but many, many times larger. There must be a vision detection device of sorts somewhere to our front, or perhaps to our side, or even possibly our rear.”

The view of the stars changed with each pause in Ivan’s words, front, left, back and rear, as he played with something on the console.

“Ivan, stop playing with your new toy,” Caterin had clearly seen his fingers playing with something that I could not from my vantage point. “Put the view back to normal and continue with your assessment.”

“We are fully cloaked,” Ivan started to report.

“We are travelling at some speed towards the Earth or, I believe, towards the Moon. I have no control but can read most of the displays. They show that something is piloting us and probably continuing on from its previous journey, before it stopped for us to be brought on-board; amazing, absolutely amazing.”

We stood quietly, staring at the vast, dark expanse before us, that through which we had to be travelling at some tremendous speed.

“Do you understand the controls and all these other things, or do you not?” demanded Caterin waving her arm in an expansive arc.

“All the controls, except for a couple I have not seen before, are just the same as the ones I use when piloting any of our local craft.”

“I am astounded.”

“It appears that I might be able to fly this enormous beast with the same degree of control as I might one of our small craft. I will have to ‘play’ with those controls I have not seen before, however, to properly determine their function.”

“Permission to try the ‘normal’ controls,” he requested formally.

Caterin acquiesced to his request and proven expertise but with an insistence that anything he had not seen before was to be left well alone without seeking further permission from her.

Ivan placed his hands on the palm print locations in the console, as I had seen him do before, and the view in front of us changed as we changed direction, suddenly to the right without the merest hint of inertia. Then all the way across to a leftward path, then returning to the direction in which we had been travelling first and finally over to the right.

He was zigzagging an enormous great spacecraft, this Ark, with no hint of a sensation to me and apparently, with a great degree of control. Strangely, I did not feel the same degree of motion sickness as when ascending in a local craft, where Ivan had performed similar zigzagging manoeuvres, perhaps because my visual points of reference were now vast distances away.

He took his hands away and the stars maintained their dash across the window. His hands returned to the console and the bright points of light became stationary in front of us, all but the blue one, Earth. It was suddenly appearing much larger.

Again, he removed his hands and we changed direction once more but this time back to where the Ark had been flying itself, towards the Moon, a much smaller partial dot of light in the vast blackness but larger than the beautiful points of light that made up the background display. The stars had never looked like this on Earth, even on the clearest, winter night sky. Ivan announced that the Moon was currently on the night side of the Earth and that we would soon be behind it.

The Ark continued on its course.

Within a short while the part-illuminated Moon came rushing up to greet us with the great coloured marble of the Earth over to the left and further the immense brilliance of the sun. I had to think of it as the left as we all seemed to be in the same plane, Earth, Moon and ourselves. The Ark directed itself ‘rightwards’ into the ‘rear’ occluded face of the Moon although again we seemed to be headed for a collision with its surface. Of course we didn’t but the altitude it finished moving at, gave us quite a close look at the rugged surface.

In this location, almost stopped but not quite, and still moving gently, so Ivan informed us, we were in a position of being shielded completely from any possible view from Earth. We were still cloaked and I was unsure of why we should have positioned ourselves to hide behind the Moon.

Told that we were stationary, Ivan rotated our view towards the surface of the Moon. It was clear that we could not see the Earth and, by definition, those on the Earth could not see us. All that was visible to us was the cratered ‘far side’ of the Moon mostly in darkness but also partly in brilliant light.

“Why do we need to hide if we are still cloaked,” I asked verbally so all could hear.

“Oh come on, Ian,” Caterin responded.

“If we are to undertake an Exodus from the base, this will have to involve lots of movements of crafts from the base to here and back. Hidden as we are, we can use our position and in our own time to an advantage of the screening it offers. Entering and leaving may be not as easy as anticipated and we are simply better out of view if matters do not proceed smoothly.”

That made sense so I did not query further. I had been enjoying my short view of the beautiful Earth and forgetting the practicalities of what we were trying to achieve. We had all been stood there watching events for what seemed like ages, amazed at what we were experiencing; well I was. I assumed that we were in some sort a geosynchronous orbit with the Earth or the Moon or something so that we would always remain hidden from the view of Earth in this position.

The Ark, Ivan informed us, had rotated by some ninety degrees, it had not been the vision system looking sideways after all, and we were viewing the surface features directly. We didn’t seem to be affected by the Moon’s gravitational pull, staying in whatever orbit we were in, I guessed, even though we seemed particularly close and looking down at its surface at the complex of crater patterns.

“Ivan, are you sure you haven’t done anything to bring us here, played with some control element when I was not looking?” Caterin wanted confirmation.

“As soon as my hands were removed from the console, this thing just went its own way. I tried to engage again but this had no effect, I was no longer able to interface, my presence meant nothing. It must have been programmed aeons ago to do just this. I don’t know why. Some sort of defensive tactic perhaps,” he offered.

“Perhaps our ancestors employed this intermediate location en-route to the Earth for reasons we do not understand presently,” Caterin mused.

John started playing again with some sort of portable scientific instrument that he had carried slung from a shoulder strap since leaving our craft in the hanger and then made his announcement.

“Everywhere we have walked inside the Ark and right now, standing here, the atmosphere is very breathable and completely safe. I have not detected the slightest toxicity or trace of other than the same general mix of air we find on Earth. Perhaps the nitrogen content is a little higher at 80.5% but oxygen is most acceptable at 19% and there are traces of argon, but no methane, ozone or anything else.”

“Since you are sure of this, John, you can be the first to test your analysis by opening your helmet,” Caterin instructed in her ‘ordering’ voice.

The rest of us were not so sure but John just replied “Sure, no problem.”

With a leap of cavalier confidence, he unfastened and slid up the inner visor of his domed helmet. He took a deep breath, held it and then exhaled.

“It even smells nice,” he announced.“It reminds me of a fresh morning in the Welsh mountains back on Earth. Really very nice, I can recommend it.”

He smiled broadly but I think, with a sense of relief also. Whatever John found himself involved with, he always exuded a sense of happy bravado.

“Do I have a volunteer for the next to sample the ‘mountain air’,” Caterin asked.

“Yes, go on then,” I found myself saying chirpily. “If it’s good enough for John then I’m sure that it’s good enough for me.” I was bouncing again, on a nervous exhilarating high; this was going well.

“No Ian, stop. Not you,” Caterin barked a command. “You will stay suited for as long as I wish. If some of us are to die, then there is still a chance that we could salvage the Mars mission. You have to be there. You are not yet to be subject to any sort of unplanned risks.”

I stopped trying to work the helmet visor, I had not forgotten how to do it but I was finding it a little tricky now and it would not cooperate, so I abandoned the idea.

“Your right John, it is a breath of fresh air,” a distinctively accented voice spoke up.

Caterin spun round to find Ivan minus his helmet, which he had placed on an adjacent seat, completely happy, smiling broadly and paused from playing with his new controls. She relaxed a little but did not return his smile. Ivan’s face straightened slightly from the visual rebuke, but not completely.

“Dr. Jarinda,” Caterin now requested her attention. “Stay suited despite our ‘friends’ here.”

She looked in the direction of Ivan and John again, with her cold stare, and any hint of a smile they may have once had on their faces disappeared rapidly.

“Please try to locate the living accommodation I anticipate this great Ark will contain. It was designed for the purpose of conveying thousands so it will exist somewhere within the core areas. In a short while, if all goes well, it will be accommodating thousands of people again.”

“Take Ed and that instrument that John no longer needs, and go to it.”

Ed, the leader of the team that fitted my suit, moved off with Dr. Jarinda, instrument in hand.

“One last matter Jarinda,” Caterin continued with a diminution of her title. “Before you and Ed both leave this flight deck area to go searching, please listen carefully. Return quickly to Franz and tell him that all is well presently; his hour is almost up but he is to stay where he is unless I issue fresh orders.”

“When you are satisfied that you have located the accommodation and that it has a suitable atmosphere, you may then return to the craft and disembark all our passengers leading them to what you have found. If your excursion goes as surprisingly smooth as ours has, thus far, I would anticipate a good atmosphere awaiting you but do not take any unnecessary risks, especially as we are the only ones still wearing suits.”

“Ed, assuming that all has gone well, when the disembarkation has been completed, let me know as soon as you can because we can then prepare for the next phase, the Exodus from the base.”

“Wait! I have decided to modify my instructions,” Caterin announced sharply.

“We shall all go back to the hanger as a single party under the guidance of Jarinda, to ensure none of us becomes lost or separated. Our local craft will be at hand if the situation changes and we find that any of us have to leave quickly. Ivan leave those controls alone and stay with us as part of the party. I believe we can leave the Ark to its own devices now; it seems to have a mind of its own, and it seems that we simply have to trust it at some point.”

“We shall all return to the hanger now before Franz decides something has gone amiss and decides to leave us. Jarinda and Ed, you will leave us, but only after we have all returned to the hanger where you will then leave us to seek out the internal accommodation, as I have already instructed. Those of us remaining together in the hanger, specifically including you Ivan, shall attempt to inspect one of the larger crafts, if that is possible.”

“You two will stay together and not separate for any reason,” she directed at the Doctor and Ed.

“If anything with this arrangement goes wrong or our lives are placed at risk, for any reason, we may still have to abandon the Ark and yourselves, by escaping in our local craft, which is why most of us are to stay together in a single group.”

Caterin’s ultra cautious approach was unnerving me. Why did she see risk and danger where the rest of us did not or was it just me? The time given to Franz had not expired, I didn’t think, or maybe Caterin was keeping a closer eye on the time and being more cautious than me. Staying together made sense but why didn’t we all go looking for the central accommodation areas?

“Are you questioning me, Ian?” Caterin’s hard words bounced through my mind.

“No, I was ....” I tried to reply.

“Then don’t. You will have your chance for free thought and action later. Right now the safety of a lot of people and the success of this mission rests with me and I decide how we move forward. You are close to making my task difficult and I do not appreciate that. If you cannot keep sensible and quiet thoughts in your mind then close it down until I tell you otherwise.”

I had been reprimanded again.

Was it simply Caterin becoming over nervous or was I really being a pain. I decided to keep quiet in as many ways as I could. Her words had surely been directed at me alone, no one else showed any sign of reaction to them. I wasn’t being bolshy nor questioning her change of mind but I did sense her caution against the over-welcoming atmosphere inside this Ark and I was only wondering why. I kept these thoughts very close to myself. I must have been successful at this because Caterin did not come back at me.

This Ark had to be ancient and yet it seemed to be functioning as though it had only just been constructed. I was taking the technology of the ancestral Martians for granted as anything else I had experienced at the base. Perhaps I was being blinded by what I had seen since the start of my crazy adventure whereas Caterin, a direct descendant of her ancestors, saw things quite differently.

“Let us all relocate to the hanger; Jarinda lead the way please,” Caterin directed.

As so off we went, as a party, back through the door we had previously entered by into the ‘lift’ thing.

“Ian, do not take everything for granted,” she directed towards me again, “and do not underestimate my talent nor your own developing ability. I have heard almost everything that you believe you have kept locked away from my mental ears and I am NOT upset with you.”

“You are still learning, I must make more allowances for you, and it’s true that I am erring on the side of caution because of my concerns as to how easy all this is becoming.”

“This is our ancestor’s technology but we may be developing a false sense of security; we were allowed easy access because, it appears, our craft was recognised which is understandable. But what if we, many generations on and with genetic differences to those ancestors who built all this, are seen by and then analysed by the Ark, as intruders?”

“I am being very cautious, and you are privileged to be told of my views. Be cautious yourself. You are most definitely a stranger in this Ark and none of us have any notion of what safeguards may have been built in to it.”

“This is why I decided that you should still be wearing your suit with the visor down. At this stage of the project we cannot afford to lose you.”

She seemed to relax after unloading her thoughts on me and I felt a warmth flood into my mind. I had not been reprimanded again but had a few facts of life explained to me. I was grateful that she had the patience and time and this was effective in putting another layer onto my sense of responsibility to her as Caterin no doubt, wanted.

We had all stood quiet in this brief ride back to the hanger corridor and, I guessed, no one else had been privy to the little discourse I had just received.

As we stepped into the vast hanger, Caterin glanced in my direction and smiled.