Читать книгу Intersection With Nibiru - Danilo Clementoni - Страница 15

“We must go back down," said Colonel Hudson to the two aliens. “I need to make some phone calls and I really don’t think it’s possible from here."

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that," answered Azakis smiling. “You know, if good old Petri seriously puts his mind to it, he can do things you can’t even begin to imagine," and he gave his companion a pat on the back.

“Calm down, calm down," answered Petri waving his hands in the air. “First of all, define the concept of ‘phone call’."

Jack, a little surprised at the apparently trivial question, turned towards Elisa who, first shrugged her shoulders then, indicating the Colonel’s pocket, said candidly, "Show them your phone, no?"

With a quick movement, Jack took out his smartphone. It was a rather dated touchscreen. He had never liked following the absurd tendency of always having the latest mobile phone. He preferred to have something to hand that he knew, without always having to waste a lot of time learning all the new features.

“I’m not an engineer," said Jack as he showed it to the alien, "but with this thing, we are able to talk to another person who has a similar one, simply by dialling their number on this keypad."

Petri took the phone and observed it carefully. “It must be a one-to-one transmission system, similar to our hand-held communicators."

“With the only difference," added Elisa, "that every time we use it, it sucks a whole lot of money off us."

Thinking that his limited knowledge of their language would not allow him to grasp all its concepts, Petri decided to ignore this last statement and continued to analyse the object he was holding in his hand. “I shall need a little time to understand how it works."

“Sure, take your time," replied Elisa disconsolately. “After all, it’s not like there’s a planet about to crash into us."

Petri looked at her perplexed then, seeing as he hadn’t caught on to that quip either, decided to say no more. He simply shrugged his shoulders and slid into the nearest internal transfer module where he disappeared within a few seconds.

“Well, presuming it is possible to get your mobile to work from here, how were you thinking of proceeding?" asked Elisa, while desperately trying to recover from the weakness caused by the lack of oxygen and the thousand emotions she had been through over the last few hours.

“Initially I’d thought of contacting Senator Preston, General Campbell’s direct superior. But as he has never been very convincing in my view, I’ve decided to go down a different route to get to the President."

“Do you think he might also be involved?"

“Those two devils have never been truthful with me. Rumours have been going around that Preston is even implicated with some decidedly disreputable arms manufacturers. I don’t trust him at all."

“So?"

“So, I shall speak directly to Admiral Benjamin Wilson. He was the President’s right-hand man for several years and he was also a very good friend of my father’s."

“Was?"

“Unfortunately, my father left us almost two years ago."

“I’m sorry..." whispered Elisa gently caressing his left arm.

“Wilson held me on his knees when I was a child. He’s one of the few people I trust blindly."

“I don’t know what to say. No matter how well you get along with him, I think it’ll be difficult to get him to swallow a story like this over the phone."

“I could always send him a few photos of the view of his city from up here."

"With our short-range sensors," remarked Azakis, who until then had remained on the sidelines, "we could even tell him the beats per minute of his heart, in real time."

“Please don’t joke about it," exclaimed Elisa, emphasising what she was saying with a gesture of her hand.

“Don’t you believe me? Watch this then."

Through his O^COM, Azakis made the view from above of the doctor’s base camp appear on the giant screen. In a few seconds, he enlarged the image to bring her laboratory tent into full view.

“What you are seeing..."

“Is my tent," exclaimed Elisa before Azakis could end the sentence.

“Exactly. Now watch this."

All of a sudden, it was as if the tent’s cover had disappeared and she could see all the objects inside it perfectly.

“My desk, my books ... incredible!"

"If there were someone inside, I could show you the heat generated by their blood flow and therefore I could also calculate their heartbeat."

Decidedly satisfied with the demonstration he had given them, the alien began to wander proudly around the room.

The Colonel however, who still had not recovered from his astonishment, suddenly seemed to have been hit by a thunderbolt and exclaimed crossly, "What do you mean ‘if there were someone’? There must be someone. Where the devil are the two prisoners?"

Elisa moved closer to the screen to get a better look. “Perhaps they’ve moved them. Can we have a complete view of the rest of the site?"

“Yes, no problem."

In a few seconds, Azakis started running an overview of the camp. The sensors scrutinised everywhere but there was no trace of the two prisoners.

“They must have escaped," said the Colonel laconically. “This means we’ll be finding them under our feet again before long. Luckily the General was taken to a safe place by my men. Those three together are capable of doing more harm than the devil himself."

“It doesn’t matter," said Elisa. “We’ve got much bigger problems to worry about right now."

She had barely finished the sentence when the door of internal communication module number three opened. An attractive girl stepped out of it, with soft, sinuous steps. She was holding some sort of completely transparent tray in her hands, on which there were different coloured containers.

“Ladies and Gentlemen" announced Azakis pompously, flashing one of his best smiles. “Allow me to introduce the most enchanting navigator in the entire galaxy to you."

Jack, whose jaw had fallen in amazement, managed only to stutter "Hello” before he received an elbow in his right side, right between his tenth and eleventh rib.

“Welcome aboard" she said in rather faltering English. “I expect you’re hungry. I’ve brought you something to eat."

“Thank you, that’s very kind," said Elisa angrily, glaring at her man.

The girl said no more. She placed the tray on a support to their left and her face lit up with a beautiful smile, then a few seconds later, she disappeared once again in the same module she had arrived with.

"Pretty no?" commented Azakis watching the Colonel.

“Pretty? Who? What do you mean?" Jack hastened to respond, mindful of the blow he had just received.

Azakis burst into a roar of laughter then, with a wave of his hand, he invited them to help themselves.

“What on earth is this stuff?" murmured Elisa, while in decidedly inelegant fashion sniffing the various dishes.

“Liver of Nebir," the alien hastened to list, "rib of Hanuk and boiled roots of Hermes, all accompanied by, shall we say, an ‘energy’ drink."

“It was completely different at the Masgouf restaurant," commented Elisa laconically. “But I'm starving so I think I’ll try something."

She grabbed a piece of rib with her hands and, without too much trouble, began to gnaw it down to the bone. “This stuff won’t give us an enormous bellyache, will it Zak? You try it as well, my love. The taste is a little strange but it’s not that bad really."

The Colonel, who was watching Elisa with horror while she devoured all those strange foods on the tray without restraint, just mumbled, "No, no thanks. I’m not hungry.”

His attention was attracted instead by the strangeness of both the tray and the containers used as plates. He grabbed a bright red one and tested its consistency. It was strange and quite cold. Colder than it should have been and, despite this, the food in it was boiling. He lightly ran the tip of his index finger across its surface. It was incredibly smooth. It didn’t seem to be of either metal or plastic. On the other hand, how could it be plastic? They used it for completely different purposes. The other decidedly bizarre thing was that, despite the perfection of its surface finish, there were absolutely no reflections in it. The light was like swallowed up by that mysterious material. He put his ear close to the smooth surface and, with the knuckle of his middle finger, began to gently tap it. Incredibly, the container did not make any noise. It was as if he were knocking on a big wad of cotton wool.

“But what are these objects made of?" he asked, greatly intrigued. “And the serving tray? It would appear to be of the same material.”

Azakis, somewhat surprised by the strange question, also approached the tray. He picked up another vessel, this time pale green in colour, and lifted it up to the level of his eyes.

“In actual fact, it’s not really a ‘material’.”

“In what sense? What do you mean?”

“What do you use to hold objects, food, liquids or substances in general?"

“Well, we usually use wooden or cardboard boxes to transport materials. To serve food we use metal pans, china plates and glass glasses. To transport or store foods and liquids in general, we use plastic containers in a variety of different shapes."

“Plastic? Are we talking about the plastic we’re interested in?” asked Azakis shocked.

“I believe so,” replied the Colonel softly. "Actually, plastic has become one of our biggest problems with regard to the pollution of our planet. Even you told us you found disproportionate amounts of it everywhere." He paused briefly, then added "That’s why your offer to recover it all appealed to us so much. We may have found the solution to a gigantic problem."

"So, if I have understood correctly, you use plastic as a container and then throw it away without restraint, polluting every corner of your planet?"

"Precisely" replied Jack, increasingly embarrassed.

"But that's madness, it’s absurd. You’re poisoning yourselves with your own hands."

"Well, if you also consider all the smog caused by our means of locomotion, from our factories and power generation systems we’ve actually managed to do a lot worse. Not to mention the radioactive waste that we still do not know how to dispose of."

“You're completely crazy! You’re destroying the most beautiful planet in the entire solar system. And, unfortunately, it’s our fault too."

“How is it your fault?”

"Well, it was us who changed your DNA, a hundred thousand years or so ago. We gave you superior intelligence to any other beings on Earth and what have you used it for?"

"To bring the planet to ruin." Jack spoke with his head down, like a student who is being reproached by the teacher for not having done his homework. "But now you're back! I really hope you can give us a hand to fix the damage we've done."

"I don’t think it’s going to be that easy" said Azakis increasingly upset. "Thanks to Petri’s analysis on the state of your oceans, we’ve seen that the amount of fish in them has been reduced by over eighty percent since the last time we were here. How did that happen?”

At that point, Jack just wished the floor would swallow him up. "There are no excuses" was all he managed to say almost in a whisper. "We're just a bunch of condescending, arrogant, conceited and silly mindless beings."

Elisa, who had been listening to Azakis’ tirade in silence, swallowed the last piece of Nebir liver, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then said quietly "We're not all like that you know?"

The alien looked at her in surprise, but she went on with decision "It’s those ‘in power’ as they are called who have reduced us to this state. Most normal people fight every day to protect the environment and all forms of life which inhabit our beloved planet. It’s easy to come here from millions of kilometres away, after thousands of years and moralise. You may well have given us our intelligence but you didn’t leave us even a shred of an instruction manual on how to use it!"

Jack looked at her and realised he was head over heels in love with this woman.

Azakis was speechless. He certainly hadn’t expected a reaction like that. Elisa, on the other hand, continued undeterred “If you really want to help us, you should make all your technological, medical and scientific knowledge available to us, in the shortest possible time as you certainly won’t be staying on this devastated planet for very long."

“Okay, okay. Don't get too upset,” Azakis tried to answer. "I think we did put ourselves at your disposal, without hesitation, to give you a hand or not?"

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry... You could just have taken your plastic and headed off back to where you came from without even saying goodbye and instead here you are risking your lives together with us.”

Elisa really was sorry for her outburst. So, to defuse the situation a little, she exclaimed cheerfully "But the food was delicious!" Then, she approached the alien and looking up at him from below said softly "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

"Don't worry, I do understand and to show you there’s no hard feelings, I'll give you this.”

Elisa held out her open hand and Azakis dropped a tiny dark object into it.

"Thank you, but what is it?" she asked intrigued.

"It’s the solution to your problems with plastic."