Читать книгу The Writer - Danilo Clementoni - Страница 12

"Yes, Colonel," said a very refined voice on the other end of the phone. "We have received reports, from several observation points on earth, of an unnatural flash presumably given off by the moon."

“But the moon doesn’t give off ‘flashes’,” said Jack vexed.

“You’re right there, Sir. All I can tell you is that our scientists are still analysing the data we’ve received in order to identify who or what caused it."

"So basically, you haven’t the faintest idea what it was.”

"Well, I wouldn't have put it quite that way, but I think your inference can be considered a fair one.”

“Just listen to this guy” said Jack, turning to Elisa who had joined him, as he covered the microphone of his mobile phone with his hand. “Okay. Thank you for the information,” he continued. "As soon as you have further news kindly contact me immediately.'

"Yes Sir, with pleasure. Goodbye have a good day," and he ended the conversation.

"What did they say?" asked the doctor.

"Well, it looks as though something strange actually happened up there, but nobody has found a decent explanation yet.”

"I’m increasingly convinced that something happened to our friends."

"Come on, don’t say that. With their fantastic spacecraft who knows where they’ll have got to by now.”

"I really hope so, with all my heart, but I still have a strange premonition."

"Listen, to get rid of any doubts, why don’t we use that thing they left us and try to contact them?"

“I don't know ... They said we would only be able to use it after they arrived back on their planet ... I don’t think ...”

“Just go and get it,” the Colonel cut her short. Then realising he had perhaps been a little too abrupt, he added a gentle ‘please’, followed by a dazzling smile.

“Okay. At worst it won’t work,” said Elisa as she set off to retrieve the portable H^COM. She returned almost immediately and, after rearranging her long hair slightly, she put on the kind of weird and bulky helmet.

"He said to press that button there," said Jack indicating the button. "Then the system would do everything by itself."

“What shall I do, shall I press it?” asked Elisa hesitating.

"Go on, what do you think is going to happen?”

The archaeologist pushed the button and, perhaps exaggerating the words a little too much, said "Hello? Anybody there?”

She waited but didn’t receive an answer. She waited a little longer, then tried again. “Hello... Hello... Petri, are you there? I can’t hear anything.”

Elisa waited a few more seconds then spread her arms and shrugged.

“Press the button again,” suggested the Colonel.

They tried repeating this process several times, but the communication system failed to give them even a measly rustle.

“Nothing doing. Perhaps something really did happen to them,” whispered Elisa as she removed the H^COM from her head.

“Or perhaps they still haven’t arrived within this thing’s range of action.”

The Colonel hadn’t finished his last sentence when a strange noise from outside caught their attention.

“Jack, look” exclaimed Elisa amazed as she looked out of the tent. “The spheres... They’re being reactivated.”

With their hearts in their mouths, they both ran outside and, to their amazement, saw the virtual landing pyramid that was again taking shape. Their friends were returning.

"See they didn’t explode," said Jack greatly cheered-up.

"Perhaps they forgot something.”

"The important thing is that they're okay. Let’s try and keep calm. We’ll soon find out what really happened.”

The landing procedure went ahead without problems and, in no time at all, the large figures of the two aliens appeared on the descending platform.

“Hello guys,” bellowed Petri, waving his big hand above his head.

"What on earth are you doing here again?" asked Jack, as the two aliens were carried down to ground level by the moving structure.

"We were missing you," replied Petri jumping down from that sort of lift, even before it had touched the ground, immediately followed by his travelling companion.

"We were worried" said Elisa finally reassured. "We witnessed a strange event that occurred on the moon a little while ago and we seriously feared that something terrible had happened to you.”

"Unfortunately, my dear, something terrible really did happen," said Azakis with a forlorn air.

"There you are, I knew it," exclaimed Elisa. “A little voice inside me kept telling me so. But what happened?"

"It all happened really suddenly.”

“So, are you going to tell us? Come on, don’t keep us on tenterhooks. Just tell us everything, now.”

"Our spacecraft no longer exists," Azakis announced all in one breath.

The two terrestrials looked at one another for a moment, absolutely stunned. Then Jack spoke, saying "Are you joking? What does ‘no longer exists’ mean?”

"It means that, right now, the biggest piece of the Theos could quite easily fit on the tip of your index finger.”

"But what happened? And the rest of the crew, where are they? Are they all well?"

"Yes, they're fine, thank you. Right now, they’re on the other three shuttles and very soon they’ll be here too. If you don't mind, we will set up an emergency structure around here and we’ll try to organise ourselves somehow."

"But of course, that's not a problem," said Jack. "We’ll give you all the help we can. You don't even need to ask."

“So,” blurted out Elisa who could no longer hold back her curiosity. "Are you going to tell us yes or no what the devil happened up there?"

"It's rather a long story," said Azakis seating himself on an upturned tin pail. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

After about ten minutes, the alien had pretty much told them the whole story. From the loss of the remote-control system, to the attempt to deactivate it. From the recklessness of having given up on its recovery, up to the sudden reactivation of the instrument which had then caused the launching of the self-destruction process.

"But that’s shocking," said Elisa appalled. “Whoever can have caused a disaster like that?”

"Probably," said Azakis, “somebody must have found that strange object and began to study its features. Then they must have found some information among all the data we downloaded onto your servers and, somehow, managed to turn it back on, so causing the result we now know.”

"For crying out loud!" exclaimed the Colonel upset. "It seems such an absurd story... And, knowing the danger of a device like that, you didn’t do anything to recover it?”

"It was my fault," said Petri, joining in the discussion. “I thought I’d completely deactivated it and that no terrestrial, even if somebody did find it, would be able to reactivate it.”

“And yet it happened,” said Jack. "Do you have any idea where it was lost?”

"We honestly thought we’d lost it while retrieving the Zenio crystal but, most probably, it must have ended up somewhere else, that was much more crowded. There was no one at all down there.”

“Zak, I’ve had an idea,” said Petri standing up. "I think that if I worked on it a bit, I might be able to backtrack and trace the moment the remote control was unhooked from your belt."

"It’s not all that important now, but I must admit I too am a little curious about it."

“Good. So first of all, let’s try and inform the Elders about our situation and as soon as we're organised a little, I'll try and retrieve this information."

“Elisa,” said Azakis. "Unfortunately, the only H^COM we had was destroyed with the Theos. Would you kindly lend us the one we left you before we took off?”

"Do you mean the helmet? But of course. I’ll get it for you straight away."

"Unfortunately, the situation is serious,” whispered Azakis turning to the Colonel, as soon as Elisa had moved far enough away to be out of earshot. "Even if we do manage to contact the Elders, the chances we can get back to our own planet are virtually nil now. "

“But can’t they send someone to pick you up? Hasn’t Zaneki also got a ship like yours?”

"Unfortunately, the engines installed on his ship are considerably less powerful than the ones we had on ours. That’s why he had to leave almost immediately after Kodon’s passage. If he hadn't, he wouldn’t have been able to reach Nibiru anymore, because it was moving rapidly away. We were able to stay here much longer precisely by virtue of our experimental engines. Unfortunately, the Theos was the only ship in our fleet with that type of engine. The production and installation of two more new ones like that could take a lot of time. A lot of ‘our’ time."

"You mean you might have to stay here until Nibiru’s next passage?”

"Here it is," said Elisa as she came hurrying back towards them.

"Unfortunately, yes Jack," said Azakis in a whisper, as he rose to take the H^COM helmet that the archaeologist was holding out to him.

“Thank you, Elisa” said the alien as he put it on. “Let’s see if it works.”

"Actually, we tried it ourselves, but we didn't manage to talk to anyone."

"That’s my friend’s work," commented Azakis looking towards Petri. “Nothing he does ever works.”

“Nice as always,” said Petri with a serious air. "I'll remember that when you ask me to fix your bathroom.”

“Oh yes,” exclaimed Elisa smiling. “I remember only too well how your bathrooms work. A truly unforgettable experience."

All four broke out into a roar of laughter at the end of which Petri slipped the helmet out of Azakis’ hands and said, "Wait, you ungrateful old thing. First, I need to change a setting. The system was programmed to call us on the poor old Theos and I don’t think anybody will answer you there now.”

The alien fiddled around for a bit with the controls of the portable H^COM then, when he was satisfied with his work, he passed it back again to his companion saying "Try now. Hopefully my memory hasn’t betrayed me, and I’ve been able to configure it to connect you to the right person.”

Azakis didn’t doubt his friend’s memory even for one moment and put the helmet on. He pressed the start button and waited patiently. Almost a minute went by before the three-dimensional image of the bony face of his direct line Elder was projected directly onto the retina of his rather tired eyes.

“Azakis, how nice to see you,” said his white-haired contact, raising his slender right arm in greeting. "But where are you calling me from? Your picture looks a little strange and rather distorted."

"It's a long story," answered the alien. “I'm using a makeshift device for long distance communication."

"But aren’t you on your ship? Don’t tell me you still haven't left. You know that your time limit for reaching us has almost run out now, don’t you?"

"That is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.” He paused briefly to try and find the most appropriate words then continued saying, "There’s been a setback... Our spacecraft’s gone."

“Gone? What do you mean?"

“It exploded. The self-destruct system was activated, and we only just made it to safety in time, before everything exploded into thousands of pieces."

“But only you could activate that procedure with your personal remote-control system. How could something like this happen?” asked the stunned Elder.

"Let's say there were a series of particular events, and I must have dropped it.”

"And someone else found it and activated it for you?”

"We still haven't been able to determine what really happened but that's a distinct possibility."

“And now? How do you plan to get back here?”

"That's exactly why we're contacting you. We could do with a nice quick solution to this little problem.”

“Little?” replied the Elder jumping to his feet with surprising nimbleness. “Do you realize what you're saying? Your time frame is already almost at its maximum limit. You should have already left and you’re telling me that the Theos no longer exists and you’re pretty much stuck on earth. What are we supposed to do now?"

“Well, I don't really know. You're the Elders. We’re trusting that, with your experience and your infinite wisdom, you’ll be able to help us out of this unfortunate situation."

The old man sat down again, letting himself fall heavily into his soft grey chair, then he leant his elbows on the table in front of him and put his hands in his long white hair, remaining in complete silence. He remained still for a few seconds then he lifted his gaze again and said, "I’ll try summoning the Council urgently and I’ll put all our best Experts to work. I hope to be able to give you good news very soon” and he ended the communication.