Could this Be the End?

Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month, the prompt is “a surprising discovery.”

Today’s story was written by Phil Yeats. He has just published his third novel using the pen name Alan Kemister. His first two were cozy mysteries. This one has a more serious theme. The Souring Seas is the first volume in a precautionary tale about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change. For information about this book and others in what will be a series of three (and possibly more) novels about this important topic, visit his website.

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Could this Be the End?

 by Phil Yeats

 

The wind reached seventy knots. Hurricane strength, but the summer storm developed from a minor-looking frontal disturbance, not a tropical depression. Its wind split the elm at the back of my property in two. The larger section remained standing. The smaller one crashed to the ground.

When I ventured outside to inspect the damage, I saw a silver-coloured cylinder protruding from the standing section. The object, forty centimetres long and twenty in diameter, was about a metre above the ground. It was surrounded by solid wood and buried in its tight-fitting cocoon at least fifteen centimetres deep in the centuries-old tree.

I fetched my crowbar and eased the cylinder from its hiding place. It was lighter than I expected and shiny as a mirror. Odd, I thought as I rotated it in my hands. No sign of any marks from my efforts to pry it from the tree.

When I noticed the black letters on the far side, I dropped it. There, staring up at me, was my name and a brief message.

<Samuel O. Smith, if you care for humankind, heed the message inside>

This was much too freaky. I’d heard of objects embedded in trees that grew around them, but if that’s what happened, it must have occurred decades earlier. We’d only lived here for four years, so how could the cylinder have my name on it?

The next problem was the cylinder. It was light, which suggested aluminum, but too shiny, and my crowbar made no scratches despite the effort it took me to get the damn thing from the tree. The message said something was inside, which could explain the lightness if the walls were thin, but I could see no seams or any indication of how I could open it.

I thought briefly about taking it to the police station, but they’d laugh. I had no choice. I must take it to the professor.

 

The professor was a famous microbiologist interested in astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial life. He was an odd sort who preferred drinking beer with riffraff in the local pub to scholarly discussions with his university colleagues. But he had the gear to study my cylinder, and I knew he’d be interested.

After I plunked it on his desk, he stared at it from all directions, then laid it on its side and stared at the message.

“Interesting,” he said. “Leave it with me. We shall discover its secrets.”

“Can’t I stay and watch, perhaps even help?”

“Not much to do. It’s all done with robotic arms in isolation chambers. The process is very slow. But you’re welcome to stay.”

Without further ado, he picked it up and took it to an area that reminded me of the room where I watched my infant daughter during the first days of her life. She was a preemie, and only the doctors, nurses, and my wife, Lisa, were allowed near her. Here, we could see into the chamber and introduce study material, in this case, my cylinder, through an airlock. Inside, Professor Briggs could manipulate it using robotic arms that mimicked his arm actions.

He used the arms to clean it within the antechamber, a tedious process that took forever. Then more robotic arms manipulated my discovery, taking measurements and making observations with various probes.

For three hours, he hardly uttered a word. Then Professor Briggs stepped back from his control station. “The next step takes sixty-five minutes. Robots are in charge, so we may retire to the Faculty Club for lunch.”

When we returned, Professor Briggs scanned a handful of computer printouts. “Looks interesting. Your object is made of iridium, a very hard, very dense, and very brittle metal. It’s very resistant to corrosion but very hard to machine. It’s also extremely rare and therefore very expensive. We know the weight and volume of your object and the density of iridium. Simple matter to calculate the thickness of the walls assuming uniform thickness. They’re only a few millimetres thick.”

“But can you tell what’s inside it? What if it’s something heavy like lead?”

“I’ve assumed it’s empty. Heavy material inside it would mean the walls are even thinner than my estimate.”

He turned to a second printout. “We found the seam by x-ray analysis. It was invisible to the naked eye, an example of exquisite machining. Next step is to put your object in a vacuum chamber and open it up. That will allow us to see what’s inside, and also to analyse the gases in the container.”

He typed instructions into a keypad and turned to me. “The robot will gain access, and our equipment will collect the gases inside. We must test for toxins, pathogens, and any surprises. Another time-consuming process. Shall we have a gander at your tree while our machines do their work?”

In my yard, Dr. Briggs inspected both sections of the tree. He used a scanner to make some measurements and a specialized auger to extract cores from the fallen section to provide an age estimate.

He straightened up after boring his fourth hole. “Interesting. The cavity appears carved to the size and shape of your cylinder, but I see no marks from a chisel or other carving device. That’s all I can learn here. Will I expect you tomorrow morning in the lab?”

“Definitely. But what about this evening? Anything happening tonight?”

“Sam, Sam, you must be patient. I have measurements to make, and then I must get some sleep. All will be revealed in the morning.”

 

In the morning, Dr. Briggs was waiting when I arrived.

“Quick update,” he said, “then we’ll collect your message.”

“Yes, we must get on with it. I told Lisa about yesterday’s adventures. We’re both very impatient.”

“Yes, fine. But first, the gas we extracted from the cylinder. It was over ninety-nine percent xenon, with tiny traces of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and argon. No pathogens, no toxins, nothing that would prevent us from further exploration.”

“Good. What did you find?”

Dr. Briggs stepped up to his robot manipulation station. “We’ll soon find out.”

He concentrated on his task for a few minutes, then nodded toward a nearby computer screen. “Video feed from the camera I’m using to inspect our find.”

“Can’t see much. Just a dimly lit tunnel,” I said as I stared at the screen. “The damn thing’s empty.”

“Not empty. We have a paper-like material pressed against the inside walls. I’ll pull it out and see what else shows up.”

Dr. Briggs turned his attention to the paper tube he was carefully extracting from the cylinder. “Looks like several sheets of paper rolled together with printing on them. They must contain the message.”

He used the robotic arms to unroll the first sheet and place it on a light table. He photographed it and moved on to the next one. Twenty minutes later, he had twelve digital photos downloaded to his computer. He printed me a copy.

“We must read these, and then decide how we proceed.”

I spent the next hour reading and rereading the unbelievable message. The first page began with an executive summary. I’ve reproduced it here.

 

<A force whose mission is the protection of the biosphere and the living organisms it contains oversees life on Earth. We’re responsible for the natural interaction between species of all kinds; animals, plants, and bacteria. The welfare of individual organisms does not concern us. We focus on the evolution of life forms and the continuation of a robust biosphere, one that’s survived and prospered through millennia despite phenomenal natural upheavals.

We are currently at a crisis point—one that shows no sign of easing. One species, Homo sapiens, and the technological changes they’ve inflicted on Earth, has produced the crisis. Despite repeated warnings about the harm they’ve caused, and repeated pleas to use their technological prowess to bring their activities into agreement with natural processes, they’ve refused to make positive changes.

We’ve chosen you, and others like you, to develop refuges for several thousand humans and the history of human civilization. This is a critical task, and we expect you to tackle your component immediately and diligently.

We promise a short hiatus before we eliminate the human population. Ensure that you and your chosen compatriots are protected. There will be no going back.>

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/