The Silent Vulcan Page 9

  "I think these two items are going to take long enough, councillor," Harding replied, knowing that Millicent would use any opportunity to voice her concerns about Pentworth's low birthrate.

  There were no objections so Harding pressed on: "Item 1. As you all know by now, the Visitors have carried out several modifications to their Wall."

  Councillor Alec Morton had an immediate objection. He was a humourless, retired bank manager. His glasses gave him a studious, owl-like expression. He appeared to be the elected spokesman for three other councillors known to share his support of Adrian Roscoe's extreme views. "We don't know that we have any so-called Visitors, Mr Chairman."

  Harding tapped his laptop. "You have just seen the echo-sounder screen shots I took in Pentworth Lake, Councillor Morton."

  "I've seen pictures of a vague shape that could be anything. As you know, there is a wide body of opinion that the Wall is the work of God. We're a predominately Christian community therefore we accept that evidence for the existence of God is all about us. The evidence for the existence of these supposed Visitors is non-existent."

  "What about their spyder thing?" asked Dan Baldock. "Quite a few of us have seen it now. It may have wings but I don't think it's the Archangel Gabriel."

  "The purpose of this meeting is not a theological discussion about Life, the Universe, and Everything," said Harding quickly, not caring if he antagonised Morton's group and certainly not wishing to give them a platform. "We're dealing with reality to try and solve the problems of this world which God has given most of us the intelligence to deal with. I'm sure God is more than capable of looking after the next world. If you and your like-minded councillors think a prayer meeting would be more useful, then by all means feel free to withdraw from this meeting and hold one in the next room. Any decisions you receive from higher up, please minute them, and we'll be pleased to consider them."

  Morton and his three colleagues braved out the laughter, stony-faced.

  "Until now," Harding continued, wondering if his comments had been wise, "we have not really known if our old world still exists. One theory has been that the world suffered a cataclysmic disaster and that Pentworth was deemed worth saving by the Visitors by moving it some 40,000 into the past." He paused and smiled wryly. "A bizarre theory to explain a bizarre event. I've no quarrel with bizarre theories provided they're dumped when they're disproved."

  He turned the laptop computer around so that the meeting could see the photograph he had taken at Eddie Blackwood's farm of the Ministry of Defence fence and the notice board. Harding tapped the screen with his pencil. "That, ladies and gentlemen, is irrefutable proof that our old world still exists and that it is aware of the disaster that has overtaken our community. That alone must give us hope."

  There was a silence in the room. The unspoken thought was that if the outside world, with all its formidable resources, couldn't breach the Wall, then Pentworth with its limited resources stood no chance. But at least the outside world still existed and was aware of their plight.

  "There is something else we must consider," Harding continued. "These recent modifications to the Wall suggest, and I stress `suggest', that the Visitors are planning to stay. It's pure supposition but that's the way it looks." He pointed to the map. "There have been four modifications and all of them have one thing in common: the line of the Wall has been altered to avoid buildings."

  "Considerate of them," said David Weir sarcastically.

  Harding called up a picture of Eddie Blackwood's disused pigsties. "These pigsties were bisected by the Wall but they haven't been in use for some years. It seems that the Visitors' surveillance techniques did not, or could not, discern that. It has me wondering what else they don't know about us."

  Dan Baldock snorted. "If they're intelligent creatures then it behoved them to find out first the trouble that their bloody Wall would cause us. Not go tinkering with it afterwards. What they've done to us is tantamount to a hostile act."

  "Perhaps we should try telling them?" Harding suggested.

  A councillor opened his mouth to speak and promptly shut it again. Harding had the meeting's full attention.

  "Perhaps they don't know the mess we're in?" Harding added.

  "Surely it was up to them to find out?" David Weir interjected.

  "You're thinking in rational human terms, Councillor Weir. While I believe that the Visitors are rational, the chances are they are not human and therefore don't share our values. This manifests itself to us as naivety. I imagine that information is common currency throughout the universe therefore we should make at least make an attempt to contact them."

  Millicent Vaughan was scathing. "So we go down to the bottom of Pentworth Lake, bang on the side of their Silent Vulcan, or whatever it is, and tell them that they're being a nuisance?" Harding beamed. "I couldn't have put it better myself. That's exactly what I do mean."

  "How?"

  "That's what I've given a lot of thought to and why I'll be asking the council for 50,000 euros to fund a contact programme. But before I propose that, Tony Selby has something important to say that might have a bearing on how you vote. Tony Selby. You needn't stand up."

  The engineer quickly substituted the rumours about the methane well discovery in Baldock's Field for hard facts. For once the rumours were insignificant compared with the truth.

  "All our energy needs!" an astonished councillor echoed. "Surely not?"

  "It certainly looks like it," Selby affirmed. "What little information we've uncovered in the library suggests that our well taps into the same field as Conoco's other test bores around Surrey and West Sussex. Even allowing for the fact that the Wall extends underground to form a sphere, don't forget that it reaches down to a depth of five kilometres. That's an enormous volume. I'd say we're sitting on untold billions of joules of heat energy that are there for the taking. As a bonus, it's pressurized at around 70 atmospheres. An extraordinarily high pressure. It's CNP -- compressed natural gas. We don't have to compress it for bulk storage. We transferred some into the gas cylinders we fitted to one of our fire engines and the vehicle's clocked up over 100 miles so far on one fill-up and is still going strong."

  There was a silence as the full import of Selby's words sank in. Most of those present had seen the crimson fire appliance being driven around and had assumed it was being used for training. The unspoken thought was that the discovery would spell the end of Adrian Roscoe's power.

  "So we can connect up the well to the gas mains?" Millicent queried. "Give the entire community proper cooking facilities again?"

  Selby shook his head. "That's something we can't risk, doctor. Methane is an odourless, poisonous and extremely volatile gas. Without a regulated, steady-flow low pressure distribution system such as you have with big gasometer tanks, its supply to households is out of the question. We can't risk domestic users having blow-outs."

  "Not much chance of that with our food rationing," a councillor observed.

  Selby continued, "The other reason is that methane, although clean-burning, is a greenhouse gas in its free state. We can't risk it being released unburnt into our atmosphere. That's why its usage has to be strictly controlled and why buses, police vehicles and ambulances we've converted to run on methane need regular and thorough checks."

  "So how can we use it to benefit the people?" asked Alec Morton.

  "We turn it into electricity," Selby replied. "Pentworth has got ten generators of various sizes, all converted to run on methane. At least we don't have a fuel problem anymore. Our largest jennie is an old 250 kilowatt Centrax job that belonged to Adams Plant Hire. Trailer-mounted. We've been using it at Selbys when we need extra juice for urgent production runs. Continuous use has been out of the question -- it burns methane like there's no tomorrow. But we can certainly use it now for some sort of public service electricity supply." "Like what?"

  "Street and shop lighting," said Harding promptly. "Don't look so surprised. Using electricity for lighting is incred
ibly effective. A 100 watt light bulb in a room transforms the room. Serious work can be done. Whereas a 100 watt appliance is useless -- just about enough to run an aquarium pump. And don't forget that most of the shops in the town are also manufacturing units now -- just as they were in the 19th Century. Farriers, tanners, garment-makers, candle makers, bakers, wheelwrights, and so on. They've been managing fine with natural light so far, but winter's coming, already the hours of daylight are getting noticeable shorter. Production is going to be badly hit in the winter."

  "Would there be enough to supply the villages?" Dan Baldock asked.

  Selby shook his head. "Out of the question. Electricity's horribly lossy stuff. 240 volts mains voltage generated in Pentworth would only be about 100 volts when it arrived at Tillington, if that. That's why National Grid voltages are stepped-up to megavolts for distribution across the country. Even that results in high losses, and more losses when shoving the stuff through voltage step-down transformers at the consumer end."

  He pointed to Pentworth on the map and made a circle around the town centre. "This is the highest concentration of shops, small factories and homes in the entire area enclosed by the Wall. That's the sensible area to provide a public electricity supply. Even then 250 kilowatts is going to be spread very thinly. We can disable every second and third street light around the town centre easily enough, and fitting current limiters on electricity meters so that no one can draw more than 250 watts won't be too difficult. We could even get the street lighting working for next Saturday night's Market Square carnival. Have a special switch-on ceremony."

  "We could run open air movie shows in Market Square!" said a councillor. "Seaford College have got an enormous video projector."

  Suddenly everyone was bubbling over with ideas. Harding held his hand up. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," he warned, and added, "Although regular movie shows might not be a bad idea. I've never been happy with the Bodian Brethren and their mobile canteen showing children's cartoons at village fetes."

  "We should be grateful to Father Roscoe for the valuable service he provides with his mobile canteen," said Councillor Morton frostily. He glared around at the meeting, ready for an argument.

  "Decent movies would make a change from his Tom and Jerry cartoons," said someone caustically.

  "And the plays on the radio."

  The comment and the burst of laughter that followed defused an awkward situation; the live productions of the amateur dramatic society on Radio Pentworth were the butt of many unfair jokes.

  "I don't wish to preempt our hard-working food committee," said Harding. "But this changes our entire agricultural policy. This year's shortages are largely due to the need for this season's crops to provide seed stock for next year. And that, in turn, has been dictated by the amount of land we can physically cultivate with our limited population. The heavy horse breeding programme, that was started after the Wall appeared, won't be effective for three years -- we're desperately short of heavy horses."

  "Look at all the tractors we can convert now that we've got unlimited methane," said a farmer.

  "But can we convert them?" Harding queried. "How many manhours does it take to convert an internal combustion engine to run on methane, Mr Selby?"

  Tony Selby scribbled a few notes. "For a petrol engine -- about 100 manhours, Mr Chairman."

  "A fortnight's work for one man," said Harding.

  "And double that for a diesel. They're a pig to convert."

  "And all of our tractors are diesel," Harding finished.

  There was a silence in the room. All the councillors were aware of Pentworth's labour crisis -- the community did not have the work force to undertake all the work that the community needed done for its smooth running. To counter the inflationary dangers of the demand for labour outstripping the supply, the concept of retirement had virtually been abolished. The staff manning the telephone exchanges's manual switchboards were mostly retired, as were the hospital laundry staff and the heroic men and women who looked after the many septic tank public toilets. In outlying areas they were little more than well-managed earth latrines. School children with little or no aptitude for academic work had been drafted into training schemes as assistants to cartwrights, wheelwrights, leather workers, carpentry shops, etcetera, even cooperage because barrels were now essential for long-term food storage. There were over 100 vital trades that needed labour, and to get that labour had resulted in long discussions in various council committees and the passing of emergency legislation that had initially encountered a good deal of resentment. Much of that resentment had disappeared as people discovered the pleasure of making things for the benefit of their fellow man, particularly when there was direct feedback from the user. Tony Selby had long-recognised this; his small team that made the solar cooker dishes would spend a week producing a batch and the following week installing them. It was a technique that he had extended to many products. It made for contented customers and a work force that felt fulfilled.

  Tony Selby now employed over 250 people and another 100 part timers whose skills were also needed elsewhere. Hot, low-humidity days, good for drying paper at the paper mill, could cost him half his part time staff. He had work in hand to provide employment for 500 people and the work that was expected of his company was steadily increasing each day.

  Harding cleared his throat. "Of course, we have to tread carefully where Mr Adrian Roscoe is concerned. He's Pentworth's main supplier of methane so we can't afford to alienate him until we have a better idea of what the well head can produce. I suggest we issue a statement to Radio Pentworth saying that we have an unassessed find -- which is the truth."

  He paused. "Moving on. We have to make some attempt to communicate with the Visitors. At the risk of stating the obvious, all our policy-making, our planning, depends on the what they are planning. Will they be gone next week? Next year? The next century, or the next millennium?"

  His words were a chilling reminder of his statement to the first meeting of the emergency council following the appearance of the Wall. In particular his warning that if the Visitors were from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, then they might be stuck with Visitors for nearly 30-years. But if they were from centre of the galaxy, that they could be unwilling hosts to the Visitors for many decades -- centuries even.

  That had been six months ago. What Bob Harding had not told anyone was that since then he now believed that the Visitors came from Sirius -- the Dog Star.

  Long before the trouble with Vikki Taylor had blown up, the schoolgirl had come to see him in his workshop-cum-observatory to ask him questions about Sirius. She said it was for a school project. How far was the star? What was known about it? Did it have any planets?

  He had told her what he knew: whether or not Sirius had planets was unknown. That the dogs days of summer were so-called because there was a period during the height of summer when Sirius rose and set with sun, and that ancient superstition believed that the combined forces of the sun and Sirius were responsible for the days of summer madness.

  At the time he had thought nothing further about the visit until the shock revelation during the witchcraft trial when Vikki had demonstrated her real left hand to a stunned courtroom, claiming that the Visitors were responsible for it and that they had talked to her.

  Had they told Vikki that they came from Sirius? If true, it was worrying.

  Sirius was approximately 10 light-years from earth -- over twice the distance of Proxima Centauri.

  Chapter 18.

  LUNCHTIMES WERE ALWAYS QUIET in the supplies depot. Lennie Hunter's five colleagues usually took themselves off to the Crown while the beer was cheap. More European Union barley that had been held in store at the time of the Wall's appearance had been found to be on the point of germination and had been sent to Pentworth Breweries for making into malt beer.

  Lennie disliked his job in the disused school with its former class rooms crammed with rows of laden Dexion shelving, but he didn't have much
choice in the matter. There were no proper pensions now for the physically fit. You had to work for those grubby bits of paper that Government House printed in lieu of money. He would've preferred outside work like his Saturday job working on Mr Dayton's yacht, but the labour allocation committee had said he was a border line case for agricultural work, and that Pentworth had no use for his boatbuilding and chandlery skills. So here he was, stuck in the supplies depot doing a job that was mind-numbingly boring.

  Last week it had been spectacles that had been handed in. This week it was putting light bulbs into storage. A small mountain of them that got no smaller. His movements as he filled a big cardboard box were mechanical. First a layer of chopped hay, then a layer of light bulbs laid on the hay so that they weren't touching. Then another layer of hay, and so on. Like packing fruit. The carton he was filling was big and tough -- it had once held a wide-screen television. Funny to think that such cartons were now more useful than their original contents.

  "See you in an hour, Lennie! Don't work too hard!"

  It was Lennie's boss. He heard a door slam and he was alone. He went to the chief storekeeper's room and took the key to the chemicals store -- a separate building across the playground that had once been the school's metalwork shed. After six visits, Lennie knew his way around the bins and carboys although he had no business there. The particular bins he was interested in were marked "Potassium Nitrate -- Saltpetre". The depreciations caused by his visits meant that the bins were now considerably lighter than they should be but, with any luck, it might be weeks before the shortage was noticed, and perhaps not even then; the depot's records clerk was way behind because she was even older than Lennie and was often off sick.

  He pulled the two long polythene tubes with their supporting harness out of the legs of his trousers and hung them on a hook so that he could fill them with the white powder using a scoop and a funnel. It was slow, painstaking work. He took great care not to leave evidence of his visit by spilling any on the floor. Each tube held two kilos of the stuff. Mr Dayton said that today's consignment was the last and that he had enough. Which was a pity because the 20 euros that the yachtsman paid Lennie for each delivery had come in useful. Mr Dayton had said that he needed the stuff to salt down a black market pig that he had been promised.