Photographing God

By Stephen Gillespie

Collette Bonnington is a US astronomer hired by the Pentagon to head investigations into a sudden increase in extraterrestrial activity on Earth. Her investigations lead her all over the globe and climax at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem where the extraterrestrials reveal their presence in the form of a grand aerial display set against the backdrop of the eerie northern lights.
Threaded through the narrative is a series of stand-alone chapters which detail the activity of the extraterrestrials. In these episodes, an orbital telescope is disabled and made fall to Earth, a US mercenary is abducted in Africa, a Chilean cargo ship is buzzed in the Atlantic (some cargo is removed and the ship's cat abducted), a convoy of fleeing refugees is saved from being gunned down in an ambush staged by some Chinese Red Army soldiers and the rioting inmates in a US prison facility have their memories wiped.
Then there is English teenager Holly Foster who is receiving texts on her mobile from someone identifying themselves as "Observer 6" . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543906141

Book preview

LUCIFER

(A Prologue – ten years later)

The world’s media had gone into a frenzy of fear mongering and speculation. The small-to-medium sized asteroid had come from the far side of the sun with almost no warning. Impact predictions were proving inconclusive. The object might bounce off the atmosphere never to be seen again – or it might crash into the middle of the Pacific. Every coastline on the Pacific Rim would be affected by the ensuing tsunami. Because the asteroid had appeared almost a decade after the most frightening day in history the media was pointing its accusing finger at the obvious suspect. The approaching rock had been nick-named Lucifer.

Holly Foster sat on a small bench in the sunlit garden of her campus residence. She cradled her mobile in her hands hoping that he would text. She had been waiting, worried, since the news broke two days ago. There had been an email conversation with Collette of whom she had asked ‘Is it them? Are they back?’

Collette replied ‘From what we can tell, the object detached from the asteroid belt a little more than eight years ago. I’m not convinced they are involved’.

‘They can stop it, though, can’t they? If they wanted to?’ Holly asked.

‘You saw what they did with the sun. You saw what they did on Tick Tock Day. Of course, they could stop it. If they wanted to’, Collette responded.

‘Do you think they will? Do you think they want to?’

‘You heard what he said when we met him. They’re hardly impressed by Humanity’s potential’.

Holly cradled her mobile in her hands and waited. Alone. She reminded herself that he didn’t text during Tick Tock Day.

CHAPTER 1

TICK TOCK DAY

Part One

(Engles, Russian Federation)

The news on the television had said that the clock which had appeared on every computer screen in the world was part of an internet rebooting programme. The explanation had been widely accepted. No one verbalised any doubt. No one wanted to have their suspicions proved accurate. No one wanted to look the fool and appear to have been taken in by the hoax.

At eleven minutes to zero hour Andrei turned off his engine. He had felt a trembling which drummed to a different beat to that of his truck. The vehicle fell silent but the rumbling continued. The commander fixed his eye back on the level top of the silo. The lid split and the two sections slid away from each other. A cloud of exhaust steam billowed up out of the ground. Andrei gripped the steering wheel. The missile was revving up for take-off.

He waited and watched. At one minute to zero the rumbling became a rhythmic shaking. He wondered if seismometers in America were picking up the silo’s tremors. Were their fingers hovering over their buttons? Were their rockets already filling their skies? An orange ignition flash filled his windscreen and his heart pounded in his ears and throat as the silhouette of the missile climbed out of its subterranean nest.

CHAPTER 2

A FESTIVAL OF MASKS

(Hawkhill, England, five months earlier)

The creature sprang out of nowhere and made a cold wall-scraping scream as it sprawled across the bonnet of the car. Collette pushed down hard on the brake and almost stood up out of her seat. She unclipped her belt and flung open the door. Within moments she found herself encircled. Many of the surrounding beings were smaller than she. All were scarred, misshapen or mutated in some way or other. Collette could not see the demon with which she had collided. It must have landed feet flat on the ground and kept running.

A tall Klingon warrior in full battle-dress pushed through the gathering of horned heads and whiter-than-white, partially-exposed skulls. The warrior was followed by the silver art-deco head of a Cyberman which rocked and swivelled on the shoulders of a maroon-coloured school uniform.

‘Are you okay, Missus?’ asked the humanoid with the ridged forehead and the long flowing mane. ‘That was Lewis. He was just having a laugh, Missus. Honest. I’ll report him to the Cotton Wool Teacher. Sorry, the Pastoral Care and Support Monitor.’

Collette’s heart was thumping from the aftershock of the initial fright, ‘I need to know if he is hurt! I got a hell of a fright, y’know!’

‘He’s a free-runner in his spare time. A bit of a Spider-Man,’ the Klingon assured her.

‘Still,’ argued the shaking American, ‘I should make a report to the school myself just in case he has a fracture or something.’

The Cyberman buzzed something unintelligible through its electronic voice changer. The other grotesques seemed to be in agreement.

‘What was that?’ called Collette.

The Klingon translated, ‘There’s no need to stop at the school. You’ll only make yourself late for work.’

Collette threw open her arms and shrugged her shoulders, ‘It’s no trouble. I’m working at the school this morning, anyway.’

Almost immediately the alien mob of monsters melted from the road and disappeared up the lanes branching off the side street leaving the driver standing on her own. Collette got back into her car and drove to the end of the street where she went straight ahead at the crossroad. Four hundred yards later she was manoeuvring into a space in the car park of Hawkhill High School. Frequent visits to the UK had led to her adoption of the local empirical measurement system which she interchanged with the metric as a personal habit. She switched off the engine and pulled out a compact to check her make-up.

Collette Bonnington was forty-nine years old. She had soft skin which was made more attractive by its permanent Palo Alto tan. Her slim nose and graceful well-defined mouth often led to her being mistaken as Spanish. Her eyes were a bright, gem-like blue which blazed intelligence and a still-vibrant youth. After a quick touch-up of pale pink to the lips, the visitor climbed out of her car and walked across the park toward the school’s reception area. At six feet tall Collette was slightly wide at the shoulders and hips although she still possessed a very striking figure.

The car park was busy with teachers parking and big yellow buses disgorging a flood of pupils. Many of the teenagers were in fancy dress. Ghouls, ghosts and vampires milled around looking for friends who had come on other buses. Collette noticed it was the sci-fi fans that had made the better effort with their costumes. She smiled with admiration, if not genuine awe, at the sight of two Vorlon, one purple and one green, trundling toward the main entrance. Some of the older girls had opted for the Rocky Horror dress code – much to the delight of the younger boys.

Collette introduced herself at the reception office. A wrinkled grey-faced lady in over-sized spectacles smiled warmly. ‘You picked a busy day for a visit. Hallowe’en Dress-As-You-Like. Well, within reason…’ added the receptionist with a sarcastic nod at two of the older girls as they walked past.

‘I’m here to see a Miss Costigan, I think,’ Collette prompted with a smile.

‘Take a chair while I go and get her,’ the receptionist obliged.

The visitor sat on one of four chairs beside the reception window and looked out into the main lobby. The area was a bustle of teachers arriving to check their pigeon-holes for today’s school bulletin. Although many looked hassled whilst carrying boxes of folders and marked jotters, the sight of the costumed pupils provided a passing distraction which brought a smile to most faces and the odd humorous comment.

A small woman in her early thirties wearing a dark baggy blouse and a pantaloon-styled skirt turned a corner on the far side of the lobby and made her final approach toward the waiting area. Her right arm and hand reached out. Collette stood up and smiled. The woman welcomed her, ‘Mrs Bonnington, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m going to take you to the staff room where I’ll leave you with a coffee and a chocolate biscuit. When registration is finished, I’ll send one of the pupils, probably Holly Foster, to escort you to our room. Will that be okay?’

Collette politely indicated agreement as if she actually had a choice. A few minutes later she was sitting alone again. The staffroom was pleasant, benefiting from recent redecoration. The visitor had almost finished her coffee (she had denied herself the biscuit) when a quiet knock tapped gently on the door. It opened at a pace which was measured to be polite and a young head popped cautiously around the door’s edge. The girl’s face seemed wide from cheekbone-to-cheekbone yet the eyes sat in seductively arced lids like dazzling coins of silver-blue. However, a single, painted spider on the left cheek was her only obvious concession to the day’s Hallowe’en theme.

The girl stepped into the staff room almost timidly.

‘Mrs Bonnington?’

Collette stood up, ‘Yes.’

‘I’m Holly Foster. Miss Costigan sent me to get you,’ said the girl.

Collette followed Holly out of the room, along a corridor, up a short flight of stairs and along another corridor to the Science teacher’s lab. The walkways were quieter now and the two spoke as they climbed the stairs. ‘Have you taken your mock finals yet?’ enquired Collette.

‘No,’ replied Holly who was tall enough to return the older woman’s gaze, ‘I’m only fifteen so I have a year yet. If I do well I hope to move on to A-level studies, but I haven’t decided what subjects to choose. I like the Sciences, but I’m not sure if my Maths is strong enough to take me through to university level. I’ve seen you on the telly.’

‘Have you?’ smiled Collette.

‘Yes. I saw your documentary about the giant gas planets in other solar systems. There seems to be a lot of big planets, doesn’t there?’ asked the girl.

Collette decided she liked Holly Foster and was going to ask her about the lone spider on her left cheek when they arrived at Miss Costigan’s classroom.

The room was large and rectangular. It contained two long oblong platforms into which were set two deep sinks each. Both platforms were piped for gas and water. The walls were covered symmetrically with posters of the DNA double helix, a cut-away showing the internal layers of the sun and other wonders from the realms of the natural sciences. Holly took her place on one of the tall chairs which sat on either side of the work platforms. A slim, attractive Asian girl wearing a witch’s cloak and a striking Bride of Frankenstein wig smiled as the returning escort sat down beside her.

Collette noted with approval that all twenty chairs were occupied. Those who brought face masks sat their disguises on the surface beside them.

Miss Costigan introduced a third adult in the room. This was a slim, lank-haired woman in her twenties called Marta Bannacek who was employed as a classroom assistant. Mostly, so it seemed, Marta was there to translate for the five Polish newcomers who were still getting to grips with their second language. Then the Science teacher addressed the class, ‘As you know, this is Mrs Collette Bonnington the astronomer we have been chatting to in our emails. One of the topics we talked about was the SETI project – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – and we learned that thousands of amateur astronomers all around the world have helped to process the information gathered from radio telescopes on their own home computers. Collette has a new idea about how the search might make use of future computer technologies now being developed. Mrs Bonnington, over to you.’

Collette decided to stand rather than sit whilst giving her talk. She told the pupils how good it felt to finally meet with them and then she launched into her presentation. ‘The problem with listening for extraterrestrial radio signals is the distance these radio waves might have to travel before they reach us – as you already know. It is always assumed that any extraterrestrial neighbour we might hear from will be residents of our own galaxy. However, there is no guarantee that this will be the case. It is not impossible that our nearest correspondent might live in a different galaxy on the other side of the Universe. There may be a way around this communications barrier. Although nothing can travel at faster-than-light velocities – and, I’m afraid, the discovery of hyperspace will always be wishful thinking – there is a possibility offered by an apparent loophole in the field of the science known as quantum mechanics.’

This statement caught the interest of the boys in the class even though Collette had just ruled-out warp drives. However, this interest soon perished when it became clear that the proposed exception to the light-speed rule applied to certain types of sub-atomic particles. Collette talked about how the partners in some particle pairings seem to remain in contact even when separated by vast distances. Male interest rallied again when Bonnington revealed that national intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic were successfully developing this quantum physics anomaly into an encryption telecommunications system which would be almost impervious to code breakers. The moment a code has been cracked its originator would immediately know and take the appropriate measures.

‘Encrypted codes have already been transmitted over short distances. The beauty of this kind of message sending is in its instantaneous nature. There is no elapsed time or delay between the sending and receiving. A big frustration for hostile enemy agents. Now if we assume – as we usually do – that a space-faring alien civilisation is much more advanced than we are at present then, surely, these beings are using a system of communication based on this kind of quantum technology. Would you agree? We may actually be wasting our time and efforts listening for radio messages which may never have been transmitted.’

The astronomer spent many more minutes explaining what scientists thought might be going on at the quantum level. Collette wondered if she had delivered an information overload and brought her lecture, as it had become, to a close. ‘Any questions?’

Questions came but, mostly, these had already been asked by the class and answered by her during their preceding electronic conversations.

‘Were astronomers searching for the next big comet which might collide with the world and wipe-out all life on Planet Earth?’

‘As splitting up a colliding object with nuclear warheads would only cause more impacts on Earth’s surface, what other preventative measures were scientists currently exploring?’

Then Holly Foster’s hand went up and she asked, ‘Would you tell us again, please, how you got interested in astronomy?’

An unbidden smile warmed Collette’s face. She recalled for the class how, as a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, she had seen photographs in a magazine of the Northern Lights. When she was nine years old she had travelled to visit relatives in the countryside outside New York City. Collette listened to herself as she spoke and marvelled at how it seemed her voice belonged to someone else. ‘It was winter. Two weeks before Christmas. Shops and homes were decorated with lights and lit-up trees. New Yorkers go all-out for Christmas. In the countryside where my aunt and uncle lived the sky was wonderfully clear and one night I saw it – for real – with my own eyes. The Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights. I tried to take a photograph with a little camera which I had with me. The developed pictures were very disappointing. All dark and blurred. My mother told me not to get too upset. She said that taking pictures of the night sky was a bit like trying to take photographs of angels. She told me I needed a camera with a telescope on the lens. And that’s how I got the bug.’

A pale, thin-faced boy with tight curling hair raised his hand. Marta Bannacek translated, ‘Were you involved with the new space telescope which was launched into orbit last year?’

The astronomer laughed. ‘The Baxter-Clark platform? No. But I do have one hour of research time booked. I want to use the telescope to look at a planet in solar system Crayford LK52. I think it might be an ice giant with a liquid-water core. But I do have to wait another six months before I can have a proper look for myself.’

‘Holly. Are you alright, dear?’ Miss Costigan called in a whisper of pronounced concern.

Holly sat on her chair with her arms flopped to her sides. Her jaw had dropped open and her eyes were staring blankly up at the ceiling although her head was still facing the visiting speaker.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Collette copying the other woman’s whisper.

The teacher spoke to the attractive Asian girl sitting beside Foster. ‘Hasti, make sure she doesn’t fall.’

The Bride of Frankenstein stood up behind Holly and put her arms around the entranced pupil. Costigan returned to the astronomer’s question, ‘Medical condition. Nothing life-threatening. Holly suffers from petit mal epilepsy. It’s like a very mild catatonia. It should pass in a few seconds. This doesn’t happen very often. I can’t really remember her last episode.’

Marta explained to the Polish pupils what was happening. They were confused and did not know how to react to the situation. Almost as soon as Marta had finished reassuring her charges, full awareness returned to Holly whose face flooded a full red with embarrassment.

‘Feeling okay, Holly?’ Costigan asked.

The girl tried to bury her head in her chest, ‘Yes, Miss.’

Collette felt her own shoulders relax as a slow sigh of relief escaped her lips.

By twelve thirty, Collette was back sitting in her car watching teenagers pour out of the school to enjoy the freedom of lunch hour. She had delivered her talk to a second class during the morning in which she tried to dumb down her reference to quantum particle entanglement. She turned the ignition key and scanned the tracks listing on her Best of Bruce Springsteen CD until she found Radio Nowhere. The car pulled off as Hasti and Holly Foster stumbled out of the crowd of the semi-masked onto the kerb. Collette gave a friendly wave as she drove by and both girls returned the gesture.

The girls watched as the astronomer drove away and along the cross-roads. A musical beeping trill drew Holly’s attention to her outside-left coat pocket. ‘Sounds like a text message.’

She lifted out her mobile phone and retrieved the message. Hasti watched as Holly’s brow furrowed. With the exception of the traditional upper case letter U the text had been typed longhand. Foster narrowed her eyelids, ‘Maybe it’s one of the Polish kids trying to be funny.’

‘Why?’ asked Hasti. ‘What does it say?’

Holly read the text aloud, ‘Did U get Mrs Bonnington’s autograph? Decoding of entangled addresses dash impossible. Not many to listen to, anyway. Text again soon. Tick, tock.‘

‘What is the sender’s number?’

‘Not given,’ replied Holly. ‘It only has a sender’s name. Someone calling themselves Observer 6.’

CHAPTER 3

MEETING VIPER THREE

Collette sat in the small reception area on the second floor, northwest wall, of the Pentagon building. The room was a blunt triangular shape. The rounded apex walls were bordered by eight blue cushioned chairs. The longer wall, which formed the base of the triangle, had two doors both of which were closed and a long table behind which sat two uniformed secretaries – both female. The women were kept busy by the ringing of their telephones and pages on their computer screens which held a particular command over their attention. Collette occupied one of the blue chairs. The other seven sat unfilled.

Two nights before she had had dinner in one of her favourite Washington restaurants with fellow astronomer Alan Martindale. Twenty years ago Alan had just come out of the priesthood and was introduced to the night sky by her husband. Collette had always liked Alan because he had the nerve required to change his mind. Astronomy was a second choice of study for the ex-clergyman. He first tried to master physics but found in the field only confirmation that he had done the right thing in leaving behind his life with the Church. It was the mysteries of quantum mechanics which closed shut the doors of his past whilst opening his mind. He did like to ponder the quantum conundra, though. She remembered him saying once, ‘I don’t like the idea of the multiverse. I don’t want another me who is better looking and more successful ... How many souls do I have? In a multiverse full of personal alternative souls is God cheating in his war with the Devil? How many resurrected Christs have there been? … Where is the process which describes the continual splitting of the one Universe into the many?’

Martindale’s readiness to question, take stock and change direction gave her the courage to call it a day on her three year long marriage. Once the excitement of their initial getting together was a year or so behind them both husband and wife preferred to return to their first true loves – gas giants, ice-water moons, green-tailed comets, pulsars, ringed neutron suns and the effect of the cosmic light horizon on their study of the most distant objects.

Collette and Alan stayed in touch although she had never really decided if she considered him a true friend or not. They both found physical solace in the company of the other and if Alan harboured feelings for her he seemed to know better than to spoil the informal, mutually beneficial, arrangement.

For six years now Martindale had been working with NASA and the military. Collette wondered if Alan thought the association might put him in the running for inclusion in the management team of a possible Mars project. Before having dined with him two nights ago almost four years had gone under the bridge. It was he who had sought her out on this visit to the capital. He obviously knew about the conference she was attending and phoned her at the hotel he knew she preferred. To the dinner she wore a red dress which was bordered with ruby sparkles and he wore a tux. Collette was momentarily surprised that he had allowed his hair to go grey.

Their conversation covered places of the world they’d most recently had cause to visit. They talked some culture. They talked some art. The topic of David Bonnington and his current whereabouts did not get mentioned although Collette was ready to show polite interest. During dessert Alan said, ‘I read your