God's Cradle by Kellier Richard

Author:Kellier, Richard [Kellier, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Satellite Ground Station, Oakhanger, UK.

The control centre was on shut down; a mode of operation that had been envisaged only to be operative in times of war. All non-essential personnel had been removed, and all available resources were now being focussed on the LOG-TPS3 satellite. Any sense of informality had gone as the new operational status came into effect; the tracking station was now being run in military mode.

Operative Comm-8, reduced to being referred to by the number of the chair he sat on, observed his monitor station screens with growing anticipation, as LOG-TPS3 once more approached the southern continent. He knew nothing of the Anomaly, none of the operatives did, but he did know that something ‘Big’ was happening on the southern continent. Never had he considered his time on shift more interesting than his off time.

Five times during each eight-hour shift, LOG-TPS3 passed over the target area, at each pass gathering more data; and a greater degree of resolution for the pattern of heat signatures that were emerging. Comm-8 was aware of the terabytes of data that had been poured over, every wavelength of light within the range of spectra available to the satellite’s instrumentation had been analysed and reanalysed. Every possible interpretation had been considered, rejected, or accepted. Slowly the complete picture was building up. Comm-8’s imagination was running wild.

Standing stones and pyramids and the seven wonders of the world , he thought, even China’s great wall; all palled into insignificance compared to what was now emerging on the southern continent .

And there was continued activity.

The lines that were being interpreted as heat signatures by the infra-red equipment were still spreading out, reaching ever further across the icy continent. Branching at what appeared to be pre-set intervals and forming new hexagonal patterns. Each time the satellite passed over the target area, more of the growing network had been completed. Like an amoebozoan slime mould progressing across an unresisting surface, it inexorably pushed out to wherever it could reach. Extrapolated computer models showed that the hexagonal network, should current progress be maintained, would cover the entire Antarctic continent in less than forty-eight hours.

Rumour trickled down from the analytics labs, whispers of something momentous taking place across an entire continent. Each pass of the satellite was providing affirmative data for the original observations; one by one, at regular intervals, huge spheres were rising out of the icy embrace of the frozen desert and silently hovering, as if waiting for some unknowable event to occur.

An entire network of half-mile diameter spheres that had lain hidden beneath the polar ice cap , thought Comm-8, were now emerging into the polar night .

One of the large screens at the front of the control room was showing a composite image; a rendering of the continent-wide grid had been layered on top of a map of Antarctica. It showed the proximity of the newly discovered spheres to habitable research installations. Some spheres were remote, patiently waiting in areas so remote and unexplored that no human had ever been in the vicinity.

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