The Vostok Revelation

CHAPTER SIX

October 2239, Utopia City. Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 300 kilometers south of Bermuda Island.

Director Josefa Serrano sat in her reserved compartment skimming over the latest North American situation reports as her executive tram sped toward her hastily constructed meeting with the North American delegation from the World Parliament. The delegation, taking advantage of the Capital’s slow migration to the south for the winter season, spared no effort to gain personal audience with the 46th Director of the Federation of Earth.

The commute, three miles from below deck port-side to thirty-second level starboard-side, would take only a few minutes. This left precious little time for Director Serrano to familiarize herself with the most recent raids of the Rocky Mountain Separatists.

For more than two centuries, as their population grew, the Rocky Mountain Separatist had thwarted every effort to transport fuel and goods through the mountainous terrain. While no lives were ever lost in the raids the hardship placed on good citizens of the North American Bloc, especially in the winter months, was cruel and criminal. The meeting with the delegation — three members from Ottawa, two from New York, and one from Mexico City — would likely present yet another passive strategy to compel the recalcitrant holdovers to set aside their antediluvian notions and conform for the good of the world.

Rayan al-Sawaika, the first Director of the Federation of Earth, struggled throughout his five-year term to provide a permanent lasting solution to the few dozen pockets of malcontents around the world. For better or for worse, his voice defined how all future Directors of the Federation addressed the issue of seditionists.

“Attrition,” al-Sawaika had said in his globally broadcast inaugural address, “is the only humane way to bring these people into society. Since being given the Directorship I’ve been approached countless times by people asking me what I am going to do about the rebels. They ask me why I allow the rebels to disobey the law by stealing and destroying things. I answer, ‘The fact that these people are stealing and, in the process of stealing, destroying things, tells us that our strategy of attrition is working. Tell me, where can they go when the entire world is ours? What can they do when every aspect of the world around them — the economy, the food supply, all travel and medical-care — is ours to manage and control? So they hide in the mountains, in the deep deserts, in remote towns and on tiny islands, let them. In time, they or their descendants will grow weary of their self-imposed hardships and they will seek inclusion. And when they approach us, and they will come to us, we will welcome our wayward brothers and sisters back into the family with clean hands and concerned hearts.”

The policy of Attrition, Director Serrano’s internal voice said heavy with contempt, has done nothing but allow the separatist populations to grow and their drag on the global economy to increase. In four months, three supply trains were raided in the Rocky Mountains. 229,000 liters of heating oil — no doubt to help them through the winter, nine tons of sundry items, five tons of machine parts and two entire railway cars were stolen. The hardship these thieves place on our citizens, who also must endure the winter and have never caused anyone hardship, is criminal and must be stopped.

The tram decelerated and came to a stop. Director Serrano stood, pulled taut her white blouse, buttoned her navy blue jacket and stepped out into the private subbasement of the Tower, the Federation of Earth’s primary complex on Utopia. Even three years into her term, the lavishness of the Federation’s primary facility on its mobile administrative island still awed her. The Tower, the seat of government to the entire population of Earth, stood 155 meters tall, contained more than 150 office and meeting spaces of various sizes, and was decorated gaudily with artifacts and riches that represented every culture that had ever exited on Earth.

After several seconds the elevator came to a halt. Director Serrano quickly checked her appearance one last time in the elevator’s full-length mirrored panel and then stepped into the meeting room.

“Hello representatives, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” Director Serrano said with her most polished professional smile and sincere tone.

“Madam Director,“ A tall, fit, and well-groomed man with graying brown hair began, “I am Representative Ian Sanderson from New York. Please do not apologize, we understand that we have inserted ourselves into your schedule with very little forewarning. Thank you for making the time to hear our concerns.”

Director Serrano looked the man up and down. He, like she, was in his mid-fifties. He had pale blue eyes that twinkled a little when he looked at her. Tasty. “The Director of the Federation of Earth is always available to serve the need of our people. How may I be of assistance to you Representative Sanderson, and your party?”

“You are very gracious, Madam Director,” Sanderson said with an inviting smile. “While I am here to facilitate this meeting and express concerns related to our rebel faction, it is Doctor Em Thornton from the Canadian Science Institute in Ottawa and Doctor Jonathan Banek from the National Space Science Institute in Texas who have the most fascinating information to convey.”

Doctor Banek, a weathered gray haired man who appeared to have permanent dark bags under his dull brown eyes, took a step toward the Director, “Madam Director, in the last two days we at the National Space Science Institute have detected a radio wave which, when active, is focused on a very precise area in Antarctica. The wave is originating from within our solar system. We’ve been able to follow the signal back to it source. Its originating near Uranus.”

“Uranus?”

“Yes Director,” said Doctor Thornton, a tired looking fifty-something brunette with spirited blue eyes, “We at the CSI, from our mining resources in the Main Belt, have identified four objects between Uranus and Neptune. These objects appear to be stationary, moving only to ensure point-to-point connectivity with Earth. One or more of the objects is broadcasting a constant signal that is directed to the remains of a drilling site in Antarctica. ”

A mixture of curiosity and concern spread across the Directors soft features, “I assume we have no information on what those objects are, what the content of the signal is, and what in Antarctica is receiving those signals.”

“That’s not entirely true, Madam Director,” Another member of the delegation said, a scrawny long-faced man who did not maintain eye contact with the Director.

“And you are…”

“Charles Lansing, Knowledge Base Director and Historian. I am affiliated with the Federation Information Repository in the North America Bloc.”

“Please Mr. Lansing, tell me how history factors into this scenario.”

“Gladly, Director Serrano. In 2014, after twenty continuous years the Russians drilled into the largest sub-glacial lake on the Antarctic continent, Lake Vostok. While exploring the lake with a drone, the team encountered something buried beneath three kilos of ice for roughly twenty million years. While our records are incomplete, we know that the Russians encountered something that they believed was extraterrestrial. Whatever the object, that ‘something’ captured the drone, drained the stations power grid, seized control of the drill stations satellite up-link to broadcast an encrypted message to a Russian satellite which then re-broadcast that message into what was believed to be empty space. Because of the recent signal directed toward Lake Vostok Station in Antarctica, we are now able to know where that 2014 broadcast into empty space was going.”

“How credible is this information?”

“Quite,” Representative Sanderson chimed in. “As secretive as the Russians were they were forced to call on the Americans to recuse their people. Unfortunately, after waiting two days to enlist American aid and an additional two days for a storm to subside before a rescue could be attempted the entire crew of Lake Vostok station had died from exposure. The American rescue team recovered the bodies and absorbed what intel they could about the work being done at the station. The bulk of our information comes from the National Security Agency databases we’ve incorporated.”

“What about the transmission? Was anyone able to determine what the transmission was all about?”

“Yes,” Lansing said, pleased to take center stage. “The NSA captured the broadcast as it happened with one of its spy satellites. They analyzed the data to discover that it was an encrypted Sanskrit dialect, a philosophical and scholarly language from the Indian cultural zone that has remarkably little historical context. The NSA spent years trying to figure out why the Russians would encrypt and broadcast in Sanskrit. When no conceivable reason was found they archived all the information in their data-banks and waited for its relevance to present itself. Of course, this was all before the Federation of Earth was formed and national sovereignty gave way to global responsibility.”

“So the Americans never knew that the satellite broadcast into space was directed toward anything?”

Doctor Thornton spoke up, “Madam Director, even with our technology today, were it not for the broadcasts being sent to Antarctica we would never have been able to find those objects floating between Uranus and Neptune. Whoever or whatever put those things out there is using materials or technology that appears to be more sophisticated than ours.”

“What do we know about this broadcast? What is it saying?”

“The broadcast repeats every five hours, it lasts only six minutes, and is repeating the same message each time. Based on the NSA’s Rosetta stone, it appears to be a recipe for something called a kepha flower. The information appears to be a type of blueprint detailing how to manufacture whatever a kepha flower is.”

Director Serrano, a sense of foreboding welling up inside, “What is a kepha flower?”

“There is no known flower in all of botany,” Lansing offered.

“Are we sure that the translation is accurate?”

“According to the NSA’s information it is an accurate translation. The message they received in 2014 is identical to the message we’re receiving now.”

Director Serrano’s stomach knotted, “Are we able to use this recipe to create this flower under controlled conditions?”

“No. Our 3D printing capability is mostly limited to inanimate objects with few biological exceptions. And there are elements of that blueprint that we do not recognize as biological.”

“Not biological? A kepha flower is a machine?”

“Partly, or at least that’s what we can deduce from our understanding of the data we’ve captured.”

Director Serrano turned from to her window and started out across the Atlantic. Was this an extraterrestrial attempt to make contact? If so, why were they beneath the Antarctic ice for millions of years? What were they doing in all that time? Are they friendly? If they are hostile can our navy be enough of a deterrent to prevent bloodshed?

After several moments of contemplation the Director turned to face the delegation, “Thank you for bringing me this information. Based on everything I have heard, we are in dire need of accurate intelligence. First, we need to find out exactly what the objects between Uranus and Neptune are. The CSI will allocate resources from the Main Belt and send a probe to gather information. Second, we need to find out what’s been hiding beneath Antarctica for the last twenty million years. Third, once we achieve the first two objectives we must find a way to establish contact with whatever has been sending and receiving those signals. If this is Humankind’s first contact with another life form I’d prefer our initial meeting to be a peaceful one that it does not appear threatening. I’d like answers to these questions as soon as possible.”

“Mister Sanderson, I have a meeting to attend in fifteen minutes. If you’d like to present your information on the North American rebel factions, you are welcome to do so over dinner.”