12:05 am Thursday, 21st June 2029
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
"What I'm going to tell you now is known only to five other people on the planet. In fact, three of them aren't actually on the planet right now, but that's beside the point. You'll be the sixth. Are you prepared to swear to complete and utter secrecy about this operation?"
The president waited patiently as Toby absorbed the implications of this.
"Madam President, that's a tall order. What if I consider that people have a right to know whatever it is you're going to tell me?"
"Fair point, but I can tell you that we believe that if this information was disclosed at the wrong time or place it could cause widespread panic, possibly civil unrest. If what we suspect turns out to be correct, a great number of the world's population will have their fundamental beliefs shattered. It could cause religious wars. You must remember what happened with ISIS in the early 2000s. This could be much worse."
A glimmer of understanding filtered through Toby's mind.
"Is this something to do with my paper on intelligent design?"
"Yes, it has everything to do with it."
"You've found some new evidence?"
"I'll get to that. I need your promise first and, by the way, I would consider it a treasonable offence if that promise wasn't kept."
Toby thought hard. His infamous paper refuting the legitimacy of transmutation as the cornerstone of evolution, and offering a radical alternative, had cost him his professorship. He'd been called a fantasist by his peers and been made a laughingstock. It had instantly ended his career and led to an acrimonious divorce with the loss of his home and most of his savings.
The isolation of Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides, a place he remembered fondly from childhood vacations, had offered an escape from the constant ridicule. The small amount of cash he'd been left with had been just enough to buy a remote abandoned croft. A small income from editing scientific articles for a specialist publisher in the US was his only source of funds. If his evolutionary theories were to be proved correct it would restore his reputation and change his life.
"I swear that I will not divulge any information without express permission from yourself, Madam President."
"Good enough," the president nodded. "I would normally ask you to swear on a bible but, knowing your beliefs, that would seem inappropriate."
#
"As you probably know," the president continued. "After the last pandemic, the USA initiated the Mars Colony Project. We plan to set up a safe haven on Mars so that if a future superstrain ever threatens to wipe out the entire population of Earth, the human race will continue to survive."
Toby grunted. The general consensus was that the so-called safe haven was nothing but a sanctuary for America's elite to escape to if the worst should happen. It would certainly guarantee their personal survival.
"Since 2025 we've been building the OCF, the Orbiting Construction Facility, which will enable us to assemble the spacecraft and all the hardware we need to make the journey ... and to set up the colony on Mars."
"I heard it was almost finished," Toby remarked.
"It is. The final checks of all the systems before starting the next phase of the project were underway. There was just a handful of NASA technicians up there, running the test equipment."
"There was?"
"Yes. Now there's only the project director and a communications technician ... and an astrophysicist."
"And they're the three of the six who aren't on the planet, right?"
"You've got it. We are the other three. No one else knows anything about this. The testing was stopped and the technicians returned to the surface last week because the OCF received a strange radio message. Strange because it was in perfect English. The comms tech on duty thought it was a hoax message broadcast from Earth. Some hacker who'd cracked the encrypted system, so he didn't make a big deal about it. He just reported it to the project director with a recommendation to change the encryption codes."
The president reached over and poured them all glasses of water from a plastic bottle on the table. She handed them round and Toby was oddly touched by the small motherly gesture. He could understand why she was so popular with the voters.
"Anyway," the president carried on. "The comms tech tried tracking the radio signal, thinking he might be able to pinpoint where on Earth it came from so we could get a fix on the hacker. He got quite a surprise when he found it came from the direction of the Sun."
"But that means Mercury or Venus and that's impossible, they're far too hot to support any life," Toby butted in, and then immediately begged the president's pardon. She waved away his apology.
"Don't worry. Take it from me, it gets a lot more unbelievable. The message said that a vessel would dock with the OCF on June 22nd. They requested a meeting be arranged with representatives from Earth."
"But ... June 22nd, that's tomorrow, isn't it?"
"That's correct."
"Have you detected any sort of spacecraft approaching the OCF? If all this was genuine you'd have picked something up surely?"
"No. We think they must have some sort of stealth technology that hides their vehicle from our sensors."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because it has already arrived. It's alongside the OCF right now. Our people up there can see it."
Toby slumped back in his chair, dumbfounded, before speaking.
"Okay, there are two things I don't understand. First, if it's there and it's visible, how can you keep it a secret from the Russians, the Chinese, and anyone else on Earth with a decent telescope, and second ... why me?"
"According to the project director, it's a dull grey color and not easy to see. Also, it's parked on the far side of the OCF from Earth and there are several construction modules floating around near it, so we're pretty sure it will just blend in with those. Why you? Well, because the extra-terrestrials asked for you ... by name."
Toby felt his jaw drop in amazement. The president smiled and then glanced at her secretary of state.
"Phil, I think we better let him hear the recording."