The look on Eddie's face clearly gave away his disbelief. “Remember the rock!” said Ben hurriedly. “Remember Alice! That was a real effect, right?”

“You seriously expect me to believe...” Eddie couldn't continue. He began to stride away, fully intending to return to the hotel, collect his belongings and return to England without another word to the others. Ben and Frank grabbed an arm each, though, to stop him. “Let me go!” he protested.

“It’s true," insisted Ben. “I swear it. I meant what I said earlier. You can repeat the experiment any time you like. In another place, if you think we’ve set something up here. You can use your own equipment, anything you like. Do whatever you need to do to prove to yourself that the effect is real.”

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” said Eddie. He was beginning to calm down, though, as he remembered what he’d promised himself earlier. Go along with the joke. If it is a game, then play the game with them. Join in the fun.

“I was sceptical as well, at first,” said Frank. “You've no idea what it took to convince me, and that was before they had a working prototype to demonstrate.”

“Frank himself is the genius behind this little miracle,” said Ben, pointing down at the device which was still smoking gently. “In the three years since he joined us, we’ve made more progress than we did in the thirty years before! Our own technology is finally reaching the point where we can begin to make sense of theirs.”

“Theirs is still way more advanced, of course,” added Frank. “The alien device this thing is based on is about the size of a walnut, and it could reduce the mass of a thousand ton spaceship to almost nothing To the point that an ion drive the size of a wristwatch could accelerate it close to the speed of light in seconds.”

“You see, now I know this is all a joke,” said Eddie, though. “The reaction mass couldn’t propel the ship if its mass was also reduced.”

“The ion drives, six of them, could be extended on long poles until they were outside the mass dampener's area of effect,” said Ben. “The fuel regained its full mass as it travelled along the fuel lines towards them. We call them ion drives, but they’re nothing like the engines we put on satellites. They worked by propelling ionised gas, like ours, but they achieved exhaust velocities of almost the speed of light and we don’t have a clue how they did it. That's why we need you.”

“Think about it,” said Frank. “The device we’re already got will revolutionise space travel! The cost of launching satellites could be halved with what we’ve got right now! That space elevator the Chinese keep talking about building is already obsolete. With a few improvements it'll open up the whole solar system! Add the alien ion drives and we can go to the stars!”

“So you can see what's at stake here,” said Ben. “Tell us what it’ll take to convince you. Anything at all. We'll go anywhere in the world, a place chosen by you where we can't possibly have prepared anything. Use equipment chosen by you that we can’t possibly have tampered with. Just tell us what you need.”

Eddie hesitated. The rock's reduction in mass had been so dramatic, and so had Alice's weight. How could Alice's reduction in weight have been faked? Suppose he wanted to pull a trick like this, to fool someone. How would he do it? He paced back and forth across the sand, his mind in a turmoil. There was no trace of humour in any of the people gathered around him, as there surely would be if they were playing a trick on him. Even if they were trying to keep straight faces, there would be something, wouldn’t there? Some subtle giveaway in their faces or their body language. As he looked from one person to another, though, there was nothing. He supposed it was possible that they were just superbly good actors. Actors that good did exist, he knew, but these were all world renowned scientists, people with careers and reputations. One world class scientist might also be a great actor, but nine?

“Who’s in on this?” he asked. “The British government is funding this holiday, you said. Is it just them?”

“Other governments are involved,” said Ben. “We can keep the truth from the general public by passing off the occasional inevitable leak as a hoax or an urban legend, that’s how the Tadcaster UFO thing got started, but governments are harder to fool. They study where other governments are spending money, and there's far too much money being spent to hide. The USA found out, and the Europeans and the Chinese. The three big world governments. Nobody else, though. Britain wouldn’t be involved if the thing hadn't been discovered in the UK.”

“Lucky us,” said Eddie drily. “So, what exactly have you got? An actual alien spaceship?”

“An actual alien spaceship,” confirmed Ben. “Three hundred million years old, found a hundred years ago buried in a seam of coal beneath the Yorkshire town of Tadcaster. The British government sealed off the whole mine and sent a group of experts down to look at it. Around the turn of the century the whole thing was moved, in great secrecy, to Wetherby where they had the facilities to study it properly. We and our predecessors have been studying it ever since.”

“What kind of condition is it in? I would imagine that, after three hundred million years, there's not much left of it.”

“So far as we can tell, it’s completely intact. It seems to be made out of materials that are impervious to the passage of time.”

Eddie found his scepticism rising again and forced it down again. Go along with the joke, he reminded himself. Pretend to believe it. He looked at the device again. Could it really be what they claimed it to be? A device that could neutralise part or all of an object's mass? Maybe they'd invented the thing and were just pretending it had come from an alien spaceship, but why would they do such a thing? To use such a momentous invention to play such a trivial joke... No, ridiculous! Either it was all real or none of it was.

Astronomers had long since come to the conclusion that mankind was alone in the galaxy. Decades of searching using ever more powerful and sensitive equipment had found nothing. That was a count against Ben's extraordinary claim, or was it? Three hundred million years was a long time, even in geological terms. Perhaps that was the interval between the rise of successive civilisations in this part of the universe. Just once every few hundred million years. That somehow felt right to Eddie. If alien civilisations were more common than that, there would have been some sign of them. Alien devices found on the moon for example, where nothing changed for millions of years at a time, where even the footprints of the Apollo and Qianfeng astronauts would endure for aeons to come. That would mean that mankind was alone in the universe, unless one looked in other galaxies, millions of light years away. A civilisation near to earth, three hundred million years ago, was plausible then, if looked at in that way.

“Did you find any bodies aboard?” he asked. “Any remains of the crew?”

“Nothing,” said Ben. “We speculate that the ship got into some kind of trouble and was forced to make an emergency landing in a swamp. The crew abandoned ship, perhaps, and were picked up by a rescue craft, or perhaps they lived the rest of their lives as castaways here on Earth. We could make up stories all day and it would all be nothing but guesswork.”

“They seemed to have been larger than us,” said Frank. “Unless they liked plenty of space around them. They were as wide as they were tall. They breathed oxygen and drank water. That's all we know. That's all we may ever know.”

“So no Captain's log? No alien face on a display screen making the last entry, telling us what happened?”

Frank laughed. “After three hundred million years? We've found what seem to have been their version of computers, but all information content has long since been lost to thermal randomization. No operating system, no data at all. All we have is the hardware.”

“But the mass dampener was intact enough for you to figure out how it worked?”

“There were three of them, for redundancy, I suppose. They, our predecessors, cut one open to see how it worked, which never sat right with me. It always reminded me of something Gandalf said, in The Lord of the Rings. Someone who destroys a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. It worked, though. They, and we after them, learned enough to allow us to create this working prototype.”

“What about the other two? Are they still intact?”

“So far as I know. Our predecessors left them alone in case some future technology allowed us to probe their interiors without damaging them, but since then the Americans took one to study and the Chinese took the other. We've heard nothing about either since.”

“Do they still work? I mean, if you put power through them, do they still reduce mass?”

“Oh yes,” said Ben. “All three of them worked. Our one worked before they cut it open to figure out how it worked. Also, they used almost no power. They could reduce the mass of a thousand ton lump of granite low enough to be unmeasurable using the power of a watch battery. You've seen how much power our prototype uses in comparison.”

“The Chinese and the Americans must be tempted to use theirs to launch stuff,” mused Eddie. “If they can’t learn anything from just studying them and they don't want to destroy their only working example like you did... Did you share your breakthrough with them? Do they know how your prototype works?”

“Of course,” said Ben. “They're full partners in the project. They must have their own prototypes by now.”

“So there's no need for them to cut theirs open. So why not use them to launch stuff? The Americans may have lost interest in space but the Chinese certainly haven't. They say they want to colonise the moon. It sounds as if they could build a moonbase here on Earth and lift it up to the moon in one go.”

“Then the whole world would know what they've got. Also, the devices are way too valuable to risk anything happening to them. It's not just their ability to reduce mass that makes them valuable. It's how they do it. We think some of the components are made of coherent matter. If we could figure out how to make that stuff...”

“Coherent matter!” said Eddie, staring at him. “It's really possible then? I though that was just a blue sky theory. It's really possible?” He was beginning to believe them, he realised. He was beginning to trust them. The fact that they were all naked was probably partially responsible for that, he knew. It was a trick that had been used for thousands of years and that was still used today by armies and sporting teams, among others. If you need to get a group of people to bond together, to form a team bound together by trust, find some excuse to get them all naked together. He didn't doubt that Ben had picked Martinique for this little get together precisely so that he could make use of the technique, but even knowing that didn't prevent it from working. He was beginning to trust these people. To believe that they were telling the truth.

“You need some time for all of this to sink in,” said Ben. “It's too much, all in one go, I know. You need to think about it for a bit, sort it all out in your mind. Why don't we go back to the others, play some more volleyball or just lie in the sun.” Eddie nodded. Everything they'd told him was swirling around in his head. It needed time to settle down. “But please,” added Ben. “Not another word about this to the others, okay? They're not cleared for this, no matter how much we love them. We have to keep this just between ourselves. We'll talk about it again the next time we can get together on our own.”

“I understand. It must be hard, though. Not being able to share it with them.”

“They understand. We're no different from anyone else working on a highly sensitive project. People in the army or the intelligence industries for example. The world's full of people who have to keep secrets from their loved ones. They know there's stuff we’re not telling them. They understand and accept it. It's just that the secrets we’re keeping from them aren't the secrets they think we’re keeping from them.”

“And what would happen if I went to the press with all this?”

“We'd deny it and call you a madman. You’ve got no proof. They'd think it was the ravings of a lunatic. You're not going to, though, are you? You know what would happen if you did manage to convince the general public. The effect it would have. An awful lot of people would refuse to believe that the aliens were all long dead, their civilisation vanished. Research and development costs billions. Developing a new superconductor or a new processor crystal is a major investment for a company. Nobody's going to want to make that kind of investment if they think a bunch of benevolent aliens is about to turn up, willing to share their advanced technology with us. Technological advance all across the world could grind to a halt. And then there are all the people who would think an alien invasion was on its way. Not to mention the religious and social ramifications. The whole world would be thrown into chaos!”

Eddie nodded. In an age of technological miracles, it was easy to forget that most people were idiots.

“Take this back, will you, Guys?” said Frank, beckoning the security guards back over. Ben placed the scales back in the box, and then the two guards drove the autoporter back to the hotel. Eddie, his head a buzzing whirl of new facts and possibilities, then followed the other scientists as they strolled back along the beach to where they’d left the other members of their families.

☆☆☆

“They want to borrow Copernicus!” said John Paul in outrage.

Samantha looked up from her tablet. “What?” she said. She was sitting with the device on her lap, using the virtual keyboard to type the first draft of a paper she intended to send to the Space Science Reviews, a journal that had published several of her papers in the past. They had been waiting for her paper on the Hortensius volcano for months, but they was going to have to wait a little longer because there was data still to come in and she wanted to make the case as airtight as possible. Her excitement at the results she’d gotten so far was so great, though, that she had to get it out of her system and onto a page of text or she'd just explode! She saved what she'd written so far so she could give her colleague her full attention.

“The Frenchman jabbed a finger at the email on his phone. “The government’s demanding Copernicus’ control codes! They want to take control away from us!”

Samantha frowned and got up from her seat, going over to look over John Paul's shoulder. The Frenchman handed her his phone and she squinted down at the tiny text. “This can't be right!” she said. “Does Neil know about this?”

“If he doesn't, he's about to! I can't hand over the control codes without his authorisation anyway! He'll never allow this! We're right in the middle of the Procellarum survey!” He took the phone back and called Neil's number. “What could they possibly want with Copernicus anyway? Do they want to spy on the Chinese lab or something?”

“Maybe the Chinese left something up there. Something other than just remote operated scientific equipment. I've always wondered if they had some more sinister reason for going up there than...” John Paul was holding his hand up for silence, though. “Neil! Do you know anything about this? The President’s demanding we hand Copernicus’ control codes over to...” He paused while he listened. “Yes, she's right here,” he said, looking over at Samantha. “Right.” He then disconnected the call.

“He wants to talk to both of us,” he said, rising from his seat to turn on the Bullpen’s main display monitor, a two hundred centimetre screen mounted on the wall opposite a row of comfy seats. Samantha sat in the chair she usually used, sitting upright, unable to relax with the tension that suddenly filled her body. John Paul called up the videophone function, enters Neil's number, and a moment later an image of their department head filled the screen, looking out at them. Behind him was a view of his living room with a large picture window looking out across a well maintained garden. A golden retriever was lying on the carpet in front of an electric heater disguised as a log fire. The dog looked around at its master curiously, then lowered its head back down onto the carpet and closed its eyes.

“Sam, John Paul,” he said. “I’m sorry, I only heard about it literally just a few minutes ago. Nina called me. They need to borrow Copernicus for a little while, to check out a potential threat to the Earth.”

“An asteroid?” said Samantha. “They’ve got the Earth Defence Network for that! Copernicus is a ground survey satellite.”

“They need the ground camera. It makes a basic kind of telescope at full magnification, and that's all they need. It's its position, you see. Four hundred thousand klicks away. They need to make some parallax observations."

“Of what?”

“There's something happening in the asteroid belt. A whole bunch of asteroids are out of position, as if something massive has perturbed them with its gravity. Whatever it is seems to be heading in our direction. They want to calculate its trajectory by observing the precise motions of all the asteroids it’s disturbed, and they can do that faster if they have observations in three dimensions. Time is of the essence, you see. Whatever it is has already passed through the asteroid belt, We’re seeing the after effects of its passage. It could be very close already.”

“Why not just observe it directly?” asked John Paul.

“Because it’s invisible. Nothing shows up, even in the very best images.” He paused for effect. “It seems to be coming from the direction of Sagittarius.”

Both the other astronomers gasped. “Another Scatter Cloud?” said Samantha.

“That's what we need to find out. The first Scatter Cloud passed by the Earth at a tangent to its orbit, which means that, even though our planet has moved on in its orbit, if the second cloud is following the same course, it'll also pass us close by. And, to judge from the chaos it’s caused among the asteroids, it seems to be quite substantially more massive. Over ten times more massive at least.”

“Merde!” said John Paul, his face pale.

“So give them the control codes. They'll return control of Copernicus to you in a couple of days. No longer than that. I realise that'll muck up the Procellarum survey...”

“No, no, of course!” said Samantha, though. “We'll do it right away! Right, John?”

”Right,” agreed the Frenchman. “The email didn't say any of this! Just a curt demand that we hand it over to them! If they'd just explained...”

“Well, you know now. And not a word of this to anyone. Right? We don't want a panic. The world’s only just recovering from the first one!”

“Not a word!” agreed Samantha. “Shit! Two Scatter Clouds? Following the same path? You think someone's got it in for us?”

Neil smiled. “You mean hostile aliens? Or a vengeful God? Or space gremlins? The universe isn't hostile, Sam. Just indifferent. The Universe is full of peril. Asteroids, supernovae, close encounters with other stars. The miracle is that our planet has remained untouched for over four billion years.”

Samantha nodded. “You coming in?” she asked.

“Just as quick as my car can get me there. See you in a couple of hours. I know there’s not much I can do there, but I just feel I need to be there! You know?”

“Will we see the data as it comes in?” asked John Paul.

“No-one can stop you getting the Copernicus data...”

“I meant the whole data. From everything. The EDN, ground telescopes, everything. We can run the data on the Acorn and compare it with what they come up with.”

“As the owner of one of the contributing instruments, I'm sure they'll include us in the data feed as a matter of courtesy, so long as we observe the rules of disclosure. You know how the Acorn compares with the ESA mainframe, though. Sandra's done a marvellous job on it and it’s ideal for what we use it for, but it’s no Barrington.” John Paul nodded, looking a little happier.

“See you soon, then.” Neil leaned forward to touch a control and the screen went dark.

Sam turned to John Paul. “Send the codes, John.”

He nodded and went back to his workstation. “Ten times bigger! Merde! The satellites they were able to save are all low on fuel now. The mule’s going from one to another, refuelling them, but it'll take months to do them all, and they'll be scattered much worse this time! We could lose pretty much everything we've got up there!”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The first one, the centre of it passed by a hundred thousand klicks above the earth. The next one, if it is a Scatter Cloud, might pass by outside the moon's orbit. We won't even know it’s there!”

“And what if it hits the earth? Something with a total mass ten percent that of the moon...”

“The earth is a tiny target compared to the spaces between the planets. A direct impact is extremely unlikely.”

“The first cloud was a hundred thousand klicks across! It's a lot easier to hit something with a shotgun than a rifle, and even the outer fringes of it could be devastating. Each component particle of the first cloud was about five millimetres across and weighed over a thousand tonnes. If we’re peppered even by just a few of them...”

“Let's worry when we've got something to worry about. It's not as though we can do anything about it anyway. If that thing's coming at us, the only thing we can do is make peace with the fact as best we can.”

The Frenchman nodded soberly. “If we’re all going to die, I don't think I'd want to know. Oh well...” He took the phone from his pocket and called the European Space Agency. Samantha heard him asking for Nina Doyle as she got up and left, her half written paper forgotten. All of a sudden, she felt an urgent need to be with her daughter.