ship arrive and it was obvious that their intelligence and capacity were far beyond anything we humans had managed to do, but it was still difficult to try and come to terms with the fact that alien contact had finally been made. So how did they communicate with us? How come they could speak English? Apparently they could speak all our major languages. That didn't ring true. It reminded me of the way all aliens in the original Star Trek series were always just humans with different coloured hair, skin, costumes or all three. It seemed a little far-fetched to believe they could speak our language word-perfect but, then again, they were obviously so technically advanced that maybe they really were capable of anything. If we could decipher ancient hieroglyphics when there was no-one left using them, why shouldn't they be able to work out what we're saying to each other when there are billions of us talking, writing and broadcasting all round the planet every minute of every day.
So why were they here?
Again, what I heard was plausible. It seemed that the massive ship was used primarily for mining and that the engines or reactors or something were damaged towards the end of the aliens' present mission. They couldn't get home, it was as simple as that. Our planet, I learned, was the closest with an atmosphere capable of sustaining them temporarily but what was close I wondered? A billion miles? A hundred billion miles? And I found myself wondering why, if these creatures really were so advanced, couldn't they just patch up their ship and limp home?
So they were stuck here. That was the short and the tall of it, they were stuck here with no means of getting back. Apparently they had called for help, but that help would be at least several months in arriving.
When the people on the television started harping on about the scientific importance of the visit and how mankind's destiny had been forever changed I got bored and switched the television off.
Chapter 7
Just after four o'clock that afternoon the telephone rang. It was Clare Austin, another one of the few close friends that I had made at the office where I used to work who I bothered to keep in touch with and who bothered to keep in touch with me. She made me laugh. In spite of all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, Clare sounded as down-to-earth as ever. She was the one person I'd spoken to who seemed still firmly anchored to the harsh realities of everyday life and who was unfazed and unconcerned by the alien arrival to the point of ignorance.
Now that I had been freed from the shackles of a regular job and a daily routine, my life had changed and I frequently found myself doing things which, a year ago, I wouldn't even have considered. When it came to Clare I had become a janitor of sorts. She lived alone with her daughter, Penny and I often helped her out by doing odd-jobs around her home for her. I'd change a plug, cut the hedge, fix a lock or, as she'd asked me this afternoon, put up a shelf. It wasn't that she couldn't do it, it was more just an excuse for us to get together. Today I welcomed the interruption. Sitting at home in front of the television I had nothing much to do except try and get over my lingering hangover. A visit to Clare's house would, I hoped, bring some life and purpose into a strange day that was badly in need of a kick-start.
After taking the call from Clare and getting my tools together I was out of the house in minutes. It was a bright, warm and pleasant late-summer day and I drove slowly along the part of the main street which ran parallel to the grey stone sea wall. Countless holiday makers drifted aimlessly across the road in front of me, dragging behind them their bucket-and-spade carrying, ice-cream licking kids. Although they were a pain in the backside to the locals throughout the summer months, the tourists contributed so much to the economy of the village that Thatcham would struggle to survive without them. They were a nuisance that we had to bear.
Today felt somehow different to most other days. There was a light and happy, almost carnival atmosphere in town and it felt more like the start of the summer season than the end.