He was outside in his shed one rainy Sunday morning, filing away at the end of a walking stick he was making, getting it ready so he could fit the metal ferrule to stop it wearing away when it was used. In his economy drive he had taken to spending more and more time in the shed, he had given up the TV as an extravagance he could live without, preferring listening to the radio or music. As soon as he had made that decision he had suddenly found he had even more spare time and so had taken up tinkering a lot more in his shed. He was currently making this new walking stick for his step dad. He was not very good, but it was satisfying work and as well as the hands on crafting it also meant he could combine his love of walking as well. He could spend hours, just rambling round the lanes and woodland nearby, Ben rummaging with him, scenting rabbits and squirrels as he looked for shanks that he would set aside to dry ready for the next year when they would be seasoned enough to use. It was another way for him to spend time outside, not that he needed many.
He had always lived in the country and had always spent a lot of spare time outside. He was a fair shot with an air rifle, preferring that method of hunting to the shot guns his step-father used. It was quieter and he had to get a lot closer to the animal he was stalking in order to make a clean safe shot. He just found it more satisfying. He had never been into lamping or the killing in large numbers of game, just enough for him and his dog to eat. It never seemed right to him to just kill for the sake of it. It was the same with fishing; he preferred fly fishing to worm drowning as he put it. It was more active and much more therapeutic he thought than just sitting on a back watching a float bobbing up and down. Plus it meant he did not need as much kit and he could travel light.
If the conditions were right, he could just sling the gear in the back of the Landy, some of it was always in there ready to go and he could head off to the river or lake he had in mind and just spend the day or the evening just fishing. It was that sort of freedom he was just not prepared to give up. His mum always asked him when he would settle down. As far as he was concerned he was settled.
He finished filing the piece of wood and picked up the ferrule for a trial fitting, it was a snug fit and required a gentle tap with a hammer to get it to seat securely.
“Perfect, just a bit of varnish now and then I can fit it properly.” He worked the ferrule off again and set the stick aside, and reached for the small tin of marine varnish he had for coating the ends of the sticks he made. Radio 4 was on constantly, he had a small radio in the shed, a wind up one that also ran off the mains if needs be. It went with him camping also as he liked to listen to it late at night to help him get off to sleep. The Archers were in full flow when all of a sudden it broke off; he had never heard them do this before.
“…We interrupt this broadcast with a breaking piece of news. Scientists with the SETI institute have reported a signal has been received that defies any natural explanation. It was received last week on Wednesday at their headquarters in California and has been worked on round the clock until they felt ready to go public with their results. An official spokesman for the institute said they were ninety nine point nine percent certain that this has not natural source and that it bore the signature of intelligence. The question of whether mankind is alone in the universe seems to have been answered. We will bring you more updates as and when they come in, and now we take you back to the Archers…”
Toby realised he was shaking. He had stopped mid movement, hand hovering on its way to the shelf where the varnish was. He had been reading science fiction since he was a young boy and this had always been the subject of dreams and fantasies for as long as he could remember. It was that much in his thoughts sometimes that he had had trouble for years camping on his own as his imagination would just get the better of him. Too many films watched and books read about alien abduction had left him nervous about being alone at night in the middle of nowhere.
It was the sort of thing he had hoped would happen one day, but really never truly thought it would. He immediately stopped what he was doing and dashed back into the house, Ben trotted along behind him, tail wagging in the rain as they made their way back up the short path from his small shed. Once inside he turned on his laptop and logged onto the BBC news website only to find it really slow.
Sorry, the page you were looking for is unavailable…
“Damn it, it was the same on 9/11, too many people trying to log on to it, eh Ben?” Toby hit the refresh button. This time it loaded, but very slowly.
The red ticker at the top of the page repeated what he had just heard and the link when he clicked on it said exactly the same thing, more news would be revealed later on as the details emerged.
“No point trying to watch the News 24 streaming, it will be dead with this many people trying to watch it. Wish I still had the TV. Never mind Ben, fancy a trip to go and see Mom?” He asked the dog.
Ben’s tail started wagging immediately, he knew what that meant and he was over at the door underneath the peg where his collar and lead where kept before Toby was even off the chair. He followed the dog, grabbed his wax jacket and cap off the peg and was out the door, dog, bounding up the steps to the pavement ahead of him. Rain pelting down onto the slick wet stones of the path.
The door to his Land Rover creaked as he opened it, the familiar smell of diesel and camping and fishing gear was as welcoming to him as anything else he could think of. The Key, worn with age and use turned easily in the ignition and the old diesel lump rumbled into life. Ben was sitting next to him in the middle seat, he had a habit of leaning in on him as he was driving, he suspected it was just to help him balance, but he liked to think it was for company. He pulled away, the road was always quieter on a Sunday and it was even quieter today. Possibly everyone is watching the news he thought, and then he remembered Wales was playing Ireland today in the Six nations. So they would be at home getting ready for the match to start.
The drive over to his mom and step dads’ house would only take twenty minutes or so, even in his slow old Landy. The rain was bouncing off the road and wind-screen, the less than effective wipers were struggling to keep up with the deluge. He took his time, there was no point in rushing.
The drive over to the house was normally a very pleasant one, with a fantastic view over the farm as he topped the hill on the back road over. On a good day he would quite often just stop and take in the view for a moment or two. Today was not a good day, the cloud was right down and the wind was driving the rain hard and horizontally off the sea. He could barely see the hedges to either side of the car in this weather. It was already steamed up inside, the heater, not efficient at the best of times, took ages to warm up and it was struggling with the moisture in the air. He had to keep leaning forward over the high steering wheel to wipe the window with the back of his hand so he could see out clearly. Not for the first time he was regretting not having a cloth in there to wipe it.
“Nearly there Ben… You never know, we may be in time for a bit of food, you know how mom is.” It was Sunday, she never failed to cook a roast and she never failed to cook way more than she or Dewi, his step dad could eat.
The swung up the lane to the short drive in front of the house where his mom and step dad lived. He and the dog jumped out and jogged round to the back where they were greeted by steam coming out of the open back door and the sound of his mom talking to Dewi. They were both slightly hard of hearing so they always spoke loudly.
“Hi mom, have you heard the news?” He asked her.
“No.” She replied “What’s been going on?” She suddenly looked all concerned. His mom, he knew, had a tendency to think the worst and panic a bit.
“Nothing bad mom, don’t worry, it’s really exciting actually.” He said.
“Dewi, put the telly on.” She shouted at the man sitting on one of the chairs surrounding the table in the kitchen.
Dewi, looked mildly confused for a while, as he always did when he was asked to do anything by his wife but with a long sighted squint at the remote control, he turned on the TV that was sat on top of an old oak dresser at the side of the room.
The news was on as Toby thought it would be.
“… Signal undoubtedly from an intelligent source…” A man was saying with an American accent. “It’s on a frequency we had sampled many times before in a region of space we had tried before, so we believe this has taken quite some time to get to us. Radio signals travel at the speed of light, so it has undoubtedly taken these signals a long time for us to reach us here on Earth.”
“What form are the signals in, can we hear them?” Asked the interviewer.
“Yes of course.” He turned and pressed a key on his computer. The sound that emanated made Toby tingle with excitement. He was finally listening to an alien species! It consisted of very low frequency modulated clicks and you could only describe them as warbles. Almost like a mixture of whale and dolphin calls but as if they had been digitised. The sound played for about 25 seconds and then stopped.
“We have heard that particular sequence transmitted 23 times in the last 76 hours, there are numerous other recordings coming in all the time now, we almost have too much to go on. We will be here for decades just analysing this one recording and we now have hundreds like this! The SETI scientist was obviously buzzing with excitement.
“Bloody hell!” Toby said, loudly.
“What does it mean? What are they on about?” His mother asked.
“Aliens mom, they are signals that are being picked up that are extra terrestrial.” He replied.
“Oh wow.” She said. Obviously a bit too unsure as to the significance of the news.
“It means mom, that we’re not actually alone in the universe, that there is life on other planets. You know all those books you used to complain about me reading, all those science fiction books? Well, it’s not science fiction any more mom, it looks like it's science fact.” He explained a bit more about it, simplifying what the scientists were saying for his mom and step dad. He may not have gotten straight A’s in his GCSE’s, but twenty odd years of reading science fiction books had actually given him a good basic grounding in physics and astrophysics.
He carried on talking and listening all the way through the roast chicken dinner his mom served up for them. After the Sunday lunch was finished, his step dad went straight out as was normal for him to either his shed or his small gun shop. Toby continued to sit and watch the news with his mom in the lounge. Cups of tea and puddings later and it was getting dark and time to go home. Nothing new was coming on the news and they were just repeating the same endless images and recordings on a seemingly endless loop now. The news for now was as up to date as it was going to be. He headed off back over the hill to his own snug little cottage.
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| Bedd Taliesin, Part Two |
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