CHAPTER 4
WELCOME TO PARDOO
A week had passed since the discovery of the asteroid and the President, under repeated instruction from his advisors, had decided not to inform the world. They would wait four days and continue to examine the trajectory of this increasingly menacing harbinger of catastrophe. Maybe they were mistaken, and as it approached the earth, their calculations would more accurately determine a near-miss scenario. He was sat at his desk watching a live feed from the Hubble Space Telescope. The asteroid was close enough now to receive a clear image. It was impossible to fully appreciate the scale, but he was able to clearly see the shape of the rock. It was not spherical like the moon, but was a more irregular shape, rather like a rugby ball with rounded ends and a few unsightly bulges at various points around it. The surface resembled that of the moon, in that it was heavily marked by craters. The sun was shining on the right hemisphere of the asteroid and this created menacing shadows across the flank. It was spinning around the vertical axis once every 27 minutes, so it had obviously been hit very hard by whatever object had set it on its present course.
President Daniels shook his head and looked away from the screen. He found himself mesmerised, looking into the eye of an unstoppable killer that would erase humanity from existence. His advisers had warned that the ensuing chaos if it became general knowledge would be inconceivable. Society would totally collapse. They could not even rely on the army to keep order, as the soldiers would be presented with the same feeling of hopelessness. How could you expect anyone to fight for something that was about to end? If they then found out that it was going to miss, it would have all been for nothing.
The newly formed Asteroid Comity would sit on the knowledge of the impending end of the world until three days before impact, and if it was then confirmed, they would inform the public. This would give everyone time to say their farewells. If it was going to hit, it was going to hit; there was nothing they could do. After all, this wasn’t some Hollywood movie where they could launch an A-list celebrity into space to destroy it with a toothpick and a can opener. It was extremely real and it was heading towards Earth at 60,000 kilometres per hour. Although, as one scientist pointed out, to his downfall, a more precise assessment would be that it was crossing the earth’s orbit travelling at some 40,000 kilometres per hour and the earth was going to slam into it, travelling as it does at 108,000 kilometres per hour around the sun. The resulting impact, allowing for the angle of the asteroid’s trajectory and the orbital path of the earth, would result in an impact of around 60,000 kilometres per hour. He wasn’t invited to speak again. In fact, a more precise assessment would be to say that he was instructed to never speak again.
Two days before, President Daniels had attended a meeting with the top scientists in the country. Doctor Conway had been flown in from GASP. As the person who discovered the rock and the foremost expert in the world on all things asteroidal, he was expected to have some magical insights into how this problem might be solved. He had calculated the possible effect of ten nuclear missiles impacting the surface of the asteroid. There were only ten rockets in existence powerful enough to leave the earth’s atmosphere and intercept the rock at a safe distance, but in every computer simulation the resultant explosion merely dented the surface and the asteroid continued relentlessly on its present course. It was too big and it was travelling too fast for any technology known to man to have any effect on it. The bottom line was that if this giant rock was actually heading directly for Earth - and the odds for that had now increased to 97% - it would hit and there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it.
Against all the cries of “you’re wasting your time Mr President,” President Daniels ordered the rockets to be made ready for launch. After all, even the minutest chance was better than no chance at all and these rockets and bombs were going to have even less effect sat in their silos. The President was informed that the rockets would be ready for launch the following day and would intercept the asteroid approximately six million kilometres from Earth. It was impossible to hide a ten-missile launch, so they had to come up with a cover story. The President informed the world powers that they were sending up ten new GPS satellites that would enhance the quality of the global positioning system to within one centimetre across the globe. No one really believed him and there followed a few days of furious diplomatic exchanges between the superpower states of Earth.
But the rockets blasted off on schedule from a top-secret missile base in the Nevada desert. They left the earth’s atmosphere with a final burn, sending them around the earth and accelerating them to a previously unattained speed of 60,000 kilometres per hour, they blasted into space on their five day journey to intercept the asteroid. Everyone with knowledge of the asteroid was kept under close guard with no access to the outside world, and as several more observatories across the globe made the same discovery, they too were silenced.
Totally unaware of the impending devastation, Stephan had caught a plane back to London to make a report to his department at the Natural History Museum. He had no idea what he was going to say, but word had got back to them from some source; he was sure it wasn’t Jaff. As he entered the Egyptology Department, he caught a glimpse of himself in the antique Moorish mirror that had been a gift from Jaff two years previously, and he concluded from the image of the hobo-like character staring back at him, that after this meeting he should get some rest. He entered his uncle’s office and was ushered to sit in front of the panel of stern looking academics.
“I’m certain that you know why you’re here Stephan,” said Sir Rupert Evert, head of the department,
“He just disappeared Uncle,” said Stephan, refusing the offer of a seat, instead choosing to lean on the desk with both hands in an act of defiance. “One second he was there, twenty metres up the passage, and the next he was gone. I cannot explain it any better than that. It was as though the floor opened up and swallowed him.”
“Hmm,” growled Sir Rupert, gazing intently at Stephan over the top of his half-moon spectacles. “And who exactly was this young fellow that led you to disobey operating protocol?”
Stephan explained how he’d met him on the plane and that he seemed like a nice chap and, let’s face it, everyone disobeyed protocol. They sat in silence, listening attentively and when he had finished, offered him two weeks paid leave to ‘pull himself together.’ Stephan didn’t utter a single word about Oli’s phone call, or for that matter the streak of silver that appeared from beside the pyramid and shot out into space. He figured that he was sounding barmy enough without adding little green men to the equation. Sir Rupert followed Stephan out of the stuffy room and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him to a halt.
“I’m sure the young lad will turn up sooner or later Stephan,” he reassured him. “He’s probably just playing a practical joke on you. Now go and have some rest. I know,” he exclaimed, turning to place his other hand on Stephan’s right shoulder, “why don’t you spend a few days in Cornwall? It’ll be good for the old place to have some company for a while. It’s been lying empty for well over a year.”
He reached into his voluminous pocket and pulled out a huge bunch of keys. After what seemed like an eternity of sifting through the multitude of chinking pieces of metal, he began to push a pair of ancient looking keys around the ring that secured them to the bunch. Stephan knew that these were the keys to his uncle’s country retreat located on the cliffs of Cornwall, looking out to the stormy Atlantic Ocean. Stephan had many fond memories of spending weekends at this sprawling country house as a child. It was every child’s dream house, with thousands of hiding places and grounds that you could get lost in for days on end. There were, apparently, secret tunnels under the house connecting with old tin mines, but Stephan had never been allowed to explore those for obvious reasons.
“Thanks Uncle,” said Stephan, reaching for the keys, “I may just do that.”
Stephan spent that night in his flat in Chelsea, attempting to reach the bottom of a bottle of vodka. After several hours of such abuse, he fell into a drunken sleep on his couch. He hadn’t slept properly for five days and he remained in the same position for fifteen hours, where he awoke the following afternoon, feeling as though he might expire at any minute. Stephan was never really much of a drinker. When he was at university, his friends would invite him to parties knowing full well that he would fall asleep after a few drinks and would become someone else’s responsibility.
He immediately assumed that he’d dreamt the whole thing but that blissful state only lasted a few seconds. He came to the disappointing conclusion that there was nothing more he could do. He might as well accept his uncle’s offer, head off to Cornwall and hope that Oli would turn up sometime, somewhere. At that moment his phone rang. He stumbled out of the chair, struggling at first to operate the lever to move the recliner into the upright position. He kicked over the almost empty bottle of vodka and reached for the receiver.
“Yes, Stephan here,” he said, his gravelly voice exposing the fact that he’d also consumed an entire packet of cigarettes. He grimaced as out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the repulsive sight of the overflowing ashtray.
“Hi Stephan, it's Oli.”
“Oli? Where the hell are you? What the hell happened? Where the hell are you?” Stephan was aware that he was shouting, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“I'm fine.”
Stephan was sure he heard Oli whispering.
“Who are you talking to? Where are you?” shouted Stephan.
“Everything’s fine Stephan. I’ve been away for a few days but I’m on my way home now. I should be back in about five days and I promise to tell you everything. See you soon.” And with that, the phone went dead. Stephan dialled 1471, for the service that identifies the number, but the recorded voice simply notified him that the caller had withheld their ID.
*
“I think we should also call someone in authority on Earth,” Oli said. “If they’ve seen that rock coming towards them, they’re going to be flapping.”
“They have detected it Oli, but they’ve decided not to tell anyone until they’re certain that it will hit. We have a few days before we need to make that call.”
Oli’s eyes returned to the screen where the parrots had just reached the edge of the forest. About a kilometre ahead, there was a sudden eruption of colour from the tree tops as the entire population of the city, whom Oli later found out were mostly named Pardy, had come out to welcome the visitors. Pardy was jumping from claw to claw in her excitement. As they approached a clearing in the forest, about one hundred metres across, Oli could hear the patter of thousands of little claws on the top of the ship.
“I do hope they don’t plan to welcome us again,” said Robbie, sounding like an old maid who had just completed a spring clean.
Pardy pointed with a wing to the clearing. Oli heard the clunk of the legs and the ship descended into the canopy to touch down on a bright green meadow not much bigger than a tennis court.
“Why don’t you come with me, Robbie?” asked Oli. “If you can see and hear through the drone, you might enjoy it.”
“I was going to Oli,” Robbie said as the dust on the floor gathered by the control room door and began to take shape. “You don’t think that I would let you go into an alien environment alone, do you?”
The cargo bay door opened and Oli looked out to a sea of green and red circling above, filling the entire clearing and blocking out the sky. Pardy was standing on his shoulder, waving her wing at one of her friends who had flown down to see the spectacle.
“Everyone is very excited Oli.” she said, dancing on the spot. “You’re the first visitor to our city.”
“Visitors,” stated Robbie.
They walked down the gangway and Oli felt the soft vegetation underfoot. It was similar to grass, but the blades were much thicker, it was like walking on a very expensive shag-pile carpet. There were no squawking sounds as you would expect from thousands of parrots, just lots of chatter.
Oli heard, “Oh look, isn’t it big!” and “what’s that behind it?” He pointed out to Pardy that he was the male of his species and the word “it” was not really very complimentary. She looked shocked and asked why his people had sent a male to do a females work. Oli just made a ‘you've got me there’ gesture with his hands. She explained that the females ruled the parrot civilisation and made all the important decisions; the males were just for breeding, working and cleaning. Something strange had happened in the cloning process and the female offspring were forty percent more intelligent than the males. Oli explained as they walked towards the forest, that on Earth, male and female humans were usually equal, but up until recent history, males were in charge. Pardy found this very amusing and couldn’t wait to tell the others.
They walked into the thick forest. There were no pathways so the drone moved ahead, formed a metre-long curved blade out of one arm and cleared the way. That drone would be very handy in a punch up, thought Oli. It swiped and slashed its way through the undergrowth. At one point the blade impacted on something hard, the drone bent down, thrust its hand into the foliage and lifted out one end of a massive log. It held aloft the end, which Oli was sure must have weighed at least half a tonne, and tossed it to one side as though it were discarding an unwanted stick. Pardy and Oli exchanged looks. Neither was really sure whether to be impressed or concerned. They continued through the bush for another ten minutes when Pardy announced proudly, “Here we are Oli, the city of Pardoo.”
Now Oli didn’t want to be unimpressed by their efforts of the last twelve thousand years, but it just looked like a load of bushes and tree trunks.
“Mm!” he hummed. “Very…ah…”
“Not there Oli,” she said, “up in the trees.”
Oli bent his neck back as far as it would go.
“Wow!” he exclaimed as the sight of the parrot city filled his view.
Covering all the trees, from about twenty metres up to the top of the canopy, there were little houses and much larger structures; well large if you were a parrot. The buildings were beautifully made, with such ornate designs that would put a Thai temple to shame, and they were painted in all the colours of the rainbow. The city was a master class in building within the environment, as all the buildings seemed to emerge, seamlessly from the trees. Linking all the trees was a maze of transparent tubes about the width of a water slide. They criss-crossed each other, curved around trees and disappeared vertically into the canopies up the sides of every tree that he could see. There were thousands of these tubes connecting thousands of trees. Oli squinted to see something moving in one of the tubes, and then he realised it was a train, about twenty metres long and travelling at a considerable speed. Once he'd become accustomed to the sight of one train, he realised that there were hundreds of similar vehicles silently careering through the tubes. One such train plummeted down the closest vertical tube and stopped at the end, just a few metres above his head. The vehicle inside the tube was as transparent as the tube itself and it was full of parrots, standing on gimbled perches. Oli gave them a wave and as one, they raised their wings to return the greeting. In the darkness of the forest, the light from buildings shimmered as the wind blew the branches and leaves.
“It’s stunning,” said Oli, getting a stiff neck, like a tourist visiting New York City for the first time.
“Thank you Oli,” said Pardy, also with her head tilted back. “We’re very proud of it.”
“How many parrots live here?” asked Oli.
“Oh, there are about two million living in Pardoo, but we have other cities around the planet.”
Oli questioned, if they had the ability to build such a city, why they didn’t have planes. Pardy explained that they did have machines that flew at great speed, but they simply loved to fly au naturelle and only used the machines to visit other cities around the planet. But this was a rare occurrence, because they had all they needed right here. All of the technology that was utilised in the city had been lifted from the ancient city. They had been living like this for two thousand years and were really quite contented with their lot.
“What do you use for money?” asked Oli.
“Money? What’s money?”
“Money,” he reiterated, rubbing his thumb and first two fingers together, expecting the repetition of the same word to make it more easily understood.
“How did you pay for all this? How did you pay the builders who built it?”
“We just built it,” said Pardy, looking more confused than ever. “Nobody needed…what did you call it?...Paying? It just got built. If a young parrot wants to leave home and join with another parrot, everyone gets together and builds them a home. If the city needs a new building, we all come together and build it. I’m sorry Oli, I don’t understand what you mean by money.”
“Wow,” said Oli.
Pardy explained that she wanted desperately to show Oli the inside of the city, but it was impossible; he was too big. She explained that he would meet the elders in the sports arena, which was in the centre of the city. They continued through the undergrowth with the drone hacking at the bushes. The parrots paid no attention to anything below about ten metres above the ground. They lived in the trees and never went for walks along the ground, so it was totally overgrown. Oli kept on tripping over branches on the ground because he was constantly craning his neck to take in the view. He walked right under one building that occupied an entire tree, from the height of his four-storey block of flats in Fulham, right to the canopy two hundred metres above. The building snaked around the trunk like a giant python slithering its way to the canopy. Another tree had about twenty disk-shaped structures, the largest one of which enveloped the mighty trunk, twenty metres from the ground. The disks lay horizontally, decreasing in size as they rose up the tree, with lift tubes connecting all the disks. Oli became transfixed, watching the lifts going up and down. He wished that he could drink a little bottle of liquid that made him shrink so that he could explore the city. But his name was not Alice, even though this place could quite easily carry the moniker; Wonderland.
“What happens when the trees grow Pardy?” asked Oli.
“The biggest trees stopped growing hundreds of years ago,” she replied. “If we build on a tree that is still growing, we build expanding joints into everything and so the buildings grow with the trees.”
“Smart,” said Oli, nodding his head approvingly.
Oli could see an area of light materialising from the forest ahead. He was still looking up and had noticed that there were many more buildings than before and he assumed that they must be near the centre. Some of the trees were completely covered with buildings, but still blended perfectly with the surrounding forest. As they entered the area of light, Oli let out another “woaw.” Four giant trees, half a kilometre high with trunks as wide as a house, had been stripped of all their branches except for the canopy where they met. They were curved into each other from each corner of an opening in the forest. The opening was the size of a football stadium and the giant trees appeared to be connected to each other at the top. There were thousands of rows of thin, curved sticks arcing between the four trees. As the place began to fill from above, Oli realised that these were the perches.
“This is the sports arena Oli. We play many games here, but the favourite is called wingsphere.”
Oli listened as Pardy described the game. He prided himself on being the biggest anti-fan of football that it was possible to be and was really quite fed up with hearing nothing but football from his friends, on the television and in fact, everywhere he looked. He was constantly bombarded with images of over-paid and over-manicured idiots in shorts. The thought that it might be a universal sport was giving him the jitters.
The game, Pardy explained, was played with a weightless sphere that was buoyant in air, a technology that they had taken from an Annenian cargo trailer. There were two teams, fifty players in each, with two rectangular goals, about two metres wide, halfway between the ground and the top of the trees. The parrots used their wings to hit the ball, which in flight, required a huge amount of skill. Windsphere was played and loved by all the parrots; male and female and Pardy proudly explained that she used to play for her local school’s team. The arena would usually be surrounded by netting to prevent the ball from escaping, but Pardy told Oli that it was out of season now and another game was played at this time of year. A game that she really didn’t understand. The game was played with a different shaped ball and you were allowed to pick it up and fly with it. She looked at him and threw her head back with a tutting sound. Oli’s only possible response, was a blank look with one raised eyebrow.
She instructed him to walk over to the far side of the arena where the elders were gathered on a circular platform, surrounding the lowest part of the tree, about two metres from the ground. All the trees were now covered with birds. There wasn’t a single free perch in the arena. The stadium couldn’t hold the entire population of the city, but every parrot wanted to see the human visitor, so the sky above the stadium was awash with the colours of thousands of birds. As Oli reached the balcony of the elders, one of them held out a wing and the noise of the crowd slowly died down.
“Welcome to Pardoo,” said the parrot in the middle of the group of five.
“Thanks very much,” said Oli. “I love your city.” He thought about extending an arm, but it would probably be viewed as somewhat undignified for an elder to go climbing all over their first guest from another planet.
“My name is Pardy, and I am the premier of this city. Can you tell me why you have come here?”
Oli explained about the Annenians, the pyramid, the asteroid and his need to get back fairly soon to prevent disaster. He became quite animated as he was telling the story, especially when he realised that his voice was being broadcast around the stadium. The premier explained how they knew about the Annenians and the Hamans on Earth. They had finally managed to operate some of the Annenian machines and retrieved a few records. It had been a bit of a shock at first because they once believed that the supreme parrot had created them. They worshipped her and gave thanks for their lives. So when they discovered that they had come from a single bird that was genetically altered to make them what they are today, they had to rethink somewhat. Oli knew all this but let the premier have her moment. He just gave a little wink to Pardy and heard her giggle in his ear.
The parrots embraced the philosophy that they should live, be happy and once a year give thanks to their creators. So on the longest day of the year, they had a huge party in honour of the Annenians. They had managed to use some of the technology to construct their cities but they hadn’t ventured out into space, although they knew that the Annenians travelled to other planets. There didn’t really seem much point when they had everything that they could ever need right where they were. Oli congratulated them on their magnificent city and said that when he had more time he would like to come back and visit again. He could feel Pardy’s little feet dancing on his shoulder, and it was obvious that she wanted to say something, so he turned his head to one side to look at her.
“Do you think...ahm...it would be possible...ahm...for me to come back to Earth with you? I would so love to see it.”
Pardy could remember her school days, when she was the only parrot who showed any interest in learning about the stars. They had little knowledge of how the universe worked but she knew one thing, and that was that one day she wanted to travel out there amongst the stars as the Annenians had once done.
“Well, I don’t have a problem with that. Do you Robbie?” He turned the other way to look at the drone that was standing by his side.
“If she wants to come, she can Oli, but I don’t know when we’ll be coming back this way again. It may be some time.”
Oli had drifted off, wondering from which part of the drone the voice was emanating. The parrot elders were craning their necks, trying to see what had captured the attention of the strange Haman.
“Excellent!” he said, eventually, once again devoting his full attention to the matter in hand. “It’ll be great to have you along, that’s if it’s okay with your elders.”
He glanced up at the five elders, who were whispering to each other. Finally, the premier held up a wing and they all looked at Oli.
“Yes, yes, yes, of course, that’ll be fine,” she said, dismissively waving a wing towards Pardy as though shooing away an irksome insect. Maybe if you get this travel bug out of your system you might settle down a bit.” Oli later discovered that the premier was Pardy’s aunty, and she was always despairing at Pardy’s inability to concentrate on any subject for more than a few minutes.
“And when you return,” the premier continued, “we’ll have a big party.”
Oli was starting to suspect that all they ever did here was play games and have parties. He was definitely coming back. With that, the premier picked up a stick with her claw. The stick had a soft round ball on one end and she made a move to hit a tiny gong that was hanging behind her. Oli wondered who was going to hear the minute sound that would surely spring from such a tiny instrument. The premier drew back her stick, waited a second and then swung at the tiny gong with all her might. The deafening sound that emerged seemed to radiate from all around the stadium. The trees shook and the bushes rustled. The very ground on which Oli was standing, appeared to take part in the audio avalanche.
Looks can be deceiving, he thought.
All at once, lavishly costumed parrots appeared from all around the stadium. Some were trailing banners behind them as they flew; some were performing aerobatics, zigzagging in and out of each other with long multi-coloured tails of fabric mimicking their every move. The music that was now filling the air was largely percussion-based and Oli could feel his right foot starting to follow the beat. He then realised, at the far end of the stadium, the music was being played by a live band. He counted about fifty parrots all banging away on unfeasibly small bongos, some with their claws and others with their beaks. The instruments were tiny and yet the sound was filling the stadium and the forest around it. So they have discovered the joys of amplification, he grinned. Next to the drummers, was another smaller group of musicians blowing into long pipes. The bases of the pipes were resting on the ground a couple of metres below the perches and the parrots were leaning forward and blowing into them. Each pipe had three other parrots moving up and down the length of the instrument, apparently covering various holes with pads that were attached to their claws and wing tips. All their movements on the pipes were exquisitely choreographed. The sound of these pipes was similar to something that Oli had once heard at a medieval music festival, but much louder. By now, Oli was fully immersed in the whole affair and was dancing around in front of the premier like a flee in a jar. Pardy was holding on with all her might, as Oli’s gyrations did their best to topple her.
Oli’s dancing technique was in no way elegant. His arms and legs flailed around him, but it had always been highly infectious. He could be the only person dancing in a club, but within a few minutes of him firing up the move machine, you could guarantee the dance floor would start to fill.
Oli looked up and he could see all the parrots on the perches around the stadium also dancing and swaying. The effect created a rippling movement of green and red throughout the enormous structure. Even the parrots who couldn’t get a perch were dancing in the air above the stadium. What a party, thought Oli. It went on for about half an hour with more aerobatics, music and colourful displays, then all of a sudden, the flying birds disappeared through the top of the four trees and the music stopped.
“Wow,” said Oli, his arms open wide towards the parrot premier, “you guys know how to put on a show.”
“Well, we don't get many guests,” said the premier, “so we wanted to make you feel welcome.”
“That you have my friend. That you have.”
They said their farewells. Oli waved both arms in the air whilst turning to face every part of the arena and to the cheers of the thousands of parrots overhead they left and walked back down the freshly created track towards the ship. Pardy darted off into the trees to say goodbye to her mother and sister and when Oli and the drone reached the ship she was already there, waiting at the top of the gangway, fidgeting enthusiastically. Her mother was fussing away next to her, telling her to be careful and to come home soon whilst rearranging her head feathers. Her sister, who was only an infant, was looking into the ship and dancing with such excitement that she deposited a little message on the gangway. Oli chuckled as he heard Robbie’s groan from inside the ship.
After a brief tour of the ship for Pardy’s family they said their farewells, and Mrs. Pardy and her youngest daughter hopped off the gangway, allowing it to close.
“Right,” said Oli, “home James.”
“I could be mi