The Cassandra Sanction

  Ben recognised the names from her research notes. ‘And that’s what ours is doing, too?’ he asked. He looked up at the sun, and had to shield his eyes with his hand. It looked pretty damn bright to him. But then, what did he know?

  Catalina nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, yes. Another way we can tell when the sun is entering a very quiet phase is when there’s an increase in GCRs, or galactic cosmic rays, which come from faraway parts of our galaxy and perhaps from other galaxies as well. When the sun’s energy dips, solar wind decreases—’

  ‘Solar wind?’ Raul interrupted, still in facetious mode. ‘Wind from the sun? I never felt anything.’

  Catalina shot him a look. ‘It’s not really a wind, that’s just what we call it. It’s a stream of electrically charged particles that make up something called the heliosphere, which we’re right in the middle of and which interacts with Earth’s magnetic field causing electrical phenomena like auroras. When it decreases in strength, it allows more of these galactic cosmic rays to enter our atmosphere, which causes all kinds of disruption. Screwing up satellites, for one. Right now, GCRs have reached the highest levels ever recorded. NASA has reported having more single-event satellite upsets than ever before. Then there’s the data from the GSCB.’

  ‘You people have more acronyms than the military,’ Ben said.

  ‘It stands for Great Solar Conveyor Belt. A huge circular current of very hot plasma within the sun. Consisting of two branches, one north and one south. Each of these takes about forty years to complete one circuit. It’s thought that the turning of this belt controls the sunspot cycle. Normally, the belt should rotate at one metre per second. I could show you more graphs—’

  ‘No,’ Raul said.

  ‘—Which illustrate how the belt’s motion has decelerated by up to sixty-five percent. NASA data confirms that it’s slowed to a record crawl. In fact, they’ve known about it for some time. They held an emergency conference in 2008 that confirmed it. Now, as the solar conveyor belt slows down, the solar wind will get weaker and weaker. One thing leads to another. More galactic cosmic rays will enter our atmosphere, and as well as damaging satellites they’ll also produce more cloud cover, which in turn will make the climate colder. A vicious circle, in effect. The more our star slows and weakens, the less of its energy reaches Earth. Are you following this? I’m making it as simple as I can.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ben said.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do to stop the process. Like a battery running down. Once its energy is sapped, you just have to replace it. Except that we can’t replace the sun’s energy, and that’s why we can’t simply rely on the ages-old cycle coming round again. Like I said, this is an unprecedented event, with serious implications for us all. As serious as it gets.’

  ‘You’re saying the sun is dying?’ Raul burst out.

  ‘Everything has to die some time,’ she replied.

  ‘Okay, everyone knows it can’t last forever. But that doesn’t happen for billions of years.’

  ‘One billion, give or take,’ Catalina said. ‘In its final stages the sun will give out one last great gasp of energy. It’ll become brighter and bigger, scorching the Earth to a cinder and boiling the oceans away to nothing. Then as it swells up even more, becoming a Red Giant, its mass will swallow up Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, the nearer planets in the solar system, or what’s left of them. Then its core will collapse as it finally dies. Ultimately it’ll end up as a lifeless, cold lump of carbon that we call a Black Dwarf.’

  ‘Right, so we still have a very, very long time,’ Raul said, waving his arms around. ‘You said yourself, millions and millions of years are just a blink of an eye in the big scheme of things. Who knows what amazing technology we could have by then, so we could escape this solar system and go and find another one that still has plenty of life left in it?’

  Catalina gazed at him sadly. ‘That’s just a wishful fantasy, Raul. The sun will go through many, many stages of evolution before any of that happens. What may be about to happen will be just one of them. And if I’m right, that could be all it takes.’

  He blinked. ‘All it takes for what?’

  ‘All it takes to finish us,’ she said. ‘To bring about the end.’

  Raul’s jaw dropped. ‘The end? The end?’

  ‘I’m not talking about the transient periods of cold climate that resulted from historical solar cycles. I’m not even talking about something like the last major Glacial Period, twelve thousand years ago. We came through that and survived. No. I’m talking about the very real possibility that the current solar cycle could be about to lead us into an ice age of the kind that hasn’t happened for an extremely long time. It could be a repeat of the Cryogenian Glaciation eight hundred million years ago, when the whole planet was covered in a layer of ice up to two kilometres thick. Snowball Earth, we call it. A super ice age lasting perhaps thousands of years. Certainly spelling the demise of human civilisation as we know it. Very probably, the end of human life altogether.’

  There was a silent lull in the room. Ben could hear the distant crashing of the breakers. Now he could understand why Catalina had built up to it so gradually. This kind of revelation wasn’t something you could feed to the uninitiated in one bite.

  Raul stared at his sister. ‘Have you lost your mind? This is crazy talk.’

  She shrugged. ‘We wouldn’t be the first species to become extinct as a result of catastrophic climate change.’

  ‘When? How soon?’

  ‘Projected timescale? I can’t say for sure,’ she replied. ‘Based on the scientific facts, it could be as soon as a hundred years from now.’

  ‘A hundred?’ Ben said.

  ‘Or even less,’ Catalina replied, in absolute earnest. ‘Of course, it wouldn’t happen overnight. It’s not as if we’d all waken up one day to find glaciers popped up in our front gardens, out of nowhere. The change will be gradual, taking over the planet bit by bit, degree by degree. Winters will start to get longer, summers shorter. There’ll still be sunny days. But slowly, even those will disappear. That’s when the bad times will really begin.’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Christ, you’re really serious about this, aren’t you?’ Ben said after a long moment.

  ‘And I’m not the only one who takes it seriously,’ Catalina replied. ‘Someone out there knows it’s true and will do anything to stop it getting out. That’s why they want to shut me up. That’s why they want me dead.’

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Later that day, Keller showed Ben and Raul to the guest accommodation on the fifth floor of the lighthouse. The guest floor was partitioned into two compact, self-contained, semi-circular units each consisting of a bedroom, a small living area and an even smaller bathroom. But what they lacked in size, they made up for in modern comforts. Left alone, Ben discovered that Keller’s men had already brought up his bag and left it neatly on the bed. He wondered if all their abductees got such five-star service.

  He tossed the bag aside, stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes for a few minutes. He had a bewildering amount of information to process after listening to Catalina talk. It was going to take some time to sink in fully.

  After a long, cool shower, he returned downstairs. Raul, Catalina and Keller were nowhere about. Ben stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine. He shielded his eyes, squinted up at the sun and thought about what Catalina had said. It seemed strange to imagine its fires slowly dying. He could feel its warmth on his face. One day, people would stand looking at it the way he was now, and feel nothing from it at all. That was a sad, comfortless thought.

  The island was very quiet, just the constant whisper of the surf breaking the silence. Keller’s men were nowhere in sight either; he supposed they must be in their residential block, busy doing whatever they did to bide their time in their boss’s paradise hideaway, or maybe preparing to head back to London to resume the surveillance vigil over Mike McCauley’s home.

  Ben walked over to the r
ow of four Jeep Wranglers parked nearby. All four sets of keys were dangling from their ignitions. He didn’t suppose that car crime was much of an issue on Icthyios. He didn’t suppose anybody would miss one of the Jeeps for a few minutes, either. He climbed behind the wheel of the nearest one and fired up the engine. Nobody came rushing out to stop him, or demand to know where he was going. Perhaps that was just because there weren’t many places he could go.

  He followed the twisting, undulating road over the brow of the island and down towards the beach at its low-lying end. Where the road met the airstrip, he pulled up on the asphalt near the hangar in which Keller’s plane was housed. The roll shutter had been left open; he could see the pearly-white nose of the aircraft inside, and the drums of kerosene and pumping system used for refuelling. Getting out of the Jeep, he looked across the little wooden jetty and saw a lone figure sitting facing away from him at its far end, gazing pensively out to sea.

  Catalina.

  He walked over the sand to the jetty, stepped onto the weathered planks and approached her. Hearing his footsteps, she turned and smiled.

  ‘Hello again,’ she said. ‘Exploring the island?’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of going for a run on the beach,’ he said.

  ‘You look like a runner.’

  ‘It relaxes me,’ he said.

  ‘Care to join me for a moment?’ she asked.

  ‘If I’m not disturbing you.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ she replied, and motioned at the empty space beside her.

  He got the feeling she didn’t want to speak about the things she’d talked about earlier. As he sat beside her, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the jetty the way hers were, he resolved not to mention any of it. The end of the world couldn’t be a difficult conversational subject to skirt around.

  Below their feet, the water swirled and slapped gently around the wooden support posts. ‘Peaceful here,’ he said.

  ‘I come down here a lot,’ Catalina said. ‘I’ve covered every inch of this island on foot. This is my favourite spot, where I just sit and gaze out to sea. It’s not as if I have a lot else to do these days,’ she added.

  Ben gazed across the Aegean. It was bright and blue, smooth and flat all the way to the horizon. He could see the slightly larger island a few kilometres away.

  ‘That’s Sárla,’ she said, following his eye. ‘Our only near neighbours.’

  Ben nodded and spent a few more moments drinking in the view. ‘I love the sea,’ he said. ‘I had a house in Galway, right on the Atlantic coast. Used to spend a lot of time there, just like this, looking out at the ocean.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Ireland.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. Wilder than here. This place reminds me of it, even though it’s so different. I had my own little bit of beach and a big old flat rock I used to sit on. I did an awful lot of thinking on that rock.’

  ‘Sounds like you miss the place.’

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I ever left.’

  She smiled again, sadly. ‘I know the feeling.’

  Ben looked at her, said nothing. Her hair stirred in the breeze. She was pensive for a while, and Ben went back to gazing out to sea. In the distance, a tiny white dot against the blue water caught the sunlight as a vessel emerged from behind the island of Sárla, trailing an even tinier thread of white wake. He shaded his eyes from the sun to observe it.

  ‘That’s the closest I normally get these days to seeing a living soul apart from Austin and his men,’ Catalina said, pointing. ‘It’s the ferry from Karpathos. It goes back and forth, carrying supplies, mail, the occasional party of tourists. We get nothing like that here, of course.’

  Ben asked, ‘How many people live on Sárla?’

  ‘Only a few hundred,’ she replied. ‘Mostly fishermen and their families. So I’m told, that is. I’ve never been there, and I don’t suppose I ever will. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever go anywhere again.’

  She bowed her head, and a moment later Ben realised she was crying softly. ‘I feel so alone,’ she whispered. She sniffed, wiped her eyes and composed herself with a visible effort. ‘Please forgive me. I must look awful.’

  ‘You look fine,’ Ben said. Which was an understatement. Even streaked with tears, the perfection of her face took his breath away.

  ‘What must you think of me, crying like a little girl?’

  ‘You should see me, sometimes. I get through whole boxes of tissues. That’s before I even get onto the kilo tubs of chocolate ice cream. It’s pathetic.’

  She laughed, brightening up, and touched his arm. ‘You’re anything but pathetic.’ She smiled. ‘Thank you for being here, talking to me. I’m sorry for what I said before.’

  ‘That we’re all going to freeze to death?’

  ‘No, I mean, when we first met. I called you an idiot.’

  ‘You might have been right. First impressions, and all that.’

  She chuckled, shook her head.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I was just thinking that this is the first real conversation I’ve had with anybody in months.’

  ‘You must have conversations with Austin.’

  ‘We exchange points of view. It’s hardly the same.’ She looked at him, studying him with a deep gaze. ‘It’s funny; I feel I can really talk to you, even though I don’t know anything about you.’

  ‘I’m just Ben. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Because you won’t say?’

  ‘Because there really isn’t all that much to say.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a moment. Tell me, Just Ben. What kind of man would risk himself to help a perfect stranger find their lost relative?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s what I do, I suppose. Or used to do. Maybe old habits die hard.’

  ‘Used to? You mean, professionally?’

  ‘A lot of the time, there was no other option for people in that position.’

  ‘How did you help them?’ she asked.

  ‘In whatever way was necessary,’ he replied.

  ‘Are you a detective? A cop? Or should I say, an ex-cop? I suppose you’d have arrested me otherwise. I must have broken a hundred laws in doing what I did.’

  He had to laugh. ‘A cop is the last thing I am.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re the type,’ she said, studying him. ‘A soldier, maybe. I could see that.’

  He gave a shrug. ‘That’s a little closer to the mark. Once upon a time, at least.’

  ‘And what about now?’

  ‘Retired.’

  Her eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘I understand, old man. Lots of retired folks go to live in Frigiliana. For the peace and quiet. That’s where you met Raul, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s not quite why I was there,’ he replied. ‘I like to travel around. It was just a chance thing.’

  ‘I’m glad, whatever the reason. I need to thank you again for looking after him. He means the world to me.’

  ‘Raul’s a good guy,’ Ben said. ‘The best.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ Catalina said, then she smiled. ‘I remember how my mother used to get so worried about him when we were little. She always said that Raul had a devil on his shoulder. I was the quiet one, who never got into any trouble. Look at us now.’

  ‘He kept on believing he’d find you, even when everything seemed to go against him. Even when everyone thought he was crazy. That kind of faith and devotion are rare.’

  ‘What about you, Ben? Did you think he was crazy, too?’

  ‘The thought occurred to me a few times,’ Ben admitted. ‘But I was wrong to think it. You’re very lucky to have a brother like him.’

  ‘I know I am. Where is he now?’

  ‘Catching up on lost sleep,’ Ben said, backpointing in the direction of the lighthouse with his thumb. ‘I don’t think he’s had much peace of mind in the last three months.’

  ‘My fault,’ she said. ‘A lot of things are my fault.’

  ?
??You were only trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘And now it’s over.’

  He looked at her. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Do?’ She shrugged. ‘What else is there for me to do but stay here? Like an exile. Stuck in a cage.’

  ‘A gilded cage,’ he said.

  ‘Still a cage.’

  ‘There are worse ways to spend your life,’ he said. ‘Napoleon lived in grand luxury when they exiled him on Elba in 1814. Household staff, personal guard a thousand strong, fine wine, beautiful residence.’

  ‘And then he escaped.’

  ‘Yes, he did. It must have felt good, to be free again. But it only lasted for a hundred days, before they flattened him at Waterloo.’

  ‘You’re saying he should have stayed on Elba.’

  ‘Better than where he ended up, made an example of and living in a crummy shack on St Helena, wishing they’d just put a musket ball in him and be done with it.’

  She smiled. ‘You know your history.’

  ‘Some. What’s that saying? Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’

  ‘Would you choose a cage?’ she asked after a beat.

  Ben shook his head. ‘Not me. I would have done exactly what he did, busted out of house arrest and taken my chances at Waterloo.’

  ‘Death or glory.’

  ‘Then again, I’m not that smart.’

  ‘I think you are,’ she said. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘That just proves it. You don’t know me.’

  Catalina shook her head. ‘I can tell a lot about people. You’re a decent man. You risked yourself for my brother, and for me. You’re obviously educated, sensitive. A little sad, maybe. Are you lonely? Is there anyone?’

  He looked at her. ‘You mean, as in, “anyone special”?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s a very horrible expression, isn’t it?’