The Wall Story

The Wall 5

Albert Aldman held the bowl and tapper gingerly. His hand shook as his eyes met the hazel of his wife's: he saw nervousness. Around them stood thirty of his descendants, a fraction of the population of 'Aldman' town.

The voice of Helen was timid. "We should be doing this tomorrow, we're scheduled for Hartmann work now."

Aldman snorted. "We have to work out how to finance the wall. Without the Bakers... anyway Patrick's ok, I'll have a word with him. I'll tell him we'll make up the hours some other time."

The people positioned around Albert in the living room of 'first' house stared at the objects in his hands.

Helen said: "Just because you fool people into believing you plan the route of the wall with that bowl and tapper, Albert, doesn't mean you have to start believing they have strange powers yourself. We need to be rational today."

Albert met the gaze of those around him and many of them shifted uncomfortably. When he finished his sweep of the room and again met the stare of his wife, he saw fear there.

"We've tried rationality. We've tried logic. We haven't got enough money left to fund the wall to completion. We can't raise anymore money either. It's time to take an un-rational approach."

"A nonsense approach."

Albert sighed. "Many of you don't know how I came about this bowl and this tapper, do you? I never bothered to tell you. You probably think they came from an age-artificer. You know I went to age-artificers and asked them about these things and they told me that the things must be genuinely old because no one is capable of this degree of realism in aging, as this moment in time. It's not scientifically possible. Do you know the problem with the artificer's reply?"

He asked no one in particular.

Robert Aldman, his nephew twice removed said. "They're too small."

"Exactly," said Albert. "They're our scale and things our scale have only been created for the last hundred and seventy years..."

"Advanced things our scale," interjected Robert, "Nano-objects were made up to another thirty years before that."

"Fine!" said Albert, feeling the blood raise in his face. "Let's make it a round two hundred years shall we?"

Robert smiled weakly and nodded. "Two hundred years of nano-technology and I've got two objects here which are over a thousand years old. Explain that!"

Puzzled expressions formed. No-one spoke.

"I think they're evil!" blurted out Helen.

"Not you too!" snorted Albert. "This isn't the work of the supernatural. This is the work of science..."

"But you said..." began Robert Aldman.

"I said human age-artificers couldn't create these things."

The room fell silent with shock.

"You're suggesting they've been made by aliens?"

"That's what he thinks," said Helen.

"Why not!" exploded Albert. Was there any other rational explanation? "Think about it. We know aliens exist. The Torus is proof."

All of those in the room knew of the Torus. Discovered thirty year ago in the Alpha Centauri system, the Torus was a giant artificial environment. Shaped like a wheel around the primary sun and occupying 'the fourth planet' slot, the Torus made evidence of alien intelligence undeniable.

"The Torus is proof of aliens existing once," said a voice from the back of the crowd. "But no other alien technology has been found and no aliens either. Perhaps that's because those who made the thing are long dead."