Paul White

Keith Argyle

THE SHA'LEE RESURRECTION The Sha'lee are a spacefaring race who have been exploring the galaxy for millennia. One of their starships lands on a wild planet, where the dominant life-forms are both gigantic and ferocious. Sha'lee ethics prevent them from slaughtering the wildlife to enable them to settle the planet, so the ship's captain decides to catalogue all the species around their landing site before moving on. Almost everyone on the ship is engaged in fieldwork when a huge meteor strikes a few hundred kilometres away. Only twenty Sha'lee within the ship survive the disaster, but the ship is entombed by mud in the tsunami which follows. The survivors enter cryogenic sleep to await rescue, but rescue never arrives. It is now the year 2028 and Phil Makeman is a geophysics expert surveying an ancient Mayan pyramid in Belize. He sees the outline of a huge egg-shaped anomaly beneath the temple foundations, so he takes the computer image to his superiors, who decide to investigate. A smooth black surface is revealed below the dinosaur extinction layer, and then the trench silently erupts, leaving boulders churning in the air above the blackness. The team report their discovery to their government contact, who informs the Prime Minister, James Hardy. Hardy deploys soldiers to secure the site, and he enlists the help of a squad of elite British soldiers who are training in the Belizean jungle. Honduran soldiers cross the long-disputed border, aiming to take control of the site, but when a missile from a Honduran helicopter impacts the exposed black surface, the ship reacts with lethal results. International scientists are invited to the site, and one of the first to arrive is John Craithie. When Craithie learns what the archaeologists have discovered, he angrily denounces it as the work of Satan and refuses to become involved. Craithie leaves the site and begins a crusade aimed at the total destruction of the starship. Over the ensuing months, Craithie's fundraising campaign gathers momentum. Meanwhile, the excavation of the ship is completed, presenting the problem of how to bypass the ship's protective shield and gain entry. The puzzle is solved when a ramp deploys beneath the starship and the humans are invited aboard. They are guided by an artificial intelligence, which has kept the ship's systems alive for 65 million years. The AI informs them that her Sha'lee comrades are in cold sleep and need help to awaken. With human assistance eighteen survivors are revived, and Phil Makeman is astonished to discover that he is sensitive to Sha'lee telepathy. John Craithie has managed to procure an obsolete Russian cruise missile, which his followers launch at the starship. Moments before impact, the AI annihilates the atomic missile using the ship's meteor defences. As the Sha'lee survivors are beginning to integrate with their rescuers, a near-Earth asteroid is in a collision in space, changing its course so that it will impact Europe. The Sha'lee commander decides to take his ship into space to nullify the threat. There is no time available, and he must train the mixed Sha'lee and human personnel on board to fly the starship with the AI's help. When they return triumphantly to Earth, all opposition to the Sha'lee has seemingly evaporated - but no one has reckoned on a final desperate act by John Craithie . . .

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