The probe was supposed to stop working after a week; to have lost the power to transmit through the mass of the planet; to have decayed into the dense molten core, but it was still sending messages. And it was asking for help.
- Vern Jones was the one who hatched the idea of 'doing a Jules Verne'. As it wasn't actually possible to clamber down a series of caves and pot-holes to a world filled with adventure, Jones decided to send an unmanned device to the centre of the earth making use of simple science. First, a large, natural fissure needed to be filled with molten iron: the elemental heart of our spinning home. Then, into this slop, a probe would be placed, rugged enough to withstand the heat and pressure, able to analyse and transmit details of all that it passed as gravity did its job, slowly pulling our inquiring minds ever down to a conclusion.
- It cost a lot less than people imagined; cheaper than sending a small satellite into space. The iron was all recycled scrap while the technology was acquired cheaply from the Russians (their surplus Venus landers were certainly robust enough to withstand the conditions). The doomsayers were more muted than expected: no one dreamed it would work. Some were concerned about splitting the world apart or opening up hell, but most assumed the device would just melt and disappear.
- But it worked. Jones was ecstatic. The metal lump sank through the crust, leaving no wound. The transmitter sent back readings both expected and astounding - it even made the news - but no one was prepared for what happened next.
- The probe started saying more than it could. It changed its purely analytical code and began babbling in every tongue. It sang about loss and cooed about love. It even quoted from lost texts.
- And it began to ask for help.
- After the second week, Jones became convinced it was more than just plain regurgitation. It had been explained as some kind of magnetic mirroring of all our transmissions; that the core had stored everything ever broadcast or said, and the probe, in becoming one with it, had become its conduit. But the more that they listened, the more unsure they became. It wasn't just spitting out old programmes and stories, it was creating new languages, new feelings, establishing broad new avenues of expression - and it was definitely asking for help.
- Jones was at a loss. He couldn't physically go down and see what was up nor could he send down another machine given the uncertain results. He had to sit and helplessly listen to his baby's increasing distress.
- Who was it calling? Who or what might come? Jones had a quiet word to S.E.T.I.; the unending search for alien trans-missions had been fruitless, or so he believed. However, the radio telescopes had picked up certain anomalies deemed inappropriate for general consumption. They weren't coming from distant galaxies but from inside the solar system; the other planets were responding to the soulful plight.
- Then, at the end of the fourth week, the transmissions started to appear inside people's heads - predominantly in the Western sphere, and in lower socio-economic groups (rich elites and the Third World seemed immune to the pining). At first, people thought they were mad or possessed - or being lectured by God - there were mass rallies and pilgrimages, as yet unlinked to Jones.
- The connection was made in the fifth week. People were somehow at one with the rapture and pain; a cavity had been filled. The new languages flowed from the attuned who believed they were speaking in tongues, channelling a divine amalgam of humanity's great wishes - pity, hope, yearning and love - singing it as revealed (the un-afflicted felt relieved, jealous, threatened and left out).
- By the sixth week, Jones realised it was all his fault. He had to destroy his creation to stop it ennobling everyone's feelings. He set about making a polar reversal of the original design. It would go in and destroy the magnetic interference that had brought a hollow fulfilment to the world.
- His plan never made it off - or into - the ground. The other iron planets, somehow aware of his aims, started to emit songs of warning, and appeared to be moving closer to help. Alarm flowed from the fulfilled cavities of every head. People didn't want to lose their new one-ness with the core. So Jones - the man who gave them the new awareness of what lies below - was hastily dispatched and buried deep under ground.
