The Box arrived on a Tuesday. This already upset most of the planet, because everyone knew that if something important ever came from space, it should at least have had the courtesy to show up on a Friday evening, when people had nothing better to do. It didn’t land in Washington, Moscow, or Beijing. It didn’t hover above the pyramids or land itself on the White House lawn. It simply appeared, without warning, in a small car park behind a shopping mall in Milton Keynes. At fi