This left Clark with Tara, and he had a simple message as he pulled her in for a tight, protective hug: “Be careful.”
“I don’t even remember if I ever thanked you,” Tara said, speaking to his chest with her head on his shoulder, “you know, for everything you did to get me out of that spot with Jack and the GeoSovs.”
“Thank me by saving the world and bringing Dan back in one piece,” Clark replied. “Maybe two pieces, three at most. But no more than that. Deal?”
Tara giggled and pulled her head back slightly to look up at him. Her eyes lingered for several seconds.
Clark let out a slow sigh. “Why do you have to look at me like that now, when you’re about to fly off in a spaceship?” he asked, a light-hearted twang in a series of words that sounded like they were coming from somewhere real.
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Tara replied, real all the way. “If it wouldn’t be so weird, I—”
“Weird for who?” Clark interjected. “For you, fine. But if you mean for everyone else… what everyone else thinks is the worst reason ever. It’s not even a reason.”
“Why do you have to talk to me like that now, when I’m about to fly off in a spaceship?” she replied.
Clark’s lips broke into a touché-tinged grin. “How about we talk when you get back.”
“Deal.”
Emma and Dan arrived at the cornfield-side of the circle at this point, while the police were doing a good but easy job of keeping the public well clear. Phil Norris stood on his porch, raising a hand to wave goodbye as he kept an eye on the crowd that had understandably but from his perspective frustratingly gathered on his property.
“Tell Dad and the guys I said bye,” Dan requested, his mind turning to them at the sight of Phil.
“No,” Clark point-blank refused, his tone gruff and uncompromising. “Just you fucking concentrate on making sure you get home, you hear? Get home and tell them hello, none of this hand-wringing goodbye bullshit.”
Vintage Clark, Dan thought, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Emma and Tara’s parting was predictably softer but equally brief, with both aware of the urgency they faced. What Emma also became aware of, though, was an uncertain glint in Dan’s eyes. She held two fingers up to the Messengers, not even considering whether they’d understand this plea for slightly more time, and moved closer to Dan to give him a few final words of encouragement.
They had come a long way since she arrived on his doorstep chasing a payday for XPR and since she had escorted him to countless media appearances when he was viewed by many as a lunatic conspiracy theorist. It hadn’t been a straight road and certainly hadn’t been without its bumps, but they were still driving and now had the promise of reaching an all new destination in around eight months — with a long-planned wedding somewhere in between.
“Never stop believing in yourself,” Emma told him. “Because everything that’s come our way, and there’s been a lot of it, we’ve always dealt with it. Even if it was Walker who chose you for the leak sequence that kicked everything off, the Messengers chose you for this, Dan. They didn’t want me plus one, they wanted you plus one. Me staying behind means I can deal with everything else… talking to Slater and Godfrey, Ding, and especially Cole. This could work out for the best.”
Dan forced a slow nod. “But don’t stress yourself out by doing too much at once, okay? Things are different now.”
“Yes they are,” she replied, leaning forward to kiss him goodbye. “And they’ll still be different when you come back. All we need to do is save two worlds at once; I’ll handle Earth, you handle New Kerguelen. Easy, right?”
This time Dan didn’t have to force anything. He smiled widely, suddenly hit by a wave of realisation of how lucky he’d always been to have Emma in his life and how much luckier he’d just gotten to learn they would soon have a family, too.
His grin widened as he had the idea to appropriately turn back on Emma the words she’d spoken to him when he was about to meet John Cole in Havana. It was the last thing he said to her before entering the cornfield for the trip to New Kerguelen, and it had her smiling just as widely:
“I love you, Emma Ford, and there’s nothing we can’t do.”
V minus 0
???
???
Tara squeezed Dan’s hand tightly as they stepped into the elevator-like cylinder positioned underneath the enormous mothership that all but filled the cornfield.
He reassured her that there was nothing to worry about, feeling confident that this was the case. His own concerns regarded how grave the problems on New Kerguelen might be and how much the Messengers might be expecting his arrival to achieve; but in terms of the journey and the way they would be treated, his mind couldn’t have been more relaxed.
An open-mouthed reaction of exactly the kind Dan expected crossed Tara’s face as the total whiteness of the craft’s vast entrance room hit her eyes like summer snow on a mountaintop kissed by the rays of a high-noon sun.
“Is it all like this?” she asked.
“I’ve never been further inside than this one room,” Dan admitted, hopeful that might change. “How long is the journey?” he then asked, turning to the Messengers but speaking out loud.
The reply, of course, came only in his mind, leaving it for him to relay it to Tara. This led to him asking the Messengers if she could receive the same kind of neurological upgrade — if that was a remotely appropriate term — that the Messengers had granted him. It would make things easier, primarily for Tara, so Dan was glad that they responded affirmatively.
“They said you can get the same telepathy they gave me,” he relayed.
Tara shook her head. “Thanks but no thanks. If that’s okay…”
It was okay, the Messengers assured Dan, and they were in fact pleased given that ‘mind adaption’ — their term — was an intervention they didn’t want to make unless it was absolutely necessary, as it had been to ensure they would remain able to stay in contact with Dan.
Again, Dan relayed this to a relieved Tara.
“What did they say about the journey?” she asked.
“Oh yeah… they said it’s not really a journey as we would consider it. We don’t ‘travel’ the whole distance in a linear way, there’s some kind of portal near Earth and another one near New Kerguelen. They wouldn’t tell me if they set those up; apparently the Elders were adamant that information on things like interstellar travel was never to be shared with other races because of the potential for unintended consequences. And even with the Elders dead, all of the aliens — even the Squadron — still live by the core edicts that are ingrained in their minds; it’s only new decisions that are causing problems and division because there’s no one there to make them. I guess we’ll see exactly what’s going on when we get there.”
While Dan was speaking, one of the Messengers had been holding its hands against a seemingly nondescript part of the wall which was now revealed to house two reclined seats.
“Are those for us?” Tara asked. “We’re just going to sit in here?”
One of the Messengers nodded. It struck Dan only then that he hadn’t heard their sing-song like vocalisations for some time, with all of their communications having occurred silently both with him and amongst themselves.
He attentively listened to the fuller answer the Messengers delivered to Tara’s question, knowing that it would be down to him to follow the familiar and somewhat frustrating pattern of passing the message on.
Dan could well understand why Tara didn’t want to be changed in the way he had been, but there was no denying it would have made their mission far more straightforward if she had accepted the upgrade. He did however take solace from the fact that the Messengers hadn’t suggested it, much less insisted upon it, as this made him think that it wouldn’t necessarily have proven all that advantageous on New Kerguelen.
“We are sitting out here,” he said as soon as he had the full answer, �
��but we’re basically going to fall asleep and wake up on New Kerguelen. They said we have to be ‘suspended’ for the portal part of the journey, and they’re going to do it right away. We won’t feel a thing.”
Tara walked over to her semi-reclined chair, which had an odd angle of curvature but in general terms wasn’t a million miles from the kind of things she’d sat on in beauty spas from time to time. Upon sitting down, she was pleasantly and visibly surprised by the soft comfort it provided.
Dan joined her on the other seat just a few feet to the side. It was comfortable, bringing to mind his usual seat on Timo Fiore’s private jet.
“Now what?” he asked, out loud.
In lieu of a direct answer, one of the Messengers tapped the wall to bring forth an enclosing bubble of sorts which extended from the wall to the floor with Dan and Tara on one side and everything else on the other.
“I guess this is it,” he said to Tara.
“Thanks for letting me come,” she replied, turning to face him.
He likewise turned his head to look her way. “Are you joking? I always want you around. We all do.”
The last thing Dan saw before the light around him rapidly faded to black was Tara’s warm smile. After that, there was only darkness.
FRIDAY
impact
Landing site
New Kerguelen
Dan awoke only a second or two before Tara, but this was enough for him to see that the brilliant white light had returned to the room and the bubble was gone. The two familiar Messengers stood before him.
“Are we here?” he asked excitedly, his vocalisation startling Tara upright.
She smiled when she saw that the bubble was gone then waited in eager anticipation for Dan to relay the answer.
With a broad smile on his face, Dan turned to Tara and said the words she was waiting for: “We’re here.”
V plus 1
Sector Zero
New Kerguelen
The Messengers, still only a pair, led Dan and Tara towards the elevator which was now the only thing between them and the surface of New Kerguelen.
The enormity of this really sunk in during the short descent, and Dan could feel his heart racing. “Do you want to step out first?” he asked Tara.
“Obviously,” she smiled, “but not as much as I think you should be first. You have to be first. Nothing else makes sense.”
As the elevator reached the ground, all thoughts of who would go first went out of the window. All either of them could focus on now was the panel that was about to open and reveal the outside world.
A million visions rattled through Dan’s mind in an instant. What was he going to see?
He had seen every movie and read most of the books. Countless nights as a child, countless lunch breaks as an adult… all spent escaping to alien worlds full of wonder and surprise. With a real one now just inches away, he wondered which of all the imaginary versions would end up proving the most accurate.
Would he step into a field? A forest? A city? A desert?
The much anticipated opening of the panel revealed a view full of unnatural metallic surfaces, telling Dan that ‘city’ was without doubt the closest of his approximations. Tara nudged him forward to remove his choice of who would go first, and his first conscious thought related to the total lack of buildings.
“I think we’re still inside something,” he said to Tara, although by the time he spoke she was already next to him and thinking the same thing. “Maybe like an airport type of place?”
Tara looked all around, growing progressively more certain that Dan was right. In truth, having imagined endless starlit vistas and rolling alien landscapes, she very much hoped he was right.
The Messengers stepped forward, encouraging their visitors to follow.
“Before we go…” Tara said. “If I get the brain upgrade to be able to hear you and talk to Dan without actually talking, can you undo it before we go home?”
Both Messengers nodded, far less awkwardly than when they had first attempted this human gesture.
Tara’s eyes widened hopefully. “Can I still get it?”
Two more nods confirmed that she could, and two short if painful minutes was all it took for the Messengers to repeat the process they had used on Dan a week earlier.
Tara practiced the necessary finger positions, which Dan no longer had to worry about now that his mental acuity had increased with experience, and the near euphoric expression in her eyes when she first heard the Messengers’ thoughts made him more glad than ever that she’d come along.
“Can we go outside?” she asked without speaking. Dan heard the question just as clearly as the Messengers did. “Without suits or anything?”
“Outside is no place for life,” one of them replied, clearly having no problem decoding Tara’s thought patterns. Dan wasn’t sure if this was because they’d had plenty of recent practice talking to him or if they had overestimated the differences between individual humans, but he didn’t give it too much thought.
“Air breathable to us is air breathable to you,” the Messenger continued, “but you will find none of that outside. This area, Sector Zero, is the only area of New Kerguelen with a gateway to the universe beyond. The rest of our home is entirely enclosed, as is necessary to keep an increasingly hostile atmosphere at bay.”
Tara and Dan shared a very different kind of wide-eyed glance, before turning back to their hosts. “So you’re always inside?” Dan pushed. “We’re not going to get to go outside?”
Merely feeling the need to ask this caused Dan’s heart to sink before a reply even came.
All of a sudden, Dan ruefully considered that this perhaps might not prove to be too unlike his trip to the secretive facility where he was taken by inquisitive federal agents on Contact Day.
Then, as now, his eventual visit to the kind of place he’d wanted to go for most of his life had begun with an indoor arrival at the end of a journey that left no possibility of tracing its location. Unlike then, however, he knew there was no way he could ever hope to pinpoint this location unless it was shared with him, which seemed incredibly unlikely.
“We spend our lives inside, yes. This is of necessity; New Kerguelen’s atmospheric conditions are far less friendly to life than was once the case, but fortunately our ancestors built the Great Shelter when there was still time. Unfortunately, in recent times the Great Shelter has fallen into disrepair. Without the Elders to direct the necessary maintenance, the situation has worsened rapidly and continues to do so. Several sectors are already uninhabitable and more are not far away. But as well as unity we lack leadership, and more tangibly we lack knowledge. The Elders held the wisdom of ages gone by, and without access to that wisdom we cannot begin the necessary repairs.”
Dan’s shoulders slumped. “What? I can’t help with something like that! I thought you just wanted my presence to unite your planet?”
“Humanity continues to build ever-grander structures despite the great social divisions that permeate your planet,” the Messenger replied. “Your presence can unite our planet, and our hope is that by fostering trust in humanity it will allow greater outreach between our races. Our hope is that we can help each other with our strengths and be helped by each other in areas where we are weak. Our area of weakness is one for which we need help as a matter of urgency, but the membership of our planetary council currently distrusts us. Their distrust is such that if you were not here, they would disregard our reports of humanity’s willingness to help and they would reject the kind of information exchange that will be needed to repair our Great Shelter.”
Dan pondered this for several seconds. At last he could understand the logic of why he had been invited: to show the planetary council that humanity would be willing to help in a crucial matter the aliens couldn’t handle on their own due to the unexpected deaths of their Elders. A new perspective based on humanity’s willingness to help would eliminate or at least greatly reduce factional divisions on N
ew Kerguelen, if the Messengers were correct, and Dan was giddily excited by the possibilities of what could come next.
He liked the sound of an ‘information exchange’ between Earth and New Kerguelen, and the idea of anything close to diplomatic relations or official scientific cooperation brought his mind straight back to the once-fantastical stories that had filled so much of his youth.
“We will take you to the council at once,” one of the Messengers said. “Would you like to see our Elders?”
Dan McCarthy nodded decisively.
The setting may not have been quite the kind he had dreamed of, but he was regaining hope that the ending just might be.
V plus 2
Sector One
New Kerguelen
“So where is everyone?” Tara asked as she followed the Messengers through a door which led from the enormous Sector Zero into something more akin to a hallway. “And how many of you actually are there?”
She could easily have believed she was still inside the mothership, and indeed had something of a hard time reminding herself that she wasn’t. The floor, the walls and the impossibly high ceiling of the narrow passage were all as white as the interior of the craft, but most conspicuous was the complete lack of other aliens.
Tara’s second question about the size of New Kerguelen’s population was not something Dan had ever really thought about, but now that it was in his mind he was tremendously curious and keen to find out.
“In the region of forty thousand,” one of the Messengers replied.
“Wow,” Dan reacted. Although he hadn’t considered the point in great depth, his guess would have been at least one order of magnitude higher than this. “And no one is fit to replace your Elders? There isn’t anyone else with accumulated wisdom… even someone like one of you guys? You know a lot. It might not help with this exact Shelter problem you have, but it would fix the power vacuum. Because that’s going to be a problem even if human engineers fix your roof in exchange for whatever information and tech you can give us.”
The Final Call Page 35