‘Well, well,’ said Rob, ‘I never expected…’
Baby Blu’s icy stare cut him off in mid-sentence.
‘You make a lovely couple, don’t they Rob?’
‘They do,’ said Rob, suitably chastised. ‘They most certainly do.’
‘We’ve got something to tell you,’ said Liz excitedly, putting her arms around Rupert and shooting him a beaming smile. ‘Haven’t we Rupert.’
‘We have,’ replied Rupert, returning her smile and kissing her tenderly on the cheek.
‘Oh, I think I know what you’re going to say,’ said Baby Blu, jumping up and down with delight. ‘You’re going to get married, aren’t you,’ she gushed.
‘Yes, we are,’ replied Liz. ‘We are.’
Epilogue
The asteroid had long since gone but one thought stuck in Liz’s head. A thought that wouldn’t go away. That haunted her. Gnawed at her. Why had the aliens returned the two astronauts? Why had they let Bubba and Nikolov return to Earth? It could have been an act of kindness, or mercy, but their previous behaviour hadn’t suggested they possessed such traits. Or – and it was this that really bothered her – it could be something sinister. Had they tampered with the two astronauts? Genetically modified them? Altered them to produce offspring in their image? Human-alien offspring or, even worse, alien offspring. Super intelligent alien children who thrived in cold conditions. Children who would thrive and multiply in a climate of minus 60°C. Alien children who would grow into alien adults who would take over the planet. Try as she might, she just couldn’t get the thoughts out of her head. She vowed there and then to ring Carl.
‘Hi Carl. It’s Liz here. I’ve been thinking about the two astronauts…’
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the people who have helped make The Dark Freeze a better book. To my cousin, Brian, my niece Michelle Johnson, and my friends Sharon and Ian Taylor and Neville and Phyllis Jackson, for reading the entire manuscript and making valuable suggestions. And to my wife Vera, for her sufferance during its writing.
Special thanks go to my two sons, Andrew and Michael, and again to Sharon Taylor, not only for reading the manuscript but also for proof reading it, and to my nephew, Stuart Gent, for helping design the book’s cover.
To all of you I offer my sincere thanks.
Notes
* * *
1 Hydrogen is the first, nitrogen the seventh and oxygen the eighth
2It created carbon dioxide too, the greenhouse gas, but that didn’t matter. Without sunlight, there was no greenhouse effect, an effect that would have been most welcome under the current circumstances.
The Dark Freeze Page 24