Emma rubbed the sides of her head again. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. It was non-stop, like it had a vacuum cleaner in my brain sucking everything out.”
“But you heard the thoughts, right? Which ones echoed? Those are the ones that it thought about after you thought them.”
“Austria,” Emma said.
Dan and Clark replied in perfect unison: “Austria?”
“Yeah,” she said, mainly to Dan. Her eyes lit up as it all came back to her. “I said — or thought, whatever — that if I was going to do it, Austria would be the best place. I said an older person would be better, and that it definitely couldn’t be you this time.”
“What couldn’t be me?”
“The person who finds the new plaques.”
Clark stopped walking. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
“Is that why they wanted the plaques?” Dan asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “I thought they just wanted to make sure we didn’t do anything with them?”
“Still missing something…” Clark said.
Ignoring Clark, Emma shook her head at Dan. “They’re going to leave an unambiguous message of peace. Those two plaques are a ready-made solution, because Kloster’s letter told people they’re still out there somewhere.”
“So they’re going to write fake messages on the other two plaques and plant them somewhere?” Clark asked, looking at Dan. “Me and Emma were going to do that and you wouldn’t let us!”
“This is the opposite of that,” Dan said, almost scoffing the words out. “How is this fake? Actual aliens are writing an actual alien message. That’s as real as it gets.”
“But the rest of the story is still a lie,” Clark said. “Toplitz, Kerguelen, Walker… everything. The core of it might have come true, but all the details are lies.”
Emma nudged Clark in the back to shut him up; Dan was on side with the only sensible plan to get out of the mess caused by the hoax, and Clark seemed to be doing his best to change his mind.
“Details?” Dan said, a look of placidity etched on his face. “Clark, I just spoke to an alien. To hell with the details.”
D plus 53
JSLC Launch Area 4
Dongfeng Aerospace City, China
William Godfrey stood before a room full of international press with Ding Ziyang by his side. Far more reporters had been invited to this announcement than any other since the failed launch, which led many of them to assume the news was good.
Godfrey spoke first. “Thank you all for joining us,” he said. “We will be brief. Extensive analysis of the remnants of the Límíng module ended several hours ago, and the findings are conclusive. I’ll leave the technical details for those more qualified to explain them, but what I can tell you is this: the explosion resulted from a catastrophic electrical failure, the catalyst for which was a direct lightning strike.”
Flashbulbs went off around the room and reporters gasped as though this was the last thing any of them had expected Godfrey to say. In truth, it had been the last thing Godfrey had expected Jack Neal to tell him several hours earlier.
“My message to concerned citizens is twofold. First: this accident was no one’s fault. The launch site, rocket and module passed every inspection by every GSC nation’s most stringent scruniteers. Likewise, no GSC nation’s meteorologists forecast a non-negligible threat of lightning. And second: this is good news. The loss of the Límíng module was without question an international tragedy, but at least this new information will put an end to the western media’s irresponsible and indefensible fear-mongering that this tragedy was anything but a horrifically timed accident.”
Jack Neal, who Godfrey had grown increasingly fond of over the last few days, watched on with President Slater from the back of the press room. The Russian President was also present, ready to appear side by side with Slater once Godfrey and Ding had delivered their responses.
“And the timing truly couldn’t have been worse,” Godfrey continued. “Fatal lightning strikes have blighted major launches in the past, but never when the media had recklessly impressed upon billions of viewers the idea that humanity’s immediate and ongoing security depended entirely on the success of that particular launch. In hindsight, I can only praise the citizens of all nations for their relatively measured reactions to the behaviour of certain elements of the media. I also want to take this opportunity to thank my esteemed colleague Ding Ziyang for his remarkable restraint in dealing with those who sought to blame his scientists for this unforeseeable and unpreventable accident.”
Godfrey gave his usual half-nod sign-off to the cameras and turned to his left towards Ding, who took the cue to begin his speech.
The lack of a real-time translator meant that Godfrey would have to wait a few minutes for confirmation that Ding had indeed read the agreed upon speech and reaffirmed his commitment to the GSC and its DS-2 project.
Despite the brave faces and united front, Ding’s bargaining power at the GSC’s top table took a considerable hit with the revelation that his country’s flagship launch had been derailed by a single lightning strike. To his right, the GSC’s Chairman fought a smile.
It was a good day to be William Godfrey.
SATURDAY
D plus 54
Interstate 90
East of Billings, Montana
Clark took over in the driver’s seat from Emma at midnight having caught up on some long overdue sleep during the first leg of the journey home to Birchwood.
Earlier, before they had first set off, Clark played back the footage he recorded with the dash-cam strapped to his chest while Dan and Emma were inside the barrier-protected circle in the clearing. A flash filled the screen when they crossed the inner threshold — as everyone expected — but the entire image remained obscured by total whiteness for almost six minutes. The initial flash brought a cacophony of panicked bird calls and Rooster cycled through sporadic fits of howling, barking and whimpering for the whole duration. Clark, on the other hand, had stood silently in a state of suspension.
“It really felt like you were only gone for a second,” he said.
Dan shrugged. “Six minutes sounds about right.”
“But why didn’t they let me in, too?” Clark asked, then in the back seat and sounding a little slighted. “It’s not even like I was able to look after the dog. Did they just not need me? Is it that “minimal necessary intervention” thing?”
“Maybe it’s because you used to be a soldier,” Dan suggested. He said this with reverence; he had always respected Clark for going into hostile zones to carry out his duties, even if he didn’t always agree with the motives of the people who put him there. Nonetheless, Dan could understand why the aliens — quite possibly pacifists — might not make such distinctions.
“Yeah,” Emma said, playfully turning to see Clark in the back seat. “They were obviously scared of how strong you are.”
“They only wanted you because you’re good at lying,” Clark shot back.
Emma laughed, taking the close-to-the-bone joke as a compliment. “Speaking of which… I’m going to need a business card for my new firm: IPPR.”
Dan and Clark waited for the punch line.
“Inter-Planetary Public Relations.”
“Interplanetary is one word,” Dan said.
“Yeah,” Clark chided. “Even I know that.”
“Ugh. Shut up and go to sleep,” Emma groaned at Clark. “You’re driving next.”
Clark stretched his arms before getting as comfortable as he could. Rooster had beaten him to the punch and claimed half of the space as his own, so Clark’s legs could only really stay bent in a seated position. He leaned against the window and tried to make the best of it. Fortunately, the burn on his thigh was nowhere near as bad as originally feared.
Dan took one final look at the trees as they faded into the distance. He thought about how many people would obliviously walk over the very spot where a bona fide alien craft touched down. Pl
aces like the Kerguelen Island and Lake Toplitz would retain their spotlights while Lolo National Forest remained a largely untouched area of natural beauty. The more Dan thought about this, the more glad he was.
“So about this lightning,” Clark mused, a few minutes after a radio recap broke the news to them. “Did the aliens actually make lightning hit the DS-1 rocket or did they just make it look like a lightning strike?”
“Almost definitely the second one,” Dan said, “but it’s impossible to know. The flash took out the cameras when it happened.”
“But do you think Godfrey and the rest of them really believe it was lightning?”
“Apollo 12 got hit twice, and NASA lost a rocket and a weather satellite to lightning in separate incidents in the ’80s, so there’s a precedent. And whether it’s right or wrong, a lot of people think Chinese launches are more prone to failure than ours.”
“I almost feel bad for them,” Clark said. “There was nothing wrong with their launch, but they’re going to get the blame.”
Emma looked at Clark via the rearview mirror. “They’re not really. Lightning is an act of God.”
God…, Dan thought to himself. Why didn’t I ask the aliens about God?
“But I do get what you mean,” Emma continued, “which is why I know there’s no way Ding would have gone along with the lightning story if he had the slightest doubt.”
“Burger joint!” Clark yelled as they passed a signpost for Missoula. “Pull in to that drive-through. No one will see us.”
Emma knew they didn’t really need to worry about being seen; it would be an inconvenience, but nothing more. The agreed upon story that she was visiting family was solid enough and no one had any reason to be suspicious of them, anyway. The smell of fries wafting through the air was enough to settle her mind.
“Yesss,” Clark said, rubbing his hands in anticipation of a hot meal.
Emma put on a pair of sunglasses and Dan raised his hood. They made it through the drive-through unspotted and continued on their way as soon as Emma finished eating. Clark ordered three meals despite Dan’s insistence that he wouldn’t be as hungry as he thought after the first.
When Clark scrunched up the first wrapper and put it back in the empty box on the floor, he sighed. “I should have got four.”
Dan saw Clark drifting off to sleep a short while later and roused him when something crossed his mind. “You better call the hospital from my phone and tell them yours got lost,” he said; lost in this instance being a euphemism for frazzled by an alien sound-barrier. “I don’t think they have my number, and they obviously can’t reach us at home.”
“Good idea.” Clark took Dan’s phone and dialled the number, which he knew by heart. The staff member thanked Clark and informed him that Henry’s Sunday afternoon discharge would be delayed for a few hours due to a miscommunication over shift patterns. Clark didn’t mind too much; after six months without his dad, two more hours was nothing worth getting annoyed about.
Clark then faded peacefully off to sleep, leaving Emma and Dan to talk about every little physical thing they could remember about the aliens and their craft. Dan expressed his frustration at the hopelessly ambiguous answer he received after asking what powered their interstellar travel; “light” could mean so many things that they might as well have said “fuel.”
When neither could recall anything else about what they saw, the conversation turned to Emma’s semi-conscious suggestions as to what the aliens should do with the plaques. Her recollections encouraged Dan greatly.
Dan had offered to take over from Emma when her shift ended at midnight so that Clark could stay asleep, but she refused. “I promised I’d wake him,” she said. “And you’re the one who told me how he feels about promises. Remember? When you wouldn’t tell me anything about the letter until he got home, even when I was already on your side?”
“Fiiine,” Dan said, rolling his eyes at the guilt trip.
Clark ate the leftover half of his third burger and washed it down with hot coffee at the rest stop to fuel his driving muscles.
“Anything happen while I was asleep?” he asked Dan upon noticing that Emma had already nodded off barely five minutes later.
“The stars came out,” Dan said.
Clark looked up. “They sure did.”
The next few hours passed quickly, with Clark asking Dan about some elements of what had happened that he didn’t fully grasp.
Dan patiently relayed what the alien told him about Richard Walker: that they had returned him home but wouldn’t hesitate to intervene again if he ever looked likely to talk.
“And how come there was a circle in Walker’s field but no marks in the clearing apart from the little hole where the support beam was?”
Dan filled Clark in on the smaller craft, kept inside the mothership, and its inferior cloaking abilities.
Midway through his answer to another relatively mundane question from Clark, a loud chiming tone on the radio cut Dan off. They had been listening to music on low volume, but the Traffic Updates feature had kicked in.
The radio’s screen displayed a scrolling message — “Latest travel news…” — but the voice that followed said otherwise: “We interrupt your regular radio programming to deliver this breaking news bulletin.”
Dan turned the volume up even further with one hand and tapped Emma’s leg to wake her up with the other.
“Hmmm?” she said.
“Shhh,” Clark snapped.
Emma sat up and looked around, quickly realising that they were listening to the radio.
“We’ve just been handed some truly incredible news,” the voice announced, “direct from the Austrian city of Salzburg…”
* * *
Emma rifled through headlines and images on her phone as Dan and Clark focused on the remarkable news coming through the radio.
The video footage showed an English-speaking reporter standing outside a police station in Salzburg.
Located near the German border, Salzburg lay within approximately fifty miles of both Lake Toplitz — where the plaques were supposedly first removed from their spheres — and also the famed Nazi repository at Altaussee where three of the four spheres were supposedly stored until looters ransacked the mines. A map in the corner of the screen made this clear.
Even though the news that came next reflected some of the thoughts Emma had experienced on the alien craft, it was just as extraordinary to her as it was to Dan and Clark.
“A metallic plaque matching those found inside the Kerguelen sphere has today been discovered in a storage unit on the outskirts of Salzburg,” the radio announced.
“Holy shit,” Clark said. “Those aliens don’t mess around.”
Emma looked up from her phone to pay full attention to the stripped-down and straight-to-the-point radio bulletin.
“The plaque was discovered by local schoolteacher, Martina Brunner, in a unit belonging to her recently deceased father,” the newsreader continued, “the internationally renowned archaeologist Karl Heilig.”
“That’s a solid place to dump them,” Dan said. “But why’s there only one?”
The bulletin went on: “Brunner immediately brought the plaque to a local police station. Verified security records from the owners of the storage lot confirm that the unit in question had not been accessed by anyone in over three years prior to today’s discovery. The first images of the plaque, and the message it contains, are expected within the hour.”
“Did you tell them to use a storage unit?” Clark asked Emma.
“I think so,” she said.
Dan had a more important question: “What kind of messages did you tell them to write? And why’s there only one plaque?”
“I think in case this one doesn’t work. I don’t know… I just said — thought — that they had to do something to kill the “eviction notice” and “killer asteroid” ideas. Something to make the crosshairs and the 280-year timescale feel less like a threat.”
“Well,” Clark said, “You did all you could. I guess we’re going to find out what they went with soon enough.”
Dan could see how nervous Emma was; her legs were shaking, which they never did, and she was biting the inside of her lip almost incessantly. “They’re not going to make a mistake,” he said, utterly sure of that and keen to share his confidence.
“Right,” Clark agreed. “They managed to get the plaques inside a locked unit within hours, and they either made the Austrian woman go there like they made Dan go to the cornfield or they knew she was going today and made the most of it. We’re not dealing with amateurs here.”
Despite the brothers’ efforts, Emma’s worries remained. After all, however capable and potent the aliens were, they had still asked her for advice. And troublingly for Emma, it was hardly a stretch to recognise that global stability depended largely on what advice she had given and which parts of it the aliens had taken. Hard though she tried, she simply couldn’t remember everything she’d thought while connected to the alien by the pad on her neck.
Like the rest of the world, all she could do was wait.
* * *
The top story on Blitz Online, which Emma read on her phone, upped the ante even further.
Following several hours of video conferencing between the Argentine team responsible for the analysis and safekeeping of the initial two plaques and the Austrian authorities who held the newly discovered third, a joint statement had just been issued which made it unequivocally clear that the third plaque was identical to the others in size, weight, and material composition.
Emma spent the short time until the reveal checking how others were reacting. No top-level public figures had yet made any comments, but the overwhelming mood was one of hope rather than fear. The news that DS-1’s Límíng module was downed by lightning rather than extraterrestrials, true or not, had already calmed many minds; so much so that many didn’t just hope but expected this new plaque would provide positive context.
Not Alone Page 70