Min-jun hurried back and stirred her daughter awake. She gathered up their few possessions and returned to the front room, horrified to hear the men had almost reached the house already. When she turned around, one of them was standing in the entrance.
Neither of them moved. The man, clearly surprised to see her, took a step back. Min-jun offered him a smile. The man smiled back, exposing a mouthful of black, rotting teeth. His eyes wavered, and for a fleeting moment she thought she saw uncertainty in them, perhaps even pity. Then he was gone, barged aside by the man she had seen leading the group, and with him any hope of a reprieve.
Min-jun bent down and picked up the splintered remains of a chair leg. The gesture clearly amused the man, who laughed. She had no idea what he said next, but the words bore an unmistakable tone of satisfaction. When he stepped through the doorway she raised the chair leg and told him to go away, but her own words sounded feeble even to herself. Three of the others stumbled through the door in quick succession, clearly eager to see what was happening. What she saw in their eyes turned her despair to hopeless resignation.
She let the chair leg drop to the floor and stepped forward. Her own fate sealed, she thought now only of her daughter. But when she tried to lead the men outside, one of them pushed her back. She pointed through the doorway at the house across the street, but the suggestion was lost on them. When she moved forward again what stopped her was not a hand, but a fist. It caught her squarely in the jaw and sent her stumbling back onto her knees. Before she could get to her feet again, the mob was on her.
At first it seemed they would only beat her. Even as she teetered on the edge of consciousness under a steady barrage of kicks and punches, the quietly insistent voice of reason suggested death might be all she had to fear, death for herself and perhaps even life for her daughter. But even this was too much to hope for.
At some point she was lifted to her feet and dragged across the room to the table in the corner. A blow to the back of the head sent her arching forward. Two of the men held her arms as a third tore off her dress. But before the ordeal could begin a fight erupted over who would be first. One ear pressed against the table and the other now bleeding, Min-jun heard only muffled shouts and the sound of a breaking bottle. When she opened her remaining good eye what she saw broke her tentative hold on sanity.
Her daughter was standing in the doorway at the back of the room, her rag doll clutched in one tiny fist. The look on her face was noncommittal. Not fear or grief, but a species of apathetic resignation, as if she had known all along that life was simply too cruel to rule out what was now happening in front of her.
Min-jun tried to scream then, but all that escaped her mouth was a hoarse croak. Then something heavy came down on the back of her neck, and for a mercy, she saw no more.
Chapter 1
Madison, Wisconsin
Wednesday 6 June 2007
1000 CDT
Francis Moore had been many things. As a boy he’d been what they called a troublemaker before the term juvenile delinquent came into vogue, stealing anything that wasn’t bolted down and terrorizing anyone unfortunate enough to hail from the right side of the tracks. Then puberty had come along, and with it an unexplained passion for martial arts and the pursuit of inner peace through meditation. Poverty and restlessness had later driven him into the Marine Corps, where his talents eventually brought him to the attention of an army colonel by the name of Reginald Styles. Although Francis had no way of knowing it at the time, this fateful encounter would set in motion a chain of events that began with the death of an innocent woman and ended on an island in the Baltic Sea whose inhabitants were devoted to no less a task than unearthing the secrets of an alien civilization.
And here he was, a year older if not wiser, back in the country where it had all started, and not as a fugitive, but a would-be corporate insurance broker from Idaho Falls named Mathew Landen.
True to his philosophy of “less is more”, Francis had dyed his hair black and let it grow out a little longer than usual. This was complemented by a trimmed mustache and golf-club casual attire. As if to vindicate his choice, the woman who had checked his passport lost interest in his well-scripted reason for going abroad before it had been fully articulated, and sent him away with a smile that couldn’t have been less genuine if Francis had reached over the counter and drawn it on her face himself.
Titov Kargin, Richelle’s right hand man, would be arriving on the next flight from Berlin although, unlike Francis, Titov travelled under his own name as a naturalized German resident. They were in town to oversee the transfer of Aurora’s latest acquisition, an employee of the Madison-based Telford Research Center by the name of Jasper Klein. Telford was one of the many institutions supported in part by the Karl Gustav Foundation. Jasper, considered by many of his peers to be one of the country’s most gifted geological engineers, was being brought into the fold to solve the growing need for space within the natural cave system that was home to Aurora. For his part, Francis was only here to listen and learn.
“Mr. Landen, I’m glad to see you made it.”
“You know you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” Francis said.
Titov sat down and called the waitress over. He ordered a cup of coffee and sent her away with a wink.
“Don’t you just love these American women?” Titov asked. “Always smiling, always asking if there’s anything else you need? In Europe the whole idea of service is seen as demeaning, only to be endured at a price.”
“It’s an act,” Francis said. “She’s probably telling the manager what a pig you were as we speak.”
“And this from the lips of the greatest actor of them all, no less,” Titov said. “I know you miss all this. I can see it on your face.”
“And if I do?” Francis said.
Titov shrugged. “It’s only natural. We’re creatures of habit, after all.”
“Some of us more evolved than others,” Francis said.
“Indeed.”
“So what’s the drill?” Francis said. “We pick this guy up and drive him to Virginia. Then what?”
“Then we spend a couple of days babysitting to make sure no one is looking for him and set sail for Scandinavia. The Karl Gustav will be there when we arrive.”
“Sounds a little too easy,” Francis said.
“It hasn’t failed yet.”
“What if he flips out? Starts telling anyone who’ll listen that he’s being held against his will?”
Titov smiled and said, “You know, you remind me of myself not so long ago. I used to say the same things to Peter whenever he questioned the need to regard everyone with suspicion.”
“Only he never quite learned that lesson, did he?”
Titov nodded somberly. “No, I guess he didn’t. You know, I envy you for being the man that killed Brendan. I would have liked to see his face before he died.”
“I’m not sure he had a face when he died,” Francis said. “And if you want to know the truth, I didn’t kill Brendan. He killed himself. Men like that always do eventually. I was just there to see it happen.”
Titov contemplated this for a moment, then smiled. “Enough dwelling on the past. I’d better go and pick up the car. I’ll see you outside.”
Chapter 2
Aurora
Wednesday 6 June 2007
1830 EEST
Richelle stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the small glass display case in front of her. Inside it, mounted on a background of black velvet, were two sheets of aging yellow paper covered in jaggedly typed Cyrillic script. At the top of the first sheet was a crudely printed hammer and sickle flanked by stalks of wheat below a red five-pointed star.
Before his death at the hands of his own bodyguard, her father had arranged at great expense for the document to be recovered from a little-known archive on the outskirts of Moscow that housed thousands of sensitive documents dating back to the early 1920s. This particular one, the very existence of which had b
een denied by the Soviets, and later by the Russian Federation, was an order signed by Stalin himself on July 19, 1945, three days after Trinity, the codename for the first-ever detonation of an atomic bomb in the Jornada del Muerto desert of New Mexico by the Manhattan Project. The document was an executive order halting all preparations for Operation Typhoon, the full-scale invasion of Western Europe scheduled for the early spring of 1946.
Her father had shown it to her on the day he asked her to take his place as the director of Aurora. To Peter Bershadsky it had represented in a singularly ironic and monumental chain of events everything that was wrong with the world. Richelle had asked for the document to be placed in the entrance hall to her office to make sure she never forgot it.
“It still sends a chill up my spine every time I see it.”
She turned to see Heinz, Aurora’s chief scientist, standing just inside the doors at the end of the hall.
“Do you really think it would have happened?” she said.
“The invasion? I have no doubt it would have. They had every reason to go through with it, and there was nothing anyone could have done to stop them.”
“Without wiping Europe off the map.”
Heinz nodded. “I guess that’s what it would have come to in the end. But it didn’t.”
“I still can’t quite believe it,” she said.
“In the light of subsequent history it’s hard to imagine, perhaps,” Heinz said. “But things were much different back then.”
“Were they?” she asked.
Heinz walked over and put a hand on her arm. “Don’t torture yourself with these questions. Your father once told me that we should never let our dread of what might have been taint our focus on the future. And we have a lot to be optimistic about, don’t you agree?”
She smiled. “Yes, I suppose we do. Although if I’m honest, it’s hard to see where we go from here.”
“Perhaps you’ll let me worry about that,” Heinz said. “I happen to have a few ideas. And as for the possibilities, from where we stand now, they seem almost endless. But one thing at a time.”
The door opened behind them and Erik, Aurora’s Chief of Construction, stepped into the hallway. “Everything alright?”
“Fine,” Richelle said. “Go on in. Are the others on their way?”
“All here,” Erik said, nodding at the door.
“Tell them to come in,” Richelle said.
Erik pulled the door open and motioned to the small group standing outside.
They entered in single file, Professor Watkins in the lead.
Watkins was a tall, thin man with graying hair. He had been recruited two years earlier from the linguistics department at Ohio State University. Watkins was Aurora’s leading authority on the language native to the long-since deceased crew of Origin and, by extension, its chief historian. Behind him came Mitch Rainey. Once a computer engineer for the FBI in Washington DC, Mitch was now Heinz’s assistant and principal authority on the computer systems onboard RP One. He was followed by David Williams, captain of the Callisto, the refurbished Russian Victor-Class submarine that had, until recently, served as Aurora’s only lifeline to the outside world.
The office looked more like a library. One wall was lined with tall hardwood bookshelves that ran to the ceiling. The remaining three were covered in artwork, all of it original, and some of it priceless. Half the floor space was taken up by a long, oval conference table. On the wall at one end, framed in ornate gold-leaf, was a large digital screen.
Richelle waited until everyone was seated before calling the meeting to order. “Erik, I know you have to get going, so why don’t you run us through what you have and we’ll send you on your way.”
“Everything is on schedule,” Erik said. “The last of the contractors are leaving today. We should have the tunnels connected by the end of the week, unless we lose another drill bit. The KG is returning tomorrow afternoon with the generators. If we don’t run into any hitches I’d say we could be up and running by the end of the month.”
“What about Amity?”
“You mean, when will we start tearing it down?”
“Yes.”
“As soon as I have your assurance that nobody is going to start a riot over it, I guess.”
Richelle half-smiled. “It’s that bad, is it?”
“Worse,” Erik said.
“Have you shown everyone the new plans?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“I think everyone agrees it will look nice. But it’s going to take over a year to complete. And I get the feeling your sister isn’t exactly over the moon about the projected costs either.”
“You leave Caroline to me,” Richelle said. “The foundation has the money. Maybe not for everything we’d like to do, but we have it for this. Trust me.”
“You’re the boss,” Erik shrugged.
“Anyone have any questions?” Richelle asked.
No one did.
“Off you go then,” Richelle said. “And if people start showing up with pitchforks and rotten fruit, you can send them to me.”
When Erik was gone she turned to professor Watkins. “The professor says he has something he would like us to hear. We’re all ears, Chris.”
Watkins looked nervously around the table and reached for the glasses in his breast pocket. He appeared to be sweating despite the air conditioning, and his hands were shaking slightly. “As you know, we’ve had access to the mission logs on RP One for several weeks now. I’ve been busy finishing up the translation tables, so I only started looking over them a few days ago. Most of it appears to be some kind of routine maintenance schedule, just a list of dated entries. But last night I came across a log entry for a previous surface landing.”
“You’re kidding,” Heinz said.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been up all night translating the file. According to the entry, RP One has been used as an observation platform on several previous surface landings, so you guys may have to rethink your single-use theory. Anyway, the log contains a brief description of a habitable planet discovered over a decade into the mission. It appears to be the only discovery of intelligent life they made before they arrived here.”
“By intelligent life, you mean humans?” Richelle asked.
“Yes,” Watkins said. “The planet is described as slightly larger than Earth and very similar in climate. The atmosphere was highly radioactive when it was found, but it appears there were ample signs of civilization.”
“Radioactive?” Heinz said, “As in—”
“As in, they’d been blown into extinction,” Watkins finished. “The surface was covered in blast craters, some of them several miles wide.”
“Holy shit,” Mitch said.
“That’s what I said,” Watkins agreed. “And that’s not even the weird part. The native population had no such weapons. They were more akin to something like our own Mayan civilization, a society of farmers and hunters.”
“You’re saying the planet had been what, attacked?” Heinz said, looking incredulous.
“More like obliterated,” Watkins said.
“And there is no way it was a natural event?” Heinz said. “A meteor shower or something?”
Watkins shook his head. “The report is quite clear on this. The Saishans even found fragments of the weapons used.”
For a long, awkward moment no one spoke.
“Please don’t say that the warheads were Russian,” Mitch finally said.
Watkins let out a bark of nervous laughter. “No, they weren’t Russian.”
“Okay, well that’s a start.”
“Do they know when it happened? This attack?” Heinz asked.
“That’s the other thing,” Watkins said. “We’re not talking about something recent. The event predates even the Saishans by several million years.”
“Several million!” Williams said.
“Yes. Approximately four and half million years.”
�
��Incredible,” Heinz said.
“I don’t know what it means,” Watkins said. “But I thought everyone should know.”
“Thank you, Chris,” Richelle said. “I don’t know what it means either. I’m not sure I even want to right now. As fascinating as it is, it doesn’t really change anything. Once we’ve finished translating the logs, perhaps it will all make a bit more sense. Who knows?”
Watkins picked up his papers and stood. “Well, I’d better get back to work.”
“You’re doing a great job, Chris,” Richelle said. “Why don’t you grab yourself a cup of coffee and a good night’s sleep. You look a little pale.”
“I’ll be fine,” Watkins said.
Richelle watched him leave and let out a long sigh. “Okay, well that wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I have a feeling that’s probably going to be par for the course around here from now on.”
“This is serious shit,” Mitch said. “Prehistoric alien civilizations nuking entire planets? How the hell can that not change anything? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I agree, it doesn’t. I’m just saying, how can that be?”
“Calm down, Mitch,” Richelle said.
“What about Chris?” Williams said. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for him to be going through all this stuff on his own. Imagine what it must be doing to his head. Did you see him, he looks like he’s—”
“Like he’s just had a sneak preview of what’s in store for us if we don’t get our own shit together?” Mitch suggested.
“Alright,” Richelle said. “I can see we’re all freaking out a little. Let’s just think happy thoughts for a moment, shall we?”
“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Maybe he’ll have better news tomorrow. Maybe he’ll tell us about the great traveling space circus, going from galaxy to galaxy, bringing nothing but joy and happiness to all who welcome them.”
For a moment nobody said anything, then all four of them burst out laughing at the same time.
“You see?” Richelle said. “Happy thoughts. Well done, Mitch. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to move on to RP One. Heinz?”
Origin - Season Two Page 2