“See what coming exactly?”
“Access the file and watch the display, sir. It will speak for itself. Over.”
* * *
Acting NASA Administrator Gordon Borkner stood alone within the second-floor stairwell. Cellphone pressed to one ear, his voice echoed off the surrounding concrete walls. “No, Mr. President, I assure you, every second we spend talking about this, brings our country, hell, Earth, one second closer to total annihilation. I am right here on the front lines, so to speak. I’m your man at ground zero.”
Borkner listened as Dale Hardy Granger, President of the United States, responded back in a slow southern drawl. “Now, Mr. Borkner, let’s take a brief breather and appreciate this momentous occasion. No one has been killed from what I’ve been told. Is that correct?”
Gordon Borkner looked up, as if searching the high heavens for someone to save him from the man’s dimwittedness. “Sir … if I may be so direct, the International Space Station has already been attacked, has sustained heavy damage. It’s been captured. Top that off, her crew’s been abducted. Sir, if these aren’t the acts of hostile beings … ”
“I have already ordered military readiness to a level of DEFCON one. What else would you have me do?”
Borkner tapped an impatient toe as he listened to the president drone on.
“Make a preemptive strike? Start sending missiles into space? Our boys are up there … alive. So that’s not going to happen, Gordon. We’re not there yet.”
“Well, that, of course, is your decision, sir. I just want to go on record—we should have … ” Borkner suddenly realized the president was still rambling on and hadn’t heard a word he’d said. He rolled his eyes and waited.
“I want an update on the half-hour, Gordon. The media has already gotten wind of this and I’ll need to address the nation this evening, at the very latest.”
“Yes, someone will brief the White House. I need to get back to … ”
“No! Not someone else! You, Gordon, will update me personally, not the White House, on the half hour. Right now, I have other things to deal with. I will talk to you within the hour, Gordon.” The president ended the conversation without saying goodbye.
Borkner continued to stare at his phone. Idiot.
Chapter 45
Present Day: Nantucket Island, Brianna Sullivan’s Apartment
“Yeah, Wolf, the unfolding story here is … well … beyond anything I, and I suspect anyone else, has ever reported before. Let me break it down for you, what is known at present. Just hours ago, leaked reports coming out of NAS, were quite dire. News that the International Space Station had, in all likelihood, burned up in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Also, that the three-man crew aboard—a crew consisting of two Americans and one Russian had been lost. No one ever anticipated that today, instead, would be the day so many science fiction enthusiasts have waited for: actual contact made with an alien race. If these reports are true—and there are multiple, inside, reliable NASA sources saying that they are—then not only is the ISS still in one piece, but our heroic ISS crew is also alive and has been taken aboard an alien vessel of some kind. To top that off, the ISS crew is currently in contact with Houston’s Mission Control Center.”
“What a crock! Totally fake news … this is nothing more than a ratings stunt,” Officer Platt said.
Scotty had listened to the CNN news report, covering the latest events in space, but he’d done so while watching the three faces of those in his mother’s apartment. Now seated on the couch next to his mother, she had her hand resting on his shoulder. Knowing now he really was her son, her Scotty, she couldn’t stop touching him, gazing at him. It warmed his heart that they were back in each other’s lives, even if only for a short while.
Scotty made brief eye contact with Alison and wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if the ones sitting here were a close cross-section of the present mindset within the rest of the country—the world. Would the public believe what they were learning now? And, even more importantly, what was to come next?
Platt, keeper of the TV remote, flipped through channels, finally settling on the FOX News channel.
“Dana, this has gone well-beyond speculation. Well-beyond hyperbole. FOX News, as well as other major networks, has been instructed to clear airtime for a presidential address to the nation in thirty-five minutes. The leaders of other nations will be doing the same thing at the top of the hour.”
Scotty watched what seemed to be looped, stock footage—televised from inside Mission Control Center in Texas—transmitted along with multiple, older video clips of the ISS, the International Space Station, in orbit.
“You know what the president’s going to say, don’t you? You’re part of this?” Alison asked, her tone somewhat accusatory.
Scotty nodded. “Yes, I am a part of this. I am the living example.”
“Example of what?” Platt sneered. “You’re going to jail … that’s hardly an example of anyone of much importance.”
“Shut up, Platt. If anyone’s going to jail, it’s you, for obstructing an FBI Agent in the course of her duties,” Alison said.
Even now, with the momentous news about aliens and saved astronauts—the two were back bickering; both avoiding the implications of what news stations across the world were urgently reporting. At that moment, Scotty had serious doubts the people on Earth would be able to handle what was soon to follow.
“Scotty, your father, Kyle, and Sara need to know you’re alive. That you’re back.” Briana Sullivan looked at him, her eyes filled with doubt.
“I won’t be staying, Mom. Soon, very soon, everything will change. It’s why I’m here.” Briana, studying him, nodded back.
“It’s like the Apollo landing,” Platt said, sitting on the floor, his legs outstretched like an overgrown child’s.
“What does that even mean?” Alison asked.
“Moon landing back in the late seventies … it was all bullshit. Nothing more than a Hollywood movie-set stunt. Aliens? Come on, spare me!”
Alison, rolling her eyes, turned to Scotty. “What is the president going to say?”
“He’s going to speak to the American public; hopefully convey a sense of calm, prepare them for what is coming.”
“That cataclysmic cosmic event thing, you spoke about?” Alison asked.
“In sixteen months, Earth will be destroyed by a tremendous, interstellar, gamma ray. It’ll shoot through this solar system in the blink of an eye and nothing will remain in its wake.”
Officer Platt snickered as Larry, wedged between the couch and the coffee table, angled his head, left then right, as Scotty scratched behind his floppy ears.
“Mom, sorry to do this, but you’ll need to come with me. You too, Alison … if you will?”
“Come with you where, hon?” his mother asked.
“Washington, D.C.”
Platt pulled his eyes away from the TV. “Ahh, and you don’t want me to come with you, too? I’m crestfallen.”
Scotty chose that exact moment to transform into his Vallic, energetic, state. His mother, inhaling abruptly, jerked her hand away. He smiled, not taking it personally. He knew this was way beyond weird for them as he stood and proceeded to walk right through both his dog and the coffee table. Standing before Platt, his hazy form barely blocked the TV set behind him.
“Are you really that certain this is magic?” he asked Platt, who continued to watch the only slightly obscured FOX report.
“What would convince you otherwise?” Scotty asked, fairly certain Platt was already convinced. Probably a little scared too. “The truth is, I could use your help.”
Platt didn’t say anything, but he didn’t snicker, or make a face back either.
“If you could do what I’m doing now, this type of magic, as you put it … would you be interested in that?”
That brought a smile to Platt’s fleshy face. “Sure … it’d be a riot. I’d join the circus.”
Both Alison and Sc
otty’s mother Briana laughed at that.
“It took years of physical therapy to do the kinds of things you witnessed me doing today. It was also incredibly painful. My flesh burned so bad I wanted to die … either that or cut it away. I was nine when I went through the procedure. It’s called Dyad-Geneses: A process that involved my Human DNA merging with alien Vallic DNA. I am no longer 100% Human, Officer Platt. I am a Human-Vallic.”
“Yeah … so?”
“Anyone who wants to survive—live out a full life—will have to go through a form of what I went through. Not as painful, and not as long, time-wise, to recuperate.”
Platt’s eyes were searching Scotty’s featureless face. “You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“You want me to become … whatever thing you’ve become?”
“Only if you want that. But you may be too scared.”
“You’re serious?” Platt asked again.
“If you want to live, you’ll do it. And you’ll say goodbye to everything you’ve ever known while living on Earth. You’ll travel to another world, a new home, called Hope.”
“Can’t I just go there without the whole Human-Vallic mumbo-jumbo?”
“No. The radiation on Hope would eventually kill you.”
Platt didn’t say anything back for a long minute. Finally, he said, “I guess.”
Scotty changed back into his Human form then sat down by the obese police officer to reconsider things. Perhaps there was some hope, after all.
Hearing heavy boots storming up the outside stairs, all eyes went to the apartment’s curtained window. They were coming for him, just like Scotty knew they would.
Chapter 46
Exhausted, astronaut Commander Landon sat beside Fischer and Mirkin; both had their heads tilted back and were fast asleep. The three men sat in a row on what he assumed was intended to be a kind of bench seat. Strange, how the aliens never seemed to sit down themselves. Perhaps, little more than glowing energy forms, they had no need to ever do so.
Landon ran his hand along the seat’s smooth surface. The bench-like protrusion was actually part of the bulkhead. A bulkhead that was warm to the touch and laced with multiple, somewhat translucent, layers of what looked to be an intricate vascular system. Nerves and nerve bundles, and even a type of skeletal support system that he could now make out, set deep within the flesh-like material. In essence, the walls were alive—he figured the whole damn ship was alive.
Landon briefly tried to make sense of this strange kind of technology; one that could be grown, instead of built. To some degree, it made sense. It certainly sparked his interest, wanting to learn more about it. He contemplated upon how involved it was to manufacture a simple panel of steel—all the time and energy it took to mine the ore—have it melted down and refined, then roll it out into sheets, etc. And then it had to be delivered—the whole complicated freight, distribution aspect. And if it should get damaged, then someone had to go and fix it. All that for just one aspect: a steel panel. Virtually thousands, perhaps millions, of parts went into the construction of a spacecraft. So why bother, Landon mused, when one could get something to grow at an exponential rate; even fix itself? This went far beyond Human’s current engineering skills—still limited to two-dimensional computer chips, even though it was known they could get a massive increase in transistor density using three dimensions. But they hadn’t yet figured out how to remove the heat generated in the chip fast enough. Strange to think that Earth’s future might have evolved in this same direction—one day. He thought about that—Earth’s potential future. But there would be no future for Earth. He now whole-heartedly believed that. He’d been shown the scientific evidence, had asked all the right questions. No, he was convinced Earth was doomed.
His thoughts then turned to the aliens onboard this huge space vessel. A strange and aloof race of beings, there didn’t seem to be that many of them aboard. In fact, Landon had the odd feeling they more or less were a skeleton crew.
They’d been asked to wait on the bench seat. To rest up—that more would be asked of them soon. Over the preceding hours, Landon had spent the most amount of time with the one called Seve. An alien female, she moved noticeably slower than the others—as if she were in pain, or perhaps just getting older. She’d provided them the fundamentals of what was happening; the direction the aliens wanted things to move. She had specified what was to be conveyed to Earth’s various high-government officials, including the President of the United States. Astronauts Landon and Fischer had been communicating, for the most part, with NASA’s MCC, while Mirkin had spoken with their Russian counterpart—RKA Mission Control Center, in Korolyov, Russia. A lot of information had been disseminated. The three astronauts had earlier agreed among themselves that they would make sure that those they had contact with on Earth understood that they were merely the conduits of information provided by the aliens.
Of course, NASA higher ups and government official’s initial outright skepticism had been anticipated. Seve, taking that in stride, responded by saying that verifiable science would speak for itself. With that said, the aliens were asked to provide what had seemed an endless amount of technical data. Data that clearly confirmed what was coming—a gamma ray of inexplicable destructive force, zooming along at nearly the speed of light headed directly for the Solar System—for Earth.
“How are you feeling, Commander Landon? Can I get you anything … some water perhaps?”
Landon hadn’t noticed Seve’s ghost-like form approach. “Um, no, thank you. This is just … a lot to take in.”
“Yes, I apologize for putting you in this position.”
“It just seems so much will need to happen, and in such a relatively short span of time. Basically, moving off all of Earth’s Humankind. It sounds impossible.”
“We will do what we can. Please remember, we have done this already, a number of times.”
Landon sensed she had smiled, but wasn’t sure of it. “I have to tell you, if it could, you know, be done, God how I’d love to visit another world. As an astronaut, I’m probably more predisposed to thinking that way.” He looked at his sleeping compatriots. “We’re explorers by nature. But I have a question for you: What about the very young, like tiny infants, or, on the flip side, the very old? Will this even be a possibility for those Humans?”
“Certainly, Commander. The young and old, if they so choose, can make the transition, as well as certain animals. The procedure, the recovery times, have greatly improved. In addition to our own people, there are premier Human-Vallic scientists now living on Hope. Taken from Earth years ago, they have dedicated their lives to make this procedure work … ” Seve hesitated, seeming to need time to collect herself.
“Are you all right?” Landon asked.
“No, unfortunately, I am not. You see, Commander, I am dying. We all, the original Vallic-Humans that is, are dying.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean you are dying? How … ?”
“I spoke to you about the Dyad-Geneses treatments … procedures, yes? That all Humans will need to undergo this process, prior to living on Hope.”
“You told us about that, about the thousands of Humans, many of them children, who have already made this transition successfully. Some of them are back on Earth now,” Landon said.
“Well … the Vallic, the ones who chose to be part of this endeavor, elected to go through a very similar Dyad-Geneses. Only our intention was to join Human DNA to our existing Vallic DNA. To become Vallic-Human.”
“That makes sense, Seve. It seems, then, that you, all the original Vallic and all the original Humans you brought to Hope, would now be identical … the same kind of, um, being. Is that not the case?”
Seve shook her head. “No, it did not turn out that way. I do not wish to be insulting … what I’m about to tell you. The Vallic ancestry on our world of Lorimar, are predisposed to both kindness and gentleness. That is our heritage, Commander. Can you say the same for your own h
eritage, even centuries back, not to mention millennia? Our newly acquired Human DNA is having adverse, negative effects on us emotionally and physically.”
Landon studied Seve, her slightly hunched shoulders, the pain she seemed to be barely tolerating. He asked, “And the early Dyad-Geneses Human subjects? Are they exhibiting the same negative affects?”
“On the contrary, just the opposite. Those subjects are physically, emotionally, even mentally thriving,” Seve said.
“I’m sorry. I truly am. Here you are, undergoing all this hardship for Humankind, and how are you repaid? The Vallic people, having to go through such a terrible turn of events, doesn’t seem fair,” Landon said.
“Perhaps it’s perfectly fair. We, the Vallic, don’t forget, were the ones who originally set these events into motion. Starting with an unimaginable, cataclysmic, fusion reaction on a far distant world, many light years away.”
“But that was unintentional, Seve. I can see something similar happening from future Humans. And I’m not so sure we would be as forthcoming about fixing things as you have been.” Landon held his next question until two Vallic-Humans passed by them and left the area. “So this leaves me with one more question … will you, any of you, survive long enough to bring this spatial endeavor to fruition?”
“We will see … I hope so,” she said.
“Maybe one of your scientists will find a cure for what you have,” Landon added. Seve silently left him the way she’d come.
Over the next few hours, Landon spoke at length to the President of the United States twice more. Peter Mirkin did the same with the Russian president. It had been decided early on by government officials that the media should not be granted access to any more than the barest minimum of what was actually transpiring. Yes, the ISS was intact. The crew was alive and well. And yes, an alien contact had transpired. But nothing yet would be forthcoming about Earth’s impending fate. The last thing anyone wanted was to ignite worldwide mass hysteria. But Landon had little faith that mass hysteria was avoidable. Within days, maybe hours, virtually all lives on Earth would be forever altered. Seve had spoken of the impending timeframe. Landon shook his head. He couldn’t reconcile what needed to be accomplished in such a short period of time.
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