by Jay Brushett
She shook the proffered hand.
“Thank you Do… Larry.”
“I dropped by to see what your research schedule was like. Do you have anything lined up yet?”
“Nothing concrete. Of course, I have lots of stuff I want to do but it’s not even at the proposal stage yet. The Bracewell probe has changed everything. Just being here, working with you… the whole world is different now and I get to be part of it.”
“Yes, exactly! I have something that I think you’d be interested in. May I?” Larry asked, indicating the guest chair in front of the desk.
“By all means.”
He sat and she did the same.
“Would you like access to the probe?” he asked.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, not at all. I…,“ he paused, glancing back toward the office door. He stood, walked over, closed it and returned to his seat. “Now… where do I start? There’s more to the story than you know.” He paused a moment but Lian sat silent, hanging on every word. “You know all about the Ko Nos Ah and their supposedly water-covered world. The Blue, as they called it.”
“Of course.”
“But what you don’t know is that there was more, data that I deemed, hmmm, inappropriate for public consumption.” He paused again and looked right at her. “I’m sorry Lian, but before I continue, I have to know if you want to be part of the project or not. If not I’ll just walk away now. Before you answer, bear in mind, I’m going to ask a lot of you. It may involve some personal sacrifices, some distance from other people even. We’ll be looking at the big picture. And I do mean big.”
“Are you kidding me?!” She was nearly hopping in her seat with excitement. “I’m in!”
“Great!” Larry said, smiling broadly. He leaned back in the chair. “There was a warning.”
“From the aliens… to us?”
“To anyone who found the probe I suppose. They probably launched hundreds, maybe more.”
“Of course. So, they were threatening us?”
Larry was shaking his head. “No, no. They were warning us about a threat they were facing.”
“But this would have been thousands of years ago.”
“Yes, precisely right.”
“So, whatever it was is long in the past.”
“Just think about it a moment. Why would they send the probe if that was the case? Sure, if they faced extinction they might want to pass on their knowledge, their history, their culture. But why include the warning?”
“Because they could,” Lian said without hesitation. “It was the climax of their story, a part of it.”
“Yes. But the way the data is presented is not like that. It’s not a story of what happened. It’s a warning of what’s coming.”
“Coming? Here? To Earth?”
“Perhaps.” Larry shrugged. “More likely they just meant coming as in moving on, through space. So, maybe not directly here. It was more general than specific.”
“Okay. What’s the plan? We’re obviously going there, when we can I mean. Way in the future. We’ll send a probe of our own before that. Again, that’s probably after we’re both dead. But what’s the immediate plan?”
“We might not be around, but someone will. We’ve gotta help them as much as we can. And you know, as well as I do, that politics change, priorities change. This warning is too vague and too distant. It might be hundreds of years away, if not longer. It’ll be forgotten, warped. We can’t let that happen.” He paused once more, for effect. “No one knows about it except for you and I.”
“You haven’t reported it to the university? To the space agency? The commission?”
“No one.”
The sheer trust he was putting in her hit her then. “I… what can I do to help?”
“You’re going to help me prepare.”
“How?”
“I want to start something. A think tank of sorts. Something that will keep the real mission, the threat, in focus. It must transcend lives and institutions. Therefore, it’ll have to be under the radar. It’ll have to be above other allegiances; above jobs and nations. Maybe even above family, if it comes to it. It might save our race, a long way down the road. The mission must endure.”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” Doctor Wu said.
“Well then, let’s get started.”
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to everyone who helped get this book out the door: Cat, Paul, Alison, Martina and Sean. Your time is greatly appreciated.
About the Author
Jay Brushett writes in various genres but produces mostly science fiction and fantasy.
This is no doubt a result of growing up on a steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons, comic books, Star Wars, Star Trek, Michael Crichton and other miscellaneous fiction. He also has a degree in computer science which has added a rational foundation to the house of his imagination.
When he’s not living on a giant rock jutting out of the North Atlantic (otherwise known as the Newfoundland part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador) Jay loves to travel and has spent extended periods in New Zealand, Southeast Asia and Italy.