Pav smiled, trying desperately—Xavier thought—to return a bit of humor to this tense situation. “It might be better to call them ‘old friends never met,’” he said.
The jet was taxiing right up to the front of the hangar; the noise of its twin engines effectively eliminated further exchanges.
Zeds looked intrigued. Tea was grim, her arms across her chest. Yahvi blinked and seemed miserable. Pav had his arm around Rachel.
Now Xavier got a good look at the plane . . . sleek, white, clearly twenty meters from tip to tail. Two pilots were visible in the cockpit. Rows of windows confirmed that it was some kind of passenger craft.
On the tail . . . a baby kangaroo? The word surfaced from his deep memory: a wallaby.
“Is this from Australia?” Xavier shouted. The engines wound down just as he opened his mouth, making him sound so much louder than necessary that the others—even Chang and Singh—laughed.
Singh’s lighter moment didn’t last long. As the engines fell silent, Xavier and the others could hear latches on the cabin door being opened. As the door swung down, becoming a ladder, Singh raised his pistol, covering the hatchway.
A thin, middle-aged white male with a crest of blond hair stuck his head out. “Don’t shoot!” he said, hands up. “We come in peace!”
Xavier saw Singh glance at Chang, who nodded. The weapon was lowered.
Pav stepped forward, hand extended. “Mr. Radhakrishnan, I presume,” the man said. His Aussie accent was so strong that Radhakrishnan sounded like “Redda kishen.”
“My wife, Rachel,” Pav said. He quickly introduced all of them, ending with Zeds . . . which caused the Aussie fellow to step back and look up.
When this happened, Yahvi grabbed her mother and said, “Who is this man?”
The man heard her and turned. “Oh, sorry, got your names, forgot to offer mine.” He smiled. “Colin Edgely, young lady. Among my other notable accomplishments, I am the man who discovered Keanu.”
Rachel said, “I thought that name was familiar. Lovely to meet you, and why are you here?”
Edgely looked at Pav, who cleared his throat and said, “He’s come to rescue us.”
Mr. Kalyan Bhat of Hebbal, Bengaluru, Karnatka, admits he was shocked by the news that humans had returned from the Near-Earth Object Keanu. “I lived near the control center,” he said. “I saw the object rising into the sky.” He had a special interest in the event, though Kalyan—who was only thirteen—didn’t know it at the time.
“My older brother, Sanjay, was in that thing. I didn’t find out for a week.”
That shocking news contributed to the death of the boys’ mother, Sima. “She was fighting cancer and doing well, but losing Sanjay like that . . . she gave up.” Sima Bhat died two years later.
Kalyan and Sanjay’s father, Mahavir, a clerk with the State Bank of India in Hebbal, lived until 2037. “I know that losing Sanjay affected him, too. Every year, on the anniversary of the object’s takeoff, he would lock himself in his room.
“But when I tried to get him to talk about Sanjay, he wouldn’t. There was only one picture of my brother in our house, in my father’s bedroom.”
As for Kalyan himself, he served in the Indian army during the conflicts of 2029–2031, and became an engineer with DMC Electronics.
“I was thirteen when Sanjay was taken,” he said. “I can’t wait to see him.” He added, “It’s like something from an old story—a castaway returning, or someone coming back from the dead.”
As for the rumors that Sanjay was injured in Adventure’s crash landing, he said, “I hope they’re wrong. And if he was injured, I hope he’s recovering.” Has ISRO or another agency been in touch with him?
“No.”
TIMES OF INDIA FEATURE,
APRIL 15, 2040
TAJ
“You said they were going to China!”
Taj was heading for his car when Melani Remilla caught up with him.
They were in the same garage where the Adventure convoy had departed earlier that day; Taj had spent the hours since then essentially locked in the conference room, working his phone and calling up news reports on the screens.
The accident on the road to Bengaluru International had shocked him—which in turn surprised him. He had not only agreed to the idea of a second, clandestine convoy . . . it had been his idea! He was the one who always feared that the Adventure crew would be targets of violence, and not just from the Aggregates.
Tea often teased him that no matter how cynical he sounded, he was still a romantic. “Poor Taj! Loves flowers and pretty girls and the Moon . . . has to pretend about guns and treachery.”
No matter. Knowing Rachel and Pav and the others had lifted off from Bengaluru meant he could go home for a few hours, before returning to the Sanjay vigil—and trying to decide his next move.
Once he got rid of Remilla. “Didn’t we all believe they were going to China?”
“That doesn’t answer my question, sir!” If Taj had any doubts that Remilla was upset, they vanished.
“Until an hour ago,” he told her, and he wasn’t lying, “the only information I had was that the crew would be going to China. Edgar Chang was arranging it.”
“Then who took them to Australia?”
Here Taj was on trickier ground, since he had suspicions, though no data. “That I cannot tell you.” Strictly true, if not especially illuminating.
He had known Remilla for more than twenty years, since the Brahma days, first as a young female spacecraft engineer specializing in environmental systems, which could not have been an easy job, given the male-dominated ISRO world.
Then, after the arrival of the Aggregates and the subsequent wars and plagues, when India had no money for space exploration aside from spy satellites, Remilla had moved into program management, becoming the last woman standing.
Their interactions over the past year, all of them involving the Keanu return, had been completely professional. He knew nothing of her personal life, though he had some memory of a husband somewhere, and a grown son. During those contacts, Taj had found Remilla to be smart and open—possibly too open when it came to dealing with sharks like Kaushal—but too prey to emotion when things didn’t go her way.
Like now. “But you have had more information than the rest of us!”
“Why are you surprised? My son is one of them!”
“So he was telling you secrets!”
“I was spending more time with him than anyone else,” Taj said, losing patience with this woman. “So, yes, I undoubtedly heard more than you or Kaushal did.”
“You should have told us!”
“I told you everything that was important.”
Remilla frowned. Clearly she had no goal other than to express frustration at losing control of a situation that was never in control. “What are they going to do now?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said, though he was convinced that, ultimately, the Aggregates were their target. Pav had told him a bit about the Houston-Bangalores and their successful eradication of the Reivers on Keanu twenty years ago. Of course, sanitizing a Near-Earth Object was one thing . . . cleansing half a planet, quite another.
“Will you promise to tell me when they are back in contact?”
“Of course,” he said, not at all sure that he would. Remilla’s only role now was to make sure that Adventure remained unmolested, and that Sanjay Bhat was safe until he could be transferred.
Those happened to be Taj’s jobs, too. And he was going to fail at both if he did not get some sleep.
Remilla offered a conciliatory hug, and finally left him.
Taj climbed into his car and started it up, hoping that the drive to his apartment would be trouble-free. He and Tea had spent most of their married life living on Raisina Hill in New Delhi, close to the Ministry of Defence. But with news of Keanu
’s looming return, they had moved to Bangalore.
It had not been an easy year and a half for Tea. In fact, the entire last decade had been a challenge for his wife. When the Aggregates erected their financial and other walls around the United States, she had faced a choice: Return and submit to the new order, or stay away . . . and lose her pension.
She chose to stay away, and found herself having to make a living as a former astronaut, first woman to walk on the Moon, in a world that had no time for space exploration.
(It wasn’t about survival: Taj could support both of them on his general’s pension and other investments. But naturally Tea resisted that.)
She had finally found a way to keep busy, making speeches to female students in secondary schools and college classes about opportunities in science and technology—ISRO supported it; more to the point, so did the Ministry of Defence. (The more engineers it could enroll in the coming war with the Aggregates, the better!)
But it was not a happy existence. Tea had grown unhappy, with her work, her future, with India . . . with Taj.
And now she was off with Rachel. Taj was grateful that she finally had something worthwhile to keep her busy. He was quite unhappy, though, that neither of them had been able to work together—he with the “secrets” he had learned from Pav, she with . . . whatever she was gleaning from Rachel—
He had barely pulled out of the garage when he saw movement in his peripheral vision; it was Kaushal with two of his guards literally running out of the hospital. He spotted Taj’s car and clearly ordered the guards to pursue him.
Taj chose to hit the pedal and keep driving.
It was ultimately a foolish maneuver. His car was an underpowered electric Tata Sanand III, good for cheap, comfortable commutes, useless for flight.
He was also restricted to Yelahanka Air Base, with its many speed bumps, stop signs, and competing vehicles.
All of which meant that he didn’t get far . . . Kaushal’s Jeep caught him at the exit gate.
“Why are you running away?” the wing commander said. He was wide-eyed and angrier than Taj had ever seen him.
“I wanted to go home.”
Kaushal just stared. It was likely that he was as exhausted as Taj, and almost as likely that he realized it. “You should answer your phone,” he muttered. Taj was carrying two of them, but only the one that would connect him to Kaushal was on his person. His official unit was in his briefcase. “And you need to come with me, now.”
“What is this all about, Kaushal?”
“It’s the Adventure man Sanjay.”
It was already over by the time Taj and Kaushal reached the ICU.
“He expired without ever regaining consciousness,” the senior surgeon said. “Time of death was one forty-five.”
Taj rubbed his face. He was torn between relief—he had judged Sanjay Bhat’s injuries to be fatal the moment he first saw him—and a growing sense of panic. “Let me see him.”
The surgeon stood aside and allowed Taj and Kaushal into the room where Sanjay lay. The IV and other lines had been removed and the sheets rearranged after what, to judge from the pile of bloody cotton and bandages on the floor, must have been a frantic struggle to save the Adventure engineer.
The secrets this man held! The things he had seen! The places he had traveled . . . outside the heart of the solar system! Yet he had died as a result of a stupid missile strike!
Then there were the various plans Pav and Rachel had discussed with him—assuming Sanjay recovered, they wanted him flown to their destination. “Wherever we have our cargo,” Pav had said.
So much for plans.
Remilla entered, looking shocked. “Oh my God.”
“He’s gone,” Kaushal said, unnecessarily.
“What do we do?”
“I’ll call Rachel and tell her,” Taj said. He indicated that he wanted to get out of the room, and the others followed.
“Then what?”
“He has a brother,” Kaushal said, looking to Remilla for confirmation.
“I’ll get in touch with him,” Remilla said. “But then what?”
“What?” Taj said.
“The body!” Remilla said. “What do we do? Have a funeral? Ship him to his brother?”
“Let me talk to Rachel,” Taj said.
So much for rest.
Day Four
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2040
Where did they go?
For two generations prior to the arrival of the Aggregates, tabloids and mass-market television shows feasted on stories of “alien abductions,” in which lonely humans would be plucked from deserted highways—never from downtown urban streets—and taken off for bizarre sexual or medical examinations in spacecraft.
What about alien disappearances? The crew of the Keanu-based Adventure spacecraft has vanished from the base near Bangalore where they were sequestered.
One report had them moving to Delhi, but that turned out to be false—fortunately, since an accident involving what was believed to be the Keanite convoy killed two and injured two others, according to incomplete information released so far.
We are sure of this: No one is speaking about the “aliens” present, not even the Keanites’ representative, Edgar Chang, who also seems to have gone dark.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD,
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2040
RACHEL
“How long have you been in touch with this Edgely character?”
“Not long,” Pav said. “And not often.”
The plane bumped, one of many since taking off from Bengaluru.
It was an executive jet, a thirty-year-old Gulfstream 605, according to Edgely. They were flying low over the Indian Ocean and, in Rachel’s opinion, coming far too close to nasty-looking storm clouds. The occasional bumps only convinced her that she was in the hands of crazy people.
And Pav had made this happen without telling her!
It wasn’t all bad. The turbulence probably added up to twenty minutes out of seven hours of flying. As for the rest of the time, well, the cabin was really luxurious: wide leather seats, soft lighting, carpet. There had been food and beverages shortly after takeoff, served out by Edgely and the two pilots—both Chinese, one male, one female, both younger than Rachel would have believed.
The takeoff had been swift and steep, with Edgely jokingly talking about “avoiding SAMs,” which Pav later identified as “surface-to-air missiles.”
“Like the thing that shot Adventure.”
“Correct.”
Which made her even more nervous than she had been. All during the escape from Yelahanka she had been focusing on China—what she knew, what they could do there, how long it would take them to move on. The shift to this aircraft and Mr. Colin Edgely and a destination in Australia had forced her to change her mind, never a happy or easy adjustment.
Especially when it was Pav pushing her. “It’s all right,” he had told her, as they shoved the last of their boxes into the cabin. (Only two thirds of their precious cargo would fit in the aircraft’s hold.) “I arranged this.”
“Without telling me.”
He had made one of his teenaged-boy faces, which infuriated and charmed her, in equal parts.
Then they had said good-bye to Singh and taken off.
Now, Zeds sat on the floor toward the rear of the cabin. Yahvi was next to him. Both were gazing out the windows, apparently rapt. Tea was with them, curled up in a seat asleep.
Xavier sat in the midcabin flipping through a datapad Edgely had brought while also examining several Australian newspapers. He had been quizzing Edgely and Chang about their destination—which would be Darwin in northern Australia—and flying time, which would be eleven hours. “Why Darwin?” he had said, saving Rachel the question.
“Within our range,” Edgely said. “And fairly out
of the way. Too many prying eyes and ears in Sydney or Melbourne.”
Rachel had tuned them out, however, in order to have a private moment with her husband in the forward cabin, who assured her again that his contacts with Edgely had been recent and limited.
“Well, color me relieved,” Rachel said. She had never been good at disguising sarcasm. In fact, as Pav once told her during an argument, it was her default setting. “I can’t believe you just surprised me like that.”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“Since when are you responsible for my hopes? I need facts! I had a right to know!”
“Look,” he said, “this is your mission. You’re the leader. You always have been. You know I don’t question that. But I first heard from Edgely twenty years ago, remember!”
Rachel had not remembered that fact, until Pav reminded her that the Australian astronomer—who had been one of the first discoverers of Keanu as a teenaged amateur in the outback—had sent several messages to the NEO as it departed Earth orbit and the inner solar system back in 2019.
The message had contained warnings about the arrival of the Reivers, later known to most humans on Earth as the Aggregates.
“That was all it was,” Pav said. “He posted, I don’t know, four or five warnings. I responded with a few messages of my own—where did they land? What are they doing? But never got a response. It was as if we were just leaving messages on a bulletin board somewhere.
“Then, once we started moving back into range of Earth communication, I thought it would be fun to check my old address . . . and found that Colin had continued to post updates on the Reiver invasion for years!
“So I transmitted a hello to him . . . he’d kept the old address just in case, and we exchanged literally three new messages, just me telling him a team would be landing, likely in Bangalore, and that we might need help. Everything else”—he gestured at the plane—“was up to him and his friends.”
Rachel glanced back at Edgely. He wasn’t much older than she was. “So, what has he been doing all these years?”
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