The Cocoon Trilogy

by David Saperstein

  “Like making your own short cut,” Cynthia suggested.

  “Something like that. A short cut that they build and then use. Not one that existed before. Light moves in a relatively straight line, and for some trips light speed is adequate. But the Parman guides take light, a certain part of starlight that is, and absorb it. In effect they pull light in. The closer we get to our destination, the more they pull or absorb and the more accelerate until the route is bent beyond light speed.”

  “Does it hurt?” Cori asked.

  “Does what hurt, darling?”

  “To travel that way?”

  “No. But without the processing we had back in Florida five years ago, it would be impossible for us to travel in space at all. And more interesting than that is the fact that the Antarean processing only will work on older Earth humans.” She gestured up toward the starry night sky. “You young people will have to wait until your body ages if you want to go out there with us.”

  “Wow,” Lisa said. “There are so many stars, so many places to go and see. Will you see them all, Grandma?”

  “Maybe not all, but your grandpa and I plan to keep on traveling for as long as we can. There is talk about beginning to travel to other galaxies.”

  They walked back to the porch filled with awe of Mary Green’s adventures. Patricia was exhausted from the strain of the day’s events. The girls wanted to hear more about the planets Mary had seen and the beings she had met. They kept their grandmother up for several hours after Pat and her husband had gone to asleep.

  Cori and Lisa Keane had hardly slept. They awoke with more questions for their grandmother about the beings she had met: how they lived, did they have music, how they dressed, what their schools were like, what they thought about humans. Were there other humans like us? Or were they different? How? They pleaded with their mother to let them cut school the next day. Patricia Keane had no choice but to agree. For the first time since joining his law firm, Michael Keane called in sick so he could stay home with the rest of the family to hear more about Mary and Ben Green’s adventures

  It was another sunny spring day. They gathered around the breakfast table, a wrought-iron glass-top affair with matching upright chairs that were as uncomfortable as they looked. Patricia so loved that set and no one dared complain. The sun poured into the large kitchen. Mary tried to help with breakfast but the girls insisted on serving her. She was the guest of honor.

  “You’re an ambassador, Grandma,” Cori announced as she served grapefruit halves topped with maraschino cherries. With a flourish she placed a grapefruit in front of Mary and began to hum, “Hail to the Chief.”

  “That’s for the President, dummy,” Lisa chided her younger sister.

  “Well, maybe Grandma will be president of a planet one day,” she answered, giving Mary Green a kiss. “I love you, Grandma.”

  “I love you too, darling. I love all of you very much.” Mary sat back in the hard metal chair and observed her family. How had she missed them? After five years, what did they really think about her return? It was part of her mission to explore her family’s feelings so as to help the others who were one their way to Earth make decisions regarding contacting their own families. Last night she had talked about some of her adventures in the broadest terms to them.

  There was no way of knowing how detailed she should be. It bothered her to reach into their minds from time to time to see what effect her stories and her presence had on them. There was love and genuine happiness for her return. They were relieved that she and Ben were alive and well. But underneath those very human feelings there lurked another thought. Grandma was different. Grandma knew so much, had seen so much and was in some undefined sense, superior. She had not physically aged. She was strong and healthy and nearly eighty years old. But she looked much younger than they remembered. There was an undefined separation between them. It frightened Patricia. And deep within his mind an emerging idea gnawed at Michael Keane’s id. Alien, he thought. Mary is an alien. She is no longer of this world. She calls herself Earth-human. She speaks of other worlds as though they were her home, and of other beings as though they were what? Human too? Or something else? What has she become? Who is she? Mary listened silently to these thoughts and was concerned.

  A large plate of toast, Lisa’s chore, was the last item to be brought to the table. It was dark; nearly burned.

  “The toast is burned,” Cynthia complained as she passed the scrambled eggs to her father. Lisa grinned impishly.

  “It’s good for your teeth that way,” the seventeen-year-old actress-to-be retorted.

  “You sound like a commercial,” Cynthia shot back sarcastically.

  “You think so? You really think so?” Lisa was suddenly serious. “I’m going to see an agent in New York next week. She’s Leslie Blackman’s agent and she gets her lots of work.”

  “Leslie Blackman is beautiful.” Cynthia fired back, but Lisa ignored the remark.

  “Maybe… But I’ve got character. Right, Grandma?”

  “You were always a character, dear. A wonderful character!”

  “See!” Lisa then took a piece of toast and scraped off the charred top until the piece was half its original size. Everyone at the table burst into laughter. Lisa played it to the hilt, slowly buttering the toast, taking a large bite and then rolling her eyes in delight.

  Mary caught herself laughing, filling up with old feelings: pride in her family, love for her grandchildren, the sense of being an older generation observing and enjoying the renewal of life. But she and Ben were, in many ways, alien. She felt guilty. Perhaps they should have stayed behind five years ago. The grandchildren had grown, matured into wonderful young women. Her other daughter, Melanie, was halfway around the world in Australia, a marine biologist…a stranger. How much had she and Ben missed? Was it really worth leaving?

  At that moment Ben Green reached her mind and quelled her doubts. “Yes, my darling, it was, and is worth everything. What we do is very important.” And then their thoughts melded as they recalled their son Scott, a casualty of Viet Nam, a name, along with fifty-thousand other human beings, engraved on a long, dark, brooding strip of black marble in Washington, D.C. With that thought, and the potential for starting a new family that Ben and Mary knew they now had, the decision was taken.

  Mary would not reveal the entire reason for their return to Earth. She told her family it was to bring the cocoons back to Antares, but mentioned nothing of the pregnancies aboard the Watership. And the fact that she was now absolutely certain she was going to have a baby too.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – A TEAM GATHERS

  There were 1,158 satellites and space hardware of one sort or another circling the Earth in a wide variety of orbits and distances. Their purposes were as varied as science could devise and execute. Of all these Earth-human extraterrestrial hardware, only thirty-seven had the capability of noting the entrance of the Antarean Probeship that carried the Green’s, Finley’s and Amos Bright into the atmosphere. Only seventeen of those had the capability of instantaneously relaying information on the intruder back to their Earth stations. Six belonged to the United States, five to the Soviet Union, two to Japan and one each to India, England and Israel. The Probeship entry was so fast that by the time these satellites locked in on it the Probeship had blended into an active thunder storm weather system and appeared as just an electrical anomaly. However, because it was initially classified as an extraordinary event, what little data gathered was studied by these governments. Since the occurrence had terminated over American soil the highly secret Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, had the task of deciphering the event. Heavy weather eliminated the possibilities of visual sightings and most of the local Florida airports were closed down, making radar contacts few and inconclusive. Within two days the final DIA report stated the anomaly as Electrical Atmospheric Disturbance - EAD/close file.

  An Antarean Probeship is a relatively small, fast craft, about the size of a railroad car and highly ma
neuverable. On the other hand, a Watership is a large visible craft, more so if it has three huge high-pressure storage tanks in tow. To bring that to Earth undetected was a far more complex matter than finding a weather system for cover.

  With the President and Defense Secretary on board, the first order of business was to identify and recruit a small and highly specialized group of people who would share Alma Finley’s secret on a need-to-know basis. With sleeves rolled up, President Teller and Margo McNeil worked on a list of trusted people who would be part of the inner circle. Caleb Harris and Alma Finley plotted out a schedule of events based on updates Alma received from her husband Joe, the Green’s and Amos Bright. This data, from the approaching Watership, continually flowed back and forth through the commanders’ minds.

  Landing the Watership secretly was the first problem to be solved. Gideon Mersky took charge of that aspect of the operation. He would put together a small team of his brightest logisticians and give them a hypothetical problem without revealing its veracity.

  The president chose his newly appointed Undersecretary of Health, Dr. Mohammad Khawaja, a board-certified neurosurgeon of Pakistani heritage, to oversee the medical aspect of the operation. The doctor was a deliberate man, known for this eclectic approach to problems. It was for this reason that he was chosen. No one could imagine what complications these pregnancies might hold. The women were, although processed to travel in space, old. Could their bodies take the strain of childbirth? And with all the space travel they’d done, being exposed to a variety of atmospheres, gravities and exotic foods, what effect might that have on the babies? When he was informed of the four interplanetary matings with humanoids from other planets, Dr. Khawaja sat down and thought for a long moment before he finally spoke. “So to be clear, Mr. President, you are tasking me to design an obstetric and pediatric facility for patients that by all rights should be under the care of a geriatrician. And then to prepare for circumstances we, I, cannot begin to fathom.” He smiled slyly. “But, you know, it is quite an interesting challenge. We must anticipate all eventualities. Therefore, I will require a large facility, perhaps many. There will be housing for the couples, prenatal care, and of course a complete obstetric department. Then I will want pediatric intensive care units ready with delivery and operating rooms, a surgical staff - both gynecological and geriatric...at least until we can establish the health of the mothers and the viability if the babies in their wombs” He chuckled. “That, Mr. President, is a specialty I can assure you is quite rare - gynecological geriatrician.” Everyone in the room joined in his amusement. “Then the nursery. That will require a specialized staff as well…”

  “I think you’re going to need engineers and chemists too,” Caleb suddenly said. “Those four mixed marriages . . .”

  “Matings,” Alma corrected him.

  “Yes, well, from what we’ve heard it’s possible that the babies might be…I don’t know. I mean I hate to say it, but not human…at least human as we know it. They might need special environments.”

  “The Watership is bringing atmospheres,” Alma said.

  “Yes,” Doctor Khawaja stated, “but Mr. Harris is correct. We will have to design and build environments, not only for the babies but for the non-human, I mean non-Earth-human parents. And these special babies might have requirements different from either parent. Yes, engineers, chemists, biologists…I believe many experts will be required.”

  “Can it be done?” President Teller asked.

  “I believe so, Mr. President,” the Undersecretary answered. “The problem will be to keep this a secret. You know many of the best scientific minds in this country, and frankly I think we should settle for nothing but the best…well, some of those people have a different point of view from us about government, or at least about your administration.”

  “I don’t think that’s a problem,” Gideon Mersky said. “When those folks, and I don’t care what their politics are, find out that they’re going to have the opportunity to work on some real live extraterrestrials, I think they’ll go along with whatever we ask.”

  “And afterward?” Caleb questioned.

  “After what?”

  “After the babies are born and well…safe. After we don’t need many of these uh, people anymore. What then?” Everyone in the room looked at Alma.

  “Well, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said wistfully. “The problem at hand is to find the best people and the best facility. Secrecy and the welfare of the mothers and the babies are our principal mission’s criteria.”

  “I agree,” President Teller said. “We’ll just have to educate those folks.”

  Dr. Khawaja turned his attention to Alma Finley. “Can you tell me anything about the changes you experienced while these Antareans processed you?”

  “After the processing here on Earth we all experienced euphoria. I never felt so well, so healthy. Clean is the word that comes to mind. We were disease free. My husband’s leukemia was completely cured. People that came to us crippled with arthritis, palsy, heart disease - they were all made well and whole. My friend Bess had, has, a sister, Betty. She was a stroke victim, confined to a bed in a miserable nursing home. With my own eyes I saw her transform and become completely functional.” Everyone in the room had stopped their work as they listened to Alma relate her story. “We eleven, the commanders, had to make an additional adjustment to the implants. But the real change was within here…’ She paused and gently tapped her chest. “Within our psyche. It took nearly four months Earth time to reach Parma Quad 2. That was a period of adjustment and learning. We all believed that we had done the right thing, leaving Earth, that is. And physically we were well prepared for the rigors of space travel. But as we pulled away from our planet, as it grew smaller, a profound silence swept through the whole group, nine hundred forty-one strong. In what seemed like a few moments we felt the Mothership slow down. There, outside the membrane we had entered through, we saw Saturn. It was the only planet in our path out of the solar system. It was glorious – a huge orange ball whirling within a kaleidoscope of rocks and debris of all manner and shape and color.”

  “Our Voyager took some great pictures of Saturn,” Mersky remarked.

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Secretary, but to see it in person... It’s enormous. Or at least we thought so until we visited some other planets. And the Antareans say that they have observed moons the size of Saturn in the Hydra Galaxy.”

  “And to think it cost us five hundred million dollars to look at photos of what this woman casually observed,” the President mused.

  “Not so casually,” Alma continued. “The reality of what we had done…being this far away from… well, from home, gave many on board second thoughts. Had leaving Earth really been the right thing to do? It was an uneasy moment. The Mothership picked up speed again and we settled into our quarters. It was also unsettling that such a huge vessel had a very small crew. There were only five Antareans on the flight deck plus the seven that had been on Earth. Of course there were three pairs of Parman guides, but they remained in quarters or outside on the hull for most of the trip. Only toward the end, when we were approaching Parma Quad 2 and had learned the rudiments of their language, did we understand how intelligent and advanced the Parman were.”

  “So you were in school on the ship?” Caleb asked.

  “Yes. It was difficult, but fascinating. Then, oh maybe two weeks out, we slowed again and actually came to a stop. You can imagine our excitement when we looked out and saw three other spaceships. Zeridian science vessels from the area of our galaxy we call Pleiades. Amos Bright, the Antarean leader, invited some of the Zeridians aboard to meet us. They were bipedal mammals from a water planet. By our standards they were short, three to four feet. They greeted us by touch. Very soothing and warm. It was a wonderful time for everyone. And by that time everyone had become so familiar with the Antareans that the Zeridians didn’t seem, well…alien to us. Meeting them brought that into f
ocus for everyone in the Brigade. It was as if we had stepped through Alice’s looking glass into a totally new dimension, a startling new way of seeing others and ourselves. Even though we were millions of miles from Earth, for the first time, to everyone Earth-human on board, we understood that we were changed forever. We were part of something far beyond our earthly experience in a place that accepted us as belonging.”

  “Did this apply everywhere you went?” Margo McNeil asked.

  “Yes.” Alma answered, “Everywhere the Antareans have been in our galaxy.”

  “That is very interesting,” Dr. Khawaja said, “but what I am really driving at is to understand what physical changes you have experienced. Changes that might give me some clue as these unusual pregnancies and how that might affect a fetus.”

  “I don’t know,” Alma answered.

  “You’ve had no physical examination?”

  “Never.”

  “Then we will have to explore every eventuality we can imagine until we can examine the uh, the patients.”

  The phone rang. Dr. Caroline Macklow from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was in the outer office. Margo McNeil went out to get her. Dr. Macklow, a Ph.D. specializing in oceanic pollution, was fifty years old with wispy gray-brown hair, a face that appeared too small for her owlish green eyes and a smile that was disarming. She was tall, nearly six feet, and carried her large frame upright. She entered the room and immediately paid her respects to the President. After she had met everyone, she was sworn to secrecy and brought up to date on the historical events that were about to happen. Dr. Macklow’s expertise would be valuable in the salvaging of the cocoons.

  As the day wore on, the team grew. Two of Gideon Mersky’s whiz kids, as he called them; Phillip Margolin, a military analyst he recruited from the Rand Corporation, and Alicia Sanchez, a project supervisor at NASA, were assigned to work on the problem of masking the Watership’s arrival and landing.