Alien Nation #1 - The Day of Descent

by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  Separation began with a fall.

  All power to the cargo disk was shut off for the space of several heartsbeats. The sirens stopped. The lights dimmed. And for a single stomach-wrenching instant there was a moment of free fall as the artificial gravity cut out.

  Then the rumble of explosive separation charges roared through the corridors, and by the time it had faded emergency light and gravity had been restored, though neither was as strong as when they had drawn their power from the ship’s main section.

  In his mind Moodri formed a picture of what the ship would look like seen from afar. The cargo disk was now propelled on a separate course by the force of the separation charges and would appear to spiral slowly away from the enormous bulk of the stardrive section, leaving a crescent-shaped gap in the stardrive’s hull and a cloud of hull-crawler machines floating free, caught unawares by the ship’s breakup.

  The curve of the stardrive hull that had gripped the cargo disk would be veiled in the vapor of lost atmosphere, almost as if it sped through clouds. A similar haze would rapidly dissipate from the edge of the cargo disk.

  Then, when the disk had moved about one kilometer distant, the stardrive emergency systems would no longer be able to control the unfathomable generators that gave it the power to slip into other dimensions, and the ship would simply disappear like a dream upon awakening. The stars that had shone behind it might appear to be a degree bluer for an instant, the result of their light being slightly accelerated due to a subtle residual warping of spacetime, but that would be the only trace the monstrous vessel would leave.

  Whatever secrets it carried, including Vondmac at the communications controls, were lost forever in realms where nothing could travel slower than light.

  Moodri smiled in peace as he sensed the ship’s final translation. It brought the moment of his reunion with Vondmac an instant closer.

  Now there was just the cargo disk spinning through space, drawn by gravity toward the course-correction star. If nothing more was to affect its course, within hours it would be close enough that it would become incandescent gas, and its passengers—no longer cargo or slaves, but passengers—would return to the stars from which they were made.

  But something would happen before then. Moodri knew the plan. And he heard the distant clunkings and rushing of liquids that told him that the plan was underway.

  Throughout the cargo disk, automatic emergency systems came to life and prepared to control the flight of an object that had no engines or reaction mass. Moodri was still not certain of the principles involved, though neither had any of the other Elders determined exactly how such a thing as artificial gravity could be possible. But it was artificial gravity that would determine the disk’s course now.

  Unfortunately, if left to their own internal instructions, the emergency automatic systems in control of the disk would attempt to have the disk follow the ship’s original route. The beings within would be long dead by the time it finished its centuries-long voyage through normal space, but the equipment would survive and be reused.

  The Elders had taken steps to prevent that.

  All through the disk, corridors were sealed off automatically, just as the water hubs had been closed by the Overseers hours earlier. Then the clearing charges that had been planted by members of the rebellion at the time of the water-hub incident fired in precise sequence, blowing apart pumping stations and diverting the disk’s water supply according to careful calculations.

  Torrents of high-pressure water flooded into the water hubs, which finally functioned as they had been designed to function—becoming holding tanks by which the distribution of mass in the disk could be altered.

  As that distribution of mass changed, the artificial gravity generators compensated for the change in stress on the disk’s hull. And though it flew in the face of everything the Elders had known about physics, the disk changed course as if the inertia of the water pulsing through it was being doubled as it rushed for the leading section and decreased to zero as it traveled back to the section following.

  “Madness,” Yondmac had called it when the engineers had first laid out what the alien machines in the disk were capable of doing. But it worked.

  Moodri pressed his back and his legs against opposite sides of the sleeping platform as all around him the disk groaned and creaked. The water hubs filled with madly swirling water, the liquid’s inertial forces being impossibly focused to provide forward momentum only. In one hub, Moodri sensed, a squad of Overseers had been trapped. And though he touched his hearts as they were swept up by the ferociously circulating flood and spun screaming around the hub’s curved and rounded walls until they were broken apart as surely as the ship had been, Moodri found it fitting that they were swallowed by the beast they had served with such equally ferocious hate.

  In time the automatic systems would compensate for the damage that the clearing charges had brought and regain control of the disk once again. But by that time, Moodri knew, the disk would have lost so much momentum that it could not possibly escape the gravitational pull of the course-correction star. At that point the automatics would then proceed with their secondary objective of preserving that which the disk carried and would look for an appropriate place to land.

  Moodri and the Elders had seen to it that the automatics would not have to look too far to find what their instructions required.

  When the creaking and shifting of direction had finally stopped, indicating that the automatic systems had plotted their course and set out on it, Moodri stopped pressing against the sides of the sleeping platform and peacefully settled down to have a nap.

  He needed his rest. For though the rebellion had succeeded, in just a few hours the real fight would begin.

  C H A P T E R 4

  SIKES SAT ON THE HOOD of the Domino’s delivery car parked in the driveway of the new house. Kirby sat close beside him, and he kept his arm around her shoulder. The night was cold, and they had a blanket wrapped around them. Sikes sipped coffee from a plastic thermos cup. There was still a ringing in his ears, but he could finally hear again. Theo’s voice in particular sounded like music.

  “You’re brilliant, man,” Sikes said as Theo came up to him with two large evidence bags. Each held a .45 automatic. “How’d you find us?”

  Theo reached out to tousle Kirby’s hair. “I didn’t find you. I just never let you out of my sight. Tailed you to Kirby’s school, the whole way home, then tailed the van back here.” He looked back at the house. Light poured from its open front door across the small porch and onto the lawn. “And if this isn’t a textbook example of a government safe house, then I don’t know what is.”

  Sikes was pleased but puzzled. “Why did you think you had to tail me?”

  “Like I said, kid, I’ve been down this road before. I said if Matt really is up to his”—he smiled at Kirby—“you-know-what in alligators with the feds, there’s sure as hell—uh, heck—not going to be any way he’s going to get help from the captain. So of course it was up to yours truly—and a couple of friends who had the night off.”

  “You can say ‘ass,’ Uncle Theo,” Kirby said indignantly. “I’m almost old enough to have—”

  Sikes put his hand over Kirby’s mouth. There had been eight other cops in on the attack with Theo. “The night off? I thought this was a SWAT operation.” Sikes looked down the wide street of the subdivision. There were knots of people in bathrobes and pajamas standing on the front lawns of their dream homes, a few unremarkable cars parked along the curb, but Sikes realized he hadn’t seen a SWAT van yet. Kirby gave up struggling and giggled.

  “SWAT my a—foot,” Theo laughed.

  “Ass,” Kirby said quickly.

  Theo kept going as Sikes covered his daughter’s mouth again. “Captain has to authorize all SWAT activities, and I didn’t think this was one he was going to sign off on. You and your pals owe your”—he looked at Kirby—“asses to Vice tonight.”

  Sikes was impressed. Theo knew
as much about departmental politics as he knew about police work. “So what happens when the captain does find out?”

  Theo shrugged. “What can he do? I mean, if I had asked and he had said no, that would be that. But since I acted on my own lawful initiative to rescue a fellow officer, and since we got solid grounds for booking these mother—uh, mothers—on kidnapping, the paper trail is going to be so thick that the captain isn’t going to be able to do squat.” He pointed a finger at Kirby. “Don’t you dare say it, or I’ll go in that house and come back out with soap.”

  “And murder,” Sikes added in a flat tone. “Kidnapping and murder.”

  Theo nodded. He held up one of the guns in its bag. “This is from the guy we got with the taser. He didn’t have any ID, but we already used a field kit to get his fingerprints. That way we don’t have to worry about them going ‘missing’ at Central.”

  “He’s the guy who killed Petty, all right,” Sikes said. “All we have to do is match the bullets from the scene with that gun.”

  “Well, that’s not all, but it’ll be a good start,” Theo said.

  Two cops in heavy body armor came out of the house pushing Amy Stewart and her uncle in front of them with a riot gun. They stopped by Sikes and Theo. Both prisoners wore handcuffs behind their backs.

  Sikes held his coffee cup up in a salute. “Hey, Uncle Frank. Now it’s your turn to sign something.” He grinned unpleasantly. “A confession.”

  Stewart looked at Sikes with an expression of pity. “You still don’t get it, do you? We’re all walking, detective. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Sikes slid off the hood of the car and left the blanket behind him. “No!” he said angrily. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. This isn’t one of your cozy backroom deals anymore. You’re not going to be able to have your people call in a favor or two from the captain to sweep this under some stinking little rug. You’re in the hands of cops now. Real cops. Not bureaucratic ass-kissers. You’re going down to the station house, and you’re all being booked for kidnapping, aggravated assault, and conspiracy to commit murder. And by the time you manage to get through to your paranoid bosses in Washington, it’s going to be too late for them to do anything, because none of us will have signed any stinking security oaths, and your photographs are going to be plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers tomorrow, and if anyone—anyone—tries to get you off by pulling strings, every reporter in the city is going to want to know why.” Sikes trembled with anger, but he felt great. He poured his coffee out on the driveway and watched in satisfaction as it splashed on Stewart’s shoes. He looked at Theo. “Right?” he asked forcefully.

  “More or less,” Theo said, smiling at Stewart and Amy. “Except for that bit about being on the front pages of the newspapers. They’ll have bigger fish to fry tomorrow.”

  Sikes blinked at his ex-partner.

  “Hey, some of us have been in the real world tonight,” Theo said defensively. He pointed a finger to the sky. “That thing up there? The asteroid whatsit? The radio stations are saying it’s changed course like it’s some kind of spaceship. It’s heading straight for us.”

  Sikes felt a chill run through his entire body. He had been treating it as a joke, as an impossible possibility. But it was real. It was actually happening.

  Quite clearly he thought, What’s the proper reaction to news like this? He had no idea. It was as if the world had turned upside down but kept on going. So many images and emotions flashed through his mind that for a moment he lost track of where he was. Uncle Jack and his telescope. Long summer nights discussing the impossibility of flying saucers and the inevitability of life on other worlds. Dr. Petty with the planets on his wrist. In the desert with Kirby, holding her small and trusting hand in his, watching the dim blur of Comet Halley. It was as if each moment of his life had been meant to bring him to this one night. This last night of the world as it had been.

  Without understanding the depth of his reaction, Sikes felt his heart race. He felt the need to look up to the stars and shout out to Victoria, to Uncle Jack, to the world, that whatever was coming for them, Matt Sikes had been among the first to see it. Because he was a cop. Doing his job. Good against evil.

  He looked up at the stars, just as millions around the world were doing at that same moment. Good or evil? Which was coming for them? What should he do?

  But then Sikes saw the grotesquely horrified expressions on Franklin and Amy Stewart’s faces and knew exactly what he should do.

  Sikes laughed. He laughed uproariously. Gleefully happy that they should be in such distress. They were getting exactly what they deserved.

  And now that his first murder case was solved, the only question that remained was, what was the rest of the world getting this night?

  C H A P T E R 5

  IT WAS A SOUND Buck had never heard before. It terrified him. It could be the tortured souls of Tagdot’s victims rising up from the dead. “What is it?” he asked D’wayn in fear.

  D’wayn looked to the ceiling of the small chamber she and Buck and a handful of other Overseers had crowded into. “Atmosphere,” she said grimly. “The cargo disk is moving through air.” The floor began to vibrate as it had when the separation had occurred. “We are landing.”

  “D’wayn! It’s your turn!” An Overseer called to her from the far wall of the chamber. D’wayn did not relinquish her grip on Buck’s hand. She made him move with her.

  There was a machine embedded in the wall. Buck had never seen one like it before. It had an opening at about his eye level, shaped like two circles lying side by side. The rims of the circles glowed with a pale light.

  The Overseer who had called to D’wayn nodded at her. D’wayn released Buck’s hand, then put both of her own hands into the opening. The glowing opening shrank until it gripped her by her wrists. There was a soft hissing noise. D’wayn closed her eyes, moaning. Then the opening widened again, and D’wayn removed her hands.

  Buck stared in fascination. Her tattoos were gone.

  D’wayn stepped out of the way as another Overseer came forth to use the machine. She rubbed the unmarked skin around her wrists, then winked at Buck. “What did I tell you?” she said. “We’re prepared for every awful thing the cargo might do. When we’re rescued, we will wear the badges of our honor and our courage once again. But until that time, we must be careful.”

  “Will we be rescued?” Buck asked. Moodri had said no.

  “Of course,” D’wayn said reassuringly. “As soon as the fleet realizes they have lost contact with us, other ships will come searching.”

  The rising wail of the atmosphere matched the growing fear in Buck. “But what if . . . what if false signals were sent out? What if the fleet thought there was nothing left to find?”

  D’wayn studied him with curiosity. “How could such a thing be possible, child? And even if it were, hidden in the disk are emergency beacons. Once we’re safely on the ground, we will simply activate the beacons, and then the fleet will come. There’s nothing to worry about, spotty head.”

  Then D’wayn gave Buck a small, sad smile and carefully removed the black scarf he wore. “You will have to leave this behind, too,” she said. “Just until the fleet comes, though.” She touched her knuckles to his temple. “Wait here while I change.”

  When it was time to leave the chamber, each of the Overseers was newly outfitted in a filthy gray outfit just like the ones worn by the cargo. Buck was surprised that in such clothes the Overseers looked no different from any other Tenctons. But he had little time to follow through on such thoughts. D’wayn guided him to the chamber door.

  “Can you tell the difference in the way the gravity feels now?” she asked him. Buck rose up and down on his toes. He felt lighter, stronger. He nodded. “The disk’s gravity fields have been replaced by the natural gravity of the planet we’re descending to. That means it won’t be long until we’ve landed.”

  In his fear Buck squeezed the Overseer’s h
and.

  “You have nothing to worry about, Finiksa. You’re a brave Watcher, and we all have faith in you.”

  Buck tensed. It sounded like a farewell.

  “You must leave us now,” D’wayn said. “We will all split up for the landing because it will be safer. But we’ll be together again soon. I promise.”

  “How will I find you?” Buck asked. It was important that he be able to find someone. Who knew if he would ever see his parents again? Vornho was dead. And Moodri might not have survived the violence of the disk’s separation. But D’wayn had saved Buck. D’wayn could help Buck survive.

  D’wayn lightly touched her head to Buck’s, then placed a finger in the center of his spotline and counted over three spots. Quickly she nicked the left edge of the spot with her thumbnail. Buck gasped at the sharp pain. “We will find you,” the Overseer said. “Now go! Run as fast as you can down to the cargo bays. And when you get outside, keep running. The disk can’t keep fighting the planet’s natural gravity for long.” She patted his backside. “Scoot, Finiksa! You will be free again! I promise!”

  And Buck ran. He didn’t know what D’wayn had meant about being free again. He didn’t know what it meant to be “outside.” At last he realized that he had used the circuitry key properly, but what exactly had the act accomplished? Especially if the Overseers could call for other ships to come and get them at any time?

  Everything had been a waste, he decided. Vornho’s death. Melgil’s death. Buck knew if he had just thrown away the key, everyone would still have been safely in space. He and Vornho would have their new scarves, and everything would be fine again.

  It was an impossible burden for a ten-year-old of any species, and Buck wept as he ran. He fled down corridors knowing that all the shouting he heard, all the crying, the confusion and the pain, was his fault. He hadn’t done what was right. Moodri had confused him with his old crystals and his made-up stories. None of what Buck had done had been right.