People of the Sun

by Jason Parent

  “Those are exactly what you called them: stories, no more, no less. I can assure you we have no intention of probing your rectal cavity. What do you say, Connor? Will you help us, or will you walk away?”

  “And if I choose to walk away?”

  “We will not stop you.” Milliken couldn’t guarantee it, but he hoped Lenyx would honor his promise.

  Connor quieted. “What is it you want? Why do you need my help?”

  “Look at us. We can’t exactly blend in. We need a guide, a liaison to speak on our behalf to your higher-ups. And, we could use your world’s assistance as we work toward saving our own.”

  “Where is that, exactly?”

  “You call it the sun.”

  “Nothing can live on the sun.”

  “We are not surface dwellers like your species. We live inside the fiery ball you see, in the sun’s core. We call it Symoria.”

  “How? It must be a gazillion degrees in there. And judging by your pale complexions, it doesn’t look like you guys get a lot of ultraviolet rays.”

  “We don’t. The crust that comprises our core’s inner layer is nearly impenetrable. It insulates us from the light and from the heat. We’ve been trapped in there, our food supply dwindling, for eons. But our legends say Symoria is not our true home, that we once lived in a bountiful paradise but were condemned to that world of fire and barrenness. By whom or for what reason, not even the High Council knows.”

  “Demons from hell,” Connor muttered.

  Milliken stroked his chin. “Yes, I too noted the parallels. Strange, I agree, but I assure you we are not the monsters you think us.”

  The human pursed his lips. Milliken sighed. “Anyway, our excavations to escape Symoria were wrought with danger, foolhardy perhaps. Our best minds and most powerful psychics made a path through the fire. We lost many in the attempt.”

  Milliken frowned, reflecting on his mission’s unraveling. Had his people’s struggle over the last several centuries ended in failure? He diverted his focus back to the here and now.

  “Certainly, Earth is infinitely cooler than our home,” he said. “But we don’t experience heat like you do. Temperature and climate have little effect on our biological dispositions. But your water certainly does, giving me the ability to delve inside your mind and having other side effects. It’s why I know so much about you and your kind.”

  Connor still appeared anxious and remained at arm’s length. Although Milliken understood the human’s concerns, felt his disquiet and knew his doubts, he didn’t know how to alleviate them. “I realize how we look and our actions are hard to forgive… From what I see in you, though, we aren’t all that different. We are afraid, too. Your world is new to me and still a mystery to my friends. Many of your concepts are foreign to us. War, currency, poverty, politics and religion, countries and diversity—these concepts are not part of our culture… not anymore. Some never were. Our number is but a fraction of yours. And now, that number may be as few as the four of us.”

  Milliken looked away, trying not to let his sadness, weakness, show. Connor leaned in closer. At last, he had the human’s full attention—almost as good as his trust.

  “Why are you here?” Connor blurted.

  “Your world faces one dilemma with which we can relate, the depletion of natural resources. We left our home in search of food. We need your help to find a suitable replacement. What can I do to assure you we’re friendly?”

  “You could start by not vaporizing humans.”

  “We must move past that if we’re going to trust one another.”

  “Trust each other?” Connor scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say. How do I know you won’t do the same to me?”

  “You don’t, but I haven’t tried, have I? All I can do is offer my word that we won’t harm you. And if you wish to leave, we won’t stop you. I know you’re a man of science and reason. If you help us, I’ll tell you everything you wish to know about us, our home, our mission… everything. Your kind will want to hear all about your experiences with us. You’ll be the first human expert on Symorian culture. But again, that’s only if you help us.”

  “How could I possibly help you?” Connor asked.

  “Consider yourself our representative. If I asked you to ‘take me to your leader,’ would that seem a bit cliché?”

  Connor smirked for a second. Milliken caught it. Finally, I’m getting through to him.

  “Yes,” Connor said. “Is that what you want?”

  “Your President would suffice. America is as good a place as any to start, then, hopefully, the United Nations. We only seek permission to explore your world for kalifer.”

  “Kalifer? Is it dangerous?”

  “No,” Milliken said, chuckling. “It’s our food source.”

  “You have only one food source?”

  “I suppose it’s as you guessed: not much can live in the center of the sun.”

  “Well,” Connor said, “if you really want to meet the world’s leaders, I doubt you’ll need to do much of anything. They’ll come to you.”

  “We still need an ambassador, particularly one who understands what happened to your friend and accepts our explanation. We’d hate to have a repeat of that horrible accident. Will you help us?”

  Milliken already knew the answer. He had been probing Connor’s mind for a good part of their conversation. Asking was just a formality. Connor’s hesitation no longer had anything to do with his friend’s death, though it still horrified him. Now, he was mixed with curiosity and anticipation. Connor wanted to go with them.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Good. Let me confer with the others. The one to your left is Lenyx. He is our commander. Back there is Tryst, our pilot and medic, and Kazi, our science officer.” Milliken pointed to each as he introduced them.

  Connor gave them a wave. Obviously misunderstanding the gesture, Kazi drew his weapons. Milliken stepped between them.

  “Relax, Kazi,” Milliken said in Symorian. “He’s agreed to help us.”

  Seeing him converse with the human for as long as he did, the others had to believe Milliken’s abilities by now. Still, things would have been much easier if they’d just undergo the transformation that he had.

  “Help us do what?” Lenyx asked.

  “Salvage our mission,” Milliken said. “He will help us seek his peoples’ cooperation.”

  “What makes you sure we can trust him?” Tryst asked.

  “I understand this human. I know everything about him since his birth. His ideology, his basic beliefs and moral structures mimic ours when you strip away his primitive theological beliefs. They are susceptible creatures, though. We could probably convince them that we are supreme beings, what they call ‘gods.’”

  “We are not here to exploit the natives, nor are we here to conquer them,” Lenyx said.

  “That’s unfortunate,” Kazi said. He sounded serious.

  “With that said,” Lenyx continued, ignoring Kazi, “I’m not sure we should remain with the human.”

  Milliken looked up at the sky. Gray clouds filled it, blocking out his view of home. The others also stared at the ever-darkening sky. Gloom settled on their faces. They clearly viewed the atmospheric change as a bad omen. He didn’t.

  “We should return to the ship,” Lenyx said. “The air is changing.”

  A rumble sounded across the sky as darker clouds moved overhead. Milliken smiled. “It’s nothing. Why don’t we wait here and examine our surroundings? I can explain more about this planet and all you see around you.”

  Connor took a few hesitant steps toward the group. “A storm is coming. We should seek shelter.”

  Milliken laughed. “A little rain never hurt anyone.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  President Allison Kennedy rested her forearms on the mahogany table. She felt like a matriarch as she sat at its head, and with her Cabinet surrounding her, she acted as one. Sitting or standing about the conference room were seasoned politicia
ns, former war heroes and party cronies—the sons and daughters of the same powerful families that had always been in office. All of them acted as if they belonged there, as if they knew exactly how to respond to a potential alien threat. The truth was that they didn’t know a damn thing about it.

  How could they? Allison did not fault them for it. But she would make no mistake: this was her show.

  Aliens? Allison took a deep breath. Even in the White House, the rumor mill preceded real intelligence. She was more than a little skeptical of the latest gossip. She smiled at the usual faces who had gathered there to discuss what would probably turn out to be a rather ordinary event. She nodded respectfully at General Schroeder, an at-times radically conservative yet trusted advisor. He looked as deathly serious as he always did, but returned her nod with his own.

  To the General’s right was Henry Sagan, U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security, looking nearly a hundred years old. Despite his age, Sagan was sharper than a razor, a man of few words but whose words always counted.

  On the other side of the table nearest to Allison, Defense Secretary Javier Araujo, a thin man with a stern look and stark features, sat fiddling with a cell phone. As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned off his phone and gave her his full attention. Beside him, NASA Administrator Nicholas Chandler polished his thick-rimmed glasses with a handkerchief. Various Cabinet members filled out the remaining chairs.

  Allison again nodded politely, the closest she would come to engaging in small talk. They all had important assignments, other pressing matters. All eyes stared at her, awaiting her instructions. She sighed. It’s probably just another rock.

  “All right,” Allison said. “I’ve been debriefed, so let’s get right to it. Pittsburg—New Hampshire, not Pennsylvania—is a small town near the Canadian border. It has a greater population of moose and deer than it does people. So, if we go in there with a procession, our presence will be noticed. I don’t want our intrusion to be too much of a disturbance.”

  “Madame President,” the NASA head spoke. “Respectfully, we need a full research team, tons of equipment and a large-scale response to this phenomenon.”

  “I concur with Administrator Chandler,” Defense Secretary Araujo said. “We must analyze the object to determine if it is a biological, chemical, environmental or extraterrestrial threat.”

  “Let me be clear,” Allison began. “I will not cause even a minimal amount of panic over a rock that fell from the sky. Until I hear concrete evidence to the contrary, that’s all this situation warrants.”

  Araujo slouched back in his chair, chewing at the end of his pen. Administrator Chandler was more persistent. “Madame President, this is no ordinary rock. A meteoroid orbits the Earth along a determinable path. The gravitational pull of the Earth increases its velocity. If we are watching it, and we always do, we can calculate fairly accurately its point of contact so we can be first to study the resulting meteorite.”

  Chandler leaned in toward Allison. Something had him all riled up. Allison could see that he was dying to get in his two cents. And here it comes.

  “We watched this one,” he continued. “In addition to its unique shape and unusual size, it moved erratically, not according to any determinable path and sometimes even reversing direction.”

  “And the significance of that is?” Allison asked. She did not share his excitement and desired to move things along. “A leaf in the air is at the mercy of the wind. Surely some force could have directed the meteoroid off its projected course?”

  “We’ve eliminated all variables,” Chandler said confidently. “The object is no meteorite. It had to be manipulated by either internal or external controls.”

  “Could it be an aircraft?”

  “That is my concern, Madame President,” Secretary Sagan said. “It’s far too big to be any standard plane, shuttle or missile. Obviously, it’s not American. My fear is that it could be a new type of spy plane or foreign military craft.”

  Chandler huffed. “We tracked the object as it rounded Venus all the way to the impact site. It came from space.” He spoke the words slowly as if he were talking to children. Allison stared at him, her look hard as steel. She would not tolerate his condescension.

  “There is no doubt about it,” Chandler added. With his parting words, he sank away from Allison’s gaze like a gopher retreating into its hole.

  “A satellite or probe, then,” Sagan responded.

  Allison had difficulty accepting any of it. She understood what Chandler was suggesting, but it seemed far-fetched, the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters, not real-life New England. Sagan’s more rational explanation, though, was full of holes.

  “If this were an attack on our country, why would our enemies target Pittsburg?” she asked. “Do we have any intel on recent military exercises, test launches, that sort of thing? What about the Chinese? North Korea? If this thing’s a weapon, perhaps it missed its intended target.”

  “We’ve conferred with our friends abroad,” Sagan said. “No intelligence suggests an enemy strike. Still, it would be wise to proceed with caution.”

  Allison ran her fingers through her short blond hair, processing what little information she had to go on. At six months into her second term as the forty-eighth President of the United States of America, she’d done nothing of note to mark her tenure. In her first term, she had accomplished little. Politics as usual had divided Congress along party lines. Allison had the Presidency, but the Republicans had a slight edge in both the House and the Senate. She ran for office with a sincere desire to improve the country, but quickly found out hers was a rare trait for a politician. She had no disillusions about the flawed American political animal, controlled by old, fat elephants and heehawing asses.

  But Allison had underestimated the selfishness of most of her affiliates, regardless of their party designation. Even so, she didn’t blame them for her ineffectiveness. She saw it as her own failing, her weakness as a leader. A corrupt game called for corrupt play; thus far, Allison had been unable to sink half as low as her adversaries.

  Yet, she wanted another chance to show her virtues and got it, winning a second term by the narrowest of margins. Since then, her approval rating slipped daily due to the relentless mudslinging. Where she had assumed the best and brightest would be working together for the betterment of all, Washington, D.C. was nothing but a den of thieves and even less reputable sorts. Congress, administrators and even members of her own Cabinet represented the worst humanity had to offer, so uncompromising, pigheaded and unbelievably reprehensible that smear campaigns based on half-truths and hyperbole were the norm and actual work was nearly obsolete. Ironically, the dirt thrown in the public eye paled in comparison the depravity left unspoken.

  Allison reflected on her first term with regret. She hadn’t even had the chance to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice, those curmudgeonly dinosaurs holding on to their authority until their last breaths. She strove for greatness, but no matter what she tried, greatness eluded her grasp. All she needed was one moment, just one—the type of moment that could define her presidency.

  What she got instead was a rock.

  Or was it something more, this object that had fallen into some inconsequential woods at the northern edge of her country? It seemed naïve to hope that this was the event for which she would be remembered. A distant relative of another famous Kennedy, Allison dared to wonder if this rock could be her Cuban Missile Crisis, her chance to show the world her true character, if only for a moment.

  Not likely. She was too pragmatic to succumb to false hope. Her heart and her mind told her exactly the same thing she had initially believed when she first heard of the Second Connecticut Lake meteorite. It’s just another rock from space. Bigger, yes, but still, just a rock.

  The others stared at her, looking for leadership, hanging on her every breath. Like good soldiers, they awaited their orders. Allison was ready to command.

  “NASA may bring a small team to investigat
e, with limited, must-have equipment only. Chandler, your purpose, for now, is simply to determine if the object is radioactive or otherwise dangerous. Once you’ve determined it to be safe, you can arrange for its transport. You can have all the time in the world to analyze it once it has been secured at a NASA facility.”

  “Will NASA need military support?” General Schroeder asked.

  “Yes, General,” Allison said. “By Executive Order. This is our problem. The same considerations apply. Send a small team ahead of NASA to evacuate the area, monitor the perimeter and keep civilians away from the impact site. You’ll need enough soldiers to circle the lake, but keep tanks and other weaponized vehicles at the base. I’m talking just soldiers and transport vehicles. We don’t need to scare people with heavy artillery. Understood?”

  General Schroeder nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “In the unlikely event it turns out to be something more than a meteorite, I want to know immediately.” Allison squinted at the NASA Administrator. “Schroeder and Chandler, you will report your findings to Defense Secretary Araujo, who will report to me. We’ll determine where to go from there. There may be local officials already on-site. Have them bring you up to speed. Is there anything else that needs to be addressed?”

  Receiving no response, Allison stood. All in attendance followed her lead. They stood silently, awaiting their dismissal.

  “Be quick about this, people,” Allison said. “The curious will likely be out in droves. The sooner we secure the area, the fewer people we will need to secure it from. And Javier, if it turns out to be a matter of national security, alert Henry, the Vice President and me immediately.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lenyx looked up at the sky and tried to understand it. By his calibrations, the oxygen levels were so high, he was amazed the air was not ablaze. With every inhalation, he expected his lungs to ignite, ending his life instantaneously. So many flammable components made up the planet’s atmosphere and environment. He had placed his trust in his more knowledgeable companion, Kazi, when he’d told him it was safe to breathe. Even as he said it and despite his shattered breather, Kazi had hesitated, letting Lenyx take his mask off first.