“Right about what?” the man asked.
“That God doesn’t exist. That…”
“That is ridiculous: who do they think created the universe? Most of the alien civilizations I have had contact with acknowledge that a Supreme Being exists and is the creator of the universe. They have different names for Him in their languages: The Architect, The Creator. But no matter what they call Him, they are all referring to the same being.”
“You mean that aliens believe in the existence of God?” the president asked in disbelief.
“Most of them do in some way. Yes.”
The president just shook his head in amazement.
“And humans are not alone in thinking they are the only sentient, intelligent beings in the universe. There are many alien civilizations - the more primitive ones anyway - that have the same beliefs.”
The president was obviously having a difficult time comprehending and coping with all of this new information.
“Mr. President, I hope that I have not made a mistake in approaching you with this information. If you cannot come to grips with what I’ve told you, it is within my power to erase everything I’ve told you from your mind. If I did that, it would be as if we had never had this conversation.”
“My God! You can do that, too?”
“Yes.”
The president got up from his chair and stood in front of the window and looked up at the night sky, his hands behind his back. He pondered Will’s offer for almost a full minute.
“I would be a poor leader if I chose to cower from my responsibilities to the people of the United States of America by sticking my head in the sand and running away from adversity! No sir, I will not do it!” The president turned back towards the man with a new resolve on his face.
“Somehow I thought that would be your answer. However, for your protection, you will not be able to discuss this information with anyone other than your successor when you leave office. If you ever try to discuss it, you will temporarily forget everything I’ve told or shown you tonight. Is that understood?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Good. Now let’s get down to the rest of our business.”
He then reached into his other suit coat pocket and withdrew a small metal object, about the size of a paperweight, and placed it on the president’s desk.
“What is that, may I ask?” said the president.
“It’s a communications device which can be used only by you or your successors to contact me if the need ever arises. It will respond only to you or your successor’s touch and no one else’s. You need to keep it in a secure place. The wall safe located behind the wall panel under the painting behind your desk will be fine.”
“How did you know about the…” the president did not finish his sentence.
“I have the ability to see through solid objects, Mr. President. Would you like for me to tell you what’s in the safe?”
“I most certainly would not, sir!” said the president incredulously, and then saw that the man was smiling.
“Good Lord, what I could do with a few soldiers with your abilities. I don’t suppose you could take care of a little problem I’m having with the Germans could I?”
“Not unless the Kaiser is an alien,” he deadpanned.
“But, it could end this war before it got too far underway, and…”
“Mr. President, I am forbidden to interject myself into the political affairs of Earth or any other planet for that matter. You will have to deal with those issues on your own. If I were allowed to deal with them for you, you would never mature as a species and would just expect someone else to clean up your messes. No, you must learn to deal with such matters as a species. I can only involve myself in Terran affairs if an alien civilization tries to interfere with Earth’s natural development or in some other negative way. I’m sorry.”
“I understand. But it never hurts to ask,” said the president.
“I must be going now, Mr. President. It has truly been an honor to meet you.”
“No, young man, the honor was all mine. I will do my best to live up to the responsibility you have bestowed upon me tonight. I will not take it lightly.”
With that the president reached out and offered the man his hand. The man returned the gesture and shook it.
The man then showed the president how to work the communications device, which he referred to as a commlink.
As he prepared to leave, the president had one final question.
“Wait a minute. You never told me your name, or at least a name I can call you. Not only that, but when it is time for me to pass this knowledge on to my successor, whom should I tell them to contact if they need to?”
“My first name is Will. I know that a chain of command is important, and rank is as equally important on this planet, as it is on many others. My equivalent military rank on the planet where I make my home is that of a colonel. A family surname is equally important when addressing humans. Therefore, I may be referred to as Colonel Will Clark.” Will decided to use a variation of his mother’s maiden name, Clarke.
The president nodded.
“Colonel Will Clark it is then.”
“Good night, Mr. President.”
“Good night…Colonel.”
Will nodded and then silently disappeared as he teleported out of the Oval Office in front of the president.
The president sat back down, and placed his hands in his face. He was spent.
Damn, I should have stayed at Princeton, thought the president, who had been president of Princeton University before he entered politics. He sat at his desk a few minutes longer and then headed off to bed, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep much, if at all, the rest of the night.
***
Within a few days of meeting with President Wilson, Will traveled to Great Britain, Canada and Australia, and met with their respective Prime Ministers, David Lloyd George, William King, and William Hughes, where he made them the same offer as he had President Wilson. He also gave each of them one of the same communication devices he had given to President Wilson. However, none of them required a trip to the North Pole to convince them of Will’s sincerity or capabilities.
Chapter 7
Helvellyn Mountain
Cumbria County, England
Summer, 1475 A.D.
Will had officially been a teenager for a couple of months. Along with the normal physical changes that occur with the onset of puberty, Will’s physical and mental abilities increased substantially as well.
His knowledge and understanding of higher mathematics and science were beyond comprehension. He completely understood the scientific concepts of quantum and celestial mechanics, engineering, linear equations, advanced calculus, astronomy, trigonometry, and even more advanced mathematics and science that no one on earth could possibly have knowledge of. He could solve complex equations in these disciplines in his head.
Additionally, he was now fluent in more than 300 languages, and all without any formal education.
His memory proved to be completely eidetic and photographic. Will could remember every single detail of his life; everything someone had told him; everything he had ever learned; everything he had ever seen or done. Everything.
Physically he was almost as large as a grown man and was becoming very muscular. His skin was tanned from the long hours in the sun working with his father on the family farm. Will was as strong as twenty large men. However, he was very quiet and insightful and kept his knowledge and strength to himself so as not to expose himself or his family to unwanted scrutiny from the people in his village.
Since his thirteenth birthday a couple of months ago, each night while asleep, Will had experienced a recurring dream in which he saw himself entering a cave emblazoned with symbols on the walls in an unknown language. But as he began reading the inscriptions, he suddenly woke up and could not recall what had been written on the walls in his dream.
As summer approached Will
convinced his parents to let him go camping alone for a few days to put all that his father had taught him about living off the land into practice. They reluctantly agreed and allowed him to go on his own. For some reason Will was being drawn towards the Helvellyn Mountains. He, along with his brother and father, had been hunting and camping on various parts of the mountain many times.
It took the better part of a day to make the twenty-five mile trek into the mountains. Will was so fast he could have run the distance in less than half an hour, but instead he wanted to enjoy the hike into the wilderness. As Will reached one of the valleys he, his father and brother had hunted in before, he made camp and started a fire using a flint rock, dried leaves, small tree branches and brush.
He was getting hungry and went out hunting for game. Fifteen minutes into his hunt, he heard, and then saw, a large stag a hundred yards or so in front of him. He quietly removed an arrow from his quiver and notched it on the bow‘s string. However, at the last second, he decided to make things more sporting and, at the same time, put his abilities to the test.
He slung the bow across his back, returned the arrow to its quiver, and decided to kill the stag with his hunting knife instead. He slowly and quietly began his stalk of the stag. The eight-pointer entered an open area of the draw. At that point Will began running towards the stag, which heard Will’s approach and began running as well. Will quickly overtook and killed the large buck with his knife. He gutted and field dressed the animal and then put it on a wooden spit to cook. Afterwards he cleaned the knife and sheathed it. He buried the remains so it would not attract other predators.
After finishing his meal he lay down on his thin straw mat and went to sleep.
***
On the third night of his camping trip, Will could not sleep and got up to explore the mountain in the inky darkness; only the moon and stars lit the way for him, but his exceptional vision allowed him to almost see as well in the dark as he could in the daylight. Will was soon on a part of the mountain he had never seen before. It was as if he were somehow being drawn to this particular area. An hour into his trek he came upon what appeared to be the entrance of a small cave, the entrance of which was partially covered by brush and vegetation.
Judging by the density of the scrub surrounding the cave, it was obvious that no one had been in the cave for many years, if at all. He cut the heaviest of the foliage with the large knife he had used to kill the stag. Will then found a small branch on the ground in front of the cave’s entrance tore off a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around the top of the branch. He lit the makeshift torch by using a flint rock to ignite the tip of it, and then went through the entrance, leading with the torch.
At first glance the cave appeared to be only a few feet deep. However, intuition told Will that there was more to this grotto than met the eye, and although he had never seen this cave before, it looked familiar to him.
He used the light from the torch and began looking at the edges along the wall and after several seconds he noticed some symbols on the part of the wall near where the wall ended, which were covered in dust. Will brushed and blew away the dust and saw several symbols smoothly carved into the rocks, which were unknown to Will, yet somehow familiar. Will was startled as he recognized the symbols on the wall as being the same ones from his dreams!
Although he had never seen the symbols before and did not recognize any of them from the languages he could read and write, Will was nonetheless inexplicably able to translate the symbols, which simply read: Enter By Placing Your Hand Over These Symbols.
As Will placed his hand over the symbols, nothing happened at first. As he was about to remove his hand, the wall suddenly began glowing a mixture of light-green and pale-blue. An opening the size of a door appeared in the wall.
Will stepped back, staring in amazement, as the door suddenly slid open, and an entrance appeared in the wall. Hesitating only momentarily, Will then stepped through the opening, led only by the torch, into a stone room that was approximately ten feet by ten feet square, with a ceiling that rose about fifteen feet in the air. The rock was smooth - too smooth to be a natural rock formation.
As soon as Will entered the opening, the doorway that had appeared in the stone wall suddenly closed behind him. Everything was thrown into the blackest darkness that anyone could imagine. Will’s torch lit no more than a foot or two in front of him. Then, without warning, the entire room came to life!
Planet Altrusia
Gamma Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy
The instant that Will’s hand touched the symbols on the cave’s entrance a small light glowed on the console of a highly sophisticated virtual display console. One of the scientists monitoring the system looked up somewhat in shock, and said to Nek Nahpak, one of the more senior scientists in the room, “Sir, we have a verified contact! Readings are coming in now!”
“Location?” the senior scientist questioned at the revelation, his voice even and calm.
“Stand by. Information is being relayed now. It’s from the third planet from the Helios star in our star sector, approximately 10,000 light years from Altrusia.”
With a look of surprise on his long thin face, Nahpak replied, “That’s impossible! That planet is still in its early stages of agricultural and industrial development. A portal shouldn’t even be there! Are you positive your information is correct?”
“Yes, sir.” replied the younger scientist. “No doubt at all, sir.”
Nahpak blew out a sigh. “Notify the Elders immediately.”
“At once, sir.”
Chapter 8
Earth
1918 A.D.
During his term of office, President Woodrow Wilson had only one occasion to contact Will to assist with an alien threat. In September 1918, a few months before the Armistice Treaty was signed ending World War I, American, British and Australian troops defeated German troops in the Battles of Saint-Mihiel, Epéhy and Megiddo.
A small contingent of Protrakian battle cruisers had been patiently watching the conflict between the warring humans for some time. After watching these battles they decided to assist the German army by providing some alien firepower, regardless of the fact they knew nothing of Terran politics and who the aggressors were in the conflict.
The Protrakian battle cruisers had been spotted during the first few battles by no less than six veteran RAF and U.S. Army Air Corp pilots flying secret reconnaissance missions over German-occupied territory in France and England on three different occasions. The pilots were all dissuaded from believing they had actually seen alien spacecraft, even though they had taken several photographs - which were promptly seized by American Military Intelligence.
Nonetheless, word of the sightings, along with the photographs, made their way to President Wilson’s desk, after he had given explicit orders that any sightings of an unusual or inexplicable nature be brought to his attention immediately. After viewing the photographs, President Wilson contacted Will via the commlink device, and within minutes Will appeared in the president’s office. After viewing the photographs, Will recognized the Protrakian battle cruisers, and advised the president that he would take care of the matter immediately.
The Protrakians never were able to assist the German army as they had intended. As they were preparing to destroy several U.S. and British tanks and airplanes en route to fight the German army, a black clad Guardian appeared out of nowhere on the bridge of the Protrakian command vessel.
After Will “politely” explained that their interference in Terran affairs would not be tolerated, their commander was persuaded to leave Earth, never to return. Will also neutralized their vessel’s weapons system. Before he left, an overzealous crewman thought he could kill Will with a plasma weapon. He was wrong. The crewman shot Will with it at point blank range on the bridge of their battle cruiser. The weapon, which could have easily destroyed a tank or airplane, affected Will no more than a light breeze would affect an aircraft carrier.
Will, seiz
ing the opportunity to send the Protrakians a message, melted the weapon to the crewman’s hand with a mild blast of his laser vision. The screaming crewman, as well as the rest of the crew got the message loud and clear. They left Earth and never returned.
Afterwards, things were quiet on Earth. Over the subsequent years, numerous scientific research vessels studied the Earth and its inhabitants - in some cases landing for soil, water or other samples. However, all of them were careful not to make contact with the Terrans. Occasionally, an alien spacecraft was spotted by pilots and even photographed at times. These sightings were usually written off as sunspots or weather balloons, secret military aircraft, or by some other suitable explanation, and the photographs were never seen again.
On rare occasions when they could not be explained away, the pilots were advised that they had observed the flights of highly classified experimental aircraft, and if they did not forget what they had seen, they would enjoy the inside of a military prison until they were old men. Most of them forgot the sightings as soon as they happened.
After Warren G. Harding took office, former President Wilson did as Will had instructed and did his best to explain how, when and why to contact the mysterious Colonel Clark if the need ever arose. President Harding, needless to say, had a difficult time believing the former president until President Wilson showed him the commlink device and how it worked - which included a holographic image of Earth being displayed in the Oval Office.
Fortunately, President Harding never had a need to contact Colonel Clark, nor did his successors, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
However, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not quite as lucky.
Chapter 9
Helvellyn Mountain, England
1475 A.D.
A holographic image of the Milky Way galaxy lit up the room with images of planets and stars; nebulae and comets; asteroids and moons. The room, which Will knew measured no more than ten feet square, seemed to have disappeared, and Will appeared to be standing in outer space. He could no longer feel the ground beneath his feet, but he did not have the sensation that he was falling. Will looked at the spectacle in awe and astonishment but with no fear.
Shadow Warrior: Destiny of a Mutant Page 4