Alien Love
Page 8
Professor Starling rose and walked to a star chart on the wall next to the whiteboard. He pointed at a star group over the Southern hemisphere.
“It’s in the Scorpio constellation. The Sumerians described it 5000 years ago. They said it was at war with Osiris. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, the implication is that this star system was at war with another star system. It’s kind of a very early version of Star Wars.”
“Well, at least it’s not the Death Star.”
Professor Starling frowned. “No, I think our own particular Death Star is a lot closer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t really talk with your mother about this…situation. It’s a shame evangelicals let their religious fervor interfere with science. I’m not that eager for the Apocalypse to come. Let’s just say that aliens are a lot closer than anyone thinks.”
“You wouldn’t say that to your undergrad class.”
Professor Starling bit on his pipe stem and shook his head. “No, of course not. They’d take it, distort it, report it and then I would be put out to pasture. It’s bad enough that people sensationalize what I write.” He stared at his son before continuing. “Getting back to the Sumerians, you’re bright enough to understand the truth that could lie beneath the myth.”
“You think the Sumerians were aware of alien races in those two star systems?”
Professor Starling studied the star map and then leaned over to get a better view before continuing. “It’s just far too much of a coincidence after all these years that using the latest science we have now, we’ve identified those same two star systems as having planets in the ‘Goldilocks zone.’”
Jack thought for a minute as he remembered something. “Did the Sumerians ever describe the people from Scorpio, the ones from Gliese 677?”
Professor Starling smiled, rose, and walked over to his bookshelf. He ran his fingers over several books before pulling a massive volume that looked very scholarly and very dusty. He blew the dust off and returned to his desk where he began flipping through the book until he finally stopped at a specific section. He turned the heavy book on his desk at an angle so Jack could see the pages.
“Look for yourself. This was painted on a stone wall over 5000 years ago and depicts one of the ‘Gods’ they worshipped.”
Jack studied the picture while his father continued while unconsciously adopting the tone of voice he used when he lectured.
“It’s pretty clear that the artist drew a fair-haired God surrounded by dark Sumerians. Notice how bulked up he is compared to those around him. He looks a lot like you, doesn’t he?” Professor Starling said as he turned his attention back to his pipe while Jack stared at the picture.
“Maybe, but it also could be a fair-haired Greek paying the Sumerians a visit.”
“True. I know you think you’ve done a great job of distracting me from the subject very dear to my heart, but indulge me for a minute. Is there any chance you might return to school? I understand the job market is tough right now.”
“I don’t see an avalanche of offers for grad students with Masters’ degrees in math or physics. I’d have to get a Master’s degree followed by a PhD, and then my choices would be teaching and conducting research or doing government work behind a desk. I’m not sure I’m a good fit for either.”
Professor Starling took the pipe from his mouth and his lips and rotated it in his hand before continuing. “It’s nice we can have a conversation like the old days. I understand, believe it or not, that you don’t want to follow in my footsteps.”
Jack started to deny it, but his father raised his hands and continued.
“It’s okay. I’ve helped raise you, so I know you’re far more a man of action than I ever was. You played football, and that’s something I never could do. You became a SEAL, and I would have washed out the first day. I can’t see you as a professor, and I can’t see you sitting all day at a desk. Does that surprise you?”
Jack nodded, stunned. “Yeah, it does. Why have you been pushing me to go to grad school, then?”
“Well, we never got this far, so I couldn’t explain. We’ll hear in a few months about a special program Larry Simon and Bill Weber proposed to NASA. The idea is to take the brightest graduates in math and physics and offer a specialized advanced degree to train astronauts. The graduates would intern with NASA. They’ll need a lot of newly minted astronauts to train for the upcoming space shuttle as well as the trip to Mars a few years later.”
“You never said anything about it.”
“I never got this far. Just think about it. We’ll know by September if we get the grant. I don’t have to remind you that Larry and Bill are two of your biggest fans. Since my name is not on the grant application, there’s no hint of nepotism although maybe they might think by taking my son they’ll be able to muzzle me some. I did write the application entrance requirements, though, and you’re a perfect match.” Professor Starling smiled like a cat that had just swallowed the family’s canary.
“Mom knows about this?”
“She doesn’t know the details. She just thinks I want you back in school in some kind of conventional program. You’d hate it. This, though, requires someone who is way above average physically as well as mentally. Will you think about this?”
Jack nodded. His father looked at his watch. “I have an hour or so before my grad seminar. Why don’t you walk with me to the food court and we’ll grab something like old times.”
“Sure, I must have been thirteen the first time you took me there.”
Professor Starling put an arm around his son’s massive shoulders and led him out the door. “The food isn’t any better now, but it’s still fast and cheap enough.”
As the elevator descended, they both heard what sounded like firecrackers going off.
“I wonder what the celebration is?” Professor Starling said.
Jack’s arm tightened around his father. “I doubt there’s any cell reception here in the elevator. When we reach ground level, call 911. Tell them where you are. Those are gunshots.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about me. I have a graduate degree in handling myself in situations like this. I’ll be fine. I’m going to see if someone needs help. Stay by the elevator and keep the door open while you talk to 911. Be ready to close the door and go up if anyone approaches with a gun.”
“I don’t want you to put yourself in any danger.”
“I’ll be fine.”
When the door opened, Jack looked down the hall. He didn’t hear any more shots, so he walked as quietly as he could while stopping at each door and listening. He reached Lecture Hall 1 and heard a loud voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. Rather than open the door, he crept around the corner until he found the side door he remembered from when he took Abnormal Psychology. The door opened to a small room in the back of the platform where lecturers stood.
Jack entered the small storage room and then opened the door to the stage a crack and heard the voice more clearly now. He squinted and saw a tall thin man with wispy blond hair who looked to be in his late twenties. He stood with one hand clutching a rifle. Sitting in a chair beside him was Professor Bill Weber. His normally immaculately brushed hair stood in all directions while his glasses hung low on his nose. Jack could see the room was packed with students.
“I should be teaching you, but apparently I’m not deemed good enough. This man here is one of three people who failed me on my PhD qualifying exam. He’s ruined my life, and now I’m going to publicly execute him for crimes against humanity. You all are here to serve as witnesses. I’ll shoot anyone who moves or tries to help him. Put your cell phones and your computers down. If I see anyone trying to call or text, I’ll kill you as well. Put your hands in your laps and just listen while I describe the tyranny of a select few who want to keep talented people like me from becoming teachers.”
Jack’s SEAL training had drilled into him that anything properly used could serve as a weapon. He looked around him until his eyes fell on a lone bridge chair stacked against a wall. It wasn’t much, but it was metal; maybe it could stop a bullet. Jack picked it up and hefted it before deciding it would have to do. He looked out at the audience through the barely open door and prayed no one would call attention to him.
He decided that he’d have to move without any hesitation and trust his instincts. He’d risk everything on an attack from the side and hope that an amateur would not react in time. The man stood about ten feet away and would see him out of the corner of his eye. How fast could the man turn and fire? Jack took a couple of slow calming breaths and felt his muscles ready themselves.
Jack burst through the door and rushed toward the man. He flung the chair so that it flew in a direct path toward the man’s face as he turned in the direction of this unexpected attack. A shot rang out, but Jack already was on top of the man. He tackled him and wrestled the rifle away.
Jack held the man down while motioning for two men in the front row to join him on stage. He then had them sit on the man. He carefully unloaded the rifle and placed it on the lectern. Just then the main door to the auditorium burst open and several heavily armed men rushed in. The SWAT team was dressed for an assault.
It took an hour before the police were finished interviewing Jack. He then joined his father who stood a few feet away smiling broadly.
“Let’s get something to eat now. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you in action.”
“There wasn’t very much to see. This guy probably will get committed to a loony bin and never serve any time.”
Professor Weber, his shoulders still shaking, joined them. “I don’t know how to thank you, Jack. I really believe Gunter would have pulled the trigger.”
“I’m glad I was here. I never realized being a professor could be such a dangerous occupation.”
“I never thought it was. Did your father tell you about my grant proposal?”
“He did.”
“Good. You were at the top of my list before this happened, just so you know. I can’t thank you enough. When Mary finds out what you did, she’ll want to thank you as well.”
“It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything.”
He and his father walked to the food court. They ordered their favorites and sat together. It felt like old times to Jack; he hadn’t realized how much he missed his old man.
Professor Starling ate silently for a few minutes while he seemed to be debating something. Finally he sighed and pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket and wrote something down. He tore the page from the pad and handed it to his son.
“Maybe it’s a good thing I have a SEAL in my family although I think John Anderson is all bluster. I don’t take any of his threats seriously.”
“Threats?”
“He wants me to take part in a lunatic project.” Jack noted that his father seemed to be smiling at his own choice of words.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“As I said, I don’t take him seriously, but just in case, I want you to keep Gerald’s name and phone number safe. If anything happens to me, talk with Gerald. He will fill you in. I don’t want to go over it now because it’s really nothing for you to worry about.”
“Can’t you just tell Anderson to take back the endowed chair and stuff it?”
“It’s not that easy. Dean Williams is fond of the extra money, and some of the trustees aren’t very happy that anyone who does a Google search on ‘extraterrestrials’ is likely to find something I’ve said or written. I think he would choose having someone else occupy the chair rather than give up the endowment. I don’t want anything to interfere with the paper I plan to read at the conference. It’s something I’ve worked all my life to achieve. I’d like to put this issue on the back burner until after the conference.”
Jack glanced at the sheet of paper his father handed him before placing it in his wallet. It wasn’t like him to be so dramatic.
“Who is this guy?”
“He’s someone who keeps a very low profile. Don’t call him unless you find it necessary.”
“I’ve never known you to be so secretive.”
“It’s not something I enjoy. It’s hard to know whom to trust nowadays. I’ve had colleagues try to avoid me lately. I suspect some government agents are questioning them about me.”
“Why would the government care about your research?”
Professor Starling put a small hand on his son’s muscular arm. “Things are very complicated. I can’t go into now, but maybe we could meet for lunch off campus when I get back from the conference. I’ll explain everything even though it will take some time. What’s your security clearance?”
“Top secret.”
“What I will tell you is far above that, but I plan to go to the press anyway.”
“They’ll lock you up and throw away the key.”
“Not when this becomes public.”
Jack looked at his watch and realized there was still time for one last errand. Luckily it wasn’t more than a couple of freeway stops away. He hugged his father and told him to call him if his situation became worse. They’d have that lunch date right after the conference.
Chapter 11
JACK DROVE to the Java Coffee Emporium in North Park. Located between a used car lot and a pawnshop with bars on its windows, the coffee house gave off a distinctly non-Starbucks vibe. Everything about the place emphasized that it was part of the local community, including a wall covered with pictures drawn with crayons by students at a local elementary school. The pictures hung on a wall adjacent to a small raised platform where local musicians performed. The sound of coffee being ground interrupted muted conversations.
The lack of a parking lot suggested that the locals walked to this place; outsiders had to find parking on the street. A teenaged girl with bright red hair and a nose ring directed Jack to a back room that also served as meeting place for community events. A small balding man with a thick black mustache sat at a table in the front of the room going through his slides on a laptop while many in the audience in the crowded room carried on whispered conversations.
Jack studied the audience as still more people streamed in. An anorexic-looking blond with her hair cut very short and a male teen with a bad case of acne, both clad in coffee house T-shirts, began bringing in additional folding chairs. A mild looking man with long blond hair tied in a neat ponytail walked to the front and welcomed everyone and introduced the presenter as Arnold Pearson, a man who had successfully hunted aliens for years and recently self-published a book about his adventures.
A staff member lowered the lights slightly so that the audience could see Pearson’s slides reflected on the white screen on stage. Pearson spoke so haltingly that it was painful for Jack to listen. He described being abducted by aliens when he was much younger, and then he described his discovery that they had planted a tiny transmitter in his head.
Jack began to question why he had come. Of course it was possible that aliens did do something to Pearson to disrupt his thoughts, but it was just as likely that he suffered from a mental condition since he couldn’t finish his own sentences. Pearson kept projecting new slides onto the screen while his voice droned on in a soft monotone. Jack looked around the room and his heart stopped. In the back row, he saw Cassandra sitting between two older women. What was different about her? Then it hit him. She no longer had a purple bruise covering half her face. She focused so completely on the speaker’s words that she didn’t seem aware of Jack staring at her.
He heard the word Dulce and turned his attention back to the speaker. The man claimed aliens took him there and tortured him. He gave no information on
how he escaped. Jack studied the man and doubted he could have fought his way out of a room filled with marshmallows. He realized he was wasting his time and decided he’d wait in the coffee area until Cassandra came out. He turned and saw she had vanished.
Jack rose and hurried down the aisle toward the exit as several people craned their necks in his direction. He burst into the coffee serving area and looked for her, but she was gone. He moved quickly to the door and looked down both sides of the block. When he heard a car down the block start and drive in his direction, Jack walked to the sidewalk’s edge and studied a dark model sedan as it approached him; he recognized Cassandra in the passenger seat next to one of the older women he had seen in the coffee house.
“Cassandra! Stop! We need to talk!” Jack shouted. As the car passed, the woman looked directly at him and stared without any show of emotion. It’s as if we never met, he thought.
Jack took his keys from his pocket and ran to his car, gunned the engine, and drove in the direction Cassandra’s car had taken. He hung back so she wouldn’t realize he was following her. Once and for all he was going to find out more about her. The car carrying Cassandra continued on crowded North Park Boulevard before pulling onto Dairy Road. A succession of sad looking business parks and strip malls replaced the bright lights of the major thoroughfare. When he saw two bright headlights from a large vehicle coming up behind him much too rapidly for comfort, he pulled off the road into a quiet strip mall.
The lights belonged to a large dark-colored van that accelerated until it was right behind Cassandra’s car. Jack watched as a side door opened on the van and a figure stuck something out and aimed it at Cassandra’s car. Jack felt his heart beating too fast for comfort, and he began to feel sweat drip down his forehead. There was a bright flash of light and then Cassandra’ car exploded into a fireball. The van roared passed the car and soon disappeared. Jack drove up to the car that now was fully engulfed in flames. He tried to approach it so he could help the two occupants, but the heat was too intense and he felt his face begin to burn.