Cries of the Children

by Clare McNally

  “You’ve been among us for nearly a century?” Wil asked, recalling George’s earlier words.

  “Yes,” George said. “We first sent a small group to orbit your planet and study you from afar. At that time, of course, you did not have the tracking devices you employ today. We were able to cruise around Earth’s atmosphere without being detected.”

  Barbara swung a hand, indicating the structure around them.

  “You sure were detected this time,” she said.

  “Yes, we were,” George acknowledged. “That was a mistake, but I’ll get to that later. Our first attempts to study your culture told us that as a general rule you would be unable to withstand the shock of knowing there are other life forms in the universe. We realized this would take time. More important, we were able to learn of your different cultures, your styles of dress, methods of work, and so on. With this information, the next wave was sent to Earth at the turn of the twentieth century. Disguised as humans, we joined with your societies all around the globe.”

  Judy nodded. “We served in your wars, worked in your factories, and generally lived the lives of humans.”

  “How many of these ‘waves’ have arrived so far?” Wil asked.

  “The children would be the tenth,” Judy said.

  “In this plan,” George said, “we had never sent anyone but individuals. We felt it was time to begin studying Earth’s cultures as family units. Ten Earth years ago, a group including Morgana and me was sent to prepare for lives as families. We had . . .”

  He stopped a moment to consider the right word.

  “We ‘deposited’ reproductive cells in a laboratory,” he continued. “These were cultured, and the resulting babies raised for one purpose only—to be the first children to travel from our planet.”

  “Wow,” Steven said.

  Eric looked at the little boy.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me make sure I understand this. Are you saying Rachel came with the ninth group and that Steven was raised in a test tube to be sent to her at a later date?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” George said.

  “Then Steven is my son,” Rachel said, her voice softened in awe. “That explains why I felt so drawn to him.”

  “And Julie is my daughter?” Samantha said, a hint of hope in her tone.

  “Yes, she is,” Judy said with a smile. “Your natural daughter.”

  Julie looked over at Samantha and grinned happily. Samantha smiled back, but only momentarily.

  “But if she is my child,” she protested, “why don’t I remember creating her? You said we ‘deposited’ cells in a lab. If I’d given away some of my eggs, I would surely remember it. And I sure as hell would remember traveling across a galaxy to a new planet. Where are all these memories? What happened to us?”

  George sighed deeply. “It has always been the policy of this project to send Ixtaurans to Earth with no memories of their home planet. That way, no one could be influenced by what he already knew. Your minds were tabla rasa, ready to absorb all new data.”

  “Well, not exactly,” Judy said. “You were given enough information to function in this society, but most of what you know now you’ve taken in since your arrival.”

  “Why were we chosen, in particular?” Samantha asked.

  “You weren’t chosen, Ch’Mrazi,” Judy said, calling Samantha by her real name. “You volunteered. We all did. This is the most important thing that ever happened to Ixtaura, our major reason for living.”

  “This is incredible,” Samantha mumbled. She felt Wil’s hand on her shoulder and put her own on top of it.

  “Okay, I get it so far,” Barbara said. “First there were eight other groups. Then group number nine came along to prepare for the coming of these children. But there’s another thing I don’t get. You and George are a couple, both Ix . . . Ixtauran. But I get the impression Eric isn’t Ixtauran. And where’s Samantha’s husband, or mate, or whatever you call him?”

  George breathed in a deep, melancholy sigh. “Dead,” he said. “Killed when the last ship landed just off this very coast.”

  “I was on that ship!” Samantha cried.

  “You came with your husband,” Judy said. “You were chief medical officer and he was head of the biological sciences. This is why you were able to join this society as a doctor.”

  “You can explain all that later,” Barbara said. “In the meantime, where do I fit in?”

  “It would not have made sense to send our people here cold,” George said. “So the previous wave of Ixtaurans prepared certain ‘receptive’ individuals. You were prepared, subconsciously, to be Samantha’s friend.”

  “Was I also ‘prepared’?” Eric asked, gazing at the wife he loved so dearly. It would break his heart to think he had fallen in love with her only because some other being had “arranged” it.

  Judy gave him a sympathetic look. “I don’t know. It would be impossible for me to know everyone’s story.”

  “How do you know these stories?” Wil asked. “Why weren’t your minds erased?”

  “In every generation,” George explained, “there were a privileged few who were allowed to retain their full memories. This was a precautionary matter, in case anything went wrong.”

  “Are you those people?” Samantha asked.

  Judy and George shook their heads simultaneously.

  “No,” Judy said. “That man came here fifty years ago, and lives in a remote part of India. He was aware of the crash which took your husband’s life, Ch’Mrazi. But there was no way of knowing where the remains of the ship and crew were taken.”

  Samantha looked at the examination table, where Marty lay asleep.

  “No way until Marty started calling to our children,” she guessed.

  “We felt the signals,” George said. “We knew Lorraine was calling for help, but we did not understand them until the man came from India. He has the most powerful of all our minds, and he ‘heard’ Marty. He traveled to America to speak with us and reveal the truth. Once we knew, we came here. We have been following you as a group for days, to make certain you are on our side.”

  “But what about Marty?” Samantha asked. “Why didn’t he ‘change’ like the rest of us?”

  “There was another accident,” Judy said. “Shortly before the ship bearing the children landed, the crew experienced equipment failure. The children had been placed in special pods, each destined to a different part of the Earth. You yourselves were sent in similar pods a decade ago.”

  George continued the story.

  “The crew was able to launch almost all the pods,” he said. “Only two remained: Lorraine and Marty. Lorraine, perhaps because of her small size, somehow changed before she was found. But something went wrong with Marty’s pod. It must have floated until he was found, looking exactly as he had when he left our planet.”

  Eric walked over to LaBerge and looked down at him.

  “That’s why he kept asking Lorraine what she knew of him,” he said. “They were found together, and LaBerge was crazy to know what an Earth child had to do with an alien.”

  “Or what he thought was an Earth child,” Wil said.

  “It makes me wonder,” Rachel said. “Maybe other children landed in different parts of the world and did not change.”

  George shrugged. “We were not told of them.”

  Samantha reached toward Julie and brushed back her hair.

  “I’m glad Julie found me,” she said. “I don’t understand, though, why we weren’t just told about our children. Did our superiors think we’d reject them?”

  “Of course not,” Judy said. “But remember, your minds were blanked. You had no recollection of creating your offspring.”

  “Were you afraid of the police?” George asked.

  Both Samantha and Rachel nodded excitedly.

  “That’s because it would have been unsafe for you to involve any authorities,” George explained.

  “Seems like you built in
a lot of protective devices,” Wil said. “I’d hate to imagine what a mind-blanking session is like.”

  Barbara huffed. “They didn’t build in enough to keep some of them from getting caught. And what about Raoul Henley?”

  “Who?”

  Samantha told Judy about the man who had supposedly given Julie to her, and what had happened to him. Rachel mumbled something.

  “We also lost someone mysteriously,” she said. “Nina Blair was a social worker. She practically begged me to take in Steven. Then she was killed, her body burned beyond recognition by some kind of chemical. Do you suppose she suffered the same fate as your man?”

  “It’s possible,” Samantha agreed.

  “The pods are set to help us change,” George said. “But in human hands . . .”

  They all looked to the Plexiglas case, where the pod hung suspended. It was no more threatening than a carved-out piece of wood.

  “But what about all those pods we found?” Eric asked. “Do you mean someone died horribly each time one of them was exposed?”

  “I think they lose their potency after a time,” George said.

  Wil walked over to the display case.

  “I don’t see much in the way of technology here,” he said. “Just a few controls at the front. Hardly the kind of thing to keep someone alive through space.”

  “But the lack of technology is precisely the reason it works,” Judy said. “Those pods aren’t manmade . . . or should I say Ixtauran-made. They are Ixtauran.”

  “I don’t get it,” Wil said.

  “They are the reason we were able to travel through space,” George said. He looked at the pod, and a sort of reverence came into his voice.

  “We all strive toward the highest level of physical and spiritual existence,” he said. “The Cetacu achieved these aeons ago, when they became one with nature. They gave up their corporeal forms and, shall we way, ‘linked’ with various types of flora. In doing so, they were able to find the answers to questions all beings have been asking since the beginning of time.”

  “It was the Cetacu who discovered the secret to ‘faster-than-light’ speeds,” Judy added. “They are the ones who allowed us to break free of our own planet and explore the galaxy.”

  On the floor, LaBerge had been quietly listening to every word. His heart began to pound now. Ten years of research, and at last he knew the answer! It was the pods! All the time, he thought, it had been those strange wooden “boats” they’d found floating in the ocean. And he was lucky enough to have a new one, one that was almost completely intact.

  Suddenly the room filled with the blare of sirens. Everyone looked around in confusion, except for George and Judy. Samantha turned to them.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Not to worry,” George said. “We set the alarm system to go off at this time. It’s to clear everyone out of the building.”

  “But why?” Eric asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “We’ve come to rescue you,” George said. “But we can’t just leave this place as it is. No one must know we are here. The entire complex must be destroyed.”

  No! LaBerge, shouted in his mind. You can’t destroy all my work!

  Still, he didn’t dare move.

  “But so many have seen all this,” Rachel pointed out. “Surely they’ll talk.”

  “We can erase certain memories from their minds,” Judy said, “as easily as our own memories were erased. But we want to give them the chance to escape. We aren’t murderers.”

  “Tell that to Raoul Henley,” Wil said.

  No one answered him.

  “But how are we going to destroy this place?” Steven asked.

  The wails of the sirens woke Lorraine up, and she began to fuss. Judy rocked her back and forth.

  “We must all work together,” she said. “Lorraine? Lorraine, listen to me.”

  “Yes, Mommy?”

  Samantha gasped. It was the first time one of the children had acknowledged an adult as her parent. For a moment she wondered what it would be like for Julie to call her the same.

  But there was no time for that.

  “Lorraine,” Judy was saying, “think of that secret tunnel you found. Think of the water at the doorway.”

  Lorraine nodded. She closed her eyes and imagined the place. It came to her mind as clearly as if she were right there. She could even feel the cold water on her body.

  “Everyone, concentrate on that tunnel,” Judy commanded. “Concentrate on bringing the water into the building.”

  “You’re going to flood the place!” Eric said. “How will we get out? Last time I looked, Barbara and Wil and I didn’t have magical powers.”

  “We’ll get out,” George promised. “The building will be empty when the water crashes through. It will destroy everything, and everything above will collapse and bury these lower floors. “

  All the Ixtaurans in the room did as they were told, calling for the flood to come even as they readied themselves to evacuate.

  Eric pointed to LaBerge.

  “What about him?”

  Everyone looked at the fat man on the floor. They hated him for what he had done, and yet they were too peaceful a race to let him die.

  “We should wake him up,” Rachel said.

  “Somebody better get Marty too,” Samantha said.

  “I’ve got him,” Wil said, hurrying to pick up the little alien being. By now he was neither fascinated nor afraid of him. He cradled Marty in his arms like a baby.

  George and Eric went to LaBerge and attempted to shake him. Suddenly LaBerge rolled onto his back, thrusting their hands away.

  “Don’t touch me!” he screamed. “Don’t touch me, you alien freaks!”

  “He wasn’t asleep!” Julie cried, turning to Samantha. “He heard everything!”

  LaBerge was on his feet now, moving back toward the display case.

  “Yes, I heard everything!” he said. “It was the pods! The pods are my answer! You aren’t going to obliterate all my work! If they gave you power, they’ll give it to me!”

  With that, before anyone could stop him, he picked up an oxygen tank and threw it at the case.

  “Don’t do that!” Samantha cried, thinking of what had happened to Raoul Henley.

  Wil and Eric rushed for the man, but he was already climbing into the case. He moved with a grace that seemed impossible for such a big man, reaching into the pod and fumbling with the controls. A few hours earlier, he would never have allowed anyone to have direct contact with the structure. But he was beyond control now, desperately trying to finish his work before it was taken away from him. He turned knobs and pushed buttons and frantically ran his fingers over the control panel. The others tried to stop him, but no one could.

  A bright orange glow filled the broken display case. Samantha felt something tighten in her stomach. She remembered the glow. She had seen it surrounded by darkness, under the water. It was the glow that had changed her into a human being.

  For some reason, the power had been delayed in Marty’s pod. What should have happened days ago to change him into a human boy was now doing something horrible to Walter LaBerge. His screams filled the room, competing with the sirens.

  Julie covered her ears and turned to Samantha.

  “Make it stop!” she cried.

  Lorraine was wailing loudly. Steven hurried to her and knelt beside Judy.

  Don’t be afraid.

  They all heard the voice. They turned to Wil, who felt Marty stirring in his arms.

  Don’t be afraid. We’ll be all right. But we . . . we have to get out now!

  “Come on!” Rachel shouted. “Let’s go!”

  George opened the door. The hallway was empty—the guards had been mesmerized to leave with everyone else. Already they could hear rumbling from the floor up above.

  “The water’s coming!” Samantha shouted over the din of the sirens.

  “Marty knew it first!” Steven cried. “He warned us!�
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  Eric was the last one out of the room. He turned to look at the orange glow. Like a man running from an inferno, LaBerge suddenly emerged from the display case. Through the orange mist that surrounded him, Eric saw a sickening sight. LaBerge’s skin was gone, his flesh and muscles exposed. Some weird noise came from his mouth—or what was left of it.

  He collapsed, a bloodied hand reaching for Eric’s ankle.

  “Eric!” Rachel cried from down the hall.

  Eric broke free and raced to the others. As fast as they could, they hurried up eight flights of stairs. Wil glanced quickly through the window in the door and saw water flooding into the halls. It would be only a matter of minutes before everything was destroyed.

  When they reached the top, everyone immediately headed for the doorways. But Wil stopped short.

  “What about Marty?” he cried.

  Everyone else stopped and turned.

  “He’s right,” Samantha said. “There must be two hundred people out there. We can’t let them see Marty!”

  Barbara ducked into a closet and pulled out a tarpaulin. Quickly she helped Wil wrap this around the alien.

  “It’s okay,” she told him soothingly. “We’re almost out.”

  I’m not afraid. I’m with friends. It did not matter to him that Barbara couldn’t pick up his message. His large expressive eyes told her what he was thinking.

  Finally they opened the door and walked out into the sunshine.

  A huge crowd was milling about the parking lot. Some were still dressed in white cleanroom suits, and were drawing stares from the townspeople who worked in the factory above.

  “Who are those people?” a woman asked. “They look like astronauts.”

  “I sure never saw them before,” the man next to her commented.

  The guards drew enough attention to keep it away from the escapees. They had all taken their helmets off, and a few were scratching their heads in wonder. They only remembered hearing the Klaxons and running from the building.

  But none could remember what they’d been doing in there.

  “What’s happening?” someone yelled. “Is it a fire?”

  “I don’t see any smoke!”