by Ben Bova
“LISTEN TO ME,” he shouted, and his voice was amplified a millionfold throughout the vast stadium.
“LISTEN TO ME! HEAR MY VOICE! THE WORD OF GOD IS HERE AMONG US. FALL TO YOUR KNEES!”
The clamor in the flickering darkness faltered, took in a collective breath. Willie thundered:
“FALL TO YOUR KNEES! HEED THE WORD OF GOD. THIS IS THE SIGN THAT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. DO NOT BE AFRAID. THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.”
He hesitated, face raised to the lights in the sky. They pulsed and flickered like a living presence. The spotlight suddenly jerked into motion, caught him in its radiant circle.
“I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE SKY. NOW LOOK AT IT! SEE THE HANDIWORK OF THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY! THIS IS NOT A TIME FOR FEAR. IT’S A MOMENT OF TRIUMPH! TO YOUR KNEES AND PRAY. GIVE THANKS. GOD IS SPEAKING TO US IN A VOICE OF FIRE, BUT IT’S A LOVING VOICE. IT’S THE VOICE OF LIFE ETERNAL. WITNESS THE BEAUTY OF IT, THE KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, OF GOD THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT, FOR EVER AND EVER…”
The newspapers next morning said that Willie spoke for three straight hours, never faltering once nor leaving that lone circle of light. His voice alone averted a panic that might have crushed thousands in a terrified stampede for the stadium exits.
Jo said good night to Markov at the hotel’s entrance, and even stepped into the foyer, where the sleepy guard sat with his chin on his chest.
With an unhappy shake of her head, she pushed the door open again and stepped back outside. Markov was already well down the street; no sense calling to him. Jo walked across the street, slipped between cement block buildings and headed for the beach.
She wasn’t surprised when she saw Stoner there, walking stolidly alone down the silvery-white sand. He looked up as she approached, and he didn’t seem surprised either.
“Hello, Keith.”
He almost smiled at her. “Well, you said we were two of a kind. Here we are.”
She fell into step alongside him and they walked on the warm sand, beneath the tall, stately palms that rustled softly in the breeze. Jo stopped for a moment to take off her shoes. Stoner sniffed at the warm sea breeze, heavy with the scent of flowers. The surf murmured off in the darkness, endlessly.
Walking alongside him again, Jo asked, “What’s your real reason for backing away from our little scheme?”
“I told you,” he answered in the darkness. “I won’t be party to falsifying data. It sounded good when I was drunk, but now I’m sober.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Yes.”
“The only reason?”
He stopped and turned toward her. “What do you want me to say: that I don’t want to do it because I don’t want you cuddling up to Thompson?”
“Yes, Keith, that’s exactly what I want you to say.”
“It would make a difference to you?”
“I love you, Keith.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Then, “Does McDermott know?”
“Of course he knows. Why do you think he made me go with him? To take me away from you. Makes him feel macho.”
“And why did you go with him?”
“To make sure that you’d be allowed to come here with us, and not be sent to prison.”
“They wouldn’t send me to prison,” he said. But his voice was lower, softer.
“McDermott said they would.”
“And that’s why you’ve been sleeping with him.”
“Yes. And to get what I want out of him, too,” she answered.
His shoulders slumped. “Jesus Christ, Jo. You’re right, we are two of a kind.”
“I’ve known it all along. And now all you really want is to go flying off into space again, isn’t it?”
He shrugged and resumed walking along the beach.
“Everything you’ve done,” Jo said, “all the mountains you’ve moved…it’s really only for the chance to fly out and meet this alien spacecraft.”
“So I’m a single-minded fanatic,” he muttered.
“You’re a human being, Keith. You scare me sometimes, but you’re human. If only you’d act like one more often…”
“I scare you?”
“This single-mindedness of yours. This drive to fly away from everything, away from everyone…”
He put his arms around her. “I don’t want to fly away from you, Jo. I really don’t.”
She let him pull her close and leaned against his strong, sure body and felt all the anger, all the doubts, all the fears wash away like dead fallen leaves swept off in a cleansing torrent.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her, lightly, and she clung to him, eyes closed.
Their lips parted. “You’re so beautiful, Jo. So impossibly beautiful…”
But as she opened her eyes and looked up at him she saw the sky. “Keith…what is it?”
He turned his gaze upward and she felt him tense for an instant. He let go of her and spun around, head flung back, staring, mouth agape, arms spread outward to balance him as he turned again and again and again, gazing raptly at the bright flickering sky.
“What is it, Keith?” Jo repeated, staring herself at the glowing curtains of light that streamed across the heavens from horizon to horizon.
He laughed. “What is it? Take a look! It’s our revolution! It’s the biggest cosmic joke of them all! Look at it! Just look at it!”
The whole sky was alight with blazing veils of color, shimmering reds and greens and palest yellows, curtains of light that shifted magically across the heavens, dimming the stars, scattering their reflections in the calm waters of the lagoon.
Jo felt the breath suck out of her. It was awesome, frightening, overpoweringly beautiful.
“The Northern Lights!” Stoner was laughing, spinning around like a little boy on the sand, drinking in the wonder of it. “Or maybe the Southern Lights. Who cares? If they’re shining here, this close to the equator, they must be shining everywhere. All over the planet! Got to be. Look at them! Aren’t they magnificent?”
She ran to him. “The Northern Lights? But why…?”
Sliding an arm around her, “It’s our visitor, Jo. Don’t you see? He rattled the magnetosphere of Jupiter and now he’s doing the same thing to Earth’s magnetic field. It’s his answer, his signal to us! Magnificent!”
The planet turns. The line dividing night from day races across seas and continents. And as darkness touched the abodes of humanity:
Along the broad avenues and narrow alleyways of Peking, millions of startled citizens stare up at the sky, watching the fire dragons dance across the heavens. With single mind, they rush toward the Forbidden City, thronging in the ancient square, seeking an answer, an explanation, word from their leaders that will expel the dragons and ease the fears that clutch their hearts.
In Tehran the muezzins climb hurriedly to their minaret balconies to proclaim the glory of Allah, the All-Wise, the All-Compassionate. Men fall to their faces in prayer, casting fearful glances up at the fire-lit sky. Women huddle together and weep. The end of the world is very near, they know.
In Warsaw and Cape Town, in Dublin and Dakar, in Buenos Aires and Nova Scotia, the sky blazes and the people gape and cry out and pray to their gods or their scientists for some saving word, some hope, something to take away the fear that turns blood to ice.
And the lights in the sky dance, everywhere, all across the nighttime of Earth.
BOOK THREE
* * *
O Lord, I love the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth…
THE TWENTY-FIFTH PSALM
* * *
CHAPTER 31
Since his arrival on Kwajalein, Stoner had worked at a desk in an open office area on the top floor of one of the oldest buildings on the island.
Seventeen men and women whose jobs were deemed not important enough to rate private offices shared this area, which they affectionately called the Swamp. Their desks were jammed together like a
n old-fashioned newspaper city room. It was almost as noisy as a newspaper office, too. No matter how carefully one tried to avoid irking one’s neighbors, phones rang, computer terminals clacked, voices echoed off the low corrugated ceiling and the bare cement block walls. And when the sun pounded on the low metal roof, not all the air conditioning on the island could make the Swamp bearable.
Rain was hammering on the roof as Stoner stood in front of his desk, watching the President’s televised speech on the viewscreen that normally served the computer. A tropical squall yowled outside their windows, but no one in the Swamp paid any attention to it.
Everyone in the room watched in dead silence as the President spoke. Slowly, carefully, the President told the people about the spacecraft, patiently explaining that it presented no threat to anyone on Earth. No threat. He kept repeating that. It was an opportunity, a marvelous, unexpected revelation that the human race is not alone in the universe. It is not a threat to us.
But the President looked frightened. And very, very weary.
Stoner listened, watched, waited. He sensed every nerve in his body stretching taut, every muscle aching with strain as he literally tried to pull the words he wanted to hear from the President’s televised image.
And then the words came: “This morning I issued a directive for a joint American-Soviet space mission, to fly out toward this extraterrestrial spacecraft and examine it firsthand. We will go out to meet this alien visitor.”
The breath sighed out of Stoner. His knees trembled. We’re going to do it, he told himself, still too tense to smile or say anything. We’re going to do it. I’m going to do it.
He barely heard the President go on to announce:
“I have therefore decided to devote my entire personal effort to achieving the international co-operation and understanding necessary to allow us to make effective contact with the alien spacecraft and to garner maximum benefit from that contact. Since this will be such a heavy responsibility upon me personally, and upon my aides and advisers, I have decided—reluctantly—not to seek re-election to the presidency.”
Somebody in the steaming hot room yelped. Stoner barely paid attention.
“I will not accept my party’s nomination for re-election, and I will not campaign for any candidate this year. My full energies must—and will—be devoted to leading the international effort to learn as much as we can from this alien visitor.”
A few ragged cheers came from the others watching the screen.
“Maybe now we’ll get some decent food,” one of the men wisecracked.
“Or get my window fixed,” said a woman, regarding the leak that trickled down the wall from the windowsill.
The tension snapped. Even Stoner grinned as he sat back at his desk and resumed his interrupted task: scanning the spectral analyses of the approaching spacecraft.
The rain ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. The afternoon brightened and the Swamp heated up to its usual mugginess. People began drifting away from their desks, finding reasons for going across to the computer building, or the radio telescope installations, or anywhere that might be cooler and drier.
“I worked through lunch,” said one technician as he passed Stoner’s desk. “I’m entitled to leave a little early.”
Stoner barely glanced up at him. The man started down the stairs with two buddies trailing close behind him. He had made the excuse within Stoner’s earshot, as if he now regarded Stoner as the man who made decisions.
As they disappeared down the echoing metal steps, Jo Camerata came in. She looked around for a moment, then went to Stoner’s desk and perched on the edge of it, her long bare legs crossed, hair pulled back and pinned up off her neck.
“How can you work in this heat?” she asked. “It’s unbearable.”
“I didn’t notice,” Stoner said.
“Didn’t notice? You’re sweating like a horse. Your shirt is soaked.”
He glanced down and picked at his shirt front, plastered against his chest.
“Must be my Zen training. Mind over matter.”
Jo tapped her own shirt front. “Well, this matter is going out to the beach for a dip before dinner. Want to come with me?”
He smiled at her. “I’ve got work to do, Jo.”
“It can wait. Come on, you can come to work early tomorrow. That’s what I do. I get in before seven.”
Stoner gave her a skeptical glance.
“Well…” Jo broke into a grin. “Would you believe, before eight?”
“Sometimes.”
She leaned toward him. “I can’t tempt you? I know some very nice empty beaches, where nobody goes.”
“Jo, we’ve only got a few weeks to get everything ready.”
“You work too hard. At the wrong things.”
He could smell the fragrance of her scent. Leaning back in his chair, away from her, he offered, “Look—I really have an awful lot to do here. Can I meet you for dinner? Around seven?”
“I have to go swimming alone?” Jo made a pout.
“It’s a rough life,” Stoner said.
“You’re a difficult man, Keith Stoner,” Jo said, getting to her feet.
Looking up at her, he replied seriously, “I’m not trying to be difficult, Jo. Honestly.”
“Oh, I know! I just wish that you’d put your own needs a little higher up on your list of priorities.”
He didn’t answer. She glanced around, saw that the Swamp was practically empty, leaned down swiftly and kissed him on the lips. Before Stoner could react she was on her way to the stairs, grinning.
He grinned back at her. Then he swung right back to his work. His smile disappeared as he returned to the spectral analyses, almost alone in the steamy room.
Outside in the sun-dazzled street, at least there was a sea breeze to moderate the drenching heat. Jo took a deep breath and, instead of heading for the beach, started walking back toward the computer building.
Halfway there she met Markov, coming up the street in the opposite direction.
“Ah, my heartbroken friend. How are you this afternoon?”
Despite herself, Jo laughed. “Still heartbroken. And you?”
“The same.”
She stood in the hot sunlight, gazed at the squat, windowless computer building, then turned her attention to the Russian. He was smiling at her, boyishly polite and expectant.
Just because Keith’s a fanatic about this is no reason for me to be, too, Jo thought. I’ve got my own life to lead.
“Can you paddle a canoe?” Jo asked Markov.
He blinked. “I beg your pardon. Sometimes my grasp of your euphemisms…”
“A dugout canoe,” Jo said. “There’s lots of them on the beach, up past the airstrip. We could paddle out across the lagoon and find a nice private island, all to ourselves.”
Markov’s face lit up. “And no sharks?”
“No sharks.”
“Show me where these canoes are,” Markov said, offering his arm. “I will power you through the water like a dolphin!”
The Swamp was empty, except for Stoner, when Jeff Thompson and Lieutenant Commander Tuttle came in. Tuttle looked around, a puzzled frown on his snub-nosed, sunburned face.
“Why isn’t the air conditioning on?” he asked.
“It is,” Stoner said.
Tuttle was in his khakis, but the short-sleeved shirt was already darkening with perspiration.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” the lieutenant commander said. “How can you work in this soup?”
“Dedication.”
“Now you know why he can drink so much beer without getting fat,” Thompson said, yanking his shirt out from the waistband of his shorts.
Stoner turned off this computer screen and leaned back in his creaking chair. His back felt wet.
“What brings you up here?” he asked Tuttle.
Thompson answered, “You saw the President’s speech?”
“Stood at attention all the way through it.”
>
Tuttle pulled a wheeled chair from the next desk and sat down. He’s so little, Stoner thought. I always thought Jeff was small, but Tuttle looks like a kid beside Jeff.
“Professor McDermott received orders from Washington just before the speech was broadcast,” Tuttle said.
“About the rendezvous mission?” Stoner asked.
“Right. Our people in Washington are talking with the Russian embassy. I expect Professor Zworkin will be getting orders from Moscow before the day’s over.”
“So it’s going to happen.”
Thompson nodded gravely. “You’re going out to meet our visitor. In a Russian ship, it looks like.”
“Big Mac must be overjoyed,” Stoner muttered.
“Professor McDermott…” Tuttle glanced at Thompson, then continued, “Professor McDermott is in a sort of state of shock. I don’t think we can depend on him to make any effective decisions for the time being.”
“He’s sick?”
Thompson said, “He needs a rest.”
“Dr. Thompson is taking over McDermott’s administrative duties. He and Professor Zworkin will be coequals on Project JOVE for the time being.”
“I see. Good luck, Jeff.”
“And you,” Tuttle went on, “will take over the planning for the rendezvous mission.”
Stoner nodded.
“We’ll have to move you out of here, into a better office…”
“How about Big Mac’s office?” Stoner suggested, straight-faced.
Tuttle’s jaw dropped open.
“He’s kidding,” Thompson said quickly. “He can take the office next to mine. We’ll find someplace else for the people in it.”
“Okay,” said Tuttle.
Stoner said, “I want Professor Markov to work with me.”
“Markov?”
“He’s the linguist,” Thompson said.
“That’s right,” said Stoner. “He’s got a more open mind about alien thought processes than the others around here. And he can help me get along with the Russians I’ll have to work with.”
“Alien thought processes?” Tuttle repeated.