by Alex Irvine
He brought himself back to Earth.
“I appreciate you finally granting us access, Mr. Umbutu,” he said. “Your father was a tenacious man who really stuck to his guns, no pun intended.” David had known for years that there was an alien presence in this part of the Congo—now the Republique d’Umbutu—but it had been impossible to get permission to see it while the elder Umbutu was still in charge.
“My father was a monster,” Dikembe answered sharply. “His pride caused the deaths of more than half of my people. Including my brother.” He started walking away.
Taken aback, David said, “I’m so sorry.” For once he had tried to be diplomatic, and where had it gotten him? He and Catherine followed the warlord. As they walked, they looked around, taking in the scattered alien bones and skulls that littered the site. David wondered if Dikembe had decreed they should be left there as some sort of memorial, or whether the people of Umbutu simply had more pressing problems than disposing of them. He also knew that Dikembe’s father had fought a brutal war against alien holdouts. Perhaps the memorial wasn’t to the war at all, but to the elder Umbutu, who had left so much damage in his wake.
David wouldn’t be able to ask, of course, but the scenario intrigued him. Dikembe was a young and powerful leader with a European education and experience in war. Men like him went a long way if they kept their heads, but the previous generation in this part of Africa had seen so much conflict and human cruelty that only cruel men could lead them. The elder Umbutu was one such man. He died after the aliens died, but because of them in the end.
So his memory was scattered here, among the bones.
“He should have asked for help,” Dikembe said, his tone softening ever so slightly. “I will not make the same mistakes he did.” He stopped and held out his arm to the side. “Be careful.”
They had reached the edge of an enormous hole in the ground, hundreds of yards in diameter and plunging into the earth farther than David could see. Even with the lights, blackness took over immediately.
“What happened here?” Catherine asked.
“They were drilling,” Dikembe said.
David nodded. “We heard rumors, from refugees who fled the regime.”
Catherine asked the logical next question.
“For what?”
“Fossil fuels, minerals, metals…” David speculated. “I don’t know.”
“That’s a first,” Catherine said wryly.
David ignored her. “When did the drilling stop?” he asked Dikembe.
“When you blew up the mother ship.”
That made sense, David thought. From what they knew of the aliens, there was a collective consciousness, a hive mind driven by a central awareness. Probably analogous to the queen of a beehive or anthill. Individual aliens could act autonomously, but they were subject to commands from whatever that central mind was, and they all shared its knowledge and awareness.
Yet it was important to understand the reasons for the drilling. The captured alien had said all they wanted was the death of humanity, but if that was true, what was the point of this shaft?
“Mind if I send some members of my team down here to run some scans?” he asked.
Dikembe nodded. David looked back up at the underside of the ship. The lights there beckoned him, promising new discoveries and revelations inside. He had never been inside one of these ships—not when it was functional—and had never imagined getting the chance. During his trip to the mother ship, of course, there hadn’t really been time. Now, though, David saw a chance to investigate some of the mysteries of the alien civilization. It was a tantalizing puzzle, and the ship also had a kind of irresistible because-it-was-there-ness.
He had to see what they had left behind.
David figured he could order a helicopter from Brazzaville, but it would take forever to get there, and he wanted to explore as soon as possible. Right then, for that matter. Why wait? They had flashlights. They also had no idea how long the lights would stay on, or what they might miss if they didn’t get inside while the ship was still responding to… well, whatever it was responding to.
For a moment he considered contacting Joshua Adams back at Area 51, to see if anything unusual had happened with alien technologies there. Then he discarded the idea. Adams was smart. He could handle things. Collins could talk to him.
Decision made, David turned to Dikembe.
“Is there any way to get up there?”
12
Some things had changed a lot in twenty years. Some hadn’t changed at all. Some things were both different and the same.
President Whitmore knew he had a tendency to lose track of things, but he also knew that there were things he had to tell people. Things that came to him in the dreams, but the aliens were in his dreams, too, and they had forced him to dream in their language, their way of thinking. How could he get that across to people? They acted like he was crazy when he tried.
He was out in the street, knowing he was trying to get somewhere but already confused about what he’d meant to do. The bus stop had distracted him. He stood staring at an advertisement, trying to figure it out. It was a large image of the ruins of Las Vegas, with a crashed alien destroyer covering much of downtown and the destroyed Strip. Whitmore remembered flying over the site after the war. Smoke had hung in the air for months. Now it was a memorial.
In the picture, tourists were lined up to enter a portion of the downed destroyer through a shiny new visitor center. For all Whitmore knew there was a gift shop inside. Probably there was.
Across the top of the ad, in large letters, was a slogan.
VISIT THE RUINS
OF LAS VEGAS
“You weren’t there!” Whitmore said. He couldn’t help himself. He turned to two teenagers who were waiting for the bus. That was another thing that hadn’t changed. Teenagers. They hadn’t been there. They weren’t even born yet in 1996. To them it was all history, stories their parents and grandparents told them. But they had to understand. Everyone had to understand. They stared at him and he knew he had to convince them of the danger.
“You don’t understand what they’re capable of! They’re coming back, and this time we won’t be able to stop them. I have to tell the world!”
The girl shifted away from him. “I don’t want to hit you, ’cause you’re old and stuff,” she said, “but you’re big time in our space right now.”
“Yeah,” the boy agreed, trying to sound tough, but he couldn’t keep it up because his curiosity got the better of him. “And what’s up with the robe?”
Whitmore looked down. He was wearing his bathrobe. Had he meant to do that? The kids didn’t recognize him. That was confusing, too. For years everywhere he’d gone, everyone had known who he was. People had listened to him. He had tried to help them, to lead them, to prepare them. Now he was… he had a moment of clarity. He was an old man in a bathrobe shouting at kids on the street.
As quickly as the clarity had come, it was gone. Whitmore looked around, confused again. Where had he been going? He had to tell someone. What did he have to tell them?
A black car pulled up in front of the bus stop. Two people got out, a man and a woman. On the side of the car was the crest of the Secret Service. The teenagers stared as the man and the woman walked up to Whitmore.
He recognized her. She was his daughter, Patricia. What was she doing here? Whitmore thought he should tell her what he knew, but he had trouble forming words sometimes, trouble making himself understood because his train of thought was always—
The man was talking into a radio. Agent Travis, that was his name. He was supposed to be at Whitmore’s house. Who had let him off duty in the afternoon?
“All agents stand down,” he said. “Principal is secure.”
Principal, Whitmore thought. They were talking about him. They had been looking for him. He looked down at his bathrobe again and remembered leaving the house, avoiding Travis, needing to go somewhere and tell someone. But even tho
ugh he looked at Patricia, his daughter, and wanted to tell her all of this, he couldn’t figure out how to get it into words.
“Come on, Dad,” she said, taking his arm. “Let’s get you home.”
* * *
She was silent for a minute or so in the back of the car and then she said, “You can’t keep doing this, Dad. You need to take your pills.”
Whitmore looked at her. He had another one of those clear moments, and was amazed at the woman his little Patty had grown up to become. “I know,” he said. “I—I know I’m not at my best anymore. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to bother with all this.”
“It’s no bother, Dad,” she said automatically, but as she turned to look out of the window, Whitmore knew that wasn’t entirely the truth.
“I know you gave up flying to take care of me, Patty,” he said. “I know how much you loved it.”
She looked back to her father. “Yes,” she said, “but I love you more. It was my decision, and I don’t regret it.”
She’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am, Whitmore thought. “Patty, my good days are behind me. I did the things I needed to do in my life. You haven’t yet. This is your time now—don’t waste it on me. Go live your life.”
She didn’t answer.
13
The aliens were still going crazy down on the prison levels, and the scientists still had no idea why. General Adams had half a mind to have them all shot, just for the sake of peace and quiet. The aliens, not the scientists, although sometimes the lab coats were as much trouble to wrangle.
Even before this, Adams had been debating whether it was worth keeping the aliens. What humankind really needed from them was their technology, and none of them had to be breathing to accomplish that goal. It would be a fine thing to not have ethics, Adams mused. If he was the kind of officer who had no compunction about killing prisoners, Area 51 would run much more smoothly.
Unfortunately he did have ethics, and he believed that doing the right thing was a laudable goal even if you never got credit for it. He didn’t need to be in the spotlight. He didn’t need anyone congratulating him. He just wanted to serve. That was why he’d joined the Army in the first place, and why he’d stayed here at Area 51 instead of taking a more public career path. He might have been on the Joint Chiefs by now, if he’d made more of an effort to play the political game.
That wasn’t him, though, so he had a problem with the prisoners and he had to solve it. Normally he’d drop an alien issue in David Levinson’s lap, since Levinson was the ESD director.
But Levinson was nowhere to be found. According to his office, he was running around the Congo somewhere, though even they weren’t sure where. It was just like him to vanish when there was something he needed to address, Adams thought, and with the anniversary celebrations coming up, too.
He’d be expected to take part in the pomp and circumstance, but he wouldn’t care about that—might not even show up. He was the classic science type, always focused on the next bit of data that came his way, or the next interesting problem he thought only he could solve.
Adams debated involving the president. Maybe she could bring Levinson back from his safari, or whatever he was doing. No, he put that idea on the back burner, deciding to keep the alien situation in-house for now. The president had enough on her plate, not the least of which was the big show Legacy Squadron was due to put on in a couple of hours.
Walking into the command center, Adams spotted Lieutenant Ritter. “Any word from Levinson yet?”
“No, sir,” the lieutenant said. Then he added another headache to the day. “Sir, Rhea Base has gone dark again. We haven’t had contact in eleven hours.”
Eleven hours? “When are they going to learn to follow protocol?” Adams growled. Every ESD base was supposed to check in at specified times, to ensure continual operational readiness. The Russians at Rhea Base were lousy at keeping their schedule—he’d complained about it from the moment construction started out there. Say what you would about the French on Mars, at least they were punctual.
“I spend more time on the phone with the Kremlin than I do with the Pentagon,” he added. “Try bouncing the signal off one of the orbiting satellites.”
Communications with the space-based ESD installations bypassed the geostationary satellite network and went via line-of-sight to the Moon, then by a relay out to Mars and Rhea. It was a security precaution put into place because the network was too susceptible to being hacked. Adams preferred to follow protocol, but he had to get updates from the outer bases. What was the use of having them, if you couldn’t talk to them?
“Yes, sir,” Ritter said. He went to issue Adams’s orders to the communications team.
“And let me know when you hear from Levinson,” Adams added. He was getting more and more irritated with the man. He couldn’t just disappear whenever he felt like it. This was why civilians shouldn’t be put in charge. They couldn’t keep their priorities straight. He would have kept the operation running tight and smooth.
Maybe one day he would have the chance.
Until then, however, he would have to deal with screaming aliens and incompetent directors and Russians who couldn’t follow the rules. This was no way to run planetary defense, and Adams wished—for the hundredth time that day—that he was still enjoying the weekend with his wife. Maybe it was getting close to time for him to retire, and live life a little differently.
14
Jake decided to interpret Lao’s command as meaning he had to stay in his quarters unless someone ordered him to be somewhere else, ’cause he needed something to eat. Then he issued himself an exception to permit giving Patty a call. He could only talk to Charlie for so long before that irrepressible optimism drove him nuts.
The base had a room set aside for staff to call home. It was a simple rectangle with rows of video booths that offered a little bit of privacy. Jake found an unoccupied booth and made the call, catching her after she’d gotten home from work, or so he guessed. It was early evening, Washington, D.C. time.
Seeing her face on the video feed made Jake feel better right away. Then it made him feel worse again because it had been so long since he’d seen her in person.
“I’m going crazy up here,” he said. “I can’t take it. Tell me how much you miss me.”
“Actually, the chief of staff just got this new intern,” Patty said with a mischievous smile. “He’s not quite as tall as you, but he’s got cute dimples—and he plays the cello.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” Jake said, playing along as best he could. “I’m happy for you.”
She must have seen something in his expression, though, so she got more serious.
“You know how much I miss you,” she said. “It’s been a tough week with my dad.”
“You still taking him to the anniversary?” It had seemed like a good idea when the planning began months earlier. The White House seemed to want Whitmore there, but Patty—who knew more than they did about her father’s condition—had been torn.
“No,” she said, surprising him. He hadn’t known she’d reached a decision, and now he wondered if something had happened to make her choose. “I want people to remember him for the man he was, not who he’s become.”
Whitmore had been a dynamo of a man, a genuinely great and decisive leader, as good in peacetime as he’d been during the War of ’96. He’d started to have mental health troubles about five years ago, and they were getting worse. Strange dreams, dissociation from reality, scrawling the same weird drawings over and over without being able to explain why… the doctors didn’t seem to know what it was or how to treat it. So mostly they just tried to keep him home and out of trouble, but Jake knew it was hard on Patty.
“I wish I could be there with you,” he said.
She sighed. “Me, too.”
“That’s it,” Jake said. “I’m gonna walk out of here, steal a tug, and come and see you right now.”
“Last time you did that, they adde
d a month to your tour,” she said, but she was smiling again. God, Jake loved her. Nothing in the world was as important to him as making her happy.
“Yeah,” he said, “but tell me that wasn’t the best three minutes of your life.”
She let the innuendo slide. “Yes, but as much as I want to see you, I’d like to have you back permanently.”
“Only two more months,” Jake reminded her. He wondered how much of it he would spend grounded. He hadn’t told her about the accident. It would only worry her, and he sure as hell didn’t want her to call in any favors to try to help him. The other pilots would sniff that out immediately, and he’d never hear the end of it. Better just to handle it, see out his tour, and get home.
“I’m counting the days,” she said.
The video feed wobbled and distorted as a strange static flared over the audio channel. It was the same pattern Jake had heard right before the tug went out of control. As quickly as it appeared, it was gone.
“What was that?” Patty must have seen it, too.
“We’ve been getting these weird power surges lately,” Jake said. There were a couple more hiccups in the signal, and then it stabilized. The feed returned to normal. He decided to change the subject because if they started talking about the interference he might accidentally mention the accident. “You take a look at the houses I sent you?”
“I haven’t had a chance to, with work and everything going on,” she said apologetically. Then she paused and added, in a tone of voice that told him she didn’t want to say it but felt like she had to, “I saw Dylan at the White House today.”
The last thing in the world Jake wanted to talk about was Dylan Hiller. Patty knew it, but she had this idea that the two of them could patch things up and be friends again.