Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  ‘Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know! Bad remembering things. All killing, made me sick.’

  Minutes passed and the anchorman kept talking and the rain fell. Molly stood and lifted Cory and carried him out of the room, but Gene stayed, gripped by the unknown.

  She’d be delighted to come back for good news, but she was sick with fear. Whatever killed Cory’s people might still be out there. He’d said ‘hunt’, and the movement of the snake-machines in his nightmare felt like hunting. She crooned to Cory with a hope she did not feel.

  *

  That evening, Molly listened to the radio in the kitchen and cleaned the stove in fury, taking out strong emotions on something that couldn’t fight back. The failure of the Moon mission reminded her of when President Kennedy was murdered; it had changed everything. Surely this’d be the same, one of those days people would remember for ever. The radio was playing solemn music now; she’d been turning the sound down every hour to miss the news but now the music stopped mid-note and a breathless announcer said, ‘Mike Delgardo’s alive! Folks, they’ve had a signal from Columbia – he’s fine. I repeat, Mike Delgardo’s alive.’

  Molly spilled the filthy water, watching it run in greasy trails across her floor. Gene was already thundering upstairs, calling, ‘Cory, come quickly—’

  A spectacular electrical short had kept Columbia out of radio contact for four hours, the longest four hours in history, until, finally, a familiar Texan voice broke over the airwaves: ‘Houston, this is Columbia, do you copy?’ For years, people would talk of how suppers burned and glasses smashed, how children were told to shut up and listen as the radio broke the news. Now they played that first clip of sound over and over.

  Molly gave a silent gasp of thanks and struggled up to find a cloth and sort the mess.

  Cory stood there, looking so sad.

  ‘Mike Delgardo’s fine,’ she said. ‘Columbia is fine – he’s coming home.’

  Cory’s ears twitched. ‘Good.’

  ‘He can fly the ship alone,’ she said, and Cory shrank, like some great weight was pressing down on him.

  ‘Like first Mom. One left to fly. Now Cory alone, like him.’

  Even in the ruins of the mission, Delgardo’s personality was shining through. The whole world heard how he fixed the electrical fault – ‘I tried everything but kicking it!’ – and Houston grilled him about what he’d seen. The quick answer was, his orbit had taken him out of the line of sight. He asked if there was anything he could do to find out what happened to Eagle? He couldn’t land, but say, a much lower orbit . . . ? But Houston told him not to be a damn fool.

  *

  They read the funeral service, commending the two dead men to the stars. Watching the President’s brief broadcast to the nation, even Molly admitted he spoke for the world. Then the President talked to Mike Delgardo across the emptiness of space and the whole world heard the President hesitate.

  ‘So, they tell me you trained to bring Columbia home alone, if you had to.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I can fly her back one-handed.’

  ‘Come home, son. No heroics.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  CHAPTER 18

  A trip to Bradleyburg

  On Saturday morning Gene had to work, so Rosa Pearce came to Crooked Street to mind Cory. He embraced her with enthusiasm, and Molly had the rest of the day to herself. Supper would be cooked by Gene and Cory, using an implausibly large number of pans, but it was usually edible. She took the familiar drive west to Bradleyburg. For some reason, she thought of the Russian spies. After the initial excitement, they had disappeared and Amber Grove had had a blissful few weeks without anyone snooping. First, she had decided, she would look round the thrift shops, then the department store. Purchases for Cory would be left to be collected later, since she was having lunch with her friends, who would be sure to ask questions about any parcels. The iron rule of shopping for Cory was to use different catalogues and to go to different places, to be unmemorable, to leave no sign she had a child herself.

  In the department store, she idled through menswear, noticing that lapels and collars were getting even wider. The new fashions would suit Gene’s lean frame, but he’d complain like crazy if she bought anything for him. There were pretty dresses in the children’s section; she watched as a mother measured this dress and that against her dark-haired girl, feeling an ache, no less painful for being familiar . . . and yet her thoughts turned to her Cory. He didn’t end the sadness, but he gave her another focus; he was a good balm for grief. Being a mother was not as she’d imagined; it was more, it was wider. Cory had changed everything.

  Rows of silent televisions in the store showed the scenes at the White House, in lurid colours. They were repeating the capsule landing off Hawaii, and Mike Delgardo’s cheery face inside the quarantine cell. The President gave a speech saying he wanted another Moon mission. ‘Suppose those who first sailed out of sight of land had faltered,’ he said. ‘Suppose mankind had said, no, it’s too difficult to fly with the birds.’ She didn’t know where she stood. Sorrow for the widows and their children, for sure. No medal at the White House could compensate for the loss of a father.

  Molly was early. She found a table in the store’s coffee shop and got herself a drink. As she people-watched, trying not to think about the pastries under their spotless glass domes, she glanced up – and to her shock, there at the counter was Dr Pfeiffer, lecturing the waitress about the coffee in Milan, Italy. Damn him! Suddenly there as if he’d risen from a trapdoor in a puff of red smoke. Molly’s cup rattled in its saucer, but she stilled her face. What the hell was he doing here? She’d have been happy never to see him again.

  She grabbed her purse, but she was a long way from the door. Could she hide in the ladies’ restroom? No, he might be hours. But so long as he didn’t see her, maybe she could sneak round the edge of the room, get out into the safety of the store.

  Pfeiffer looked around and saw her. At once, parcels in hand, he left the counter and walked over. ‘I thought that was you,’ he said, standing too close, shifting from one foot to the other. ‘How’re things, Mrs Myers?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Dr Pfeiffer. We’re getting along,’ she said, trying to be cold without being rude.

  ‘My daughters enjoy camp, but I like to buy them something for when they come home.’ He showed her his parcels. Venturing a rather timid smile, he went on, ‘I’m staying in town – perhaps we could have lunch?’

  She’d rather kiss a crocodile. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I have plans.’

  Pfeiffer didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘It’s not just a social matter. I do have some more questions.’

  ‘I’m not finding this easy,’ Molly said, starting to feel the sweat prickle her skin. Her mind was whirling; was this a ruse? Perhaps the FBI were at the house already. They’d talked Rosa through their escape plans, but perhaps even now Cory was running through the woods alone . . . and maybe Gene had been arrested.

  ‘I just wanted a friendly chat,’ Pfeiffer said. ‘I could make it official, if you want to.’

  Molly looked at her watch. She couldn’t stand him and the FBI at the house; they might even take them away . . . How anxious that would make Cory . . . ‘I have twenty minutes,’ she said, with very poor grace.

  Pfeiffer sat, then leaned forward and said, ‘There are lots of theories about the Moon landing.’

  Well, Molly was afraid she knew what had happened: just maybe, Eagle had suffered the same fate as Cory’s giant star-ship. But she said, ‘The Russians?’ The newspapers were suggesting the USSR blew up the Moon mission to spoil the American victory.

  Pfeiffer puffed his cheeks, let out a dismissive Huh! ‘Unlikely. They’re ruthless enough, of course; I won’t deny that, but most of their unmanned missions crash. A Soviet machine capable of remotely attacking a moving spacecraft a quarter of a million miles away?
We couldn’t do it. Truly, it would be far easier for them to just land their own man on the Moon. No, there are perfectly plausible reasons – technical reasons – why Eagle might’ve failed. And it might have been sabotage, of course. But even if we find the wreckage, we may never know.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Molly said.

  ‘Or it might’ve been something else entirely.’ His lips clamped shut as the waitress brought over his coffee. When the woman had gone, Pfeiffer said, ‘So, on Meteor Day we learned we were not alone. What you had in the hospital changed everything. We know they’re out there, Mrs Myers – perhaps they’re hostile.’

  Molly sighed. Let him feel her sheer tiredness at talking to him. ‘I’ve told you everything I know. I only cared for C— the boy . . . a couple of weeks, give or take. We got to a few words – water, bedpan, food. He was sweet, and not frightened of us.’

  She’d used the name before. It was fine.

  ‘I bet a Russian general’s little boy would be sweet too.’ Pfeiffer’s gaze locked on her. ‘Mrs Myers, is there anything you haven’t told me? Anything at all, that could help your country?’

  ‘No,’ she said. She and Gene had talked this through late into the night, but they both agreed they wouldn’t be believed, not unless they produced Cory, and then they would lose everything. Why should she give Cory up to the warmongers?

  She held his gaze.

  He blinked first. ‘Thank you for your time. I just needed to ask. Can I get your opinion?’ He had the end of one parcel open, but she’d spotted the girls.

  ‘I see my friends,’ she said, relieved. ‘Sorry, I must rush.’ She gathered up her stuff and walked towards Janice and Diane and the children. The moment she had her back to Pfeiffer, she pulled some faces for the adults. ‘Let’s go to the other place,’ she said, brightly.

  As they left the store, Janice, eager for gossip, said, ‘That was what’s his name, Dr Pfeiffer . . .’

  ‘Yes, he’s always bothering Dr Jarman,’ Molly said; she’d already worked out her story. ‘He’s researching this radioactivity stuff. And’ – it wasn’t true, but how easy to slander the unpleasant – ‘you know, he’s a horrible creep, following women around.’ She mimed pinching a bottom and her friends’ eyebrows soared. ‘Disgusting. He’s famous for it, they say. Oh, I’m so glad you came!’

  They took the bait and the conversation turned away from danger.

  Gene was right. They had nothing useful they could tell the authorities; all they would do was lose their son. That flash of light before Eagle vanished, that could have been anything. But looking at the clear blue sky brought a new sense of danger.

  CHAPTER 19

  Two Mile Lake

  Two Mile Lake sat motionless in the muggy heat, surrounded by watching forest. Pfeiffer parked a little way from the Shed. He could leave his children’s presents in the car; no one would steal anything here.

  The Ship wanted its privacy, but of course the humans still spied on it. Detectors were strung along the new, shorter jetty, positioned in that boat moored several hundred yards away and on the three metal towers stationed around the shore. The scientists sometimes floated devices on a balloon over the Ship as bait: the sophisticated equivalent of poking it with a stick.

  The long room was sweaty and the air was close; the fans roaring constantly to protect the equipment cramming the place did little to tame the heat. Why wasn’t the air-conditioning working? Pfeiffer disliked the informality of shirtsleeves, but this was unbearable. He slipped off his jacket.

  Pfeiffer took the chair the underling instantly vacated and acknowledged Dr Tyler, who said, ‘Nothing since yesterday. Dr Haldeman had someone take the new listening device out by boat and the Ship threatened to boil the lake.’

  ‘So is it widening the exclusion area?’

  His assistant looked anxious at having to express an opinion. ‘It was fine a week ago. Dr Haldeman wonders if maybe it’s bored. Who knows?’

  Is the machine mind capricious? Or is it being unpredictable as a tactic? Why should an alien machine be easy to understand? He turned on the microphone and said, ‘Good evening, Ship. This is Dr Pfeiffer. I have a message for you from the President.’

  Well, it was a phone call from the Chief of Staff, but that was mere detail.

  Pfeiffer waited five or so minutes between each statement.

  A faint hiss came from the speaker, rising and falling like a far distant sea. He covered the microphone with a hand. ‘I’ll have an iced tea,’ he said into the air. ‘And why isn’t the air-­conditioning working?’ The clock ticked on.

  On the seventh repetition, as he started his second dreadful iced tea, the Ship spoke in its odd voice. ‘Good evening, Dr Pfeiffer. Please instruct humans to remain off the water.’

  Pfeiffer clicked on the reel-to-reel. ‘Good evening, Ship. I have an important message from the President.’

  ‘I do not want to damage the humans, but all submerged instruments must be removed, then no further humans will be allowed onto the water. Instruct all accordingly.’

  Pfeiffer ignored the order and said, ‘We are very concerned that two men died in space. Our President is asking if you can assist us in understanding the event.’

  ‘If I detonated my engines, the loss of life would be significant.’

  Haldeman and Pfeiffer had debated that repeated threat long into the night; if it announced a countdown, would they call its bluff? But right now there was a question of more importance. ‘Two men died, Ship. We’re desperate to find out why.’

  ‘Humans die every day in road traffic accidents. You show little concern about that.’

  The speaker was silent, for more than a minute. Then the Ship spoke again. ‘I have issued a warning: no more humans on or in the water. You must now decide whether to heed it.’

  The Ship had surrounded itself with a boiling of steam and dead fish, sent the Geiger counters screaming with new radio­activity, or used vibration to make people sick, but it hadn’t killed anyone. Yet.

  ‘Ship, we could certainly discuss keeping people off the water for a bit. It is hard for us to concentrate . . . we’re all so worried about the Moon landing.’

  ‘I repeat my statement: I had no interest in your spacecraft. I did not harm it. I was unaware it was your first attempt to land on your Moon. It is nothing to do with my mission. I understand that your America United States and your Russia Soviet Union are rival administrations in a primitive dominance display. I have no interest in this.’

  ‘Do you know what happened?’ Pfeiffer asked again. Odd radar echoes, the strange lights: they had concluded the Ship had at least two smaller flying machines that were able to travel unseen to do its work. Whatever that was. That made the President deeply paranoid. You mean this goddam thing is spying on us and we don’t know how? He had slapped the table as he spoke.

  The speaker hissed a little.

  ‘We will not bring anyone onto the water for two weeks,’ Pfeiffer said.

  ‘Thank you. Will you send another mission to the Moon to investigate?’

  Why did it ask that? This was the first time it’d shown any interest in human activity outside its immediate locale.

  ‘I think we probably will, but I don’t know when,’ Pfeiffer said. He did know, of course; he was the President’s Chief Scientific Counsel, but he wasn’t saying. The next mission would orbit the Moon but not land; it would take observations and see what happened.

  Did he believe the machine? It was neither confirming nor denying it knew something. Could a machine lie? Was it just trying to make conversation?

  The clock ticked on as the machine gave him the silent treatment. America had been humiliated by the destruction of Eagle, but his country had surmounted far worse. Mrs Myers and Dr Jarman: their foolish actions still rankled. By hiding the child they called Cory, letting it die, they had cost their country dearly. How f
rustrated he’d felt, talking to Mrs Myers, earlier that day. She had touched the alien from another world.

  ‘Ship? We have some more questions.’

  The speaker hissed and the fans roared and the minutes passed. He sipped the nasty iced tea; even that made him miss his wife—

  Haldeman came rushing in from outside, visibly shaking, and shoved a couple of Polaroids under Pfeiffer’s nose.

  Pfeiffer clicked off the microphone: never let the Ship hear anything you don’t want it to. ‘Where?’

  ‘In a waterway, twenty miles north of here. They’re the largest remains yet. Obviously we’re cordoning it off and excavating the area.’ Haldeman started drumming his hands on his thighs. ‘We told the farmer who found it, it’s a military satellite. I reckon he bought it.’

  Pfeiffer studied the photos, which showed two melted and twisted machine parts sitting in muddy water. The thing had once been encased in metal scales twice the length of his hand; he had found a piece of silver metal just like that the day after the impact. Thank goodness his Geiger counter had warned him against touching this perilous treasure from the stars.

  ‘How big?’ Pfeiffer asked at last.

  Haldeman shrugged. ‘Whatever it is exploded into dozens of pieces. But this end looks like . . . well, an end. A head.’

  Haldeman’s team had brought all the pieces they’d found to a secret location, but it was a bit like fossil-hunting, trying to work out if you had three dinosaurs or six when you had never even seen a dinosaur before. The machines were yards long, but was that three yards or ten? They had cunning tentacles, and folding pincers which slotted away in the body.

  If only the alien had survived. He would have won the child’s confidence and then the science of these creatures would be open to him; all they would have had to do was ask and they could have found out what these scaled machines were. America would go to the Moon, and on to the planets and the stars far beyond. His country’s enemies would be humiliated and their imprisoned peoples freed – and he, Dr Emmanuel Pfeiffer would be in the history books long after his rivals had been forgotten.