by Stephen Cox
‘We’ll take you on a tour when you’re famous,’ Carol said, bringing in the first stack of pancakes. A long walk and home cooking and yet still Molly wasn’t hungry. In fact, the smell of frying was making her distinctly queasy. She blamed that terrible diner breakfast.
Cory poured maple syrup over his pancakes and dropped his head to smell them.
Carol was fascinated; watching him eat was like a performance.
‘What’s the plan for today?’ Gene asked.
‘I need to track down my editor and check in with the little band of us who don’t believe the government’s lies about Two Mile Lake. I’ll find out what people are hearing about arrests and such and see if Gene’s parents really are in hospital. Then we need to do some hard thinking on how we shape this story.’ She called into the kitchen, ‘Storm, we’ll need photos indoors and out – the Hausers won’t mind if we use their kids’ toys and stuff.’
Gene speared a pancake. ‘Once this is out, there’s no going back, is there? It’s not only the President, there’ll be two hundred million people looking for Cory. We’ll never be private again.’
Carol leaped in. ‘Most people will be on his side. The government won’t have any choice. And Witness can hide him.’
‘Every crank, every crook, every Russian spy could come looking for him,’ Gene said. ‘Will anyone want us as neighbours?’
Molly pulled a face: Not in front of Cory!
Storm came in with more pancakes and sat. She didn’t look at Carol. ‘Learned how to make these working at the dude ranch,’ she told Cory, ‘after I broke my collarbone falling off a palomino. I learned to cook one-handed.’
‘A good rule with Storm,’ Carol said brightly, ‘the crazier the story, the more likely it is to be true.’
‘Storm good name,’ said Cory. ‘Home world all names for boys or girls or inters. And change if don’t like.’
Carol had said last night, ‘Witness readers aren’t stupid but some are easily spooked. I don’t think we’ll mention inters for now.’
‘Well, I’ll let you into a secret,’ Storm said, playing serious. ‘I was christened Jeanette Elizabeth Alexandra. There’s a great picture of me aged seven in braids and ribbons.’
Gene rubbed Cory’s head and Molly asked, ‘Do you want us to use your old name?’
‘Earth name for Earth,’ said Cory, through a huge mouthful of pancake.
‘So, I might take Cory out to play snowballs with his parents,’ said Storm. ‘Wouldn’t that make a great photo? And there’s the world’s best sled-run a little way along.’
Cory’s ears twitched. ‘Sled yes-yes-please.’
‘No one can feel sad in a snowball picture,’ Molly said.
Carol touched Storm’s hand, just for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’
‘That’s okay. Two Pulitzers it is.’
*
Molly hated being photographed, and Gene hated it unless it was Molly or his mother behind the camera, but Storm was all jokes and games, getting Gene to smile and Molly not to pull faces. And Molly was fascinated, seeing Storm at work, even though she’d lost all feeling in her toes and fingers.
At last she gave in. ‘I have to go in,’ she said, leaving Cory, Storm and Gene out there.
The cabin felt like an oven. She stripped off her damp coat, hat and gloves and put on more coffee. Carol, talking on the phone, sounded like she was dodging a flood of questions.
When she hung up, she sighed. ‘Isn’t it funny? If I call on Christmas Eve to chat about the Meteor, they think I have something. An old friend of mine at Associated Press tried to pump me. I’ll bet my hat they’re close to running something challenging the arrests. Everyone’s very disturbed by the Russian nuclear tests, their sabre-rattling, of course. It won’t be front-page news, not against that, but it’ll be a page lead.’
Molly couldn’t bear to listen to the news. The drums were sounding loud for war, what with the Soviet bomb tests, and the Russians were claiming they’d lost a nuclear submarine, a hundred dead to American aggression – but everyone knew their submarines were always sinking. The President had called for the nation to stand firm in this time of trial while the protesters marched in the cold against him.
‘You have no idea what the first Meteor was?’ Carol asked. ‘Why Cory’s mother came in with it?’
‘No,’ Molly said.
‘The Russian meteors came down in the middle of nowhere.’ She produced a sketched map. ‘Look, they splashed down here: the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, a cold, remote place. There’s nothing there but iron and uranium mines, some labour camps. The nearest settlement is a tiny port called Pevek. The harbour’s frozen half the year.’
Molly had nothing to say.
‘They’re saying the nukes were ground-bursts over or near Pevek. The Soviets haven’t said a word, of course; they haven’t even admitted the meteors to their own people. And I’m hearing the Russian sub went down here.’ Her finger tapped the map, north of the meteor splashdown.
Molly felt something nameless turn in her stomach.
The phone rang and Carol answered it. ‘Hi, Mark. Uh-huh, uh-huh.’
Molly couldn’t hear the other speaker.
‘You going to call them and ask them? . . . I would . . . No, I would . . . Now, Mark, don’t try that. I just think, ask if the two things are linked and see what they say. Better still, say you’ve got a source who says they’re linked . . . Maybe they do go completely bats and threaten you – they call your editor, that’s always a sign you’re on the right track! I’m just guessing . . . Mark, Mark! I’m not one of your starry-eyed boy reporters. We both know how it is. It’s just an interesting question to ask.’
Storm, Gene and Cory came in, beating snow from their clothes.
‘I’ll . . . yeah, I’ll do that. Storm, Mark says hi.’
‘Hi, Mark,’ called Storm.
Carol hung up and breathed out. ‘Well, the New York Times found your parents were in Caffrey General Hospital, brought in by the FBI, then they disappeared. So the good news is they were alive a day ago, Eva was getting good care and apparently the doctor tore six strips off the Feds when they moved her. The paper’s getting ready to send a rocket up the FBI’s tailpipe about the arrests; apparently they’re in a race with Associated Press. And I’ve finally tracked down my editor.’
Gene held Molly’s hand.
‘So, this is pretty much your last chance to back out.’ Carol looked nervous, as if she was frightened they might. ‘If you say no, I have a friend who will get you over the border. But . . . well, it’s your decision.’
‘It’s good of you to help us,’ Molly said. ‘Gene?’
‘We’ll end up on the run, for a very long time, if not for ever. No, let’s do it. Witness can hide us and we’ll answer any questions the government has by letter.’
Carol dialled. ‘Can I leave an urgent message for Mr Turner, room 217: tell him it’s Carol Longman, it’s a Pulitzer, and he needs to call me as soon as he can on this number.’ She rattled it off, then, ‘No, Pulitzer: P-u-l-i-t-z-e-r. He’ll know what that means.’
She put the phone down and said, ‘Now we wait.’
Molly put her arm around Gene, who returned the hug and kissed her ear.
*
That night, in the Hausers’ cabin. Gene, sat in the kitchen by the big stove, working his way through a mug of hot milk. Molly had gone to bed at last; he was worried about her, the stress she’d been under. He wished the world would just go away and leave them alone for a month.
He was drawing staves into a notebook he’d found. Tunes and themes were marching around his head but he still felt the Meteor Chorale was too big for one mind to hold. He needed to find something simpler. The tune he was working on, a song, he thought, was almost right, but he had no words yet.
Cory s
lipped into the room, bundled in a quilt and wearing pink bunny slippers. ‘Want to look at stars.’ When Cory looked at the sky, it wasn’t constellations he was searching for.
‘It’s pretty cold out, Cory, but we could open the shutters and turn the lights out.’
They sat and looked up at the sky, which was mostly cloud.
‘Cory-people come?’
Gene hugged him. ‘Your first mom said they would, so maybe they’re already looking, but they’re just not quite sure where you are yet. They could be here any minute.’ He stroked Cory’s ear, wondering, How would that work? He imagined the spaceship landing on the White House South Lawn and the alien leaders talking to the lying con-man in the Oval Office.
‘Time for message to get home and get enormous star-ship ready and come back,’ Cory said, firmly. ‘Should come months ago.’
‘Who knows, Cory? Remember what Mom always says: one day at a time.’
‘Earth is beautiful. And humans quite smart but it is big-hurting-mess.’
Gene couldn’t disagree.
They sat silently, looking at the odd star and thinking their own thoughts. How precious these hugs were, how wonderful to be a father. How terrifying that it all might end.
‘How Dad song going?’
‘Don’t know yet.’
‘Your songs good-good.’ Cory gave an epic sigh, a sound he’d learned from Molly. ‘Cory like Earth, but messed-up. All having-to-hide and the Bad Men and eating murdered things and wars. Good Christmas. Sleep now. Love you Dad-Dad.’ Cory kissed Gene and left.
A father’s work: to reassure your son, to give him quiet confidence, to help him figure things himself so that he could grow. To teach character by example, as Dad had done. To protect him, as Roy tried to do with Chuck, never knowing if you were doing the right thing. Being a father was even bigger than I’d thought, and yet, in a way, it’s simpler.
He didn’t know how anyone could be a father and not find their child and his needs at the beating heart of their life.
Gene didn’t pray, he didn’t have anything to pray to, but he did hope. He hoped the purples would come, that somehow humans and Cory’s people would figure everything out. Cory’s people could teach humans to end war and tyranny and starvation. And he hoped the purples wouldn’t take his son back to wherever they came from.
When you fall in love with your child, you realise you can’t hold them for ever, tiny in your arms. But sitting there looking at the night sky, Gene asked the unhearing universe, Don’t tear out my heart by making that loss too soon.
A line sprang into his head: The little purple boy who came in peace.
The tune had worked itself out over weeks of humming, plucked notes, bitten nails and crossings-out. And in an instant, words began their march through Gene’s mind, making his hopes and fears soar. He could use the tune to marshal them, distilling into song what he struggled to say.
There was no time to waste on titles, so he took up his pencil and wrote A Song for Cory, then struck it through and printed Our Child of the Stars. Something like that.
The song came like a stone falling from the sky.
CHAPTER 35
Cory’s second Christmas Day
Cory wakes and it is Christmas Day. Mom and Dad snore beside him and he knows he should go back to his own bed, but it will be more-more cold and less friendly. Christmas Day good-will-to-all-people, he knows there will be not-so-many presents, but still, there are a few parcels under the tree because he’d done peeking. Oh, the hole inside aches, he misses his human friends and worries about them so-so-much and Grandma Eva is sick and he wants to see her and Grandpa John and sing them the song for the elders who love the children so much. He hums a little of it and that cheers him up a little.
Maybe the lake has frozen, and he can walk on the ice. Dad showed him pictures of lakes frozen so solid a car could drive on it, very-fine, yes. Or go riding in a sleigh pulled by reindeers and jingling with bells.
Santa might have come and filled the stocking on his bed with good things . . . He wriggles his toes. Five more minutes warm-warm with Mom-and-Dad.
An hour later, they stomp through the snow to friends Carol and Storm, and then hugging and all hurry into the warmth of their dwelling and he needs to show them his treasure trove. There is a pottery owl, from Mexico, Mom says, and he makes the owl noises and wants to go to Mexico way-way-South. There is a whistle made of wood that sounds a bit like proper language and he shows them how he can imitate it. There is whole tin of Sailor’s Knot Finest Tuna like Mom buys – and the best of all is a book of photos, so magnificent, all sceneries of America-United-States: forests and deserts and farms and cities. And most of the chocolate; Cory can only eat two pieces a day because too much make him runny-poo.
‘So Santa found you,’ Storm says, and yes-yes, most exciting. He knows Santa is just grown-ups acting really.
Carol announces, ‘Well, in a break from tradition, it’s pancakes!’ and Cory wonders what a-break-from-tradition is.
‘So,’ she says, and Cory listens carefully, ‘my editor finally rang back, at eight this morning, in a monumental temper. I told him, I know exactly what’s going on in Amber Grove, but the New York Times and AP are closing in and Reuters won’t be far behind if I know them. It’s a big government cover-up, which we pretty much guessed, but we have way, way more than the opposition does’ – she grins at Cory – ‘and you need to come and see the hard, physical proof.’
Must learn monumental and AyPee and Reuters.
Carol rubs her hands. ‘Well, I hooked him! He’ll be here first thing tomorrow, which gives Storm the chance to stink the place out developing the photos.’
After breakfast, Carol takes them down to the lake, which is all frozen to grey. Cory, looking hard, thinks he sees strange faces in its cloudiness. There’s nothing like this on his home planet.
‘Wow! It’s really eerie,’ Dad says.
Cory wants to feel solid water. He puts out a boot – and at once, Carol grabs him and pulls him back.
‘Ice is really treacherous, Cory, understand?’ He feels stress-and-sadness. ‘When I was eight, on a day just like this, my cousin fell through the ice and nearly drowned. Cory, you’re absolutely forbidden to go on the ice unless Storm and I say it’s safe.’
‘Cory great swimmer,’ Cory says, feeling his face bristle, ‘best ever. Better than human-swimmer.’
‘Water this cold, you can stop breathing,’ says Carol, her face and her feelings so determined. ‘Your arms and legs freeze and no matter how good you are, you stop being able to swim. That’s how my cousin almost died.’
‘Cory, I want a real big promise,’ Mom says. ‘I mean it.’
He nods hard. ‘Big promise. But Mom, when-when frozen enough to walk on?’
‘Who knows? We’ll need to test it.’
They are walking back to the cabin when Cory hears a noise, high up and to the west. He hides at once and lopes off behind the cabin, Dad following, kicking snow, covering tracks, clever-clever.
‘It’s a plane,’ Carol says, staring upwards. ‘It’s probably the Park Service – nothing unusual.’
Cory tugs up his scarf and pokes his head around the corner. Dad is standing with his back to Cory, as if admiring the view, being a shield. Cory can’t hide from something that far away, but what is there to see? Coat-and-hat-and-scarf.
He can feel the fear and tension bubbling inside all the grown-ups, but Mom says firmly, ‘They wouldn’t have seen anything strange.’
‘It’s nothing unusual, the odd plane over the holiday season,’ Carol adds.
Sometimes, Cory thinks, being on the run is an adventure and most-exciting. Sometimes it is boring, all the things you cannot do. But sometimes like now he is scared and sad. He wants Chuck and Bonnie and his grandparents.
Back at the big cabin, Storm takes many more ph
otos. The wrapped presents under the tree are for-show, Mom says, other-children old toys not-for-Cory, but that is okay.
‘Cory had presents, not expect any more,’ he says, but the grown-ups hand him three envelopes.
‘Promise-presents,’ Mom says and her eyes are wet so he strokes her hand, then opens the first one, from Storm. She has drawn a picture of a camera, so-much-exciting and he gives her a hug. Carol has cut a suit from a magazine. ‘I can’t wait to take him to New York and get him one made,’ she says. ‘You’ll look so hip, Cory.’ Another great promise-present.
But he wants to know what is in Mom-Dad’s envelope. When he tears it open, he finds two drawings. He knows which one is Dad’s because Dad draws better than Mom; it is a grey dog with one ear up and one ear down, all curls. And Mom has drawn a black dog with smooth hair, and Cory is in the picture too.
Cory leaps up and grabs his Earth-Mom-Dad in the biggest-ever hug, crying, ‘Thank you thank you thank you!’
Mom says, ‘It’s just one dog, Cory: we’ll find a dog who hasn’t got a family to look after it, but you will do the looking after it.’ She looks at Dad and adds, ‘I’m not running around cleaning up its mess.’
Cory is so excited he runs around on all fours barking, while Storm lifts her camera. Then he stops and remembers: this is the second Christmas that his people have not come to rescue him from the Bad Men. The sadness rises.
Come now, my people, and free all my friends. Come now and make everything right.
CHAPTER 36
Witness
‘Storm is late,’ said Cory.
Molly tightened her arm around him as they sat at the window looking up at the ice on the trees sparkling in the winter sun. ‘Just a little,’ she agreed, catching movement. There was a strong quiver of fear, as always: would this be the right car, or would she see an army truck? Would this be the moment they must flee again . . . ? No, she breathed out in relief, the Jeep coming up the trail is Storm’s. She craved peace and certainty . . . Would they ever be able to live without fearing the knock on the door or twitching at the sound of a strange car?