This is a book about
YOU
* *
*
PROLOGUE
Washington, D.C. The near future . . .
Peter MacKenzie knew Bo Randall would try to kill
him. Wouldn’t he do the same if their situations
were reversed? They were both warriors, after all.
The only question now was, did Bo, who sat beside
him, stage-side at the Good ‘n’ Plenty, already
know? Already have a plan? So far there were no
certain indications, but for the fact that they were
here, at Bo’s urgent request.
Peter leaned back on his stool and fished another
five-dollar bill from his jeans. As he did, he
glanced at Bo, straining to detect any inkling of
his hidden intentions. He knew Bo all too well—his
explosive temper, quick as a struck match. And now
he was sure that Bo knew about him and Beth. Why
else would he have insisted they get together right
away? And why here, at a seedy Georgetown strip
joint? On Christmas Eve? Something was up, and it
had stalked the recesses of his mind for the hour or
so they’d talked and toasted and bought each other
lap dances and reminisced about their days together
as “Black Aces” in the elite VF-41 squadron aboard
the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. He’d flown
his F-14 Tomcat fighter to the edge and back again
and again, mostly as Bo’s wingman, in the third
Persian Gulf War against the Saudis and later
against the Chinese in the Taiwan Straits. He
remembered how they’d been in and out of scuffles
then, both on deck and in the air. Invincible.
Inseparable. Like brothers. Not after tonight,
he thought. Yeah, he’ll try to kill
me, all right. Like she just did.
He rubbed his cheek, which still smarted, and winked
at the lap dancer. Only moments before she’d slapped
him hard against his face. He felt the marks of her
studded ring outlined in pain at the corner of his
grin, just next to a sensitive scar from a past
encounter with another young woman of equally
unsavory disposition. Now she ignored him, gliding
to the other side of the stage, her lissome form
caressing the dance pole like a scowling serpent.
He leaned slightly forward. “So, tell me again, Bo.
What’s this Areopagus gig all about?”
“Just a cargo run,
really,” Bo said. “We’ll pick up the probe right
after it injects into Earth orbit near the end of
June. Should be back to Canaveral around the Fourth
of July, give or take. But the freight goes right
over there.” He pointed over his shoulder. “To
Goddard and Herr Professor Miles Lavisch, The Most
High and God Almighty Arrogant Prick I’ve ever
encountered.”
Peter laughed. “Intimate
friend, eh?”
“No, all my
friends are pricks.” Bo’s eyebrow went up. “Let’s
just say I know him enough not to like him. Met him
when we toured Goddard. He’ll be in charge of the
samples.”
“Neat trick, that. The Mars shot, I mean.” And truly
he thought it was: Shoot a probe to Mars, have it
land, pick up soil samples, then fly itself back
home. He felt his body tense. “There’s something
I’ve got to tell you—”
Bo took a slug of beer. "Areopagus
will
pick up where the Vikings left off in
seventy-six. Nothing else we’ve done since has been
as good. Not the Global Surveyor. Not the Odyssey. Not
Spirit or the any of the
Rovers. Oh, we got nice pictures, all right. But
only actual soil samples will tell us for sure if
there’s life on Mars—or ever was. What did you want
to tell me?”
“Ahh, it’s not important,” Peter lied, hoping he
wasn’t losing his nerve. He didn’t know where the
words came from, but somehow there they were,
falling on his ears in his own voice: “When’s the
baby due?” He forced himself to look Bo in the
eyes.
Bo stared at him for what seemed an eternity.
“July. Right after the mission. Funny you ask. Beth
thinks that getting married and having some kids is
just what you need.”
“What?” Peter felt sweat trickle down the back of
his neck.
“Look how happy it made ol’ George Bailey, there,”
Bo said, inclining his head in the direction of a TV
that hung behind the bar, where It’s a Wonderful
Life played silently in the background.
“Kids?” Peter snarled insincerely. “Hell, they’re
the reason ‘Ol George’ tried to kill himself
in the first place! He’d of been better off if
Clarence the angel hadn’t saved him.”
“Nothing changes your perspective like kids, Pete.”
Bo slapped Peter’s thigh hard. “Nothing makes you
want your wife more, want to protect her.... Know
what I mean?”
“Why would I?” He cringed and felt suddenly weak,
suddenly unwarriorlike, as he glanced down into the
white foam of his beer, noticing how the bubbles
kept popping away, like the ticking of a clock. “You
know what I’ve always said about women—”
“ ‘If they didn’t have a pussy, men would never talk
to them.’ Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.”
Then Peter thought of Beth—and all the others. A
stab of guilt surprised him, caused his stomach to
knot fiercely. “You know, the guy who wrote that
book was right. Men really are from Mars.
Women may as well be a different species.”
Bo shook his head and looked up. “Mars? Venus?
Damned if I know. Or care. What I do know is, I
couldn’t live without Beth and the kids.”
“Speaking of our fair alien friends.” Peter rubbed
the scar on his chin, which still smarted, and
nodded his head toward the stage, where his dancer
was making her way back toward them. Earlier she’d
brushed her taut breast against his cheek, lolling
her nipple on his upper lip, just beneath his nose,
her hair falling on his face as she nibbled his
ear. She smelled of lilacs. He’d rewarded her
appropriately enough, or so he thought. Now he
couldn’t resist one further taunt and waggled his
finger for her to approach, but her glare turned
meaner. She gave him the finger and jerked her head
away, her body following quickly to face the
opposite direction.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bo said. “I think you’ve
worn out our welcome.”
Peter zipped his brown leather flight jacket and
pushed open the door with his shoulder. A gust of
snow-laced wind cooled his still stinging face. He
looked up at the full moon, which broke in and out
of racing clouds, causing everything to flicker
weirdly. Walking fast along the slushy sidewalk, he
tried to maintain his well-studied, cocksure
swagger, tried to muster his courage, and stayed
just far enough ahead of Bo so as not to have to
look at him. His stomach floated curiously about;
it was a queasiness he’d not felt since having
pre-launch jitters before a combat mission. And the
more he thought about it, the more he didn’t want
this to be his last mission. “Could you believe the
tits on that babe?” he said finally, forcing a grin
as he glanced back at Bo.
“Tucking a five-spot in her Gee-string is one
thing,” Bo laughed, catching up to him. “But you’re
not supposed to touch her there, remember?” He
popped a mint in his mouth. “Want one?”
“Don’t have any Cracker Jacks, do you?” Peter
managed to keep Bo in his peripheral vision.
“You and your Cracker Jacks,” Bo snorted. “It’s a
wonder you’ve still got teeth, boy!” He ran his hand
over his balding head, brushing the snow from the
horseshoe-shaped rim of hair that circled his skull
from sideburn to sideburn before putting on a black,
wool-knit stocking cap. His eyebrows bent closer,
darkening his already tanned face. “It was good
seeing you again, Pete.”
“Yeah. Same here. Guess
it’ll be the last time....” The words caught in his
throat. “For a while, I meant. Till after your
mission.”
“Probably so…. I’ll be in Houston right up to
launch.”
They walked faster now, bobbing and weaving through
harried crowds of pedestrians loaded with
last-minute Christmas gifts, faces bent down against
snow that came in blustery squalls. Revelers in the
restaurants and bars that lined the sidewalks sang
fractured, besotted versions of carols; laughter
poured from every open door. But as they turned the
corner, the holiday sounds quieted.
For a moment Peter thought they were alone. But
then, halfway down the block, he spotted a lone
figure wearing a Santa hat and ringing a bell.
Beside him a small donation pail hung beneath a
tripod. It seemed an odd place to set up shop if you
wanted much in the way of donations. He stopped,
picked up a handful of snow and made a ball. The
ragged scar on his chin tingled, began to itch, as
it had an uncanny way of doing whenever there was
about to be trouble. He brushed the frozen ball
against the old wound. Now was the time to come
clean, to tell Bo the truth, but again he
hesitated. “You know, I wish I’d gone to NASA when
you did.”
Bo shrugged. “What? Intelligence work can’t be that
boring.”
“You’d
be surprised.”
“Well, piloting CEVs—”
“CEVs?”
“Yeah, Crew Exploration Vehicles. That’s what we
call the new space shuttles, which is still all they
are—shuttles. Anyway, it’s not as sexy as tooling
around in an armed Tomcat; I can tell you that—and
it’s more dangerous. Wanna tell me what’s eating
you?”
Peter threw his snowball at a passing cab, the icy
sphere gliding harmlessly past the rear bumper. How
could he have missed such an easy target? As he
watched the cab’s taillights recede, something in
their red aura caught his eye. Ahead, three men had
circled the bellringer. One grabbed the handle to
the money pail, but Santa would not give it up.
They spun around each other like kids playing London
Bridges until the other two thugs tackled him,
bringing him down into the street, pounding him with
their fists and what looked like a length of pipe.
“Hey! Let him go!” Without further thought, he
charged after them.
“Wait, Pete!”
The attackers looked up but didn’t stop. There was
a bright orange flash. A loud pop! Like a
bursting party balloon. The impact slammed the
bellringer to the ground, and the shooter yanked the
money pail free. As he did, his gun fired again,
wildly, knocking out the street lamp.
Peter had seen the flashes a seeming eternity before
the shots boomed in his ears. Everything had slowed
down. He felt his legs uncontrollably back peddle,
but he couldn’t stop. He slid into the lamppost.
Close to the gunman. Only steps away. He watched as
if in a dream while the gunman turned with a smooth,
almost casual motion, and pointed the pistol’s dark
barrel at him.
Click!...Click! Click! Click!
The man flung the weapon at a storefront, shattering
the glass. Flying shards stung Peter’s cheek,
snapping his paralysis. He bolted after them.
Slipping in the accumulating snow, he chased the
thugs to the end of the block, where they ran
without stopping through traffic across M Street,
then down the steep hill toward K Street, deftly
using their shoes like skis as they slid into the
shadows beneath the Whitehurst Freeway overpass.
Just before they disappeared, one of them dropped
something.
Deciding that three against one in the darkness was
too great a risk, Peter skidded to a stop where a
glint of gold shone through a thin veil of snow. He
dug out what looked to him to be something like an
Egyptian ankh.
“Those bastards! For a few stinkin’ bucks and
this?” He looked around to find the streets,
which moments before had been crowded with blaring
horns, blinking lights and scurrying pedestrians,
strangely deserted and silent. He trudged back up
the hill, panting clouds of steam, where Bo was
pulling the wounded man out of the street. Without
the streetlight it was dark, but then, with an
explosion of light, the moon broke through and he
could see the bellringer’s long blond hair was
matted with blood, which surged through a tattered
hole in his greatcoat, dribbling onto the virgin
snow in dusky pools.
Bo hoisted the man to a sitting position on the
curb. “What’s your name, fellow?”
“Apollyon,” the bellringer said with the air of a
stunned animal. “I’m an angel.”
“Sure, Clarence,” Peter said derisively, thinking of
Bo’s earlier comment, “and I’m George Bailey.” He
nodded his head toward Bo. “This here’s Ernie, the
cab driver.”
“You mock me? I’m
Apollyon!” the man
insisted. “Don’t you know it’s time?”
“What?” Peter decided not to try to talk logic.
“Look, we’ve got to get you to a hospital. You’re
bleeding pretty badly.” He looked at the dark,
accumulating pools of blood and thought the man
would never make it.
“Ohhh…” the bellringer groaned. A strong gust of
wind swirled into a mini tornado, sprinkling his
blond hair with snowflakes that glittered like
sequins in the moonlight. Then he began to shudder.
He heaved and bucked, as if having a seizure, before
quieting down. “Peter!” he blurted, grabbing his
arm.
Peter felt the blood go out of his face. “How’d he
know my name?” He looked at Bo, who stared back,
glassy-eyed and silent.
“To everything there is a season. A time to be
born, a time to die. A time—” The bellringer
coughed. “I’m cold.”
Peter took off his flight jacket and draped it over
the wounded man.
“And death and hell delivered up the dead, which
were in them: and they were judged every man
according to his works. Don’t you remember? Help me,
Bo!”
“Who are you?” Bo demanded, his voice a mixture of
anger and fear.
“Got your cell phone, Bo?”
“No, damnit, it’s in the car.”
“Well, go call nine one one.”
“No! Wait!” the bellringer gasped. “You think I’m
crazy, but you’re wrong.”
Peter knelt beside the man, holding his head up.
Then he caught the man’s sorrowful eyes. For a split
second he thought he was losing his mind as strange
images flashed before him, images of mayhem, chaos,
death. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but
had to look away.
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the
first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”
The bellringer seemed to be in a trancelike state
for just a moment, far away, but then he was all too
present. “But it won’t be like you think it will,”
he said with a queer grin.
“What the hell’s he saying, Bo?”
“He thinks he’s Apollyon. One of the angels in the
Bible. In Revelation.”
“You, Beauregard Randall,” the bellringer choked,
his head shaking, “you will begin it. You will find
our chalice.” Then he turned his head. His eyes grew
luminous with moonlight. “And you, Peter MacKenzie,
you will witness the end as you drink the last
measure of its bittersweet portion. For I have seen
it!”
“He’s nuts,” Bo said, voice rattling. His face shone
a spectral white from the cold and the snow that
mounded on the ridges of his cheeks.
They tried to move the man up against the wall, but
the bellringer winced. “My wing!” he complained.
“You’re hurting my wing....” His voice trailed off
to a mere whisper.
“Okay, Clarence,” Peter soothed, and tilted his head
toward the street where an ambulance had just pulled
up. A man wearing a police uniform got out.
“He’s shot,” Bo told the man. “Talking crazy too.
Must’ve wandered away from a mental hospital or
something.”
“Yeah, a real nutcase,” Peter heard himself say
uneasily as he reached for his jacket.
But the bellringer yanked it back, “Look to the
moon! Look to the moon!” Then he laughed weirdly and
began to sing: “When the moon hits your eye like a
big pizza pie, that’s the ennnd….”
“Burt the cop is here to help you,” Bo said, picking
up on the Christmas-story charade.
“We’ll take him,” the police officer replied,
handing Peter his jacket. A second uniformed man
joined him. They quickly lifted the bellringer onto
a gurney, jumped in the ambulance, and sped away
without any lights.
Peter shivered, and he knew it wasn’t just from the
cold. “Something’s wrong here. They didn’t even
question us.”
“How’d they even get here?” Bo said. “I never
called.”
“Someone must have seen what happened.” Peter looked
around, but the streets were still vacant and dark.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bo said through chattering
teeth.
They walked on towards their cars, parked several
blocks away, hunched over in silence against the
driving snow, which seemed to reappear in spurts
every time the moon went away.
Peter glanced at Bo, who, clothes now completely
whitened with snow, reminded him of an altar boy, a
ghost—or an angel. “That guy really spooked me.” He
bent over and scooped up enough snow for another
ball.
“Come on, Pete. ‘My wing,’ for Christ’s sake?
Remember Y2K? A bust. Nothin’s gonna happen.
Nothing like that anyway—“
He fingered the snowball absently, waiting for a
target. “That’s what they said about Titanic,
‘Nothin’s gonna happen’... That’s what we all
thought about terrorism, too. Not here, not on our
front porch. That was before New York postcards
without the World Trade Centers.”
“Maybe you
don’t belong in Intelligence
work,” Bo said with a laugh that seemed to have a
bitter edge. “Besides we do know he wasn’t really Clarence.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Clarence didn’t have his wings, remember?”
“Very funny. But how’d he know our names? And what
was that stuff about you and me and the beginning
and the end and all that?”
Bo drew the front of his coat collar up around his
throat and said nothing.
“And besides, you’re forgetting the end of the
movie,” Peter said archly. “Clarence did win
his wings.” With all the commotion, he’d almost
forgotten his planned confession. He decided if Bo
did nothing, he’d let it ride for now. He’d had
enough excitement for one night. He felt wet with
sweat. Still, his hands were cold and he almost
couldn’t get his key into the door. He took off his
leather flight jacket and was about to fling it into
the car when he noticed something odd. “Hey, look at
this.” He held up the satin lining.
Bo picked a small white feather off the inside of
the jacket Peter had just used to warm the wounded
bellringer. “Maybe he was Clarence after
all,” he chuckled.
Fingers numb from the cold, Peter took the slender
plume from Bo. A shiver shook his hand. Suddenly a
raw gust of wind snatched the feather into the
hollow darkness.
CHAPTER 1
The space CEV
Discovery II, in high Earth orbit...23:30 Hours,
June 28...
“Jesus, i’—” a
crackle of transient static garbled Bo Randall’s
transmission, then “—‘s here!”
Floating lazily in
the blackness of space near the aft end of the Discovery II’s cargo bay, Bo could just make out
the surprised expression on Carla Pascal’s face as
her lips formed the words.
“What did you say?”
she asked in her post-feminist take-charge way.
“’Jesus is here’? Maybe you can get him to fix that
snare for you, ’cause we’re gonna need it in about
two minutes.”
Bo shook his head,
slightly annoyed at his smart-aleck mission
specialist’s tone. “What I meant was, it’s here,
it’s early, and it looks to be about five klicks too
high and a couple back. We’ll have to reposition to
capture it.” He pointed back over his shoulder where
the ship had just traced its invisible path six
hundred and twenty-five miles above a nearly
cloudless, cornflower blue Pacific and where the Areopagus now lay silently against a
star-studded field of black. “Grapple’s fixed now,
anyway. I’m heading in.”
As he clambered
along the sill of the cargo bay, heading for the
airlock in the forward bulkhead, Earth rose over the
edge of the bay door, completely filling his visual
field. Its stark beauty nearly took his breath
away. It appeared so close he felt he could reach
out and touch it. With no intervening atmosphere in
space, everything at a distance looked closer and
clearer. For an instant, he dreamily forgot what he
was doing. His foot slipped on the frozen edge of
the sill, causing him to float into a sharp-edged
bolt before he could recover his balance. That’s
all I need, he thought. Rip my suit and
have my blood boil away. In his mind’s eye he
saw Beth at the door hearing the news. “We regret to
inform you....” I wonder if she’d care?
But magnetically,
the vision of Earth pulled him back out of himself.
He looked homeward again, spellbound. Below, the
blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico met the yellow
margins of the Yucatan Peninsula with stark relief.
A brilliant white cloud deck covered half its
length. Farther down he saw the deep greens of the
Amazon rainforest, with its stunning array of life,
now partially obscured by the smoke from hundreds of
fires, intentionally set by jungle nomads, which
would eventually destroy thousands of square miles
of precious habitat, eating away at the planet’s
irreplaceable core of life.
Watching the smoke
drift in waves and curls across the continent, he
was reminded again just how thin the atmosphere
looked from up here, how thin it really was. He
remembered an article he’d read concerning a
six-mile-diameter asteroid that had collided with
the Earth near a small Mexican town somewhere just
down below. What was its name? Chixulub? Yeah.
Mayan for “tail of the Devil,” or so he remembered.
According to the article, this event, some 65
million years ago, had signaled the end for half the
species on Earth—including the dinosaurs.
He wondered how
long it would be before another, perhaps larger,
asteroid came to rip that thin atmosphere—our world,
our lives—away. He thought how easy it would be for
the Earth to become like the moon. It was just a
matter of time. But this was the pristine present,
and he would not spoil it with embarrassment over
some stray vocalization. He hit the mute switch on
his communicator.
“Mighty moon,” he
then said aloud. The moon, half bathed in the sun’s
yellow glow, craters clearly visible, testifying to
thousands of battles with giant asteroids and comets
over the eons, glowered back at him. “Yeah, old
fella, it would be all too easy for us all to go the
way of the dinosaurs and have the Earth end up like
you, a lifeless, lonely chunk of space rock.” He
thought of Beth again—and Peter—and was glad he
hadn’t confronted them about the affair. Somehow his
family, bound together, even if imperfectly, was
paramount to him now, as was, inexplicably,
forgiveness. Guess we all have our dark side.
Just like the moon.
For he knew, as
most people outside NASA didn’t, that except for
data from the Clementine probe in 1994,
little was known about the dark side
of the moon. Because of its peculiar orbit, which
caused it to rotate three hundred and sixty degrees
in the same amount of time it took to orbit the
Earth, one side of the moon—the dark side—forever
lay hidden from the Earth’s prying eyes.
“At least Mars has
an atmosphere,” he said absently, “and maybe life.
That’s what the Areopagus should tell us—if
we can just get it aboard in one piece.” With one
last look back at Earth, then the moon and then the
Areopagus, which hovered above him like a sullen
witness, he headed for the airlock.
_______
. _______
“Well, our Martian
package is safely in the vault,” Bo said with
relief, as he floated up through the inter-deck
access portal to the main deck.
“Party time,” Carla
Pascal said. She winked and did a half somersault,
catching an errant penlight that drifted aimlessly
about the cabin before stabilizing herself on the
back of the pilot’s seat. She brushed a wisp of
blond hair off her tanned face. The just-visible
crow’s feet around her bunny-blue eyes deepened in a
smile. “Boss, anybody ever tell you that you look
like the guy who used to play Captain Piccard on
Star Trek?”
Bo gave a
halfhearted laugh and winked back, not failing to
notice how nicely her cobalt blue mission suit
highlighted her slender waist and dainty breasts. If
it weren’t for Beth, he’d often thought... “No, he
was bald!”
“Remember
Seinfeld?” Mission Specialist Bill Quincy
countered. “More like a Kramer and George
combination. But you’re right about the hair.” His
close-cropped reddish beard contrasted sharply with
his brown crew cut, which rimmed his baby-moon face
like a halo.
“You mean Kramer
without the Osama bin Laden nose, don’t you?”
co-pilot Max Hudson added, smiling.
“All right, all
right,” Bo relented. “Have your fun at the old
man’s expense.” Then he looked at Max. “What’s the
status, Number One?”
“Aye, aye,
Captain,” Max saluted and continued. “All’s well and
buttoned down at the helm.”
“I always wondered
how Data’s link measured,” Carla joked. “C’mon,
Captain Jean Luke, let’s celebrate—”
“What the—?”
Suddenly, utter
blackness engulfed them. Bo had never experienced a
complete power failure. He couldn’t even think how
it was possible. There were no alarms, no flashing
lights. The only sounds were the whirring of gyros
and electric motors as they spun down, bleeding off
rpms, on their way to a useless mechanical death.
“Complete power
failures ain’t supposed to be possible,” Max Hudson
said, his voice strained but even. “What’s goin’
on?”
“Certainly not
something you see every day,” Bo affirmed, directing
his voice toward where he thought Max should be.
“Right now I can’t
see anything,” Carla stammered.
“And to answer your
question,” Bo said with determined calmness, even as
a trickle of sweat made its way down his back, “I
don’t know. Any ideas? Carla? Bill? Anything to do
with the special hookups to the sample cases?”
“Don’t think so,”
Bill answered. “But I do know this, without
power to suck this dirty air through the lithium
hydroxide canisters—”
“We could use the
portable oxygen units...and the suits,” Carla
blurted.
“Yeah, right,” Bill
argued. “But this isn’t Alien, and you aren’t
Rippley. And without power we’re just four space
road kills.”
“Road kills? That’s
quaint.” Bo forced a small chuckle. “Hit by what? A
space gremlin? There’s always an explanation. We’ve
just got to find it—and pronto!”
“Bo’s right,” Max
said. “We’ve all just got to calm down. Think this
through.”
“That’s bizarre,”
Carla declared too loudly, as if they’d all been
removed to a distance because of the darkness. “Even
the flashlight doesn’t work! Can anyone explain
that?”
Bo could hear her
rapidly click the small penlight switch on and off,
on and off. “Let’s get back to protocol. Start the
checklists.”
“With no light,
it’s going to be tough,” Max complained.
“We’ll have to do
it by feel,” Bo ordered, a little annoyed at Max’s
whining. “As for explanations, they’ll just have to
wait. Let’s get started, shall we?” Then something
drew his attention to the windows, where moments
before he’d marveled at the spectacular view of the
Arabian Peninsula outside. Slowly, he drifted toward
the cockpit side window. “My God! Where’d the Earth
go—?”
Like a silent bolt
of lightning, a searing blue radiance exploded into
the orbiter, momentarily blinding him. Reflexively
he jerked back, covering his eyes, which screeched
with pain.
Then it began.
“Hear it?” Carla
whispered.
Bo felt the sound
before he heard it. Starting low on the frequency
scale, the warbling vibration rumbled through his
internal organs like gas, and then shifted several
octaves higher, to a more piercing frequency, then
lower again. It was a queer, living sound with an
eerie intelligence about it. It investigated,
probed, and searched; it stole innermost secrets and
all sense of control. For an instant, he thought
he’d lose consciousness, but then—abruptly—there was
silence...and light. “Is everyone okay?” he
asked hopefully, but thinking it unlikely.
With a flurry of
hands, they patted themselves down, as if to make
sure all the parts were still there.
“What the hell’s
that?” Carla cried, pointing to the starboard
window.
Bo had noticed
movement outside the window an instant before Carla
spoke. It pulled his head as if on a string up
against the glass. There it was! Moving deliberately
and unhurriedly off into the distance, devoid of
exterior lights or discernible markings, a hulking
metallic shape, which moments before had totally
eclipsed their view of Earth, was now clearly
outlined against the canvas of the placid blue
ocean. Familiar with at least the rumors of any new
aerospace technology, he knew instantly this was a
craft of alien origin. My God! They do exist!
He was instantly glad he’d only thought it, not
said it.
“Discovery!
This is mission
control, over! Discovery! This is Houston, do
you read?” The frantic calls repeated.
Somehow Bo hadn’t
even noticed the power was back. Mission control
wanted to know why they had been incommunicado for
the better part of a quarter-hour. It couldn’t
have been that long!
“Houston, this is
Commander Bo Randall aboard Discovery.”
He paused, intentionally deepening his voice,
fully aware that what he was about to say could very
easily be misconstrued, could very easily end his
career. “We—that is, the entire crew—have just made
a sighting....”
CHAPTER 2
Miles Lavisch sat
in his office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland, picked up the front section
of the Washington Post, and reached for his
glasses.
“Damnit! Where the
hell are they?”
He threw the
newspaper to the floor and, for the third time this
day, frisked himself in vain. No glasses.
Resigned, he decided to use his pearl-handled
magnifying glass that his own mother had used for
needlepoint in her declining years, which he kept in
his desk for occasions just such as this. He
retrieved it from his top drawer along with a
hand‑wrapped Cuban Partagas double‑corona cigar from
a plain brown box, nestled secretly in the far
corner. Biting off the tip, he savored the bitter
tobacco taste for a moment before spitting the
residue on the floor. With the care of a surgeon, he
dipped the corner of his handkerchief into his tea,
then gently wiped down the brown tobacco-leaf
wrapping of the big cigar. The tea, he’d found,
imparted an added hint of piquant flavoring to his
favorite smoke. He reached for the Bunsen burner he
kept going at all times to heat his tea water and
light his tobacco. Using its pale blue flame, he
caused the cigar’s tip to glow bright orange before
mouthing the tip and puffing gales of silver-blue
smoke across the room.
Mildly satisfied,
he spread the newspaper across his desk. He’d just
begun reading through the magnifier when a
front‑page headline caught his eye:
CIA
DIRECTOR TO TESTIFY AT DISCOVERY II INQUEST
