Heaven's Fall (11 page)

Mrs. Remilla and ISRO had been as unenthusiastic about a Landing Day press conference as Taj but were overruled by the government types, notably Suresh Kateel. “The
Adventure
crew members must show themselves and be seen answering questions as soon as possible,” Kateel said in their final pre-arrival meeting.

It was odd, because Kateel had never spoken on the subject when it came up earlier—indeed, had rarely spoken at all. He was one of those silent “horse-holders,” to use a NASA term, so common in large organizations, possessing titles like
secretary
or
deputy
, but who wielded immense power.

Kateel was an older man, heavy, bespectacled, unremarkable by any objective standards. Yet when he finally uttered an opinion, even Melani Remilla closed her notes and considered the matter decided.

Only Taj had been sufficiently brave, or foolish, to ask why the crew’s appearance was so important.

“To prove that they have arrived and are safe,” Kateel said. His whole manner suggested that he was not used to making explanations. “Most of all, we want them to address the Revenant business.”

That, at least, Taj understood. During the
Brahma-Destiny
mission he had been forced to accept the bizarre notion that a dead human being could not only be resurrected—but could have his or her soul somehow located and extracted from the universe at large to be recombined with a new version of the person’s body.

The simple notion that human souls persisted beyond death was, to Taj’s mind, the most important discovery in human history.

Yet it had been relegated to second place because it occurred the same week in which humans learned that there were indeed other intelligent races in the universe.

And that our encounters with other races were not fated to be benign.

It was only after returning to Earth that Taj had truly begun to appreciate the enormity of the Revenant discovery. He had not decided what he thought of it yet; it was one of those matters that a true philosopher could spend several lifetimes contemplating, and he was not a philosopher.

He had noticed, however, that the discovery led to a sharp rise in religious fervor among both Hindis and Muslims. He had half-expected the proof of life after death to lead to a rise in martyrdom—how many more suicide bombers could be recruited from fanatics who knew for certain that part of them would definitely survive past the moment of detonation? But Taj had not seen this. Of course, given the Big Brother state that India had become, it wasn’t likely he would have—

“This Revenant matter has led to rumors that have evolved and darkened for twenty years,” Kateel was saying. “We require the appearance of normality.”

There had been no discussion of a truly open press conference. Only that a small group of screened and selected reporters, using equipment provided to them by the Signals Intelligence Directorate, would be allowed to quiz
Adventure
’s crew for an hour, if that, using a list of questions approved by Kateel himself.

So it was that, shortly after Taj’s exhausting presentation on the Aggregates, four men and two women were admitted to the conference along with a camera crew of two.

Rachel, Pav, Yahvi, and Xavier were seated at the head of the table where formerly Taj and Mrs. Remilla had been. It was Mrs. Remilla who made the brief introduction, explaining in the most general and uninformative way that
Adventure
traveler Sanjay Bhat was “indisposed.” This was followed by a silence that was almost comical, as if the anointed reporters had misplaced their script.

The alien Sentry named Zeds? “Zeds will not be available for this event,” Mrs. Remilla said. The imagery on the conference room view screen had changed from strategic global data to an image of
Adventure
on the ground at Yelahanka. The window showing Zeds had been closed. Taj wondered if the Sentry could still access the room. He was not a reporter and had no love for the profession, but surely the chance to question a living, breathing, articulate alien was exciting beyond measure—the thing you dreamed about doing!

This group of reporters had clearly been cowed by Kateel or the intelligence services, because they accepted Remilla’s bland restrictions with no visible protest.

Finally, these reporters began to ask the expected questions. To Rachel and Pav, about life on Keanu, what they missed, what they didn’t miss. How long they planned to stay. “As long as you’ll have us,” Pav said, smiling in what his father thought was a forced manner.

Interesting questions, from Taj’s point of view:
How long will Keanu remain in Earth orbit? Have you returned permanently?

And here Rachel offered a dazzling smile and said, “That answer is the same,” which told no one anything.

Are you in contact with Keanu?
“Yes,” Rachel said.
Can the rest of us contact them?
“Very soon,” Rachel said.

Speaking of travel—the ship you traveled in, how did you manage to build it?
“Oh, we found it lying around,” Pav said, a lighter moment that seemed to play well with the reporters. He went on to reveal that
Adventure
had indeed been “found,” that it had been built by the Sentries “a really long time ago” and then refurbished.

Can it take off again?

“Once it’s refueled,” Pav said. Taj wasn’t so sure about that, unless
Adventure
was powered by a truly exotic motor; no chemical rocket known to human physics could be that small (and carry that little fuel) and still reach escape velocity.

But Taj had no idea what kind of rocket motor
Adventure
possessed. Or, come to think of it, what cargo it carried.

Nor did he expect to learn the answers here. What troubled him was that he was not sure he would learn the answers from his son, not without considerable effort.

The questions to Yahvi troubled Taj with their triviality—it was like listening to paparazzi chasing a pop star back in the early 2000s—but his mild disgust soon gave way to outrage when he heard his granddaughter’s answers. Sexually active! At age fourteen!

Now he was eager to know more about life in the human habitat on Keanu. It sounded like some libertine fantasy, free of all standards of decency.

His face no doubt showing his displeasure, Taj caught Pav’s eye and saw only passive acceptance.

His posture must have stiffened, because he felt Tea’s hands on his shoulders. “Steady, Grandpa,” she whispered.

“Did you hear that?”

She slid into the chair next to him. “Yes, terrible stuff,” she said. “The questions—”

“The answers.”

Tea looked amused. “I realize this is something I should probably have told you on our wedding night, but I was sexually active at the same age. In Nebraska, USA.”

“And your point is?”

“Their life”—she nodded to Rachel, Pav, Yahvi, and Xavier at the other end of the room—“has been incredibly difficult. Remember what that place was like when we left. Imagine what it was like when a hundred and eighty-seven very unhappy people got dumped there.

“They had nothing! They were on a different planet! They had to make it up as they went along! It’s a miracle they didn’t just starve in the first month. They made a home in an alien environment! They kicked out the Reivers—”

“And sent them here.”

“I don’t think they
sent
them, darling. And now look,” she said. “They came back here to help us! Six of them against a hundred million Reivers and quite a few humans who want to do them harm.

“And you’re upset that teenagers
fuck
? Come on, Taj.”

All he could do at that point was hope that his silence served as an apology, and turned back to the reporters.

There were almost no questions for Xavier. He was asked what he missed most and snapped, “Sunsets, I guess,” which discouraged additional queries.

Finally one reporter dared to ask the question Kateel had wanted. “What can you tell us about the Revenants? Do people die on Keanu, then come back to life?”

Pav said, “No—” But Rachel swiftly intervened, placing her hand on Pav’s arm. “That is a very complex subject,” she said. “And a press conference isn’t really the best place to discuss it. Let’s save that for another day, when we’ve had more time to adjust and be helpful with our answers.”

There was some grumbling. Clearly Kateel wasn’t the only one who wanted to learn the secrets of life beyond death.

But not today. The press conference ended; Mrs. Remilla took charge of getting the reporters out of the hospital.

And Taj, feeling suddenly every year of his age, was left looking at his son, his daughter-in-law, his granddaughter, and Mr. Toutant . . . wondering what they had become.

National technical means are no longer available to us: The last Indian-built imaging surveillance satellite, RISAT-5, was launched in 2021 and ran out of maneuvering fuel a decade later.

Commercial platforms such as OrbImage and GeoEye have been inaccessible to nations outside the Free Nation sphere and are reportedly no longer functional. (There have been no commercial imaging launches since the Aggregates consolidated their control of Free Nation U.S. in 2023.)

To be blunt, we lack overhead capability.

Combined with travel restrictions and information firewalls, our only sources of intelligence are the so-called undernet, and inferences that can be made from economic studies.

Leading to this conclusion: Free Nation U.S. is in the midst of a construction project that dwarfs the Apollo program and, indeed, compares to the buildup of American nuclear forces (missiles, warheads, aircraft, naval vessels) in the period 1946–1992.

And the center of this construction is a facility located in northern Arizona, an area formerly known as the Arizona Strip.

The purpose of this project is still unknown.

INTELLIGENCE REPORT, RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING,
DELHI, 25 MARCH 2040

“First trip east?”

Whit Murray blinked at the voice, which belonged to a man a few years older than him—possibly twenty-five. He was tall, thin, with reddish blond hair and beard. A ginger, his mother might have said.

Whit had memories of two stops after his middle-of-the-night arrival, when the train had largely been empty. Where had all these people come from? And who was this strange man next to him? “Yeah.”

And why did the guy have a deck of cards in his hand?

The man’s voice was surprisingly rich and deep. “Any idea what you’re in for?”

“No. Just, something related to my work.”

“Which was—?” The man opened his hand and began to slide cards from palm to fingers.

Whit made a face. He was blinking, hoping his eyes would begin to water. “You don’t look like a member of THE,” he said.

The man laughed. “I’m the last fucking person to be in THE.” He pronounced it “Thee” with a long E rather than the preferred “T-H-E,” which didn’t make Whit any more comfortable. “I am notoriously indiscreet.” Freezing his cards in his right hand, he held out his left. “Randall Dehm.”

Awkwardly, they shook. “So, Randall, how long have you been working on . . . whatever it is you’re working on, including that business with cards?”

“The cards? Since I was eight, right after . . . things changed and it wasn’t so easy to play games on the Web or watch TV. Something to do.”

“How many tricks have you mastered?” Whit realized he was looking past Dehm as he spoke, taking his first look at the others in the car . . . which itself looked and smelled brand-new. Everyone seemed to be Whit’s age—under twenty, certainly, and in a couple of cases, much younger.

All equally dazed, too.

“Exactly eight,” Dehm said. “The Count, Do as I Do, Cutting to Aces—”

“They’ve got names.”

Whit was unable to hide the sarcasm. Dehm smiled. “I’ve been on this project since I was twenty, seven years ago. They . . . recruited me midway through college.” He smiled. “The cards, even longer. On my own.”

“Oh, a college guy.” Whit was immediately jealous. He’d had the grades and test scores for college, but no opportunity. The days of Pell grants and scholarships—the things that allowed his dad to go to UNLV, according to Mom—were long gone. The Aggregates preferred to take “promising young minds” and “channel them.” “Where were you studying?”

“Caltech.”

That made it even worse. Not only was Caltech where all the best technical people went—okay, maybe MIT—but it was in Los Angeles. Whit had always wanted to go to Los Angeles.

He had always wanted to go anywhere besides Las Vegas.

He realized, in fact, that this train trip to wherever might be his third, possibly his second trip across a state line!

Whit’s earlier assignment, programming field calculations for a giant generator, had kept him within Las Vegas city limits, at the former Nellis Air Force Base. (There were still some U.S. military craft there, but no airmen or pilots that Whit and his team were ever allowed to meet. Of course, the giant electrified fence between the Installation and the rest of the base might have had something to do with it.)