Heaven's Fall (53 page)

To his amazement, the Reiver spoke. “I am Aggregate Carbon-143 and I have important information for you.”

“You
what
?” Xavier said. “With
who
?”

It was ten minutes later. Zeds was back on the factory floor, the Reiver Aggregate having departed, Xavier having returned with some sort of vegetable stew that might have been Sentry-friendly if cold rather than cooked.

Nevertheless, Zeds ate as he waited for the Reivers to return to their machines. And more importantly, for those machines to rev up and create a sound curtain.

Only then did he recount, in general terms, the bizarre contact with a Reiver Aggregate and her apparent linkage to a human operator in the Site A hierarchy who would be standing by to perform certain actions. “I am to relay this information to Rachel immediately,” Zeds said.

“This thing
mentioned
Rachel?”

“No. She said our ‘human decision maker,’ but the implication was clear.”

“What kind of actions?”

“There was considerable detail. In general, it had to do with the activation of the Ring, a change in its size, orientation, and duration of operation. Also that we should make plans to be away from this facility before that activation.”

“I hope you remember it all.” He looked around. “We need to get Rachel or Pav down here fast.”

“I have an idea,” Zeds said.

He stood up to his full height . . . and fell over backward.

The suit cushioned the impact, but the floor was still hard.

Xavier seemed genuinely upset. “Jesus, Zeds! Hey!” he called, and bent over him. “What’s the idea?” he whispered.

But there was no time to explain. Zeds could hear and feel footsteps as THE officers and guards ran toward him.

He began stripping off his environment suit.

“Whoa, big buddy! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I have reached the limits of life support,” Zeds announced.

De la Vega had returned, too, joining the throng around Zeds. “What does he mean?” he asked Xavier.

“Ask him, for Christ’s sake. He speaks English.”

The human leader turned to Zeds. “What’s wrong?”

“I have been in this suit for days. Its support has expired and needs renewal.” He made a noise that in Sentry language indicated the looming moment of fusion, creating a connate, which to human ears sounded like a horrifying death rattle—or so Rachel had once told him.

Xavier and de la Vega seemed equally alarmed. “I need medical attention,” Zeds said.

“What kind of doctor could help him?” de la Vega said.

“Not me,” Xavier said.

Then Zeds croaked, “The only human capable of diagnosing me is Yahvi Stewart-Radhakrishnan.”

“We’ll get her,” de la Vega said.

“That’s the girl,” Xavier said. “Make sure her mother comes, too.”

De la Vega was giving orders. Zeds made another horrible noise. “What can we do?”

“I require immersion in water,” Zeds said.

Day Eleven

MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2040

KEANU APPROACHES!

No one in government will confirm, but Keanu is maneuvering! Approximately 28 hours ago several eruptions were visible on its surface, consistent with the NEO’s original departure from Earth orbit in 2019.

But instead of shrinking in size and luminosity as it did then, Keanu is GROWING.

It is coming CLOSER TO EARTH!

And observers in South America noted a launch of some kind from Keanu shortly after it maneuvered.

Are we being invaded?

Or bombarded?

KETTERING GROUP,
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2040

“How much longer?”

Whit Murray had been speaking into his headset, and thence into the entire Ring control system, for the past two hours, and was getting tired of hearing himself.

He sat in the same mission control as the day of First Light, but now in the center and front. The screens in front of him were different; there were more of them, they showed more data. And in the upper right was a special window all his own . . . a simple purple rectangle with an
OVERRIDE
icon that had not yet been activated but would be at the minus-fifteen-minute point.

It was his job to simply watch and listen; if everything was green and functional and there were no anomalies like weather or a flock of birds, Whit would click the icon and be presented with two additional options:
AUTO
or
MANUAL
. If he selected
AUTO
, things were out of his hands. The Ring’s moved-up Fire Light would proceed.

If he selected
MANUAL
, he could
HOLD
the count or
RETURN TO AUTO
or
UPDATE
, then
RETURN TO AUTO
.

It sounded as though he’d been given the keys to a car, but he knew he was not truly in control. There were, he knew, at least eight Aggregate formations in the top level of the Ring Light command structure. Representatives of each formation sat to his right, left, and rear.

But they all had separate functions in the operations of the Ring and its aiming, and especially the planned transportation of all those invasion units through the cone of the Ring. They had to agree on every command decision, and all but one of them had no place for human input.

None but the final one.

“They expect to resume the count within the next twenty minutes.” That was Counselor Kate, promoted to voice link at the same time Whit Murray had become the lead “operator.” She sounded tired and tense, words that would have described Whit’s state, too. Everyone seemed tense; in his hourly breaks from the console, Whit found Aggregates buzzing up and down the hallways outside the center. Those inside—and their human counterparts—seemed jittery, constantly on the move, in contrast to the tomblike stillness of the awful First Light.

Nervous or not, the ultimate go/no-go for the final triggering lay right here with him, Whit Murray, the lucky result of the Aggregates’ realization that one human individual might notice something all their other systems would miss.

That, and having a friend on the inside.

Accepting the position was one thing. Enjoying it was something else. He had accepted Carbon-143’s offer while in a state of rage and mourning for Dehm; more sober reflection shortly thereafter made him wonder just what he’d gotten himself into.

But it was too late to back out.

Whit had been on the console for seven hours, since late Sunday night. At that time, Fire Light was four hours off.

It still was.

He didn’t see the need for the big hurry. What was a few hours, days, months, or even years when you were invading a planet?

And, given that the invasion would leave Earth wrecked, there was even less need for hurry.

But the Aggregates had decided to move everything forward. They would have put Whit at his console Saturday evening, except they were, according to Counselor Kate, waiting for some major replacement parts.

To be delivered or manufactured, Whit wasn’t sure. The integration of these parts had consumed the entire night and now most of the morning.

He could only imagine the discomfort human soldiers would be feeling if they were stuck inside the various tanks, weapons carriers, and other vehicles. But who knew with Aggregates? How was that any different from their standard physical location?

The moment he thought terrible things about the Aggregates, he felt bad; there
was
at least one that was different.

How Carbon-143 broke free from her conditioning, or more to the point, why, Whit would have loved to know.

He hoped he would live long enough to ask his Aggregate “friend.”

She had not been in contact since offering him this job and giving him a few key instructions:

“When the final command comes, take control of the Ring and disrupt its operations.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“Disrupting the operations will probably kill us all.”

“Oh.” He thought. “Disrupt how, exactly?”

“Your research will have shown you that the Ring must create a specifically shaped field at just the right moment and with a certain orientation. Change one of those and it will fail. There are also several humans present who will require assistance as they escape this facility. They are visitors from Keanu.”

Whit had seen some mention of them on the news. “Why are they here?”

“They are helping with operation of the Ring.”

“Then why should I help them?”

For just a moment, Whit thought he detected what, for a human, would have been exasperation. “Because it is necessary.”

He had trusted Carbon-143 to this point—there was no reason to stop.

He really wished he could talk to her now, though. He felt isolated, sent out on a mission with instructions that were sure to be difficult or impossible to carry out.

And with little chance of success.

At that moment, Counselor Kate said, “They’re resuming!”

And the serene countdown voice noted, “Four hours to Fire Light.”

In the control center, all motion ceased. Humans and Aggregates slipped back to their stations so smoothly that Whit hardly registered any motion.

And his heart rate must have doubled.
Oh my God, oh my God,
he thought.
This is really happening!
He was at the heart of the opening of a door to another solar system . . . enabling an alien invasion! Less than two weeks ago he had been a lowly worker bee on a metro stop in Las Vegas!

He thought about his father . . . and Randall Dehm.

He thought about . . . well, everybody in America and the other Free Nations, and how many of them would be alive after today.

He thought about the rest of the planet . . . the same thing for them. Would they be better off with the Aggregates largely gone, or weakened?

Or, their big mission in ruins, assuming that Whit could ruin it—would they be more vulnerable to attack? Or would they be ruthless in taking revenge?

He thought about this target world who-knew-how-many-light-years distant and how his actions might spare them the Aggregate invasion.

As he thought, he followed the progress of the count. He noted imagery from the staging areas as the tanks and tankers and other vehicles lined up in arrow-shaped formations . . . ready for the Ring cone to turn toward them.

He noted the insane amount of traffic on his screen, a constant flow of words, numbers, images . . . as if every component of the Ring facility larger than a cell phone were reporting in. Which was probably what it meant.

Through it all, he kept returning to the purple rectangle on the corner . . . the icon inert, not yet enabled, ready to go live in the last half hour.

The one he would have to click to authorize the final automatic actions of the Ring.

As he stared, a new window appeared next to it, a news camera image of what appeared to be a meteor streaking across the sky.