Oblivion (7 page)

The words echoed inside Cicoi’s mind. He felt no judgment in them; only acceptance of what must occur. The Elders continued flowing, their tentacles moving in the same direction. Cicoi wondered if their wispy forms were simply for the benefit of the Commanders or if the Elders truly looked like that. No one, except perhaps the Keeper of Secrets, would know the answer.

The Elders seemed to be waiting for some sort of response to those last words. Cicoi did not know what to say. The Commander of the Center was standing taller on the tips of his tentacles, but he didn’t seem to know either. He turned an eyestalk toward Cicoi as if he were expecting Cicoi to do something.

But it was the Commander of the North who finally spoke. He turned his two eyestalks forward in a bad imitation of the circle of respect and pointed his upper tentacles down. He rose as high as he could on his lower tentacles.

“Forgive me, O Great Ones, for speaking to such an august body,” the Commander of the North said. “We will do what is needed. We will heed your guidance. We welcome it.”

The Elders did not move. In no way did they acknowledge the Commander of the North’s polite movements, nor did they respond in kind. The Elders, perhaps, had had different traditions once upon a time.

Finally the lead Elder bowed his head, his eyestalks facing the Commanders. Cicoi’s lower tentacles went rigid, and he nearly lost his balance. The direct stare of all those eyes— those ghostly black eyes—was more than he could take.

You must heed us,
the Elder said,
if you are to survive.

His words almost sounded like a rebuke. Was it a rebuke to the Commander of the North for having the temerity to speak to them?

The Commander of the North bent his eyestalks forward and said nothing. Neither did anyone else.

Hear our words,
the Elder said.

The phrase was echoed by the others, a faint chorus, that jangled in Cicoi’s mind.

The Commander of the North turned an eyestalk toward Cicoi as if Cicoi had done something to provoke the Elder’s words. But Cicoi kept his rigid position.

We shall guide you,
the lead Elder said.
But before we do, we shall give you an overview, so you know how to prepare.

The Commander of the Center moaned. It was a small, involuntary sound, but it echoed in the large chamber. Several of the Elders turned toward him, and a breeze came up.

“I’m sorry, O Great Ones,” the Commander of the Center said, two of his eyestalks waving wildly. “I mean no disrespect.”

The Elders turned away from him. Apparently that was all the acknowledgment they would give him.

It was as if the interlude had never happened.

Here is how you will prepare,
the lead Elder said.

Cicoi waited, concentrating as hard as he could, so that these words would become part of him.

The next harvest of the third planet must be complete and varied. We must obtain enough raw materials to finish building new harvest ships. An Elder will be on each harvest ship to make certain that the procedures are followed exactly. You will prepare your generals to work with us.

Cicoi shuddered slightly. Commanders, at least, had always been warned of the possibility of meeting the Elders. The generals had not. And one of the Commanders was having trouble, despite the warning. The generals had better be tougher than Cicoi thought they were.

Nine Elders floated from the group and stopped beside the one who seemed to be giving the orders.

We will go with you now to begin preparations. The very existence of our people rests on what we do next. We must not fail.

Cicoi wanted to say they would not fail, but he did not. He did not like the way the Elders had treated the other two who spoke. Instead, Cicoi kept his stance rigid and waited for further instructions.

But there were none. The lead Elder waved his eyestalks, turning them toward all the other Elders. They imitated the movement, and then their tentacles pointed upward.

The ceiling opened, and the breeze grew stronger. The Elders tilted their heads back, pointed their lower tentacles behind them so that they were streamlined, and floated toward the cold darkness above.

Cicoi unpocketed two more eyestalks so that he could watch this tremendous sight. Fifty Elders, their bodies wispy and black, absorbing all light and energy, soared toward the surface of Malmur, a place they had not been in generations.

A place they had not been in living memory.

A place they had not been since Malmur left its home sun a long, long time ago.

Cicoi had thought life for his people was hard before. Now it would become even harder.

April 27, 2018
8:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

170 Days Until Second Harvest

Leo Cross balanced one suitcase against his thigh as he struggled with the old-fashioned lock on his front door. He had already disengaged the security system, but for some reason his housekeeper Constance insisted on using all of the locks when he was gone, including the one on the antique oak door. He should have waited at the airport for fifteen more minutes. By then, she would have arrived and been able to let him into his own house.

Instead, he had to waggle the ancient brass key into the even older brass lock and wait until he heard the tumblers turn. Then he pushed the door open with his shoulder.

The suitcase fell inward with a bang and Cross stiffened, half expecting his mother’s voice to yell at him from upstairs. But his parents were long gone. Only their ghosts echoed throughout the house. He had grown up here, and had done little since his parents’ death to make the house his. The antiques his mother so loved still filled the foyer and most of the ground level.

Still, it felt good to be home. It felt good to have a home to return to. He shuddered. He’d managed to get some sleep on the red-eye he had taken back from San Francisco, but his dreams had been filled with the slight whirr of NanTech’s wand and the clank of wedding bands as they hit the glass front. Wedding bands and engagement rings and anniversary necklaces. So much stuff that had meant so much to people at one time and was now not much more than junk.

His personal phone hadn’t rung since he left, nor had his pager gone off. Jamison clearly hadn’t found anything—and neither had Bradshaw and Groopman in South America.

Cross sighed and kicked the door closed. Then he lugged his suitcases upstairs and tossed them on the king-sized bed he had bought specially for his room. He had made this room his, with its utilitarian furniture and high-tech gadgetry. It wasn’t fair to say he had missed it—he hadn’t been gone long enough—but he did feel more relaxed when he was here.

Downstairs the door opened, and he thought he heard female laughter. Constance usually wasn’t so merry when she came to work. She had been with the family forever. He could no more get rid of her than he could have fired his grandmother. She made certain he ate well and his home wasn’t a complete pigsty.

Cross could have afforded an entire bevy of housekeepers— his parents had left him independently wealthy—but he rarely thought of the money. Instead, it provided him a way to do the work he loved. Or the work he had once loved, before the world had changed with the attack of the aliens.

He pulled off his clothes and took a hot shower, staying for a long time under the spray. He needed to get the feel of the black dust off him. He knew he didn’t really have any on him, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the sense of it, the way his skin crawled even when he thought of it.

As he got out, the smell of fried pork sausage reached him, along with the scent of pancakes and fresh coffee. Constance was here, and she knew he was home.

For the first time in days, he felt really and truly hungry.

Me pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans, and walked, barefoot, down the stairs. He would have to change before the big meeting, but he had about four hours. Even in the worst traffic, it wouldn’t take him that long to get downtown.

Soft voices reached him as he got to the bottom of the stairs. Female voices. For a moment, he thought Constance had the radio or the television on, and then he recognized the second voice.

His mouth went instantly dry.

Britt.

He hadn’t expected to see her until the meeting.

He ran a hand through his wet hair, feeling like a teenager ill prepared for a first date. Dr. Brittany Archer had that effect on him. They had become involved shortly after they met, and they’d been lovers for some time now, but his heart still jumped when he heard her voice. He hadn’t felt this strongly about any woman in all his years. All he wished was that he’d met Britt Archer under different circumstances.

Cross made his way through the hall into the kitchen. Constance was pouring batter on the griddle. She already had a pile of perfectly formed pancakes on a platter. Sausages steamed on another platter beside it. Fresh-squeezed orange juice was in a glass pitcher near the refrigerator, and the last of the coffee percolated through the automated coffee maker.

Britt was sitting at the kitchen table, her stockinged feet on one of the old chairs. Her dark hair was pulled back and held by a gold Irish-love-knot barrette—which would have survived the mess in Monterey. The thought made Cross’s gorge rise and he fought it down.

Britt turned to him, her intelligent eyes missing nothing. She stood. She was nearly as tall as he was.

“It was tough there, huh?”

Apparently she saw it in his face. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t really want to discuss it. He buried his face in her neck and let himself feel how alive she was.

After a moment, Constance said, “I got breakfast for you, Leo,” as if nothing had changed.

The memory of the past two days had played hell with his appetite again, but he wasn’t going to let all this food go to waste. He squeezed Britt, then let her go, and walked over to Constance.

“You’re trying to make me fat,” he said.

“And I’m failing,” she said. “Looks like you lost weight in the past two days.”

“Without your cooking, how could I survive?” He grabbed a plate from the cupboard and served himself, slathering the pancakes with butter and pouring maple syrup on top. Then he poured a glass of orange juice and headed for the table.

Britt was just behind him, serving herself, as well.

They didn’t even make a dent in the food, although Constance continued cooking, as if she were trying to feed an army instead of two of them. Cross had noticed that Constance had been doing that ever since the alien ships arrived, making too much food and then giving much of it away to shelters later on. It was as if some part of her felt guilty for still being there, for still being alive, for having a place to go and people to take care of.

Cross took a bite of pancake and decided he hadn’t had anything that good in a long time. Then he smiled at Britt and put his hand on hers. “I didn’t expect to see you until later.”

“You think I’d want a reunion with you in front of the Tenth Planet Project?” Her eyes twinkled and she shook her head. “They would have loved that.”

She got up and poured herself a huge mug of coffee. Then she held up the pot. “You want any?”

He shook his head. He wasn’t quite the coffee freak that she was. He’d wait until he was done eating.

She came back to the table and sat down. She wrapped her hands around the mug and stared at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The pancake he’d been eating turned to glue in his mouth. He shook his head.

“I take it you didn’t find anything.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I should still be there.”

“I’m sure Lowry will do just fine.” Britt had never really believed that they’d find a nanomachine, even after Cross had made the argument to her, the same one he’d made to Jamison. “We need you here.”

“Did something happen?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Britt said. “But I’m not the one who called the meeting.” She shoved her mug away, picked up her fork, and dug into her breakfast. “I suspect it’s just a briefing.”

Cross sighed and took a sip of orange juice. It was fresh and cool and delicious. “Then why call me back?”

Britt raised her eyes at him without moving her head. “Leo,” she said softly, “you just don’t get it sometimes, do you?”

“Get what?” he asked.

“How important you are.”

“I’m no more important than you or Jesse Killius or Yolanda Hayes,” he said, listing two other members of the committee. Jesse Killius was the head of NASA and Yolanda Hayes was the president’s science adviser.

“Yes, you are.” Britt set down her fork. “It was your insight that warned us of this problem in the first place, and you were the one who figured out that they’re coming back.”

“No,” he said. “You did.”

She shook her head. “You solidified it. You’re the unifying force on this committee. Without you, it goes nowhere.”

“Even if I never have another brilliant idea.”

“Even if,” she said. “This is no longer about brilliant ideas. It’s about survival. You run the team whether you want to or not.”