Strangers (100 page)

Still holding the second nuke by its straps, Leland smiled down at the changing numbers on the first bomb’s digital-display clock, which was already counting toward Ragnarok. The nicest thing about backpack nukes was that, once armed, they could not be
dis
armed. He did not have to worry that someone could undo his work.

He entered the elevator and rode up to the second level.

•

Carrying Marcie, Jorja crossed directly to Jack Twist and stood beside him, looking up at the ship cradled on trestles. Although the collapse of her memory block and the inrushing recollections had more or less prepared her for this sight, she was overcome with an awe as powerful as that which had seized her in the troop transport, when the astounding truth had first been revealed. She reached out to touch the mottled hull, and a shiver—part fear, part wonder, part delight—coursed through her when her fingertips made contact with the scorched and abraded metal.

Whether following her mother’s lead or acting on an impulse of
her own, Marcie reached forward, too. When her small tentative hand pressed against the hull, she said, “The moon. The moon.”

“Yes,” Jorja said immediately. “Yes, honey. This is what you saw come down. Remember? It wasn’t the moon falling. It was this, glowing white like the moon, then red, then amber.”

“Moon,” the child said softly, sliding her tiny hand back and forth across the flank of the vessel, as if she were trying to clean off the mottled film of age and tribulation and, thereby, also clean off the clouded surface of her own memory. “Moon fell down.”

“Not the moon, honey. A ship. A very special ship. A spaceship like in the movies, baby.”

Marcie turned and looked at Jorja, actually
looked
at her, with eyes that were no longer out of focus or turned inward. “Like Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock?”

Jorja smiled and hugged her tighter. “Yes, honey, like Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.”

“Like Luke Skywalker,” Jack said, leaning forward and pushing a lock of hair out of the girl’s eyes.

“Luke,” Marcie said.

“And Han Solo,” Jack said.

The child’s eyes blurred out of focus. She had returned to her private place to contemplate the news she had just received.

Jack smiled at Jorja and said, “She’s going to be all right. It may take time, but she’ll be all right because her whole obsession was a struggle to remember. Now, she’s begun to remember, and she doesn’t need to struggle anymore.”

As usual, Jorja was reassured merely by his presence, by his aura of calm competence. “She’ll be all right—
if
we can get out of here alive and with our memories intact.”

“We will,” Jack said. “Somehow.”

•

A rush of warm emotion filled Dom when he saw Parker. He embraced the stocky artist and said, “How in God’s name did you wind up here, my friend?”

“It’s a long story,” Parker said. A sorrow in his face and eyes said, better than words, that at least part of the story was bleak.

“I didn’t mean to get you so deep in this trouble,” Dom said.

Looking up at the starship, Parker said, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

“What happened to your beard?”

“When
this
kind of company’s coming,” Parker said, gesturing at the ship, “they’re worth shaving for.”

•

Ernie moved along the side of the starship, staring, touching.

Faye stayed with Brendan, for she was concerned about him. Months ago, he had lost his faith—or had thought he’d lost it, which was just as bad for him. And tonight he had lost Father Wycazik, a blow that had left him hollow-eyed and shaky.

“Faye,” he said, looking up at the ship, “it’s truly wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I never was one for stories about other worlds, never gave much thought to what it would mean.…But it’s the end of everything and the start of something new. Wonderful and new.”

“But it’s not God,” he said, “and in my heart, that’s what I’d hoped it would be.”

She took his hand. “Remember the message that Parker brought you from Father Wycazik? What he told you in the truck? Father Wycazik knew what had happened, what had come down that night, and for him it was a reaffirmation of his faith.”

Brendan smiled forlornly. “For him,
everything
was a reaffirmation of his faith.”

“Then it’ll also be a reaffirmation for you,” she told him. “You just need time, a little time to think about it. Then you’ll see it the same way Father Wycazik did because, though you aren’t aware of it, you are a lot like him.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Not me. You didn’t know him. I’m not half the priest…not half the man that he was.”

Faye smiled and pinched his cheek affectionately. “Brendan, when you told us all about your rector, it was clear how much you admired him. And within one day, it was
also
clear that you were more like him than you realized. You’re young, Brendan. You’ve still got things to learn. But when you’re Father Wycazik’s age, you’re going to be the man
and
the priest that he was. And every day of your life is going to be a living testament to him.”

A fragile hopefulness replaced his despair. His mouth trembled and his voice cracked. “You…you really think so?”

“I know it,” Faye said.

He put his arms around her, and she hugged him.

•

Ned and Sandy stood with their arms around each other’s waists, looking up at the ship. Neither spoke because nothing more needed to be said. At least, that’s the way it seemed to him.

Then Sandy said something that
did
need to be said. “Ned, if we get out of this alive…I want to go see a doctor. You know—one of those fertility experts. I want to do whatever I can to bring a baby into the world.”

“But…you’ve always…you never…”

“I never liked the world enough before,” she said softly. “But now…I want a part of us to be there when our kind go out to ride on top of all the darkness, to other worlds, maybe to meet the strangers—the wonderful strangers—who came in this. I’ll be a real good mother, Ned.”

“I know you will.”

•

When Miles Bennell saw the last of the witnesses and Parker Faine filing into the chamber, he gave up hope of employing Dom Corvaisis’ new powers to freeze Falkirk out of Thunder Hill. He would have to rely, instead, on the .357 Magnum that was tucked into his belt. It pressed hard against his stomach, hidden beneath his loose white lab coat.

Miles thought Leland would come with at least twenty men, probably twice that number. He expected the colonel, Horner, and half a dozen soldiers to enter the chamber behind the last of the witnesses. But only Horner appeared, toting a submachine gun and prepared to use it.

As the Blocks, the Sarvers, Brendan Cronin, and the others were drawn instantly and irresistibly to the starship, Horner said, “General Alvarado, Dr. Bennell—Colonel Falkirk will be along in a moment.”

“How dare you come in here with an automatic weapon at the ready,” Bob said with an aplomb Miles admired. “Good God, man! Don’t you realize if your finger slipped and you let off a burst, the slugs would keep ricocheting off these rock walls, killing all of us—you included!”

“My finger never slips, sir,” Horner said in such a way that he was virtually challenging Bob to make an issue of it.

Instead, Bob said sharply, “Where’s Falkirk?”

“Sir, the colonel had some things to attend to,” Horner said. “He apologizes for keeping you waiting. He’ll join us shortly.”

“What things?” Bob Alvarado asked.

“Sir, the colonel doesn’t always consult me about his every move.”

Miles was half-afraid Falkirk had already taken squads of DERO troops to liquidate the staff. But that grim possibility seemed less likely with every second that passed unmarred by the rattle of gunfire.

He was a heavily armed man looking for a chance to turn the tables on his enemies, but he did not want to appear that way to Horner, so Miles decided the most natural thing to do would be to talk with the witnesses and begin to answer some of the many questions they had. He
discovered that most of them had already heard about the CISG, so he quickly summarized the findings of that committee for the others, by way of explaining why the cover-up had initially been ordered.

The ship before them, Miles explained, had first been spotted by deeply positioned defense satellites orbiting the earth at a distance of more than 22,000 miles. They had seen it coming in past the moon. (The Soviets, whose defense satellites were cruder, did not spot the visitor until much later—and never accurately identified it.)

Initially, observers thought the alien craft was a large meteorite or small asteroid on a collision course with Earth. If it was a soft, porous material, it might burn up during descent. And even if Earth were unlucky, if the incoming debris was made of more solid stuff, it still might fragment into a host of small and relatively harmless meteorites. However, if Earth were
very
unlucky, if the wandering rock had a high nickel-iron content, which might eliminate the possibility of extensive fragmentation, it was definitely a menace. Of course, it was almost certain to hit water, since oceans covered seventy percent of the planet’s surface. Water impact would result in little damage, unless it hit close enough to shore for its tsunami to devastate a port. The worst-case possibility was a land strike in a heavily populated area.

“Imagine a lump of nickel and iron the size of a bus hurtling into the heart of Manhattan at a couple of thousand miles an hour,” Miles told them. “That picture was horrifying enough to make us consider measures to destroy or deflect it.”

Less than six months earlier, the first satellites in the nation’s Strategic Defense Shield had been placed secretly in orbit. They had comprised less than ten percent of the system as it would be ultimately constituted, and on their own they could not have done much to prevent nuclear war. But thanks to several forward-thinking designers, every satellite had been given high maneuverability that would allow it to turn its armaments outward and double as a planetary defense against just such a threat as that hurtling piece of space junk. Recent theory proposed that impacting comets or asteroids had wiped out the dinosaurs, and prudent planners had decided it might be wise to use the Strategic Defense Shield to knock down not only Soviet missiles but the fate-flung missiles of the universe itself. Therefore, one of the satellites was repositioned while the meteorite streaked nearer Earth, and plans were laid to fire all of its antimissile missiles at the intruder. Although none of those projectiles was nuclear, their explosive warheads, in combination, were believed sufficient to fragment the meteorite into enough pieces to ensure that none would be large enough to reach the surface of Earth with destructive potential.

“Then,” Miles said, “hours before the scheduled attack on the intruder,
an analysis of the latest photographs indicated a shockingly symmetrical shape. And spectrographic readings, forwarded by the satellite, began to confirm that it might be something stranger than a meteorite. Its analysis did not match any of the standard profiles for meteorites.” He had walked among the witnesses as he talked, and now he put one hand upon the flank of the ship, still capable of being awed by it even after eighteen months. “New photos were ordered every ten minutes. During the following hour, the approaching shape grew ever more distinct, until the likelihood of it being a ship was so great that no one would risk ordering its destruction. We hadn’t informed the Soviets of the object or of our intention to destroy it, for that would have given them information about our defense satellite capabilities. Now, we purposefully began random jamming of Soviet high-atmosphere radar, dropping bogeys and electronic shadows on them, to cover the ship’s advance and thus keep the secret of its visit. At first, we thought it would take up orbit around Earth. But very late in the game, we realized it was going to come straight in, following the very path an unpowered meteorite would have followed, though in a controlled fashion. Defense computers were able to give a thirty-eight-minute warning that point of impact would be here in Elko County.”

“Just enough time to close I-80,” Ernie Block said, “and call Falkirk and his DERO men in from wherever they were.”

“Idaho,” Miles said. “They were on training maneuvers in southern Idaho, fortunately quite close. Or unfortunately, depending on your point of view.”

“Of course, Dr. Bennell, I know
your
point of view,” said Leland Falkirk from the door where he had, at last, appeared.

The .357 Magnum felt as big as a cannon against Miles Bennell’s belly, but suddenly it seemed as useless as a peashooter.

•

Upon seeing Leland Falkirk for the first time, Ginger realized how little justice the newspaper photograph had done him. He was handsomer, more imposing—and more frightening—than he’d appeared in the
Sentinel.
He didn’t carry his submachine gun in the stern attitude of readiness that Horner affected, nonchalantly dangling it in one hand. However, his apparent laxity was more threatening than Horner’s posturing. Ginger had the feeling that, by seeming to be careless, he was taunting them to try something. As Falkirk drew nearer the group, Ginger thought that he brought with him a palpable aura—and almost a stench—of hatred and madness.

Dr. Bennell said, “Where are all your men, Colonel?”

“No men,” Falkirk said mildly. “Just Lieutenant Horner and me. No need for a display of force, really. I’m quite sure that when we’ve had time to discuss the situation rationally, we’ll reach a solution to the problem that will satisfy everyone.”

Ginger had an even stronger feeling that the colonel was taunting them. He had the air of a child who, in possession of a secret, not only takes enormous pleasure in his special knowledge but is especially tickled by the ignorance of others. She saw that Dr. Bennell seemed baffled by Falkirk’s behavior and wary of him.

“Go on with your discussion,” the colonel said, checking his watch. “For heaven’s sake, don’t let me interrupt. You must have a thousand questions you’d like Doctor Bennell to answer.”