The Orion Plan (49 page)

Authors: Mark Alpert

BOOK: The Orion Plan

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“Really?” Emilio looked down Sherman Avenue. He didn't see any fireballs or running soldiers now. He didn't hear any distant explosions either. “So the war's over?”

Carlos laughed. “Yeah, at least for now.” He bent over Emilio and grasped his right hand. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

“But who won?”

Luis bent over him too and took his other hand. “I think
we
did.”

EPILOGUE

Three Months Later

Sarah was dying for a cigarette. She was so nervous she took her Zippo and her pack of Marlboros out of her pocket. But after a moment she put them back. She took a deep breath instead and continued walking through Inwood Hill Park.

It was a late September afternoon, and the weather in New York had finally started to cool. Sarah strolled down an asphalt path that ran alongside the soccer fields. No one was playing ball today, but there were plenty of people in the park. Most of them sat on the benches, taking their lunch breaks. Some wore business suits and some wore dresses or khakis, but they all had government IDs hanging from their necks.

For the most part, they weren't New Yorkers. The vast majority were bureaucrats from Washington, D.C., recruited to join the biggest federal project since the New Deal. Over the past hundred days Inwood had been transformed from a residential neighborhood to a major government installation, with U.S. Marines standing guard at checkpoints all around it. The Federal Housing Authority had found new homes for the Inwood residents who'd been forced to leave, and now the apartment buildings north of Dyckman Street were being used as offices for the newly created Department of Interspecies Cooperation.

Sarah had a similar ID, which bounced against her shirt as she walked. Her office was on Sherman Avenue, just a block from the First People's temporary complex. Her job title was chief scientific liaison, but in essence she was running a complaints department. The complaints came from Naomi and the three children she'd already spawned in her complex's tanks, and all their grievances boiled down to the same thing: the humans weren't working fast enough. Although the First People had already extended their tendrils to the Pacific Ocean and were eager to start building their habitat, the United Nations was just beginning the process of choosing a site.

Sarah took another deep breath. The fundamental problem, as she saw it, was that the First People never fought with one another. Because they were so naturally cooperative, they couldn't understand why the humans had to argue over everything. Naomi was particularly impatient, and her firstborn child, Ruth, was almost as bad. But her next two children, Leah and Judith, seemed a little more tolerant, and Sarah was starting to enjoy her conversations with them. If the following generations of First People were more like those two, there was some hope for the future.

The intolerance from her own species was worse, of course, but luckily she didn't have to deal with it. That was Tom Gilbert's job, and Sarah was frankly amazed at how much he'd accomplished so far. He was the one who'd convinced the president not to fire a nuke at New York City. Nearly every general in the Pentagon had pushed for a nuclear strike, but Tom presented reams of evidence proving how futile that would be. In his uniquely annoying but effective way, he managed to persuade the White House to accept its losses and reach a compromise with the First People. And Naomi smoothed the negotiations by making several conciliatory gestures, such as rebuilding the tunnels and bridges around Manhattan. Her tendrils also constructed dozens of geothermal power plants under New York, enough to provide pollution-free electricity to all the city's households.

After passing the soccer fields, Sarah followed the path that ran along the base of the hill. To her right was the steep wooded slope where the probe had landed three months ago. Nothing important was at the landing site anymoreâthe Emissary had moved all its vital machinery to more secure locationsâbut Sarah stared in that direction anyway. Then she looked straight ahead and kept walking until she came to the last bench on the left, the one closest to the park's Dyckman Street exit. That was where she'd arranged to meet Joe.

He was sitting there as promised, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. An army-green duffel bag sat on the bench beside him.

Sarah didn't sit down. She pointed at the bag. “So you made up your mind? You're leaving?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, I got my papers. I'm free to go.”

“What about your hip? It doesn't need any more therapy?”

He slapped his right hip, the one the tentacles had dislocated. “That's all done. I can walk just fine.”

Sarah paused. She didn't like to repeat herself, but she couldn't help it. “And you're sure you don't want to reconsider my offer? I could really use your help, Joe.”

She thought he might get annoyed, but instead he smiled at her. “You got better people to work with. Experts and scientists, people with real experience.”

“But you know the First People better than anyone else. You looked into their minds. That's the kind of experience I need right now.”

He shook his head but kept smiling. “We did twenty debriefing sessions, remember? I told you everything I knew, right down to the last detail. It's all in the files.”

“That's not the same. I can't get advice from a bunch of files.” Sarah stepped toward the bench, moved the duffel bag aside, and sat down next to him. She was determined to make one last try. “Look, I'm already working with Emilio and the other boys. They're not experts either, but they're helping me a lot. They're giving me insights about the First People so I can communicate with them more effectively. And you could be an even bigger help.”

Now Joe stopped smiling. For a second his eyes darted to the right, glancing at the hillside where he used to sleep. “I'm sorry, but I have to go. I have to work some things out, and I can't do it here.”

She frowned. Although Joe had stayed sober for the past three months, she knew how fragile he was. She wouldn't be surprised if he started drinking again as soon as he left. “I don't get it. You were living on the streets for two years, trying to work things out. And now you want to go back to that life?”

He shook his head again. “No, I wasn't doing the work. I was just trying like hell to forget.”

“And how will it be any different now?” Her voice was getting loud. She was seriously angry. “How do you know you won't take the easy way out again?”

She'd gone too far. She shouldn't have said that. But Joe didn't look insulted. He just shrugged. “You're right. I may not be strong enough.” He got up from the bench and reached for his duffel bag. “But I'm gonna try. I'm thinking of going back to my hometown in Alabama. I hate the place, but I feel like I need to go there. You know, go back to the beginning and see what went wrong.”

Sarah stood up too. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she grasped his hand before he could pick up the bag.

“Please,” she whispered. “I want you to stay.”

He smiled again and gave her hand a squeeze. But it was a sad, apologetic smile, and a moment later he pulled his hand out of hers. “I have to do this, Sarah. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in penance.”

He picked up his bag and turned toward Dyckman Street. And then Joe Graham, the man who helped her save the world, walked out of the park.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I got the idea for this novel back in 1999 when I edited a special issue of
Scientific American
that focused on space exploration. One of the articles in that issue was entitled, “Interstellar Spaceflight: Can We Travel to Other Stars?” Written by science journalist Timothy Ferris, the article argued that traversing the vast distances between stars was so inherently difficult that any spacefaring civilization would be unlikely to send large starships across the galaxy. It would make more sense to launch small automated probes instead, because they would require so much less fuel to complete their interstellar journeys.

The article inspired me: I could easily imagine a small probe from a distant star system landing in someone's backyard. Better yet, I could imagine it following a set of preprogrammed tasks, using the raw materials at its landing site to establish a foothold on our world. This kind of probe could swiftly build all the machines it would need for exploring the planetâor colonizing it.

As I wrote the novel I tried to weave some real space science into the story. A group of Cornell astronomers (including Frank Drake and Carl Sagan) really did send a message across the Milky Way in 1974 using the Arecibo radio dish. And the novel's description of Martian microfossils is based on the investigation of ALH84001, the meteorite that became famous in 1996 as scientists debated whether it held fossils of Martian microbes. My opinion on this subject is similar to Sarah Pooley's: as we continue to explore planets in our star system and others, we're bound to discover evidence of extraterrestrial life.

But what are the odds of finding
intelligent
life out there? On Earth, it took billions of years for microbes to evolve into complex multicellular organisms, and only in the past century has one species become capable of building powerful rockets and radio transmitters. We simply don't know how evolution would progress on other planets, or how long an extraterrestrial civilization would be likely to survive. Still, some scientists are worried about intelligent aliens; in February 2015 a group of prominent space experts warned against trying to find extraterrestrials by transmitting more signals similar to the Arecibo message. As the group's statement noted, “It is impossible to predict whether extraterrestrial intelligence will be benign or hostile.”

Also by
Mark Alpert

Final Theory

The Omega Theory

Extinction

The Furies

The Six

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARK ALPERT
is the author of
Final Theory
,
The Omega Theory
,
Extinction
, and most recently,
The Furies
, as well as the young adult novel
The Six
. He is a contributing editor at
Scientific American
and his work has appeared in
Fortune Magazine
,
Popular Mechanics
, and
Playboy
. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their two children.