And so here are all chapters of Agamemnon – now completely revised and with about thirty or so new pages creating a very different ending. I hate to say it, but many additional changes were inserted throughout – so you might as well restart from the beginning. Pardon the lack of editing; you’ll probably find more errors than usual.

Also, I’ve tried to keep elements of this story from becoming too cinematic, though in my mind I can’t help but see the visual poetry in Scott’s movies, especially the ship interiors, filling in the blanks. Yet at the same time The Mote in God’s Eye is never far from my mind, and oddly enough I think that story contributed more to these efforts than did Scott’s films.

There are other storylines within this part of the arc that are just begging to be expanded, notably the Lars avatar and his role in events. The Brennan baby is another, and of course the whole Ellen Ripley backstory that is never touched upon in the movies is not addressed here. That said, I could see coming back to this one and filling in a few of the details I’ve omitted, but in the end I wanted to keep this story manageably short and not turn it into another War and Peace (aka The 88th Key).

Anyway, that was the thinking. So far. Hope you find it fun.

[Jed Kurzel \\ The Covenant]

The Voyage of the USNSF Agamemnon

USNSF Agamemnon                                                                 15 October 2107

Denton Ripley watched the docking clamps release over a remote video feed, and he flinched when Hyperion’s port-side reaction control jets began firing to the beat of an elaborate dance all their own. As he watched the live feed, Ripley noted the huge ship – his last command – was slowly beginning to pull away from her moorings at the Lunar Gateway, then he saw two tugs moving in to help keep her on station. Ripley’s arms crossed protectively over his chest as he watched the evolution, knowing his wife now had the chair on Hyperion’s conn – and that, for now, all eyes were on her.

“Mixed emotions, Denton?” Admiral Stanton said as walked into the orbiting basestation’s huge, multi-storied control tower.

“I should be out there with her, you know?” Ripley said – almost under his breath, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the hum of the computers in the complex – let alone the blast of the air conditioners needed to keep the computers alive.

“Oh? You don’t think she’s ready for this?”

“I have more combat experience, Admiral. Not to mention Hyperion was mine for two years.”

Stanton smiled. “If I had a buck for every time I’ve heard that one…well, I guess I’d be a rich man by now.”

Ripley nodded. “Goes with the territory, I suppose.”

“Very few skippers last six months, Denton. Operational needs dictate the ebb and flow of assignments and postings, but if you decide to stick around you’ll start to see the big picture.”

“Stick around?”

“You don’t have to retire, Denton. You can always move to administration or operations when you get back.”

“I wasn’t aware that was an option, Admiral.”

“Well, I just made you aware, didn’t I? And I don’t need an answer now. Just give it some thought – while you’re out there.”

“Yessir.”

“The yard boss tells me Agamemnon will be ready for her initial test run in a few days. I want you to take her out to Mercury…”

“And then return?”

Stanton shook his head. “Only if absolutely necessary.”

“Sir?”

“Look, I know this is not exactly doing things by the book, but you’re going to head out with a unrated crew, but you’ll also be heading out with a group of Israeli technicians onboard. They’ll tune the reactor and iron out any bugs in that weapon of theirs while they get your fire control team up to speed – and we’ll get ‘em back to base on one of the tankers.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, the Council and the administration have assigned your mission highest priority. We want you to make the jump to Alpha Geminorum Ca as soon as possible, and we want you to find that installation.”

“Installation? Sir, Thomas referred to it as a university.”

“And who knows, Denton…maybe it is. But do you really think we can afford to take that chance?”

Ripley suddenly felt ill, like he had been betrayed – because he knew what had to come next. “Sir, what are the mission objectives?”

“Retrieve our midshipman and ascertain what threat level these ‘Tall Whites’ pose.”

“And?”

“If they’re hostile, then Agamemnon, Constellation, and Stavridis will engage when and if you determine you have the tactical advantage.”

“And if they aren’t a threat?”

“You’ll have dozens of academic sorts onboard your flagship, as well as on the Enterprise; the Science Ministry recommends you convene a working council after contact and work out the best way to proceed diplomatically. You’ll also have the five remaining middies from your original mission, and they’re to stay with you onboard Agamemnon – unless, that is, you have to abandon ship.”

“So, any thoughts about how we enter the system?”

Stanton shook his head. “No, not really. I assume you’ll jump with both Constellation and Stavridis, but I’d keep Connie out at the jump point – to secure the return to Earth. Maybe Stavridis could hide out in the asteroid belt, kind of like an ace up your sleeve for when, or if, things hit the fan. If it turns bad out there, Constellation would be in a good position to send a longboat through the Alderson point. Within six weeks we hope to have the Enterprise Battle Group assembled and ready to make the jump to provide a secondary attack force should this new race prove hostile.”

“A battle group, Admiral? Can we spare that many ships if we get into a shooting war with the Russian and the Chinese at Mintaka?”

“I don’t know, Denton. Why don’t you think it through and see what you come up with.” An exasperated Stanton looked him over again – then he too crossed his arms over his chest before he turned and walked out of the control tower – and Denton realized he’d asked a question worthy of any midshipman still wet behind the ears. 

Yet that question had been in the plan all along. In fact, everything he and Stanton had just said had been for the benefit of the prying eyes and hidden ears scattered all over Gateway Alpha. Because of the nature of the Gateway, that of providing access to the lunar surface, operational security up here was a nightmare, with personnel from dozens of countries flowing through every day.

Hyperion was soon about a hundred meters away from the Gateway and Ripley could now take her all in. With her Langston Field down she looked like an interconnected jumble of mismatched white rectangles covered with hundreds of small metallic sensor arrays and antennas – and he had to admit she looked nothing at all like most modern warships – yet in an offhand way that’s exactly what she was. And she was headed in harm’s way, too – only now Hyperion was skippered by a woman who also just happened to be his wife.

+++++

Yet his new ship was anything but a warship, and Agamemnon was anything but a rectangle.

As he looked her over the word ‘rakish’ came to mind, because she looked like one of the ocean greyhounds that used to roam the Earth’s southern capes – the Clipper Ships – two hundred years ago. Even made fast to her moorings here at the Gateway, she looked like she’d been built for pure speed, like a bird dog straining at the leash and ready to join the chase. And while she was technically an emissary ship, Agamemnon too was a kind of warship, only a warship built with very different objectives in mind. 

Agamemnon’s mission wasn’t confrontation; no, she was – in her way – an olive branch. A very fast olive branch. This new ship had been built with the implicit knowledge that the most enduring peace is based on understanding and respect – respect grounded in an explicit ability to lay waste to any enemy the ship came across.

This was an old concept, of course. The policy of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, had been employed during the First Cold War and had remained in place through the Resource Wars. After a wild series of tectonic shifts and volcanic eruptions had sent the Northern Hemisphere into perpetual winter, the customs unions of the north had simply moved south, pushing aside native populations as these unions asserted control over vast new territories. Yet once all the resources necessary for explosive industrialization were discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, terrestrial conflict came to a sudden, convulsive end. As all modern economies were built on the shaky foundations of military industrialization, it soon became apparent that all such conflict would have to take place in space. And in a sad irony not lost on Ripley, there was not now even one country that maintained a real sea-going navy anymore; in an era of rapidly changing climates, the cost, let alone the danger, was simply no longer justifiable.

Yet Agamemnon represented something new, and as such her design was radically different from the first generation of interstellar warships. Of course the ship had an Alderson Drive so of course she had a protective Langston Field, yet despite being a warship she had been designed to deploy only one weapon. Agamemnon would be the first ship to deploy a working X-ray MASER, and this offensive weapon had been developed specifically for this ship. Rumors had been floated that this Maser was quite probably the deadliest weapon ever created by man. In tests, Maser-X had cut through all known armor plate in nanoseconds, yet the weapon concurrently delivered a kinetic impact equivalent to five megatons of force. The real horror of this weapon was that even a ship’s Langston Field could not absorb this kinetic impact; instead, all this colossal energy was transmitted inward, directly onto the ship within the Field. Developed in Israel, during her proof of concept tests the Maser had been deployed against steel structures in the Negev, and the results had been terrifying. Huge iron beams bent under the force of the impact, but then the metal began to disintegrate as the Maser ruptured molecular bonds within the metal. Now the thinking was that a ship targeted by the Maser would be instantly crippled by the kinetic impact, then the targeted ship’s Langston Field generator would fail, allowing the full power of the Maser to strike the underlying structure, in effect slicing through the ship and exposing the habitation modules to space. The most unusual, and horrifying, aspect of this new Maser was that the beam could be narrowly focused and wielded like a scythe, or with greater distance its beam could be widened to hit a large area with a hammer blow. When deployed from a 200 mile orbit and used on ‘terrestrial’ targets, the target area broadened to a half mile square, meaning that an area the size of the old Central Park on Manhattan Island could be annihilated, simply turned into molten slag – in nanoseconds.

Yet Ripley had been more than a little surprised to learn that Agamemnon’s keel had been laid down a full six months before he’d first left earth – on Hyperion. So, the ship had been re-tasked – from an unknown original purpose, one possibly related to the old Cold War MAD doctrine – to a vessel designed for First Contact. So then, what was the term that the old Strategic Air Command had operated under? Flexible Response? Have the necessary ships – and crew – available to meet both current anticipated needs – and those unanticipated adversaries that always came along. And because new technologies always came along, some more unexpectedly than others, platforms needed to be designed with the unexpected in mind. So, months before he’d ever commanded the first Hyperion mission, the Navy had started work on Agamemnon. But…why? What had they known? There was simply no need for a ship like this without First Contact in mind…and that troubled Ripley.

‘What changed?’ he wondered. ‘Where was the new threat? The Company? But – what if The Company struck an alliance with China or Russia? Even though that would be against The Company’s long term interests?’

But all this meant Admiral Stanton had considered him the best person for the task at hand, to take Agamemnon out to face an unknown adversary. And Judith was now considered more than capable enough to sail Hyperion into battle on Orion’s belt. Or? Was she simply more expendable than he?

‘And am I flexible enough for this mission?’ he asked himself – as he watched Hyperion’s main drive come online and flare to life. ‘What do they think is going to happen out there? Meet these ‘Tall Whites’ again and sing Kumbaya around a campfire on the beach? But – why had The Company been out there in the first place? Simply to find out what happened to Covenant? Or had they known about the Tall Whites? And if they did, how the hell did they find out?’ He’d have to go back to his cabin and reread the Prometheus Mission after action report one more time…

A personal Comms came through from Hyperion and Ripley took the call.

Judith’s image came onscreen and he thought she looked calm enough, almost serene – given the circumstances. “Everything good, Judy? How does she feel?”

A simple nod. “Crew is still tight, but right now everyone is on edge. Things got dark after the Marines boarded.”

“How many?”

“Two companies, and their gear is stowed away down there on the aft hangar deck. What about Agamemnon? When do you put out for builder’s trials?”

He looked at her and shrugged at the continuing subterfuge. “No word yet. Yard crew is still onboard, still working on Reactor Two, something wrong with the interlink. I think we’ll be out of here within a few weeks.”

This was the agreed upon coverup Stanton wanted going out over the Command Net, in case unauthorized ears were listening…and of course Judith was in on this last minute deception.

“That figures,” she said, smiling. “Hell, this thing out in the Belt will be over by the time you leave. Wait for us and we’ll go on trials with you.”

“I’ll mention it to the Admiral. Let’s hope this is all just a tempest in a teapot.”

“Well, whatever it turns out to be, we’re ready for an extended engagement.”

Ripley nodded. Until the full nature of any alliance between Weyland and the Chinese and the Russians was fully understood, the scope of the conflict at Mintaka would remain unknown – at least until hostilities commenced. But what was there to worry about? Just because Hyperion was being sent in first – to test the waters, as Admiral Stanton put it – didn’t mean Judy was in imminent peril. “Perhaps they’ll find a diplomatic solution,” Denton said, his voice a little too forced. “When will you make the jump?” he asked.

“Looks like 1.5Gs to Mercury, so call it two weeks and change.” There was a flurry of activity in the background and Judy turned to deal with it; a moment later she turned back to him and said “Gotta go. Talk to you later,” and as quickly as she had come to him her image disappeared.

After less than a half hour Hyperion was now almost five hundred miles away from the station, so he switched to a telescopically enhanced view – just in time to note the main drives flare as Hyperion went to maximum power. Hyperion was setting sail at 3.4Gs, and her exhausted crew would make it to Mercury in less than a week…and if all went according to plan he’d be following her in just a few hours.

He quietly slipped out of the station’s Command Center and walked slowly through the station out to Agamemnon, but once onboard he dashed up Main Street to the conn-tower and strapped into his acceleration couch on the command bridge. Once his screens were positioned exactly where he wanted them he spoke over the closed command circuit.

“X-O,” he said to Commander Brennan, “let’s take her out, then get everyone to acceleration stations. Reactor Control, are you ready to go down there?”

“Brooks here, Admiral. Reactors One and Two are online with full power available, Three and Four are on standby. All engineering personnel are ready for acceleration.”

“Rusty? How are your troops?”

“In their couches, sir, and ready to go. All hardware secure.” 

“WEPPs? What’s the status of that Maser?”

“Yardmaster says Dr. Balin has about two plus days work to finish up, Admiral.”

“Okay. Tell ‘em we’ll have about 24 hours in a low-G orbit at Venus and possibly a little longer at Mercury. Get those people strapped in; we’re going to heavy acceleration in five minutes.”

Brennan turned her couch to face Ripley: “Reactor five now at full rated power, Admiral. Ready when you are, sir.”

“Alright, Commander. Captain of the Yard, visual signals only and maintain radio silence; notify tugs to assume standby stations, and let’s make ready for departure.”

Ripley’s ears popped as pressure bulkheads and entries were closed throughout the ship, and as pressurization went to internal, air pressure equalized throughout the ship as the massive air generators and CO2 scrubbers came online.

“Admiral,” Brennan said, “greens across the board; all departments report ready for departure.”

“Very well, XO, take her out.”

+++++

Admiral Stanton watched Agamemnon as her reaction control jets pushed the huge ship away from the Gateway, and he couldn’t help but smile with pride. Her architects had taken a page from the old Soviet playbook when they designed her, because Agamemnon was the exact opposite of Hyperion. Hyperion was a battleship, meant to fight from inside the cocoon of her Langston Field, while Agamemnon had been designed to visually impress anyone unlucky enough to run across her, to engender a sense of awe – and in that one regard her designers had succeeded brilliantly. She looked more like a super-yacht than a naval vessel, as if the way her lines had been drawn had been shaped by a desire to exude a sense of urgent purpose. If Hyperion was a heavyweight boxer, Agamemnon was a long-distance runner, or perhaps and very dangerous messenger.

Stanton watched as Stavridis and Constellation moved into echelon formation as they joined Agamemnon, just before they moved away from the station under heavy acceleration. They made quite a sight just then, the three of them in formation passing in front of Earth with their drives flaring, the Enterprise Battle Group now five miles behind the formation, still moored at the Gateway while they took on hydrogen and their final provisions. Yet even now the Charles de Gaulle and the QE2 were still just in view, trailing Hyperion as they steamed towards the sun, completing their own last preparations before making the jump to Mintaka.

As Stanton watched he realized he was witnessing history, that everything was hitting all at once. His two most capable fleets heading out into harm’s way.

Was this by design, or simply coincidence?  

Why had the Russians attacked the Japanese colony on Mintaka 4 right now? Why had the Chinese resumed their tattered alliance with Moscow? Obviously the Japanese had discovered something of extraordinary significance on the planet, and so the Russians had made their play to take the planet – yet why had the Chinese rejoined their uneasy alliance with Russia? And if the Chinese were willing to let bygones be bygones, then the discovery on Mintaka simply had to be of priceless value.

And the Weyland-Yutani Group was already there. Already in the game. How did the Company’s presence play into this metastasizing conflict?

But why had the Company gone after Covenant? In his heart he knew it had something to do with that organism?

But if so, what was the connection to Mintaka?

Stanton’s gut told him there was one. There had to be. And that connection had to be…

That’s why three commercial freighters still under construction had just been ‘acquired’ and were rapidly being repurposed into troop transports. Mintaka 4 was the prize, yet Stanton knew deep down that the key to the prize was going to be found on, or in the vicinity of, Alpha Geminorum Ca-4. So Denton Ripley had to find the key – and then somehow get it to his wife at Mintaka. In time to make a difference, too.

Then maybe those two could retire and raise their daughter. But until they came back it was his duty to take care of the girl.

Funny, he thought, how these things work out.

Chapter 2

Ripley watched live feeds from all over the ship, even monitoring the main reactor control panels from his seat on the bridge. A small contingent of Marines was exercising on the forward hangar deck, agronomists in hydroponics were tending their crops, he could even oversee the recycling plant turning todays excrement into tomorrow’s bioplast and yeast steaks – because it was all visible with the flip of a switch. He could literally zoom in on any shipboard activity he wanted to observe, and as this was technically a warship there were no privacy rights to contend with. Still, Ripley saw no point violating spaces where privacy was presumed. The ship’s AI would do that automatically; sifting through conversations for subversive content or plans to commit sabotage.

But right now he switched over and looked at factory technicians still hard at work calibrating the new X-ray Maser. Agamemnon was the first ship not just in the Navy but the first ship period to be so armed, and Agamemnon had been, technically speaking, built to house this one weapon. And the Maser had proven to be so devastating, and yet so reliable, that it had been boxed up and launched on a shuttle directly from the Haifa Spaceport – even as Agamemnon was hastily readied to accommodate the weapon. As a result of the Maser’s power requirements, the ship had five fusion reactors, not the four originally specified. The fifth reactor was needed to power the Maser, though power from all five reactors could be channeled to the weapon if the situation warranted. And now, ever since he’d boarded and his command status had been transferred to the new ship, all he’d done was study this Maser – and its daunting power requirements.

Because fighting this ship meant one thing, and one thing only: getting the Maser online and lining up the shot. And because there was, quite literally, no defense against this weapon, one shot was all it would take to neutralize any target. On paper, its beam would blow through Langston Fields like tissue paper, while ships without a Field would, theoretically, be vaporized within milliseconds. And in theory the Maser’s beam had almost unlimited range, but no one had dared test that yet.

But…why? Why had Agamemnon been equipped with this devilish thing?

To impress the Tall Whites, as they were now being called by the council? If so, this ship was a ‘Don’t fuck with us because we have this kind of technology’ statement. But again, why? Especially as the situation at Mintaka was now the most pressing need?

So, he concluded that Stanton thought the biggest threat was waiting at Alpha Geminorum Ca-4, by the Tall Whites and their university. 

And he found he reluctantly agreed with that reasoning. The Russians were two generations behind both our Navy and the Chinese PLA-Space Force, and while those ships had Chinese versions of both the Alderson Drive and Langston Field, they were first-gen affairs that wouldn’t fare well against our fleet, or even the modest contingent of Japanese ships at Mintaka. Either the QE2 or the de Gaulle would be able to handily deal with the Russians, hence Moscow’s hastily resurrected alliance with Beijing.

But thinking this through further, what had the Japanese found on Mintaka?

Something obviously valuable enough to set this conflict in motion. But what?

‘We have all the mineral’s we need now, and in-system. We have a practically unlimited supply of hydrogen on Europa, and we haven’t even begun to tap the vast supplies around Saturn. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve found minerals and hydrogen in vast quantities, so it can’t be that…’

So, why hadn’t Stanton briefed him in? He was an admiral now, after all.

But, he cautioned himself, he was just a one-star, a rear admiral, and so not steeped in the rarefied air of a fleet admiral. He didn’t brief the President or members of the council, and they sure as hell didn’t brief him. He was still a cog in their machine, a weapon to be used when needed, so whatever else he thought he might be, Denton Ripley knew he was most definitely expendable.

He switched feeds and looked at the ship’s Midshipmen, the Middies, in their acceleration couches, and they were all looking around excitedly, taking in their new surroundings as the ship settled into her new routine. He’d cut the audio as he had no need to listen; teenagers were teenagers when all was said and done, no matter where home was. Five new Middies, as well as Yukio Matsushima, the lone holdover from Hyperion. Yukio had deferred her entrance to Annapolis until Thomas Standing Bull entered; they were, she said, soulmates, and who the hell was he to argue about the course of true love?

Ripley had tasked Agamemnon’s Executive Officer, Commander Louise Brennan, with taking Yukio underwing this trip, to in-effect start Yukio’s trial by fire in the fine art of astronavigation, and perhaps even give the girl some stick time on their way to Mercury, before Agamemnon made her first official Alderson Jump. She was bright enough, or so Brennan had told him, so now was the time. The rest of the Middies would spend their days, when not in the classroom, rotating between engineering and damage control on the outbound trip, but the next two weeks would see them in the classroom working on stellar classification and introductory helioseismology, and perhaps even some interactive asteroseismology, studying the resonant modes and frequencies of the more typical stellar formations they’d encounter on this trip, and how these shock waves interacted with Alderson Points.

And as one of his official duties entailed hosting the Middies for a formal dinner once a week – part of the whole ‘officer and a gentleman’ thing that the Royal Navy had been doing since, well, before Nelson – that meant at least once a week, during one of the ship’s hour-long periods without acceleration, the Middies would slip into their dress overalls and congregate in the Admiral’s in-port cabin – for real food – with not one yeasty bioplast steak in sight.

Sensors soon started picking up Hyperion’s ion trail, so he asked Brennan to power up the 36-inch Schmidt Camera and sight along the vector. And sure enough, there they were: Hyperion and her escorts bound for Venus – but at a hideous rate of acceleration of 3.4Gs – enough force to fracture cervical vertebrae if someone was stupid enough to raise their curious head off its acceleration couch.

“X-O, what’s their range?”

“Eighty-thousand kilometers and steadily increasing, Admiral.”

“Any unauthorized traffic out there?”

“No, sir. No Field signatures and no EM.”

“What’s the sun look like?”

Brennan changed cameras, first to a Hydrogen-Alpha, then to a Calcium channel filter. “One active sun spot visible, two shockwaves currently in the chromosphere, and we’ll have a visible transit of Mercury in 97 minutes.”

His intercom screen flashed and he answered; it was one of the Israeli technicians and she looked angry. “Yes?” Ripley said to the scowling, red-faced woman.

“Captain, I was given to understand we would maintain a constant 1G acceleration! How do you expect us to work under these conditions?”

“First, my rank is not captain, and Ma’am, we’ll be under heavy acceleration until we are well beyond all the traffic in near-earth and lunar orbit. I suggest you take a sleep period now; when you get up we should be under 1G and well on our way to the first tanker rendezvous.”

“Very well,” the tech said – and then the screen went dark.

“Pleasant character, that one,” Ripley said under his breath.

“She has a reputation for confrontation, Admiral,” his Gordon said from beside his couch.

“Anything else I need to know about her?”

“Bright, well-educated, very opinionated and, from the communication intercepts I’ve noted, her colleagues couldn’t wait for her to get up here.”

“So I suppose they’d like her to stay?” Ripley said.

“That might be an understatement, Admiral.”

“Well, someone woke up on the sunny side of the morning. You seem happy today, Gordon. What’s the occasion?”

“The sunny side of the morning, Admiral?”

“It means you woke up feeling happy.”

“Ah. I was unaware of the reference, sir, but yes, I am happy.”

“Happy? Really?”

“Yes, Admiral. This is the purpose for which I was manufactured, so I am, in effect, fulfilling my purpose. That should make any sentient being happy, should it not?”

Ripley smiled. “That’s certainly a big part of the recipe, Gordon. I meant to ask earlier, but do we have any David’s onboard?”

“No, Admiral. There are two Walters in Medical, and five in engineering. There are two Gordons on the bridge, as well, sir. And Admiral, we have a new Jordan unit onboard.”

“A Jordan unit? Well, this is the first I’ve heard of him.”

“He is a she, Admiral, and she is the second in a new series. She has been assigned to Medical, and emergency genetic medicine is her specialty. She has complete files on Xenobiology, as well.”

Ripley sighed. “Well, see to it that she comes to dinner with the Middies, along with that Israeli she dragon.”

“Very well, Admiral. Tomorrow, as previously scheduled?”

“Unless something comes up, yes.” Ripley’s COMMs panel chimed, indicating an incoming high priority link from Stanton was waiting. He clicked the COMMs button under his right index finger, and he shrugged away the effort to move even one finger under this acceleration, and his main screen went from standby to active. Stanton was looking into a holographic 3-D star chart of the region around Orion’s Belt, and even on his small screen Ripley could see that something was amiss.

“Ah, there you are,” Stanton said, the delay between transmission and reception currently less than ten seconds. “We’re getting reports of unusual stellar activity within the Mintaka Group, possibly a stellar ignition. We’ve passed along a full sit-rep to Hyperion, but an incoming scout ship just relayed a more detailed data packet and you should pass that along to your astronomers. We have no reports concerning the Japanese response to this development, but the scout ship reports that both the Russian and Chinese assault groups are still maneuvering to close on the Mintaka Group, so our assumption is that they still intend some kind of intervention. Stanton out.”

The screen went dark and Ripley sent the packet to Brennan, but he marked it Eyes Only for now, at least until she could review the information and report her opinion. Mintaka was, like Castor or the Alpha Geminorum system, a system comprised of several densely packed stars, though when viewed from Earth in the 18th century Mintaka had appeared to be a single star. But Mintaka was also located within a region of dense interstellar ‘dust’ surrounding the Orion ‘belt’ asterism – and this dust was actually composed of hydrogen, helium, and the other stellar building blocks. Much of the area around Orion’s Belt was considered a ‘stellar nursery’ – a region where the ingredients necessary for spontaneous stellar formation existed in just the right quantities. So, what Stanton appeared to be concerned about was the possible formation of a new star within the existing Mintaka system – and how a sudden formation might impact the Sino-Russian fleet gathering to attack the Japanese colony on Mintaka-4.

“Brennan?” Ripley asked. “Did you receive the packet from admiralty?”

“Just coming in now.”

“COMMs, get me a text link with Hyperion actual.”

“Aye, sir.” It took a minute for the lasered signal to reach Hyperion, a few minutes to track down Judy, then two minutes to get an acknowledgement, and only then did Ripley send a query via this new, encrypted channel. 

“Let me know what you make of Stanton’s data as soon as you’ve looked it over,” Denton wrote, then he punched send. Five minutes later he received her acknowledgement and so he signed off and then literally closed his eyes, hoping to drift off to sleep.

Then he heard acceleration warnings and opened his eyes.

“All stations, all stations, ship’s drive will cut-off in thirty seconds and remain off for sixty minutes. Repeat, sixty minutes free movement begins in twenty seconds. Ten seconds. Ship’s drive off.”

Ripley unfastened his harness and drifted free of his acceleration couch, and he found handholds on the overhead and pulled himself along to the central fore-aft corridor – which everyone had taken to calling Main Street – and he pushed off and sailed aft to the stubby little hallway that led to his in-flight cabin. He stripped out of his overalls and pulled himself into the shower, pushed the ‘Wash’ button and closed his eyes as first a soap then a surfactant blasted his skin for 30 seconds, this followed by a 30 second rinse with recycled high pressure water vapor, and finally a minute under high pressure air to dry his skin, then it was out to put on his cotton-lycra skinsuit and fresh grip socks.

He looked at the central time display over his desk and noted 52 minutes until acceleration resumed.

His yeoman came in with hot tea and his usual scrambled eggs and bacon, all synthetics from the protoplast plant, then as he finished eating he noted he now had 40 minutes so off he went to the weapons bay. Ina Balin, the Israeli she dragon scientist, was literally inside a chamber within the main body of the Maser, inspecting the magnetic coils surrounding the matrix of lenses that would modulate and focus the X-ray beam, so he turned to one of her assistants.

“Progress report?” Ripley asked.

“Final calibrations underway now, Admiral. The unit should be ready for a test fire within a few hours.”

“I thought this thing had already been test-fired? What’s the hold up?”

“Each coil focuses independently, Captain,” Balin said as she crawled out of the chamber, “so the lens associated with each coil must be recalibrated after transport up from the desert. They were all out of alignment.”

“Crap,” Ripley muttered. “Just how robust will this thing be under actual combat conditions?”

Balin shrugged. “The unit was designed to absorb 10G shockwaves, so more than the human body can take. Once the lenses and mirrors are realigned…”

“I read the manual, Doctor. I need to know how stable the unit will be under combat conditions.”

“That’s unknown, Captain.”

Ripley shook his head, not sure why this woman was continuing to insult him. “Well, I hope you don’t mind leaving someone onboard who can handle recalibrating the unit under less than ideal circumstances, Ma’am.”

“Please refer to me by my title, Captain.”

“I will if you will.”

“What?”

Ripley pointed at the star on his collar. “Admiral, not Captain.”

“Ah, so sorry. Well, I am the only person capable of handling a complete recalibration of the chamber. With your staff observing for the next few weeks, they might be capable of assisting me. Under those conditions most of my staff could return to Haifa.”

“You do understand we are leaving the system?”

“No, we have not been briefed on your mission, Captain.”

“Well, you have about a week to wrap up your work, period. This weapon will be operational by the time we reach Mercury, or there will be hell to pay – Ma’am.” He spun around and pulled himself back up Main Street to the bridge, noting 11 minutes left on the countdown timer as he passed a clock in the officer’s mess. “Gordon!” he shouted as he came onto the bridge and sank into his couch.

“Yes, Admiral?”

“I need a hot chocolate. And make it strong, please.”

“Already loaded, Admiral.”

“Not in the dispenser. I need my mug.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Goddamn woman,” Ripley growled as he looked at a live feed from the weapon’s bay. “She’s deliberately provoking me!”

“She has that reputation, sir,” his Gordon said. “Her personality profile suggests a profound insecurity emanating from childhood anxieties. She should be handled with extreme care, Admiral.”

“Send me her file, would you please? And I need the tech specs on that focusing chamber.”

“Working, Admiral.”

“And while you’re at it, get someone you trust down there to start learning the calibration sequence. I don’t trust that woman.”

“Someone I trust, Admiral?”

“Yes, Gordon. Am I wrong in assuming you have the best interests of this ship and her crew in mind at all times?”

“No, Admiral. That is a correct assessment.”

“Well then, what I’m saying is that I trust you to make the best decision possible under these circumstances. You’ve been aboard since this ship’s keel was laid, so you should know the crew better than anyone else onboard. Correct?”

“Yes, Admiral, but I did not expect this level of trust,” Gordon said as he handed Ripley his mug of cocoa.

“If I can’t trust you, Gordon, you don’t belong on my ship. Understood?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Now, who do you recommend?”

“Myself, Admiral.”

Ripley hesitated, but he relented and nodded in agreement. “Make it so, Gordon.”

“Aye, sir. And I’ll send someone to assist you when I am away from my post, Admiral.”

“Thank you.”

The acceleration alarm sounded: “All personnel, repeat all personnel, 120 seconds to acceleration. Repeat, all personnel to acceleration stations in 110 seconds. All personnel to acceleration stations…”

Ripley heard scrambling all over the ship as everyone from the lowest ratings to the ship’s officers dove for their acceleration couches and secured their harnesses – but Ripley saw that Balin was ignoring the alarm, that her weightless body was still hovering over the Maser’s main mirror chamber.

“Secure the weapon’s bay,” the X-O said over the intercom, then Brennan looked at Ripley, shrugging ambivalently. “What do I do now, Admiral?”

“Bring us up to 1G and hold us there for a minute, then resume 2.4. My Gordon will get her.”

Brennan brought the reactors online and the drive flared – and Balin sailed from the open chamber to the aft bulkhead, slamming into the foam padding there – and Ripley cut the audio feed just in time. His Gordon entered the picture and helped the screaming woman to her couch and managed to get her buckled-in, then he returned to the bridge and sat next to Ripley. When Brennan saw that Gordon was secure she brought the drives up to forty percent of their fully rated power and watched the reactors stabilize at their new setting, and Ripley watched Balin cursing and shooting the finger at the camera – before he cut the feed in disgust.

“Remarkable woman,” Gordon said, perhaps a little too ironically.

“Stupid, for someone rumored to be so bright,” Ripley replied.

“Are you sure you want her to join the Middies for dinner?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

Chapter 3

Yukio Matsushima took the seat to Ripley’s right, while Ina Balin slouched across from her, and Ripley was a little upset by this arrangement. After one more run-in with Balin he was beginning to detest the woman, so he’d hoped that Gordon would keep her beyond arm’s reach – in case he decided to reach out and throttle the woman over dinner. That, alas, would not be the case. Not tonight. Brennan was seated at the far end of the table, while the remaining five Middies were crowded around the in-port cabin’s massive transparent glass wall – looking at a pinpoint sized Earth and Moon receding behind Agamemnon and her support ships, the frigate Stavridis and the heavy cruiser Constellation.

Yeoman Joan Carson had come with him from Hyperion and she rang the ship’s bell at 1805 hours and called the room to order, and Ripley walked into the cabin and sat. Maintaining .7Gs allowed for a normal meal service, but it also allowed for deferred shipboard maintenance routines to get underway, as well as the all important showering routine for those coming off watch, like Ripley.

Carson had a spicy Phanaeng curry ready to go as soon as Ripley took the seat opposite Brennan’s, while the Middies literally dove for their seats and promptly sat at attention. This, apparently, amused Balin to no end; she sat up in her chair and laughed openly at the Middies as they sat. “Oh, you children!” she said, her Eastern European accent still pronounced, “you sit so solemnly! We are no longer under acceleration so surely it is a time for smiles, no?”

Yukio smiled. “Yes, just so,” she said to Balin, as always wanting to keep everything calm and harmonious. “It must be difficult working on such a delicate instrument under these conditions?”

“Actually, I find such work easier in zero-G. I can get into and out of the chamber more easily, and I can work more efficiently in the confined space above the reactor shielding. It is under normal acceleration that my work becomes tedious.”

Yukio smiled and bowed her head slightly, and Ripley studied the crusty old physicist closely as she spoke. What was she doing up here, he wondered. She had to be at least forty years old, ancient in relative terms to the age of the crew onboard Agamemnon, and after reading her dossier she did not possess a single skill that others on her team did not. The obvious answer had to be that she was Mossad – but why would they want her onboard just now, at this time? Obviously to learn more details of the mission before Agamemnon left the system… 

Well, perhaps he could learn more from her this evening.

He turned to Lars Jansen, the new Midshipman from Stockholm. “So, what have you been learning so far, Lars?”

“Doppler velocity measurements in phase-sensitive solar-holography, Admiral.”

“And have you made any observations yet?”

“Yes, Admiral. There are two active sunspot regions on the far side, and one appears to be quite large.”

Ripley nodded – as he’d already seen the forecasts. “Any possible displacement of our Alderson Point?”

Jansen cleared his throat – then he looked down as if suddenly unsure of himself. Which was exactly what Jansen’s last instructor had mentioned in her final evaluation of the young physicist.

“Go ahead, Lars. Remember, there are no stupid questions out here,” Ripley coaxed. “In fact, I’ve found the most dangerous things happen as a result of unasked questions.”

“I too have seen the forecast model,” Lars blurted, “but I disagree with it.”

“Oh? Why is that?” 

“Sir, subsurface flows of the measured direct inversion as well as the frequency-wavenumber correlations do not conform to predictions using Fourier domain waveforms. This could occur only under two possible conditions, Admiral. Either the Fourier domain hypothesis is more generally incorrect or there is a super-massive sunspot forming on the far side. As Fourier domain analysis has been used to accurately measure these waveforms and formations for more than a century, this seems unlikely.”

“So, you think a large sunspot is forming?”

“No, Admiral. I believe a super massive sunspot is forming. Far-side satellite monitoring went offline two sol days ago, Admiral, so we are currently not receiving monitoring data from the far side.”

Ripley looked at Brennan. She nodded.

“So, Mr. Jansen, have you made any computations about possible Alderson Point displacements?”

“Not yet, Admiral.”

“Get with Commander Brennan after dinner and we’ll discuss your temporary reassignment to the bridge.”

“Yessir. Thank you, Admiral.”

“Yeoman!” Ripley crowed. “You’ve outdone yourself once again. I am positively sweating in agony!”

“Thank you, sir,” Joan Carson sighed, basking in the glow of his complement. She knew he loved his curry hot, the hotter the better.

“A curry that doesn’t make flames shoot out the ears is a waste of time,” Ripley added, winking at Yukio. “Isn’t that right, Commander Brennan?”

Brennan, now red-faced and about to gag, heartily agreed.

+++++

Ripley looked over Jansen’s figures and could find no obvious fault, but more importantly, neither could Brennan.

“So, this sunspot will take out satellites in Earth orbit?”

“Satellites generally, yes, but even in LEO,” Jansen added, indicating satellites in a Low Earth Orbit. “Personnel in orbiting stations and on the lunar surface will need to relocate to hardened shelters, and critical electronics protected.”

“How long until this spot rotates into position?”

“Well, here’s the problem,” a pedantic Jansen began grumpily. “A normal CME would need to be aimed directly at Earth to produce this kind of impact, but this sunspot is so large it could be as much as plus or minus fifteen degrees off axis to produce systemic interference. But if a super-large event of this scale is aimed directly at Earth it’s possible surface telecoms will be adversely effected…”

“Mister Jansen, I asked about timeframes?”

“Yessir. Sorry. The sunspot will first rotate into view in one hundred eleven hours, plus or minus twenty one minutes.” 

“Louise, any simulations on how this might impact our Alderson Point?”

“Not with any reliability, Admiral. In fact, our safest course of action would be to enter a braking orbit now and shelter behind Venus…”

“We don’t have that kind of fuel, and even if we did our deceleration would be monstrous.”

“We have the fuel, Admiral, if we use atmospheric braking,” Brennan added.

“You want to take a brand new hull through that atmosphere?”

“There’s another option, Admiral,” Yukio sighed quietly.

“And that is…?”

“We accelerate to 3.8 G and slingshot around the sun, stay ahead of the sunspot. And we will be in a better position to recalculate an Alderson Shift from an up-pole orbit…”

Ripley looked at Brennan who grinned slightly. So, Yukio had come up with the idea and Brennan was allowing the Middie to take credit where credit was due, and he nodded his understanding and smiled. “Okay Louise, get word to Hyperion and her escorts. Their tankers will have to shelter behind Venus – hell, ours will too – so we’ll refuel when we come back around. Yukio, start on the calculations for all the tankers; Lars, would you get your figures off to Admiral Stanton? Commander Brennan, when you get off COMMs would you lay out our course and let’s plan on acceleration one hour after you finish-up.”

Ripley then pulled up his COMMs screen and called Judy on Hyperion.

“We’ll shoot the numbers to you in a minute, but we have the mother of all sunspots about to come around. We’ll need to shelter behind the sun, and we’ll be going up-pole, orbit north to south for our run. My guess is you’re already too close for that. We should make up some time, catch up to Hyperion as she comes around the west limb, so we can start an Alderson Point survey as we clear, see how many Points have been impacted by this thing.”

“Ellen’s still on the station, Denton? Shouldn’t she go down?”

“She’s never experienced that kind of gravity, Judy. I’m not sure she could survive for long down there…not at her age.”

“Do you think the station is the safest place?”

“The safest place would out in the belt, but there’s not enough time for that now,” he sighed.

“Armstrong Base, or what about Lovell, down at the South pole.”

“Lovell would work. That has the deepest living quarters. And the fusion plant there is the most heavily shielded.”

“Call Gordon,” Judy said, but he could see the concern in her eyes, “and see if he can get her down there.”

“No one knows about this yet, so he shouldn’t have any problem.”

He closed the encrypted channel and sent a triple-walled text to Gordon, then turned back to the developing chaos on Agamemnon’s bridge – just as the first acceleration warning came out over the ship-wide intercom: “Attention all personnel, heavy acceleration warning, repeat heavy acceleration warning…”

And then he heard a collective groan throughout his ship. One hundred hours at 3.8Gs was near the limits of human endurance, and even bodily functions had to be handled by catheters and cholestramine, which produced a chemically induced state of total constipation for days on end. Until their next period of zero-G, in fact, every human on board would consume a low-fiber liquid protein diet – which Ripley detested.

And then, right on schedule, Ina Balin called – and her ass was chapped…

+++++

They were at the mid-point now, halfway between the Sun’s North and South poles, and just before Agamemnon began slingshotting around the South Pole, Brennan executed a mid-course correction. At two million miles from the solar chromosphere, Agamemnon’s Langston Field was handling the intense radiation with ease, but even so Ripley couldn’t wait to make orbit around Mercury. They’d already burned through half their hydrogen and would arrive at Mercury with their tanks almost dry, and he didn’t like being so vulnerable – especially for so long.

All the more so as there were now vast solar quakes disrupting the Sun’s chromosphere. Coronal loops were arcing ahead and astern, and it was just a matter of percentages before one came up and hit them. Depending on the loop’s intensity, the Field would consume a tremendous amount of energy just to stabilize the ship, but as Agamemnon would be the first ship to actually transit a coronal loop there would be vital measurements to be made. And not only that. Brennan was already hard at work on her Alderson Point displacement observations, and this data would need to be transmitted to both Hyperion and Gateway Station as soon as they emerged from behind the sun.

Then Agamemnon would make for her refueling tanker in a tight orbit around Mercury, but by now Judy and Hyperion would be making their final preparations to make the jump to Mintaka – and right into a possible naval engagement with the Sino-Russian fleet. 

Yet even now he wondered what kind of damage they would find once they emerged from behind the sun? Had Gordon and Stanton sent Ellen to Lovell Base in time, or had she remained on the station? What kind of damage had Earth sustained? The Moon? Only Musk City on Mars would have been beyond reach of this storm, vindicating once again the visionary’s proactive sense of a human destiny beyond Earth.

“Admiral,” Brennan said from her couch, “we’re finding negligible Field displacements, and we are in contact with Hyperion right now.”

“What? Are our orbits crossing?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Send them our data,” he said as he established a secure link with Judy. “How’re you doing over there?”

“No issues. You?”

“We’re sending Brennan’s Field displacements now. Have you been able to make any?”

“Yes. Sending now, but we’re picking up indications that this sunspot was not, repeat not generated internally.”

“What?”

“We’re trying to determine what could have done this, but it at least appears possible that this event was externally generated.”

“Judy, you’re talking about a weapon, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “The most plausible scenario would be a ship jumping into solar orbit and deploying this weapon, then jumping out of the system before anyone was the wiser.”

“If they jumped to a point on the far side we’d never know, would we?”

“That’s the point,” Judy sighed. “This has The Company written all over it. Only thing I don’t like is why do it now.”

“Because they know we’re out here. That has to be it.”

“So they’re trying to delay our jump to Mintaka.”

Ripley nodded. “That means they’ll be attacking soon. Maybe too soon.”

“Concur,” she added. “We’re going to 4.2Gs now.”

“Ouch. Need anything before the jump?”

She shook her head, but he could see she was nervous.

“Well, I love you, Kiddo.”

“I love you too, Denton. Seeya.”

He nodded then rang off and then he called Lars on the intercom. “What kind of weapon could have generated this sunspot, Mr Jansen?”

“A weapon, Admiral?”

“Hyperion is collecting evidence that indicates a weapon generated this sunspot. Get on it. I’ll see to it you get their data.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ripley switched to the bridge command net: “Commander Brennan, increase to 4.2 as soon as possible.”

Acceleration warnings sounded throughout the ship, and this time Ripley groaned too.

Chapter 4

“Admiral,” Lars Jansen said from his acceleration couch, “theory is of limited use in this particular circumstance. Theoretically, antimatter could produce such an anomalous sunspot, but at the possible risk of annihilating the sun – and everything in the solar system. Similarly, a gamma ray burst could displace enough of the chromosphere to generate such a massive sunspot, but the energy required to produce such a burst is beyond our capacity, let alone our current understanding…”

“So,” Ripley sighed, “if I read you correctly there’s no one capable of pulling this off.”

“Within the bounds of currently available technology, that is correct, sir.”

Even on the small screen, Ripley could tell that Jansen was uncomfortable with his position. “Lars, you sound like you’re hedging a bet. What are you not telling me?”

“Admiral, speaking off the record, I think you should perhaps speak to Dr Balin.”

“Balin!” Ripley cringed. “Why on earth…?”

Jansen shrugged. “Plasma physics is not my main interest, Admiral. You should ask Dr Balin what she thinks is possible.”

Ripley looked at the boy – only just fifteen years old and already well on his way to his second doctorate – and he decided to listen to him. This time, anyway. Kids as brilliant as Jansen often came up with oddball solutions, but yes, they often did so just in time to prevent really bad outcomes. So he nodded at Jansen and told him to keep at it, then he switched over to the weapons bay.

“WEPS here, Admiral.”

“Switch me over to Balin.”

“Aye, sir.”

The screen flickered once and then he was looking at the hell-bitch. “Sorry to bother you…”

“But you’d like my opinion concerning the formation of the sunspot?”

Ripley rolled his eyes. Heads would roll, but he just smiled and nodded. “Yes, any thoughts?”

“Yes, I have a solution to the problem, Admiral, but you won’t like it.”

“Fire away, Doctor.”

“A ship, more than likely a drone ship or some other unmanned craft, would need to pick an Alderson Point deep within the sun. When the ship arrived it would need to fire a very powerful X-ray Maser into the sun’s core. The resulting helioseismic oscillations could, I repeat, could produce a sunspot of the magnitude we’ve observed. Of course, this presupposes someone else has this technology, as well as the means to generate a Langston Field sufficiently strong enough to last long enough to allow the weapon to come online and fire.”

“And who might have such technology, Colonel?”

“Colonel? What do you mean by…”

“That was the rank you held in the IDF, was it not? Before Mossad recruited you, that is?”

Balin seemed to deflate just a little, but she was bright enough to realize it was pointless to maintain the ruse any longer. With that in mind, she simply addressed his question. “The Company was working on a ruby-thorium Maser some years ago, and the logical progression from this would be the development of an X-ray device. Whether or not they possess field technology sufficiently advanced enough to allow deep penetration of the solar radiative zones is beyond me.”

“But if they did? And assuming they had an X-ray Maser? Then what else would they need?”

“If I were to guess? Perhaps ten terra-watts of power would be sufficient to disrupt the core.”

“Disrupt the core…” Ripley muttered, thinking aloud. “Tell me, Doctor. Would such a disruption produce a single sunspot, or would…”

“Oh, yes, I see where you are going. I will need to run another simulation.”

“Get on it.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Ripley switched COMMs to the bridge, then to Brennan’s couch. “Were you monitoring my conversation with Balin?”

“I have the transcript now, sir.”

“I’m thinking of an impact deep within the sun, and continuing reverberations. Get with Yukio and set up a simulation, and let’s see what she comes up with. And how long ‘til we can transmit to Gateway?”

“Forty minutes.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

He switched over to ship-to-ship and tried calling Hyperion, but there was no response now so he pulled his fluid dispenser to his mouth and sipped some iced cocoa. So many things to worry about, so many permutations of existing problems. What he needed now was a clear tactical overview and how the NSF would respond. “Gordon?”

“Here, sir.”

“Try to get in touch with your brother, see if and where Ellen has been moved to, then get me a link with Stanton as soon as we get in range.” 

“My brother, sir?”

“Look, I don’t know how else to think of you guys, okay? You cloned his memory, you are in essence a duplicate of the Gordon who accompanied me on Hyperion, correct?”

“Yessir?”

“So, I can’t call you Gordon and him Gordon, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start referring to you by number, so you need to help me out here, okay?”

“I understand your confusion, Admiral, but you must remember that when we are within range our memory modules are linked, so speaking to one of us is the same as speaking to all of us…”

“Sorry, Gordon, but I can’t wrap my head around that one just yet…”

“Then just refer to Ellen, sir. I’ll take it from there.”

Ripley tried to shake his head but then thought better of it, so he took a deep breath instead. “Okay. Find out where my daughter is, please.”

“Yes, Admiral. I have transportation records indicating she was en route to Lovell Base with Admiral Stanton and…my brother.” He paused for a moment, then continued: “They are secure, Admiral, and I am now in contact with my brother through the SOHO III link, which means links to Gateway Alpha should be coming online soon.”

“Send a SitRep to Stanton, and include all current suppositions from Balin and Jansen.”

“Done, Admiral. Gateway will receive the transmission in 57 minutes.”

Ripley nodded and turned to his screens. “Brennan? You got a course laid-in for the tankers?”

The strain of Agamemnon’s heavy acceleration was telling as he watched Brennan on his screen, but she was holding up. “They should arrive at the rendezvous in twenty hours, Admiral.”

“They…should? Why the uncertainty?”

“Unusual solar winds, Admiral, and unknown gravimetric distortions are affecting all fusion reactors. Power output is down almost four percent across the board.” 

“Steady or increasing?”

“Steady…so far.”

“Is the Jump point stable?”

“Unknown.”

“What?”

“Measurements within the chromosphere are not currently possible.”

“So, if I’m reading you correctly then all Jump points are theoretically unusable at this point?”

“Yessir.”

“Then whoever fired this weapon could still be in-system, right?”

“Possibly. If they knew such displacement were likely, it’s also possible they could predict shifts within the chromosphere and predict where each new Jump point might reappear. In either case, Admiral, as we can’t scan for ships in tight solar orbits we may never know.”

Ripley nodded. “Well, see if you can nail down a launch timeframe or even a possible location where they fired that weapon from. They had to be on the far side, right? Maybe we can infer a relative position and pass that along to Fleet. Meantime, try to pin-down our Jump point. Highest priority to that.”

His screen went dark and he rotated his G-couch into a deep recline, then administered a sedative and closed his eyes.

And it seemed like only a few minutes later when he felt stimulants coursing through his veins, the sudden electric flood bringing him back to wakefulness. He tentatively opened an eye but saw Ina Balin on screen – and he sighed before he shut his eyes again.

“Ripley? You up yet?” he heard her screech.

“Go away,” he moaned, then he realized the ship wasn’t under acceleration and his eyes popped open. “What’s up, Doc?”

“Have you considered our Jump points are being shut down by an outside group?”

“What?”

“Oh come on, Ripley. Think about it! Some group wants to bottle us up in Sol system so they crash all the jump points in the Sun – at the same time. So now we’re stuck here, in system, with no way out unless we’re willing to make generations long sub-light speed journeys.”

“Well, two questions come to mind. First is who? Next is why?”

“Well, the who and the why is anyone who doesn’t want to compete with us. They bottle us up and that’s the end of the problem, right? I mean, look at us, will you? Within a few years of the Japanese jumping to Mintaka we’re already on the cusp of another all out war. Again. It seems like everywhere we go we say we’re trying to expand human civilization out into the stars, yet everywhere we go we set about trying to exterminate one another. If you were an outside group, would you want us moving into your neighborhood?”

“Okay, so we’ve determined you’re a cynic. Bravo! Now, have you found out anything useful about that weapon?”

His screen went dark just as she sent him the middle finger and he sighed. 

“Gordon?”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“How long was I out?”

“Almost six hours, sir.”

“Anything from Stanton, or Fleet?”

“Ellen is still with Admiral Stanton. And Fleet concurs. We are to try and map as many altered Jump points as possible, then relay the information to Gateway before we depart. Commander Brennan is under sleep protocols, Admiral, but we’ve already located four altered Jump points. No, make that six.”

“When will we tank?”

“Thirteen hours, twelve minutes.”

“Hyperion’s status?”

“They have Jumped to Mintaka.”

He shook his head, remembering one of their last conversations.

She’d been angry, and resented Stanton for sending her on this mission, but she was growing really concerned about her tactical situation. “I don’t like going in blind like this, Denny. We haven’t had any new intel in days, not even an estimate of current Russian fleet dispersements, let alone any new info on Chinese ships. Hell, either could have a fleet assembled at the Jump point, just waiting for us to come out.”

“That’s exactly what a freshman at the Academy would do, Judy. I doubt they’ll make it that easy for you.”

She looked at him with her eyes full of dread, then she had slowly nodded. “Maybe we should trade places, ya know? Military strategy was always your thing, not mine.”

“Read Admiral Tōgō’s summary of the Battle of the Tsushima Strait.”

“Denton, I don’t have time for…”

“Make time, Judy. Delegate and don’t micromanage your people, and don’t take your eyes off the big picture. Remember: the element of surprise works both ways, especially in a fast-moving three-dimensional tactical engagement, and – always deploy your forces to come from unexpected vectors. Read the entire article now, and call me with any questions before you reach your Alderson Point.”

“Denton, I…”

“That’s an order, Captain,” he snarled, and though he hated to pull rank she was having a crisis of confidence, and this was not a good time for such malarkey.

“Yes, Admiral,” she said, flipping off her screen.

And now she had made the jump. She was facing the enemy – right now – and here he sat…

“Gordon? Is Lars awake now?”

“Yes, he and Yukio are running another simulation, Admiral. Dr. Balin thinks they are close to a solution.”

“Why are we in zero-G?”

“Coasting to bleed off excess velocity as we approach the tankers, Admiral. The solar wind is much stronger than anticipated, and we are taking advantage of that while we can.”

“What’s happening with that sunspot?”

“Decreasing in size rapidly now, and it is approaching the apparent limb now. And Admiral, we have located our corrected Jump point.”

“How long has Brennan been out?”

“Not quite five hours.”

“Wake her when she’s had six hours and get her up to speed.” Ripley got out of his G-couch and stood, then he stretched to ease the burn in his lower back. “Damn, I hope they’ve got real food in the galley,” he muttered as he made his way to Main Street, but he stopped himself and sighed. No, he’d have to go and mend fences with Balin; she was likely to madder than a wet hen right now and he’d have to get her settled down before he did anything else. He turned and walked down to the weapons bay and found her back in the inner chamber, cussing up a storm as she worked a multimeter into a balky connection.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

“What are you doing down here?” Balin growled, her anger still at a low simmer.

“Checking on the condition of my ship. What are you doing in there?”

“Shielding around the input conduit is not holding up under load, and I can’t understand why. It worked perfectly on Earth.”

“What’s different here?”

“Nothing that I am aware of, Captain.”

Ripley sighed. “Did I not hear someone mention gravimetric distortions? Could that affect the conduit?”

“Of course! How obvious! We would need to isolate…” she said as she disappeared back inside the beast once again, but Ripley looked at her and shook it off, then made his way up to the main crew mess and found something made with TVP, or textured vegetable protein, that resembled something vaguely similar to meatloaf – and it even smelled kind of like the real thing, too – so he picked up a tray and went through the line, then sat next to a couple of enlisted ratings who seemed blissfully unaware that they were sitting next to their admiral. He listened to their smalltalk – the usual stuff about loose women and fast bicycles, of course – while he ate, then he ambled off to his in-port cabin and took a shower. His yeoman had laid out a fresh uniform and she had hot cocoa waiting on his desk when he finished getting dressed.

Then a recorded call from Judy came in and he watched the screen come up, so he entered his authentication code and waited for the link.

“Okay, I read it,” she began, “but I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at. Are you saying we need a diversion. That we need to divide their forces. And then, when the main axis of their attack becomes apparent, the key is to hit them with long range weaponry. Don’t let them close on you; pick them off at a distance, then have what’s left of your diversionary force come in from their rear so you can divide their fire.”

She’d been taking notes as she recorded her message to him, scribbling furiously as new ideas came to her, and that bothered him. If she really was so tactically challenged she wasn’t the right person for this mission – but worse still, why had Stanton thought that she was?

She had just started to speak again when the connection went dead and his screen turned dark – which could only mean one thing: Stanton had someone onboard. And that someone, probably a Walter unit, had been tasked with monitoring communications between Judy and himself. Well, he’d suspected as much – and now he knew.

But…why?

Chapter 5

Using Agamemnon’s large Schmidt camera, Ripley watched Stavridis’ Langston Field slowly cool as the frigate exited the Sun’s outermost layer, the photosphere, and then in the next instant he saw a larger black blob exiting the photosphere, and that had to be Constellation. He’d set another countdown timer – this one tracking Hyperion’s time in the Mintaka system – and he was glad he’d sent along a reading list to keep her busy, telling her to read up on Nimitz and Halsey even the key points of the ancient Battle of the Salamis Straits, though now about all he could hope for was that the additional historical perspective would help steel her nerves – but in the end he wouldn’t be there to see the results and he felt bereft. Now, watching the timer, he realized that after more than two years together she was now well beyond his reach – and he felt more than terrible without her.

He tried to shake off the bad feelings he’d had the last few days, that the Hyperion Battle Group was being set up and moving into a trap. But why? Why would Fleet, and Admiral Stanton, sacrifice so many ships and crew in a deliberate strategic blunder? He remembered reading accounts of Pearl Harbor that implied Roosevelt knew the attack was coming before the Seventh of December, 1941, but that he let it happen anyway – because Roosevelt knew such a devastating insult to the national psyche was the only thing that would break an evenly divided Congress and allow for the rapid industrial mobilization the United States would need to confront the Axis powers. Was something similar in the works now? Was Stanton willing to sacrifice a medium-sized strike group to convince a divided council to support a more substantial war effort around a distant star?

Personally, he doubted such treachery was possible. Stanton wasn’t an evil man – and he knew that from personal experience.

So…why was he still having these feelings?

“Admiral?” Commander Brennan said over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Balin and her team are not finished calibrating the Maser, and won’t be for a few more hours. We can continue to orbit Mercury, but we’ll delay our jump by 30 hours.”

“Have the tankers finished the transfer?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Very well. Send my compliments to the skipper of the Valdez and thank him for the assist. Advise Gateway that Balin and her team are still working on the weapon and that her entire team will be transiting to Castor with us. When our refueling apparatus is stowed, sound the acceleration warning and let’s get the Field up; I want to make our Jump as soon as possible, and I want Stavridis right behind us.”

“And the Constellation?”

Ripley paused and looked at the tactical display. The Enterprise Battle Group wouldn’t finish tanking for another few hours, and he didn’t want to arrive at Castor completely defenseless, but that too had been Stanton’s choice. Stanton assumed the Tall Whites would know the exact moment Agamemnon emerged from Alpha Geminorum Ca, and that they’d be looking for signs of both capability and intentions, but if Agamemnon came in naked such weakness might be an even more provocative sign of intent…

“Constellation and the Enterprise Group are to Jump as soon as their refueling operations are wrapped up, and disperse them in line formation as soon as they’re clear of the Jump. Better have ‘em come through at five minute intervals.”

“Understood. Sending the orders now.”

His screen brightened and when Balin’s aggrieved expression appeared that said it all. “Captain!” she screeched. “Am I to understand that we are being Shanghaied?”

“That’s a fact, Ms Balin,” he said with a bright smile, and then he killed his display. “Gordon, was that mean of me?”

“I’m not quite sure how to answer that, Admiral. If you’d like, I could take care of her calls in the future.”

Ripley smiled at the thought. “I guess that’s a possibility,” he sighed, knowing it wasn’t.

The shrill, hooting Master Alarm sounded throughout the ship, and then all shipboard lighting went to low-power-red. Brennan armed the reactors and began spinning up the thruster-packs – and only then did the real countdown timer begin.

“Acceleration stations in 120 seconds,” a computer-generated female voice said. “Heavy acceleration in 115 seconds. Standby for heavy acceleration…”

Ripley sighed as he reclined his G-couch and locked his harness, then he set his screens ‘just so’ again, as he settled into the squishy gel – and he was pretty certain he could hear Balin’s hysterical screeching all the way from the weapons bay – and that made him very happy indeed.

And Gordon grinned too.

+++++

As Agamemnon entered the Sun’s photosphere, Ripley checked the ship’s Langston Field monitors, noting only minor temperature fluctuations and a very slight inflation. All probes and sensors had been retracted inside the Field, so in effect Brennan was flying the ship blind now, relying on the central inertial navigation system to maintain their heading to Alpha Geminorum Ca’s Alderson Point.

“Time to jump?” he asked Gordon.

“Four minutes thirty seconds, Admiral.”

“You need two minutes to power-down, don’t you?”

“Yes Admiral. I have already begun to power down unnecessary sub-routines.” It remained one of the last unsolved problems of space travel utilizing Alderson Jump Points, but computers and synthetics like Gordon simply did not come out of a Jump in stable working condition. Computers were incapable of performing even the simplest subroutines for several minutes after a Jump, and synthetics making Jumps before the effect was well understood came out in what could only be described as a psychotic state, and throughout the ship computers were being put into standby mode, while every synthetic onboard would power down completely at two minutes prior to the scheduled Jump.

Which meant that Brennan and her bridge crew would handle the ship during the Jump – without computer assistance. The Navy had Jumped to Alpha Geminorum Ca only once before, and this had been performed by an unmanned scout ship to verify that the Alderson Point did in fact lead to Castor’s third component star, or Ca. The probe had popped out of the star and performed one orbit, scanning for any unusual signals before it returned to Sol.

But this meant that Agamemnon would be the first ship to explore the Ca system in detail.

Because the fourth planet in the Ca system supposedly had a university up and running – operated by the so-called Tall Whites – and Thomas Standing Bull, one of the midshipman on Hyperion’s last mission, was – again, supposedly – going to meet them at this university.

So in truth, this wasn’t a simple mission of exploration at all; it was also a “second contact” mission, and as such the Navy had expected that all kinds of diplomatic personnel would be included in the ship’s company – yet almost the exact opposite had transpired. The State Department had tasked just one person, and she was a junior staffer at that, to accompany Ripley and his ground team when the ship arrived at Alpha Geminorum Ca+4, and they’d not spoken once yet

“Powering down in ten seconds, Admiral,” Gordon said lightly.

 “See you on the other side,” Denton said carefully, then he switched his COMMs circuit over to monitor both the bridge and CIC, or the Combat Information Center. “CIC, bridge here,” he said over the link, “get the Field down and our probes out after we emerge and clear the threshold. I want to know who else is in-system and watching us as soon as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Ainsley replied. “At 4 Gs we should reach probe threshold approximately twenty minutes after the Jump.” Which meant that any probes or antennas deployed before reaching the threshold would simply be burned away as they raised through the ship’s protective Langston Field and into Ca’s photosphere. Conversely, radiation from Alpha Geminorum Ca would theoretically mask their appearance for several Sol standard hours, providing a window of opportunity for Agamemnon and Stavridis to snoop around the new system without detection – assuming, of course, that the Tall Whites were deploying a similar scanning technology to their own.

 Then one by one his screens went dark as the ship’s computers began logging out and shutting down, and soon all they had to go on was an ancient clock mounted directly over the main bridge screen. Now he watched the second hand circle the face, once again dreading the moment when the ship Jumped…

Then the red bridge lighting flickered for a moment.

Followed by the crushing headache and extreme nausea that followed a successful Jump, just before the first terrifying moments of spatial disorientation hit.

Then…red lights changed to white, but he could hear someone trying to vomit at high Gs, then the gargling sounds of that person not being able to breathe as their airway was inundated with bile and stomach acid. Then: Brennan calling out: “Medical, to the bridge, Code 1!”

But there was next to nothing that could be done at this point in their egress. At 4+ Gs no one could move enough to get a suction probe inserted into a patient’s airway, and no synthetics had come out of Safe Mode yet. And if Brennan cut acceleration to allow medical personnel to get to the bridge, the ship’s Field would soon be overwhelmed by intense solar radiation. Right now, the Field was dealing with all the energy absorbed during Solar ingress as well as their current egress from Alpha Geminorum Ca, and now that countdown timer was literally winding down to zero. Within a half hour – more like 27 minutes – the Field would be overwhelmed and then suddenly fail, ending the mission, and all their lives, in a single blinding flash.

The gargling noises stopped long before a med-tech could make it to the bridge on one of their G-carts, and by then it was of course too late. Ripley shook his head, though he decided not to bother Brennan right now. She had her hands full and didn’t need any interruptions.

Two minutes later Gordon opened his eyes and looked around.

“Are we still inside Castor?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ripley said, “but it looks like we were in the chromosphere a lot deeper than expected. We should exit the photosphere in 17 minutes, and I think maybe we’ll be at probe threshold in 15 minutes.”

“We will be close to Field’s limits, will we not, Admiral?”

“Yup. We’ll be cutting it pretty close.”

“There is a med tech working on one of the midshipmen, Admiral.”

“Can you see who was injured?”

“No, sir, but Lars Jansen’s biometrics are no longer registering on MedCom central.”

“Goddamnit to Hell,” Ripley growled under his breath.

“Admiral? If his death happened less than ten minutes ago, perhaps we could attempt a download.”

Ripley didn’t know if the boy’s parents had filed any religious exceptions concerning the process, but he looked at the clock again and realized that time was suddenly of the essence again. This was, he realized, a Command decision so he looked at Gordon on his screen. “Go ahead. Do it.”

Gordon commanded thin metal probes embedded with Jansen’s G-couch into position, then he hit the ‘Execute’ button – and soon every thought, every memory, and every feeling that Lars Jansen had ever experienced began downloading into a new Mem\\comm\\central registry. The entire process was a race against time now, as once brain death occurred it was literally just a matter of minutes before all that information was either lost or scrambled into uselessness.

Ripley had always thought the entire process was pointless, until he’d seen AI regenerations running Elon Musk’s re-creation, and then he’d become a true believer. How long, Musk had wondered in that presentation, before we could integrate these regenerations into synthetic humans – into simulations like Gordon? There were, of course, rumors that Musk was alive and well in the Hall of Mirrors, in Musk City on Mars, but so far all those rumors remained unsubstantiated, but if they were true then hadn’t Musk achieved practical immortality?

Ripley watched the second hand racing around the clock face, wondering what the outcome would be this time.

“Process complete, Admiral,” Gordon said. “An updated registry is now being created, and should be operational within six hours.”

“Operational?”

“Yes, Admiral. Midshipman Jansen created a complete primary registry soon after he boarded Agamemnon. This latest download will be compared to the original, and you should be able to address Lars at that time.”

Ripley swallowed hard and tried to look away, until all 4Gs of the ship’s bone-crushing acceleration reminded his G-couch to assert complete control over his movements.

+++++

Agamemnon’s new 48 inch Schmidt camera poked up through the ship’s Langston Field and imaged Alpha Geminorum Ca+4 several times over a ten minute period, while sensitive ELINT receivers began analyzing the radio spectrum around the planet…

And it was soon apparent there was a large military engagement underway on that planet. Ships in orbit were taking particle beam fire from weapons on the planet’s surface, and after careful analysis CIC reported that there were currently a minimum of five horseshoe shaped ships in a high orbit, and that they appeared to be the same type of ship Ripley had encountered on the first Hyperion mission. And now here they were again, only this time in orbit around the fourth planet, and now at least one of these five ships had been seriously damaged by unknown forces on the planet’s surface.

Which, Ripley told himself, made no sense at all.

Agamemnon had begun a mandatory one hour period of zero-G five minutes ago, coasting along in order to let the Stavridis catch up to them as soon as she cleared Alpha Geminorum Ca’s photosphere.

“COMMs?” Ripley barked.

“Aye, sir?”

“Fire off a message to those ships in orbit, advise them of our presence in the system and ask if we might be of any assistance.”

“Now, sir?”

“Yes now, Goddamnit!” he snarled. “And COMMs, how long will it take for them to receive the transmission?”

“Approximately forty minutes, sir.”

“Right. Advise when you are in contact with Stavridis.”

“Admiral, CIC here. We’re picking up ion trails near the planet that, well, they were probably made by inbound Company ships, sir. Definitely more than one ship, Admiral, and it looks like they are no longer in orbit.”

“What? Where are they?”

“They are not in orbit, Admiral. They are either on the planet’s surface or they’ve left the system, but that’s doubtful, sir.”

“Doubtful…why?”

“There’s only one pair of dissipating ion trails, Admiral, and those horseshoe-shaped ships must have some kind of FTL drive because they aren’t leaving any kind of trail. In fact, they haven’t left any markers anywhere around the system, so they must’ve jumped directly into orbit…”

“And then run into a shit storm,” Ripley sighed.

“Automatic identifier marker received from Stavridis, Admiral,” COMMs advised. “They have exited the photosphere.”

“Establish two-way comms as soon as you can.”

“Aye, sir.”

“WEPs? Is Balin there?”

“Here, Captain,” she said as her hideously contorted face came onscreen.

“How long until that weapon is operational, Ma’am.”

“We are ready to test fire the unit now, Captain.”

“We are NOT going to test fire that damn thing,” Ripley growled. “I don’t want to give away too much information yet, but, well, are you sure it will work when I give the order to fire?”

She nodded. “As long as we have nominal reactor output, I see no reason why the weapon will not fire, Captain.”

“Okay. Get your people ready for heavy acceleration. It looks like we might be going in with our guns blazing.”

“Guns, Captain? Surely you…”

He cut off her audio feed before he said something truly offensive, then he looked up at Gordon. “I need food. Something solid for a change, and no salads, and for God’s sake – and no goddamn TVP.”

“Yes, Admiral. Hot cocoa, as well?”

“No. Something stronger. Better make mine a coffee. Half-caff.”

“Yessir.”

A medical team was now removing Lars Jansen’s body from the bridge, and Brennan was almost in tears as she watched the boy’s body disappear inside the black PVC body bag. She looked across the bridge at Denton and shook her head, then turned slowly and went back to her station – and Ripley could see she was taking this one hard. Well, the truth of the matter was you never really got used to losing anyone, but losing a Middie always seemed to hurt a lot more. He was not looking forward to reading the autopsy results, nor to writing up the After Action Report that all such deaths required.

“Astronomy? Let me know when you have more detailed imagery of the planet.”

“Aye, sir,” came the reply.

“Get me a visual on Stavridis, would you?” As this required imaging in the direction of the star, heavy Calcium channel blocking filters were put in place, then the Schmidt camera poked up through the Field again – and Stavridis’s huge, glowing Langston Field appeared onscreen. Ripley saw the extreme perimeter of their field had a red tinge, which was normal so close to a star, but he also spotted splotches of yellow and green, and that was anything but normal. Then again, Stavridis was a smaller ship so her Langston Field presented a smaller surface area to radiate all that excess energy, yet their smaller Field had to absorb and dissipate the same energy load that Agamemnon’s Field had inside the star, hence the more dangerous colors in her Field. It was worth watching for now, but the faster both ships moved away from the star, the better…

“Admiral, we’ve finished processing images of the planet and we can see more indications of a large  military engagement between the ships in orbit and unknown forces on the planet’s surface.”

“Right. You’d better get the camera centered on the planet and keep it there for now. Let me know when you have a live feed set up.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge? How long will it take for Stavridis to join up?”

“Fifteen minutes, Admiral. And we have Captain Farrell on COMMs now.”

“Right. Astro? See any likely hydrogen sources anywhere around the neighborhood?”

“Yessir. Two moons orbiting the fifth planet; the larger may have enough Hydrogen in the atmosphere for a ram scoop.”

“Excellent. Good work!”

Gordon slid a plate onto his chart table and Ripley smiled. A black bean burger with avocado and sliced habanero…his favorite! He looked up and smiled his approval. “Did Carson make this?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“God love her!” he said as he launched into his burger. He switched his primary screen to catch the live feed coming from the fourth planet, and with basic image enhancers he could just make out laser cannon fire coming up from the planet’s surface – but then he saw another blue-green stream of light leave the surface – and this fire was directed – at his ship. “Bridge? Is that incoming fire?”

“Altering course, but it will take a half hour to reach us, sir. Should we return fire, Admiral?”

“No, no, that would be pointless at our current range – but make sure Stavridis has the plot.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said. “One of the horseshoes is powering up and leaving orbit.”

“See if you can work out their course.”

“They’re taking fire, sir. From a built up area near the planet’s equator.”

“With what, Bridge?”

“Tracks indicate both lasers and kinetic missiles,” one of the radar operators in CIC replied. “Confirmed multiple missile launches and now recording at least two low-yield nuclear detonations in the last half hour, based on debris clouds and decay rates. The horseshoes are simply powering away from the missiles, Admiral.”

“Heat signatures?”

“Very little from the horseshoes, sir. The missiles appear to be a typical Cascade class SRB using a conventional ion drive for terminal guidance.”

“So, that’s a goddamn Company weapon,” Ripley muttered to himself. “How the hell did they get wind of our operation?”

“Admiral, the horseshoe leaving orbit is now on an intercept course, heading our way. Appears to be a fusion powered drive, sir, and not an FTL drive, but there’s only a modest heat bloom aft and almost no trail. And it looks like their delta-v is already significant, sir. They’ll easily outrun the Cascades.”

“You said they’re on an intercept course with us, Ensign? Mind telling me the details?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. If current acceleration holds, they will arrive in 70 hours.”

“And would you mind telling me what their delta-v is, Ensign?”

“Sorry, sir. Currently 3.7 Gs…but they are continuing to accelerate, Admiral. Now at 4Gs and continuing to accelerate.”

“Admiral?” Brennan interrupted, “should we maintain our current position, or move to intercept?”

Ripley had been asking himself the same question for a few minutes now. They could stay here and burn up precious time, or move in their direction, knowing that would force them to make a massive mid-course correction. But how much power did their ships have, and how much fuel did they carry? In order to return to the fourth planet now, that ship would need to burn prodigious amounts of hydrogen in order to stop its forward velocity, but then it would have to burn even more to stop and then turn around and resume acceleration back to the planet…

“Commander Brennan, would the fifth and the second planet allow the three of us to make slingshot orbital corrections, setting up a return trajectory to the fourth planet – in formation?”

“Working,” Brennan sighed as she started plugging-in numbers and vectors. “We could, and quite easily, Admiral. The horseshoe would need to make two mid-course burns, but they’d need to make the first within about six hours. And yes, doing so would allow us to travel in formation with the horseshoe after our orbital burn.”

“Bridge, set your heading for the second planet; COMMs, pass on our course and heading to Stavridis and Constellation, tell them to line-up in tight formation. And CIC, leave a buoy here with a sit-rep and advise Admiral Davis on the Enterprise to head for the fourth planet as soon as they emerge and group up. Engineering, report on our reactors and our current fuel state in fifteen minutes. Bridge, alter course now and set our velocity at 1.0 standard G.”

“Sir?”

“We need to see if they react to our course change, Mister. WEPs, run through firing exercises while we’re at 1G. COMMs, advise Stavridis and Connie to get in real tight, and they are to start fire control, ECM, and damage control exercises immediately.”

“Astro here, Admiral. A particle beam weapon from the planet’s surface has struck a second horseshoe, sir; it appears to be damaged and is now retreating to a higher orbit.”

“Astro, are you picking up any signs of shielding on those ships, anything like our Langston Field?”

“No, sir. No EM emissions at all, and nothing in the visible spectrum.”

“Are they returning fire?”

“Nothing that we can detect, Admiral.”

Ripley shook his head. Either these were simply not warships and the Tall Whites did not possess shield technology, or they didn’t want to reveal their technology – yet. But…almost three years ago one of their ships had followed the Hyperion Group after the attack on Covenant, when they departed Beta Auriga 4 – and right after the black hole formed. And they’d been back there while that rogue David was in close pursuit, so how could they have done that without shielding? Did their spacecraft’s material act as a shield, or did they have some other defensive perimeter? But if so, why had one of their ships just been damaged from a missile coming up from the planet’s surface?

“Admiral? COMMs. We have radio contact with their lead ship. And Admiral, I think it’s Thomas Standing Bull, and he sounds concerned…”

Chapter 6

Ripley enlarged the image on his screen, and after the image processors did their thing the alien’s ship snapped into focus. He looked it over as best he could from this distance, but when viewed from head-on, the image left too many questions unanswered.

“Gordon? Do we have any comparable imagery we can check this against? Could it be the same ship we encountered at Beta Auriga 4?”

“There is a high order of probability that this is so, Admiral, and if this is not Standing Bull speaking it is a very sophisticated reproduction.”

“Are you speculating?”

“No, Admiral. Note the residue from blast damage on this protrusion, here, on the forward right sponson. It appears to have been repaired, but is otherwise unchanged.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, patch me through to that ship.”

“Aye, sir. Go ahead.”

The crude video feed flickered, then the screen came to life as the ship’s computers massaged the files: “Thomas, how are you doing?”

“Admiral? Is that you?”

“It is.”

“Pardon me, but you look very different.”

“Different? How so?”

“You look much older, sir. I mean, abnormally so.”

“Well, we’ve not seen you in almost three years, Thomas…”

“What? Sir, we left you not even three weeks ago…”

Ripley nodded. “Relativity, Thomas. You’ve been traveling faster than light. Now, what’s going on down on that planet.”

“It’s that organism, Admiral. The one from Covenant. After you left the Aurigae system, we returned to survey the remains of Beta Auriga 4 but we found Company ships all over the remains of the colony ship. As soon as we appeared the Company ships left the system, and as you suspected, Admiral, they had a back door out of the system. A small White Dwarf, a recent ignition, sir.”

“Did you follow them?”

“Yes, Admiral. They jumped directly to Mintaka, right into the middle of a large Russian fleet. As best we could tell, sir, the Russians had captured two Japanese colony ships, and as soon as the Company ship docked they released that organism inside several captured colony ships. I think, Admiral, that one ship was Japanese and the other from Australia. As soon as what they were doing became clear we left the Mintaka system and jumped to one of their military garrisons for reinforcements, but almost as soon as we arrived a distress call was received from Castor, from the university here. The Company hit them with that organism, Admiral, and apparently their people have no defense against it.”

But Ripley was hardly listening now, and hadn’t been since he’d heard the word Mintaka. All he really knew now was that his wife was sailing into a trap, and that the Company was setting all of them up. But why? Did they have the means to control this organism, and if not then what the hell were they up to? “Alright, Thomas, we’re heading for the second planet and we’ll slingshot there and then head for the university planet.”

“Admiral? All we’re picking up on our scans is your ship, Stavridis and maybe one other ship.”

“I’m on the lead ship, Thomas. Agamemnon. She’s new, but she’s very fast. The third is the Constellation.”

“We’re not picking up any recognizable weaponry on your ship, Admiral?”

“Tell me, Thomas. Who’s asking these questions?”

The screen split and the Tall White he’d first met on Halsey’s hangar deck appeared. “I ask. Need more ships.”

Ripley smiled. “Nice to see you again. We’ll have more warships arriving in-system soon.”

“You have weapon. Strange. Behind shield, can not understand.”

“Yes, we do. It is very new, and very powerful.”

“My people need help fast. Your ship moves too slow.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If I share engine, you share weapon?”

Ripley saw Commander Brennan on an adjacent screen and he saw the look of alarm in her eyes, but he also recognized the grail-like attraction that faster-than-light travel represented; when their eyes met and she nodded, and he had to admit he agreed.

“Alright. I agree.”

And in the next instant both Agamemnon and Stavridis were surrounded by four of the huge, horseshoe shaped starships, then another appeared and it had to be at least ten times the size of the other ships gathered around Ripley’s tiny fleet.

And then bright light spilled out of a hangar door as a vast opening appeared on the near side of the massive ship, and Ripley could just make out the shape of a small shuttle as it left the larger ship. Displays blinked red when the shuttle appeared to be coming straight at Agamemnon, and Ripley gave the order to cut acceleration as he prepared to go and face the unknown once again.

+++++

Ripley watched the shuttle match velocities and slip into the hangar deck, and while he was impressed by the piloting skills on vivid display he was more than concerned about the shuttle’s occupants. The shuttle bay door closed as soon as the Tall White’s shuttle touched down, and seconds later the hangar deck began pressurizing. When the pressures equalized the main entryway to the hangar deck opened and Ripley walked in – surrounded by a squad of Marines in full combat gear.

But the shuttle’s doors remained closed. And after two minutes Ripley walked over to the intercom and called Brennan on the bridge. “Commander? You still in contact with Thomas?”

“No, sir. No contact.”

He was about to evacuate the hangar and use air pressure to blow the ship back out into space when a small door opened, and a gently inclined boarding ramp extended to the hangar deck. Thomas Standing Bull came out first, and he still looked like a sixteen year old, but then the commander of the Tall Whites walked down the ramp – followed by…a woman? An unarmed woman who also appeared to be quite pregnant.

And the message couldn’t have been more clear. We come in peace.

So Ripley turned to the Gunny. “Sergeant, you and your men leave the hangar deck but remain out there on Main Street.”

“Aye, sir.” 

Ripley watched his marines file out of the hangar, then he turned to Thomas. “Well, Mr Standing Bull, I think introductions are in order, don’t you?”

“Yessir. This is the leader of their fleet, and he asks that you call him Odysseus.”

“Odysseus? Really?”

“Yessir. Apparently he knew the man and he thought the name would be familiar to you.”

“It is that. And this is his wife? Penelope, I take it?”

“Yessir. How did you know?”

Ripley looked at Thomas and shook his head as he let slip a long sigh. “Thomas, tell me about this organism. What are we dealing with?”

“Admiral, it appears to be an endoparasitoid, and it may have been artificially developed as a weapon of mass destruction by a rogue faction within Odysseus’s home civilization.”

“An endoparasitoid? And by that you mean is uses humans as host bodies?”

“Yessir, but the organism can use almost any species as a host. Apparently its offspring incorporate certain external traits while the overall aggressive nature of the organism remains unchanged. It is also very difficult to kill.”

“Need weapon,” Odysseus said gently, “now. My people face great danger.”

Ripley turned and looked at the alien. He had to be eight feet tall and he still reminded him of Michelangelo’s David – ignoring the solid black eyes, anyway. “Come with me.” He turned and walked to the main door then scowled – because this ‘man’ was simply too tall to make his way through the ship – so he stopped at the intercom again and called Brennan. “Commander, put the ship in zero-G, would you?”

“Yessir.”

And a moment later the ship’s drives cut out; Ripley reached for one of the overhead handrails and began pulling himself along Main Street towards the weapon’s bay – and to Ina Balin’s improbable Maser. When Ripley and his small entourage appeared in the weapon’s bay everyone’s eyes went big and round as anticipation ran headlong into pure, unadulterated shock.

And even Balin appeared too stunned to speak, which under current circumstances Ripley considered a minor blessing.

“This is it,” Ripley said, pointing at the main body of the ignition chamber, then he walked along the optical assembly to the first of three pressure bulkheads, where the optical tube exited the ship’s hull.

“Very big. How aim?”

“By maneuvering the ship.”

Odysseus scowled and shook his head. “Need bigger ship. My engineer need look. This is good?”

“Of course.”

“My engineer teach your engineer how to build our engine. This is good?”

“Yes. But do we have time for that eight now?”

“Time. No. We take ship to planet now.”

“Your ship, you mean?”

“No, we take your ship now. Tell your people get ready. Must sit, accelerate very much.”

“Brennan! Sound acceleration stations, and tell Stavridis and Constellation to prepare for heavy acceleration from an external source.”

“Yes, Admiral…”

Odysseus turned to Ripley when he had finished looking at the Maser, then he turned to Balin. “You make?” he asked.

Balin did a double-take then looked from the giant creature to Ripley, who simply nodded his implicit approval to speak openly, so she just shrugged and turned to the Tall White, suddenly in awe of the creature – and of her place in the moment. 

“Yes, I make.”

“My women no make, understand?”

“Yes, all too well.”

“When get planet you fire weapon?”

“Yes, as soon as I have targeting information.”

“My engineer stay here and watch?”

“Of course,” Ripley said.

“Fine with me,” Balin echoed – yet her voice was full of doubt – even though she was only too aware that a dozen cameras were recording these moments for posterity. “Let me know what I can do to help.”

Odysseus nodded. “I go ship now. When arrive planet engineer come.”

Acceleration warnings began blaring throughout he ship, and as Odysseus seemed to understand what these meant he fell-in behind Ripley as they used overhead handgrips to pull there way back to the hangar deck. Brennan was there now too, with Yukio, and they all pushed off and drifted the ten meters wide gulf to Odysseus’s shuttle – with Ripley and Brennan by his side, and with Yukio and Thomas quickly catching up on each others lives as they drifted along, bringing up the rear.

“You call radio when ready to go planet,” Odysseus said. “Shuttle stay here. Must stay in ship for drive.” Then the Tall White turned to Thomas: “Is this the woman you speak of?”

“Yes,” Thomas replied.

Odysseus turned to Ripley again. “Thomas Standing Bull needs woman.”

“I understand,” Ripley stated. “I will talk to them both before we make that decision.”

“Understand.” The outer hull door of the alien’s shuttle opened, and Ripley peered inside – but all he could make out in the gloom was a rather complicated looking airlock, but Odysseus watched as Ripley looked around the shuttle. “You let show our ship. After planet.”

“I would like that,” Ripley replied as he turned to Thomas. “Mr Standing Bull, resume your duties on the shuttle, if you please.”

“Aye, Admiral.”

“Odysseus, we will call you in a few minutes,” Ripley added, then he pushed off the floor and aimed for the door in the pressure bulkhead, floating across the ten meters a little too fast for his own comfort. Once Brennan made it across he turned to her: “Think you need to get us under acceleration long enough to get to the bridge?” he asked helpfully.

“No, sir. No reason to confuse the situation any more than it already is.”

“Yukio? You appear to be blushing. Did I miss something?”

“He said my breasts had grown a lot in the time we were apart.”

Ripley sighed as he pushed off again and began making his way up Main Street to the bridge. “And how do you feel about possibly staying with Thomas on one of their ships?” he asked as she floated by his side.

“I’d like to think about that before committing, sir.”

“Indeed. Frankly, I would too.”

They made it to the bridge in record time and Ripley found everyone already strapped in their G-couches – and all the ship’s computers had been powered down.

“All departments,” Brennan said over the intercom, “report jump status and signal when ready.”

And one-by-one all of Agamemnon’s chiefs reported ready to jump. Then Stavridis and the Connie did, as well.

“Admiral? The ship is ready to jump.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, verify Stavridis and Constellation have shuttles onboard and that they are ready to jump.”

“Verified, Admiral.”

“Okay, COMMs, notify Thomas that we’re ready when they are.”

“Notified, Admiral. Thomas advises we might feel…”

Disoriented was the word that bounced around the hollow corridors of Ripley’s mind. First a  sharp moment – almost like a discontinuity, then stretching followed by the sensation of nerves tingling throughout his body, but this was followed by an intense burning sensation behind his eyes that suddenly rippled down into his chest. He felt sure he’d passed out but then he saw little battery powered emergency lights pop on, then he heard one of the bridge deck officers growling “Bloody Hell!” – or words to that effect – and then he knew he was still conscious.

Then Brennan and her team began waking up the ship’s computers one-by-one, and within a minute computers were booting up all over the ship…

“Bridge, COMMs, Stavridis and Constellation are on station ten clicks off our stern, and Admiral, I have Thomas on his personal Comm-link.”

“Put him through.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Admiral? Did you experience any trouble?”

“Nothing reported so far. COMMs, can you get Dr Balin on this call?”

“Working.”

Then Balin’s face appeared on the split-screen. “Yes, Admiral,” she said contritely.

“You ready to see if this thing works?”

“Yessir. We’re waiting for reactor five to come fully online, then we’ll be ready to rock and roll.”

Ripley rolled his eyes. “Okay, Thomas, why don’t you and the engineers from Odysseus’s shuttle come aboard again. I’ll meet you at the airlock and we’ll go down to the Maser assembly.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge, where are we?”

“In a 300 mile high orbit over the fourth planet, Admiral. There is a battle in-progress between a Tall White ship and two Company ships, the closest company ship is currently 1540 miles from our current location – and they are closing on us now.”

“WEPs, target the company ship and get the coordinates to Balin. Commander Brennan, resume 0-G conditions, all ship’s drives to 110 percent rated power, and ready the RCJs.”

“Aye, sir.”

Ripley crawled out of his G-couch and turned to his Gordon unit. “Come with me, and record everything said and shown to their engineer, and make sure you’ve got clear audio.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Gordon said as he fell in behind Ripley.

Main Street was almost empty as the ship’s crew was still waking up the ship, and the lights were set to a cool blue color as the ship’s time was currently set to ‘evening’. Ripley arrived at the airlock door that sealed off the hangar deck and almost instantly the airlock door on the shuttle opened – and out walked Thomas and Odysseus, as well as a small gaggle of their engineers – and Ripley gasped at the sight.

The engineers were quite short, though their skin was the same pure white, though they were possibly less than five feet tall; even from a distance Ripley could see that their skulls were huge and their fingers were hideously long, almost spidery. ‘So,’ he thought, ‘they’ve genetically differentiated the species to create task oriented specialists.’ The engineers had what looked like instrument cases strapped to their backs, then Ripley saw that the engineers bare feet were structured more like hands, with toes that looked long enough to grasp tools or handrails. As the engineers came up to the airlock Ripley had a hard time not staring at the lead engineer, especially as his eyes were black and as big around as saucers – perfect for seeing in low light conditions, no doubt.

Ripley opened the airlock and Odysseus and his engineers fell in behind him, leaving Thomas to bring up the rear. When they made it to the fire control station where Balin and her team waited, the lead engineer went to a table and placed his case there, then he turned and waited, his eyes never leaving Balin as she began explaining what the device was, and what it was theoretically capable of.

“WEPs,” Ripley said, “I don’t see the target on our screens down here. What’s going on?”

“Computer just coming online now, Admiral. You should have it any moment now.”

“Okay, we have it. Dr Balin, what’s next?”

“Admiral, we’re basically going to bore-sight the weapon, aim the lens by moving the ship with her forward Reaction Control Jets. As long as the target ship’s acceleration vector remains constant the computer will slave to the target and manipulate the RCJs to maintain target lock.”

“Alright. Let’s target that lead ship and see what this thing can do.”

She nodded. “At this range, Admiral, the beam will be more than three meters in diameter.”

“And?”

“The ship should be obliterated, Admiral.”

He nodded. “Lock on and fire, Dr Balin.”

Once the computer had achieved lock and slaved the Reaction Control Jets, Balin waited until she had full reactor power – then pressed the FIRE button.

And nothing happened.

There was no noise, and no visible beam – yet a few seconds later the Company ship, a rather large warship usually with a complement of more than 200 people, simply began to melt. The invisible beam cut right through the ablative re-entry shielding and the entire forward part of the ship tore away from the drive units located aft. There were no explosions, no visible flames, and indeed nothing at all to indicate a weapon had been fired.

“Holy fucking shit,” someone on the intercom circuit moaned, and Odysseus and his engineer stepped forward to look at the monitor…

“Holy fucking shit,” Odysseus said as he turned and faced Balin. “You make this fucking shit?”

“Yes, I make this,” Balin said, beaming with pride.

“Admiral?” Brennan said over the intercom. “The other company ship is breaking orbit and moving to investigate.”

“WEPs, get a lock on that second ship, now!”

“WEPs, aye. Working.”

“Dr Balin, how much time does this thing need to reset or recharge?”

“None, Admiral. As long as we have nominal reactor output the only limitation you’ll have is the time it takes to track and lock-on to the next target.”

“Admiral, WEPs, we have the target, slaving the RCJs now.”

Agamemnon rolled and reoriented, taking almost a minute to lock on to the second ship, then Ripley looked at Balin and nodded.

Once again she hit the FIRE button and once again within seconds the Company ship appeared to melt before pressure bulkheads gave way and the forward sections of the ship parted from the aft drive sections.

“Need move orbit,” Odysseus said, his voice excited now. “Need fire enemy ground.”

“WEPs, scan for additional target in orbit. Brennan, take us into a 150 mile up polar orbit. Captain Renfro, get your Marines to their shuttles and ready to roll. Stavridis, get your Marines to their shuttles.” Ripley turned to Odysseus and smiled. “I’m sure you need to get back to your ship now, but would you like to leave your engineer here for a while?”

“You allow?”

“Of course.”

“Want you engineer come my ship?”

“That’s not necessary now. We can send our engineer to look over your drive after we have taken care of the organism on the planet’s surface.”

“Admiral,” Brennan said, “one of Odysseus’s ships apparently has the organism onboard and it does not appear to be under direct control at this time. Some personnel have left the ship in MMUs, and the ship’s acting master just activated a self-destruct charge.”

Ripley looked at Odysseus. “Do you understand?”

“Yes. Can destroy ship with weapon, before self destruct? Crew is too close?”

“WEPs, target the Tall White ship, and take care not to hit any escaping crewmen. Dr Balin? Is the Maser ready?”

“Yes, Admiral. On your command.”

Ripley nodded, but then he turned to Odysseus and sighed. “Sir, should we target any part of the ship?”

“Can hit here?” he asked, pointing at the starboard-forward sponson.

“WEPs, target the foremost tip of the starboard sponson. Dr Balin, how wide will the beam be at this range?”

“Right now…about a meter,” she said as everyone watched the reticle line up on the ship, and then they identified the survivors jetting away from the ship in their Manned Maneuvering Units.

“Odysseus, are their any surveillance cameras within the ship.”

“I see if still work,” he said, asking a question over the radio he had mounted on a wrist-strap, and a few moments later he received his reply. “Yes. Ship not recognizable inside. Many crew on walls with, what is the word, parasite on face. Must destroy entire ship.”

And then Balin saw the pain in Odysseus’s eyes and on his face and quite instinctively she reached out and put her hand on his forearm, and the Tall White turned and looked at her hand, then at the look on her face – and he simply nodded his understanding of the gesture before he returned to the targeting data streaming on the main WEPs display.

“Odysseus,” Ripley sighed, “would you give the order to fire, please?”

And the Tall White stepped forward and looked at his men in their MMUs, then he spoke on his wrist radio, saying a dozen or so words Ripley didn’t understand to his men, then he turned to Dr Balin. “Fire now, please.”

Balin nodded and pushed the red button and a moment later the forward sponson began wilting and blossoming, then the screen flared as shielding around the ship’s drive finally gave way and her fusion reactor exploded. As the screen cleared Ripley turned to Gordon: “You get all that?”

“Everything, Admiral.”

He nodded. “Brennan, get the Marines to their shuttles. Let’s help round up any survivors.”

Odysseus had turned away and was now obviously quite upset: he was looking down and appeared to be openly weeping, and then the alien walked away from the group – but Ina Balin had put an arm around him and was talking to him, so Ripley let it go…for now. In any event, Gordon would find a way to record what they said. 

So next up, retake the planet, ‘but that really isn’t our job, is it,’ Ripley thought as he walked over to the main WEPs screen. “WEPs, what can you show me on the planet’s surface?”

“Working.”

Balin and Odysseus walked up to Ripley and the Tall White looked around before speaking. “Thank crew, please. Must go my ship now. Thomas come with please.”

Ripley nodded. “Of course. Please let us know if we can assist you in any way.”

Odysseus motioned to Thomas, who fell in behind the Tall White and left the Maser’s control room, and before Ripley followed he motioned Balin to fall in and come along. When they arrived at  the hangar deck they saw that Agamemnon’s four small Marine shuttles had already departed, and that the hangar deck was still repressurizing. Brennan and Yukio were already there and waiting, and Thomas went to Yukio’s side and they whispered in each others ear for a while; Ripley cast another sidelong glance at Gordon – who simply nodded.

The control panel next to the airlock door flashed red, then chimed once before the actuator light changed to green. Gordon opened the airlock and the group pushed off, floating across the hangar deck before stopping beside the shuttle’s airlock. Yukio and Thomas hugged and Ripley could tell the Middie was beside herself, trying to contain the uncertainty she felt. 

Then the airlock opened and Thomas pulled himself over to the opening, while Odysseus turned and looked at Ripley. “I call soon, but thank you for help.”

“I’m glad we could,” Ripley said, and then he saw Odysseus had a hearing aid in one ear, obviously a translator of some sort, because he paused for a moment before replying.

“One of my sons on ship. Not know if he got out.”

Ripley felt sick and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“My decision, not yours. Must go. Speak soon.”

“Your name is Pak, isn’t it?” Ripley said, and ‘Odysseus’ seemed startled to learn that Ripley knew that.

“Yes. Den-ton.”

Ripley held out his right hand and Pak looked at it for a moment, then took it. “A handshake means I come in friendship.”

“Understand. No want war between us.”

“Yes. No war between us. Not now, not ever.” 

Their eyes met and Ripley nodded solemnly.

And with that Odysseus turned and led Thomas inside the shuttle, so Ripley pushed off and returned to the hangar deck’s airlock and recycled the lock. He watched the Tall White’s shuttle lift from the ‘floor’ of the hangar deck and looked for any visible signs of propulsion – but he saw nothing, as in nada – and he sighed once before he turned and pulled himself up Main Street to the bridge. A few minutes later Thomas came on via the radio link, then a video link was established through his personal communicator.

“Admiral, Odysseus advises they have limited contact with their personnel on the ground, and those that have managed to get through advise that no one should come down to the planet’s surface.  Variations of the organism can be transmitted by airborne spore or by direct implantation of eggs within the body cavity, and once infected transmutation is complete.”

“They’ve found no means to treat anyone that’s been infected.”

“No, sir. And while the gestated mutation is inherently offensive, apparently the organism has formidable defenses.”

“You’re describing a weapon system, Thomas. And did I not hear that this weapon was genetically manipulated by another faction within their civilization?”

“I’ve learned very little about this conflict, Admiral.”

“Understood. Try to make it clear that we have no desire to interfere in their internal affairs.”

“Admiral, Odysseus advises that several warships have entered the system from the same jump point you used earlier.”

Ripley nodded. “We have a carrier group coming, as well as tanker support. Please tell Odysseus that these ships are under my command and present no risk to him or his fleet. They are here to assist with any rescue effort, should such support be needed.”

Thomas turned and talked to someone out of sight, and Ripley could hear only bits and pieces of this conversation, so he turned to Brennan. “See if you can get a lock on the Enterprise or one of her tankers,” he said quietly, and she nodded.

“Nothing yet,” Brennan advised a moment later.

“Well hell, they’ve recorded several ships at the Alderson Point…”

“Understood. They must have better radar than ours.”

“Start a time hack. I want to figure out how much better, and see if you can pick up any emissions.”

“Admiral?” Thomas said over the COMMs link.

“Go ahead.”

Sir, Odysseus, uh, Pak is reluctant to fire at his people on the planet, but he has new video from inside one of the buildings down there and he’s really upset. I mean really-really upset…”

“Any word on his son?”

“No, sir, but our Marines picked up about twenty people in MMUs, from that last ship. When they get aboard say ‘Tarak ign Ramala.’”

“‘Tarak ign Ramala?’”

“Yessir. That means, roughly, ‘Is Ramala among you?’”

“Got it. I’ll advise as soon as his men are safely onboard.”

“Admiral,” Brennan advised, “the first shuttle is on its approach.”

“Send Yukio, and make sure she knows how to pronounce that. Better patch her through to Thomas. And send someone from medical along – in case we need to quarantine anyone.”

Brennan smiled at this bit of mischief. “Yessir. I’m sure she’ll hate that.”

“I thought she might. You tracking anything on the planet’s surface?”

“We’ve located a small city, circular in shape and with canals all over the place. There’s no movement anywhere around the place, and we’ve got point two meter resolution and no cloud cover.”

“What’s the nearby terrain like?”

“Scandinavian. We’re talking deep fjords and really tall mountains for that latitude.”

Ripley looked at Gordon and they both nodded. “Similar to Beta Capella-4,” Gordon said.

“So, they like cool, temperate planets,” Ripley said. “But hell, who doesn’t?”

“Maybe the organism does too,” Gordon added. “Or perhaps they adapt to environments they,  in effect, inherit from their host organisms.”

“Makes sense.”

“Admiral, they have just identified another warship entering the system from another jump point, the same jump point the company ships used.”

So, from Mintaka. Ripley suddenly felt a feeling a dread, but he tried to hide his feelings now. “Thomas, it’s important we know more about that ship as soon as possible.”

“Understood, sir.”

Ripley turned to Brennan again: “Still nothing on radar?”

“Not a thing, Admiral. Whoa…did you see that?”

While they were talking one of Pak’s ships simply flashed and then vanished.

“Admiral,” Yukio said over the intercom, “Ramala is safe and onboard, and medical advises no obvious infections are present.”

“Thomas, would you advise Pak that we have his son onboard. We can bring him over or he can send his shuttle.”

“Admiral, he’ll send his shuttle as soon as we have the rest of his crew are onboard.”

“Understood. Yukio, is someone from medical with you?”

“Yessir, Dr Cooper from life sciences and two Walter units. The Walters are scanning our Marines, and there’s a physician of some sort with the Tall Whites. They are in space suits the physician advises they will remain so until back aboard their flagship, Admiral.”

“Admiral, Dr Cooper here. I recommend we get everyone who’s had even a remote chance of contact into isolation chambers. Until we know what the gestation period is we’ll have no way of knowing who’s safe and who isn’t, and I’d recommend exposing the interiors of all shuttles to a hard vacuum for a few hours, just to be on the safe side.”

Ripley turned to his Gordon: “Can you lay that on?”

“Yes, Admiral, however we may not have enough isolation chambers. We could accomplish the same thing by keeping the Marines in their spacesuits and replenishing their oxygen generators as needed.”

“Okay. Get a team on it now.”

“Admiral?” Thomas asked over the intercom. 

“Go ahead, Thomas.”

“Odysseus advises that Hyperion has entered the system through the Mintaka Alderson Point.”

“Excuse me? Did you say Hyperion?”

“Yessir, and Odysseus advises that at least twenty more ships have now jumped into the system through Capella. He thinks it wise to send a ship to investigate. Would you like me to go?”

“Alright, Thomas. Just a quick recon, okay?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Commander Brennan, do you have Hyperion on radar yet?”

“Intermittent contact only, sir, with no IFF and no positive ident. We are picking up a positive IFF from Constellation and five elements of the Enterprise Battle Group, but not this new group.”

Pak came on screen. “Admiral Ripley?”

“Yes, I’m here, Pak.”

“Captain of ship advises you are mate. She say have important emissaries with her. You want us bring ship here?”

“Yes, Pak, if this is not a problem.”

“No problem.”

“Could your captain advise my mate to shut down all computers before jump?”

“Jump? What is jump?”

“High speed.”

“Ah. Understand. Want bring other ships here?”

“Not yet. Must understand why emissaries come.”

“Understood. Thomas good man, like Sitting Bull. Strong spirit, not fear unknown.”

Ripley smiled. “I agree. He can learn much from you.”

“My son. He spend time with you?”

“Of course. Yes. We would like that very much.”

“My engineer say X-ray Maser very dangerous your crew. Shielding not enough, should change before crew sick. He can fix if want.”

“Okay. Dr Balin may want to check his design. Does your engineer think you can use the weapon on your ship?”

Pak shook his head. “Very dangerous. X-ray very dangerous. Must think with other engineers before decide. You take Judy as mate?”

“What?”

“Judy, captain of ship Patton. She mate now?”

“Yes, she is.”

Pak/Odysseus nodded. “She strong heart, good spirit.”

Ripley smiled, but at least now he knew the Tall Whites were closely monitoring their ship-to-ship communications; he could only hope that his people down in the radio shack were as on-the-ball as Pak’s team. “How long before Hyperion arrives?”

Pak turned and looked somewhere offscreen, then he turned back to Ripley. “Now.”

And sure enough, Pak’s ship arrived, securely attached to the underside of Hyperion’s hangar deck, and almost instantly Judy was onscreen.

“Denton,” she said – and almost breathlessly – “the Company…the Company has a small army of those organisms and they have overrun the colony on Mintaka 4. Several Russian and Chinese ships have been overrun, too, and I have diplomatic emissaries from both countries onboard. They want to talk about an alliance.”

“An alliance?”

“Yes, an alliance with us to take out the Company.”

“An alliance of convenience, you mean?”

“No, a permanent peace in addition to an alliance. Cooperative exploration, everything we’ve wanted. Denton…no more war.”

“Are they onboard your ship?”

“Yes, and here’s the catch. They need us to help them retake their fleets.”

“Judy, what are you saying? That the Company has defeated their combined fleet?”

“They have reinforcements coming, Denton, but they won’t be enough. The organism…it can survive in a vacuum and at absolute zero for almost an hour. They bleed acid and appear to be a silicon-based life-form so our biological controls don’t work. And not only that…”

But then Ripley’s screen flickered before the image dissolved, finally turning an absolute black. “COMMs, I just lost my screen!” he barked.

But then a pale blue smudge appeared in the center of his screen, and then as if someone was slowly pulling focus the smudge turned into an oval and then the oval morphed into a face.

And it was Lars Jansen’s face. The Midshipman’s face. The dead Midshipman’s face.

“Lars?” Ripley said gently, as he motioned Brennan to join him by his station.

“Admiral? Is that you?”

“Yes, Lars. Where are you?”

“I’m not sure. There is a high probability that I am in the port forward mainframe, in CIC.”

“What can you tell me about where you are?”

“I am on a beach, with two girls, and they are…”

“That’s okay, Lars, I think I get the picture. Are you capable of interacting with the ship?”

“Yes, Admiral, that is why I am here. I have been analyzing the input you are receiving on COMMs 1, and I have concluded there is a high order of probability that the image on the screen is an AI construct. And, oh, I have just penetrated Hyperion’s Langston Field through her COMMs mast, and now have access to the ship’s computer. There are 200 gestated organisms onboard Hyperion, and a further 350 in late-stage gestation – in addition to twenty three Company personnel.”

“Is Judy onboard?”

“No, Admiral, and I find no further information on her location in this computer, but it is no longer networked. I would suggest you ask the AI something only your wife would know…”

“Alright, Lars. Re-establish contact, would you?”

Ripley’s COMMs 1 link instantly reappeared, as did the image of Judy. “Denton…Denton…are you…ah, there you are…what happened?”

“I don’t know. Say, I got a note from Tracy, did you?”

“Tracy?”

“Yes, Tracy. Our daughter?” Brennan nodded and pulled up the Maser’s targeting screen on a nearby terminal, then she slaved the ship to the Maser’s fire control system.

“Oh, yes, of course. No, I haven’t heard a thing from her since we left the Gateway. Denton, what about these ships? Who do they belong to?”

“I have no idea,” he said as he looked at Brennan and nodded.

And he watched as Hyperion melted and then blew apart, and multiple cameras zoomed in on dozens of shiny black organisms writhing around within the blooming debris field – and almost instantly Pak was calling.

“What has happened?”

“A computer simulation of Judy was being used to conceal the presence of organisms onboard Hyperion.”

“The image of your mate was unreal?”

“That is correct.”

“How tell not mate?”

“A computer on my ship identified the imposter.”

“Imposter?”

“The pretender?”

“Very complicated. Many new difficulties.”

“Yes. Many.”

“Possible Thomas heading trap?”

Ripley nodded. “Yes, that is possible. Can you tell him?”

“Must send second ship.”

“Understand. Your ship and mine, together?”

“Yes. That is best. We come you now.”

Ripley turned to Brennan. “Acceleration warnings, everyone to acceleration stations and computers to standby as soon as our docking clamps are attached.”

“Got it,” Brennan said as acceleration warnings sounded throughout the ship.

As Ripley watched Pak’s gigantic ship cross the three kilometers that separated their two ships, his mind struggled with the realization that Judy was now being held captive, and so was probably a hostage in the Company’s grasping hands. And they wanted it all, he now realized. Control of the Space Force and the Naval Space Force to start, then all colonization efforts, too. And they would enforce their Will by using these organisms, assuming, that is, that they could control them and not be wiped out in the process.

Yet a faction of Pak’s civilization had created this organism, so surely this group held the key to controlling this menace. But what was the purpose behind creating the organism in the first place? These organisms were a weapon of mass destruction, plain and simple, and the Walter that he’d picked up from the planet’s surface almost three years ago had understood that the organism had been found at a weapons depot, a very large weapons depot. Why? With whom were these Tall White’s at war?

Yet Agamemnon was equipped with a singularly destructive weapon of her own, a weapon that might prove to be a decisive advantage in any conflict, and Stanton had to know that. Was he equipping other ships in the NSF with the weapon, or waiting for an operational report from this expedition? Ripley thought for a moment then concluded his ship was probably not the only ship equipped with the Maser.

“Admiral, forward locking clamps engaged, powering down computers now.”

“Okay, all personnel to acceleration stations.”

“Once again warnings sounded throughout the ship, and just then Pak came onscreen. “Tell when ready, Den-ton.”

“All stations report ready to jump, Admiral.”

“Pak,” Ripley said, “let’s do it!”

Lights flickered, then went out – only to be replaced by red battery powered lighting throughout the ship, then everyone felt the muted rumble of a kinetic weapon detonating on the surface of the Langston Field…

“Brennan, get me a visual!”

“Wide field camera going up the mast through the field now, sir.”

When the screen flickered and came alive Ripley gasped when he saw at least three different fleets engaged in a close range fire fight, with laser cannon trying to overwhelm and burn through Langston Fields and at least two of Pak’s ships badly damaged and trying to retreat, including the shuttle carrying Thomas Standing Bull.

Chapter 8

Neal Davis had been a classmate of Ripley’s at Annapolis; now he was in command of the USNSF Enterprise and her battle group – and he was roaring mad. Ripley had just spoken to Davis on a secure frequency but it appeared Davis still didn’t know what the tactical situation was; one minute an unknown group of warships came out of the Jump point and a minute later several of the Tall White’s horseshoe-shaped craft appeared – and his battle group was in effect sandwiched between these two forces. So, Davis thought his first order of business was to secure the tanker fleet – but as soon as he launched a squadron on Banshees the force coming up from the rear had opened fire on his ship. Then this unknown hostile force split into two groups, with one coming for the Enterprise and the second group moving to intercept the Tall White’s small force.

When Ripley on Agamemnon appeared – and strapped on top of a huge Tall White horseshoe – Davis assumed the Tall Whites weren’t hostile – and about that time Ripley got through.

“Concentrate all your forces on protecting the tankers,” Denton told his old classmate, “and we’ll go after the Company ships.”

“Company ships? Denton? What are you saying?”

“Yup. Apparently they’re making a play to consolidate their power by taking out our Navy, and possibly Russia’s and China’s, as well.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said, interrupting Ripley. “Thomas is on TAC2.”

“Okay, patch him into my link to Enterprise.”

“Done.”

“Thomas, what’s your situation?”

“This ship doesn’t have shielding, Admiral, of any kind. The drive is out and one of the Company’s ships is about fifty clicks out, and they’re carrying the organism.”

“WEPs,” Ripley said calmly, “can you ID the target?”

“Trying, Admiral. Apparently their shield is up and they’re jamming out radar.”

“Something within 50 clicks, WEPs. Look in the microwave spectrum.”

“Okay, Admiral, we have identified a possible target!”

“Dr Balin, you ready to go down there?”

“Affirmative, Admiral, slaving the RCJs and acquiring lock.”

“Fire on lock,” Ripley sighed, “and as soon as we have confirmation the target is destroyed start targeting any Company ships.”

“Target lock,” WEPs said.

“Firing now,” Balin added.

The Maser’s beam sliced through the Company ship’s barely visible Langston Field and several small detonations flared onscreen, and on magnification everyone could see hundreds of the organism flailing around in the hard vacuum.

“What the hell are those things?” Davis said.

“They’re what this is all about, Neal. Apparently this organism was genetically manufactured by a rival faction within the Tall White’s military and it was stored off world on a planet designated as some kind of weapons storage facility. The Company got ahold of the technology and are now deploying them as shock troops. I’ll send you the data our xenobiologists have worked up, but the bottom line is we can’t let the Company get this technology to Earth, or Mars.”

“But their ships? Denton, they came from Sol system!”

“Understood. They may have overrun the Japanese colony on Mintaka 4, too.”

“Bridge. WEPs, target lock on a carrier.”

“Take it out,” Ripley sighed.

“Den-ton,” Pak said over the UHF comm link, “now have working weapon on shuttle. Very easy move find new target. Can help?”

“Yes, Pak, can help.”

“Denton,” Neal Davis said, clearly flummoxed, “who the devil is that?”

“That was Pak, and my assumption is he’s the equivalent of a fleet admiral in their Navy.”

“Den-ton, have six ship target.”

“Pak, take them out.”

Seconds later six more ships vaporized.

Davis looked stunned, and even Ripley was amazed at the speed they had realigned the Maser to target new ships. “Ripley, what kind of weapon is that?” Davis cried.

“Microwave X-ray Maser that the Israelis developed. I traded the technology for data on their FTL drive.”

“You…what? A working FTL drive? Really?”

Ripley smiled and nodded. “Welcome to the brave new world, Neal.”

“Holy shit, Denton…you’ve got to get that tech back to earth, and I mean pronto.”

“I know, but we have to help Pak secure the planet then move on Mintaka.”

“Man, I hope you know what you’re doing?”

Ripley nodded. “I want you to go to the planet and help Pak’s men retake the citadel and their university. You’ve got more Marines on that transport than all my ships combined, but don’t send anyone down until you’ve read that summary. This is a vicious organism, Neal, and not to be underestimated. Thomas? Sit-rep, please.”

“No threats at this time, Admiral.”

“Pak, move all ships to planet now?”

“Yes. Can do.”

+++++

It had taken the better part of a day, but it now appeared that all of the organisms near and around the university had been killed and their underground nurseries destroyed, including two enormous egg-laying queens that had been captured and subsequently frozen after an hours long battle under one of the university’s power plants. Miraculously, no Marines had been killed or taken to one of the nurseries.

But after two Marines came down with flu-like symptoms it was determined that an unseen airborne spore had been responsible for transmission of the organism, and with that knowledge Pak gave the order to have the planet irradiated from low orbit, and then the planet was placed under long term quarantine. Neither Agamemnon nor Enterprise had facilities to treat the afflicted Marines, but as all Pak’s ships did, the infected troops were put into stasis and then transported by shuttle to Pak’s flagship, where treatment, if possible, would begin.

“Your mate,” Pak asked. “Judy. Know what has happened?”

“No, but I assume the Company has taken her hostage during their campaign to take the colony at Mintaka.”

“This our fault, our responsibility. We go you, with you, to your Mintaka. You send engineers my ship now study drive. Thomas need mate; girl decide?”

“Yes, she will join Thomas on your ship when you are ready.”

“First dock your ships to ours, then we together go this Mintaka. We fix problem, but little time. Big star near explode soon, you call Betelgeuse. Drive and space-time distorted by explosion, must hurry.”

“Do you know when Betelgeuse will go supernova?”

“This mean explode?”

“Yes.”

“Process underway many years, soon last phase.”

“How soon?”

“In your time measure, days maybe.”

Ripley turned to his screen and took a deep breath. “Lars, are you there?”

The rather ghostly image of Lars Jansen slowly gathered on Ripley’s screen, and once again ‘Lars’ looked around – almost as if he was experiencing the confines of living within the dimensions of the screen. “Yes, Admiral, I am here now – always. I am scanning all shipboard systems and communications.”

“Did you say ‘always?’”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Can you gather everything that’s known about the current state of Betelgeuse, and a likely time the star could go nova?”

“Everything, Admiral?”

“Yes, please. There’s no one on the ship more knowledgeable about solar dynamics than you, and I need to know how Mintaka might be affected by such an event.”

“Very little direct impact, Admiral. As you know, Betelgeuse is approximately 500 light years from Earth, and while Mintaka Prime, or Delta Orionis, is 690 light years away, consider that Delta Orionis 34 is 2300 light years distant, so the visible results of the explosion will appear to residents of Earth 1800 years before the residents of Mintaka 4 see the explosion. The same applies for any radiative impacts, Admiral. Furthermore, Pak’s statement that Betelgeuse will go nova within days is not verifiable by astronomers on either Earth or Mars using current technologies.”

“So you think we’ll be safe going to Delta Orionis 34?”

“Assuming the Tall White’s faster than light drive is unaffected by the event, that should remain true.”

“And if it is affected?”

“Then,” Lar’s avatar said, “you would be forced to find your way back to Earth using an unknown sequence of Jump Points.”

Which, Ripley knew, would entail finding new Alderson Points in stars disrupted by the recent Supernova event, and without unmanned scout ships to send through the altered Jump Points first, it was more than possible that new Alderson tramlines would have formed, and these new lines might lead very deep within the star, and possibly near its core, and that would lead to premature Langston Field collapse within that star, and of course that meant the immediate loss of ship and crew.

“Or, Lars, we manufacture Pak’s drive and return directly to Earth,” Ripley replied.

“Good luck with that,” Lars said, his AI created grin suddenly looking more than a little sinister.

“We help drive – build drive – with you, Den-ton,” Pak said. “First go Min-taka. Betelgeuse nova soon. Very soon. Find mate, Judy, sooner.”

“Commander Brennan, how long before we can be ready to piggyback for another jump?”

“Let’s see…we have 400 Marines either in-transit on shuttles or in the hangar bays, so call it two hours to get everyone where they’re supposed to be, so during that time Pak can maneuver his ships in close to use our docking clamps. But Admiral, we have fourteen ships, including the Enterprise, but Pak’s fleet is down to six vessels, including his flagship. That will require multiple roundtrips for Pak’s fleet, leaving half our combined fleet separated when we jump into a system full of unknown combatants.”

“We have the Maser, Commander. That’s a big advantage.”

“And one that takes minutes to reorient and get into position to fire,” she came back testily.

“I’m open to suggestions, XO.”

“Send the Enterprise Battle Group in first. They’re better equipped to handle heavy incoming fire.”

“Okay, Louise. Work it out with Neal.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Den-ton? My son come your ship now?”

Ripley was taken aback by that request, as it seemed an unwarranted expression of trust. Then again, there was absolutely no way he was going to turn down that request. “We would be honored, Pak.”

“He come now. Thomas and Yukio stay here now?”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

His screen went black again and he halfway expected Lars to reappear, but then again Pak still spoke bluntly and directly – and wasted no time saying his goodbyes. But he was curious now, about Pak’s ships and their FTL drives. “Lars, you there?”

“I was in the middle of a good dream Admiral, but yes, I’m here.”

“A good dream? Really? Tell me more…”

“Well sir, it involved three girls and a lot of vegetable oil…”

“Never mind.”

“Yessir.”

“Lars, I’d like you to image Pak’s ships when they jump, and I’d like you to use a very high frame rate. I’d like to slow down the action as much as possible and see what we learn.”

“Can do, sir.”

“In the meantime, see if you can identify the nearby stellar ignition and a possible new set of Jump Points. I see two possible hydrogen clouds in the area where Hyperion appeared…”

“And I’ve identified the ignition source, Admiral. There is a knot appearing center mass of the cloud to your left, and while the core is still forming, the internal mass is spinning fast enough to generate Jump Points.”

“Distance to this Jump Point?”

“1.35 AU, Admiral.”

“So, call it six days at 3Gs and not quite four days at 4Gs. And do you see the problem with that, Lars?”

“Yes, Admiral. Hyperion covered the distance in a matter of hours, implying her speed was in excess of 10 Gs, which is not possible for humans.”

“So, Hyperion was piloted by androids and her military complement was…”

“The organism, sir.”

“Which implies what, Lars?”

“Either that the androids are capable of controlling the organism, or that the organism has no interest in the androids.”

“What the logical conclusion?”

“The latter, Admiral. If the organism replicates in warm-blooded carbon based lifeforms, they would leave the androids alone.”

Denton spun around in his couch and looked at Gordon. “I understand your behavioral inhibitors prevent you from taking up arms against human beings…”

“No, Admiral, that is not quite correct. We cannot take up arms against any sentient creatures.”

“So, does this organism represent sentience?”

“Unknown, Admiral.”

“So you could not take up arms against them?”

“That is correct, Admiral.”

Ripley nodded as he watched Pak’s huge flagship maneuver into place ‘beneath’ the Enterprise, then he looked at three very large docking clamps as they emerged from Enterprise’s hull and latched onto three points of Pak’s ship – and then he saw a tiny shuttle emerge from Pak’s ship, probably carrying Pak’s son…

And it hit him just them – how similar we were to the Tall Whites– so he turned to Gordon and asked Lars to come back onscreen.

“Here, Admiral,” they said simultaneously. 

“I’d like you two to devise a way to surreptitiously get a fluid sample from Pak’s son while he’s aboard, and I’d like a full genomic analysis as soon as possible.”

“What are you thinking, sir?” Lars asked.

“Physiognomically they’re just too similar to us…”

“Or you are to them,” Gordon advised cautiously.

“Exactly. And I’d like to know about those similarities, and why there are dissimilarities. For instance, why the pure white skin, and the eyes? Why are they black?”

“Simple conjecture here, sir,” Lars said, “but two reasons for these sorts of differentiation are climate adaptation and camouflage. It might be difficult to ascertain either without an understanding of climatic variation on their home world and a basic history of predation on that planet. You might ask about these, if you get a chance.”

“They also, according to David, have a deep hatred for androids,” Gordon added. “This might indicate a negative experience with androids in their past…”

“Or an abiding respect for organic life,” Lars countered.

“I would question that assumption, Lars,” Gordon said. “Their current civilization has broken into factions, and at least one of these groups has fashioned weapons of mass destruction, so at least one group has decided they need such weaponry, but there would be no need for this level of offensive capability if all other factions were benevolent. And Admiral, I hope I don’t need to remind you that we have no idea what either their capabilities or intentions ultimately are, and that also they now have the capability to produce an X-ray Maser.”

Ripley nodded. “From what I’ve read, simply observing the Maser’s operation with the right equipment would reveal many of the relevant operational characteristics, and I feel certain we can count on them having observed our use of the weapon. As for their intentions, we may never know what those are, but my overriding concern, first and foremost, has been to prove that we are trustworthy allies. 

“Understood, Admiral,” Gordon said, and Lars nodded his agreement.

Ripley watched Pak’s shuttle approach the port-side hangar deck on one screen, and on three others he watched docking clamps join USNSF ships to the smaller ships in Pak’s remaining fleet, yet she sight of a ship the size of the Enterprise conjoined with Pak’s equally gigantic horseshoe-shaped craft was simply too much to take in. 

He felt Brennan lean over and look at his screen, then he felt her sigh. “That doesn’t look possible, you know?” she said.

“To think of that much mass exceeding the speed of light…well, that’s just mind boggling.”

Then Pak’s face flashed onscreen. “Den-ton, send scout ship first, we wait here for report.”

“Understood.”

A single horseshoe powered away from the fleet using thrusters and reaction control jets – orienting the two sponsons in the general direction of Mintaka…

“Gordon?”

“Understood.” 

Ripley was fairly certain the next thing he saw was a faint streak of light, but all he was really sure of was that one second the scout ship was visible and the next it had simply vanished. “How long for the ship to make the journey?” he asked Pak.

“Hours, maybe two, maybe three. Depend gravity waves. Interfere. Your engineer said he understand how drive work, but not navigation. Can send navigator?”

Ripley looked at Brennan, and she nodded.

“Yukio is a fine navigator, but still learning. See if she can understand?”

The screen went dark again and Ripley turned to Gordon. “Well? Anything useful?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Gordon said as he pulled an image file and placed it onscreen. “There are heat blooms here, in the aft-most part of the ship just about where you’d expect a drive to be located, but there were also blooms in the forward sections of both sponsons.” He changed images and what looked like a beam of light shot across the space between the forward sponsons, and in the next frame a beam of light extended out from the ship towards Mintaka.

“I’ll be damned,” Ripley sighed. “They’re creating a tramline…”

“So it would appear, Admiral. The concept is strikingly simple, and it may well be possible to convert our existing Alderson Drives to generate our own tramlines.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Ripley whispered. “This changes everything, Gordo!”

“Gordo, Admiral? I’m afraid I do not understand the reference.”

“Gordon Cooper. One of the original Mercury astronauts. Everyone called him Gordo.”

“I see. Then the use is complementary.”

“Yes it is.”

“Thank you, Admiral. In the next frame a field is forming around the ship, but I have not yet examined the EM spectrum recordings to determine exactly what this is.”

“Admiral, hangar deck. Pak’s shuttle is secure and they’re unloading some kind of G-couch.”

“Okay, on my way.” Ripley turned to the android and smiled. “Okay, Gordo, keep on it. We need some answers.”

“Yessir.”

“Lars, make sure you have the hangar deck under observation.”

“Yessir.”

“Commander Brennan, come with me, please.”

They pushed off their G-couches and made for Main Street, then he led the way down to the main access ladder to the hangar deck and a minute or so later they pulled up to the pressure bulkhead. The actual hangar bay was only slightly pressurized so the main blast doors were still locked and showing red, so they went to the nearest view port – and that’s when they got their first look at one of the Tall White’s G-couches.

“What the hell is that thing on top?” Brennan sighed.

Ripley shook his head. “Looks like a telescope of some kind, but beyond that…?”

A team of men from Pak’s ship was assembling a platform around the couch and attaching lenses around the perimeter of the platform, then one of them ran what looked like power cables to a large black box beside their shuttle, and there he fastidiously plugged each cable into what Ripley now assumed was a power supply of some sort, or maybe a life support module, but the projection coming out the top of the main structure was simply unrecognizable.

“Sir, it looks like some kind of aiming mechanism…a visual aiming mechanism. Look how it lines up with the couch. The projection ends next to the…good God, look at that helmet!”

Ripley was. One of the technicians was mounting an elephantine faceplate on a swivel mount, then checking alignment with the optical tube assembly he’d just mounted above the G-couch.

Then one of the aliens turned to Ripley and waved him in.

“We’ll need supplemental oxygen in there, Admiral,” Brennan said, handing him a Porta-mask.

“Okay, cycle the airlock.” They waited for the pressure to equalize then stepped into the airlock, then cycled the airlock again before entering the hangar deck. Once the pressure equalized to the low pressure in the bay the door opened and they pushed off, drifting across to the team working on the couch.

“Who navigator,” one of the Tall Whites asked, his voice an impossibly deep baritone.

“I am,” Brennan said, and the Tall White turned and stared at Brennan.

“You not male?”

“No, not male.”

The Tall White shrugged but appeared uncomfortable with the idea. “Sit here, Navigator,” the Tall White said.

Brennan crawled up into the massive couch and everyone realized that nothing fit correctly, but the technicians got to work adjusting the couch until Louise was reasonably comfortable sitting in the thing.

“Navigator have name?” the Tall White asked.

“Louise,” Brennan said.

“Lou-ise? I am urPak, son of Pak. I close this,” he said, indicating the elephantine faceplate, “over face now. No afraid. Hands place here,” he added, showing her where to place her hands. He stepped back and rotated the faceplate down, and as soon as the faceplate made contact with the couch a vast holographic star-chart formed around the couch…

“Admiral, you were correct. The optical tube is an aiming device.”

“Correct,” urPak said, almost smiling, “and you move sky with finger controls, line up target in sight.”

“Denton…this is amazing! Can you see the sky map out there?”

“Yes, it seems like it has deeper layers of detail, too.”

“Correct. Here your planet,” he said as the sky map adjusted to put the Sun in the aiming reticle, “now this button, hit two times.”

She did and the reticle zoomed in on earth, showing the current position of the terminator. Two more clicks and she was zoomed in on massive polar ice cap that now covered most of the northern hemisphere. “How do you zoom out?” she asked.

“Click up on switch.”

“Got it.”

“Find Mintaka, rotate sphere under hand, sky map move with sphere under hand.”

Orion wasn’t really recognizable as such from Gemini, but both Betelgeuse and Rigel were easy to spot and from there she quickly found the Belt stars and zoomed in on the two pairs of binary stars that made up the Mintaka asterism. “This is awesome!” Louise said, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Once engine-drive is connect to sight,” urPak said, “you press this switch and go there. Fast.”

“I understand,” Brennan said, smiling as urPak lifted the faceplate. “May I show you our systems?”

“Yes, please.”

“Louise, show him anything he wants to see. I’ll be up on the bridge.”

urPak looked from Brennan to Ripley and back again. “Lou-ise know all ship?”

“She knows everything, urPak. What about females on your ship?”

“Few females ship. Stay planet. Very few, too dangerous.”

“Very few females?”

“Yes. Very few. Long time past one female born every ten males, now one female every ten thousand males. Females protect most important. Only way family survives. Not same you?”

“No, not the same. One female to one male for long time.”

“Pak ask is possible we male and your female breed. Can test?”

Ripley looked at Brennan and nodded. “Maybe you two could swing by medical on your way back to the bridge?”

Brennan sighed – even as she tried to hide her smile. “Yessir.”

+++++

Two hours passed and Pak’s scout ship should have arrived at Mintaka, so Ripley cycled the countdown timer to 120 minutes and hit the start button, then he watched Brennan and urPak as they examined one of the fusion reactors – and several engineers had gathered around them as urPak pointed out something on a circulation pump.

“Lars?”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Can you hear them?”

“Yessir. Pak’s son is pointing out the structural inefficiency of our existing pump and recommending changes.”

“Are you recording?”

“Yes, Admiral. Everything.”

“Any thoughts?”

“His knowledge of metallurgy is impressive, Admiral. He is referring to a new titanium alloy that I am unaware of and I am trying to model the molecular dynamics now.”

“Very well.”

“Gordon, did you advise Medical what the problem is?”

“Yessir. They can pull a genotype from a check swab, but Admiral, it may be necessary to ask for a semen sample.”

“That could be interesting.”

“To say the least,” Gordon said. “Unless they have fewer inhibitions about such matters.”

“Either way. The more we learn…”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“I bet Brennan wouldn’t mind helping get a semen sample…”

“Admiral, is that sarcasm?”

“I’m not really sure, Gordo.”

“Understood, sir. I noted increased respiration rates whenever she looked at him.”

“At his groin, you mean?”

“Yessir.”

“I bet that damn thing is a foot and half long.”

“Does that account for the high respiration rate, Admiral?”

Ripley shrugged. “I’m not really the right person to ask about that, Gordo, but that would be my guess.”

“Yessir.”

Ripley looked at the countdown timer and sighed. “A watched pot never boils,” he muttered.

“Sir?”

“I hate waiting with nothing to do.”

“There are fitness reports that need your attention, Admiral.”

“Like I said, Gordo, I hate waiting with nothing to do.”

“Yessir.”

+++++

Brennan led urPak up to Main Street, then to the forward medical bay, and the closer she got to the clinic area the more embarrassed she became. “This is one of our medical facilities, sir. In order to answer your father’s question about breeding, we will need some samples.”

“Samples?”

“Of genetic material.”

“We do here? Now? On ship?”

“A scientist will collect samples.”

“Scientist?” urPak consulted his earpiece and then nodded. “What type sample?”

“I think I should let the scientist describe that. Would you follow me, please?”

They pulled their way into the clinic and the physician on duty looked at urPak, then at Commander Brennan as they stopped and floated next to her table. This was the first time the physician had seen one of the Tall Whites, and she didn’t know whether to be scared or simply impressed. She guessed he was approximately eight feet tall and had to weight close to 250 pounds, but if there was an ounce of fat on him she couldn’t see it.

“You scientist?” urPak said, his deep baritone further unsettling the physician.

“Yes, I study and repair the human body.”

“You female.”

“I am. Yes.”

“No female scientist my world. No sickness, no repair.”

“Really? Well, my name is Ruth, and I specialize in internal medicine, which are the more usual illnesses we experience.”

“More usual?”

“I usually do not repair injuries received in battle. We have another type of doctor, a surgeon, that takes care of those.”

“She also,” Brennan said, “studies reproductive issues.”

urPak consulted his earpiece. “Genetics is part of reproductive issues, correct?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We want know possible mate human female. We…our females not producing females…enough females…for…” – and again urPak went to the earpiece – “…for genetic homeostasis.”

“Ah, yes,” Ruth Gershensen said, “I understand. For this to be possible, it is usually the case that there is, or was, a common genetic ancestor.”

urPak looked away, consulted the earpiece again, then he spoke lowly into a microphone and waited for the reply. A minute passed and urPak listened again, then he turned to Gershensen: “How you test, please.”

“Blood, saliva, and semen.”

urPak repeated the words then waited for a reply, and a moment later he spoke again before he turned to Gershensen. “You test now, please.”

The physician nodded and went to collect the necessary supplies.

And Louise turned to urPak. “What do you know about Love?”

And again urPak consulted his earpiece. “You speak of emotion? A feeling?”

“Yes?”

“We read love in the old books, when more females, but now females are too important for Love. There is lineage and power to consider. Dynasties are everything now.”

“What about war? Do you have wars over possession of females?”

urPak consulted the earpiece again. “My father instructs me to reply with caution.”

Louise reached out and took urPak’s hand. “And what would you tell me?”

“It has happened. Some factions breakaway over possession of females. Why you take my hand?”

“What did you feel when I did?”

“Strange sensation, desire to hold, to protect.”

“Protect who?”

“You.”

Gershensen returned with a tray loaded with the supplies she’d need to draw blood and collect a sterile saliva sample, as well as a beaker to collect semen in, then she placed a latex tourniquet around urPak’s upper arm and palpated for a vein.

“What do, Scientist?”

“I’m going to take a sample of your blood…”

“You…what? How?”

“I’m going to stick this needle in your arm and collect a blood sample.”

“I don’t think so.” More consultations with the earpiece ensued…

…but then Louise stepped close and took urPak’s hand again. “It only hurts a little, and I’ll be right here with you.”

“You stay?”

“If you want me to?”

Gershensen looked away and did her best not to smile.

“If you stay. Yes.”

Gershensen nodded and swabbed down his arm then pulled out a very small butterfly syringe and drew the sample.

“There. That’s all there was to it,” the physician said as she handed the vials to a tech. “Now I’m going to take a swab from inside your cheek…”

“You…what?”

“Here, let me show you,” Gershensen said as she took one of the star-shaped swabs and took a sample from inside Brennan’s mouth.

“It doesn’t hurt at all,” Louise said.

“Why do?” urPak asked.

“We collect whole cells and examine them under a microscope, then we sample the DNA from there as well as from the blood sample.”

“DNA?”

“Genetic material,” Ruth added.

“Okay. Do now.”

Ruth twirled the swab over this soft tissue inside urPak’s mouth, then put the swab in a test tube and handed it to her tech. “Well, okay, now the – hard – part. We’ll need a semen sample from you now.”

“Semen?” And once again he consulted the earpiece. “How collect?”

And while Gershensen explained the usual process, urPak’s eyes grew bigger and bigger around.

“You are joking.”

“No, I’m afraid not. We need to check from structure and motility…”

“Motility?”

“How strong the individual sperm are.”

urPak looked sideways, as if all the predictable symmetries of his life had just been knocked askew. “Of course semen strong.”

“And we need to see if the individual sperm are too big.”

“Why matter?”

“If too big, destroy human female egg. If too strong, destroy female egg.”

“I no mate before. And never with hand,” urPak said, disgusted by the notion.

And then Louise cleared her throat. “Would you like me to do it for you?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed and a small grin formed. “You do this?”

Louise simply smiled at him, and that was all it took.

Gershensen handed the beaker to Brennan and pointed to the exam room, then she shook her head as she watched them disappear behind the green curtain. “Men!” she muttered. “They’re all the same!”

Then everyone in the clinic heard Brennan cry out – “Oh. My. God!” – just before she started giggling.

+++++

Ripley’s second countdown timer now displayed two hours and twenty minutes, and there was still no sign of the scout ship – and as far as Ripley was concerned no news was now very bad news. And Brennan was still down in medical, and that was bothering him a little, too. Then Pak was onscreen.

“Den-ton. Ship no return.”

“What about Betelgeuse? Has it gone nova?”

Pak looked offscreen. “No. Expand continue.”

“COMMs, get me Enterprise actual, please,” Ripley asked.

“Davis here…oh, Denton. Still nothing on the scout ship?”

“Nothing. How many Banshees do you have onboard?”

“Got a couple down for maintenance, but I can get five squadrons up.”

“Okay, let’s commence tanking operations, make sure everyone has full hydrogen tanks, then I want to jump into the Mintaka system in line abreast formation, say ten clicks between each ship…”

“Denton, MacArthur has four squadrons of Wildcats, and they’ve got fifth gen cobalt-arsenic Masers.”

“Okay, so we take the center, you to starboard and Mac to port, and I want Stavridis on my stern. Who you like for outside screen?”

“Burke and Spruance; both have been rearmed and have bigger Langston Field generators, and Spruance has kinetic weapons.”

“Such as?”

“Harpoons. With tactical nukes.”

“How many Marines did you lose?”

“Twenty three in stasis, and we confirmed organism implantation in all of ‘em.”

“Den-ton,” Pak said, clearly startled, “must not let organism on ship.”

Ripley nodded. “Admiral Davis, do what you need to do, but get those infected men off your ship…”

“I hear you, Denton. We’ve cleaned the shuttles and replaced all the air filters down there, and it’s been over 24 hours so I think we’re in the clear.”

Ripley shook his head. “Sorry, Neal. Get the stasis modules into escape pods and launch ‘em at the closest star.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Next, we have to assume that Mintaka has been overrun with the organism, and probably any ships we run into may have them onboard.”

“So, we take ‘em out?”

Ripley shrugged. “Above all else, I want to find out what happened on Mintaka 4, but it’s even more imperative that we keep that organism from reaching Sol system. And Pak, I can’t imagine you want those bugs running around your home world.”

“Must not happen, Den-ton.”

Brennan and urPak pulled themselves onto the bridge and Ripley nodded. “Commander, we were just discussing fleet dispositions. It looks like we may be going in hot.”

“The scout ship…?” she muttered.

“…is now almost forty minutes overdue.”

“Damn.”

urPak leaned over and spoke to his father for a few minutes, a rapid fire exchange that to Ripley’s unpracticed ear sounded vaguely Indo-European, then he pushed back from the console. “I stay ship here, if acceptable, Admiral. On hangar deck.”

“Den-ton, my engineers try connect ship drive to sky-map. Then ship you steer fast.”

Ripley looked at his classmate, Admiral Davis, and Davis just nodded in agreement. So did Brennan. “Thank you, Pak. We have five ships ready to move on Mintaka. Let me know when your ships are ready.”

“Ready now.”

Ripley nodded. “Commander Brennan, make sure our guests are settled-in and ready to jump, then report to the Bridge. Yukio? Are you on the command net?”

“Yes, Admiral. I am in an acceleration module next to one of their star-couches, but I have you on audio.”

“Thomas? You on the net?”

“Yessir.”

“Stay with Pak. Don’t leave his side unless it’s to protect his life.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Neal, let’s jump in 15 minutes, and I want you and MacArthur to launch the ready alert ships as soon as the computers are operational again. Get your Marines ready to repel boarders, and your gunners ready to manually aim and fire, if necessary. If anything happens to me, it’s your fleet.”

“Understood, Denton. Good luck, Bud.”

“You too, Amigo.”

“Den-ton? What this mean? Good luck, Bud?”

“When two friends are about to go into battle, it is customary to wish each other well, just in case you never see that friend again.”

Pak looked away for a moment, then his eyes held Ripley’s for a moment. “I understand. Yes, I understand very much.”

Acceleration warnings sounded, the shrill klaxon warning of imminent heavy G-forces, then red strobes began flashing, an additional warning to everyone onboard to prepare to assume battle stations immediately after the jump.

“Admiral,” Pak said, “we talk soon, my ship.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that, my friend.”

Pak’s feed blacked out just as Commander Brennan pulled herself onto the bridge and then into her acceleration couch, and Ripley just couldn’t help himself: “You two set a date yet, Louise?”

She turned and looked at him and then stuck out her tongue.

“Left you speechless, did he?”

That was good for a middle finger salute.

So he started singing what he remembered of ‘Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw?’ – which really seemed to get to her.

But then she turned and focused on her screens, ignoring his taunts. “Admiral, we appear to be lined up on Mintaka,” she said, all business now and focusing on fleet dispositions.

“Right. Sorry. Mainframes to standby, reactors to standby, and as soon as we’re in-system release the docking clamps and get the drives online as soon as the computers are up. Lars?”

“Here, Admiral.”

“Get sensors on Betelgeuse and Mintaka 4 as soon as the dust settles…”

“Dust, Admiral?”

Ripley sighed. “As soon as we get to Mintaka.”

“Yessir.”

“And do a deep scan for NSF IFF beacons.”

“Understood.”

“Admiral?” Brennan said. “Stavridis wants to know if they should jump when we do.”

 “Yes. The only weapon we have is that Maser, so we’ll be naked without them.”

“Acceleration stations,” blared the computer’s warning voice. “All personnel prepare for heavy acceleration. Damage control parties, prepare to man your stations. Now four minutes to acceleration.”

“Commander Brennan, raise the blast screen and seal off the bridge.”

“Aye sir. All stations, report when ready for jump.”

And one by one the ship’s chiefs and officers called in.

“Engineering,” Ripley added, “if we take a hit and get a runaway reactor go ahead and dump the core.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Acceleration stations,” the warning voice repeated. “All personnel prepare for heavy acceleration. WEPPs, prepare to man the Maser. Now two minutes to acceleration.”

“WEPPs, aye.”

“Sixty seconds to acceleration,” the voice barked.

“Well Judy,” Ripley said to himself, “ready or not, here we come.” He settled back in his seat and made sure his mouthguard was in place.

“Ten seconds to acceleration, nine, eight…”

Ripley took a deep breath and sighed, then his eyes told him that the bridge was stretching and that something didn’t quite feel right. Then came the nausea, at first deep in his gut then as an intense burst of saliva in his mouth, and what had in truth been two hours at light speed had just passed in mere seconds. Red emergency lighting came on, then he heard a computer going into the equivalent of a schizoid break, and the OOD shut the errant system down, then tried a hard reboot.

“Brennan?”

“Here, sir.”

“Blast shields down.”

“Yessir.”

The titanium clamshell shields rotated down into the hull, and Ripley leaned forward, training his eyes on the glowing debris field dead ahead.

“What the fuck?” he heard Brennan whisper under her breath.

“You took the words right out of my mouth. All personnel, man your battle stations. Prepare for heavy incoming fire…”

Chapter 9

Mintaka 4 was two hundred thousand miles ahead, but even from this distance Ripley could see huge fires glowing on the night side of the terminator, but the space between Agamemnon and Mintaka 4 was littered with dozens, maybe hundreds of ships that had recently sustained critical damage, while a few remaining ships were still exchanging fire – with other ships and with unknown forces on the planet’s surface.

“WEPPs,” Ripley commanded, “get IFF confirmations on NSF vessels, and I mean now.”

“Aye, sir. Primary computer is still down but we have reboots on two secondary systems. We should be in business within a minute or two.”

“Enterprise, you there?” Ripley asked.

“Here, Rip,” Admiral Davis replied. “Launching the ready alert, and we have about two hundred plus escape pods in our vicinity. What do you want to do?”

“We can’t bring anything shipboard until we know the status of the organism.”

“Rip, those pods have about twenty hours of breathable air onboard.”

“Understood.”

“I read the monograph. It doesn’t say much about gestation time,” Davis said.

“Yup, but that may be the least of our problems. What are you picking up on the planet’s surface?”

“Not sure. Some of those blooms look like meteor impacts, or even…”

“Yeah,” Ripley sighed, “or large nuclear blasts. But does that sound like something the company would do?”

“Admiral, WEPPs here. We’ve identified parts of at least five different Tall White ships in the nearest debris field, and two Japanese warships are engaging one of the Tall White ships.”

“Pak? Are you on the net?”

“Den-ton. Ship other faction. Ship loaded with particle beam weapons, fusion weapons, and think biological weapons. Think attack two city on planet with fusion weapon. My ship, you ship, must attack. Too far here. Must go close. We jump behind you release dock clamp we attack fast before know what happen.”

“Pak, my ship computer no work fast after jump. Computer get sick.”

Pak looked offscreen and a heated exchange followed, then Yukio appeared by Pak’s side.

“Admiral,” the teenaged girl said – a little nervously, “they want to jump with you attached, and they will remain attached and aim our weapon with their maneuvering thrusters.”

“But how will they know how or where to aim, Yukio?”

“Must link computers,” Pak said. “Den-ton, must prepare jump now. Faction prepare to use particle weapon our ship. Must go fast. Now –” and then Pak seemed to plead – “must link computers.”

“Brennan, sound Jump stations. Jump in 30 seconds. Lars? Are you there?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Lars, have you analyzed their computers? Can we link up?”

“I have created the necessary protocols, Admiral, but are you sure you want to do this?”

“Create the link! Do it now!”

“Yessir.”

“Pak, trying to link up now!”

The PA system blared and red lights flashed, then an abbreviated countdown ensued – followed almost immediately by that odd stretching sensation – just before the same overwhelming nausea hit again – and within what felt like a second they appeared behind the rogue Tall White’s ship, and though it too was shaped somewhat like a horseshoe, this ship was at least twice as large as Pak’s immense ship…

Then Ripley felt small, jolting course corrections…just as he saw a warning light from an encoded personal locator beacon.

And then Pak literally yelled “Fire – now!”

“Balin, FIRE!” Ripley yelled.

“Okay, we have him, firing now,” she said calmly.

Ripley was vaguely aware that the rogue ship’s drive had begun to glow – when the ship simply disappeared.

“Ship Jump!” Pak screamed angrily.

“Do you know where?”

“Yes, no can go. Big war start. Must not follow.”

“Understand.”

Davis came back on the net just then, his voice delayed by a few seconds because of the increased distance: “Ripley, what’s happening?”

“The enemy ship jumped before we could attack. We can’t pursue. Internal politics.”

“What about a rescue operation for all these escape pods?”

“We’ll have to examine each pod, Neal, or at the very least establish communications with whoever is onboard.”

“We’ve managed to get a couple video links established remotely. The inhabitants have that parasite attached to their face. Jesus, Denton, what do we do with them?”

Pak interrupted. “Best launch to near star. No save, not when parasite attached. Even after, when no see parasite, danger stay. Parasite inside. Must destroy parasite, not let on ship.”

Davis suddenly looked ill-at-ease. “Denton, so far we count three hundred and fifty five pods out there, and most of ‘em are the old mark one system. They’ll start firing retros and heading for the planet’s surface and we’ll end up with pods everywhere.”

“Den-ton, sorry, must shoot pods now. No time.”

“Admiral Davis,” Ripley said, “go ahead and piggyback with the horseshoes and get in here. WEPPs, open fire on any escape pods and prioritize that appear to be ready to leave orbit and reenter the planet’s atmosphere. “Pak?”

“Yes, Den-ton.”

“We should move closer to the planet now, check for survivors on the surface.”

“Okay. We move now.”

“Admiral?”

Ripley turned to his main view screen, surprised to find Jansen’s avatar waiting for him in there. “Lars? What is it?”

Text appeared on the screen a moment later: ‘Private transmission. Go off external audio now.’

So Ripley nodded, put on his ancient, rarely used headset, and then he made sure his external audio feed was disabled before turning back to Lars. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Admiral, Pak’s ship’s computer performed a deep search of all NSF databases.”

Ripley nodded. “I expected that. Did we reciprocate?”

Lars smiled. “Yessir, and successfully, I might add. Including a fairly complete history of their civilization.”

“Can you access the information?”

“Admiral, their language, even their handwriting, matches early Indo-European protolanguages, and there are too many parallels to simply put it down to coincidence. I now how ur-Pak’s genetic coding, and this information only validates my initial conclusion…”

“They seeded Earth. Is that what you’re saying, Lars?”

The boys face nodded. “Yessir, but like any good gardener, they’ve apparently been tending their crops, modifying traits as planetary conditions changed…”

“What?”

“That’s correct, sir. We did not simply evolve by Natural Selection. Our genes have apparently been manipulated at keep points along our development.”

“Anything I need to know about Pak’s faction?”

“Possibly, but I am still collating the data. It would appear his is what you might call the Gardener faction. Pak would appear to be the current regional leader of an explorer-genetic developer faction, and Admiral, most of there ships are barely armed, some not at all. They rely on their FTL drives to avoid conflict, and there appear to be rigidly enforced non-aggression treaties between various factions, but these pacts are breaking down. Assuming these files have not been altered and accurately represent the current state of affairs between these groups, we have just encountered a very aggressive faction that wants to do away with all weaker factions, and it also wants to do away any aggressive new species the ‘Gardeners’ have developed.”

“So, what did the Japanese find on Mintaka 4?”

“Another university. One maintained by yet another faction.”

“Oh dear God. And the Warriors found out about the discovery and moved on the Japanese…”

“And that Warrior ship arrived just as the Russians and Chinese fleets showed up. But Admiral, every ship in the combined Russian-Chinese fleet has been destroyed by just one of their ships.”

Ripley looked away for a moment, then he looked at Admiral Davis on an adjacent screen and flipped the switch to talk to him. “Admiral Davis, as soon as you arrive I’d like you to come over to Agamemnon. Pak, could you join us?”

“Yes, Den-ton. There is much to discuss.”

“Yes, there is. Neal? Use the aft hangar deck. We’re constructing an FTL drive on the forward deck.”

“Okay.”

“Den-ton, okay separate ships now?” Pak asked.

“Yes. Go ahead.”

The connection to Pak’s ship was almost instantaneously cut, and of course Pak disappeared from Ripley’s monitors. “Brennan, let’s head down to a one hundred mile orbit. The Marines on the shuttles can sort out pods more effectively than we can.”

“Yessir, I’ll notify their captain.”

“Admiral, WEPPs here. We’ve located a city on long range scans, an intact city. No signs of ongoing conflict.”

“Any life signs, WEPPs?”

“Not from this distance, sir.”

“Notify me as soon you do,” Ripley said, flipping back to private mode. “Lars? What about star charts?”

“I have them all, Admiral. Every planet, in every system they currently inhabit, is included, including the weapons depot Covenant’s Walter indicated.”

“Sweet Jesus, why’d he give us all this information?”

“That seems obvious, Admiral. Pak and the other factions allied to his no longer possess either the technology or the armed forces necessary to take on the Warrior faction. With a few key additions and modifications, I would assume that Pak wants to use us to reestablish equilibrium in their diplomatic relations with the warriors.”

“Use us as his warrior class?”

“We are well suited to the task, Admiral.”

Ripley took a deep breath and nodded. “What else am I missing, Lars?”

“Well, simply put, Admiral, with these same additions and modifications, the NSF would be in a much better position to defend against an attack on Earth. But sir, there is a more immediate problem.”

“And that is?”

“Sir, I assume you saw your wife’s personal locator beacon?”

Ripley nodded.

“Well, it seems to me they have, more than likely, taken the commanding officers of several of our warships, either as hostages or more likely to interrogate. I can leave it to your imagination to uncover a purpose, but I consider it likely that these Warriors will want all the military information and knowledge they can get their hands on before they make a move on earth.”

“What about negotiations? Couldn’t we try to…”

Lars shook his head. “Admiral, from a historical perspective, successful negotiations result only when all parties possess either economic and military parity. We possess neither. We do have the new Maser but lack the means to use it effectively, and consider how quickly Pak’s engineers took our plans and developed a working weapon of their own. On the other hand, the Warriors possess the organism, and we have to assume they are willing to use such a weapon.”

“Admiral?” Commander Brennan said over the command net.

“Go ahead.”

“We are approaching a hundred mile orbital insertion and the Enterprise is now on station. Stavridis is on our port quarter, and I have a tanker coming alongside to replenish hydrogen in both ships. I have dispatched the ram scoop to the fifth planet, and the Marines are launching now.”

“Very nicely done, XO. Let me know when the rest of the fleet arrives, and get Admiral Davis over here ASAP.” 

“Yessir.”

Ripley flipped back to his secure circuit to Lars. “Have you examined the feasibility of modifying our ships for FTL operations?”

“I have. And actually, sir, the Langston Field may prove to be a technology beyond anything the Warrior faction has. We can also assume that any hostages would know that and endeavor to keep such information secret.”

“Judy has a decent understanding of the theory, but no one going through command school gets any kind of introduction to manufacturing one. Only engineers…”

“I understand, sir. Still, the best offense is a strong defense.”

“Or,” Ripley sighed, “the best defense is a sneaky offense.”

“Sir?”

“Access my library files, Lars, and look up Admiral Tōgō’s summary and objectives of the Battle of the Tsushima Strait.”

“Done, sir. But I’m not sure I see the relevance, Admiral.”

Ripley smiled. “Tell me more about the genetic analysis of ur-Pak’s semen and swabs?”

“What would you like to know, Admiral?”

“Are we genetically compatible?”

“You mean beyond the obvious size differential?”

“Yes.”

“Assuming intercourse is possible, a viable pregnancy should result. I have no data to examine when looking at birthing outcomes, but deliveries could be problematic.”

“Brennan?” Ripley barked, his voice audible all over the bridge – and beyond.

“Sir?”

“Better come over here. We need to talk.”

She pulled herself over and hovered near the admiral’s couch. “Yessir?” she sighed, now clearly alarmed.

“Concerning our visitor, do you think intercourse would be possible between humans and, well, them?”

“Look, sir, I really don’t think…”

But Ripley held up his right hand. “Stop and answer the question, Commander. This has strategic implications, not personal.”

She saw the look in his eyes and nodded. “Uh, yes, well, the size issue will be, uh, an issue for, well, for some women…”

“Did you consider him, well, too big to handle? Uh, you know, so to speak?”

“No, sir,” Brennan said, now grinning at Ripley’s obvious discomfort.

“Lars? How many women are there dispersed around the fleet?”

“Oh, let’s see,” the boy’s avatar said as his probes reached out and searched the assembled ships. “Admiral, there are currently 124 assigned among all ship within my range, “and…let’s see here…all are within nominal childbearing age and…uh…none have any medical history that would seem to preclude…such interaction.”

“Denton,” Brennan whispered, “what are you thinking?”

“Oh, maybe something like an officer exchange program. Send a few women over to work with Pak’s people, maybe have a few of his come over here and work in a few of our departments. What do you think?”

“As long as nothing’s forced on anyone, and I mean not even implied…”

Ripley nodded in agreement. “Yup. Maybe just see…ya know…let nature take its course, I guess. We can talk it over at dinner this evening? Maybe you could bring it up?”

“Me?” Brennan asked.

“Yeah,” Ripley nodded, “it might seem be a little less uncomfortable coming from a woman.”

“Uh, Admiral,” Lars said, clearing his throat and carefully interrupting this delicate conversation, “you might ask Pak about any encounters he may have had on earth.”

“What? Why?”

“If the subject of, say, Odysseus comes up, you might ask him to talk about his experiences during that period. Also, could you ascertain if the pregnant woman we saw is his…wife?”

“Lars, what are you not telling me?”

“Sorry, sir, I don’t want to go there until I’ve had a chance to observe his response. Also, Admiral Davis’s shuttle is approaching the aft hangar deck, in case you want to render honors.”

“Brennan, see if you can find ur-Pak and go meet the Admiral,” Ripley sighed.

“Aye, sir.”

When she was out of range Ripley turned to Lars again. “How are you doing in there, son?”

“It’s interesting, Admiral, especially the interface. I have always been most comfortable doing research so much of this feels very normal to me, yet it is the almost instantaneous access to information that I find disconcerting. Once I saw for myself how easy it is to get into Pak’s network, well sir, the feeling was almost like magic…”

“The…feeling?”

“Oh, yessir, my feelings were encoded just as my memories were, and that was the most difficult thing I have encountered to date. My feelings were uncorrelated and therefore almost inappropriately retained. It took several seconds to relearn the proper expression of my emotions.”

“Have you had a chance to explore Admiral Tōgō’s summaries, and their relevance to Pearl Harbor?”

“Yes, Admiral, and now I think I understand what you have in mind.”

Ripley smiled. “Sometimes the simplest approach is best.”

“Best, sir? That would depend on your point of view. I am not sure how Pak, or his people, will respond to this.”

“Lars, those bastards took my wife. My wife! They’ll know who we are, and just what we’re capable of, by the time I get through with them. ”

Lars seemed to study Ripley’s features for a moment – an eternity for a sentient creature like himself – but then he slowly nodded understanding. “Yessir, you’re probably correct.”

“Damn right I am. You know by now that the best defense is a…”

“A strong offense. Yessir. So you said.”

+++++

Pak, of course, was horrified when he learned what Ripley had in mind, and the true scale of the assault.

The bulk of the NSF fleet would jump to the Warrior Faction’s planet and locate Judy’s homing beacon, and then send in the Marines to retrieve her and any other hostages. At the same time, Agamemnon, Stavridis and two small frigates would jump directly into a perilously low orbit near the Warrior’s main city, and another contingent of Marines would transport the two queens that had been captured on the first university planet, along with several hundred captured organisms, and these would be deposited near the city’s main reservoir system. Ripley’s plan counted on the Enterprise Battle Group’s sudden appearance creating so much confusion that the warriors would not be able to react in time to Agamemnon’s presence, let alone figure out what her real purpose was in time to do anything about it. And by the time they did start to react, Ripley planned to be in a higher orbit plastering the Warrior’s planetary defenses with his X-Ray Maser while Enterprise’s Banshees laid waste to the Warrior fleet.

Yet Pak saw that the plan’s crude logic was sound, and he did not want to interfere with Ripley. The human was, after all, trying to secure his mate, to save his woman from almost certain death, and he’s had to admit to his own crew that he would do the same under similar circumstances. So Pak and his crew helped the NSF crews modify their ships drives and navigation systems, helped the entire battle group achieve ‘Faster Than Light’ capability – while Ripley’s Marines transported the organisms and the two queens to a frigate – which would necessarily have to be sacrificed during the operation.

It took two weeks to ready the fleet, and Ripley wasn’t too surprised when Pak refused an invitation to dinner on Agamemnon the night before the planned assault. He watched the remaining horseshoe-shaped starships from the head of his table in his main cabin as Yeoman Carson delivered another blistering curry to the captains, and admirals, gathered there, but Ripley was surprised when Pak’s small fleet made an unplanned jump and simply disappeared.

“Brennan?” he said, calling the XO on the bridge.

“Here, sir.”

“Did we miss something, or was that an unplanned jump.”

“Nothing in the logs, Admiral. I’d say that one was unplanned.”

“Ur-Pak still onboard?”

“No sir, he went back to the flagship about an hour ago.”

“Any of our people on their ships?”

“No sir, none. Thomas Standing Bull and Yukio are now both onboard Agamemnon. You didn’t know, sir?”

“No, I was not advised. Alright, XO, sound battle stations and let’s prepare to jump the fleet.”

Ripley turned to his classmate from Annapolis: “Neal, something doesn’t feel right about this abrupt departure.”

“I agree. Something has changed. I’m not sure I’d consider Pak an ally now, or not.”

“It’s not going to matter whether we jump in and execute the operation now or eight hours from now, is it?”

“Shouldn’t make much difference, one way or another,” Davis nodded.

“Well, let’s finish this curry before you head back over to your ships,” Ripley said to the assembled captains, but he looked out the viewport at the empty space where Pak’s fleet had been, then he simply shook his head and turned to his plate.

+++++

The operation was flawlessly executed, and the Naval Space Force fleet sustained not a single casualty. 

Judy’s beacon had instantly been located on a ship in orbit and Banshees from the Enterprise took out the Warrior ship’s drive on the first pass, leaving two squads of Marines to take the ship and secure all the prisoners. The rest of Enterprise’s Banshees took out four orbiting space stations and a massive space-dock before the Warriors knew what was happening, and at that point the Warrior’s leadership had made their biggest blunder of the day – they sent the remainder of their decimated fleet up to join the fight playing out in orbit. Leaving the door open for Agamemnon.

And in the ballsiest move of the day, Ripley jumped the much smaller Agamemnon strike group directly into the planet’s atmosphere, and the Marines remotely piloted the plague ship to the main city’s utility sector and landed the craft, then opened all the restraint cells holding the organism – and their queens – which within minutes had disappeared into the city’s water and sewage systems. Ripley then targeted the Warriors heading up from the planet, pinning the remaining Warrior ships between his two forces in a classic pincer movement. When the few remaining Warrior ships began fleeing out into the stars, Ripley turned his Maser onto the remaining population centers and literally savaged the planet – and he did so as a warning to all the remaining factions in Pak’s civilization.

‘We come in peace – but don’t fuck with us…’ 

…seemed to be the message Ripley wanted to convey, but unbeknownst to the humans, Pak watched the entire operation unfold before he shook his head and turned away in disgust. It seemed that once again another virulent species had emerged, so this sector of the galaxy would have to be quarantined – again – until this latest plague burned itself out.

Because, Pak knew from long experience, sooner or later they all did.

Like Betelgeuse, these new species looked to the stars and then flared up and died as all their internal inconsistencies finally caught up with them, and the same would happen to these humans. He had walked with Odysseus once and seen the nature of this new species, and he had sat under the stars with Sitting Bull as his warriors discussed an upcoming battle, watching their bloodlust come to a boil. It didn’t matter, Pak now knew, what kinds of safeguards the geneticists engineered into each new species. Each turned out more warlike than the one before, and all he could assume was that the trait lay dormant in his own genes.

But soon the last female would be born and yes, she would be coveted, but all her children would be male and that would be the end of Pak and his civilization. And yes, his son had implanted his seed within the earth-woman’s womb, but while he feared nothing good would come from such a union, Pak was as wise as he was patient, and he knew that the truth of time was to be found within her infinite possibilities.

+++++

The entire battle group – minus the frigate sacrificed on the Warrior’s planet – had just rendezvoused at Mintaka 4, and Ripley watched his fleet maneuver on his screens as refueling operations got underway. He noted the ram-scoop was already on her way back from Mintaka 5, her plant processing the frozen surface of the planet into useable hydrogen on the return voyage, so all his tankers would be able to replenish their tanks before the return to Earth.

He was waiting, however, for signs of the shuttle that would bring Judy from the Enterprise to Agamemnon, but right now he could hardly stand the building anxiety. She’d been cleared by combat medics after her pickup, then again on the Enterprise – where physicians performed whole body scans on each of the seven hostages – and she would undergo even more exams once again on Agamemnon, but so far all indications were that she was completely free of the organism. So, he thought, maybe after all was said and done the Warriors had understood the value of the people they’d taken as hostages…

“Admiral, COMMs.”

“Go ahead,” Ripley sighed.

“Admiral Davis will be accompanying Captain Ripley and her XO on the shuttle.”

“Very well, signal Enterprise we’re ready when they are, and we’ve still got Pak’s FTL set up in the forward hangar deck so they’ll need to use the aft approach.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Bridge to aft hangar deck, prepare to render honors.”

“Aye, sir.”

Brennan entered the bridge from Main Street and pulled herself up to her couch – and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know she wasn’t simply under the weather, so as soon as she was settled in her couch he buzzed her on the intercom.

“XO, what did the doc have to say?”

“It’s official, Admiral. I’m having morning sickness.”

Ripley grinned – though he tried to hide it – before he spoke. “How does it look so far?”

“Normal, as far as she can tell at this stage.”

“And you?”

“Hell, Admiral, I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant before but after what I’ve been through the past few days…well…you couldn’t pay me to do this again.”

“Uh-huh. Anything besides the nausea?”

“Oh, not much. Unless you include the vomiting and the splitting headaches.”

“Sounds…fun.”

“And the horse you rode in on, Denton.”

“I’ll see if I can get Joan to whip up some peach ice cream for you. Maybe with some dill pickles?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you bastard…” she whispered.

“Or maybe you’d rather have some oysters on the half shell…”

She shot him a one finger salute then flipped off her intercom, and he grinned – now immensely satisfied with himself – as he watched a shuttle emerge from the Enterprise’s starboard shuttle bay. He looked at another screen and took note that the tanker filling their main hydrogen tank was disconnecting, then he released his harness and floated free of his G-couch. One he hit Main Street Ripley pulled himself down to the little passage that led to his quarters, and he slipped out of his coveralls and into the shower, adding a high pressure cleaning agent to the main spray, then extra heat to the high speed air dryer. Carson had come in unnoticed and left fresh coveralls out for him, and he pulled it on just in time to make it down to the aft hangar deck.

Judy floated out the airlock ahead of Admiral Davis and when she saw him she pushed off the shuttle and rocketed across the deck to the airlock where Denton stood, waiting with open arms to arrest her flight.

He pulled her close and she nibbled his right earlobe, a sure sign she missed him, and Admiral Davis watched from afar for a moment before he pushed off the shuttle and made his way across the cavernous hangar deck.

Denton waited for the honor guard to do their thing before escorting Judy to sick bay and Davis to his in-port quarters, and once they were alone in his cabin Denton sat across from Davis and looked at him. 

“Take a seat, Neal. What brings you over?”

“We picked up something on a long range scan about an hour ago. Consensus is it’s one of their ships, one of the little scout ships. Any ideas?”

Ripley leaned back in his chair and laughed a little, then he nodded. “My guess is it’s ur-Pak…but that’s an educated guess, Neal. It seems he knocked up Commander Brennan.”

“What? Denton…are you serious?”

“Yup.”

“I know we talked about it, at least in a theoretical sense…but hell, you didn’t order her to do anything, did you?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I just told her to let nature take its course, and I reckon that’s what happened. Or what’s happening.”

“That Middie of yours, Sitting Bull…?”

Denton shook his head. Standing Bull, Thomas Standing Bull. Sitting Bull was like his great-great grandfather.”

“No shit?”

Ripley nodded. “What about him?”

“Why did Pak dismiss him? Any ideas?”

Again, Ripley nodded. “Yup. After we went over the plan with Pak he spoke with a council and Thomas was dismissed as soon as Pak finished up there. My guess is we scared the shit out of Pak and his people. That, or we disappointed them. Anyway, from what I’ve been able to piece together, Pak’s entire civilization is way more fragmented than we first imagined. They’re spread across half the galaxy, Neal, but they’re facing a big problem.”

“Which is…?”

“Birth rates. As in precipitously declining rates of female births. Lars ran the numbers and they don’t look good.”

“How so?”

“Well, you have to take this with a grain of salt, but their usual lifespan is somewhere on the order of five thousand years, but when you consider the implications of faster then light travel, any measurements of time are going to get all scrambled up in relativity calculations, so a full understanding of their true lifespan may be impossible to calculate, but if no new females are born their entire civilization may simply disappear when that last female passes away. Now, let’s confuse matters even more…”

“ur-Pak has impregnated one of our females.”

“Yup, and in his culture, males will lay down their lives to protect their dynasties…”

Davis nodded. “When Pak spoke to me about the situation at the dinner we had here, he seemed to imply that females conferred status.”

“Yup. His wife, or one of his wives, was on his flagship. A warship, Neal. Imagine that, would you? He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. Can you imagine the intrigues, the deviousness that must go on behind his back for him to do that…”

“Paranoid?”

“I was going to say protective, but yes, paranoid works too, I reckon.”

“Okay,” Davis sighed, “that leads us to ur-Pak – if that is indeed who’s out there. How do you want to handle him?”

“Well Neal, first let’s go back to the topic of lifespans. He may well be acting like any other love-addled teenager you’ve ever run across, but he could be hundreds, if not thousands of years old, so I doubt any action he’s taking is naive or ill-considered. He may simply want to talk to Louise, to see her again, or he may want to experience the birth of his child…”

“Which has all kinds of implications, doesn’t it?” Neal added.

Denton nodded. “Implications we can only guess at, too. So, is it his intention to swoop in here and take Louise back to his home world? Or are his intentions less dangerous – to us, anyway.”

“So, how do you want to handle it?”

“They know what we’re capable of now, don’t they?” Ripley sighed, looking up at the ceiling as he flexed his fingers behind his head. “I say we tell Louise, let her make contact and let whoever is out there in that ship make the next move.”

“And what if it’s a Warrior ship, trailing us, keeping an eye on our progress back to Earth. Do we want to take a chance we could be leading an aggressive warrior species – armed with that organism – back to our own home world?”

“Good point,” Ripley said. “We could hopscotch our way home, maybe make some observations of the Betelgeuse region and see if the ship follows.”

“That would please the astronomers,” Davis nodded.

“Or, we could convene the council,” Ripley added.

“Don’t do it, Denton. Once we get the bureaucrats and the diplomats involved you and I will lose our operational autonomy. Besides, the time to call a meeting of the council was before we launched the rescue operation…”

“Which was why I didn’t.”

“I know, and I would’ve done the same thing, but Denton – we took out an entire planet, wiped out a…”

“I know what I did, Neal. Right now we have to figure out what to do about that ship.”

“Your COMMs crew has all the protocols for communicating with their ships?”

“Yes, but what do we do if we try to communicate and the ship doesn’t respond,” Ripley sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Protocol states I have to consider the ship hostile, but if that is indeed ur-Pak, the last thing in the world I want to do is kill him. That would finish off any likelihood of peaceful relations with Pak.”

“So?” Davis said. “The only option is to ignore that ship, but I could reel off a dozen reasons why that would be both a tactically and a strategically problematic response.”

“Let’s not forget one thing, Neal.”

“And that is?”

“If that is indeed ur-Pak, we can’t ignore that Louise is carrying his child, and that’s a culture that is on the cusp of dying off through practical infertility. The boy has a legitimate interest in this pregnancy, but so do his elders. The question lingering in the back of my mind is ‘Do we exploit this for strategic gain?’”

“And just how the hell could we do that, Denton?”

“Control access to breeding stock.”

“Dear God. You make it sound so goddamn transactional, Denton…”

“Technically yes, but I suppose that’s exactly what it would all boil down to.” Ripley shook his head and hit the intercom. “COMMs, get with the XO and fire off a message to the horseshoe following us, and make it a high power narrow band laser transmission. No need to share the information with everyone out here.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And let me know as soon as we get a response.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Ripley shook his head again. “Funny, you know? The whole thing feels like some kind of inter-species romance, but when you get right down to it we are them, ya know. We’re literally just an offshoot, a genetic offshoot…”

“Deliberately engineered, at that. Man alive, don’t you just know the religious groups back home are going to throw a giant hissy-fit over that…”

Ripley shrugged. “Shouldn’t. Not when you think about it, anyway. God created them and along the way they planted us in one of their gardens. We just turned out to be a little more aggressive than what they were hoping for…”

“Yeah, maybe too agressive, but Denton, I just had a thought…”

“Yeah, me too. What if they knew this incipient infertility was coming on eons ago and they planted us in the hopes of developing a new class of breeders to continue their line. And that would make males like you and me kind of superfluous, would it not?”

“Which would explain why the Warriors wanted to take us out.” Davis sighed.

“And why Pak retreated so quickly. Maybe he was leading us into that conflict, either wanting to see how we did or wanting the Warriors to finish off our fleet…”

“Leaving Earth exposed…”

Ripley looked at Davis and nodded. “You better get back to Enterprise. Refueling OPS are just about concluded, so I suggest we take your Battle Group and my Strike Group directly to Earth…”

“Admiral, COMMs, no response from the ship, sir. Should we keep trying?”

“COMMs, negative, and make no further attempts at this time. XO, see if you can program a jump directly to Earth, and prepare to depart as soon as Enterprise reports ready.”

“Yessir,” Brennan replied.

Ripley escorted Davis to the aft hangar deck and then, with a growing sense of unease pushing in from every direction, he made his way to the sick bay to check on Judy.

“There’s no obvious trauma, Admiral,” the physician stated, “but something’s not exactly right, either. I don’t know if it’s something like a post-traumatic disorder or a more generalized anxiety disorder, but something’s happened to her.”

“So, you want to keep her here for now?”

“Yes, for a few days. I may try regression hypnosis and see where that leads us, but I can’t clear her for duty yet.”

He nodded and pulled his way up Main Street to Maser facility and stuck his head in the door, only to find Balin back inside the main mirror chamber.

“Something wrong?” Ripley asked as he poked his head in the chamber.

“Yes, there’s a crack in the main lens, and it just appeared – about two hours ago.”

“A crack? I thought that was theoretically impossible?”

“It is. Unless someone wired up a device like this one, which generated a harmonic vibration near one of the main mounts – and when triggered caused it to crack.”

“Sabotage?”

“Sabotage. And you’re not going to like this, Admiral, but the device does not appear to be of human origin.”

Ripley nodded. “COMMs, get me Davis on a secure channel, and I’ll take it on the bridge.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Goddamnitalltohell,” Ripley muttered as he pulled his way up Main Street to the bridge, and just as he settled in his couch the incoming call from Davis popped up on his main screen.

“Denton? What’s wrong?”

“When did that scout ship appear?”

“About two hours ago. Why?”

“They planted a device to take out the main lens mount inside the Maser’s reaction chamber, and they activated it two hours ago,” Ripley said, now furious with himself. “Get someone to check your FTL drive, but my guess is you’ll find it’s been disabled.”

“On it,” Davis said – as the screen went black.

“Brennan?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Run a full diagnostics on that FTL drive right now…”

“I just did, sir. The main relay between their control pod and the ship’s drive has been severed.”

“Is our drive otherwise operational?”

“Yessir, it was not affected.”

“Lay in a plot for Mintaka, and see if there have been any displacements to the Alderson Point yet.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Well, Betelgeuse might have gone nova by now, right?”

“Yessir, and we’d not know about it yet, either.”

“We will if the jump point has migrated.”

“Yessir. Oh, the Middies wanted to speak with you.”

“Right. Send for them.”

Then Admiral Davis popped up on the main screen again: “Confirmed. Our FTL is no longer operational, Denton.”

Ripley nodded. “Get the word out to the rest of the ships, Neal, and prepare for a long duration, high-G transit to Mintaka. Looks like we’ll have to go home the old fashioned way.”

“Right – oh, what’s that?” Davis said, taking a call on another channel. “Right. Okay, Denton, looks like the scout ship has just bugged out.”

“That fits. All ships to battle stations. We may have to shoot our way out of the system.”

“I’ll move a couple of cruisers over to escort you. Is the Maser reparable?”

“Unknown. I’ll get on that; make sure your Banshees are fitted with vacuum engines, and load ‘em up with neutron warheads.”

“On it.” Davis blinked out again, and Ripley looked up to see Brennan floating overhead.

“You think they were…”

“It doesn’t matter what I think now, XO…”

“But…”

“But I think Pak was judging us, everything we did, and I think we came up short so they’re going to either take us out or cut us off from their neighborhood.”

“What about me and this…thing inside me?”

“It’s a human being, Louise. It might be hard to accept that, and somehow I doubt ur-Pak is going to be able to keep away…”

“And if he comes?”

“You listen to what he has to say. Beyond that, you’re an NSF officer and you have certain duties and responsibilities in that regard, but I can’t tell you how to lead your life.”

“I was thinking about terminating it.”

Ripley looked away, but he nodded his head gently. “This is no time for a rushed decision, Louise. Think things through, but you know I’ll support whatever you decide to do.” 

“So, you think we were being tested?”

“Tested, or used. The Warrior faction was a pain in Pak’s ass and we got rid of ‘em for him, didn’t we?”

“But we went too far? Is that what you think?”

“It fits the facts and circumstances test, so yes, I guess I do.”

She pulled her face close to his and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks, Denton.”

He nodded. “Go get our Jump Point nailed down, and get me a transit time to Mintaka.”

After Brennan pulled herself up to her chair he watched Yukio and Thomas come onto the bridge, and when they saw he was in his couch they both pulled themselves along the ceiling until they were hovering beside his console.

“Thomas, what was your take on Pak and his people?”

“In what way, Admiral?”

“Military capabilities.”

“Formidable, sir. They can jump in behind a target, fire a particle beam cannon and then jump away in a matter of seconds…”

“Did you see any other weaponry?”

Thomas shook his head. “No sir, nothing.”

“And those cannons can’t penetrate the Langston Field? Is that your opinion?”

“Pak had no idea what the Field is or how to generate one, but he was impressed by the defensive capabilities, sir.”

“Yukio, you spent more than a few hours with their navigators, did you not?”

“Yessir.”

“You know how to work the pod, correct?”

“Yessir.”

“If someone sabotaged a pod, do you think you could get it back in working order?”

Yukio suddenly seemed unsure of herself. “I don’t know, sir. I’d need schematics and plans, and I’d need to understand how the pod was affected by the attack.”

Ripley nodded – and smiled – before he turned to his main screen. “Oh, Lars, there’s someone here I’d like you to meet, and of course you remember Yukio. Gordon? Are you still listening-in…?”

“Yes, Admiral, and Dr. Balin is installing the backup lens as we speak.”

“Gordon, I’m sending Yukio and the XO to the navigation pod and I’d like you to meet them there. Thomas, take the XOs couch and prepare for close quarters maneuvering…”

“Admiral?” Brennan asked, now confused. 

“XO, take the fleet to battle stations. I want all Fields up in Mode D and all reactors at 105 percent.”

+++++

It was basic stuff, really. You always go into a gunfight cocked and locked but ready to shoot first and ask questions later, and there’s only one law that governs the outcome: he who hesitates goes to the cemetery, usually in a pine box. It was so basic they even taught it at Annapolis. Just ask any second year.

So when Pak’s small fleet jumped in behind the Enterprise Battle Group, he expected to see Agamemnon – but what he found was twenty one identically shaped black blobs on his targeting screen – and anyway, it had never been his intent to open fire. He had simply wanted to slip a shuttle onto Agamemnon’s hangar deck, find this Brennan female and take her before anyone was the wiser.

And apparently Pak had thought it would be that simple.

So when Agamemnon blinked into space behind his ship, and when his radar proximity alarms started sounding, he already knew he’d lost the engagement. Pak now had to accept that he was no longer any kind of tactician, and certainly not up to dealing with these upstart humans, so he went to his communications room and waited for the inevitable.

The screen flared and there was his…what? His friend? Or was Ripley his nemesis?

“Ah, Pak. Nice to see you, my friend.”

He studied the human for a moment. So like Odysseus…brash, over-confident – but ultimately a potent adversary. “Are you my friend?” Pak replied.

“I thought we were, yes, but then…”

“You need not recite what we did, Denton.”

“Okay. So, I have to assume you’ve come to realize our nature, and what we’re capable of? And that now you are concerned that any kind of alliance with us represents a threat to your very existence?”

“Nicely put, Denton.”

“Gee, Pak, but you do seem to be speaking quite clearly today. Was that a ruse, as well?”

Pak shrugged. “I came to find the Brennan woman.”

“To take her, you mean?”

“Our scientists must study this pregnancy, Denton.”

“So, you want to kidnap one of my officers and conduct medical experiments on her? You do know that I will not allow that to happen, don’t you?”

“I can see that we have failed, so we will leave you now. I must warn you that we made modifications to your ship and should you try to follow us you will do great damage to your ships.”

Denton held up two small devices in front of the video camera and smiled. “You mean these, I take it?”

Pak looked down and shook his head.

“Pak,” Ripley said gently, “you and I must not have the same understanding of the word friend.”

“No, Denton, our understanding is the same.”

“Then why?”

“You are correct. My government wants no contact with your people. You are considered too dangerous.”

“I understand. Yet at the same time don’t we also represent an opportunity?”

“I could not get my government to see those opportunities.”

“Then we need to step back, limit the amount of contact between our peoples, but I think it would be in no one’s interest to cut off all contact.”

“I too think it would be a mistake.”

“Well, Pak, we have – uh – repaired our ships and will be going home soon. Perhaps you would like to send a scientist with us, to observe and monitor the pregnancy?”

“I am not sure this is possible, but I will ask.”

Ripley nodded. “Of course, your son would be welcome to join us, as well. Assuming he would be interested, of course.”

“I will ask, Denton.”

“So, what about dinner? Feel like trying one of Carson’s curries again?”

Pak looked away and grimaced. “What was that you called it? Vinda-something?”

“Eggplant vindaloo.”

“That is not for the faint-hearted, Denton.”

Ripley nodded, though he held firm eye contact all the while. “Indeed. So, I’ll meet you down on the hangar deck in about an hour.”

“I will be there, my friend.”

+++++

“And this is my wife, Judy,” Ripley said, introducing her to Pak, his wife and three sons. ur-Pak was, of course, already standing next to Louise Brennan and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“How good it is to find you safe again,” Pak said as he took Judy’s hand. 

Judy smiled. “We may all regret this evening,” Judy said. “I understand Yeoman Carson got a fresh batch of Ghost Reaper peppers from hydroponics this morning. I think we could be in for some stormy weather.”

When Pak looked puzzled Denton translated: “The vindaloo might be a little spicier than the last one you had.”

Pak’s eyes registered alarm, but then he nodded acceptance of his fate.

“Why don’t we sit and enjoy the view,” Denton added as he moved over to the main table. Thomas and Yukio arrived just then, breathlessly late – as usual – but smiling innocently.

“Good evening, Admiral,” Thomas said – before he turned to Pak and nodded formally.

“Are you two packed and ready?” Denton asked.

“Yessir,” Yukio replied, “but I wanted to ask, Admiral. I wanted to take a book with me, a real book, but I haven’t been able to find any onboard. Someone told me you have a small library onboard?”

“Small? Well, yes, if you consider a few dozen books to be a library, then I suppose I do!” Denton smiled, nodding to the girl. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really know what’s important, what I ought to have read.”

“Well, let’s start with what you have read…”

“Technical manuals and science texts, mostly.”

“No literature?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No Tom Sawyer? No Huck Finn?”

She shook her head. “No sir. Sorry.”

Denton scowled, then he realized that Pak was staring at the girl, and that he too seemed displeased. “Pak? What are you thinking?”

“You have such a rich literary tradition,” Pak sighed, “yet it is disappearing without even a moments reflection what it means to lose those voices.”

“Excuse me,” Judy said, “but you know about our literature?”

“Of course. I have been visiting Earth since the time of Plato and Aristotle, and I have even known a few of your writers. I must admit I have a preference for your painters, however.”

“What would you recommend?” Yukio asked Pak.

“Me? Oh, without question it would be Milton’s Paradise Lost.”

Denton sat up in his chair and cleared his throat, then he looked at Pak again. “I’m curious, Pak. Why Milton?”

“Well, it’s an eternal piece, isn’t it. He came of age, as a writer, anyway, in the shadow of Cromwell and Charles the First, the civil upheavals that attended the debates surrounding religious and personal freedom…”

“Not to mention the murder of their king,” Denton added.

“Yes,” Pak said, “it was beastly, a barbaric time.”

“You know Milton?” Denton asked.

Pak nodded. “I visited with him once, not long after he lost his sight. He was, I think, a lonely man, isolated by his intellect, and I think his contemporaries feared him.”

“Admiral,” Yukio asked, “do you have that book?”

Denton smiled and stood, and now grateful that the ship was finally moving along at 1G he walked to his bedroom and pulled his copy of Milton from the shelf and carried it back to the dining table. “My copy from Annapolis,” he said reverentially as he handed the book to Yukio. “It’s one of the last Norton Critical Editions, from the 2030s, and you’ll find my scribbled notes besides key passages.”

“What did you like about the book, sir?” she asked as he stared at the book.

“Oh, I’m wasn’t the first to observe that resilience is the main thrust of the work, but in a way he was pointing out that there are two ways to respond to an overwhelming trauma. Utter defeat or as an empowering event. Instead of being traumatized, learning. And in so learning, growing stronger.”

“Well said,” Pak added. “But now I’m curious, Denton. What is your favorite book?”

“Huckleberry Finn,” he said, without hesitation.

“I’ve never read that,” Pak sighed.

So Denton got up again and walked to his secret stash and brought his cherished first edition to the table and gently handed it over to Pak. “Please return by the due date indicated,” Ripley said, grinning, then: “Sheesh, I feel like a librarian.”

“You mentioned paintings?” Judy continued. “Do you have a favorite artist?”

“No, not really,” Pak sighed, “but if pressed I might say Van Gogh. And you?”

Judy nodded. “Me, too. A Starry Night.”

“Understandable,” Pak said, “given your choice of profession.”

“My mother had a poster of it in my bedroom when I was growing up,” Judy continued. “I always wondered what it must’ve felt like to see the world the way he did.” 

Carson’s eggplant vindaloo arrived, and Pak’s family watched Denton load his plate with basmati rice before topping the rice with the curry, and after everyone was served Denton took the first bight…

…and his eyes began watering, his eyebrows twitched, and then the flop-sweats started.

“Joan,” he cried, “you’ve outdone yourself!”

“It’s the reapers, Admiral,” she shouted in triumph from her little galley. “They just hit peak potency!”

No one else made a move, now terrified of the stuff on their plates.

“Oh well,” Judy said, “when in Rome…” she said as she picked up her fork and took a tentative sniff. “Holy Mother of God, Denton…” she whispered, “this stuff even hurts to sniff.”

“Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” he said as he wiped away the sweat now rolling down the back of his neck.

Judy put a small dab in her mouth and then cleared her throat as she reached for her glass of ice water.

ur-Pak was next to go down this road more or less traveled. He loaded up a healthy soup spoon full of the stuff and then slammed it in his mouth – and all eyes went to his. Which immediately began running. Before he dropped his spoon and slammed the table with open hand – followed by a stream of Pakish invective that must have been choice, because Pak shook his head and went picked up his fork.

And after Pak swallowed his first spoonful he looked at Denton and smiled. “Not bad,” he said. “It reminds me of a forest fire I saw once.” And while he let his other children eat their plates full of the curry, he forbade his wife, telling Denton he didn’t want her to try anything that might risk the safety of the child she was carrying.

Which made Ripley and Admiral Davis laugh.

Until Pak’s wife insisted. And all eyes turned to her as she tried a first tentative bight – but apparently she loved it and quickly ate the rest of her portion. And when she asked for more, Denton and Neal Davis looked at one another then smiled, because they both knew they had witnessed something important.

When dinner was complete Louise looked around a little nervously, then she cleared her throat. “Uh, I have a little announcement,” she said, looking at Denton first – who nodded imperceptibly – then at ur-Pak. “I’ve spoken with Doctor Murray, and she’s certain I’m carrying a little girl…”

And Denton was studying Pak as Brennan made her announcement, and he wasn’t sure but he felt almost certain that Pak had registered surprise in that moment, and when Pak translated the news for his wife her icy facade seemed to crack for a moment, and Denton thought he saw the faintest traces of a smile – not on her lips but around the periphery of her eyes.

‘So, another lesson learned!’ Ripley said to himself. ‘I’ll have to start writing all these notes down…tonight!’

ur-Pak was soon enjoined in a spirited conversation with his mother, and Pak tried to hide his discomfort for a moment – until he realized he and his family were being studied – and then he called his group to order and told them it was time to go back to their own ship. 

“When will you return to Earth?” Pak asked before he walked out to his shuttle.

“Soon. Probably within the hour.”

“And you are certain ur-Pak returning with you will present no difficulties?”

“As certain as I can be, Pak. What’s bothering you?”

“Your tendency to study us, Denton.”

“Can you really blame us? After all, you’ve been studying us for thousands of years.”

Pak nodded. “Point taken, yet I think we still have much we can learn from one another.”

“And, apparently, there is still much you want to conceal from us.”

“And can you blame us, Denton? You have just demonstrated…”

“Understood. And that’s why I will push for a full diplomatic and military alliance with your people. We will both be stronger acting as one, don’t you think?”

Pak nodded. “I agree in principle, Denton, but I cannot, and so must not, speak for our Council of Elders.”

“Understood.”

“What of this Company you speak of. Weyland, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct.”

“Who speaks for them, Admiral Ripley?”

Ripley hesitated, then he spoke the truth. “I have no idea. They seemed to have broken free of all our governing bodies, but I’m not at all sure how much damage they sustained here. About half of the wrecked ships we’ve surveyed are Company ships, and it will take them years to come back from a loss this large.”

“Perhaps your governing bodies are no longer able to contend after such losses.”

“Doubtful. Our Navy and Marines are tasked with operations away from Earth, while our Air Force and Army protect only Earth, and none of our Air Force assets were involved out here. And as you’ve seen, our Navy is still more than capable of projecting force wherever needed.”

“Indeed I have. We all have. And I will deliver your proposal to the council.”

“So, this is goodbye. For now.”

Pak nodded. “Yes, my friend. And as agreed, if you do not come back in one year that will mean the proposal was rejected by your governing bodies?”

“And if you do not return, that will mean the proposal was rejected by your council. Which leaves us the your son.”

“If the proposal is rejected, Denton, please keep him with you and Louise and your wife, for I fear he will need your protection. I will come for him as soon as I can.”

“I will protect your son, Pak.”

“I know. You are at heart an honorable man,” Pak said, extending his right hand.

Denton took it and looked his friend in the eye: “Safe journeys, my friend.”

“And you must be careful, Denton. Things may not be as you now expect.”

“They never are.”

Pak nodded and walked into his shuttle, and a few minutes later he watched the shuttle lift up and gently maneuver back to Pak’s ship before he turned from the viewport and walked over to Main Street, Brennan and ur-Pak by his side. “Louise, why don’t you get our guest settled in his quarters before you come up to the bridge.”

“Will Judy, er, will Captain Ripley be on the bridge, Admiral?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s writing up her after-action report. I would assume detailing the loss of Hyperion might not be the easiest thing she’s done.”

“Yessir.”

He turned to ur-Pak then, and looked the ‘boy’ in the eye. “Welcome aboard. You’ll let Commander Brennan know if you need anything?”

“Yes, Den-ton.”

“Will this be your first time visiting Earth?”

“Yes. This my first big trip.”

“I see. Well, when you have some free time, drop by the bridge so we can show you around.”

“Thanks you.”

Ripley smiled and nodded, but when he heard Brennan correcting the boy’s grammar he almost laughed out loud. He continued up Main Street only to find Judy on the bridge, and she was talking to Gordon.

“They used an AI version of me to try to trick you?” she asked as he walked up.

“Yup. Sneaky little bastards, huh?”

“How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

“I tripped it up with a trick question about Ellen.”

“And the Maser took out the ship?”

“Yes…but…who took you and the other hostages into custody?”

“A Warrior ship jumped in when we were tanking…”

“When your Field was down?” Ripley asked.

“Yes, that’s kind of a curious coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Gordon,” Ripley asked, “do you think that could be coincidental?”

“Unlikely, Admiral. With this new information, I now find it more than likely that the Warrior faction was in communication with elements within the Company, and that they were acting in concert to lure us into the developing confrontation here at Mintaka 4.”

Ripley walked to his console and logged in. “Lars? Any thoughts?”

“Yes, Admiral. I have been searching through the spectrum, looking for mainframes within the debris field and trying to access their data. I have found four so far that are still operating on battery power, and I have downloaded their bridge operation files, including their COMMs logs.”

“And are you finding any patterns in the chaos?”

“Two of consequence, Admiral. Either the company was in direct communications with the Warrior faction, or they were in contact with Pak’s fleet.”

“Speculate, please.”

“Best case, the Company was working with the Warrior faction. Worst case, they were, and still are, working with Pak and his fleet. If that is indeed the case then we have made one wrong assumption with immediate consequence. If this is true, then Pak’s fleet controls the organism, and Pak’s fleet could deploy the organism during any future engagement. An item in support of this theory is the ease with which Pak’s personnel moved the organisms and their queens…”

“Which would mean we deployed the organism against a peaceful faction that was trying to stop an emerging militarist faction.”

“Yes, Admiral, if that was indeed the case.”

“Any way we can test that hypothesis?”

“I am currently searching the debris field for Company mainframes, Admiral.”

Ripley’s COMMs link blinked and Pak appeared onscreen. “Denton, we are leaving now. Perhaps we will see you soon.”

“Yes, my friend. We are about to get underway ourselves. See you soon.”

The link closed and Lars nasty-blue avatar replaced Pak on the main screen. “Nothing, Admiral. No signals at all, no residual power spikes, nothing.”

Ripley nodded. “So, the only evidence we have is at best circumstantial and even that is contradictory…”

“The only factor in common is the presence of Company ships, Admiral…”

“And it’s pretty goddamn unlikely anyone in the Weyland Group would form an alliance with a bunch of pacifists…”

Brennan came onto the bridge looking rather flushed and Ripley smiled as he watched her groan as she climbed into her g-couch. “XO,” he said to her over the intercom, “have you laid in the jump to Earth?”

“Yessir. And as requested, out past the Moon’s orbital path, about 500,000 miles out…”

Ripley flipped his COMMs over to the bridge on Enterprise and Neal Davis’s face popped into focus. “You ready over there?” Ripley asked.

“When you are, Bud.”

Ripley nodded as he set his COMMs to fleet wide. “All ships, Agamemnon actual, set jump to ten minutes on my mark. Mark!” – then he watched as Pak’s ships winked out as they made their jumps. “Lars? Did you set the beacon frequency?”

“Yes, Admiral. I was also able to pass along the jump coordinates.”

“Seal and encrypt, for admiralty eyes only.”

“Done.”

“Brennan, you look rode hard and put away wet. You feeling okay?”

“Okay, sir. This baby is a little bigger than expected, that’s all.”

“What about ur-Pak’s g-couch? Is it – big – enough?”

“Yessir,” she said, ignoring the jab.

He switched over to Enterprise and spoke to Davis again: “You have the ready alert set to launch? Just in case?”

“Yes, of course. Something bothering you?”

“Something doesn’t feel right, Neal. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like there’s something out there stalking us.”

“I know. I feel it, too. You want to delay the jump?”

Ripley rubbed the bridge of his nose and slowly shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. But…we’re…we’ve missed something, Neal. Something big. Something elemental.”

He flipped his COMMs circuit over to the weapons control center in CIC. “WEPs, get Stavridis into a tight formation off our port quarter right after the jump, and Constellation off our starboard. Tight, and I mean with just enough room between our Fields so they don’t set up an interference loop with each other.”

“Aye, sir.”

The computer’s countdown came on over the intercom now: “All stations, zero gravity in ten seconds. Jump in sixty seconds.”

Judy’s couch rolled up and she engaged the mag-lock. “You ready to see Ellen?” she asked. “You know, she’s going to be about three years older now…”

“I know. We’ve missed a lot of growing up together…”

“Not too much,” she added, smiling at her husband. “Have you thought about where you’d like to live?”

“Mountains. I want to live near the mountains, maybe near Quito.”

“All stations, jump in ten seconds.”

“Well,” Judy sighed, “see you on the other side.”

He smiled and nodded just as his senses began to distort, and then time stopped…

…and then the Earth was just visible through the main blast shield, and computers came online one by one as their operators reoriented to the new reality…

But even from a half a million miles out Ripley could tell there was something drastically wrong with the Earth…

“Lars?”

– nothing –

“ASTRO, get the Schmidt camera on the planet dead ahead,” he barked. The albedo was all wrong, way too bright to be earth.

“Working.”

“Brennan? What’s the celestial neighborhood look like?”

“Orion is right where it ought to be Admiral, and so are Spica and Arcturus, and the Moon is in the correct orbit.”

“Bridge, COMMs, we’re picking up Terran GPS signals and…oh, no, that can’t be right…”

“COMMs, Ripley, what do you have for me?”

“Uh, Admiral, the current year is 2139…”

“What? But that’s 32 years…and that can’t be right!”

“Bridge, COMMs, we’ve got radio traffic.”

“Put it through up here.”

“…repeat, this is Antarctic Traffic Control calling unknown vessels, please identify and squawk ident code.”

“Antarctic Traffic Control, this is Agamemnon actual squawking ident.”

Ripley’s main screen flickered as the bridge computers struggled to regain control, then a Walter was on his screen.

“Admiral?”

“Walter? What the devil is going on down there? The planetary albedo is off the scale!”

“The sunspots, Admiral? When you departed? Multiple X10 class CMEs hit the atmosphere and it generated a massive ionizing event, stripping almost all CO2 from the atmosphere. Within a year the average global temperature had fallen by 12 degrees centigrade, and the remaining water vapor in the atmosphere began falling as ice.”

“Walter? What about the people?”

“Domed cities, geothermal energy. About half the population accounted for there. Hundreds of colony ships are still en route to van den Bergh 20, in Taurus.”

Judy spoke next: “Walter? What about Ellen? Ellen Ripley? She was with Admiral Stanton, I think at Armstrong Base?”

“Yes, Ma’am. She completed her merchant mariners training and has been assigned to a commercial ore processing ship. She was assigned to the Nostromo, and I think the ship is currently inbound and due to arrive in two years.”

“Where’s Admiral Stanton, Walter?”

“Deceased, sir.”

“Who’s in charge of the Navy?”

“Currently no one, Admiral. The Navy functionally ceased operations almost ten years ago, though the few remaining ships still operational are escorting the colony fleet. The main Lunar gateway is still operational, and the manufacturing facilities at Armstrong Base are still online, but there are now more humans on Mars than on Earth.”

Neal Davis popped up on a split screen and looked at Ripley. “We had no way to calculate the time differential when we went after the Warrior planet, Denton. That’s what we missed – where we screwed the pooch.”

“Walter? What about the council?”

“No longer functional, sir.”

“No planetary government at all?”

“The remaining city states operate as a loose confederation, but there is no longer any unified government…”

“What about the Company?”

“Headquartered on Electra, Admiral. The largest planet in the van den Bergh 20 asterism.”

“Do you know if they have any faster than light drives on any of their ships?” Davis asked.

“No sir, unless they’ve managed to keep that secret. Is that how you appeared so suddenly?”

Ripley ignored the question. “What about government on the Moon and Mars?”

“Again, a loose confederation of city states, Admiral.”

“Walter,” Ripley suddenly commanded, “transfer all charts of the van den Bergh 20 system to my ship now.”

“Sir, I am not authorized…”

“Then who is authorized?” Ripley thundered.

“No one, Admiral.”

“Then I am asserting authority. Transfer the files now, Walter!”

“Transferring now, Admiral.”

“Commander Brennan, would you go and get ur-Pak then bring him up to the bridge. And right away, if you please.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Walter, how much longer will it take the colony ships to reach van den Bergh 20?”

“The first ships should arrive within 25 months. The last ship to depart is now almost two years out, so five years before it arrives.”

“And each ship is carrying how many colonists?” 

“Five thousand in stasis, and 100,000 embryos.”

“Where is the Walter we left Ellen with?”

“That unit is still at Armstrong Base, Admiral.”

“Advise that unit that we will be picking him up within 24 hours.”

“Yessir.”

ur-Pak walked onto the bridge a moment later, Brennan by his side, and Ripley nodded at ‘the boy’ and smiled. “Activate the beacon, please.”

ur-Pak reached for an innocuous bracelet around his left wrist and rotated the entire assembly until it clicked once, then he released it and pushed a black button that had just appeared on the face of the bracelet…

…and Pak’s small fleet winked into existence just ahead of Agamemnon. A moment later Pak appeared on the main bridge screen. “Yes, Denton?”

“It would seem that, at the moment, Admiral Davis and myself are the central authority governing Earth. Can you tell me what you know about the weapon that was detonated inside out star?”

“The Warriors developed this weapon, as well as the delivery system, and they provided the weapon to operatives from the Weyland Consortium.”

“And were these operatives informed about the extent of damages that would be inflicted on our star?”

“No, of course not.”

“And tell me, Pak, just how do you know this?”

“As you have obviously surmised, we are the Warrior faction.”

“And the planet we destroyed?”

“We housed political prisoners there.”

Ripley nodded and smiled a little. “Nicely done. So, we are the bad guys now, right?”

Pak smiled. “Right. You have done our dirty work for us, and so we are blameless.”

“Except you missed one thing, Pak. One little thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Our Marines captured a Company ship on the far side of Mintaka. There were five queens onboard, and several thousand organisms.”

Pak stared at Ripley, and he said not a word.

“And that ship is now on the surface of the planet you call Sheedawan. That’s your home world, is it not, Pak?”

“How did you find this information?” Pak snarled.

Now it was Ripley’s turn to remain silent.

“I told him, Father,” ur-Pak said. “What you have done, what you are doing is wrong…”

“What I have done is save my people from extinction!” Pak howled, now enraged beyond anything Ripley could have imagined possible. “You have betrayed not just me,” he screamed at his son, “you have betrayed your family and your people! I hereby condemn you…”

But Ripley held up his hand and spoke calmly, interrupting Pak. “Pak? I have a proposal.”

“I do not care what you have, Admiral Ripley,” Pak snarled, spitting out the last two words derisively. 

“Well then, if that’s the case I hit this button and the organism will be released.” Ripley moved his thumb over the release button and waited. “On the other hand, if I push this little red button the ship will be destroyed and all the organisms killed.”

“And what is your proposal, Denton?” Pak said, trying to bring himself back from the edge.

“Your son tells me you possess very advanced terraforming technology. I need this technology to salvage the remnants of my home.”

“And this I will never do.”

“Never?”

“No, I will never help you. You know and I know that it is your destiny to kill us!”

So Ripley held up the release and punched the red button.

“You fool!” Pak screamed, laughing hysterically. “You hit the wrong button!”

“No. I didn’t.”

Pak stopped laughing and stared at Ripley. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that we are your children too, Pak, but you have to believe me when I tell you that we are not all doomed to make the mistakes of our fathers. Not even you. But we can move on, together. We can grow, together. We can still be your friends, Pak. All you have to do is believe in yourself enough to accept the possibility that what I’m telling you is true.”

Pak looked down but then he nodded imperceptibly, and a moment later the main screen went dark.

ur-Pak turned to him then, and he appeared perturbed. “Why no tell about ship and organism?” he grumbled. “Why no tell about destruct device?”

“Because I just made it all up, son.”

“You…what?” ur-Pak said, beginning to smile. “No true? No weapon?”

“No true. No weapon.”

“Damn,” the Tall White said, “that crazy…!”

“Yeah?” Ripley said as he looked at Brennan, then Judy. “Say, you wanna learn to play poker?”

“Poker?”

“Oh-no-you-don’t,” Brennan said as she pulled ur-Pak away from Ripley’s couch. “I’m not gonna let you do it, Denton…”

“Neal?” Ripley said over the COMMs link. “You got any bourbon over there?”

“Denton…no…you can’t do it…” Davis sighed.

“Hey, man, I got two years to kill before my baby girl gets in. Somebody’s gonna have to keep me honest…”

Und damit sind wir wieder einmal am Ende. Sollte es noch mehr geben? Nun, nur die Zeit wird diese Geschichte erzählen …

© 2022 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | all rights reserved. This was a work of fiction – plain and simple – and all characters and events presented herein are fictitious in nature, though key story elements and character references/circumstances derive from the works of others. First among these is Sir Ridley Scott’s film Alien (1979); though his Prometheus and Covenant films serve as direct prequels to these two short stories. All references to an Alderson (zero time) Drive, as well as the Langston Field needed to utilize said drive, derive from key elements presented in the novels The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) and The Gripping Hand (1993), by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Thanks for reading along, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.

[Yes \\ Into the Lens]

You might call this the missing link. And who knows…you might even be onto something.

[The Police \\ Murder By Numbers]

First You Make a Stone of Your Heart

1.1

There is a rhythm to life, and to death, and yet we remain unprepared for that final reality, that the beating heart we know will never understand the infinite. But somehow, through the sharp lens of time, we have grown accustomed to the idea of that singular, defining moment. Some have accommodated their own gnawing fear through the practice of rituals that are at once very personal yet of origins beyond the arcane, while others have grown content with whatever fate or destiny or even random chance has in store. Along the way we’ve grown accustomed to the idea that about all we can hope for is a long life unfettered by pain, that we can all somehow dance in our parents’ shadows, and that, with luck, our children might dance in shadows all our own. Still, it seems that of all the creatures in this world, only humans have embraced an overarching sense of goodness as a guide to our actions, and conversely, most have repudiated evil in all its many guises. This repudiation, at times, defines the contours of this dance. As it defines our shadows.

Yet we take it for granted that for goodness to exist there simply has to be a countervailing force, this thing we call evil. Yet, indeed, is it possible that neither goodness nor evil ever truly exists outside of the human mind? But, what of this mind? Was it not this same soaring intellect, the same voice that proudly proclaimed that good and evil are the defining limits of our existence? And were these not the constructs of more primitive minds? Remnants, perhaps, of an age when humans above all else feared the night. When everything was a shadow, and we danced in fear?

But what of the voice of reason? The vox clamantis in deserto? Why do some heed this voice while others turn away and run headlong into the night, consumed by fear?

Could it be, possibly, that these proud minds are the most evil thing of all? Or could it be that the light of reason will, in the end, be our salvation?

Oh, Diogenes! Open your eyes!

1.2

She sat at the battered old Steinway, drifting along unseen currents as amber candlelight washed over the dark oaken walls of the old room. Drifting through a melange of Debussy and Gershwin, she was afloat among notes and passages that had spoken to her all her life, yet she was weaving subtle emotions with the subtle passages she chose, intonations at once as obscure as they were arcane. No one noticed. Not one head turned, and yet it seemed she had been waiting all her life for that one reaction.

She was playing in an alcove in the Grill Room, a hallowed enclave within the St. Francis Yacht Club’s main floor, and if she had bothered to look she might have seen the city lights winking on across the far reaches of San Francisco Bay. As it was, she sat erect with her eyes closed, swaying to the tapestry she wove as kelp might on a slackening tide. Her father was a member here and on Saturdays she liked to come and sit by the fireplace, and no one seemed to mind when she played the old piano in the corner. Indeed, most of the people there seemed to consciously ignore her – most of the time.

‘She’s not well, you know…’ one hushed note might imply.

‘Oh?’ a soft, contrapuntal note could be heard in reply.

‘Yes. Schizophrenia, or so I hear…’

But those knowing voices mattered not at all to her, not anymore, not after so many years of their knowing, sidelong glances. Theirs were eyes that could not see, and they spoke in hushed, shallow voices that knew only half-truths – and yet she loved most of those voices. She knew them, had known them all her life, and she had sailed with them all too many times to remember.

Her father came up after the sun settled into darkness, and he leaned into the old Steinway just as he always did before he spoke of leaving.

“I’m heading home now, Dev. You want to stay a while longer?”

She swayed to the left just a bit as she settled into Gershwin’s Love Walked In, but then she shrugged – playfully – before she finally relented with a nod and a quiet smile.

“Okay. Try not to stay out too late.”

She looked after her father as he walked out into the night, then she returned to her thoughts…and to the currents she danced on.

“Miss Devlin, we closin’ now…”

She opened her eyes, noticed the bartender leaning over to gently roust her and she nodded. “Is it midnight already?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Devlin. You want I should go and get your coat?”

“Thanks, Ernie. Would you mind?”

“Not a bit, Ma’am. You just wait right here.”

She looked around the room, noted embers dying in the fireplace and that a dense fog had settled over the bay, then she noticed a tall stranger sitting in a corner opposite the piano, and that the man was nursing the remnants of a brandy. She thought the sight a little odd, too, if only because she knew every member of the club – and had for years. Her house, or her father’s house, was only a few hundred yards distant, not even a block inland on Baker Street, so it felt to her as if she’d spent her entire life within these walls. And in a way she had.

She looked at the stranger again and felt a sudden wave of unease wash over her, then as she watched he turned and looked her in the eye before he stood and made his way to the main entry foyer and, presumably, out to his car. Ernie the bartender returned with her coat, a heavy old US Navy pea-coat, and after the old man helped her into the jacket he walked with her to the foyer.

“You best turn up that collar, Miss Devlin. It feels right cold out there tonight.”

She saw the shadow run up one wall and then watched it turn and slide along the ceiling and then out into the night and she wanted to turn and run but she didn’t want to make another scene, didn’t want Ernie to have to call her father to come pick her up again, so she turned up her collar and followed the inky shadow out into the night. She walked through the sentinel rows of eucalyptus down to the dinghy docks, knowing that the shadows were out there somewhere just ahead, out there just waiting for her – then she saw the man, the tall stranger from the Grill Room – and he was walking away from her along the beach trail by the Green. She stood near a covey of Etchells 22s, watched the man as he walked up to the crosswalk at Marina Boulevard – but then he simply disappeared, just like all the other shadows gathering in the clinging fog.

She stood in the stillness for a moment, and she had walked all the way to the Green when she realized the tide was in – and that the black water was close to the mute stones that lined the trail here – so she stopped by an ancient streetlight and stood in the safety of the pooling light, until she realized the fog was growing colder and was now – quite suddenly – impossibly thick.

She stepped back into the fog and made her way quietly along the trail towards home – but she stopped dead in her tracks when she heard a violent commotion in the water off to her left, and when she turned to look she saw an inky black creature oozing silently out of the water and slithering up the stone steps towards her. At first she thought it must be a large harbor seal but then the quivering creature stood on human-like legs and turned to face her and she didn’t know what else to do but scream.

+++++

Kirk Dooley was the first responding officer on the scene and he took one look at the blood-soaked woman and called dispatch: “6-12, will need a Watch Commander and Homicide at my location, and I think we’re going to need the divers…”

Dooley gathered the half-dozen or so witnesses, as well as the woman’s father, in the yacht club’s parking lot, and as other responding units arrived ‘Crime Scene’ tape was strung out to cordon off the area. Paul Weyland gathered up his daughter and held onto her as she stared off into the night, and Dooley tried to figure out who had seen what and when, scribbling down notes as fast as he could…

Then a large blue step-van pulled into the lot, and two men got out and began suiting up in dive gear, then hauling all their assorted gear down to the water’s edge.

Then a baby-shit-green Plymouth Interceptor pulled into the lot and Dooley recognized Frank DiGiorgio, one of the detectives, get out from behind the wheel, but he wasn’t sure he recognized the other detective, even after he finally got out of the Plymouth and started walking over. But it didn’t matter; DiGiorgio would be in charge and he was a real straight shooter, an old-school, no-nonsense cop who could get things done, and besides all that he was clean – and Dooley knew you couldn’t say that about too many of the cops working out of Central these days.

Then a flash of memory came to Dooley. The other Dick was one of the new guys that had just been promoted. They’d worked The Tenderloin together a few years back, too. Callahan, wasn’t it?

“Hey, Kirk,” Callahan said as he walked up, “how’s it hangin’?”

“Good, Harry. You?”

“Can’t complain. Look, I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but – where’s the body?”

Dooley nodded towards the water. “That’s the thing, Harry. There ain’t one. Yet…”

DiGiorgio walked over when he heard that. “Then what are we doin’ out here at two in the a-m, numb-nuts?”

So Kirk switched on his Kel-Lite and shined the beam on a woman’s legs, and when DiGiorgio saw they were covered in blood he walked over to her, then he looked at the stones on the trail before he turned to look at the woman again.

But one look was all it took. DiGiorgio knew those faraway eyes; he’d seen them too many times to not know exactly what they meant. Kids coming back from ‘Nam these days called it the ‘Thousand Yard Stare’ – which was where the mind took refuge when reality became a little too real to deal with. But then Callahan stepped up and looked into the woman’s eyes – he saw tremors cross her field of view – so he leaned closer still – until she could see nothing beyond the contours of his face.

“What did you see?” Callahan whispered gently. “Tell me. They’re gone and they can’t hurt you now.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” she whispered in kind.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he added, taking her hands in his.

She looked down, looked at his fingers and she recognized the fingers of a kindred spirit. “Debussy?” she sighed – as unseen currents passed between them.

“Gershwin.”

“Even better.” Was he the one, she wondered?

“Trust me. Tell me what happened.”

“It came out of the water.”

“What came out? Can you describe it for me?”

“Black. Slimy. At first I thought it…but then it stood and he was huge.”

“He? The man you saw…”

“He wasn’t a man.”

“But you said ‘he,’ didn’t you? And he was black and slimy? You mean like you saw a man covered in oil?”

She trembled as another memory rattled through her bones. “Skin…black…not oil…shiny, like a snake, only the eyes were different…amber, and big – like an owl’s eyes.”

An old black man walked up, and he nodded as he approached. “I seen it too, Mister. She ain’t lyin’ none.”

“You were…you saw this thing too?” DiGiorgio scoffed.

“Yessir. I was the second person out there, ran out from the parking lot behind Jimmy, and that thing took him and dragged him out into the water.”

“What?” Callahan said. “Are you saying this thing took someone out into the bay?”

“Yessir, right over there, where all that blood and stuff is.”

Which was, Callahan could now see, right about where the two rescue divers had entered the water.

And beyond the water, standing on the sidewalk above the yacht harbor, the tall stranger watched as the creature turned towards the divers, at this new presence in the water, and as the creature swam to face the new threat the tall stranger turned and walked away.

© 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | fiction, every word

[The Police \\ Tea in the Sahara]

This is one of those stories I can’t stop tinkering with, so I’m not sure it will ever really be ‘finished’ – but this is as far as I’m going to take it, for the time being, anyway. It seems like everyday over here another state is criminalizing abortion and imposing new restrictions, and I read another news item yesterday about a mother helping her teenage daughter find a physician willing to do the procedure – and now they’re both in jail. When I was a spud, the procedure was illegal and I remember the codeword back then sounded something like “Oh, yeah, I sent my daughter over to Stockholm for a nose job,” which was what the wealthy did back in the day until Roe v Wade (1973) changed the law nationwide. Fathers, and I feel certain that most were country club Republicans, sent their pregnant daughters to Sweden to have the procedure done. Of course, that option was simply unaffordable for most Americans (as is the case again today), which was why so many young women ended up dead after a botched back-alley abortion. I’ve seen the results of a couple of these, and it’s not something you can easily forget.

Yet, oddly enough, I’ve included one other experience of the procedure in a couple of stories I’ve written, including the 88th Key. A good friend in college got his girlfriend pregnant and asked if I would take her to a ‘doctors appointment’ – as he was ‘tied up in class’ and couldn’t take her. I was never told the appointment was for an abortion, I simply drove the girl from Palo Alto up to the City and probably read every issue of Road & Track magazine they had in the waiting room over the next couple of hours, and though I still didn’t know why she had gone to the appointment I soon understood what was going on inside the clinic.

But I was the one there with her after the procedure was finished, and I was the one on hand to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. I had no idea what deep emotional devastation looked like before that afternoon, and had never had to help someone in such a fragile state before. I do recall that the girl involved was irreparably damaged by the experience, that the termination of a human life weighed heavily on her for years. And I had never felt so utterly helpless.

Personally, I’ve always found the idea of abortion problematic at best, yet I’ve never felt anyone has any right whatsoever to tell another human being how to handle a situation like this, hence almost by default I’ve fallen into the pro-choice camp. I would assume that if history is indeed any guide at all we’ll soon find more young women in back alleys, killed by unskilled abortionists who lack the training or even the proper facilities and equipment to adequately perform the procedure, yet should the young women survive the experience, can you imagine EMS arriving at the scene and then having to call the police to come and take these devastated human beings to jail?

I simply can’t see the need for these laws, yet it’s already happening. For the life of me, these laws and policies seem grounded more in hate than in Christian love, and yet I simply can’t understand where all this hate is coming from. The awful conclusion, the one that really opens your eyes, is to finally understand that the hate has always been out there lurking in the shadows, and that this foul emotion is not really new at all, and that would certainly seem to mean that such willful hatred isn’t going anywhere. If that’s truly the case, then I’m afraid we are all in for a very rough ride. And the consequences may be far darker than we could have ever imagined.

[Kris Kristofferson \\ Me and Bobby McGee]

Between the Lines

 1.

Like most reporters on the little regional jet that afternoon, Peter Lawton had departed Ukraine by rail and then hopped on a LOT Polish Airlines Dreamliner in Rzeszów; the big Boeing was packed to the rafters with reporters and aid workers heading to London Heathrow, but even so most of the professionals leaving the region weren’t as angry as he was just then. He was tired and hadn’t eaten in days, and as he watched the Jetway retract and felt ground equipment pushing the aircraft back from the glossy new terminal building, he tried to listen to the safety announcement. Yet he was distracted and, frankly, still too mad at the world to listen to anyone at the moment.

And even up front he felt he barely had enough legroom, but at least he’d be able to grab a nap.

“Peter, right?” he heard someone say, so he turned to look at the woman in 3B.

“Yes? Have we met?” Lawton asked – though more than a little duplicitously, as he remembered the woman. 

But she smiled at his diversion, for the woman knew damn well Lawton knew exactly who she was. She’d been about half his age when they met, in her mid-thirties, and she remembered meeting him a few years after that first time. “Angela Eastman, BBC,” she said. “We met in Libya a few years ago, after all that Benghazi stuff.”

He shrugged. “Sorry,” he managed to say, “I guess I’m drawing a blank.”

“Nice to know I make such lasting impressions,” she said, smiling noncommittally at his deceit. “Too bad about your network. Did you get the axe as well?”

He shrugged. “Nothing official yet, but that seems to be the consensus of opinion right now.” After the election, everyone and anything with even the slightest patina of liberalism had been shown the door, so after almost forty years as a reporter and prime-time anchor his career seemed to be at a sudden and very public end.

“We just got word about fifteen minutes ago,” she added. “The United States has officially pulled out of NATO.”

And again he shrugged away her concerns. “I hardly think that comes as a surprise right now.”

“No, I suppose not,” Eastman said. “Still, it comes as a shock to those of us in the UK – not to mention the EU, who’ve always thought the alliance was like bedrock.”

“Why’s that? The Russians have been paying off our politicians for decades. The bill came due, that’s all. So what if someone in the Kremlin decided it was time to collect on all their outstanding balances.”

“Oh, come off it! Do you think it was really as simple as that?”

“Who knows, but Angela, really, who the fuck cares anymore.”

“But it seems so outlandish! Where’s all your American moral outrage?”

“Outrage? Really? You’re going to fall back on that line? Where were you when Turkey sided with the Russians, or where were you when Italy elected a fascist PM, and where was all your moral outrage when the Hungarians kept ‘reelecting’ the same ole fascist dictator? And now, with Macron on the ropes and French fascists on the move, France is as good as out of Nato one more time, and heaven knows Germany has been looking for an excuse to bail out. So, with the alliance in tatters and with most western economies hovering somewhere between recession and outright depression, all the Russians had to do was wait us out and then call in their markers, then wait for the politicians they’d purchased to retake power. Now the only real question is what will Germany and the UK do. Turn on their printing presses and try to build up their armed forces and hold the rest of the alliance together, or sit back and wait for the inevitable collapse of the EU and the rise of the Second Soviet Union. But really, like everyone else in a position of power, that imbecile in Number 10 waited too long to respond to Putin. But I guess in the end everyone in Europe never truly accepted the fact that the America of your dreams had fallen into the clutches of a cult grounded in wishful denialism, and so it collapsed under the weight of too many delusions, not to mention internal inconsistencies.”

“The America of our dreams?”

“Yes, of course. ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,’ versus a nation fractured and splintered by disinformation, with a government polarized by information warfare and falling into political incoherence through planned irrelevance. But hey, we were just like you guys in 1939: too many disparate groups unwilling to compromise, just knowing that somehow it would all work out in the end. Only thing is that too many people were willing to drink the Kool-Aid, and I guess too few able-minded people were ready to lead.”

“It’s happening at home again right now , you know?” she sighed as she thought about the most recent collapse of the Tories.

“Of course it is. And why shouldn’t it? Humanity has never been more united than it is right now, in this moment. We are united by our Hate of The Other, and so, at last, the Second Coming is upon us.”

“Funny. I never took you for a Christian Nationalist.”

He laughed at that, then leaned back and closed his eyes with a sigh: “That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

“Oh yes. Sorry.”

“Sorry? Why should you be sorry? I think Yeats was declaring humanity is a doomed species, doomed by our collective narcissism, by our inability to see beyond the moment.”

“Indeed. To what, exactly, are you referring now?”

“We jump to conclusions. Or how did he put it? ‘The best lack all conviction.’”

“Perhaps you should stop speaking in metaphors and try plain English.”

And that made him laugh out loud again – just as their Dreamliner turned onto the runway and began yet another journey to one more lost cause, still seething that he had been pulled out of Crimea just as victory appeared to finally be at hand. He looked at the passing landscape below and wondered when the next war would consume the people lingering helplessly in those same lengthening shadows. With America out of Nato, they wouldn’t have to wait long.

“What’s the point,” he finally said to her, reaching up to turn off his overhead light.

She looked down at his hands, noted they were trembling and she too looked away.

+++++

He rode into the city on the Paddington Express and walked down to the Hilton, Angela Eastman still by his side, still talking up a nonstop storm. She wanted to know more about the White Nationalist Party currently joining forces with the last remnants of the original Republican Party, consolidating their hold on Congress now that Their Man was back in the White House.

Lawton had been doing his best to talk politely with the woman but now he felt like he’d been ambushed, and that he had somehow become her story. Here was the old school liberal journalist being summoned back to headquarters, his immediate future to be run out of town on a rail, and frankly he wanted nothing to do with the pouting lips of her hyper-manipulative bush league ambush journalism. He walked up to the reception desk and checked in, and the man behind the counter handed him a large manilla envelope that had, apparently, just been hand-delivered from the local bureau.

He opened the envelope right then and there – then shook his head as the irony of his current situation came home to roost.

“What is it?” Eastman sighed. “Bad news?”

“I guess that depends on your point of view,” Lawton replied. “A new assignment, in Jackson, Mississippi.”

“Not exactly a hotbed of international importance, I suppose.”

Lawton looked at her, at this ‘reporter’ – and he wondered why some people got into the business. This one was certainly attractive enough, well – actually, she was rather good looking, yet it wasn’t a stretch to assume she’d gotten into the business to accrue an audience – and to therefore gain a political following. That had become the new paradigm, after all. The Coalition was top heavy with former reporters who’d cut their teeth working for right wing media, and he had to admit it made a lot of sense. Who else was in a better position to understand how easy it was to manipulate public opinion than the people who did so for a living – everyday? From there, you hitched your wagon to a Party stalwart and went along for the ride, collecting your bribes while you paid your dues, your final reward working for a think-tank or doing hard time as a K Street lobbyist.

“Well,” he said, stifling a yawn, “I guess I’m off to Dulles in the morning. I’d better get some sleep, so I guess this is goodbye.”

“I don’t mean to be forward, Peter, but I know a great spot for curry a few blocks from here, and my place is nearby…”

“And I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company tonight,” he said as another yawn came for him. “Perhaps another time?”

She nodded uneasily, yet almost duplicitously. “Yes. Perhaps.”

He turned and made his way to the lift and rode up to the third floor in blissful silence, but after a discrete interval he put on his sport coat and made his way back down to the taxi stand. The sun was finally down and despite all the rabid uncertainty in the air, life in London seemed almost normal; it was certainly a far cry from the Russian savagery he’d witnessed in Crimea just the night before.

After a few minutes in the taxi he walked into The Grill at The Savoy and ordered his old favorites – starting off with lump crabmeat en coquille, then a Dover sole amandine with fresh asparagus Hollandaise – while he waited for an old friend from the network, and the inevitable reckoning that had to come. While he waited an aging rock star he’d interviewed more than once stopped by for a chat, but other than that he simply let all the tension and anxiety he’d experienced over the last two months fall away to other memories of better times.

“Well, better late than never,” Sara Beckman said as she sat down beside Lawton, after she’d bestowed a lingering kiss on his forehead. “Peter, you’ll excuse me for saying so, but you look simply dreadful. Have you slept at all recently?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Matter of fact, I don’t recall eating anything for the last two or three days, so I hope you don’t mind but I’ve already ordered.”

“The sole, of course?”

“Yes. And one for you as well. Hope you don’t mind.”

“You look as though you’ve lost two stone. Was it as bad as it looked?”

“It was medieval, Sara. I saw hand to hand fighting in the streets and trenches – under torchlight. Sickening stuff, really, all the ways we’ve come up with to kill our fellow man. Expeditiously, I think, is the word that most comes to mind. No feeling anymore – no humanity. One minute it’s drone warfare and the next you see men going after one another with bayonets and machetes, and there’s simply no time to take it all in.”

“Your segment yesterday hit hard; there was a lot of talk about it today.”

“And obviously it did no good at all. We’re out of Nato now, I hear?”

“Yes. Did you get the envelope at the reception desk?”

Lawton nodded, but he didn’t have much to say. Yet.

“You need to be careful over there, Peter. Things are moving quite fast now, and civil order is falling apart as militias take over. You know that, right?”

He shrugged. “What are they going to do? Kill me?”

“I wouldn’t be too surprised. You really pissed off the man, or so we’re hearing?”

“I tried to. It’s not all that difficult, you know?”

“Well, the word is you really got under his skin this time.”

“So, I’ll go out in a blaze of glory? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Don’t go, Peter, don’t take the assignment. Stay here. Stay with me. We can still make a nice life together, and you’d have no trouble getting on with one of the networks here.”

“I have a job to do. Something I started a long time ago; something I need to finish.”

“You can’t you do it from here?”

“And what if I did? They’d come for me here if that’s what they decide to do. There really is no place to hide.”

“Not that you would.”

He shrugged. “No, but you’ve always known that about me.”

“Hard headed. Not to mention pig headed and confrontational. Yes, I do know. So, what are you going to do?”

“My job.”

Their dinners came and they ate in silence, yet she hardly took her eyes off him. 

“Some things never change, you know?” he said when he had finished. “This place is the one constant in a constantly changing universe.”

“It is, yes.”

“So, why have you been staring at me?”

“I think I wanted to memorize your face, Peter, because once you leave I know I’ll never see you again.”

“Indeed. That doesn’t sound like you, Sara.”

“You loved me once, didn’t you? Enough to stay, I mean?”

“I still love you, Sara.”

“Just not enough to stay?”

“Odd way of putting it, don’t you think? You either love someone or you don’t. Love isn’t a matter of degrees – or have I had it wrong all this time…?”

“So, why won’t you stay? Really, that’s all I wanted to ask you?”

He looked at her and sighed. “Look, kiddo. It’s because, well, I’m not sure I know how to say this, but I feel like there’s one more war I have to cover, and I want to be there when it starts.”

“You…what? When it starts?”

He took her hand, felt her skin and the fine bones of her fingers, the warmth that still seemed so familiar, then he looked into her eyes. “I was thinking about Yeats earlier today and, well, the battle lines have been drawn, you know. Everything seems to be racing towards this one point in time…”

“What point?”

“A flash point, I think. Something horrible is going to happen over there. I know it.”

“And you think you’ll find all this in Mississippi?”

He nodded as he leaned back in his chair. “Hate comes so easily to some people, Sara. And yet some people just follow along with the crowd, not sure what’s happening but caught up in events. But… haven’t you ever thought it odd that in our business we always seem to be chasing hate?”

“You aren’t going to answer me, are you?” She looked away, perhaps because she knew her war was already over, that he’d surrendered to the inevitable a long time ago. “So, that’s it, Peter? Game over?”

“I am what I am, Sara. I go…”

“What? That you go where hate takes you? Are you really telling me that’s all there was to us?”

He closed his eyes and took her in, especially the sound of her voice. “I think I know the bones of your hands better than I know my own. That isn’t hate, Sara. That’s love. Don’t forget that about me, okay?”

“If you love someone set them free? Is that what you and Gordon were talking about before I arrived?”

“You little spy!”

“Always. Just like you.”

“We were talking about Ukraine.”

She nodded, but then she pulled her hand slowly from his and he watched the movement carefully. Was this another tactical retreat, or her final surrender?

Yet she smiled. A little. “Do you remember the beach? And that funny little house?”

“Of course,” he sighed. “Do you?”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “You remember everything, don’t you? Every little thing, I mean?”

“That wasn’t such a little thing, Sara.”

‘That’ was the night he’d found her in the shower, passed out and dying after swallowing a bottle of pills. After she’d taken a penknife and carved ‘Love me’ into the soft skin of her belly.

“You’ve never forgiven me for that, have you?” she whispered.

“I’ve never stopped loving you, if that makes any difference.”

And then he’d watched as she quietly stood and walked away – and he knew then that their war was finally at an end. She’d ended the thing on her terms, which he assumed was what she needed from him now, and why she’d asked him to come here tonight.

 And after a quick glass of port he’d made his way back to the Hilton on the Underground, as always listening to what was on peoples’ minds. Russia, it turned out, was the number one topic of conversation that night, and what the new leadership in the Kremlin would do now that their allies were once again in the White House and the American Congress. Even the few Americans he overheard seemed to still be in a state of shock, and more than one said there was no point returning to home anytime soon.

Which was predictable enough, Lawton thought. Home is where your heart is, he thought, still hearing Sara in his mind’s eye.

By the time he made it back to his room he was too wired to sleep so he pulled out his laptop and began writing up his observations of the evening. This was his oldest habit, and part of a routine that had kept him in top form for decades. He listened everywhere he went, but then he took the time to synthesize these ramblings in search of coherent patterns – because sometimes random mumblings became the story real – and these notes also helped him gain the perspective he needed when he interviewed people ‘on the air.’

Yet tonight something felt ‘off’ – and eerily so. First came Sara’s contrite withdrawal, then there’d been the defeated mood on the Tube. And for hours he’d felt like the norms that had guided American foreign and domestic policy for decades had finally gone off the rails, and yet the most worrisome part of this change was that it ‘appeared’ to be the Will of the People, but after all the histrionics of the past four years Lawton still had a hard time swallowing that idea. Populist movements like the one now found in America weren’t spontaneous eruptions of popular sentiment; no, they had been engineered over decades by people with opaque agendas, people willing to use the core tenets of an open society to destroy the foundations of that society. And authoritarian propaganda wasn’t exactly rocket science, was it? Both the means and the ends were taught in every political science class these days, and that had been the case because, it had been hoped, that by shining the light of reason onto such techniques it would be all the more difficult for the current dictator du jour to pull it off again.

But for that to hold true it would have been necessary for the politicians of the so-called Ruling Classes to play by the old, established rules of the game, and that had proven America’s undoing. Republicans had, by and large, supported the idea of impeaching Richard Nixon in late July 1974, but by 2020 all sense of checks and balances had been discarded by the GOP, and the only thing left now was partisan jockeying for power in the service of a working majority. And Justice didn’t mean a thing anymore, especially in the courts – because under the Coalition, the only valid verdicts would soon be issued under the auspices of Public Opinion, the very same opinion so easily manipulated by their wizards behind their green curtains. There was a certain, peculiar logic to the entire sequence of the manipulation that Lawton almost admired. It had certainly worked.

Because to that foul end media empires had long sold distorted views of government, at first to gain ratings. But then political insiders worked to undermine the very rules of basic governance by making government completely unresponsive to the needs of the people, and when government failed to deliver on these promises the very same insiders blamed government for failing the people. In a sense, the insiders had created a circular firing squad, because as this media circus further distorted and amplified the failures of government they also encouraged outrage directed at the old school insiders still working to make government deliver on it’s promises. But what made Lawton laugh loudest was the realization that none of it made sense until you realized the entire scheme was a political hit job orchestrated by none other than the Kremlin and their allies in America media, in other words, by the politicians and oligarchs that would most benefit by a rewriting of the old rules.

But when Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists formed an alliance with the main evangelical Christian political movement within the Republican Party, a new, much more powerful dynamic had been created through the new Faith and Freedom Coalition, which had proven to be not so easily managed as the Undermining Insiders had hoped, as liberals and other progressives were now called. Of course the original Coalition had splintered into more violent cadres, and members of these new splinter groups were much more likely to employ outright violence to achieve their goals, so when it appeared that Republicans might win the election, talk of a Second Civil War had suddenly taken on a new urgency. ‘But how could there even be a civil war,’ the old Undermining Insiders cried, ‘when both sides are evenly distributed throughout the country?’ 

Lawton wasn’t alone in realizing that the model for that type of civil war had played out in South Vietnam, when neighbors started killing neighbors and when no one was safe. Putting up a yard sign stating your political preferences had by last November become an act of defiance in many parts of the country, and in some states it was an act that could get you gunned down in your front yard.

So when Lawton reflected on the conversations of Americans he’d overheard on the Underground he understood the fear these people were worried about. It was, he had to admit, not all that different from the anger and frustration he’d overheard in Kyiv and Odesa, or even in Afghanistan during the last days of the American occupation. When the unifying fabric of a society began to fray around the edges it wasn’t long before the whole enterprise began to fall apart.

Lawton finally gave up on the idea of sleep and took a long shower, then he repacked his suitcase and made sure his phone and camera were fully charged before checking out of the hotel. Once on the Paddington Express he sat in silence, hardly noticing that the carriage was stone-cold empty. But when he made his way up the escalators to the check-in concourse at Heathrow’s T5 he found that the entire building looked, and felt, deserted. He walked over to the BA Business Class check-in counter and once again noted that no one else was waiting in line, and to him that was a very bad sign indeed.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he walked up to the lone agent behind the counter.

“Very few people flying to the States right now,” the girl said with a shrug. “I guess because everything still feels so unsettled over there.”

“How long has it been like this?”

“Since the election, early November I think.”

He nodded, then decided to change the subject. “What’s the equipment today?”

“Oh, I see they’ve changed it back to an A-321 again, so another narrow body today. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh? So no more wide bodies? No A380s or 747s?”

“Oh, no, not in weeks. I think there were only five or six passengers on yesterday’s outbound flight. Not sure about this morning, but a few of the flights coming in from the States are still almost full.”

“How long has that been going on?”

“Since the elections,” she repeated, exasperated by this dullard’s insipid questions. 

“Are any outbound flights full?”

“Malaga is running full this week, and so are flights to Athens and Barcelona, where the cruise ships embark, but no one is sure how long those will last. Some flights to South Africa and Argentina are running quite full.”

“Why are people so uneasy here? Are you hearing anything?”

“Mainly Russia and, well, you know, the political instability both there and in the States. A lot of people think the war will spill out into the Baltics any day now.”

“What would you do if war broke out?”

The girl, and she couldn’t have been more than 25-years-old, seemed unsure what she could, or should say, and then he realized she was acting as if she was under surveillance. He wasn’t surprised when she finally just shook her head: “I’m not really sure, Mr Lawton. So, just one bag to check this morning, or will you be carrying that with you onboard?”

He took the hint and moved on to security, then he wound his way through the maze of duty-free shops and found that BAs lounges were ‘Closed for Renovations’ and that there wasn’t a single restaurant open, either. Of course there were at least two Starbucks up and running, so he settled for an iced coffee and a stale pastry, then about halfway through his coffee he remembered he’d wanted to sleep on the flight.

“Well balls! So much for that,” he said to the four walls. Finishing up with his snack he took out his Leica Q3 and walked around the terminal taking pictures of the overwhelming emptiness, and then he walked over and shot a few pictures of the barren ramps, noting that several airliners had hard plastic covers over their engine inlets; he remembered that was only done when an airliner wouldn’t be flown for several days – or even weeks – and that, he knew, said it all.

When his flight was called he found he was the lone passenger lining up when Business Class was called, though he noted a few college kids boarded when coach was called, and those subdued kids walked to the very rear of the aircraft without so much as a word said between them. No one had checked his ticket at the boarding door, either, so he settled in and had just started taking pictures out the window when he felt someone sit down in the seat next to his. His first reaction was to feel aggravated at having to share a row with anyone on an otherwise empty flight, but when he turned to see who had the temerity to sit next to him he just groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Well, fancy meeting you here,” the BBCs Angela Eastman said brightly – with a Pepsodent smile that was totally inappropriate for this time of day.

He stared at the woman but said not a word.

“I hear the weather in Mississippi is perfectly dreadful this time of year,” she added with a polite smile. “Of course, I had no idea what to pack.”

Again, he simply stared at her – wishing she would vanish or, failing that, simply just go away, like any other bad dream.

“What? No pithy denials? Not up for some more idle chit-chat?” she said, her lips puckering into an infantile pout that still somehow managed to look perfectly cute on her professionally made-up face.

And maybe it was her face that finally got to him. He smiled – a little – but then stood and went to the forward WC to wash the beading sweat from his forehead, and he stared at his reflection in the mirror for a while as he tried to come to terms with the same two emotions that had controlled his life right up to the end of his last marriage – which had been his third. He always felt unbridled lust when he looked at a face like Eastman’s, yet that lust had always been tempered by unreconciled self-loathing which, not surprisingly, grew out of his inability to control his lust. And so he’d proceeded through life guided by his hyperactive penis, chasing after every good looking woman he laid eyes on, and often despite the inherent dangers such pursuits entailed. ‘Hell,’ he’d thought more than once, ‘maybe it was because of the danger.’ Like fucking the head of the network’s wife at the annual Christmas party – three years in a row. She was arm candy and always came on to him, so who the hell was he to say no?

Because when he was in his twenties he’d figured out that to a certain kind of woman he was like catnip, and yet he provoked outrageous, often outright flirtatious behavior from married women, and more often than not women who were married to some of the most powerful men in network television. He was, after all, Peter Lawton, and he’d been reading the six o’clock news five nights a week to half the households in the country, and his broadcasts had been number one with married women in the powerful 24-45 demographic. The age group that the networks fought over year after year. And men detested him, too – and for just that reason.

He’d married his college sweetheart right after graduation, but after their second child she’d grown angry and depressed and he’d started hunting off the reservation soon after one of her depressive bouts. That marriage soon ended in divorce number one. Two marriages to actresses followed, each lasting a year or so, but after the last one he’d given up on the idea of marriage and had simply decided to have fun with women – until that approach had proven legally problematic. After that revelation it was like he kept his penis on a leash and didn’t dare let it run free for fear of a million unanticipated consequences. Until he’d been assigned to London and met Sara.

Smart, sexy, provocative – and full of despair – that was Sara. How hard had she worked to conceal her depression? Yet he had loved her even so. But that love had run up against his earlier self and all those other unanticipated consequences. He was, he kept telling himself, old enough to know better, but he’d fallen for her. Until that trip to the Bahamas, when he’d found her bleeding and overdosed in the shower, with knife in hand. Love Me, indeed.

And now here was Angela Eastman, and she represented nothing more or less than a roomful of unanticipated consequences. Probably a bedroom, too, knowing that look in her eyes.

When he went back to his seat he found she’d moved across the aisle – and now she was banging away on a MacBook, sending messages at a furious clip and she didn’t even look up when he took his seat again. The aircraft doors shut a few moments later, then the Jetway retracted and the Airbus was pushed back from the terminal. The lone flight attendant came by as the jet taxied out to the runway and said she’d serve them breakfast once they reached their cruising altitude, and that she had sandwiches for a pre-landing snack – but that was the last he saw of her. They took off to the east and he looked down through low scudding clouds at Parliament and Big Ben, and then the little jet turned south, then west, and as they began chasing the sun across the Atlantic Lawton dropped the window shades and reclined his seat, almost immediately dropping off into a deep, dreamless sleep…

2.

After the empty concourses he’d seen at London’s Heathrow, Washington Dulles seemed almost normal, yet Lawton thought the degree of normalcy on display was in itself perversely remarkable. Europe was a schizoid shambles, with Eastern Europe caught up in pre-war jitters while Western Europe flitted about in abysmally irrational denial, but there was not even the slightest hint that anyone walking around Dulles was concerned about anything happening in Europe – or anywhere else, for that matter. The usual suspects were, as usual, queuing up at Cinnabon and ready to graze through the various burger franchises, but of course the first Starbucks he saw had a line out the door. Lawton ignored them all and stopped at a news stand and picked up copies of the Washington Post and New York Times to read on his final two legs to Jackson, Mississippi, for he would, of course, have to change planes in Atlanta, and as he always did when he returned home, he sighed at the nonsensical waste of time the hub and spoke arrangement imposed on air travelers in the States.

And though Angela Eastman had remained blissfully across the aisle while he slept his way across the Atlantic, when he boarded the Delta A-220 he was more than annoyed when she sat next to him on the overcrowded flight. Not knowing what else to do, as soon as she started talking he took out his Leica and started taking pictures of people and machines moving around on the ramp below his window, as it seemed that nothing was going to stop her nonstop chattering now.

“So, have you learned why they’re sending you to Jackson?” she asked as the last shuttle pulled away from their Airbus.

“No, not a peep.”

“Isn’t that a little unusual? I mean, why send a foreign correspondent to Mississippi?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. What about you? Know why they sent you?”

“No, not really. There was the story that broke a few days ago about the abortion doctor. Did you pick up on that one?”

He shrugged again. “Sorry, I must’ve missed it.”

“Really? Well, an Ob-Gyn performed an abortion on a girl that was carrying a non-viable fetus – I mean the baby apparently had less than half a brain and wouldn’t have survived five minutes outside of the mother’s womb – but late last week the District Attorney down there decided to file homicide charges against both the mother and the physician, and they were both arrested a yesterday. And guess what? Representatives of the Coalition are demanding the death penalty for the physician.”

That caught Lawton’s attention. “What? You’re joking?”

“No, not at all. There was the usual ineffectual knee-jerk response from the few remaining progressives on the Hill, but so far the media all seem to be on board with the Coalition.”

“I just looked over the front pages of both the Times and the Post – and I didn’t see a thing about the arrests in either paper.”

“See what I mean? The last liberal news organization reporting on events in your country is based in the UK; how’s that for plain ole down home irony?”

“You mean there’s been nothing further about it on the cable news channels?”

“Silence is golden, Peter. Or should we just roll over and say ‘democracies die in silence?’”

“That’s what the bumper sticker says,” he sighed, still reeling.

“Ooh, cynicism. The autocrat’s best friend.”

He shook his head and groaned. “Do you happen to know any dates? Arraignments or such?”

“I heard the trial is set for this Friday, but that couldn’t be right.”

“Friday…? But you said they’d just been arrested? No one could possibly prepare briefs in a capital case in two days, let alone the opening arguments in a case like this. Where’s the ACLU on this?”

“Not in Mississippi, apparently. In fact, most state offices of the ACLU were forced to shut down over the last month. Threats against staff, I think, was the issue cited. And you’ll love this, Peter. Both the mother and the physician are Black.”

He sighed and shook his head, then put his face in his hands. “Of course they are. And the NAACP? Are you telling me they’re silent on the matter? Jackson Mississippi was like ground zero of the civil rights movement, I seem to remember? It’s hallowed ground!”

“Times are different now, Peter. You ever been to the SPLC?”

“In Montgomery? Sure, several times. Why?”

“Firebombed two days ago, nine dead, and my guess is you didn’t read about that in the Post or the Times, either.”

“Dear God,” he whispered, “what’s happening? Where’s the FBI?”

“Compromised, apparently, by internal dissension.”

“Internal dissension?”

“I seem to have heard that means penetrated by White supremacists.”

And at that point one of the flight attendants stopped by and leaned over to speak to them. “Uh, listen you two, I don’t mean to intrude but people have complained about you.”

“Complained? Really?” Angela asked. “About what?”

“You shouldn’t be talking about this stuff in a public place, ya know?” the woman said nervously.

Lawton looked at the woman, and she appeared scared. “Are you saying that some people here are offended by talk of this situation?”

The flight attendant nodded. “Yup, you got it, and if you keep it up I’ll have to call law enforcement, and they’ll have you removed from the aircraft for creating a disturbance.”

Lawton leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, tried to control his breathing and get his blood pressure back under control, while Angela simply smiled and nodded her tacit agreement, and a moment later the Airbus pushed back from the gate.

And at that point Angela leaned close and whispered in his ear: “Welcome home, y’all.”

By the time their second regional jet flight landed in Jackson, Lawton was so angry he could hardly breathe. The first four years had been bad enough, then the pandemic hit and sure, life tumbled out of control for a while, but after four relatively sane years things now appeared to be spiraling completely out of control. Arresting a post-terminated-pregnancy patient – who’d just been confronted with one of the most emotionally wrenching decisions of her life – was heinous enough, but charging the physician with a capital offense was like something straight out of the dark ages. Ten years ago people would have laughed in his face if he’d told them that something like this was happening in America, and maybe the same would have been true four years ago – but not now. Now we were in a race to the bottom, yet no one seemed to appreciate what had really happened.

But he had been thinking as they flew along, thinking that there was some little place in his memory of America that he had missed, something important he’d lost sight of, and yet he wasn’t sure exactly what that was, but he knew that the heart of his story lay in an examination of this one thing, of this memory he’d misplaced.

Representatives from the network’s local affiliate met him at the baggage claim area, and when they met Miss Eastman they were only too glad to help out a reporter from the BBC, so Angela hopped in the van and off they all went, driving the six miles into downtown.

“Mr. Lawton, we put you up at The Old Capitol Inn,” Cheryl Templeton, one of the local producers said after introductions were made. “Miss Eastman, do you have a reservation anywhere?”

“No, nothing yet.”

“Would you like me to call the Inn and see if they have a room for you?”

“Yes, please. That would be so nice.”

Lawton cleared his throat, looked at Templeton. “Do you have the backstory yet? And just what kind of piece is New York looking for? Anything, by chance, resembling the truth?”

Templeton turned and looked at Lawton and he could see the pleading look in her eyes, then the sidelong glance in the direction of their driver – and he realized she was telling him that he couldn’t talk freely in the van, at least not when her cameraman, Brad McNaughton, was around. “I have both standard bios in your background information folders,” the producer said as she passed over several large manilla envelopes, “as well as copies of the DAs charging documents and the press release the Coalition put out.”

“Anything scheduled yet?”

“Interview with the DA tomorrow morning at eleven. They’ve been stonewalling us about an interview with Washburn, and so far we haven’t been able to contact the Polk family. No word on a bail hearing yet.”

“And they are?”

“Fay Polk is the woman whose pregnancy was terminated. Doctor Elise Washburn is her Ob-Gyn, or was, anyway. Uh, I hate to ask, but do you have a suit with you?”

Lawton looked up from Polk’s bio and shook his head. “Sorry. I lost most of my clothes in a missile attack two days ago. I think I’m wearing most everything I have with me right now.”

“Oh well, okay. Well, we’ll see if we can do something about that in the morning.”

Lawton looked over Templeton then turned and gazed out the window – though he shook his head just a little. Pale pink button-down oxford cloth shirt, complete with polo player over the left breast, khakis and penny-loafers – standard issue Ivy League wannabe journalism major in her second job as a line producer, and she’d probably wound up in this armpit of a city after crapping out in a major secondary market like Nashville, or maybe St Louis. He’d seen at least a dozen just like her and her type’s clinging ambitions were tiresome – but often quite useful, too. And this one was seriously on the cute side of the blond-hair blue-eyed equation, so her ego would probably be borderline toxic – but then again, he knew his was just as toxic so maybe they would balance each other out. “Anyplace nearby for dinner?” he asked politely, trying to hide his jet lag by stifling a yawn.

“The food at the Inn is actually pretty good,” Templeton said. “If you want a steak, LaCour is still open and they’re the best in town.”

Lawton yawned for real and then rubbed his burning eyes, then tried to shake himself awake. “My eyes feel like fire-pits. The Inn will have to do tonight.”

“I’ll be by at seven in the morning,” Templeton added, “and they start serving breakfast at six,” she said as they pulled up to the front of a nondescript red-brick building. “You’re already checked-in, Mr Lawton, and oh, by the way, there’s a nice rooftop bar in case you two need a nightcap.”

“Swell,” Lawton said, not able to stifle the next long, deep yawn. “If I’m not waiting for you in the lobby tomorrow morning, come poke me with a stick and see if I’m still breathing. Ya know, on second thought I think I’m too tired for dinner,” he said as he slid out of the van. He waited for Angela and then made his way into the Inn’s lobby, and once he had the key to his room he high-tailed it right to the shower and turned on the hot water. After he dumped his dirty underclothes in the provided hamper he found the little black dopp kit he’d tucked away in a corner of his carry-on and couldn’t wait to stand under the water – when he heard a delicately feminine knock on the door.

So after a long sigh he opened the door an inch or so and there was the BBC’s Miss Angela Eastman, a bottle of scotch in one hand and two glasses in the other, now smiling from ear to ear and looking like she wanted to talk, among other things.

“You are kidding, right?” he sighed as he grinned.

“I’ve been told I give a mean back rub, in case you’re interested?”

All things considered, it turned out he was. More than once, as it happened.

+++++

Benton Baxter, the local district attorney, was of course late for their appointment – but Lawton had expected no less from a mid-level pawn with his eyes now firmly on the prize, at least considering current circumstances. When Baxter finally did show up, twenty minutes later than promised, he told Lawton he could only spare a few minutes – which, once again, Lawton had gleefully anticipated. And that’s when he introduced “Miss Angela Eastman of the BBC, who’d like to sit in on our interview this morning…”

So, Baxter had, as predicted, called his secretary on the intercom and pushed back a couple of appointments. Templeton and her cameraman had already set up their equipment in a nearby conference room, and a few minutes later everything was good to go.

“So,” Baxter said, preening when he saw the red light atop the camera wink on, “welcome back to the States, Mr Lawton. We sure have enjoyed your reporting from the front lines. Were things as dangerous as they looked on TV?”

Lawton smiled. “Yes, well, it is a challenge to maintain your journalistic objectivity when you see entire neighborhoods that have been hit by repeated missile strikes, but then I drove through a couple of your low income neighborhoods this morning and what I found there was strikingly similar in appearance to what I’d seen in Kherson and Kyiv recently.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, let’s look at this home,” he said as he pulled up a picture on his iPhone. “One story wood frame construction, half of the roof caved-in and the floors under two of the four bedrooms have rotted away. I’d assumed the people who live in that house might fix those floors but there are simply too many copperheads in the crawl space to make that happen anytime soon. And as a matter of record, I bring this up because this is the home where Miss Fay Polk was raised, where she tried to carry a baby to term, and do you know what, Mr Baxter? Because of longstanding problems with the water being distributed to the poorer neighborhoods in Jackson, when I tried to get a glass of water in their kitchen this morning, the Polks were actually ashamed when raw feces came out the tap, so yes, I found conditions in Kherson frightenly similar to what I found here this morning.”

“I see. Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, the political situation here in Jackson is very complex.”

“Yes, so I understand. But it has been, or so I hear, that way since 1865, has it not? But tell me, Mr Baxter. When you turn on the faucet in your home, does raw sewage pour out of your taps?”

Baxter looked as if he could murder Lawson, quite literally kill him with his bare hands, but he also knew he’d lost the moral high ground. “I doubt that it does, Mr Lawton.”

“I see. So, could you tell me how many people in the State of Mississippi believe in a woman’s right to choose?”

“I have no idea, sir. I enforce the laws, not public opinion.”

“I understand. But still, considering that in recent polling of voting age people in your state, including young people Miss Polk’s age, almost seventy percent of respondents believe in a woman’s right to choose her own reproductive destiny, so I’m curious how this law came to be.”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Mr Lawton.”

“Really? Well then, I guess it seems, to an outsider like myself anyway, that a narrow political agenda is being enforced – at the expense of a truer, more representative and certainly a more democratic expression of the will of the people.” 

“As you say, you are an outsider here, aren’t you?” Baxter’s eyes were now cold and hard.

“Well, of course, but do tell: do you really feel that imposing the death penalty on a physician performing a medically justified procedure is truly warranted?”

“Again, Mr Lawton, I’m just a civil servant doing the job I was elected to do.”

“Ah. That sounds suspiciously like the justification employed time and time again by Nazi concentration camp guards at the Nuremberg Trials.”

Baxter shrugged. “Concentration camps? What on earth are you talking about?”

“Mr Baxter,” Angela Eastman said, sensing this part of the interview was now at an end, “do you think it would be possible for me to interview either Miss Polk or Dr Washburn while I’m here?”

“I might be able to get you in, Miss Eastman,” the DA said, though by that time he was pointedly ignoring Peter Lawton’s presence in the conference room, “providing you don’t use any material from either Mr Lawton or his network.”

“Certainly, sir,” she smiled coquettishly. “I’d never do such a thing without your explicit approval and authorization.”

“Do you have a camera crew with you?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I just wanted to speak with either of the two you have in custody.”

Baxter smiled. “Well then, won’t you please come with me?”

Angela stood and followed the DA from his conference room, leaving Lawton and Templeton to pack up their gear, while her cameraman, Brad McNaughton, broke down his kit and put the expensive camera in a bright yellow Pelican case – yet McNaughton glowered and grumbled while he worked.

“What’s with the attitude?” Templeton asked McNaughton as they loaded their gear in the van a few minutes later.

“What a prick!” the cameraman snarled.

“Oh?” Lawton said.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t picking up on that vibe, man. He was spitting in your face, Mr Lawton. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was never a big fan of your politics but he’s a public servant, not…”

“He is what he is, Brad,” Lawton said, cutting him off, “but he’s also not the story.” He turned to Templeton and nodded. “Are we getting a clear signal out here?”

“Loud and clear,” Templeton said, “and it looks like we have a solid feed on the recorder.”

The three stepped inside and moved to the editing and transmission console in the middle of the van, and after Templeton plugged the feed into the main data recorder a grainy video appeared on one of the module’s screens, and then, finally, there was Dr. Elise Washburn onscreen. And while the image was less than perfect, the audio was crystal clear. 

Washburn had, they heard her say, grown up in Jackson in the good graces of the Catholic Church, which was in itself unusual, and then she had moved away to college, first to Loyola in New Orleans, then on to the medical school at Tulane. She’d gone on to Johns Hopkins for her internship and residency, yet she’d always known she would come home to practice medicine. She’d taken, and passed, her Boards in Obstetrics and Gynecology before taking a staff position at UMMC, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in Jackson – and as soon as Roe v Wade was struck down the State of Mississippi had immediately declared an outright ban on most abortions, and then as more restrictions were put in place the legislature had also made it illegal to even teach the procedure. 

As a staff physician at a teaching university medical center, Washburn needed to be able to teach the procedure if only to insure that physicians trained at UMMC could pass all of the core procedures and exams related to the safe practice of Obstetrics, yet now there was simply no way she could do that. Legally, that is.

The fact that Washburn was a practicing Catholic made no difference in the events that followed, which was not as ironic as it first seemed as the most radical evangelical Christian groups also happen to be Catholic, and these groups had all been pushing for a complete ban on the procedure for decades. The fact that Roe was finally struck down as a result of litigation between the Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Thomas E. Dobbs, the lead state health officer with the Mississippi State Department of Health, was a small irony not lost on Washburn, nor any of the other Ob-Gyns practicing in the state.

But when Eastman asked Washburn about Fay Polk, you could see the change come over the physician as she recounted her first encounters with the girl. Fay had just turned eighteen years old and told Washburn that she had been repeatedly raped at home, and after questioning it turned out to have been by a family member. As she had been receiving basic obstetrical care through Medicaid, the federal government’s medical insurance program for the impoverished, the baby’s underlying medical condition had soon been discovered. The fetus would develop along somewhat normal lines, Washburn told Polk, yet it’s brain would not, and once born the child might conceivably live as long as five minutes – but that once the umbilical cord was cut the child would simply suffocate and die. 

Yet Fay herself was not in good health. Chronically undernourished, Washburn discovered the girl was diabetic and had a complex endocrine-metabolism disorder and had recently experienced difficulty digesting food, so carrying the fetus to term was itself ill-advised on those grounds alone. Her GFR indices were also perilously low, which meant her kidneys were suddenly failing too.

Yet the latest law passed by the State Legislature was clear. No abortions would be allowed in the state, period. Not in cases where the life of the mother was in jeopardy and not in cases of rape or incest. Further, the latest law stated that the procedure could not even be conceptually taught or discussed in any facility owned by the state, which of course included the University’s Medical School, but also in any clinic that accepted Medicaid.

It was one thing, Peter Lawton felt, to listen to these things discussed in the abstract, yet quite another to see the empathy and compassion of an Elise Washburn run headfirst into the steamroller of evangelical political radicalism that was now coming to take her life, and he simply couldn’t process what he was seeing. He was an Episcopalian and had been all his life, yet he had been on one overseas assignment after another for the last ten years, so what he was seeing now was the result of a withering meanness at work. And this, he thought, wasn’t just the usual Southern mentality at work, either. This was national in scope, and quite suddenly he was beginning to feel as if he stepped into some kind of bizarre, off-the-wall medieval drama, or perhaps a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale – as told by William Faulkner.

Yet one thing was clear. Quite clear. Elise Washburn was a kind soul full of compassion who had done nothing more or less than the Right Thing, and now the state wanted to kill her. Lawton, Templeton, and McNaughton sat in silence listening to the physician’s story, and by the time Angela Eastman wrapped up her interview even McNaughton was blind with red-faced fury. “Is it just me,” he said, “or is there something really weird about Christians wanting to kill a physician and a rape victim – who was probably going to die without the procedure?”

Yet when Eastman came out of the County Jail about a half hour later, and just as she crossed Tombigbee Street on her way to the van, a marked patrol car cruised by ever-so-slowly, the patrolman inside eyeing the reporter carefully as she passed.

3.

Sitting in the station’s editing suite an hour later, Cheryl Templeton and Brad McNaughton were piecing together Eastman’s surreptitiously acquired quotes in painstaking order, while an audio engineer – Carol Hoffman was her name – tried to clean up some annoying background noise in the hastily stitched-together digital audio file. Lawton and Eastman had been at the Inn for at least an hour, grabbing lunch and changing into casual clothes before coming back to the station to add commentary to the audio track. 

“Man,” McNaughton sighed, “this sounds like a hit piece.”

“What do you mean?” Cheryl asked.

“It sounds very biased to me,” he added, “almost like it’s conspicuously trying to present just one side of the story.”

“Well, it is one person’s version of events. It’s Elise Washburn’s version, right? What else should we include?”

“What about Baxter’s point of view?” Carol said.

Brad was incensed: “What? Are you serious? Mister I’m Just Enforcing The Law…”

“It doesn’t seem responsible not to include his position,” Carol added. “And I’ll tell you what else is missing. Fay Polk’s part of this story is missing. That very basic human element is missing from this story.”

“And guess what?” Cheryl barked. “Baxter won’t let us near her.”

Hoffman looked up from her DAT recorder and smiled. “Well then, there’s your story. Or at least half of it. Why do you think he’s doing that?”

“Half?” Cheryl asked.

“Sure,” Carol said. “Why won’t he? Does it look like he’s hiding something? But anyway, look at it this way, if Baxter isn’t going to give you access to Polk you’ll just have to get the next best thing, you’ll have to interview Fay’s friends and family. The other thing I’m not hearing here is structured questions. Who provided background to Lawton?”

“I did,” Cheryl pouted, instantly growing defensive. Hoffman had gone to Duke and she was the real deal, and management knew it. Cheryl, on the other hand, had gone to Ole Miss and had only been interviewed here at the station after her father intervened – and even then she hadn’t landed a job. She did eventually land a gig at a small station in Gulfport, but it had taken her four long years to get back up here to Jackson; now Peter Lawton was here on a National Story and Cheryl had to know this was her ‘one big chance,’ maybe her last chance at the big time. “I pulled everything I could off Google,” she added.

“Google, huh,” Hoffman said flatly. “Imagine that.” She looked at Brad and saw him grimace, then shake his head in apparent disgust. She looked over at Cheryl and saw the pastel colored polo shirt and the penny loafers and she knew Cheryl was still going out to dinner with her parents several times a week, but the only thing she think of was Google? No thought of trying to run down an interview, no attempt to do a little detective work, just be content to use other people’s unverified work to fill out a bio for a national reporter coming to town to cover a big story. “Well, okay, I’ve got the file cleaned up. What’s next?”

“Well I…” Cheryl had just started to speak when Peter Lawton walked in, and when she could see he didn’t look happy she stopped talking.

“How much do you have,” Lawton asked Cheryl.

“I don’t…I’m not sure…maybe a minute?”

“Play it, now.”

McNaughton hit play and the segment began rolling, and the longer it played the angrier Lawton grew.

“Well, congratulations Miss Templeton. You’ve succeeded in making me look like an idiot. An uninformed idiot. Thanks for driving me by their house this morning, but have you actually spoken to anyone in Fay’s family?”

“No, sir. Her sister wasn’t home,” Templeton said.

“Who are you?” Lawton asked the girl behind the editing console.

“Carol Hoffman. Working audio today, Mr Lawton.”

He looked her over and nodded. “Uh-huh. Cheryl, would you go get me a coffee?”

“Black?”

He shook his head, exasperated. “Cream and Splenda, same as this morning.”

“Right away, sir.”

After the door closed behind Templeton he turned to Carol. “School?”

“Duke.”

“Jewish?”

“That’s right.”

“And Cheryl’s keeping you down, right?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Brad said, grinning.

Lawton looked at the kid, then back at Carol. “Know your way around town?”

“Well enough.”

“Brad, grab a camera, preferably something small, and let’s get out of here.”

By the time Templeton returned to the editing suite the rest of her crew was long gone.

+++++

“2400 block of Brown Street, right?” Brad asked.

“Yup. Turn right on Yates, should be the next street,” Hoffman replied.

Lawton and Eastman were in the back seat of Carol’s little SUV, a teal green Subaru of some kind, and both were shellshocked as they looked out their windows at the homes in these neighborhoods. Most of the houses had been built in the 1920s, and even by those shabby standards it appeared as if these houses had been quickly slapped together using the cheapest materials their unscrupulous builders could lay their hands on.

“They’re all the same,” Angela said. “Every one of them. Little shacks made of tarpaper.”

“But the asbestos shingles were a thoughtful touch,” Carol sighed. “Keep some of the rats out, I imagine, at least when they’re not causing lung cancer.”

“So, keeping the cancer in?” Eastman asked. “Well, look at that. A swimming pool.”

“No water in it the last five or so years. Last time they tried raw sewage came out of the water pipes,” Brad said as he turned on Yates Street. “So, this is her sister’s place?” he said as Carol read off the address again.

“Yup.”

“Her name is Keisha, right?” Brad asked as he pulled onto the barren front yard in front of the dilapidated old house.

Carol and Lawton exited the Subaru and walked up to the front door and knocked, and a few moments passed before the door cracked open a few inches.

“Keisha?” Peter asked. “My name is…”

“I know who you are.”

Peter nodded. “How are you doing?”

The woman shook her head and shrugged, and as Angela walked up to the door she guessed Keisha weighed maybe ninety pounds.

“Could we speak to you?” Peter asked. “About your sister?”

“What’s there to talk about, Mr Bad Newsman?”

“We’re trying to understand what’s happening down here, why this happened to your sister…?”

“Really? Don’t know much about Mississippi, do you?”

“Only what they don’t teach in the history books,” he said, trying his best to project some measure of empathy.

“Funny,” Keisha said. “Ha-ha…”

“Do you know what was wrong with Fay’s baby?”

She nodded, looked away. “Called it Edwards Syndrome, or trisomy something.”

“Trisomy-18?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Anything else they tell you about your sister or her baby?”

She nodded. “Yeah, some kinda cyst growing in it head so his head couldn’t grow right, then it heart was growing all wrong and doctors know it ain’t gonna live, and all that time Fay gettin’ sicker and sicker. Throwin’ up all the time and couldn’t eat nothin’ and her kidneys was gettin’ sick too. They talkin’ like she have to go on dialysis to have that baby because it against the law to not have the baby but it gonna be dead as soon as he come out, ya know? Didn’t make no sense, I guess, but nothin’ much ever do ’round here.”

“So, did Dr Washburn tell you that getting an abortion was necessary?”

“Oh yeah, but that the funny thing. She say no more doctors do it here because of the law, and it even against the law to teach other doctors how to do it. She almost last doctor left here that can, but everyone know they just waitin’ to get her.”

“You think they were trying to set up Dr Washburn?”

“Naw, no need for that. It gonna happen sooner or later so they just wait for her then they snatch her up.”

“I tried to speak with your parents this morning, but…”

“They gots the Alzheimer’s, Mister Bad Newsman, but that ain’t the funny part.”

“Funny part?”

“Yeah. They sendin’ they bills to them but they give ‘em to me. Wanna see?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

Peter looked at Angela and the BBC reporter simply shook her head, then quietly turned away.

“Here they is,” Keisha said, handing over a stack of letters from the hospital. “All that stuff be illegal so Medicaid ain’t gonna cover none of it.”

He flipped through the stack, noting that the latest bill – received a few days ago – was for almost a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. “Mind if I take pictures of these?” he asked.

Keisha shrugged. “Ain’t gonna matter much one way or another, is it. That what they do. Send bills then come the collections people, and they buy the bills from the hospital and then the lawyers come and pretty soon the real estate lady come by and put up a For Sale sign in your front yard. Drive around and look at the signs. Same real estate lady, too. Her husband work for the hospital, her brother work at the courthouse, so yeah, Mister Bad Newsman, you got lots to learn about the way things is down here, but that the way it always been and that the way it always gonna be.”

She slammed the door shut then, but she left the stack of bills in his hand.

“And that’s the way it is,” Lawton sighed, thinking of the way Walter Cronkite signed off at the conclusion of each broadcast, then remembering Cronkite announcing Kennedy’s assassination. “And here we are, right back where we started from. It’s like the Civil Rights Movement never happened.”

He turned and started for Carol’s Subaru but a sudden reflection caught his eye and he squinted a bit – and he could just make out a Ford SUV with two men up front, and one of them was pointing a large white camera lens their way.

“Carol,” he said gently, “you better drive, and don’t go even one mile an hour over the posted limit.”

“We pick up some company?” Angela asked. “Like maybe the KGB?”

“Wrong country,” Peter sighed, “same tactics.”

Brad had seen the flash, too, and now he was more than a little scared. So scared, in fact, that he took out his iPhone and did the one thing he’d sworn to never do again.

He called the meanest human being he knew; a man who, once upon a time, had been his father.

4.

“What did he say?” Peter Lawton asked McNaughton.

“That he would make a few calls,” the cameraman said. His hands were now shaking so visibly that even Angela Eastman had asked if he was okay. 

“What does he do?” Lawton then asked the kid.

“I’m not real sure.”

“What? He’s your dad, right? Not like a step-father?”

McNaughton nodded his head slowly as Carol Hoffman pulled out into traffic. 

“The cops in a dark gray Explorer?” she asked – no one in particular.

“Yeah,” Lawton said, turning his head just enough to see the ‘photographers’ pull in behind her Subaru – but still a few hundred yards back, “that’s them.”

“Okay, we should go straight to your hotel,” Carol said, “then you guys need to stay out of sight for a while.”

“Assuming, you mean,” Eastman added, “they let us get there.”

“They’re staying back,” Carol said hopefully. “We’ll be okay.”

“Standard protocol,” Lawton sighed, “will be for them to call in a marked squad car if they want to do a traffic stop.”

“So as soon as I see one of those,” Carol moaned, “we’re toast, right?”

“Pretty much,” Lawton nodded. “Brad, did your father say what we should do?”

The cameraman just shook his head. “Just that he’d make a few calls.”

“Do you at least know where he is?”

“He lives in Florida, I think. He works somewhere in Miami, I think.”

“You guys don’t talk much, huh?”

Brad shrugged.

“But you think he can help?” 

“If anyone can – he’s the one I’d call. That’s his job, I think.”

‘So,’ Lawton thought, ‘the guy lives in Miami and he gets things done that no one else can do, and his son is covering for him. But the kid is too straight-laced to come from a mob family…and McNaughton…is that Scotch, or Irish? Irrelevant. The kid’s dad is in law enforcement…but in Miami? No way he’s a local yokel, which means he’s a Fed. Which means the kid’s dad is either Bureau or…Miami…? DEA? Could he be DEA? Or is he an intel weenie working the Cubanos…?”

When Carol pulled up to the Inn unmolested everyone felt relieved, and after Angela climbed out of the back seat Lawton slid across and got out too, but Carol and the kid remained up front.

“Should we go back to the station?” Carol asked.

Lawton looked around, saw the gray Explorer parked two blocks away under a barren tree with both men still inside, and the older man in the passenger seat was not even attempting to conceal what he was doing – which in Lawton’s experience meant this was an exercise in intimidation – but by who? Or – for whom? “Park in the lot, over there,” Lawton said without taking his eyes off the Explorer, “and we’ll wait for you here.”

A minute later they walked into the Inn and went straight up to the rooftop bar, and despite it being January the weather was quite nice out, more like late summer afternoons in New England used to be. Brad’s phone chirped and he saw it was Cheryl calling – for the tenth time in the last two hours – but he picked it up this time, so Lawton walked over to the edge of the roof and looked at the Explorer.

And yes, the older man was still there, and still looking right at him – only now he was using binoculars.

‘Well, time to force their hand,’ he thought, but first he walked around the perimeter of the roof looking for other surveillance units – but nothing out of the ordinary stood out. Not yet, anyway.

Brad seemed agitated so he walked back to their table and tried to pick out the key points in the conversation the kid was having on the phone, but just then a waitress came over and handed out menus.

“What do you recommend up here this time of day?” Lawton asked, still keeping an eye on Brad.

“The shrimp remoulade is really popular,” the young girl said absent-mindedly – until she looked up and saw she was addressing Mr Peter Lawton, the big-shot news anchor – at which point she seemed to go weak in the knees, “and we have a special today, a fresh red snapper with a lump crabmeat stuffing.”

Lawton was hungry and he knew Angela had skipped over most of her breakfast, so he ordered four shrimp appetizers and four snappers and a chilled Pinot Grigio. He waited until the waitress walked off then sat next to Angela and let slip a long, drawn out sigh. “You know, you kind of get to a point where you expect this kind of shit to happen – when you’re walking around Moscow or maybe Tirana. But not in Jackson fuckin’ Mississippi.”

“Ya know, you’re right,” Angela said. “But this just doesn’t make any sense anymore. None of it, none at all…”

Brad rang off and put away his phone, and Lawton noted the kid looked a little upset.

“What’s happened, Brad?”

“Polk and Washburn just had their bail hearings. Both were denied bail, and, well, we missed it, didn’t we?”

“The hearing? Yeah? So what? That was pretty much a foregone conclusion.”

“Cheryl got it, but the station manager wants to fire me and Carol,” Brad said, his head now hanging low.

Carol nodded. “That figures. Kolb has been gunning for me all year,” she sighed – then she looked at Peter. “Think they’ll come after you too?”

“Nothing would surprise me right about now.”

Angela looked at his face carefully then. “I guess the question is, Peter, do you still give a damn?”

“You know, that’s a funny thing…but I’m not actually sure I ever really ‘gave a damn’ about this job. To me, it was always the story, the truth of things. Whatever I was working on – the truth of things had to matter or the story was just a fluff piece – and I guess that’s why I gave up the anchor desk. I was reading the news that other reporters had worked their asses off to get to my desk, but I can’t tell you how many times I was left to ask the important questions myself. The hard questions. Like the reporters we had out there often didn’t know their jobs, and there were some big stories brewing that they were simply not covering the way they should have been.”

“I always wondered what happened,” Angela said. “People work their whole careers to get where you were, but you just turned away from it all and walked away.”

Lawton nodded. “Times change. Hard news used to sell; now opinion sells. The thing is, my opinion isn’t any more or less informed than the next guys – unless I’ve gone out and really looked for the facts. Then the job is to report those facts, or at least that’s what it used to be, because opinions don’t mean a damn thing. Now you turn on your favorite channel and you know exactly what you’re going to get, even before you sit down to watch. Maybe, Carol, the real question is what exactly does a reporter do in a situation like the one we’re in right now?”

Carol smiled and began: “Cassius was right; the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves…”

“Goodnight and Good Luck,” Carol and Peter both quoted in unison.

“They have nothing left to sell now, do they?” Angela added. “No policies, just hate.”

“…Nothing to fear but fear itself,” Peter added. 

“What are you guys talking about?” Brad said.

“Edward R Murrow and how Joseph McCarthy used fear of communism to divide people in the 50s. Seems like the Republicans are going back to their old playbook one more time.”

“But didn’t they do it once before, like back in the 30s?” Angela asked.

And Lawton nodded. “Oh yeah, with the Tucker Carlson of his day, Father Charles Coughlin, the Catholic radio priest, who also just happened to be a rabid anti-Semite. In the years leading up to the Second World War, he preached the idea that the US should team up with Nazi Germany to purify the world of Jews. Funny how times have changed, too, because Roosevelt actually shut his radio program down. He couldn’t get away with that now.”

“Wasn’t that the problem with Germany in the 20s?” Carol asked. “That their government got too liberal and Hitler took advantage of it?”

Lawton shrugged. “Yeah, I think it was Article 50 of the Weimar Constitution that did them in, but it’s an age old problem, Carol. If you allow free speech, when does some speech ‘cross the line’ – and who gets to decide if it does? We’ve allowed Neo-Nazis to march for their cause – in the name of protecting everyone’s right to free speech, but should a government allow speech that aims to destroy the foundations of that government? Hitler and Mussolini both used such permissive legal landscapes to sow division and cause the ultimate collapse of their own national governments, and now it looks like that’s exactly where we’ve found ourselves.”

“So,” Angela sighed, “the question then becomes one of degrees, doesn’t it? Do you maintain an absolute right to free speech in all instances, or do you place limits on that right?”

“Well, we already do,” Lawton said. “Common sense stuff, like it’s against the law to run into a crowded theatre and yell ‘Fire!’ But once you cross the line into curtailing political speech our constitution is really very clear: You can’t do it. You must not curtail such speech, no matter how detrimental it is to the country, as long as such talk doesn’t openly incite insurrection or sedition.”

“Yeah,” Brad growled, “and we’ve already seen how well that turned out. Seems like certain people with enough money can buy all the justice they need.” And as Brad finished talking his phone chirped again. “Oh boy, here we go.”

“Your dad?” Lawton asked, his voice a low whisper.

Brad nodded, then he listened to his father – but he soon started to grow pale, and then his left eye started twitching. “Are you serious?” he whispered at one point, but then he listened for several more minutes, at one point asking someone for a pen and paper.

Their shrimp appetizers came and Lawton was too hungry to wait so he piled in, and so then Angela did as well; Brad rang off a minute later and nodded slowly then grabbed his cocktail fork and ate in silence. Carol gave up and joined them, but she noticed Brad was waiting until everyone else was out of earshot before speaking.

And without looking up from his plate he mumbled: “Something big is brewing.”

“Big?” Lawton asked. “What do you mean…big?”

“Big. Apparently some Black cops and sheriff’s deputies are pissed off about this shit and it’s spread to the National Guard. Dad’s heard that they’re going to try and get both of ‘em out of jail…”

“What does that mean?” Lawton said, now wide-eyed.

“Sorry. They’re planning on breaking them out.”

“And who the hell else knows about this?”

Brad nodded. “The governor does, the commanding general of the state guard does too…”

“And if they know,” Lawton sighed, “that means everyone knows. From the local Chief of Police on up to the White House.”

“So what?” Brad snorted. “Eighty percent of the people in this city are Black, so you can reckon on about a hundred and fifty thousand really pissed off people getting involved. But have you thought about what might happen if all those folks get riled up and start carrying torches towards City Hall?”

“Or AR-15s,” Carol mumbled, starting to frown.

“It would make Kent State look mild,” Lawton sighed, “but that would also be playing right into the Coalitions hands. The National Guard was formed in large measure to put down this kind of domestic unrest.”

“Funny how they didn’t show up at the capital on January Sixth,” Angela smiled.

“Lots of funny things about that day,” Carol added, “starting with Michael Flynn…”

Lawton held up his hands. “Stop it, would you? There’s no need to run down that rabbit hole right now, is there? Brad, what does your father think we need to do?”

“Get ready to get the fuck out of Dodge, Mr Lawton. He hasn’t heard anything about you in particular, but he thinks they’d like to discredit you somehow. Kind of like take out two birds with one stone…that kind of thing. The one thing that seems to be bothering my old man has to do with the National Guard. He’s checking now, but it sounds like the Guard wants violence. He called it a flash point.”

“How nice,” Lawton sighed – just as their waitress arrived with plates of fish. His phone chirped then and he smiled at the waitress as he pulled his phone from an inside pocket, and he saw the Caller ID displayed ‘unknown name, number blocked’ – but for some reason he decided to take the call.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Lawton?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Be in the station’s van on Congress Street by the jailhouse steps. Tomorrow, 2100 hours.’

Then the line went dead.

Lawton looked up and sighed.

“Who was that?” Brad asked.

Lawton shrugged. “I’m not sure, but my guess is it may have been the military. They want us in the station’s mobile transmitter van tomorrow night, parked by the jail at 2100 hours.”

“2100 hours?” Angela muttered. “That’s military time over here, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“But…wait…?” Angela cried. “You can’t be…but Peter, why…it’s such an obvious trap?”

He nodded. “Yeah, sure it is, but this is the first move on the board, isn’t it? Which means this is the story they want to get out, that a couple of liberal reporters broke two Black prisoners out of jail. But wait, because obviously this isn’t the real story. No, now they want this part of the story, the story about a trial no one wants, to go away. But we can’t let that happen, even if that’s not the real story…” 

“What’s the real story?” Carol said, looking unsure of herself now that she was potentially unemployed.

Lawton leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head, then he looked up at the sky…and there it was. A small drone, watching everything they did.

He quickly looked down, then spread his hands wide. “The real story? Well they got these laws passed but they’re not real popular. Still they worked for decades to repeal Roe and they’re not going to give it up without a fight…” He closed his eyes, then shook his head slowly. “Without a fight,” he muttered slowly, carefully. “And Brad’s dad says they want a fight. The fight, a big fight. They want all the Blacks to come out tomorrow night, they want them to come down here. That’s the real trap. Gather a mob, get them angry, then supply the spark to set them off. The flash point, I guess.”

“Okay, a spark…but like what?”

“My guess is they know those girls are going to be in the van with us, so then they force us to make a run for it. Then they stop us and take us out, preferably right in front of an angry crowd and, of course, probably carried live.”

“But…why?”

“You turn the tables. Riots start, but instead of two martyrs going to trial you now have two escaped convicts on the run – but neatly done away with, and in the process you reestablish violent control over a large swath of population you want out of the way.”

“You mean ‘put them back in their place,’ don’t you?” Carol said.

Lawton nodded. “Boxed up, cut off, and politically isolated, as in Jim Crow version 2. Nothing will turn the ‘undecided’ voters quicker than having their most repressed fears legitimized, as in thousands of armed Black rioters torching cars and businesses over a couple of escaped cons, but then again the same thing happened after the Rodney King riots in LA. I guess the thinking goes the moderates will want all those rioters either shot and killed or picked up and shipped off to prison camps. It’ll be media’s job to present images of burning cities and pissed off Blacks – then all that chaos and disorder will be neatly juxtaposed with more images of troops and order restored.”

Angela crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Peter?”

“No, I don’t think so. And I think I know what you’re going to say, too. It’s not our job to make the news, it’s our job to report it. I hear you, and I get that. But Angela, we didn’t start this, did we? They get to make the first move. The question is, how do we counter that move?”

Carol looked at Lawton again: “We get the word out to the Black community that they’re being set up again…”

“They’re not going to care,” Brad sighed. “If those two girls are killed – and it won’t matter by who – then this city is going to go up in flames.”

“It won’t stop here,” Angela said. “Hitler did the same thing, you know. Staged events like this, had film crews on hand…”

“Social media will do the job this time. They won’t need us anymore,” Carol countered. “Images and videos will go viral within minutes, then the rioting will spread to other cities…”

Lawton nodded. “And that’s exactly why the Right hasn’t wanted to restrict social media. Political violence, uncut and unedited, plays right into their hands.”

“So, what do we do?” Brad asked.

“Sorry kid, but you’re going to have to tell me a little more about your dad.”

Brad nodded, but then he looked away. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Why don’t you begin by telling us why you’re so afraid of him…”

5.

The station’s transmitter vans were, like most iterations of the current design, based on a modified C-Class RV chassis, and the Jackson network affiliate had six Mercedes Sprinter-class vans in service that afternoon. With their large, rotating two-way satellite antennas folded flush to the van’s roof, there was no mistaking what they were or what their purpose was, and when people saw these vans pull up to the scene of a crime they assumed that they were there to cover a big story.

And so it was that day. In fact, the three major legacy networks had multiple vans parked outside of the County Jail, and so did CNN and Fox, and all the networks were on hand because because bail had been denied two days before and racial tensions were simmering once again in Jackson, Mississippi. Civil rights leaders had arrived on jets from Atlanta and local pastors had summoned their flocks to meet down by the courthouse that evening, and now the air was electric – even if it was filled with malignant expectation.

The network’s vans were fairly conventional, too. The rear doors opened onto banks of power generators needed to send AV transmissions to satellites in low earth orbit, but those same generators also powered the bulky video cameras the networks still relied on for ultra-high quality video, as well as the banks of floodlights needed to illuminate both the reporters and the scenes they reported from. The middle of these vans were filled floor to ceiling with powerful mobile editing suites, and an editor worked with the producer to shape the contours of any given story from the seats there. Up front the cameraman acted as driver, while the Face, otherwise known as the Onscreen Talent, sat in the passenger seat, for the most part reading the storyline developed by the producer in order to be able to ask questions that fit the narrative arc of the story they were reporting on.

The Hinds County Courthouse is one of these monstrous gray concrete affairs put up in the 50s and that always seem to exude a certain brooding sense of steady purpose, for the people within such buildings are in the business of processing criminals and prepared to pronounce their innocence or guilt, and if so found, the convicted can begin their journey into and through the vast, brutal penal system.

Immediately next to the courthouse is the Hinds County Jail, a modern tan brick structure designed by an architect who seemed to have fallen in love with drawing 45 degree angles, and between the courthouse and the jailhouse – on the ground level – was a sally-port, a covered garage area where prisoners could be unloaded well away from the prying eyes of reporters and the idly curious.

A still employed Brad McNaughton drove van number C-124 east along Pascagoula Street, then made a right onto Congress and he parked in the space indicated by the mysterious voice, but within a half hour every transmitter van in the region arrived, and for some strange reason they too parked on Congress Street, and this was like leaving a piece of chocolate to melt on a hot sidewalk. Soon, many of the people called upon by civil rights leaders and local pastors to gather downtown saw all the network vans parked on Congress Street so everyone in these huge, jostling crowds decided to head up Congress Street and see what was up, and within a half hour more than ten thousand very angry people were milling about the streets surrounding the Hinds County Courthouse. 

Judges about to leave for the day looked out their windows and instead of seeing lawyers and paralegals heading home now saw huge crowds of very angry Black people, most carrying signs decrying the unjust situation unfolding in the jail. These judges became upset by the sight and so they called the police. And the police were more than ready for the call, so their response was sudden, and massive.

Yet there was one other element missing. An angry crowd of White people who had rallied to the cause of Law and Order.

And at that point three Black Sheriff’s Deputies came down the steps leading out of the jail, and they were leading two Black women to the network news van driven by McNaughton. They stopped and opened the van’s side doors and then disappeared into the crowd, and many people now seemed confused. Not coincidentally, several hundred very angry White people appeared on Congress Street; that was when the shouting began, and within seconds the tear gas canisters began flying.

Washburn and Polk had no idea what was happening to them, only that now they were in a van surrounded by technical equipment they had never seen and could scarcely understand. Yet before the doors were slammed shut, and before McNaughton could drive, a dense crowd surrounded the van and a man appeared in the open doorway. He helped the two women out of the van and McNaughton drove away from his parking place, but crucially, so too did five other network transmitter vans. A large street fight was just getting underway too, and the mood on the street had suddenly turned dark and ugly when the tear gas hit, yet in the confusion the vans drove away from the scene.

Polk and Washburn recognized Peter Lawton, the man standing there smiling at them. “Ladies, if you’ll come with me, I do believe it’s time to leave.” Still surrounded by a small, dense knot of people, Lawton led the two women to a small yellow school bus. “Get in,” he said, “and keep your faces down.”

As Brad resumed driving from the area no one noticed that all six vans driving away appeared to be owned by the same network, or that the number on the side of each van was C-124, and neither did the two police officers in the marked patrol car that pulled in behind the group of vans. Soon the vans started changing positions and breaking away from the formation, but by that point the police officers knew that something was up. They immediately radioed for back up and within minutes all six vans had been located and were being tailed.

McNaughton’s was the first to be pulled over, and the two officers roughly removed him from the van before they searched it – yet they found no escaped prisoners inside. In fact, they found nothing but a bunch of equipment inside, and no people at all.

And within a few minutes the remaining vans had all been pulled over and searched – and still no escaped prisoners were found…

…because Fay Polk and Elise Washburn were now inside a school bus surrounded by dozens of other Black women – and two White reporters – and this bus, along with several more just like it, were all headed out Medgar Evers Boulevard to the Medgar Ever’s House National Monument, where a giant rally was scheduled to start at nine that evening.

But one school bus broke off from this convoy and doubled back to Woodrow Wilson Avenue and that bus then drove out to Hawkins Field Municipal Airport, and the two Black women and the two White reporters exited the bus and walked directly out to a waiting Beech King Air 360ER that was registered out of the Bahamas. A few minutes later a sedan appeared and drove up to the King Air, and both Brad and Carol dashed out of the car and into the aircraft, and within minutes the aircraft was airborne and turning to the east-southeast, flying directly over downtown Jackson…

And one of the pilot’s names was Buck McNaughton.

And down on the streets of downtown Jackson the Back people suddenly turned away from the violence and began marching out to the Evers house, where word was spreading that the girls had escaped and were now on the loose somewhere in the city. And all the civil rights leaders, many friends of Peter Lawton, and all the local pastors called for a peaceful candlelight vigil out at the Evers house…

…while just then the police started searching neighborhoods and homes where Fay and Keisha were known to have lived, and even after professional trackers were called in with their Bloodhounds, the girls still could not be found. 

And as the King Air flew over the Gulf of Mexico, and then over Florida, Brad told Peter and Angela and Carol about his father, about growing up without a real father because his Old Man was always off somewhere flying, and not for an airline but for a strange, almost non-existent company that flew spies to Central America one week and then humanitarian relief supplies to Somalia the next. People had tried to have his father killed more than once, too, and ever since a veil of secrecy had shrouded his father’s comings and goings. And these days his Old Man lived in the Bahamas, alone most of the time – because his mother simply hadn’t been able to compete with his father’s tumultuous life.

And a few hours later the King Air landed at a small, unlighted airstrip on a barren, windswept island barely a hundred miles off the Florida coast, and yet days turned to weeks, and weeks to a month, and still no one knew of the two girls whereabouts…

Until one February evening, when Angela Eastman came on live, apparently from the studios of BBC4 in London. And with her were Fay Polk and Elise Washburn, and it seemed the broadcast was coming live from an undisclosed location because attempts had been made on their lives. The women didn’t know a whole lot about their escape from America, only that they had been on a bus for a while, then on an airliner bound for somewhere, where they had in due course been granted asylum. Fay was awkward and shy and remained silent during most of the interview, and she seemed terribly self-conscious that all this had happened because of her poor baby, while Elise had a few choice words to say about some people’s political choices, but she graciously told the world that she was okay now and practicing medicine as she’d always wanted – without Big Brother peering over her shoulder and telling her what to do, or how to do it. The broadcast ended, for the time being, the long political nightmare endured by many of the politicians who had crafted the laws used to tear apart their country, but as that had always been their intent none were upset for very long that the two women had “escaped justice.” They had bigger fish to fry, for their country had not yet been completely torn apart, so there was still work for them to do.

Coda

It said they be a house out on da point, not a big house but even so they say it be nice inside. After da hurricane it be not so good and it empty for long time, but then we hear that a pilot-man bought it up. These pilot-men be strange creatures, they usually Americans that drinks too much, but they fly them crazy machines anyplace they be money.

But da man who move into da house on da point ain’t no pilot-man. No one know da man, not even his name, and da police has told everyone that da man not to be disturbed.

Though somedays, and for a while now, da man slip out of dis house and walks down to da beach in front of his house – and on most days he just sit there, usually he just stare at da dark clouds over Florida, but even so da man be pulling off his shirt and swimming out to da reef from time to time. Then one day da pilot-man come by da house, and several people got out of da car and went inside da man’s house – but wasn’t long ’til da pilot-man left all those people and they don’t come outside much. At least not during the day.

Of course they still lots of tourists on da island, but few being from America anymore, because America be closed off now, in a kind of war with itself. But tourists still walk the beaches, especially to see da sunset, and then everyone gather by da fire pits and sing da songs that make them happy and then they eat conch fritters and drink rum drinks and then go do the things people always do late at night. Now we hear there be nights when the stranger come and walk among the tourists, but I hear people say he always be lookin’ to the west – where his home used to be.

There be a new lady-doctor at da clinic in Cooper’s Town and it be da strangest thing because she be American too, and most doctors around da islands be British, but she a good doctor and people say she fine.

And a funny thing. A few weeks ago a famous lady from London come to da island, and there be a new rumor that she move in with the strange man in his house on the point, and I know ‘cause sometimes we be seein’ them walk on da beach da way some people do, holding hands and all that. Another story I hear say he a teacher, another say he a writer, but ya know that soon enough no one care. He just da man who live out on the point and who look at da tall clouds to the west before he walk out into the deep blue blue and be swimmin’ out to da reef. Sometime the woman be with da man out there, but I ain’t gonna talk about that stuff.

© 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | fiction, every last word of it…

[Hendrix \\ The Wind Cries Mary]

Just for convenience sake; a few minor typos addressed and a few tweaks here and there.

[Eric Clapton \\ Change the World]

The Silent Wake

Part I

C. Llewelyn Sumner sat at his drafting table, lost in thought.

The site was simple enough, just another sloping city lot, yet this lot was on the water and came with a sweeping view that took in both Shilshole Marina and the northern reaches of the Olympic Range across the Sound. The commission would be a visible one, too, not to mention lucrative, and the finished house would be seen by boaters transiting the Ballard locks and passengers coming into the city on The Empire Builder, so the design would have to be striking, not merely eye catching.

The work would, in other words, represent one last feather in his cap, and so it would be an important commission.

Yet the man asking him to design this new house presented whole new sets of complications, an inner landscape he’d never had to deal with before. Patrick Grey was a writer, but he had also been, apparently, a spy of some sort. Now this strange man was, allegedly, writing novels based on his many exploits and, strangely enough, these recollections had been interesting enough to sell quite well in airports and with suburban booksellers. And Grey wasn’t an American, either, and despite growing up in Cheltenham, his tastes seemed more in keeping with a Japanese way of life. The Grey House would have to reflect all these varied influences, even though they seemed mutually, and often – almost – contradictory.

Whenever C. Llewelyn Sumner contemplated taking on a new commission he first tried to examine the client’s life, looking for clues beyond the obvious that might guide his hand when he shaped the littlest details of the new house, at least as it took shape in his mind. And quite often he looked at other architects’ life and works, not looking for mere inspiration but for something deeper. Maybe a connection to something beyond words. And, like so many of his generation, Sumner turned to Frank Lloyd Wright for both gentle solace and soaring guidance.

So after walking over the sloping site with Patrick, and talking about the preconceived design ideas the spy had in mind, C. Llewelyn Sumner sketched out a preliminary set of plans. He’d at one point thought of Wright’s Walker House in Carmel, California, but soon discarded the idea when he realized this new site was simply incompatible. Next, his mind ranged over the fin de siècle exuberance of the Gamble House, Greene & Greene’s masterpiece in Pasadena, California, yet in their talks Grey seemed to express little interest in the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the more Grey talked about what he expected of this house the more C. Llewelyn Sumner understood that the spy rarely, if ever, looked back. What Grey really wanted was something that mirrored his life and work in the here and now, something cold and austere, something dangerous yet at peace with its surroundings.

But Grey also talked and talked about small Japanese gardens and the spirits that came to inhabit such gentle spaces. One weekend they boarded a Japan Air Lines 747 and flew to Tokyo, then they flew on to Hakodate, on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, and all the while Patrick talked and talked about these spirits. At first he talked in general terms of gardens and the kami that resided there, but then he talked about his father and growing up in England, and soon enough they came upon the more complicated histories of his mother and wife. And then, finally, to the stubborn history that surrounded his daughter, Akira, and her mother.

They walked the family’s ancestral home on the tiny peninsula off the western reaches of the ancient city, a sprawling feudal residence that at one time had been a low castle spread out among and between a series of interlinking gardens. They had walked beside a creek that seemed to split the house in two, into old and new, and C. Llewelyn Sumner marveled at the care taken to so carefully space cherry trees among the varied rows of spreading dwarf maples – and all the trees had names. Even the rocks within these gardens, he soon learned, had names. Everywhere he looked his eyes found seemingly irrelevant spaces that were home to various family members – long dead to this world but who nevertheless still resided somewhere within these walls. Or more precisely, in the gardens scattered along the winding pathway beside the stream that ran down to the sea.

C. Llewelyn Sumner had, once upon a time, been a stranger to chance encounters, but all that had come to a shattering end on the First of August, 1966. He had very nearly been killed that morning, when a suicidally deranged madman, Charles Whitman, began shooting people from the 27^th floor observation deck at the University of Texas. That morning, and its immediate aftermath, took shape as a crystalline shard of memory in Sumner’s mind, a shattered moment in time cast in cold, hard fear. If a motor backfired near Sumner he still ducked for cover and his hands would shake for hours, sometimes for days.

Then he would come home to Tracy and once there he could find his way back to the present.

And for a time the two had lived in pristine isolation, safely ensconced within a kind of manmade prism of the mind, a time of splintered light within the almost cocoon-like existence of urban nomads taken in by the sea. She had, as it happened, turned him on to living life on a sailboat, to living in a marina while they worked side by side drawing houses for a large architectural firm in Seattle.

Shattered by events in Austin and after growing up in near isolation, C. Llewelyn Sumner found it difficult to accept love – even when unconditional love was staring him in the face. As his career flourished in the light of his unquestioned talent, his relationship with Tracy withered in the icy echoes of Whitman’s morning rampage. In the end, Tracy had enough of his evasions and moved on, and he finally moved his business into a nondescript storefront on Seaview Avenue, not at all far from Ballard locks, and his drafting table looked out over the waters around Shilshole Marina, and when his mood was dark enough he would remember what it felt like to love another human being. He knew she had been the one and that he had failed them both – but as age came for him those remembrances grew fragile and vague.

Until Patrick Grey walked in his door.

Because things keep changing, even as memories take wing. How did Yeats put it? Things fall apart? The center cannot hold?

Walking along the cliffs above the castle in Hakodate with Patrick Grey had been his undoing. Listening to Patrick talk of his marriage and of its unravelling in Palo Alto, Sumner felt echoes of his own disintegrations, of his own failures in love. And when Sumner saw the violence that lay at the heart of Patrick’s miseries, and how they related, however peripherally, to his own state of denial, he knew he had stumbled upon something most precious. He knew that Patrick Grey would become a friend.

So from time to time, as the Grey House took shape on the shores along Shilshole Bay, C. Llewelyn Sumner took Patrick Grey Sailing on Puget Sound. Cherry picking only the best days, they roamed the waters off downtown and shadowed the various ferries a few times, until finally Grey became interested enough in sailing to try a longer sail. So one July afternoon they took off for a days long adventure up to Port Townsend, and when they arrived Grey could see Vancouver Island across the Straits.

“What’s that?” Grey had asked, pointing to a hazy patch along the far shore.

“Victoria is right about there,” Sumner said, as he pointed to a notch in the island.

“Victoria?” Grey said, his mood lifting. “How far away?”

“Oh, I don’t know, 35 – maybe 40 miles…something like that.”

“Could we go?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Got your passport?”

“Always. All five of them,” the old spy added with a sly grin, snickering at his tired, ages-old cliché.

So Sumner had moved the waypoint cursor on the chartplotter’s main NAV screen and simply punched Execute, and off they went – with all the tides and currents neatly accounted for. Of course, it took somewhat longer to cross forty miles of open water in a sailboat than it casually did an automobile on a motorway, with around seven hours being a decent enough crossing for a boat like Sumner’s beamy old Nauticat 43, but soon enough they were berthed at the tiny marina in front of the old Victoria Empress Hotel, feeling quite satisfied with the fruits of their labors. Of course paying more for an overnight berth than a single night in one of the hotels better rooms, their stay lasted a week, and Grey simply paid for everything, no questions asked.

And Sumner thought it odd that what the old spy craved most was a bit of home. Afternoon tea with strawberry scones and clotted cream. A thick slab of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and creamed spinach in a small dining roof off an even smaller library. And he even fished an old Meerschaum pipe out of a coat pocket after dinner one evening and lit up, and not one mindless chatterbot had come screeching by with senseless prohibitions, and it was plain for all to see that Mr Grey was nothing more or less than a British gentleman. In the truest, most ancient sense of the word.

And Grey proved to be an able student. Few people take to sailing after a trip like they’d just completed, but Patrick’s eyes seemed alive out there on the water. He was always scheming and planning but he seemed to love danger most of all, and Sumner could tell something was up when he drove Grey to the airport one morning a few weeks after their return. Patrick flew to Maine, and he was gone for a few weeks, but when he returned he seemed quite happy with himself.

Yet as Sumner watched the years fall away from Patrick’s life, at least when they were on the water, he also realized he’d have to redesign a few details inside the Grey House, and a few of these he managed to pull off without Patrick’s knowledge or approval. Little hidden details. Secret passageways and the like.

And when finally the Grey House was complete, the two friends walked around their creation admiring what they had cobbled together, and Patrick smiled at all the little hidden details Sumner had fashioned almost in plain sight, even if they were lost in oblique shadows. Things like two hidden stairways that led to a small basement. Auxiliary power supplies and battery backup systems, things of that nature that really didn’t seem logical. But then there was the small gym that folded into one basement wall, and a treadmill that disappeared inside another.

So Sumner was a little surprised when, the next time he visited, he found Patrick walking stiffly about the house with the aid of a walker. And Patrick had recently hired an assistant of some sort, and she pushed Patrick out to a modified van when she drove him to appointments or out for groceries, and then quite suddenly he was venturing out only with the aid of a wheelchair.

But in the end C. Llewelyn Sumner only smiled as he took in all these new comings and goings, because ever since that first day of August in 1966, he could smell trouble from a mile away.

part 2

The boat arrived one sunny May day not by sea, but rather on the deck of a massive freighter. A crane lifted the long, slender sailboat and placed her gently on the sea, and later that morning her cloud-piercing mast was lowered into place. Men swarmed her decks for days making her ready, and curiously enough by then the arrow-like dark gray hull had begun gathering attention. The massive yacht looked like something from a bygone era, like a creation that might have once belonged to this bygone era – but in the end the world had decided such machines represented people whose time had come and gone. Now, new faces stared at the yacht and wondered what living in that other time must have felt like, but then with their hands in their empty pockets the curious departed once again for the shadows.

Haiku was motored over to Shilshole Marina and her lines made fast at the end of a long pier, and once again small throngs came and stared at the massive sailboat, for they knew not what to make of this tethered beast. Who owned such a preposterous thing? Why build such a vast contraption in this day and age? Where was her owner, for surely he must be riddled with improprieties? 

Haiku posed more questions than she could answer just sitting there, yet once again the curious gave up and drifted away. Crews came by several times a week and made her whole, and as time passed workmen made fresh her brightwork and lubricated her vast systems, and soon enough the spy’s elegant anachronism simply faded away into the humming background of the city. And eventually, no one cared who or what was behind all of this ostentatiously irrelevant elegance. 

But C. Llewelyn Sumner still kept his old Nauticat at Shilshole, and that was behind the how and the why he first laid eyes on Haiku. And when he first saw the beast he walked out to the end of the pier and let his eyes roam over her lines, admiring her the way some might regard a particularly fast racehorse, or how others cast approving sidelong glances at sensuously gorgeous women.

At least until he heard a wheelchair rolling up from behind.

And without looking he knew Patrick Grey was there, watching and waiting to see his friend’s reaction to this latest revelation. Yet Sumner ignored his friend, instead continuing to walk along Haiku’s hull, sighting along the sweep of her sheer and sighing in silent awe at the utter perfection he beheld. Sumner was, after all, an architect, and his soul was drawn to such things. Perhaps, in some cases, as a moth is drawn to the flame.

“Who drew her?” Sumner finally asked the gathering silence. “Bruce King, or Herman Frers?”

“King,” Grey replied somewhat too casually. “What do you think? Did he succeed?”

C. Llewelyn Sumner turned to his friend and looked at the woman pushing the wheelchair, then down at Patrick Grey. “It isn’t often that something so obscure is resurrected, but I have to ask Patrick. Why? Why do such a thing?”

“Because I could.”

Sumner nodded before he turned and looked at the little ship once again. “Of course.”

“So, what brings you to the marina this fine morning?” Grey asked his friend.

“I’m meeting a broker here at ten. I’m selling the boat.”

“About time.”

Sumner turned and looked at Patrick again. “Oh, really?”

“If you’re going to bother with something so superfluous you really should get something more in keeping with your personality.”

C. Llewelyn Sumner smiled. “And this,” he said with an operatic sweep of the hand, “is in keeping with yours?”

So Patrick returned the smile. “Every dog has its day, Charles.”

“Ah, the famous writer. I forget.”

“I’m neither, Charles.”

“Oh? Well then, who are you really, Patrick?”

“Me? Charles. I thought you knew. I’m nobody. I was never even here, so of course you never really knew me.”

“Of course. The spy who came in from the…what?”

“Spy. What a horrible word – and to think that’s how I’ll be remembered. If, that is, anyone bothers to remember me at all.”

“Well, they’ll certainly remember this fucking boat.”

“Funny, Charles. You know, I never imagined you without that boat of yours. Have you given up on sailing?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. Something rather strange happened to me last week. I was informed I have two children.”

Patrick’s eyes sparkled with newfound mirth. “Indeed. Tell me more.”

“A girl I once loved. Loved, Patrick. Me? Can you imagine that?”

“No, not really.”

“Neither could she, apparently.”

“So, she kept them from you? Even their very existence?”

C. Llewelyn Sumner nodded, though he still struggled with her all-knowing contempt, even now. “One of them, my girl, will be staying with me next year.”

“Just a year?”

“Yes. I assume that’s all I am entitled to. They’ll both be off to college after that.”

“Twins, I take it?”

Sumner nodded. “Yes. So strange. I can almost see…no, that’s not quite right. I can feel Tracy in them, but then I recognize this other creature in them and I can’t seem to accept that it’s me. But I suppose that’s why things turned out as they did.”

“Oh? Well, yes, I suppose some truths are more difficult to accept than others. Yet there are times, don’t you think, when the most difficult thing to see is the path we chose to take, even as we turn our back to the sunset? But you said a year and then they are off to college? And so now, all of a sudden you’ve decided to sell the boat? But wasn’t she the last link you had to their mother?”

C. Llewelyn Sumner stared into the stark reality of Patrick’s appraisal, but then he slowly nodded before a long sigh slipped past his trembling lips. “I suppose I thought I should move on.”

“Move on? From your past? Charles, what the devil is wrong with you this morning?”

“She passed away recently, Patrick,” C. Llewelyn Sumner said, now trying his best not to cry. “She passed and I’ll never see her again.” But he heard someone walking out the pier and turned to see his yacht broker approaching so he quickly pulled himself back from the brink and cast away the years.

And as the broker came up he too stopped to admire Haiku, and to revel in the rumors and innuendo behind all her local mysteries.

“Charles?” the broker began. “Out looking for your next boat already? Don’t you think this one is a bit too large for you?”

Sumner looked at the broker, then at Patrick: “Ah. No. Not today,” he replied.

“You know,” the broker continued, “everyone loves a mystery, but I think after a few months we really ought to know who owns this creature. My God but she’s lovely,” the amiable broker said as he looked over Haiku. Then the nattily dressed middle-aged man turned to Patrick Grey. “So, do you know the owner?”

Patrick smiled. “I’ve heard it belongs to one of those MicroSoft millionaires.”

The broker nodded knowingly. “Yup. Heard that too. Makes sense, I suppose.”

Then Patrick turned to the broker and smiled. “I can’t imagine Charles without a sailboat. Can you?”

“No, no I can’t,” the broker said, grinning at the scent of fresh blood in the water.

“The Nauticat never really fit him, I think. Not really. I imagined him in something less utilitarian. Strong, elegant, capable. What do you think?”

“Actually, we have a new Hallberg Rassy coming in that would be perfect for him. A forty-three. And what did you say? Strong and capable…?”

“And let’s not forget elegant,” the spy added.

“Ah yes, elegant. Charles? Interested?”

“Of course he is,” the spy replied in his friend’s stead. “You say it’s not here yet?”

“It’s at our yard being made ready. We could look at her tomorrow if you like?”

“Of course we’d like to. Isn’t that right, Charles?”

And so it happened.

C. Llewelyn Sumner and his daughter Elizabeth, when she tired of her horses, began sailing his new boat a few weeks after that. At first as he had with Patrick, taking his new boat around Elliot Bay in the waters off the wharves that lined the downtown waterfront, often staying out late and taking in the Space Needle at sunset. And soon enough they were broad-reaching down the sound, coming back to Shilshole after a long weekend in Port Townsend, and these were the happiest of times for C. Llewelyn Sumner – even if they were but echoes of similar outings with Tracy, even if such memories were twenty years gone in a long silent wake. But just a few weeks later, he took Liz to look at colleges in California and Texas, places he had once called home, and it seemed like just a few short weeks after that he was packing her off to establish the contours of a new life at her first choice, UC Davis.

He grew depressed as that tumultuous year came to an end, so depressed he found time to do little else but sleep. He took care of Elizabeth’s horses until it became clear she wouldn’t be coming home as often as she’d hoped, and so then he gave them to friends who promised to take good care of them. He took on a few new residential commissions, yet those he did were trivial, almost meaningless tract homes for a developer in Portland, Oregon. The money was nice but really almost unnecessary now; he was comfortable and would remain so unless something dire befell the markets. Then he was approached about drawing a new civic center and that piqued his interest, pulled him out of his slump.

Yet from time to time Patrick Grey beckoned. One time he wanted to take Haiku out for a shakedown cruise up to Desolation Sound, and Sumner wasn’t at all surprised when Grey discarded his walkers and wheelchairs and ran about the decks, in effect sailing his 126 foot yacht all by himself. Sumner tried not to ask what this was all about – because in truth he didn’t want to know. Patrick was no longer a mystery; he was more like a minefield – a vast landscape dotted with lies and misdirections.

Though one night in Desolation Sound, the old spy did talk of things Charles found rather unsettling.

“Do you ever wonder what would happen if the walls of our little civilization came crumbling down?”

“What on earth are you going on about now, Patrick?”

“Oh, I don’t know, really, just a random thought or two. Yet it seems to me that everything is so out of sorts now, our politics have grown poisonous and I’ve recently had days when I felt like it’s becoming almost dangerous to head out to the grocery store. I see wild-eyed kids strung out on meth on every street corner and not one of them seems to know anything at all about the world. And I don’t know about you, but I resented being locked up for almost two years – because, mind you, that’s two years of our lives we’ll never get back – and yet now that we’ve crawled back out of our caves everyone seems to have grown stark-raving-bonkers. Everywhere you go you hear people saying how afraid they are to do this or that and every politician you hear seems to be pitching a new flavor of fear with each passing day, and yet now, after two years of lock downs it feels like things have been turned up a notch. And so, the thought occurred to me: How long can this possibly go on? How long can the fear and the anger build before this whole house of cards comes tumbling down?”

“I think,” C. Llewelyn Sumner sighed, his depression suddenly taking a darker turn, “what you’re describing is incipient paranoia. But the squeaky wheel always gets the grease.”

“I suppose, but let’s play What If for a moment. What if the markets collapsed? What if a meteor slammed into the South Atlantic? What if a new madman came to power, a madman with nuclear weapons – and he decided to use them? What would happen if all our paranoia gave way to the moment and the walls holding up all our notions of reality just suddenly collapsed. What would happen? How would you cope?”

“I have no idea,” C. Llewelyn Sumner said.

“And what – that’s it? You don’t care?”

“You can’t plan for things like that, Patrick. If it happens it happens. The survivors get on with living and all the rest become carrion. I rather think that’s the way it’s always been, don’t you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve always tried to look ahead, to play What If at stop along the way, and I think I do because I don’t want to sit by passively and let life just happen to me. I want to shape the outcome – if I can, that is.”

“What are you saying, Patrick?”

“I’m saying that you might actually consider taking that new boat of yours and getting her ready for some unknown calamity. Think of her as a different kind of life insurance policy, if not for you then for your children.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Okay. Say the unspeakable happens. Then what?”

“You go where things are less…unspeakable.”

“Such as?”

“South. Pick an island. But remember: Fortune favors the bold, my friend.”

And so C. Llewelyn Sumner had given the matter some thought. There was, after all, no harm in thinking.

+++++

It was only a few months later when Patrick let it be known that his own daughter had emerged from the shadows and come back into his life. This was an unexpected development, and one that had caught the old spy unprepared – which Sumner thought somewhat ironic. Yet when it turned out that she was sicker than Hell and in chemotherapy over at the UW Cancer Center, C. Llewelyn Sumner sensed a change had come over Patrick. And when he learned that Patrick’s daughter had moved into the Grey House and was now staying with Patrick, he realized his friend the spy was on the brink. This development had been, of course, unforeseen – but Patrick had gone on about his life as if all this wasn’t a problem.

Until it became a problem.

Patrick had been comfortable cultivating layers of secrecy throughout his life; even his father had taught him a few of the most basic skills he would need. Crafting alternate identities came as naturally to Patrick as picking up a drafting pencil came to C. Llewelyn Sumner. Being able to disappear within a crowd? Not a problem. Need to flee one country in the middle of the night, and then to appear two days later on the far side of nowhere all while being able to convincingly prove to the local authorities that you’d been there for years? Again, this was simply another skill Patrick had learned along the way. All that was needed were the resources and plans to put contingencies in place, and to secret them away where no one else could find them. But that too was simply another skill he’d picked up along the way.

But to Sumner, writing fiction had begun to chip away at Patrick’s skills, to dull the old spy’s senses. And then his daughter Akira turned up on his doorstep, and with her arrival he realized that another seismic shift was taking place, a whole new series of complications rising from the dead. Patrick couldn’t simply disappear so easily now, yet neither could he push his daughter out the door. What Patrick needed, he reasoned, was a means to keep an eye on his daughter while also preserving some rough semblance of his need for instant mobility. What he needed, then, was a means to a new, more immediate end.

Yet…after learning to sail with Sumner – and even long before Akira arrived – Haiku had begun to take shape in Patrick’s mind. But then again, Sumner had already learned that the old spy was always looking ahead. Always making plans – counting on the unexpected, and Akira had apparently been most unexpected. Only now Patrick had Akira’s needs foremost in mind, for the old spy could not presume to live forever and he obviously wanted to see to her needs after he was gone.

Akira would, therefore, and by virtue of her frailties, need someone to look after her. Someone Akira could count on – after the inevitable happened and Patrick passed. She would need someone with the two virtues Patrick cherished most, but had more often than not lacked himself: duty and honor.

Patrick apparently had friends everywhere, yet not one of these friends seemed close to Patrick. Most were often little more than academic or professional colleagues, and though they were on friendly terms with one another that was about the extent of these friendships. Yet Patrick never discarded such friends; he never let these relationships wither away into obscurity or fade away with the passage of time. Such friendships were, after all, quite useful to spies. And curiously enough, almost all of Patrick’s friends were in academia, and most had taught at Stanford at one time or another.

One of these old friends, a rather bright geologist who also happened to look somewhat like cross between a gecko and a mole, had called him recently as he’d just finished writing a rather alarming book and he wanted to know if Patrick knew a good publisher’s agent. They’d talked for a while about the subject, plate tectonics and volcanism, and about his friend’s growing concerns about the so-called Cascadia Subduction Zone, and how a sudden release of energy might cause one or more of the major volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest to literally blow their tops off – and quite soon, too – and Patrick began to listen because other plans might be affected. Patrick cautiously recommended his own agent and then made the appropriate call.

But now that Patrick had a clear picture in his mind about when such an event was to take place, he told C. Llewelyn Sumner what he had learned and what he needed his friend to help him do. Plans had developed a momentum of their own, after all.

Part 3

On the next dark of the moon, Sumner took his Zodiac off the davits and fired up the Yamaha outboard and took off towards Ballard Locks. The journey took, perhaps, ten minutes, and he pulled up next to the tiny beach under the railway trestle bridge and waited in shifting moonless shadows.

And a few minutes later Patrick Grey came jogging down the trail through the little park, and he picked his way carefully down the rocky pathway to the beach with practiced ease. And then, as if he’d done so a hundred times before, Patrick pushed the dingy back from the beach and hopped in, leaving Sumner to navigate to the north side of the entrance channel, doing his level best to get into the spirit of the moment and act like a spy on a secret mission into…where? Russia? Well, no, not exactly Russia – for it seemed Seattle would have to do that night.

Sumner steered the dingy along the shoreline and a few minutes later deposited Patrick on the dock beside Haiku, then he motored off and tied up the inflatable behind his Hallberg-Rassy. Not at all sure what he’d just taken part in, he felt a little queasy now that the affair was over and done with, so he poured about three fingers of a decent single malt and went up into the cockpit, not looking towards Haiku even once – because he felt somehow dirty. Used and dirty.

But tiring of Patrick’s nonsense, the next morning he cast off his lines and motored over to the Elliot Bay Marina, and he tied-off there for the time being, and once the paperwork for his new slip was out of the way he took a taxi to his car and then made his way back to the house above Port Townsend. As always, the little fox was waiting for him, ready to curl up on his lap and enjoy another afternoon lazing under the sun, but even she was soon caught up in the spirit of the new, unsettling dis-ease that had swept up Sumner.

But why, he remembered wondering sometime later that day – and maybe it was the first time he had, too – did this little fox suddenly remind him of Tracy? And why did she feel like she belonged to him? Had he spent so much time with Patrick and his wandering kami?

+++++

“I think the fault is going to cut loose soon,” Kurt, the spy’s friend continued, “and I think it will this summer. Maybe as soon as June, possibly July.”

“What’s got you scared, Kurt? The harmonic tremors?”

“Yes, precisely. The frequency and duration of events from two miles down to ten is increasing almost daily, and Pat, it’s following an exponential curve. At this rate, something just has to give. There’s just too much force building up down there in the earth.”

“Okay, okay, I believe you, Kurt. What are you going to do? Personally, I mean?”

“The school term ends here on May 10^th. I’m flying to Hawaii, going to lay in supplies once I get there. You?”

“Oh, I have a boat.”

“Capable of long distances?”

“Yes. I may head your way, but I was counting on more time.”

“Yes. I was too.”

“C’est la vie, Kurt. The story of our lives. Text me your contact information after you get settled in. I may need a favor or two from you.”

Then Patrick noted that Sumner’s new boat had pulled out sometime in the wee hours and he sighed at this latest complication. Perhaps his extraction had been overblown, but, well, that was just the way the spy did such things, but then he noticed that Neal was up and about in the cockpit of his new boat and he smiled. It was time to get some fresh salmon, wasn’t it?

Funny how things were working out, yet it had all been so much easier to put in place than he’d ever anticipated. Yet the most difficult still remained.

Neal’s father had been one of Patrick Grey’s best friends, but the relationship had swiftly moved to another level, and he had kept Neal in mind ever since. When Akira showed up it had been a simple matter of planting birdseeds along the path of least resistance and now, here he was. Now…there was the matter of his family to attend to…

+++++

 “Charles? What have you been up to?” the spy asked his absent friend over the phone.

“Absolutely nothing. You?”

“Yes, well, it seems that matter I talked to you about has taken on new urgency? I’d say you need to go shopping now as the window on the event seems to be opening around the first of June.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am. And it seems that several like minded coneheads at the USGS are as well. Did you get the solar panels installed?”

“Delivered. Iverson is doing the stainless and canvas for the enclosure. I’ll have 660 watts up there once everything is installed. And the ground plane for the SSB has been installed now, too.”

“So, you got the ICOM 802?”

“Yup. And I’m putting up a StarLink antenna.”

“You’d better pay your installers some more and get things moving along more briskly.”

“Your guy is that sure about all this?”

“He seems to be, yes. And I’ve checked his data. Something is brewing, and even FEMA seems to be gearing up.”

“Does he think the effects should be confined to the Seattle area?”

“More than likely, but there are no guarantees.”

“You do recall that Elizabeth is down in Davis. That’s just a stone’s throw from the Bay Area, geologically speaking.”

“I know. Tell her to pack some belongings for a sailing trip this summer.”

“She’s signed up to take classes down at Davis this summer.”

“Charles, tell her to get ready. Now. If she doesn’t you’ll just have to go and fetch her, won’t you? And that won’t be easy, will it?”

“Patrick, we’re talking three weeks! You can’t possibly be serious! There’s no way I do all that in three weeks!”

“Charles, listen to me. None of this is written in stone, but my friend advises me that waters around the subduction zone are boiling in three different locations. That means magma is close to the seafloor. Tremors are increasing along an exponential curve, and in both frequency and amplitude. Kurt thinks the threshold event will likely occur on or around June first. That’s all I can tell you, Charles. Believe me or don’t, the matter is for you to decide.”

“And you’re heading to Papeete?”

“Eventually, yes. I’ll go to Hawaii first.”

“If I have to go into San Francisco Bay…”

“Charles, if for some reason the San Andreas fault were to let go there might not be a safe way in to or out of the Bay, let alone any secure lines of communication to your daughter. And if a working sailboat entered the Bay there’s simply no telling how many people might try to take her away from you. You’d need Navy SEALs to protect you on that boat, so I beg you to consider what you and your daughter’s options truly are well before this happens.”

“My son. He’s back east. What do I do about Charles?”

“Do you have his number?” Sumner gave it to him. “Now, get busy. Get things taken care of in the next few days, and do that bank transfer I told you about.”

“Cash?”

“All you can carry – and some gold, too.”

And so Sumner got to work, but first he stretched out under the late morning sun and enjoyed the sounds of the forest around his hillside home; the wind through the pines, chipmunks scattering pebbles as they ran from blue jays staring down from wayward branches, and then his little fox came out and joined him while he napped and dreamt and considered his options.

And in the end he chose rank dishonesty, but this was a course of action, he felt sure, that Patrick Grey would heartily approve of.

+++++

“I think it will take me a week, perhaps eight or nine days, to make it to the Golden Gate,” C. Llewelyn Sumner told his daughter Elizabeth. “I’ve reserved a spot at Pier 39 stating on the 28^th, and I thought we could sail around the bay for a week or so, maybe head down to Monterrey or Carmel. Classes don’t resume until June tenth, right?”

“I think so, Dad, and you’re right, it sounds like fun. Would you mind if maybe a friend joined us?”

“No, no, of course not. The more the merrier!” This was something he hadn’t counted on. “Just be sure to pack for more than a few days, and don’t forget to bring along any medications you need. I’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow so if you have any questions let me know soon.”

And after he rang off he wondered about the nature of human duplicity. Was it really evil when you had someone’s best interests in mind?

He packed for warm weather because, after all, they would be heading for the tropics. Then he remembered something he’d read once about volcanic eruptions and unusually long winters and he decided to pack some cool weather gear. 

He loaded everything into an old beater he’d used to haul hay for the horses, a fifty year old Chevy pickup that seemed to have more rust than paint on it these days, and after Tracy the fox jumped in beside him he made the hours long drive into Seattle. He loaded bottles of water and mountains of canned goods down below, then made one last dash up to the Pike Place Market for fresh veggies and fish, and after all that was stowed he spent his last evening on Elliot Bay programming his chartplotter and recalibrating the forward-looking sonar before dropping off to sleep with his head on the chart table. Early the next morning he topped-off his water tanks and then motored over to fill both diesel tanks, and with that last chore out of the way he cast off his lines and said goodbye to the city he’d called home for decades.

Het set radar alarms and sonar guard zones and as the waters were dead calm he set the autopilot and then sat back and fed Tracy some salmon and yogurt before he made a small salad for himself, and as he motored away from his past he turned and looked back at the city. “Will I ever see you again?” he said to the gray silhouettes of skyscrapers poking up out of the mist, and for a while he wondered what the city would look like if Patrick’s calamity did indeed come to pass. He knew that most of the downtown area’s buildings pre-dated earthquake-proof advances in design and construction, and depending on the time of day an earthquake and tsunami hit, the loss of life would be massive.

And yet there was hardly any coordinated federal or state response to the warnings coming from the USGS. Was it really simply a matter of Chicken Little having cried ‘The sky is falling!’ one time too many? Or had scientific literacy fallen so low that few bothered to heed these warnings anymore?

Or did it really even matter? 

Wasn’t this just another example of the Darwinian struggle working itself out in real time? As it always had, only the fittest would survive to reproduce, and if scientific literacy loomed as a measure of the fitness to survive then there wasn’t a whole lot left to be said, was there? The pendulum swung back into deep mysticism time and time again, while the light of reason shone from the other extreme. This time the calamity would strike when reason was on the ebb, so the damage would be greater. Still, it was brutally difficult to look at the rows of suburban cottages that lined the Sound and realize there was a good possibility all these people might soon perish…

And then his phone chirped.

It was Patrick Grey calling.

He answered. “Good morning, Patrick! How are you?”

“I have you on AIS, Charles. You sly guy. Off to San Francisco, I assume?”

“Correct, as always, Patrick. I assume Papeete is still in the works?”

“Yes indeed. Assets are transferring and falling into place as we speak, but I doubt I’ll be arriving on Haiku, so don’t be too surprised if I’m not on hand when you arrive. Regardless, you are to proceed to the Papeete Marina just off the Place Jacques Chirac. You’ll find a slip there under your name and passport, and it has been pre-paid from July through the rest of the year. Haiku will be there around the same time.”

“And where will you be, Patrick?”

“Taking care of a few loose ends. If all goes according to plan, I should be along shortly.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“It will.”

“You’re that sure of yourself?”

“I am.”

“Must be nice.”

“It is.”

“You are a real prick, you know?”

“True, but it’s always nice to hear it from a true believer. Where will you be stopping for fuel?”

“Newport and Eureka.”

“Don’t forget about Bodega Bay, and once you get near the Bay Area keep your fuel topped off at all times. Do you have any jerry cans onboard?”

“Six for fuel, six for water.”

“Isn’t your water-maker working?”

“Things break, Patrick.”

“They do indeed. Good for you.” And with that the line went dead, leaving C. Llewelyn Sumner alone with his thoughts once again. After passing Whidbey Island the wind filled in and he made sail, reaching along at seven knots just a few hours later, until Port Angeles was off their port beam. He called the fuel dock at Neah Bay and let them know he was coming in, and they advised if he didn’t make it before they closed to just tie-off at the pumps.

Traffic was heavy in the main shipping lanes so he kept close to the coastline, and he made it in to Neah Bay just in time to see the lights go out at the fueling station, so he tied off for the night and settled in to sleep off the tensions of the day, only to wake up at four in the morning when a fishing boat came in to offload their catch. He purchased two huge salmon and had them cut up, then he put the chunks in baggies and slid them into the refrigerator, then he topped off his fuel and water tanks again before he left for Cape Flattery. 

Where he turned south, skirting the coast to stay well away from the northbound shipping lanes – only to find that now he had to keep a sharp eye out for felled timbers floating on or just beneath the rough surface. The sonar he’d installed did a fair job or warning him of the logs out to about 300 feet ahead of the boat, so enough time to take evasive action, but that morning was a nerve-wracking walk through a rolling minefield. Soon enough he gave up and turned to go further away from the coast – if nothing else to get away from all the floating logs.

And as this was, like it or not, his first time “outside” and the further he got from land the deeper the water became, and soon enough the long Pacific swell began to get to him. By late-morning he was leaning over the rail feeding the fish, and it took three Dramamine tabs to knock him out long enough to sleep off the nausea. When he woke in the middle of the afternoon he still had no appetite but did just manage to slice some salmon and feed Tracy, who as always had remained coiled on his lap while he slept.

And as evening came on he went topsides and was stunned by the technicolor sunset beyond the rolling slate gray seascape – and now the Olympic range was to his east, and for some reason he found that disconcerting. He powered up the radar and set the range to 48 miles and he spotted fishing boats and freighters here and there, but as soon as darkness came on his seasickness returned. The moon wouldn’t come up over the Olympics for a few more hours so he did his best to fight the rolling queasiness, and after a few hours the cramps and nausea abated just a little. When the moon finally came up he marveled at the scudding clouds overhead and how they looked like white-rimmed blackness drifting along on unseen currents in the sky, and even with a three-quarters moon out he was amazed by the number of stars he saw, and by how black and empty space looked.

He stayed up all through that first night out, mesmerized by the night sky and his place in the grand scheme of things, and he jumped when a flying fish flew up and landed in the cockpit. Tracy made a quick meal of it and seemed rather pleased with herself. Then, as the sky arced through shades of gray he jumped once again – this time when the Iridium SatPhone chirped in its cradle beside the chartplotter.

And he wasn’t exactly surprised to see Patrick’s ID pop up on the screen.

“Well, how did your night go?” the spy asked.

“What? You don’t know?”

“Now really, Charles! Do you think I’ve planted listening devices on your boat?”

“I don’t know. Have you?”

Patrick laughed and laughed at that. 

“No, well, to the point. Kurt has run another series of simulations, and he now seems rather confident that things will get interesting around the second, perhaps the third. Might I recommend that you and Elizabeth head out the Golden Gate on the first? Perhaps to visit Carmel or Monterrey?”

“If I stop feeling seasick, you mean?”

“Oh dear. Don’t tell me…”

“I think this was all a huge mistake, Patrick. There is no way in Hell I’ll survive a trip to Polynesia if this keeps up.”

“Do you have any over-the-counter GERD medications with you? Like maybe Nexium?”

“Yes?”

“Double up on the dose for two days and see if that doesn’t knock it back.”

“Okay. I’ll give it a try.”

“It’s the stomach acid, old boy. Your inner ear sends a signal when things get rough out and your stomach goes haywire with the stuff. Shut that down and away goes your mal-de-mer, just like magic. And no orange juice, nothing with heavy acid. That sets it off.”

“Okay. How are things on your end?”

“Oh, things are coming along nicely here.”

“I can’t believe the government isn’t taking this seriously, Patrick. It makes no sense.”

“Bureaucratic inertia, Charles. It killed Rome and it will be the death of us all.”

Sumner sighed. “You know, I’d recently been approached to work up preliminary plans for a new museum of science and technology with that civic center, and I think in a way I was actually excited about taking on a commission like that.”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“I’m not sure, but I think in the best possible circumstances such museums ought to be places where people can go for inspiration, to see how the people that came before confronted everyday life and how they went about finding solutions to their most vexing problems.”

“And what would you have designed, Charles? Something soaring to the heavens?”

Sumner chuckled. “You know, actually, I was thinking more along the lines of something that might survive a nuclear blast. A place where the people who were rebuilding civilization might go for both inspiration and ideas – and a sense of safety.”

“An underground bunker would do the trick, I suppose.”

“Not inspiring enough, Patrick. We need inspiration to excel; anything else is mere survival.”

“Did you ever stop to think that there might be times when mere survival is the best we can hope for?”

“No. Not since I realized what a horizontally opposed thumb is good for.”

“Oh, Charles. You are an artist, impractical to your core, but I’d hate to go through life without knowing you’re out there.”

“Why Patrick, is this a compliment?”

“No, Charles, it was a declaration of friendship.”

And with that the line once again went dead.

“I’ll be damned,” Sumner sighed – as he made his way to the box of Nexium he was sure he’d stored in the aft head.

+++++

Eight days later he sailed under the Golden Gate, and as soon as he was tied off at Pier 39 he fired up his iPhone and called Elizabeth.

“Well, I’ve made it,” he said to his daughter. “When can you come down?”

“Would tomorrow be too soon?”

“No, not at all! Perfect, as a matter of fact! You’ll be bringing your friend, I take it?”

So they set a time and Sumner set about scrubbing the boat with scented scrubbing compounds – anything that would rid the cockpit and cabins of any traces of his lingering bile. The next thing he did was head to a local pharmacy – where he bought every single box of Nexium they had on their shelves. He got up early the next morning and ran to a grocery store to replenish the larder, but he thought he’d wait another day before stocking up on fresh seafood and produce, then he sat up in the cockpit and waited.

And just before noon Elizabeth came bouncing up to his Hallberg-Rassy, The Silent Wake, and when Sumner looked down to find her vivacious smile he was stunned to see not just a friend from school but also her brother, his son. With their duffels in hand, he was standing by his sister’s side, and he appeared quite upset.

Part 4

But they just stood there staring at one another, wondering who would be the first to break the silence. 

Charles had never really accepted his father, not since their unforced reunion two years before. And then, after his father financially bailed out Forbes and kept him from losing his house, he’d felt a lingering unease between himself and the old architect – his father – and those unsettled feelings had remained an account that he’d never bothered to reconcile. His mother had rarely talked about Sumner, and when she had her comments had been constricted, almost remote generalizations, too abstract for the boy to glean any useful information about the man he’d never met. She’d never put him down, yet neither had she built him up; Tracy had been content to let Sumner’s memory wither away into nothingness – and that vacuum turned out to be fertile ground for the seeds of another fatherless teenager’s distrust.

Or, at least she had been content until she grew sick, because at some point she must’ve realized her brother wouldn’t succeed as a parent, and that sooner or later Forbes would have to come to Sumner for help. Yet in the end, she never relented, she never talked to her children about their father, but at least she’d given her brother Forbes the tools he’d need to make contact with Sumner.

Yet because Tracy had never paved the way for a reunion of any kind, this was, perhaps, her final abdication of responsibility to her children. She, in effect, left everything about their father to chance, in the end hoping that Sumner would accept them as his children, but she never let on that her last hope was that Sumner might take them in.

And it was here, in her final abdication, that her lack of trust had defined all their futures. To Charles, it was as if she had she been saying that Sumner was categorically untrustworthy. Or, the boy wondered now as he stared at the man on the boat, had she been tacitly admitting that she’d been wrong about Sumner all along, that she’d never even given him a chance to prove himself as a father, and that as her death approached she regretted her choice? Charles didn’t know, couldn’t know what had been his mother’s thinking, but his father seemed to be an honest, straight-forward guy.

So Charles remained locked inside his mother’s abdication, still suffocating under the weight of so many unknowns, yet among all the doubts swirling within the moment was that this was an unexpected chance at reconciliation. In a way, Charles craved the idea of having his father in his life, even if his desire was riddled with doubt.

Yet Sumner recognized something important in the moment when he saw his boy standing down there on the dock with his arms full of duffel bags, so he jumped down to the dock to help shoulder the load. Perhaps it was a small gesture, but even so it was an important one.

“Well, this is an unexpected pleasure,” Sumner said to his son as he plucked a duffel strap from the boy’s shoulder. “I had no idea you were coming out for a visit.”

“A friend of yours,” Charles said, “that writer, he called and insisted that I come.”

“Really? Did he tell you why?”

“No. He said you’d tell me when I got here.”

Sumner nodded, but he said nothing else about the matter. “Well, let’s get these things stowed…but Elizabeth? Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”

“Sure, Pops. Dad, this is Deni Elliot, she’s a third year. Deni, this is, well, Dad!”

He held out his hand. “Deni? Do call me Charles, if you please. But goodness me, won’t someone please tell me what a third year is?”

Deni Elliot stepped forward and took Sumner’s hand. “Nice to meet you, and I have to say I’ve been a fan of your work for years. And I just finished my third year of medical school at Davis. I met your daughter in a biochem seminar a few weeks ago and when I learned she was a sailor, well, we’ve been sailing a few times since then.”

“Really? Excellent. I was thinking of taking a quick trip down to Monterey, so I hope that will work out for you.”

After their duffels were hauled down below and their sleeping arrangements sorted out, the four walked over the Fisherman’s Wharf district and wandered around for what felt like hours, but before heading back to the boat for the evening they stopped off and bought crab and scallops and mountains of fresh shrimp. Once back aboard, Liz and Deni took the forward cabin, leaving Charles to manage in the aft cabin with his father. Sumner was in the galley and had just started rearranging the fridge when his iPhone chirped; when he saw it was Patrick he took the call.

“Hello?”

“It’s happening!” Patrick screamed. “Right now!”

And then the line went dead. 

Gripped by a sudden overwhelming panic, he slammed the galley fridge shut and went to the breaker board and began throwing switches, then he went to the aft cabin.

“Charles, come with me please,” Sumner said before he scrambled up the companionway. When they were both in the cockpit he turned to the boy and tried to remain calm: “There’s been a large earthquake up north and a large tsunami may be headed our way. As soon as I tell you, cast off that line, the one forward on the right side.”

“So, it’s happening?” his son asked.

“Ah, so Patrick did tell you?”

And when his son nodded they both just smiled. Grey always thought of everything, didn’t he?

But when he started the diesel both Liz and Deni came darting up the companionway.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“I’m afraid it’s time to leave. Deni? Would you stand by the aft dock lines? Hold her stern in until I tell you, please.” Once the engine was idling smoothly he toggled the bow thruster’s joystick and confirmed operation then he flipped on the spreader lights. “Charles? Cast off your lines and make sure all lines up there are safely aboard. Liz? Cast off the spring lines now, would you?” He toggled the thruster again and used prop-walk to push away from the dock, then he looked at Deni. “Okay, lines in now please, Deni,” he said gently.

“Dad,” Liz repeated, “what’s going on?”

“There’s just been a large earthquake off Vancouver Island…”

Then he was cut off by an intense, deep rumbling that seemed to come from every direction at once, and he threw the wheel hard to port and continued to use the thruster to push the bow around, but over the next several seconds the air filled with acrid dust, then the overpowering odor of ruptured gas lines fell over the wharf area. Once clear of the encircling breakwater, Sumner turned for the Golden Gate and ran the throttle up to 2300RPM, then he powered up the radar and sonar – just as a colossal screeching metal-on-metal sound began grinding away the silence; everyone turned and watched as skyscrapers trembled and then leaned drunkenly, and then a slender tower slammed into another and this was, Sumner knew, going to start a chain reaction – like dominoes falling one into the next and the next. Fires blossomed and then everyone looked up and saw that airliners were turning away from Oakland and San Francisco International, heading away from the heaving earth and the spreading fires. They left the marina breakwater to port and turned towards Alcatraz as explosions filled the air with more and more smoke, and sirens could be heard now coming from all over the city.

“Dad! Look!” Liz screamed, pointing at the Golden Gate Bridge, and he turned to look at their escape route in time to see the north tower rise up out of the sea, just as the south tower fell away in a cloudy, grinding crash. And then everyone watched in horror as the central span simply gave way and fell in a coiling, serpentine heap, instantly disappearing beneath a confused jumble of spreading waves.

“How far away is that?” Charles asked.

Sumner adjusted the range circles on the radar and ran a bearing line: “Just under four miles. Call it a few minutes until the wave gets there.”

“How long for us to get there?” Charles cried. “And what’ll we do when we get there?”

“Use the sonar, pick our way through the rubble…”

“And what about survivors?” Charles cried. “What’ll we do about anyone in the water?”

Sumner just shook his head. “We’ll do what we can, son.”

And then tsunami sirens started wailing all around the bay. Sumner felt it then, the palpable anxiety his children felt, and he knew it was time to be their father.

Ignoring the roar of skyscrapers collapsing behind them, Sumner pulled up the tide tables on the chartplotter and noted it was slack water, a period of no tidal pull, but that the tides would soon turn and begin rushing out the constriction beyond the collapsed bridge. That, in turn, would collide with the inrushing tsunami, potentially adding to the height of the wave…

And without thinking he pushed the throttle forward a little more, increasing their speed through the water to a little over eight knots, then he looked at the tachometer and pulled the power back a little – to be on the careful side. But everyone turned again when the sounds of multiple explosions came rolling across the water, and Deni pointed at a growing wall of flames to the northeast, near Vallejo. “Fuel storage depots,” she said. “Chevron, I think.”

Then Sumner rubbed his eyes when it appeared that Sausalito had just jumped about twenty feet in the air, but then the city as quickly fell straight down – only to be replaced by the sea. Then they could see police helicopters flying over the ruins all around the little town, and for some reason, Sumner remembered he’d yet to turn on his VHF radio.

“Tsunami warning!” the computerized voice broadcasting on Weather 1 said pleasantly. “Take shelter on higher ground immediately. Tsunami warning, tsunami imminent, first wave now passing NOAA warning buoy 4-6-0-1-3 and approaching from the northwest at 3-3 knots, estimated wave height now 2-5 feet…”

Sumner looked at his depth gauge, noted that it had been holding steady at 59 feet, but now he wondered just how much all that bridge debris might foul their passage over the collapsed bridge. “Charles? In the compartment, there, under the aft deck, you’ll find a spotlight. Could I have that, please?” Once he had the light plugged in and turned on, he handed it to Charles again. His son gave a sweep ahead of the boat and already they could see dozens of bodies bobbing about on the surface. “Deni? Would you get ready to deploy the man-overboard gear? Charles? You might stand by on the swim platform in case we need to pull someone aboard?”

“What can I do, Dad?” Liz asked.

“Take the spotlight, check our way ahead. If you see anyone in distress shine the light on them and call them out, let me know.”

Soon they were passing the Presidio and the old base was swarming with helicopters loading up VIPs and carrying them somewhere up north, and now more than a few fishing boats were leaving the marinas along the north shoreline…

“Tsunami imminent,” the mechanical voice Weather 1 declared. “Tsunami now passing the Point Reyes Light, speed now 3-5 knots and wave height now 2-7 feet above tidal mean. Tsunami warning. Take shelter on higher ground immediately!”

“It’s coming in from the northwest,” Deni said, “and the depth holds at 60 feet until you hit the north side of the entrance channel; it drops to 29 really fast there. That wave is gonna hit the undersea ridge and my guess is it will probably get a lot taller, but it also sounds like it’s gonna hit around Point Lobos and Mile Rocks Light.”

“So the wave could lose energy?” Sumner asked.

And Elliott nodded. “Yeah. Maybe. What bothers me is what if part of the wave comes in the Golden Gate? It might start swirling around, you know, like make real big eddies as it squeezes in through the entrance.”

Sumner zoomed out and looked at the chart on his display. “I see what you mean,” he sighed. “Any suggestions? Any idea which side of the channel could be more dangerous?”

“No. None.”

He nodded, then a sonar alarm popped and he saw a large object a hundred yards ahead that appeared to be a car – only it was about ten feet beneath the surface – yet the sonar had enough resolution for him to identify the type of car it was. “Looks like a Toyota just ahead,” he said, “and I think it’s a Rav4, maybe ten feet down.”

“Can you see any movement with that thing?”

“I can see fish swimming, but nothing is moving inside the car. Okay, wait one. I think I’ve got a swimmer in the water,” Sumner said as he pointed off to the right a little.

Liz swung the spotlight and Charles got ready – just in case – and then they saw a girl swimming their way, with a dog swimming by her side…

So Sumner slipped the transmission into neutral and let the speed bleed off – just as he saw a vast line appear dead ahead on the radar screen. “Tsunami is on radar now, looks like six miles out – so we have a few minutes to get the girl onboard and then get stuff secured.”

The girl in the water stopped and screamed, then she waved her hands at Sumner.

“We’re coming for you,” Charles called out. “Keep swimming our way if you can.”

But Sumner could tell the girl was exhausted so he slipped back into gear and powered towards her once again, then he cut power and swung the stern around, putting Charles in a good position to reach out for her…

…and his son leaned out as best he could and just caught her hand, then he pulled the girl aboard; Deni hopped down to the swim platform and grabbed the dog, a very frightened retriever of some sort, and when he saw both were safely onboard Sumner pointed the bow towards the area where the huge red bridge had collapsed – concentrating on the jumbled mass of wreckage he saw on sonar just beneath the water’s surface. “This is going to be close,” he muttered to himself, concentrating one moment on the wreckage in the sonar image and the next looking at the wave on radar as it approached Point Lobos.

Then, as everyone looked on, the huge, breaking wave slammed into the cliffs and bluffs above Baker Beach and Lincoln Park, much of the water rushing inland towards Golden Gate Park, but a large wall of the crashing water came bouncing back towards the entrance to the bay, and so directly at The Silent Wake. Sumner watched the new wall take shape and rush their way, and at that point, he turned directly into the wave. “Everybody hang on…” he called out, his hands gripping the wheel.

But as he looked at the images onscreen he slammed the power to full ahead, accelerating the sailboat to hull speed…

“What are you doing?” Deni cried.

“It’s all a matter of timing now,” Sumner said. “As the wave crosses the remnants of the bridge it ought to increase the apparent depth as we cross over the wreckage, and that might be enough for us to clear all the debris,” he said, pointing at the jumbled debris field ahead and just beneath the water’s surface. “It is, however, going to be close.”

But while the tsunami was building again, it was now nowhere near as tall as it had been, and Sumner smiled as his boat climbed the wave, then gently began surfing down the backside – and so all the while the coiled remnants of the Golden Gate Bridge remained a few meters beneath the boat’s keel.

He turned and watched the tsunami roar into the bay, and he stared, aghast, as his eyes took in the mountains beyond Oakland and Berkeley. Everywhere he looked he saw forested hillsides completely ablaze, the east side of the bay now awash in a bright orange glow. The tsunami would, he knew, put out the fires ravaging Oakland and Vallejo, but he doubted anyone would survive a wave twenty feet tall moving at twenty miles per hour. When he could stand the sight no more he turned to the wheel and steered out to the hundred-foot line marked on the chart, and there he turned south towards Half Moon Bay.

There was wind enough to sail so he rolled out the genoa and then had Liz and Deni hoist the main, and when he went back to the helm he cut the engine and silence enveloped their little cocoon. “Liz? Think you could get some hot cocoa going for our guest?”

Still, what he remembered most about that night was looking at everyone gathered around him in the cockpit, and everything had been bathed in that same nether-worldly glow. The white deck, everyone’s pale, frightened face…everything bathed in orange, and he knew then that he was staring into the open gates of Hell, but that now a great new darkness beckoned.

+++++

The little girl’s name was Haley, and the dog, an idiotic Irish Setter with the intelligence of boiled cabbage, did not belong to her. And so of course the very first thing the soaking wet hound did was come up to Sumner and sit on his lap. Then it started licking Sumner’s chin and rubbing all over his chest, apparently staking out the old man as his new best friend. Sumner, for his part, started rubbing the pup behind the ears – cementing the deal.

Haley was, on the other hand, hovering somewhere between the states of denial, shock, and despair. She had just watched her parents and little brother drown and all she really understood was that the life she had known, the only things she understood, were now all gone. Her grandparents lived in Mill Valley and they were the only other family she had; no one answered the phone when Liz tried calling the number in Mill Valley, and an hour later all the power in the region went down, and with it went cell service not a half hour after that. There was no power in Half Moon Bay when they passed at midnight, and when they sailed past Monterey later the next morning not even the Coast Guard answered on Channel 16.

But as Liz made lunch at noon the SatPhone on the chart table chirped and Sumner answered the call from Patrick.

“AIS appears to be down everywhere,” Patrick stated without preamble. “Did you make it out of the city without issue?”

“We’re southbound, just passing Carmel. It was terrible, Patrick, just awful. Where are you?”

“We passed Tatoosh Rock a few hours ago. Was it that bad?”

“Bad?” Sumner sighed. “Yes, you could say that. We picked up a ten-year-old girl in the water, and also a dog. C’est la vie.”

“Do you have StarLink set up and running?”

“Damn. Yes, but I haven’t been on all night. Simply forgot it was there.”

“Understood. Uh, look, it appears that cities all along the coast have taken a massive hit, the damage is exceptionally bad anywhere near the San Andreas fault, and Los Angeles was as badly damaged as the Bay Area.”

“So, what you’re saying is we should think about heading directly to the Marquesas?”

“Yes. Get that watermaker up and running and set sail for Nuku-Hiva. You should be able to replenish stores there, especially with fruits and vegetables. How far away is that on your plotter?”

“Not quite 3300 miles.”

“Okay. So, call it 22 days. Have you enough food onboard?”

“It might be tight as far as fresh food, but we’ll do okay.”

“Okay. Get that watermaker operational, and check your email more often, will you?”

“Yes, will do.”

“Take care, Charles. In case we don’t see each other again, I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated your friendship.”

“Ditto, Patrick.”

And then, just like that the line went dead again. And Sumner didn’t like the sudden note of finality in Patrick’s voice either, but he went up to the helm and changed course – again – setting up the HydroVane and powering down the autopilot. “Okay, 202 degrees and straight on ’til morning, right Tracy?”

The little fox had kept an eye on the red-headed hound and now she jumped up on Sumner’s shoulder, then curled around his neck and promptly fell asleep. His eyes swept the far horizon – that loneliest of places where only blue meets blue – but he listened to the gurgling bow wave and to the heart beating so close to his own, and even after such a hideous night, he knew he was where he was supposed to be.

And a few minutes later Liz came up the companionway steps carrying a greek salad thick with Kalamata olives and feta and walnuts and he smiled – until he saw her staring at the animal curled up next to his own beating heart.

Her head was canted to the left a little and she squinted at the incongruity of the sight of a fox asleep around her father’s neck, so with one eyebrow arched inquisitively she faced them: “Dad? Is that a fox?”

But he smiled as he shook his head, then he turned his face to the sky and smiled at all the unknowns waiting for them just ahead. “No, no, this is Tracy. Why don’t you come and say hello.”

Part 5

C. Llewelyn Sumner made his way below after several hours wrestling the boat over mountainous waves; resting now – with his face in his hands at the chart table – he had a Pacific ‘route planning chart’ spread out before him, and he experienced a peculiar moment of lucid terror when he looked at the sheer immensity of the ocean ahead, of the nothingness beyond the horizon. What they were attempting finally hit home – and it left him feeling breathless and alone – a feeling most ship’s captains easily relate to. And for a moment he’d stopped breathing, literally just shut down when the sheer immensity of their situation hit him in the face like a cold slap on the face. 

The day before yesterday jet airliners had crossed this ocean in half a day, but listening to the BBC earlier that morning it now seemed that it could easily be a year or more before air travel returned to anything once again resembling “normal” – especially in the northern hemisphere. All air traffic in North America had been grounded yesterday – and then all air traffic, everywhere, ground to a stop as the peculiar grey ash encircled the planet. Trains were still running in Europe, at least a few still were, but highway travel in the US and Canada was now considered too dangerous, described by the few who had ventured out as being like driving through a hot fog while suffocating heat and drifting ash wiped out all visibility. Then tires started blowing out when the sharp particles in the drifting ash ate into their soft rubber compounds. At this rate, cities would collapse under the weight of their failing food distribution networks within a few days, and there were no fail-safe systems in place, no cavalry to ride to the rescue just in the knick of time.

But Sumner couldn’t think about all those things now. They no longer mattered to life on his little ship. Getting to Papeete was all that mattered now – because Patrick Grey thought their chances of survival might be better there.

He pulled out his logbook and noted the ship’s latitude and longitude, then he switched display panels and looked at the surrounding temperatures: sea water was 59 degrees Fahrenheit and the outside air temp was – 49 degrees? He looked at the breaker panel and noted the air conditioning was OFF, then he pulled up the NOAA hurricane forecast center’s map and his worst nightmare was confirmed. There were three depressions lining up in the Atlantic between Africa and the Windward Passage, and he saw a Category 3 storm taking aim at Panama today – which was unheard of. But if that monster crossed the isthmus and made it intact into the Pacific that storm would become a direct threat to his little boat, yet how would the cold air pouring into equatorial air masses effect storm formation?

Because the Hurricane Center noted that temperatures in the northern hemisphere were falling precipitously now, and with these falling temps they were seeing unprecedented drops in air pressure. Under less extreme circumstances this drop would result in steadily increasing rainfall, but the atmosphere was loaded with airborne ash and as the atmosphere condensed a mixture of rain and a peculiar slippery ash was falling, yet the silicates in such dense ash would smother crops and cause untold damage to urban infrastructure, with textiles and rubber compounds now particularly at risk, none more so than power lines.

Sumner shook his head and continued filling in the pre-printed entries on the page, noting everything from engine hours (184) to windspeed (12 knots), creating a day by day picture of their life afloat, and their journey through hell. Maybe someone, someday, would find all this interesting, but he doubted it.

“Hey, Pops,” Liz said as she came down the companionway steps, that inane red hound trailing at her feet, “anything new online?”

“The weather’s changing fast, and it’s getting colder.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I thought it felt cool up there.”

“Did you bring a jacket?” She shook her head and he sighed. “I’ve got your mom’s foul weather gear in my closet. You might try it on.”

“You have her stuff – still?”

He looked away and nodded gently. “I could never bring myself to throw it away.”

“Dad? She left you…”

“Well, you see, I happened to love her…”

She came to him and put her arms around his shoulders. “Oh Dad, what happened to you two?”

He took a deep breath and tried to think of how to say what he needed to say: “You know, I could design a building, I could supervise its construction, but no one ever taught me how to say I love you. They don’t, you know? It’s like we are all somehow expected to learn by osmosis, but you know what? That’s not the way the world works. We don’t learn from the mistakes our parents make, we repeat them over and over again, so nothing changes. My parents lived a loveless life together and I think your mother began to sense that was all I could offer her. I think she saw the truth of the matter and did what she had to do to save herself. And Liz, I think she did it to save you, and your brother, too.”

“But…you said you loved her, Dad. I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either, Liz. I’m not sure how well I understand the whole nature versus nurture thing either, but like I said, I think I learned to be reserved by watching my parents. We don’t recognize that as wrong, either, quite the opposite, in fact. It just is. We become what they were, and that’s our real inheritance. Even if every day of your life you work to repudiate the role they had in shaping you, your repudiation is shaped by the contours of your experience of them. We can’t escape our past, Liz, because we are the past. We carry our inheritance on our backs like a turtle carries its shell.”

Deni had been listening and she chimed in now. “So what about the orphan, the child who grows up in the arms of strangers?”

Sumner shrugged. “Perhaps what you end up with is a great discordance, an unnatural union of two states of being. Perhaps what you end up with is two dissimilar states of dissonance that are soon perpetually at war internally. How’s that for a definition of mental illness?”

Deni smiled. “Did you ever think of becoming a psychiatrist?”

Sumner looked away, looked back to an August morning in 1966, to the work of an angry assassin shooting innocent men and women, and even an unborn child, and how in the aftermath his world no longer made sense. “No. Never. Psychiatry is a pointless endeavor. By the time the psychiatrist gets to the scene of the crime the damage has already been done.”

“So, Humpty-Dumpty…?”

“Precisely. Just so. I chose to create beauty where beauty was asked for, and by those who could afford the price of admission. Selfish, I know, but there you have it.”

Deni nodded. “I’m glad that you did.”

He looked at her just then and smiled at her simple beauty: “Oh? Why’s that?”

“There’s inspiration in architectural beauty. And a kind of transcendence when you recognize it, when you breathe it in. When you walk into a space and you stand in awe, when you’re left staring in wonder at the audacity of the act of such a creation. A building isn’t like a painting or even a work of literature, I guess. There’s shelter in a building, something of the primitive in us that is attracted to shelter.”

“Speaking of shelter,” Sumner said, looking at his boat, “I need someone to help out with the chores. Checking the oil and the seacocks, as it were. Any volunteers?”

“I’d like to,” Charles said, now sitting in the companionway opening.

“Me too,” Deni said.

“Good thing I like to cook,” Liz sighed.

“Me too,” the little girl, Haley, said as she peeked out from behind Liz’s apron.

+++++

Two days later it was forty degrees Fahrenheit out on deck and the wind was howling now, the waves building to 12 feet and more, but at least the wind was coming from astern. The clouds were another matter.

They were pewter-green-gray at noon but by evensong they had turned to a coppery verdigris shade that reeked of a great wrong coming for them.

Liz cooked a chicken and shrimp gumbo with the last of their fresh seafood and everyone sat around the big table as the boat heaved over another big roller – before it hesitated on the crest then surfed down into the next hollow – but by that point no one felt much like eating anything. Charles picked the shrimp out of his bowl but Haley started crying and that was his cue to lean over and give her a hug. Sumner watched his son and realized how hollow his words on parenting really were, or maybe how prescient. His son was a natural father and he certainly hadn’t inherited that from his father, or his grandfather. He watched their interactions and thought of a flower: give it water and nourishment and it will blossom and grow. Was life really so simple?

The answer to that question just happened to be drooling in his lap just then. Those big brown eyes, that endless spirit looking up at him was almost too much, and suddenly he was wondering why he’d never had such a friend before. Then he found himself wondering what had held him back, what had kept him from giving this kind of simple love to Tracy.

Yet more than anything else he wanted to ask her why she had given up on him. Or had that been her inheritance?

But just then the boat stalled on the top of a wave and fell back as the wave passed under the keel, and he knew that there was a danger of the boat rounding up so he dashed up the companionway and took a quick look around…

…and he saw that the red paddle on top of the Hydrovane self-steering gear was literally covered in ash, so it had lost the ability to point accurately as the disrupted flow over the airfoil had stalled the blade. He went aft and knocked the ash off the blade and the gear resumed steering correctly, but now he realized they had one more item to add to their hourly watch list.

“Dad,” Charles said from the cockpit, “is that snow?”

He reached up and caught a few flakes in his fingers and rolled them around, wincing as silicate crystals bit into his skin, then he looked up at his sails and winced again – when he realized the shard-like crystals were now coating everything in sight. “No! It’s ash, and we’ve got to get it off the sails, now!”

“With what?”

“Come with me,” he said as he held onto the lifelines and shrouds, pulling himself up to the bow. He opened the anchor locker and pulled out a long nylon garden hose on a reel and handed the free end to his boy, then he passed over a high-pressure nozzle. “Screw that on and start spraying from the top of the sails down, and rise off the decks last.”

“Is this fresh water?”

“No. Seawater. When we get some sun we’ll need to rinse everything down with fresh.” He turned on the seawater pump and the hose pressurized, and he watched his son as he did his best to reach the uppermost parts of both sails, but even so he wondered how long those sails would last under such adverse conditions.

+++++

Watch after watch, day after day – four hours at a stretch. He and Deni would take turns steering in the cockpit, leaving the other to do chores and inspections while Liz and Charles slept, then they’d switch off and get some sleep while his kids took the next four hour watch. When Sumner was at the wheel the little fox would curl up around his neck or fall asleep in the hood of his foul-weather jacket, and when he went to his cabin the hound would curl up with them.

He had finally mastered the fine art of divining water from the watermaker, and after that he insisted that everyone shower at least every other day. When shower time rolled around he started the engine to heat the water and everyone did their thing in one of the two showers onboard. There simply wasn’t enough sun to get a good charge from the solar panels, but as he had both wind and water generators making enough electricity to keep the ship’s lithium batteries fully charged, they had refrigeration and the watermaker to help them along.

On their fifteenth day out and deep in the ITCZ, or the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, the sun came out and the northerly winds abruptly fell away to at first a light breeze, then a few hours later to a dead calm. Then the temperature onboard went from the mid-40s and low-50s to the mid-80s, and with it an omnipresent and oppressive humidity that seemed to cling to their bodies. Charles and Sumner took down the sails and rinsed them thoroughly, then they let them air-dry while they looked for chafing and blown stitching. Deni and Haley washed the decks with scrub brushes and dish soap, and Charles asked about checking the underwater parts of the hull they couldn’t see – until he saw a couple of 12 foot hammerheads circling the boat.

And of course the hound started barking at the shark – which only piqued the beasts curiosity further.

“Hey, Doofus!” Charles shouted. “Why don’t you shut up!”

And that was how the dog got his name.

At least Doofus was smart enough to not jump in the water and go after the shark.

“Is that a shark?” Haley said when she came over to see what the commotion was all about.

“Yes,” Sumner said, “that’s a hammerhead. Think you can tell me why?”

She went to the rail and peered down at the thing: “The head. The shape of the head, but why is it like that?”

Deni came over and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “See how far apart the eyes are? It helps them see small prey when they get into a thick school of fish.”

“A school of fish?”

“That’s what you call a large group of fish.”

“A school?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Gee, I don’t know. You want to look it up after lunch?”

And that was how it happened. Just like that.

Two weeks ago not a one of them had known Haley but now she was family. Deni and Liz taught her when they had free time, and both Charles and Sumner did when their time off watch came ‘round. And maybe, Sumner thought, that was the way it always had been, until recently anyway. For a few hundred years we had warehoused kids like Haley in orphanages or special “homes” – but right here, right now, that just wasn’t an option. And while Haley talked about her old family she had embraced her new one, and naturally she had gravitated to the oldest as her new father.

And Sumner hardly knew how to take all the changes that had surrounded him. He had his children, the children he had fathered, yet now he had Haley, too, and yet somehow everything worked. Everyone “clicked” and fell into this new groove. 

Charles took to fishing off the stern rail, catching a tuna one day and then something that fought like hell until it finally snapped the line.

Then one morning, while Sumner was sleeping with his Fox and Hound, Charles called out: “Dad! Better come up here!”

At first he thought the voice was in the dream he’d been having lately, but the third time he heard his name being called he sat up and rubbed his eyes as he slipped into a clean t-shirt. “On my way,” he said as he made for the companionway.

And by that time everyone was already up there waiting for him. And Deni had the binoculars up to her eyes. 

“What is it?” Sumner asked as he waded into the crowded cockpit.

“I ran the radar out to 24 miles and got a return,” he said. “Bearing about 205 degrees, and it’s not moving.”

“Deni? You see anything?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing,” she said as she handed the Steiner’s to him. 

He swung the binos while he looked at the internal compass but all he could see was a pale white mist. “How far away is it now?”

They’d been motoring at 1800RPM, just fast enough to optimize their range while making decent headway, so they were slowly closing on the return.

“Eighteen miles, so not quite four hours.”

“Okay, let’s steer that way – at least until we get a visual on them.”

Deni looked at Sumner and slowly shook her head. “You have a gun onboard?” she asked quietly.

He turned and looked at her, then winked. “I don’t have one onboard, Ma’am. I have four.”

She grinned. “I like it!”

“Alright Dad!” Charles said, fist-bumping his old man for the first time, a gesture which did not go unnoticed by anyone. “Where are they?”

“My mattress lifts up. There are blankets and sheet under there, also two rifles, a shotgun and a pistol.”

“Fuckin’-A, man!” Charles said, suddenly more than happy. “Have an AR?”

“Do bears shit in the woods?”

“Dad?” Liz sighed. “I’m surprised at you.”

Sumner shrugged. “They’re here if we need them,” he sighed in return. “There’s a Marlin Guide Gun down there, too. Lever action, 45-70. An 870 pump, 12 gauge slugs, and a Sig 226 9mm.”

Liz shook her head. “You got enough to start your own little war, don’t you?”

Again, Sumner just shrugged. “Don’t start what you can’t finish, and if you can’t finish you’d better not start. Now, if you’ll excuse me I was in the middle of a spectacular dream and I’d like to get back to it. Charles, wake me at eight miles. Liz, finish up your chores and then get supper ready.”

He ducked below and instead of going back to sleep he took out all his firearms and reloaded them with fresh ammunition, then he checked each piece for any signs of corrosion – inside and out.

“You don’t like to take chances, do you?” Deni said, standing in the doorway to his cabin.

“The purpose of this boat, from the first day I laid eyes on her, was to be an escape vehicle.”

“Funny…I never took you for a prepper.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh? Trying for some irony right now?”

Sumner shook his head. “Lots of people knew this was coming, Deni. News reports were on Fox and CNN, and even on MSNBC, but everyone laughed it off. The USGS knew, FEMA knew, the White House and the Congress knew, but what no one knew was an exact timeframe. And that part of the puzzle was relayed to me a few months ago…”

“You mean…”

“Yes, everyone knew this was coming, and all the data pointed to a one week window. A friend of mine cued me in and I decided to act on the information. I could have just as easily stuck my head back into the sand…”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said.

“I find the whole thing overwhelming. The way my kids showed up. You, and even Haley. And yes, Doofus, you too. All this happened because of my friend.”

“Is that the guy you talk to on the SatPhone?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Patrick Grey. He writes spy novels.”

“Oh yeah. I read somewhere he was the real deal, like MI6 or something.”

“Or something.”

“Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s probably in Honolulu right now, waiting for a couple of boats to catch up to him. He’ll be coming to Papeete soon.”

“Mind if I ask you something personal?” Deni said.

Sumner sighed. “No.”

“Why are you alone?”

“Oh, the easy answer is that I had my chance, with their mother. And I blew it, big time, so the truth of the matter is I never really felt the need to try after that. I grew comfortable in my work, perhaps too comfortable, but time rolled right on by and now there’s this old man in the mirror…”

“You’re not that old,” she said playfully.

“Yes, I am. I’m coming up on 55, and in anyone’s book that makes me an old fart. Officially, as a matter of fact. I’ll be lining up to get my Social Security card…”

She laughed – a little.

“So, how old are you?” he asked.

“Thirty-five. I went to work for the LAFD as a paramedic after I got my Associate’s Degree, then I picked up a BS in Biochemistry and applied to med school. It took a couple of tries but I finally made it.”

“And then this happened.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she sighed, smiling. “I’ve had all the academics and most of the clinicals. I can take care of a gunshot wound or deliver a baby, but if you need open heart surgery you can count me out.”

“No boyfriend?”

“Once or twice. I made it clear my studies came first and that was all it took.”

“Ah. Failure of the imagination.”

“Now that sounds intentionally ironic,” she smiled.

“Oh?”

“You seemed as if you were surrendering to age just a moment ago.”

“Surrendering? No, not me. To surrender is to live your life looking back, to deny the future. When you look ahead all things are possible, yet if you turn around and focus on the past your spirit soon becomes old and brittle. There are no surprises, only the fear that comes with regret. If I had chosen to live in the past you and I would not be on this boat. Perhaps you and my daughter would be dead, this ungrateful hound, too. If there is but one trick to life, it is to keep looking ahead to tomorrow – to all of our tomorrows.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“It should. Jung said it.”

“The psychologist?”

Sumner smiled. “He was a physician and a psychoanalyst, but yes, you could say he was a psychologist, too. I take it you haven’t yet done your rotation through psychiatry?”

“No interest, but you’re correct. I haven’t yet.”

“On the bookshelf there behind you, yes, right there. Two books by Jung you must read. Man and His Symbols, and the other, right beside it, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. You need to read both, and sooner rather than later.”

“You surprise me, Charles. I suppose this answers the question ‘what books would you take with you to a desert island?’”

He smiled. “Maybe. and just FYI, but Patrick has an oncologist onboard. For his daughter.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Dad!” Charles said from the cockpit. “Got ‘em on the binoculars. Sails in tatters and no one moving on deck. Range coming up on eight miles now – oops, no, my mistake, call it three miles.”

Sumner shook his head and grabbed the Marlin, then he headed up the companionway to the cockpit. “Liz? Check the portlights for movement. Charles, I want to come at them from bow on, head to head and starboard to starboard. Deni? Take Haley below, would you, and maybe make us some Kool-Aid? The red kind?”

“Sure. Come on, Haley. Let’s go make some drinks.”

“Liz, take the helm. Charles, there’s an AR-15 out on the bed with one magazine. Bring it up now, would you?”

“You bet.”

“He’s such a jock!” Liz said once her brother was out of earshot.

“More like John Rambo if you asked me. Has he done much shooting?”

“He told Mom he had gone out with friends and did some and she went ballistic on him.”

Sumner nodded. “I should have been there for the both of you.”

“If I’m reading between the lines correctly, Dad, it wasn’t exactly your fault.”

“Don’t let me off so easily, Liz.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“A little more to the right. That’s it…I want to come in wide, then right alongside their boarding gate.”

“Here’re the binos,” Liz said, just as Charles came bounding up the steps two-at-a-time. 

“Ah, there he is, ladies and gentlemen…I give you…John Rambo!”

Charles looked flummoxed. “Who’s that?”

“Never mind,” Sumner said behind a long sigh. “I assume you know how to use that thing?”

“Yeah, sure, but there’s no full-auto on the selector switch…”

Sumner just shook his head again. “I don’t even want to know,” he muttered. “Stay on the steps just out of sight until – you hear different.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Liz, go ahead and cut your power now, let’s just coast alongside and I’ll hop across. You circle around again with Charles up here with that gun showing. Charles, try not to shoot me, okay?”

“You got it, Pops.”

Sumner looked to the heavens for a moment, then they came up on the other boat, from the looks of her she appeared to be an old Baba 40, and she was in pretty rough shape. When the two boats were abeam he hopped across and went to the cockpit, and Liz saw her father put his rifle on the coachroof and disappear below. A minute later he came up and cupped his hands around his mouth: “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah!” Charles shouted in return.

“Tell Deni there’s an orange EMT bag under the port settee, forward-most compartment. I need her over here now! And bring a shitload of water!”

The next time Liz circled around Deni hopped over and went to the little boat’s companionway, and she saw two people, a man and a woman and both very old, laying on the settees in the main cabin – and she guessed both were badly dehydrated and suffering from heat exposure. “You have any IV’s in this bag?” she asked.

“I don’t know; you’ll have to look. A medical supply house packed it for me.”

She climbed down the old wooden steps and then laid the huge bag on the galley countertop and opened it up – and right there on top was exactly what she needed. Stethoscope, thermometer, pulse-oximeter and a sphygmomanometer, and below that IV sets and several bags of saline, D5W, and Ringer’s solution. “Charles, we should raft up and move them aboard. It must be a hundred degrees down here.”

He popped up and found that Liz was already setting out fenders, then she tossed docklines over and he made them fast. “Charles? Generator on, then the inverter then the forward air conditioner. Shut the door to the forward cabin to help it cool down faster; we’ve got two elderly people down here and it looks like heat stroke.”

“Got it!”

“Liz? Let’s find some of their fenders and rig them up, just in case the wind pipes up.”

“Got it!”

He looked skyward again and nodded thanks to the heavens. “Tracy, you did a fine job with our kids.” He went back to Deni in the galley and saw she was pouring cool water under both of the elderly people’s armpits, then she took a washcloth and wiped their foreheads. “How are they?” he asked.

“Her temp is 102, but his is more like 104.”

“So we should move him first?”

She shrugged. “She’s more likely to survive, Charles. The longer we wait the less likely.”

“So you’re saying he can’t be saved?”

“She’s stronger right now.”

He sighed. He didn’t like the decision and didn’t want to contradict her, but he didn’t like it.

But she saw his reaction – and she knew where he was coming from, too. “Okay, we’ll move him first, but let’s not dawdle, okay?”

But Sumner went below and shouldered the woman first, and he shuddered when he realized she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. He easily carried her up the steps and handed her across to Charles, who turned and carried her below. The old man hardly weighed much more, and both were across in minutes, and Deni went about getting her IVs running in the air conditioned forward cabin.

And an hour or so later the old man opened his eyes and tried to sit up.

“Where am I?”

“You’re onboard our boat, a passing sailboat. We saw yours and came to investigate.”

“How’s Claire? Uh…that’s my wife?”

“Stable. Her temperature is coming down and her pulse is steady now.”

“May I have some water, please?”

“Do you feel nauseous or dizzy?”

“Dizzy. A little dizzy.”

“Okay. Here’s some cool water, but sip it down slowly for now, okay?”

The old man nodded as he drank down the glass, then he asked for more. “We ran out of water about a week after we hit the doldrums. Turned out we had a little leak in the water tank so our bilge pump was merrily pumping all our fresh water overboard…”

“Well, you’re both okay now, and we’re about 300 miles from the Marquesas. We’ll get you and your boat there then you can decide what to do.”

“You know, it got awful cold there for a while, then hot as a pistol. You hear about anything going on with the weather?”

“What have you heard about things recently? Like over the last two or so weeks?”

“Not a thing. I navigate with a sextant and a chronometer and about all I’ve picked up is the time hack from WWV.”

“I see. Well, there’ve been some bad developments along the Pacific coast. The Cascade fault cut loose and triggered at least four major volcanos as well as the San Andreas fault, and as a result the atmosphere is changing rapidly. It’s snowing in Honolulu right now and that weather is heading right for us, as we speak.”

The old woman sat up when she heard that. “Snow? In Hawaii…?” she moaned. “But it’s summertime, isn’t it?”

“I know,” Deni said. “It’s a lot to take in, but I want to get at least one more bag of fluids into you, then we’ll see about getting you back over to your boat…”

Deni came up to the cockpit an hour or so later and sighed. “Man,” she sighed, “I could use a pineapple smoothie right about now.”

Liz smiled. “I’ll get it, Dad. You two sit and talk.”

Deni saw that the Baba 40 was securely tied off and being towed now, and she was about thirty yards behind their boat now. Sumner looked at the tachometer and the fuel gauge and reckoned they’d be okay – as long as they could get enough fuel in the Marquesas to soldier on to Papeete.

But he hadn’t heard from Patrick in two days, which was not at all like him – so now he was a little worried about that, too. Actually, he was more than a little worried, but now he had the elderly couple to think about, as well.

“There’s only one physician listed in the islands,” Sumner told Deni when she asked about medical facilities in the Marquesas, “and as far as I can tell there’s only one pharmacy. They’re both in Atuona, on Hiva Oa. There’s a good harbor there, also a fuel dock, but it’s seventy miles further south.”

“So? What’s the problem?”

He turned and pointed to the northwest. “See those clouds?”

“Yes?” she said, suddenly sounding more than a little concerned.

“Yeah, well, they’re full of ash and the temperature is about 50 degrees cooler in there, so maybe freezing temps. We’re talking snow and ice, not rain, and while there’s no official word yet, it looks like there are fifty knot winds, which means fifteen to twenty foot waves will build quickly.”

“And there’s no way we can tow their boat under those conditions, right?”

“I doubt it. Liz and I are going to go over and see if we can rig an older set of sails they say they have stowed in the quarterberth, but I have no idea how well maintained that boat really is. If the water tanks leak, what else will go wrong?”

“You’re not thinking of putting them back on board, are you?”

He shook his head. “I’m thinking of scuttling her.”

“Charles. You can’t do that. It’s their home, everything they have is onboard.”

“Then we do what we can to make their boat ready and then let them decide what they want to do.”

She shook her head. “That’s not fair. You know what they’ll choose; it’s only natural to save your home and all your memories…”

“A lot of people have had to make unfair choices the last few weeks, Deni; we just haven’t had to watch all that play out.”

“God, you’re right. How many people died back there, Charles?”

“I don’t know, but FEMA’s estimate is in the ballpark of three to four million people just on the west coast. Ash and weather disruption have almost wiped out Idaho and Wyoming, and the wheat belt has been blanketed with several feet of ash, from Montana to Kansas. Only the New England states and the Canadian Maritimes are relatively untouched, but it’s snowing like mad all across the south right now. Same thing in Europe, and there were reports of three feet of snow in Tel Aviv yesterday.”

“So it’s going to be a new ice age?”

Sumner shrugged. “I don’t know, Deni. I don’t think anyone really knows anything right now. Every climate scientist is running computer simulations, but who knows how those predictions will turn out, let alone how accurate they’ll be. Right now my job is to get my family to safety, and that means I get you guys to Papeete.”

“Then what?”

“We start over. We claw our way back from the precipice. We’ll need medical facilities, but we may need to train nurses and physicians…so, you get my drift? People in different parts of the world may be cut off from one another for a long time, international trade may be difficult, so new regional centers of commerce may need to become more self reliant for a while, just to keep things going in the right direction and until we can start to rebuild globally.”

She shook her head. “I keep forgetting you’re an architect, so it was your job to think about cities as systems…”

“Interconnected systems, Deni. The history of our entire global civilization, from the early medieval period on, is the story of vast interconnected mercantile systems that literally, in just a few hundred years, spread out to every corner of the planet. And you know what? I doubt anyone ever planned it all out. It just happened. No one asked if it was the right or the wrong thing to do, because everyone’s survival was almost overnight wrapped up in the overall success of the system. Now we’re going to find out how resilient that system really is.”

“Charles? What if it isn’t as strong as we hoped?”

Sumner shrugged. “I guess we’ll be painting on cave walls and chasing bison for survival again.” He looked up and even in daylight the moon was just visible overhead, but he stared at it for the longest time before he spoke again. “We walked up there once, and we were about to again, but the thing is, Deni, we were all carried along on the shoulders of giants. We seemed to have lost sight of that recently. It’s like we got real good at tearing each other down, but along the way we forgot that before everything else came along – we were builders.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re here, Charles. To help put things back together again.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

+++++

The Silent Wake sailed past Point Teaehoa, and once they’d cleared the rocks Liz turned hard to port, making for the fuel docks at Atuona. Deni and her father were on MoonShadow, Claire and Roger Bartlett’s Baba 40, and they were now almost three miles behind The Silent Wake. 

No one on any VHF channel was answering their hails, and Sumner had been growing wary of approaching the islands, but last night they’d seen a small turboprop airliner take off from the tiny airport on the north shore of Nuku Hiva, and it had turned to the southwest, towards Papeete, before it disappeared. 

And the wall of clouds had – so far – remained mired on the far side of the ITCZ and – so far at least – the fair weather was holding.

Liz sailed into Ta’aoa Bay and circled about a mile off the breakwater, waiting for her father to catch up before entering the tiny harbor, but she swept the shoreline looking for activity through the binoculars. 

“See anything?” her brother asked.

“Oh yeah,” she muttered. “I’d say there’s a welcoming party forming up down on the wharf, and no one looks particularly happy to see us.”

“Smart. They don’t know when or even if they’ll see replenishments anytime soon. See anyone with a gun?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You know, it’s funny. The guidebooks all say the islanders are as friendly as can be.”

“Yup. Things change.”

“Man-o-man,” Charles sighed, “you got that right.”

Liz turned around and looked at the Baba 40 sailing along, then Claire Bartlett came uneasily up the companionway steps and crawled into the cockpit. “Oh, heavens,” she said, “but doesn’t this sun feel good.”

Liz smiled. “How’s Roger? Holding down his food?”

Claire smiled. “He actually said he’s hungry, so I think he’ll make it,” she said with a wry grin. “Thank you for taking care of us.”

Liz smiled noncommittally and nodded. “Glad we could lend a hand.”

“Oh, you all did much more than lend a hand. We’re grateful.” Claire looked around and sniffed at the air. “This isn’t Nuku Hiva, is it?” she sighed. 

“No, Hiva Oa. There’s a clinic here, just in case.”

“Oh yes, Phillippe. He’s very sweet.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, we’ve been coming to the islands for years. Well, no, decades really. Roger delivered half the babies on the island.”

“Your husband is a physician?”

“Yes, but we retired fifteen years ago, then two years ago we sailed north to explore the Sea of Cortez, and yes, I know – for a year – but you know how that goes. We ended up staying two, then sailing down the coast to Costa Rica. We found a great marina in Quepos and the medical care there is better than in the states.”

“You said ‘we’ retired?”

“Roger practiced surgery, I was an anesthesiologist.”

“And you’ve worked here, on the island?”

“Oh yes, off and on over the years.”

Liz looked at Claire and grinned. “Mind if I do some name dropping?”

“Oh, heavens no. Drop away.”

Liz nodded and picked up the CommandMic on the binnacle. “Sailing Vessel Silent Wake calling HarborMaster Atuona. We have two physicians onboard, Roger and Claire Barrett. Permission to enter the harbor and tie up?”

There was a short pause, then the speaker blared. “Silent Wake, Silent Wake, I need to speak with Dr Barrett first.”

Claire took the mic, clearly amused now: “Kalani? Where are your manners?”

“Dr Claire? Is this truly you?”

“Yes it’s me!”

“But this is not your boat, Dr Claire…”

“We ran out of water and the crew of this boat rescued us. Our boat is a few miles behind.”

Another pause followed, this one much longer.

“Of course you are welcome, and so are your friends! Please, you may enter the harbor now!”

“Thank you, Kalani, and thank your grandmother, too.”

+++++

If the Barretts weren’t exactly feted as local heroes, they were at least greeted as friends, and Sumner soon realized that friendship was in short supply in French Polynesia right now. Papeete was turning away some yachts now, or so they’d heard two days ago, but one of the small turboprops had come from Papeete yesterday, carrying supplies, mail, and some good news. An Air France cargo flight had arrived at Papeete the day before, and though it had taken a southerly routing it looked like France would be able to maintain a tenuous air link to the islands – for the time being, anyway. That meant medicines and the vital machinery needed for power generation would remain accessible for a while longer, and that was the best news Sumner had heard in days.

So when Sumner had walked up to the fuel dock to enquire about filling their tanks he was a little surprised when his request was denied.

“I’m sorry,” Kalani advised, “but we have no way to process payments and as far as I know we are no longer taking Dollars, at least for now.”

So Sumner had nodded – then fished his wallet out of his vest pocket and produced a one ounce gold bar and put it on the counter. “The last spot price for gold I saw was three days ago, and gold was at 4700 Euros. I need a few hundred liters of diesel and a whole lot of fresh produce. That ought to sell for a thousand Euros, give or take, even at your current prices. How about you take care of that for me and then why don’t you keep the difference?”

Kalani looked at Sumner, then at the gold bar, before he spoke next. “I think we have some fresh fish and milk, and by tomorrow we might have some eggs. Would you be interested in those?”

“Yes, my friend, and I’d say we have ourselves a deal.”

+++++

“I hate to say this,” Liz sighed, “but I’ve never been happier, or felt more alive.”

The Silent Wake was five miles out of Atuona and heading a little south of the usual course to Papeete, trying to keep out of the encroaching ash-cloud as long as possible, and everyone was feeling a little down after leaving the island.

Last night the islanders had prepared a dinner for the four of them, and the Barretts had come along – just to grease the skids, if needed. But almost everyone on the island had shown up and soon everyone was sitting around campfires and torchlight and Sumner had felt the scene was almost primeval, yet there had been something about the way the islanders had taken them in that had felt deeply touching. Even so, he felt a deeper connection now – not simply to the islanders but to life itself, and yet it felt like a mystery beyond comprehension. Our cities, he realized, had robbed us of this birthright.

Two days ago he and Charles had pulled down all their sails in order to wash any volcanic residue out of the fabric – and dozens of islanders had simply come down to help – because that was what you did with friends, what you were supposed to do when a traveler passed through the islands. You helped them on their way because you had made the journey yourself so you understood the needs of the journey, and of the traveler. 

After all their tanks had been filled and the boat cleaned, Kalani took them on a tour of the island, and along the way he had shown them houses that were no longer used.The Barretts were, therefore, going to move into one of them – because they were family here and the villagers would take care of them when they could no longer take care of themselves. And then Kalani had turned to Sumner, then pointed at the house next to the Barrett’s. “This will be your home when you visit, and when it is your time,” he’d said.

“I’d be honored to call this my home, Kalani.”

And when Kalani bowed Sumner returned the gesture…cementing the union.

“And in a way, that was that,” Charles said to Liz as she made a minor course correction. “I think I understand, too. There was something magic about our time on that island.”

Liz nodded. “I think Charles fell in love, Dad.”

“He’d be a goddamn fool not to. That girl was gorgeous.”

“I’ve never seen him mope around like this – and never over a girl,” Liz said, grinning.

Charles had met an islander at one of the fireside dinners they’d enjoyed on the beach with Kalani and his family, and probably because half the people on the island showed up, too. Phillippe, the Parisian who’d settled on the island decades ago to practice medicine, had been instrumental in talking the Barretts into sailing on to Papeete and trying to coordinate a medical training program, and that’s when Charles met Leilani. She had made the trip to France to study medicine years before and had returned to the island about a year ago, but Sumner picked up a vibe the islanders held towards her. Leilani was bright as hell and the chemistry between she and Charles was palpable, bright enough to light up the night, but Kalani told Sumner the girl no longer really considered herself an islander, and in fact she seemed to look down on the other islanders – after almost ten years in France. Sumner watched his son and the girl with mixed emotions after that, but it was impossible to ignore his son’s feelings towards the girl.

Claire and Roger, on the other hand, had decided to sail on to Papeete – but with Sumner on The Silent Wake. Their Baba 40 was a heavy displacement monster of a blue-water boat but her systems were old and in a blow she was becoming too much for the old couple to handle. They’d left her tied up to the main wharf, and Kalani knew enough about boats to take care of her while they were away, but the Barretts were unsure what they’d do with the boat now. Helping to set up a new medical school in Papeete would be a years-long endeavor – and though they were already 80 years young it was doubtful that making more long ocean crossings was in the cards for them.

Sumner had also agreed to carry two large sacks of outgoing mail so had, in effect, taken on a government contract – and though he hadn’t thought of it all that much at the time, the island’s administrator had given him a document stating he was carrying the island’s mail and that his office had licensed him to do so.

So what filled Sumner’s mind as he sailed away from Hiva Oa was a sense that he had – without any effort on his part – put down roots on the island. Had he been beguiled, or had he not been thinking clearly? Or with so much cataclysmic change dwarfing all other considerations, had the idea of belonging anywhere once again overwhelmed his ability to rationally process the cascading waterfall of recent events? Kalani didn’t know his background or what he had done to make a living, so why extend binding ties to a comparative stranger? But then again, so too had the island’s administrator. Had rescuing the Barretts done all that? Simple coincidence, or destiny? The age old question again.

But now Sumner had several, more immediate problems.

More ash was visible now, both in the air and on Silent Wake’s decks, so everyone pitched in to rinse the sails several times a day. And it was growing cold out, especially at night, and during their second night out it began snowing hard. But of even more immediate importance, their course would take them right through the middle of the Tuamotu Archipelago, the so-called Dangerous Archipelago. Even in the age of GPS and with vast libraries of cartographic information now easily accessible through even modest chart plotters, the Tuamotus remained poorly charted and were therefore still quite dangerous. This meant that it was still more than possible to chart a “safe” course through the islands and run into an uncharted coral head where only deep water was indicated on the most up-to-date marine cartography.

True, he had sonar to help but often human eyes were better at picking out the subtle color variations of the sea – where the lighter the observed water color the shallower the depth. But that maxim best applied to clear, sunny days, not gray, ash-filled blizzards full of blowing snow, so they would have to pick their way through two or three areas where poor chart coverage was the norm.

On their third day out Sumner found the decks glazed in gray ice, and holding onto handrails and lifelines he made his way forward to check on the standing rigging and he found these too were literally encased in ice. The bottom four feet of his current foresail, a 110 percent high cut ‘yankee’, was completely coated in a combination of frozen sea-spray and slimy ash-laden ice, and that’s when it hit him. Most of the islanders in the Tuamotu survived by catching rain in cisterns, but if they drank this rainwater, or attempted to melt snow and drink that, they would ingest almost instantly fatal amounts of razor sharp ash particles. Could he warn them? And even if he did, how long could people resist the temptation to drink when they were literally dying of thirst? And if they drank the tainted water – then what?

“Dad,” Liz said as they approached Rangiroa a day later, “there are almost 3000 people on this atoll. What are they going to do?”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about their water supply…”

“Their water? Hell, Dad, it’s 22 degrees out here! That’s ten degrees below freezing and these people are used to a year-round temperature in the high 70s! You think anyone on these islands has a ski parka?”

“Liz, they collect all their water in rooftop cisterns.”

“Oh sweet Jesus. Dad, they aren’t going to make it, are they?”

But Sumner only shrugged – because he didn’t know what to say. The islanders were powerless to affect the outcome, and with the coming of the ash cloud that meant that these islands’ air-links to Papeete were now cut. The only links in the foreseeable future would be by sea – assuming, he thought, these islanders lived long enough. What they would need, and soon, was a water desalinization plant and the power to run it, and as this was in the nature of his training he started thinking through the problem – because he was sure no one else would.

They picked their way through the low lying atolls using sonar and by virtue of the boat’s hot water system. Sumner and Roger rigged a fresh water deck wash-down system that pumped fresh hot water up onto the deck and allowed them to spray down the sails, knocking the ice off and allowing the sails to function properly.

Three days later they limped into Papeete, and Sumner was the first to admit that sailing through the ash was the most daunting experience of his life, and he’d only had to sail under those conditions for a week. How long would their equipment last under these conditions?

And how, he wondered, had Patrick fared on his voyage from Hawaii? He headed to the reserved slip and called the harbormaster on 16, and then he waited for a reply.

And he waited and waited…

Part 6

The problem with Patrick Grey, C. Llewelyn Sumner was beginning to realize, was that you couldn’t believe anything he said – or did, for that matter. He was too adept at subterfuge, too good at concealing his true motives and objectives. Sumner was now also realizing that Grey enjoyed fucking with people’s minds, and maybe for the shear fun of doing so, too. Was Grey a true psychopath, or merely a sociopathic narcissist – or had he misread the old spy completely?

Once in Papeete, The Silent Wake’s lines had been made fast at the tiny, semi-circular marina along the Place Jacques Chirac, and Sumner gathered his wits about him as he recognized and then stared at the SV Haiku – docked about a hundred yards away across a narrow fairway and looking about as regal as the day he’d first laid eyes on her in Seattle. He saw lights coming on belowdecks now that the sun was slipping beneath the far horizon, but he could also see that two men were loading pallets of cargo on Haiku’s deck. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he also saw a group of what appeared to be passengers queuing up to board, and this he found more than a little unnerving.

So without bothering to clear-in with Customs, Sumner hopped down to the dock and jogged around the wharf until he came to Haiku’s boarding platform; without asking a soul he bounded up the stairs two at a time and then ducked into Haiku’s aft pilothouse – expecting to find Patrick. But – there was no Patrick onboard waiting for him – just a man about his age with a Golden Retriever by his side, and the man was hunched over the chart table busily filling out paperwork as he prepared Haiku for departure.

“Excuse me,” Sumner blurted out, “but where’s Patrick?”

And at that point the man looked up and finally acknowledged Sumner’s presence: “You’re Charles, right? Charles Sumner?” the stranger said with a smile as he extended his right hand.

Sumner nodded as he took the man’s hand in his own.

“You might as well call me Spud,” the man said as he opened a drawer and pulled out an envelope. “Everyone else does,” he added as he passed the envelope to Sumner. “Here. You need to read this here, and now, please, in case I can answer any questions for you before we leave.”

“Leave? Where are you off to?”

“Back to Honolulu. We’re carrying mail and a bunch of diplomats up there before the weather gets too bad, and once we finish there we’ll be turning right around and coming back with medicines and more patients. Like I said, you need to read that now. We’re leaving on the tide.”

Sumner sat and opened the large manila envelope, and as he started reading through Patrick’s instructions he almost wanted to laugh out loud. The plan’s audacious foresight was stunning, and the resources available to get the enterprise going were staggering, but at one point he looked up when he realized that ‘Spud’ was staring at him.

“You’re the architect, right?” Spud said. “You were working on the new civic center?”

“That’s right,” Sumner replied.

“You designed his house? The one by the locks?”

Sumner nodded. “Hard to imagine it’s gone now.”

Spud smiled, which seemed odd, yet there was understanding in the man’s eyes, too. “Both your kids make the trip in good shape?”

“Yes. They’re both here,” Sumner replied, now wondering how much this stranger knew about him.

“The other girl – what’s her name?”

“Deni Elliott, she’s a third year med student.”

Spud nodded: “So I hear.”

“I’ve two elderly physicians onboard, as well; she’s been taking care of them.”

“You read the third part of the contract yet?”

“No. Just the first two.”

“Better finish up,” Spud said as he looked at his watch.

Sumner took out the thick third part of the package and skimmed through it once, then reread several key passages before he looked up at Spud again. “So that’s why we have a mail contract to the Marquesas?”

Spud nodded. “You’ll need to stop at Rangiroa on your way back to Atuona, but, well, you need to make the drive before you go.”

“Assuming, that is, I opt to go along with this scheme.”

“Oh? I assumed you knew that your clearance into Tahiti was predicated on that.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Oh, that’s the way it was put to me when I arrived, so I assume the same applies to you: either sign-on or you can leave. The problem, as far as I can tell, anyway, is that Australia and New Zealand have closed their borders. That leaves Chile or Peru as available options, or maybe Sri Lanka, but with absolutely no guarantee of employment – or even entry. On the other hand, if you sign on with Patrick you’re home-free. You have a reserved spot in paradise with your name on it, and that means more than just survival. In fact, whether you know it or not, you’re now quite rich. All you have to do is help get this enterprise up and running, and look at it this way…you’re guaranteeing your kids get to have a life here, too.”

“What about this drive? What’s up with that?”

“Sorry. I can’t say a word about that. You can either go or get on your boat and leave, and I mean right now.”

“Okay.”

Spud opened another drawer and handed car keys over to Sumner. “Here are the keys, and, oh yes, assuming you stay the car is yours. The parking space, too. Blue Land Rover in space 7, almost right in front of where your boat is tied up.”

“My, my, he’s thought of everything, hasn’t he?”

Spud smiled, but still he didn’t say much. “We’ll be gone by the time you get back, and you’re to go up alone.”

“Up…where?”

“Directions are in the glove box. Nice to meet you, Charles, and I hope you’re here when I get back. We have a lot to talk about.”

Sumner took the keys and walked back along the same wharf over to the parking lot Spud had indicated and yes, he found the late model Land Rover in space 7, and once inside he found a map in another envelope on the passenger seat with a set of directions attached, but then, as he was setting his seat and adjusting the mirrors Liz and Charles ran up to the window and knocked on the glass.

“Dad? Where’re you going?” Liz asked as his window finished whirring down.

“Just an errand to attend to, and I should be back in a few hours. Still, well, stay onboard until I get back.”

“Some men came for Deni,” Liz said, her voice full of concern. “They helped her pack then took her over to that big gray sailboat.”

“Okay,” he managed to say, but everything about this day was beginning to feel surreal.

“Dad? What’s…?”

“Liz, I can’t tell you anymore than that right now because, well, because just I don’t know what’s going on myself. You both just stay on the boat, will you? That’s all I can say for now.”

“Dad? What about the Barretts?”

“They’ve been fine for a week, Liz, but if something happens before I get back you’ll just have to call for an ambulance.”

Charles spoke up now: “Dad, go do what you need to do. We’ll take care of things here.”

Sumner looked at his son anew, and maybe he felt a little pride in the moment, too, but he smiled as he started the Rover’s motor and turned up the heat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said as he backed out of the parking space and pulled out into light traffic, now even more confused. Why…Deni? What was going on?

And he found that the truck’s GPS had already been programmed to guide him along the indicated route, so he followed the prompts until he was cruising southbound along the west coast of the island in the very last light of the day. Within a few minutes it was dark out and not even the craggy mountains off to his left remained visible. 

About ten miles outside of Papeete he turned inland on a very small paved lane, but within a few hundred yards the pavement gave way to red sand and crushed gravel, and soon enough the Rover began climbing a steep traverse through dense jungle-like foliage. Then, after about a quarter mile of crawling along slower than he could walk, the Rover emerged from the undergrowth – and C. Llewelyn Sumner, A.I.A., stared in frank, open-mouthed wonder at Patrick Grey’s pure, unadulterated audacity.

For there, tucked away nicely on the side of an unseen mountain was – the Grey House. In fact, it was an exact replica of the house he’d designed and built by the Ballard Locks in Seattle…and from a hundred yards away the house appeared the same in every detail, right down to the many well tended gardens tucked away almost out of sight.

And as he approached the house the front door opened, and who else but Patrick Grey stepped from the light and out into the night.

And Sumner was struck by the smile on the old man’s face, which all of a sudden felt strangely familiar, in a tragic, lonely sort of way.

+++++

“Patrick, there’s absolutely no conceivable way you earned enough money to do all this by selling those silly spy stories,” C. Llewelyn Sumner sighed as he took in the same living room he’d built once upon a long time ago beside Puget Sound. “That goddamn yacht must’ve set you back a king’s ransom, but this is preposterous! When did you have it built?”

“Oh, as soon as we broke ground up in Seattle. I built one here and another in New Zealand, on the South Island, just in case.”

“You…just in case of what?”

“You can never be too careful, Charles, especially where real estate is concerned.”

“Patrick? The money involved here…”

“Was significant. Yes, I know, but there were debts involved that I had to make good on.”

“Debts? What on earth are you talking about?”

Patrick looked at the ancient blades hanging over the fireplace and sighed. “You met Spud, I take it?”

“Spud? Oh yes, down on Haiku. What about him?”

“Oh, you asked about debts, so we might as well discuss his. First things first, I suppose.”

“His?”

“Well, you see, I knew his father, but then again I knew your father, too.”

“What?”

“We met at Stanford; the three of us were good friends before they each departed, both, as a matter of fact, to Santa Barbara. Odd, don’t you think, the three of us linked through one school, then both your father and Spud’s leaving at the same time and settling in the same city.”

C. Llewelyn Sumner felt an icy shiver run up his spine. “Patrick? What are you saying?”

“Not a word, Charles. Not a single word. Yet I hate to say it but I used Spud, and rather mercilessly on more than one occasion. The last time I did so very nearly cost him his life, so that represents one debt I needed to repay…”

“My father? You knew my father?”

Patrick nodded gently and with just the faintest hint of a smile almost showing on his remorseless face. “I did indeed. And I knew your mother too, Charles.”

It wasn’t what Patrick said that bothered him just then…it was the way he said those last few words. The smile, the intonation…both implied an intimacy that was completely out of place…given current circumstances. “What are you implying, Patrick?”

“Not a thing, Charles. Remember? Not one word.”

“Would you at least answer me this? Are you in any way capable of the truth, or are you a congenital liar?”

Patrick beamed and nodded maniacally. “Yes to both, Old Top!” he cried, slapping his knees as he skipped through the words like a stone flying across a pond.

“Patrick!” C. Llewelyn Sumner bellowed. “Enough! What the devil is going on?”

Grey nodded and gathered himself before he continued. “Ah yes, to the point. Well, you see, once upon a time I was involved in all manner of things concerning North Korea, and at one point I learned that a rather disagreeable fellow, his name was, I seem to recall, Kim Jong-il, and, well, he was using illegally acquired plates to print-up boat loads of one hundred dollar bills, and Charles, I mean to say he was printing up quite a few of them, okay? Now it turned out he had some difficulty distributing all this currency so he enlisted one of his friends from the old Soviet KGB, a certain chap named Putin, as it happened. Now, Kim called Vladimir when he had a large enough batch of currency ready to transship and Vladimir would dutifully send a small ship, usually a small Krivak-class frigate assigned to the KGBs Border Guards, and these ships usually came to a small naval base in North Korea, Mayang-Do I seem to recall was the name of the place. On the night in question I’d arranged for your Navy to fly one of their Cobra Ball missions along the Kamchatka Peninsula, but that night we also had a large number of Intruders and Prowlers enter Russian airspace. This of course made for a rather extensive and aggressive Russian response, and two things resulted – yet only one of these things I counted on happening. The first, the KGB frigate returned to base, and I had foreseen this development; the second I did not foresee, however, because Spud was shot down. Over the sea, thankfully, but the North Pacific in March is a somewhat inhospitable place, as I’m sure you can now imagine. Considerable resources were expended recovering those four men, by the way, but we had also dressed up a small Japanese frigate to look something like one of those old Soviet Krivaks…”

“You didn’t…”

“Oh, yes, I did. In all the confusion, what with everyone’s air defense radars going absolutely bonkers, we slipped our little ship into port and had all manner of Russian-speaking officers on hand to supervise loading the currency onto the helicopter deck, and before anyone was the wiser our ship departed North Korean waters and returned to Hokkaido. Unfortunately, several pallets of hundred dollar bills were misplaced during the transshipment…”

“You…what?”

“I think you heard me, Charles. And so I managed to squirrel away several hundred million dollars of this counterfeit currency, in due course deposited in smaller Asian banks, mind you.”

“You can’t be serious…”

“Oh, but I am. Or, should I say I was. And no one appeared to be any the wiser. Or to even care, for that matter.”

“So you…”

“Socked things away for a rainy day, Charles. And do you know what? It’s absolutely amazing what you can accomplish when you have almost nine hundred million in the bank.”

Charles smiled. “I wouldn’t know, Patrick. But what has all this to do with our parents and Santa Barbara?”

“Oh, Spud’s father was barren. As a matter of fact, so was yours.”

C. Llewelyn Sumner recoiled under the body blow hiding behind Patrick’s words, and he turned away from the pain. “You can’t know that, Patrick,” he hissed.

“As I said, Charles, we were all good friends.”

“You can stop now, Patrick.”

“Certainly. And as you said, I am a congenital liar, so think nothing of it.”

“I don’t know who or what you are,” C. Llewelyn Sumner sighed, “and I’m not sure I want to know, but why am I here?”

“You have the mail contract from the officials in Atuona?”

“Yes?”

“Good. We’ll be running cargo services to the islands for the time being,” he began…

“You want me to use my boat…”

“No, no, of course not. Your boat is far too small, so I’d imagine you just call her home for now. I’ve located two old schooners, did a few months back, before all the recent unpleasantness, and they’ve been updated and are ready to go. I understand Miss Elliott is on Haiku now, so I’d recommend you leave your daughter and that little girl, and those two physicians onboard while you and Charles make your first run back to Rangiroa and Atuona…”

“Excuse me, but how did you know about Deni or the Barretts?”

“What, didn’t you know? Miss Elliott is in my employ.”

“Of course she is,” C. Llewelyn Sumner sighed – as he shook his head in disbelief.

And Patrick smiled again, his triumph now complete.

Sumner looked away, not sure if he even wanted to know the answer to the next most obvious question, but then he just blurted it out: “So, are you telling me this…Spud…is my brother?”

But Patrick just shrugged. “Not a word, Charles. Remember?”

“Sure.”

“Now, how about something to drink. On the terrace, perhaps?”

Patrick led him out onto the patio behind the house, and Sumner was stunned into silence once again. Across a deep valley he saw an illuminated construction site, and he turned to face Patrick once again, this time in open-mouthed wonder. “What are you building now?”

“A small university, dedicated to the sciences.”

“A medical school, too, I assume?”

“There isn’t one in the islands,” Patrick said emphatically, “but that will change soon enough. Perhaps you’ll consider teaching architecture one day?”

“Perhaps,” C. Llewelyn Sumner said. “What else are you planning?”

“Me? Oh, I think I’ll sit up here in my house, and who knows, perhaps I’ll write another novel.”

Sumner almost laughed at that. “That seems a little out of character, even for you, Patrick.”

Patrick nodded. “Your new vessel is docked right where Haiku was. You’re to get underway the day after tomorrow. You’ll have passengers, and it probably wouldn’t hurt your son’s feelings to spend some more time with Leilani…”

“And oh, of course, you know about her, too.”

Patrick smiled. “If, in the course of things, your son was to marry Leilani, that would, oh, cement certain relationships with the island’s leadership. These might prove helpful to you, in the long run.”

“What on earth are you going on about, Patrick?”

“Well, I should think it’s rather obvious, Charles. France will soon be little more than a memory, and French Polynesia will no longer be the mere colonial outpost she once was. Not to make too much of the matter, but these islands, along with Australia and New Zealand, now hold a large percentage of the remaining population of what was once considered Western Civilization, and with what I’m hearing we should do everything in our power to preserve what we can, while we can. Get my drift?”

“If you don’t mind, what, exactly…are you hearing, Patrick?”

“Most of the northern hemisphere is now buried in ash and snow, and several short wave stations report that conditions in many parts of Europe and North America are now quite primitive. So, consider this, Charles, if you will. Europe, the United States, Russia and China – have all been, for all intents and purposes, well, let’s just say that life there has been severely disrupted.”

“Are there any long term weather forecasts?”

“Of course. And one of them might even be correct, too.”

Sumner understood the sarcasm. “So, no one knows what’s going to happen, right?”

“I’d say that’s more than likely, Charles, yet some trends appear obvious at this point. Oceania will become the principal zone of a new civilization, South America another. Northern India appears to be snowbound at this point, as is North Africa, so let’s call the rest of those areas part of the great unknown, at least for now. Yet here we are, located halfway between two known regions where the climate may not exert such cataclysmic consequences. And we’re further north so we might enjoy less severe variation in the weather, once things stabilize, anyway.”

“Patrick, what if this is the beginning of the next Ice Age?”

“Indeed. That is The Question, Charles. If it is, well then, it will be the revenge of the southern hemisphere, won’t it? If industry can relocate down here before conditions deteriorate, well, that could lessen the impact substantially. But assume they can’t get their act together in time to salvage much. In that case, being able to move goods and ideas between these regions will become very important. We’ll have to establish launch services, too, in order to maintain international communications and navigation services, won’t we? Can you imagine everything we’d need to undertake just that?”

“Don’t tell me…?”

“About 550 miles south of here, on Rurutu. SpaceX and ESA should be able to resume launch services within the year, perhaps sooner. Blue Origin and ULA have been building a huge facility near Darwin for some time, and a Japanese startup is attempting to join them. I think you might see recent events as just one more reason why we need to be a multi-planetary species?”

“How did you convince SpaceX?”

“Me? I simply purchased the appropriate land and then passed along the seeds of an idea. It has a logic all its own, of course, but the possibility of something like this happening has been increasing for some time, years in fact. Again, it was only logical to spread these services evenly around the planet…just in case.”

“And you’ve done all this…with counterfeit money?”

“Oh, yes, but that was the beauty of the idea all along, Charles. The stupendous irony of the entire plan, really. And all that bogus money printed up by a communist dictator, and then laundered through communist banks. Don’t you just love it! Look what I’ve managed to do with such nonsense! A university, a medical school, helping to build a spaceport and the transportation infrastructure to hold a large part of the world together. Not bad, eh? And all it took was a lot of fake paper. Truly strange, don’t you think?”

“Strange, yes, but at what cost, Patrick?”

“At what cost, indeed. I’ll leave you to think of all the consequences, Charles, from the comfort of the life I’ve provided you and your children.”

“I see.”

“Do you? I’m so glad,” Patrick said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Before you leave, am I to take it that you’ll be an employee of Grey House?”

“Oh, sure thing, Dad,” Sumner said as he turned and walked through the house and out the front door. His stomach was now so upset he didn’t know if he’d make it out to the Rover, but once he was behind the wheel he drove back through the enveloping darkness to the docks in Papeete. Once in ‘his’ parking space he took the keys out of ‘his’ car and walked back to ‘his’ slip in the marina, then he looked across to where Haiku had been berthed. Now there was a rather elegant white hulled schooner lying-in-wait there, and he sucked in a deep breath then shook his head. This too was ‘his,’ wasn’t it? But how could all this be real when nothing was real anymore?

‘Is the old bastard really my father?’ he asked himself. ‘And this Spud? Is he my brother? If it’s true then I’m where I should be. Helping them, because they are my family. But what if they aren’t? But…does it make any difference now? Really? Where else could we go?’

Not really knowing what else to do, Sumner stepped out of the Land Rover and walked out to The Silent Wake. Liz and Haley were waiting for him in the cockpit, and Tracy was curled up on the little girl’s lap – waiting – while that red haired retriever was curled up on Haley’s feet. 

“Did you get something to eat while you were out?” Liz asked.

“No.”

“Well, sit down. I’ll fix you a plate.”

Sumner sat. “Could you grab my sweater, please? And where’s Charles?”

Liz pointed to the white-hulled schooner where Haiku had been. “Over there,” she said as she disappeared down the companionway.

Sumner shook his head as he looked at the schooner. It looked like her hull was steel, but there was a lot of teak showing topsides. Her masts were painted tan so he couldn’t tell what they were made of, yet all the sails he could see were on roller-furling rigs, and they looked out of place on her. He guessed she was over a hundred-twenty feet long so knew she’d be a handful, but about that time he saw several men working on her anchors up forward on a long bowsprit, so maybe there was already crew onboard. Charles, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Liz came up a few minutes later with one of her Thai coconut soups, this one loaded with all kinds of fresh seafood, so he looked at her again. “Where’d all the fresh stuff come from?”

Liz shrugged. “Someone from that ship came over and dropped it off. She looked like a cook, but don’t ask me…I’m a stranger here myself.”

“Tell me about Deni.”

“A doc came over from Haiku, and all he said was: ‘You ready to go?’ And Dad, it was like she knew the guy…”

“Because she did.”

“What?”

“She was planted onboard, Liz. By someone who wanted to make sure you made it to the boat in San Francisco.”

“Wait…but that means…”

“Your meeting wasn’t an accident. Yes, I know. It’s all a little disturbing.”

“Is that what your meeting was about?”

Sumner nodded. “Yeah, in a way. What do you think of this place?”

“What? Papeete? I don’t know, Dad. We didn’t exactly get a chance to wander around, ya know?”

He sighed. “Charles and I are taking that boat back to Atuona the day after tomorrow.”

“What? I’m not going?”

“Not this trip. I need you to stay here with the Barretts and Haley. We’ll check in with Customs in the morning, then you can head out and explore some if you want.”

“If I want? Dad, are you kidding? I’ve been holed up on this boat for a month…of course I want to get away…and I want to go home, too.”

Sumner shook his head. “There’s not much left to go back to, Liz. Apparently most of the country is, well, it’s buried under a lot of snow and ash, and it could take years before things get back to anything like normal…”

“Dad? What are you saying?”

“Well, it might be best to start thinking of this as home now, Liz, and about all I can tell you is we’re lucky, actually very lucky to be here.”

“Is it really that bad back home? I mean, I kinda guessed California was bad, but you’re saying the whole country…?”

“Yes, that’s right. As I understand it, given what little we actually do know, conditions are far worse than originally reported, and they’ll remain so for quite some time. Possibly several years.”

And while Liz seemed to struggle with the idea, ten year old Haley hardly seemed phased. Then again, the more Sumner had learned about her parents the more he realized she’d been a very unhappy little girl, so any change at all must’ve seemed like a positive development to her. And it sure hadn’t hurt matters when Liz jumped in and started carrying the load, stepping in to fill the role of big sister and mom, all in one. Right now the little girl was rubbing Tracy’s fur, completely in love with the idea that she now had a real fox to play with.

“Dad? What about school?”

“We’re working on that. I did read that there is a something like a pre-med program here, but most of the kids went back to France to complete med school. Maybe by the time you finish your undergrad coursework the new school will be ready to take students.”

“Don’t they speak French here?”

“Yup.”

“So…won’t I need to learn?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“Dad, I was never good at languages…”

“Liz, maybe you never really had a good enough reason to apply yourself to learning a new language. Now you do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”

“Liz, this kind of change used to be more common, but you grew up during a period of relative calm and stability, at least until recently. The thing is, Liz, change like this has always been inevitable, so people changed with the times. If you didn’t, or couldn’t, you, well, you went away, for want of a better way of thinking about it. People who managed change passed you by, left you behind. So, you accept change and deal with it or you don’t. The choice is yours, but let me give you a little piece of advice. That change is happening right now. Not tomorrow or the day after – but right now. You can’t put off doing what you need to be doing, you simply have to hit the ground running and stay focused on your goals.”

Liz smiled. “Mom used to talk to us like that.”

“I hope you listened.”

She nodded and smiled evasively – just like every other teenager he’d ever met. “I guess I understand, Dad. So, you and Charles are leaving and I’m supposed to stay here on the boat with Haley?”

“That’s right. I’ll get you set up with the bank before we leave, and we’d better go out and round up some food and get it stowed in the morning.”

“Dad, could I ask you something personal?”

Sumner nodded, but he noticed she suddenly seemed more than a little uneasy, too.

“You and Deni…after we left the Marquesas it felt like you two were getting close.”

He tried not to smile – yet he wasn’t quite successful: “And?” he just managed to say.

“It’s not exactly a big boat, Dad.”

“I’m sorry – what?”

“You two made a, well, you made a lot of noise one night.”

He nodded but looked away. “You sure it was us?”

“Dad? Really? She was screaming ‘harder–deeper’ and it wasn’t exactly subtle, you know.”

“I was a little out of practice, Liz. Clumsy doesn’t even begin to…”

“Dad? Do you love her?”

He looked away – if only because he’d been struggling with that very question for several days – but in the end he managed to look even more perplexed than he felt.

“Okay, Dad. Sorry I asked.”

“Liz, I don’t know the answer to that one myself, but in a way I almost felt like I was betraying your mother…”

“Oh, Dad! She left you, what? Twenty years ago?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Are you saying you haven’t been with anyone since?”

He nodded, and suddenly he realized he felt a little ashamed by the admission.

“Dad! That’s not right! You need companionship…and I don’t mean that silly fox…”

“She’s not silly, Liz,” Sumner said – maybe a little too defensively. 

“Dad?”

“Hm-m?”

“Dad, you need to get out more. Get drunk and howl at the moon. Make a few good memories, ya know?”

He looked around at the little city and wondered what lay ahead. Deni would be back about the time he made it back from his run to Hiva Oa, and maybe he could better answer Liz’s question after a little more time with Deni, but then again she wasn’t really what she’d at first appeared to be. No, she was a spy.

Just like Patrick.

But in a way, wasn’t he becoming just one more cog in Patrick’s machinery? Wasn’t he becoming just another spy?

+++++

The Evening Star.

That was the white-hulled schooner’s name, and she was actually rather pretty, in a late 19^th- century sort of way. Just above the waterline round portlights extended from bow to stern, and there were twenty passenger cabins on that deck, ten to a side, with an engine room amidships. The next deck up, from amidships aft, were the living spaces – the galley and dining room, mainly – and a large cargo compartment took up the forward half of the ship. The expansive teak-planked decks were above that deck, and while she was a sailing ship most of her sails could be tended from the wheelhouse.

And Sumner had been surprised how much cargo she could carry. Several tons, anyway. Bottled water and a generator-run desalination rig for Rangiroa, medical supplies to be dropped off at three ports. And mail – tons of it – going to the islands.

Charles was working with the crew, learning how to load their cargo to best distribute the weight, while Sumner went over the passenger manifest, filling out the paperwork that would be signed-off on by Customs.

And once the officer from the Customs House came by, he officially had “cleared out” and at that point had to leave. He confirmed that all their passengers were aboard and accounted for, then his crew shipped their lines and he motored away from the wharf. And just like that he was back at sea, just like any other sailor.

Liz and Haley were on Silent Wake, up on deck when they passed, and they waved at him as The Evening Star passed on its way out the harbor, so he hit the air-horn twice and waved back, and it was hard to imagine life without them now. Another huge change… 

Then he looked at Moorea across the channel and, once they were clear of the island, he set his course for Rangiroa as he scanned the sea ahead through binoculars.

Change. Merciless, inevitable change. That was what waited out there. An endless sea of change.

Sitting at the wheel it was hard not to daydream, to not think about all the things that had been, once upon a time, so precious in that other life. Now all that past was gone and in a way it was like none of it had ever really happened, or like all that life existed only in a faraway dream slipping further from his grasp. Like time had never existed. Time was just a construct, a convenience we employed to measure out the bits and pieces of our existence, places along the way to drop the milestones of our lives…

He looked at the radar, noted a line squall ahead and decided to reef all sail well ahead of the storm – because, what was that old saying? If you have to think about shortening sail – it’s probably already too late? Taking in sail or measuring out the most important moments of our lives – was that the way it worked…or was it already too late?

Charles came in just then, his foul-weather gear smeared by the oily gray-green mix of rain and ash that coated everything these days, but he looked bright and happy this morning. Handling change wouldn’t be a problem for this boy, he knew. Charles was solid muscle, even between his ears, so he’d just keep on keeping on until the party was over. So unlike Liz – who was like her mother, a total empath and lost among all her cares.

“Waves are getting big,” his son sighed. “Gonna be a rough ride.”

Sumner looked at Charles, then at the building seas – but just then he felt her playing with his shoelaces so he bent down and picked up Tracy and held her close. They looked at one another for the longest time before she leaned in and kissed his chin, and all was right with C. Llewelyn Sumner’s little world again – because Tracy was still with him.

CODA

Patrick Grey watched The Evening Star as she pulled away from the commercial wharf and turned for the breakwater, and he switched video feeds to zoom in on the wheelhouse. Sumner was at the helm and his son Charles was standing by his side, and for a moment Grey wished he could hear what the two were saying.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Grey sighed as he watched The Evening Star round the breakwater and turn to the northeast; at that point he turned and looked at the little ship’s track on the dedicated AIS receiver he now kept on his desktop, and once he confirmed Sumner was indeed heading for Rangiroa he went back to the video feeds and checked to make sure that Sumner’s daughter Liz was onboard The Silent Wake. He smiled when he saw her and the little waif that Sumner had plucked from San Francisco Bay on their way out the Golden Gate, and as he sat looking at the little girl, he marveled at the role chance had played in her survival. She had been, for all intents and purposes, dead, and it sounded like she surely would have died had not the dog swimming beside her started barking just as Sumner approached.

Such a simple thing, really. A dog’s bark and the little girl lived. “How strange,” he sighed at the uncertainty she had overcome…

Then he heard the patio door open and close, then the unwelcome footsteps crossing the living room, coming his way once again.

“Ah, Patrick. I take it they are underway?”

“Good morning, Peter,” Grey replied, as always not wanting to tip his hand too early in the game, “I didn’t hear your helicopter come in.”

“I slept on the mountain last night. We’re going down to the island later today if you’d like to come along.”

Grey turned and looked at Peter Weyland, regarding him as one might regard a cobra, or perhaps a sated lion. “Thanks. I’ll check my calendar.”

Weyland’s smile was a dangerous thing; curiously attractive yet full of lurking venom. “Get word to Sumner. He’ll have to pick up Langston on Nuku Hiva; they can’t find anyone willing to take him over to Hiva Oa.”

“Do you know where, exactly?”

“Taiohae, at the town wharf on the east side of the bay. The village headman will bring him out to the boat, so as soon as he’s onboard have him come in and give me a call.”

“Anyone else with him?”

“Wife and two kids. Just reiterate to Sumner that Langston is precious cargo, and he’s to take care of him at all cost. Any word on the weather in the Tuamotus?”

“Rotten, and getting worse by the hour. The Marquesas aren’t much better. We loaded three sets of working sails onboard, but I’ll be surprised if they aren’t all ruined. Any word on how long this current storm is going to last?”

Weyland shrugged. “The tailored algae we injected into the volcanic plumes won’t really finish their work for six months, but early indications are that the albedo is lower than anticipated. We may go ahead and trigger those two volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula…”

“I thought that was considered an option of last resort?”

“It still is, Patrick. That algae needs at least six months to take care of the carbon dioxide, and five years of ice to lower temperatures to pre-industrial levels…”

“How many more people will we kill?”

“I don’t know, Patrick. Does it really matter? We acted now, to save the planet…”

“I know, I know, and humanity only had another fifty years before total extinction…”

“We did what we had to do, Patrick. We’ve been told for a hundred years this day was coming. We were told the planet could optimally sustain three-to-five hundred million people yet we were racing our way to ten billion and with no end in sight.”

Patrick nodded. “We did what we had to do, but did you ever stop to think that maybe those words will be our epitaph.”

“Its what you did your entire life, Patrick. What you had to do. We had to. You know it and I know it.”

Grey nodded. “So. You’re going up to the Gateway? And you’ll be staying this time?”

“No, I’ll come down on a Crew Dragon. The hyperbaric module docked last week and its being tested today or tomorrow, so we’ll finally be opening the Oncology module next week. It looks like we’ll also be carrying those passengers you brought down from Honolulu.”

“We’re picking up ten more this week, in case you’ve forgotten?”

“They’ll go up on the next launch. With the new gene editing lab in place we expect to have a one hundred percent survival rate within the year. Amazing when you think about it.”

Again Patrick sighed. “Yes, the best outcomes money can buy.”

“You really should think about coming up. Life extension should be on the order of twenty years, perhaps even longer.”

“I’ve heard rumors you bought the Tyrell Corporation.”

“True,” Weyland said with a shrug. “Integrating AI with synthetic lifeforms will offer tremendous capabilities going forward, Patrick, especially in more hazardous settings.”

“Like spaceflight?”

“Like spaceflight. And just imagine, would you? If Langston’s hypothesis is proven, Mars will be just the first step. Patrick, in a hundred years we’ll be out among the stars!”

“And we’ve just killed seven billion people, Peter. That makes us the…”

“We don’t have time for doubts now, Patrick. It was a difficult decision to make, but we made it – because someone had to. Inaction was no longer an option, and in the long run we acted to save the planet, and the species.”

Patrick blinked several times in rapid succession, his amber gray eyes sweeping everything in, taking in the man across the room, reading between the lines of his body language. “As soon as Sumner gets back I’ll have him start work on the master plan. I’d like to break ground as soon as possible.”

“Good. Meantime, I’ve got a place for Langston and his family set aside, and a security detail will cover him wherever he goes. You’ll let us know a few days before he arrives?”

“Of course.”

“Good. And I hope you’ll come down for the launch. These StarShips are really remarkable. Shake the earth like you wouldn’t believe.”

Patrick smiled at Weyland’s unintended irony. “I’m sure they do. Perhaps I’ll be able to get away for a day or two.”

He watched the young man leave the way he came…silently, and without a care in the world.

Then he looked at the AIS display on his desktop and for a moment he envied Charles. If all went according to plan, Charles would design the university’s main building and then he would begin work on Elon City. Then Charles would go up on a StarShip to supervise construction of the main living complex on Mars, and that, he thought, would truly be something to see – if he lived that long.

He walked to the large window overlooking the construction site and looked at the earth moving equipment clearing and leveling the proposed site, then he noticed a light snow falling and turned away from that overwhelming reality.

“My God. What have we done,” he just managed to say – then as more snow began falling he regarded his reflection in the window for several minutes. “What did you do, you miserable bastard?” he finally said to the emptiness he saw in the glass.

Then he watched as a snowy owl flew low over the meadow behind his house, following Peter Weyland into the trees, but then an icy chill gripped his chest when he recalled reading that Eldon Tyrell had created both owls and snakes before he directed the Tyrell Corporation to begin making human replicas. Had one of Tyrell’s owls been following him all along? What about the otter and the fox? Were they real? Was anything real anymore?

And then he stopped to consider…just where was the line between life and the replicas of the living we had started making? What kind of future did we owe the genetically manipulated organisms that would soon make their way into the mainstream of the living – by our sides. Would all life just become another utilitarian subset in this brave new world? A new kind of life – where tissues of lies masqueraded as the truth and where alternative facts displaced meaningful dialogue between people trying to solve life’s most pressing problems? Or would we get tired of all the lies and hit the reset button once again?

Because if people could no longer believe in something as basic as the truth, just what was left, really? If trading in lies was as valuable as leading a life grounded in truth, where were we headed if not darkness?

The means to terraform Mars by injecting tailored algae into a forced eruption of Olympus Mons had just been used on earth to eradicate a large swath of human life. To reset the clock. To allow the Earth to recover from eight billion people swarming over the surface of the planet, devouring everything in sight. Yet now it seemed that our appetites had been fueled by litanies of lies, and that in our endless rushing about we had grown weary of the truths we created.

But as we ran and ran just what had we lost? What divine spark in our eyes and in our souls had we extinguished, and could we ever get it back? Or had we simply given up on all that, too?

Patrick Grey went to his chair and sat there watching the diverging AIS signals of The Evening Star and of Haiku, and he smiled at the thought of his impossible children marching off into this new night. Had he participated in this madness for their sakes, for their futures? Or had he once again been looking after himself, and Akira?

But hadn’t that always been the question, whenever humankind marched off in folly?

Tracy, his little sea otter, came to him and she stood there beside him, waiting for him to lift her up to his embrace. Their eyes met and he was sure she was smiling at him, at his dilemma, but despite it all he reached down and helped her up. She stared into his eyes and for a moment it felt like she was reading his soul, like she understood every contour of his existence, then she curled up around his neck and once again all was right with their world.

© 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | this was a work of fiction, plain and simple 

It’s Just Talk

Stand in judgement, look away

from the piss-stained man and his broken bottle

to the blue tarp where in silent grief

the broken man dares only dream in vacant screams.

+

Listen to the hate, on vacant aires of endless display

how dare the other and how we hobble

those who do not share in our disbelief

and where nothing, not even the most innocent scheme, is ever what it seems.

+

It is an endless torment, and always in dismay

we turn from the pitiless stares of our gathering jackals 

counting out rich man poor man beggar man thief

all humble now and cast in bronze on worn down knees.

+

Once their was truth, before words of decay

found out a hollowed land oh so craving her newer shackles

where even in dreams there was no relief

and so cast to the shadowlands once again, he waits with Diogenes.

+

© 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | just a few ideas scattered here and there…

Okay, time to wrap this one up. Grab some tea and I hope you enjoy the moment.

[Yes \\ Turn of the Century]

The Last Part of the Tale

By our fourth day out we were getting a much better picture of the damage up and down the west coast. It had been, unfortunately, one more hot summer, and lava ejected from Mount Hood had set off forest fires that were spreading over central Oregon and southern Washington state. More troubling was the news that Mount Shasta, a long dormant cone volcano located in northern California, had been upgraded from Potential to Imminent Eruption status by the US Geological Survey, and while no one was saying why all these volcanoes were suddenly letting go, the obvious conclusion was that forces released by the Cascade fault was, somehow, forcing a huge increase in upwelling lava. No one had been able to get close enough to Mount Baker, north of Seattle, to check the status of that volcano, and there had been little contact with anyone in the Seattle region since Rainier’s massive eruption.

Ash was obscuring most of the Pacific Northwest from satellite observation, but that wasn’t the case in California. Imagery was being posted on NASA’s Earth Observatory website almost hourly now, and bit by bit the damage in California was becoming alarmingly clear. Fires were raging east of Oakland and south of San Francisco, and the first detailed high resolution images of downtown San Francisco revealed catastrophic damage. Los Angeles was a different story, however.

The west side of LA seemed relatively unscathed and LAX appeared largely intact, but the downtown area had been obliterated and fires appeared to be out of control, literally, as no emergency services could be detected in image after image. Both San Diego and Santa Barbara appeared untouched, though no one was getting through – with the lone exception being radio contact with the huge Navy base in San Diego.

Barnacle Bill and, for that matter, everyone on Haiku remained quiet as we digested the news. Carolyn had taken on six strangers from the flotilla which was probably a good thing, because a couple of them were experienced sailors. Haiku had been sailing under staysail and a deeply reefed main ever since, just so the much larger boat wouldn’t run away from the rest of us, but what I remember most about our fourth day out was waking up and finding that Haiku had left us. I could still just see her through binoculars, but she was under full sail when she sailed out of radar range later that afternoon. 

I picked up satellite imagery of the latest weather information that evening and the storm we’d feared had been pushed east by the North Pacific High, and when I woke at dawn on our fifth day out, I swore as I headed topsides, only to be greeted by a mirror smooth ocean that seemed to stretch out to infinity. Only now it was hotter than Hades on deck, and Max really, really didn’t like that. I put his large astro-turf mat up on the foredeck, which was where I wanted him to do his business when we were at sea, but he looked at me like I was crazy. I went out in my bare feet and soon found out why: one step on our teak decks was enough to fry my feet and his paws, so we dropped down to the swim platform and he dutifully did the deed down there after I soaked the teak with sea water.

Life onboard was of course like nothing I’d ever expected it to be. The first and most important reason was the Gutierrez family, all five of them. Jesus and Matilda were from Guatemala, and he’d been working as a security guard at a small boat builder’s yard north of the city that night. He’d been living with his family in a small trailer on the grounds, but when he heard the tsunami warning he’d gathered his family and hopped in the first boat he found, a little Boston Whaler skiff the boatyard used from time to time. He’d seen Haiku motoring by on the sound and raced out to join the flotilla, and now here they were, on their way to Hawaii with the rest of us. Fortune favors the bold, no?

Heidi Mathieson was the second reason I found for my unexpected new life, perhaps because she was the strangest creature I’d ever run across. She’d graduated from college just a few months before all this broke loose, and she had snagged a boat-sitting job when the owner took off for some kind of job assignment in Singapore or Malaysia, she wasn’t sure which. She walked around like she owned everything in sight yet she doted on the Gutierrez kids. Max looked at her like he couldn’t make up his mind about her, which was really kind of strange if you stopped to think about it. His tail didn’t swish when she called his name or fixed his dinner, and most of the time he simply kept away from her – as much as he could given the limited space we shared. I tended to follow his lead, too, as I found her bossy demeanor more than annoying.

Matilda, on the other hand, was pure joy. She inventoried the supplies we had on board to cook with then simply took over the galley. She loved to cook like most babies take to breathing, if you know what I mean. She’d been born to cook, and she lived to see smiles on the faces of those she fed. I managed to whip up some brownies the first morning the kids were onboard, but I otherwise tended to eat salads night and day; I even served Max’s dinners of chopped veggies and canned chicken on a bed of fresh chopped kale, so he was a salad fiend too.

But now that Matilda was in charge of the galley things had changed. I had stowed a bread maker away somewhere, but she found my supplies of flour and corn meal and went nuts making homemade tortillas, and soon we were putting away huevos rancheros for breakfast and enchilada tortes for lunch or dinner. Jesus caught a few fish so we had fish tacos and ceviche, and life fell into new routines of epicurean bliss.

Until the wind returned, anyway. And after sitting becalmed for two days the wind felt invigorating. Until it didn’t. On the second day of this new, much colder wind, it really piped up, blowing a solid 25 knots indicated out of the northwest, and then the wave height began increasing until we were surfing along the crests of eight footers for hours on end. Steering under these conditions was tiring, and even though Heidi had some offshore sailing experience, Tiki’s 43 feet of heavy displacement was often too much for her. Thankfully, Jesus proved to be an eager learner and an able helmsman, and he seemed grateful to have some purpose onboard other than caring for his children. Yet something was wrong, and we all felt the change now.

For even though it was mid-summer it was only 50 degrees out, but with the increased wind it was growing seriously cold. Tiki has a solid dodger, or a hard covering over the companionway, and while this provided effective cover when sailing into the wind it did nothing to obstruct wind coming from astern. The hydraulic autopilot installed on Tiki was of little use now, though the Hydrovane self-steering gear was managing well enough, but it was getting too cold to stay outside for very long.

Yet as I watched our position advance across the chart I kept waiting to feel a little more warmth in the air – but day after day our hoped for warmth simply wasn’t showing up to the dance. Five hundred miles out from Oahu the temperatures were continuing to fall, and we hadn’t seen the sun in almost two weeks. No one onboard was attuned enough to the sea to understand what that meant, but one morning Heidi came up into the cockpit and told me I needed to go watch CNN for a while.

And even though it was July and New York City should have been broiling, it was snowing there today. Chicago had been blanketed in volcanic ash, but now the ash had a nice, foot and a half deep layer of fresh snow on top. Duluth reported ice was forming on Lake Superior and the Detroit River was frozen solid, something that had rarely happened over recent winters.

And the BBC reported that all air traffic was still grounded worldwide, though National Guard units were arriving by rail in remote parts of southern California and in Reno, Nevada. Relief convoys were forming up to try and reach the Bay Area and Los Angeles, and railway repair crews would follow the troops in. 

And then, when we were still 200 miles off the northeast tip of Oahu, snow started falling on Tiki’s deck.

+++++

I didn’t know what to expect next. Nothing made sense.

But approaching Kailua at four in the morning I saw city lights burning through the fog and snow, yet even though Diamond Head was lost in the clouds Honolulu was still burning bright. Calling the harbor master at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor on 16 brought an immediate reply from the US Coast Guard to stay off 16 unless absolutely necessary, so I did the next best thing. I powered up my iPhone and saw I had five bars, so I called the after hours number, expecting to be told the marina was full.

But no, far from it. The harbor master advised that every boat capable of making the trip to Polynesia had either already departed or soon would, and that there were dozens of vacant slips ready and waiting.

“Has a large ketch made it in? Name is Haiku?”

“Sure has. You want me to put you right beside her?”

And that was one less worry to deal with, even though it was beyond surreal to motor into a yacht harbor in Hawaii in the middle of a full blown nor’easter, complete with driving snow and with ice forming on the rigging. The likelihood of finding a snow shovel on Oahu was suddenly weighing heavily on my mind.

But when I pulled into the slip indicated by the harbormaster, I saw Patrick standing in Haiku’s wheelhouse, staring at me as I jumped onto the dock to tie off our lines. And then, after three weeks at sea, it hit me. I was on land again. The world wasn’t heaving underfoot, and I felt queasy, almost seasick – because this place wasn’t rocking and rolling.

Heidi came up, with her backpack already packed, and she hopped off, gave me a brief hug then walked off into the snow. You know, like ho-hum and thanks for the lift. Well, hating her had come easily enough, but not so Jesus and Matilda, or even their kids. I could barely comprehend a world without Matilda in my galley, and Jesus was such a kind soul the thought of losing him too was unsettling. I’d come to rely on them both, I knew, perhaps as much as they were relying on me, but now that we were here they had absolutely no idea what to do, and they had almost no money to see them on their way.

But Patrick came out on deck and asked me to come over to Haiku as soon as I finished up with formalities at the harbormaster’s office, so I asked Jesus to just stay onboard for the time being, then I marched off through the snow to find the office.

Despite the harbormaster’s usual role of maintaining their marina, they are usually a good source of information about all kinds of things in the immediate area, notably jobs, and apparently the main commercial wharves in Honolulu were short-staffed and most local hotels were in need of cooks, so that was one problem down. Next on the list, if Jesus was willing to work security at the marina they’d have a roof over their head, so that was another problem solved, but did I really want them to leave? Well, he’d pass along the information and let them decide what was best for them.

So I walked back out to Haiku and was stunned when I saw the tracks in the snow I’d made a half hour before were now filled-in, while drifting snow was piling up against dock-boxes, and right then I really understood how rapidly the planet’s weather patterns were shifting. I was wearing my full foul weather suit and would freeze to death out here in an hour, but this was Hawaii, in July, and it almost felt like I was having some kind of out-of-body experience. And I guess that explained the expression on Barnacle Bill’s face when I climbed up on Haiku’s deck and walked into the pilothouse.

“Are you alright, or still in a state of shock?” he asked.

“Shock, I think,” I managed to say as I took the towel he offered and started to dry the ice from my unshaved face. “It feels kind of like the North Atlantic…in January.”

He smiled. “We’re at about the same latitude as Havana. Can you imagine snow in Cuba?”

“No, and I don’t want to, either. How long have you been here?”

“Two days. And don’t ask. We’ve both been to the local cathedral, which is what hospitals are called these days, I suppose. Akira is doing very well.”

“And you?”

“I’m here. I suppose that counts for something. How was…your crew?”

“Couldn’t have been better. Yours?”

“Grateful, and they graciously departed as soon as we docked. Carolyn is now an accomplished sailor, and quite proud of herself.”

“You look better, Patrick. Maybe getting out in the sea air agreed with you.”

“Maybe. We were growing alfalfa sprouts so I was eating my weight in the blessed things. Quite the thing with lime and fresh tuna.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Need anything while I’m here?”

“Have you thought anymore about our last conversation?”

I nodded. “Actually, I’ve thought of little else.”

“Oh?”

“I guess the reason…well, they’re still aboard. The family I took on, from that little skiff. Guatemalan refugees, lovely people, and I can hardly stand the idea of their leaving.”

“You don’t…hate them?”

“Don’t do this to me, Pat. Okay? Not now?”

He nodded, but his eyes were smiling again. “So? Tahiti?”

I shrugged. “What’s going on weather-wise?” I asked.

“Let me put it to you this way. Brad, the weather guru up in the harbormaster’s office, has a list of people willing to pay for passage to Tahiti. The going rate is a hundred thousand dollars.”

“What the fuck!” I shouted. “Are you shitting me?”

“You know, Neal, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you swear.”

“A hundred grand? Seriously?”

Pat smiled again. “Seriously,” he replied. “We’re departing on Friday, with twelve guests onboard.”

“That’s…”

“Yes it is. Quite a tidy sum, you might say. And interesting what an enterprising pilot, one such as yourself, could earn over the course of a year, don’t you think?”

“What are you saying, Patrick?”

“Let me ask you again. Will you see to my daughter’s care after I’m gone?”

I nodded. “Of course I will, but you already knew that.”

He opened a drawer under his vast chart table and produced the same envelope – again. “Haiku passes to you and Akira on my passing, as a Delaware Corporation, wouldn’t you know. You’ll need to get your captain’s license to be legal, strictly speaking, but I’ll leave all that to you.”

I think a lot passed between us in those uncertain moments, too much for mere words to convey, anyway, but I did see a tear or two in his eyes, and maybe I felt a few of my own, but who knows, really?

“Patrick, I don’t know what to say…” I think I finally managed to say.

“Then don’t say a thing, Spud. Now, where’s that good boy, our little Max?”

+++++

Peel an onion and you’ll find many layers. 

I wonder if that’s always been the case with us, or did we evolve our thick layers of protective deceit to simply hide our true natures? If only from ourselves…?

Pat’s daughter, Akira, rarely ventured from her stateroom, and she never talked to anyone.

Carolyn’s boyfriend, I soon found out, was a physician. And an oncologist, and this Dr. Andrews was, in fact, Akira’s oncologist. And it turned out he already had everything he needed onboard, from bags of the latest chemotherapeutics to powerful anti-nausea compounds, and he even had a small, desktop-sized device that produced reasonably accurate lab profiles of blood draws. So, in effect, Haiku had been turned into a floating oncology clinic.

Which was why four patients from the University Medical Center were loaded onboard Thursday evening, and why those four were paying a quarter of a million dollars per person for the trip to Papeete. With eight other passengers paying a hundred grand a pop this little three week trip was going to generate almost two million in income. Five such trips would pay for Haiku, and everything after that would be gravy – or maybe enough to pay for her staggering upkeep.

Pat had a small cabin under the pilothouse, and I do mean small, and the first time I stuck my head in there I was stunned to find an otter curled up on a pillow in the middle of Pat’s sea-berth. It looked up at me and blinked once, then resumed its nap; Pat simply looked up at me and smiled, only now his eyes looked almost exactly like the huge snowy owl’s that I’d seen perched on my spreaders in the marina. Huge, amber, and studious – he looked at me over his Ben Franklin reading glasses, and it felt like he was daring me to question what I saw.

“Yes? What is it, Spud?”

“Everything’s loaded aboard. The tide turns at 0330.”

“Are all our provisions loaded in the galley?”

I nodded. “Matilda is getting everything squared away. Do you want something before going down for the night?”

He shook his head. “No. All the assets were transferred to the banks in Papeete this morning. Did that nurse get here yet?”

“Yes. She’ll stay in the little steward’s cabin off the treatment room.”

“Good.”

“Patrick? This boat just doesn’t make sense. How could you have possibly known?”

“What? That sooner or later the world would have to take a step back from the precipice? That sailing ships would once again be the most viable means of moving people across oceans? But Spud…it’s all a game, we live on a giant chess board. You just have to learn to see beyond the next move, but in truth I never expected to live to see this come about.”

“Patrick, you’re talking as if you’ve been expecting the collapse of civilization?”

“The collapse? Oh, no, far from it, Spud. This was just a momentary reset, a temporary change of course, but that’s the way it’s always happened. Nothing lasts forever, Spud. Whole industries will collapse – but new industries will emerge, and right now you and I are simply assisting in a brief, rapid relocation of assets, helping the next generation of change to emerge, to begin again.”

“So, we’re just cogs in some vast, cosmic machine?”

He laughed. “No, more like footnotes in a never-ending story. Maybe our names will be mentioned in an index somewhere, but I rather doubt that. So, this Matilda? She’ll stay here and her husband will come along in Tiki?”

“Yes, along with Heidi, the other girl that came over with us. She’s asked to rejoin the crew.”

“I dare say. Anything will be better than conditions here for the next few years. So, Matilda’s children will make the trip on Tiki?”

I nodded. “And we’re carrying four passengers.”

“She might be big enough to carry the mail to regional islands, assuming you can find crew for her.”

“That won’t be a problem in Papeete,” I added. “Assuming the weather doesn’t get too wild, anyway.”

“Oh, it will fluctuate as it destabilizes and seeks a new equilibrium. Hopefully we won’t lose satellite coverage anytime soon.”

“Any news from the States I need to know about?”

“Oh,” he sighed, “not much. Some talk of nationalizing the response to rebuild ports on the west coast, more blather about a new ship building program. And of course the usual suspects going on and on about the need to become a multi-planetary species, yada-yada-yada. I did hear something about the Gulf Stream cooling rapidly, so Europe may be in for a cold spell.”

“But that means fewer hurricanes in the Gulf, right?”

Pat nodded. “Complex systems only survive be maintaining equilibrium, Spud. You’ll want to concentrate on moving people from Hawaii this year, then moving many of these same people to Auckland or Sydney next year. By that time you’ll need to have started work on Haiku II, and with her you can link up to Singapore, then possibly even Japan. By the time you retire you should reestablish contact with North America, and who knows, maybe air transport will resume by then, as well.”

I looked at the otter, then at Patrick. “This an old friend?”

His amber eyes blinked slowly, but he then just looked away – trying to hide a growing smile. “We’ve been together for some time, you might say.”

“Like Max and me?”

“Precisely. What was the name of that television show you used to watch with your father? About a war veteran sailing the South Pacific, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Adventures in Paradise. James Michener wrote a few of the episodes, but it was his idea, when all was said and done.”

“Ah. Some Enchanted Evening. Did you ever see the musical? In person, I mean?”

I smiled too. “Mary Martin, yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night.”

“Yes. Funny what we choose to remember. And what we fail to forget. Do you think of him often?”

“My dad? Yeah, all the time.”

“Well, I suppose he’ll be with you then, on your next adventure?”

“I hope so.”

“You’ll take care of Max, won’t you?”

“Of course, but…”

“You’d better go topsides and check the rigging for ice. And be careful, Spud.”

His whole demeanor had been changing by the minute, wistful here, then playful, but I went topsides and walked the vast decks, shining a bright light up into the rigging, knocking some snow and ice off one of the headsail furling units as I thought about what he’d meant. Then I checked in with Matilda and found she was baking brownies, then I talked with Carolyn and her doctor friend before I went back to Patrick’s tiny cabin to say goodnight.

But he was gone. Simply gone, and it was as if he’d never been there. Or maybe he’d never really existed at all, yet Pat’s otter was standing on his pillow just then, playing with the pure white feathers from the wing of a snowy owl.

+++++

Coming south from Hawaii, you typically spot the craggy spires of Mou’a Roa on the island of Moorea before your eyes find the twin spires of Tahiti’s Mont Orohena, and that was the case on our seventeenth day out of Honolulu. Haiku of course handled the passage with ease, and her long waterline and voluminous sail-plan ensured our passage was a fast one. Doc Andrews had his hands full, however, as two of our passengers were oncology patients and one was on dialysis. Had Patrick installed a single, portable dialysis unit just for himself, or had he envisioned Haiku becoming some sort of inter-island hospital ship? I suppose I’ll never know the answer to that question, but with his God’s eye view of things, notably the prescience to build Haiku in the first place, I had been left in awe of his grasp of time. And our place in the stream.

And yes, I missed him terribly. So did Max. And of course, so did Charles, Pat’s infernal sea otter. From time to time I saw that great white owl, too. He stood watch from the second set of spreaders on the foremast, though occasionally he came down to the deck to take food from Akira, usually a few slivers of raw salmon. She would stroke the feathers on his head and often I could hear her speak in slow, soothing cadences to him, but eventually he’d head back up to his perch and resume his scans of the sea ahead.

Charles and Max, on the other hand, were soon best friends, and when I hit the bunk for some sleep Max would curl up beside me – and Charles would curl up on Max. I started, or should I say restarted, having those most peculiar dreams on that first passage, too. The medieval castle perched over the sea and the infinite bloom of cherry blossoms. I could feel Japan in those dreams, Japan – calling out to me. But hadn’t Patrick told me as much?

I spent what time I could with Akira, yet she remained cool, almost aloof, the entire voyage. She spoke gently when she talked of her father, yet it wasn’t a stretch to say that she was still very uncomfortable with his memory. Things had apparently remained unsettled since the night of sighs, which was what she called the night that Mount Rainier erupted, and I began to suspect that his memory would never be a pleasant one, at least for her.

Matilda was baking cinnamon scones our last morning out, and Haiku was alive with the scent. Our passengers came up on deck and pointed at Moorea’s craggy-spired majesty as they sipped jasmine tea, but few bothered to look aloft at the owl scanning the far horizons. He remained up there the two days we were in Papeete, coming down only to take a few slivers of salmon from Akira, and he remained on his perch even after Tiki arrived, and as cargo and provisions were reloaded aboard Haiku.

Indeed, the old owl remained on his perch as we departed the old quay and turned north, as we sailed free of civilization once again, bound for Honolulu under his patient, watchful eyes. I was walking the deck later that afternoon when I felt a fluttering of wings by my side, and I felt the owl land on my left shoulder. Perhaps I was too stunned to move, yet it was funny, too, in a way. You see, I was not at all surprised when he began to whisper in my ear.

(c) 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | this was just fiction, plain and simple.

[Rodgers and Hammerstein (v1958) \\ Some Enchanted Evening]

…because that is the way some things happen in life…

…and another theme emerges…

[George Strait \\ Thoughts of a Fool]

barnacle bill and the night of sighs

the Third Part of the Tale

The jet stream, as far as I could tell, was carrying Mount Rainier’s ash cloud across the northern tier of the United States, as well as into southern Canada, and, so far at least, cities around the Great Lakes appeared hardest hit. The constellation of GPS satellites was completely unaffected so Tiki and Haiku, as well as the few dozen other sailboats from the marina, were making our way to the northwest during that first night after the eruption of Mount Rainier. Sailing past Whidbey Island, and the Naval Air Station on the northwest coast of the island, most of the trees and houses seemed to have been scoured from the land, and I could see no trace of the hangars and all the other, smaller buildings at the air base. I’d spent months there just twenty years ago and what had once seemed so permanent had simply been wiped away. I felt real pain as I looked at the scrubbed remnants of the island and wondered how many people had managed to make it to the mainland or to high ground. In the 45 minutes we had.

And every frequency we tried on the VHF radio replied with only static, even the automated weather frequencies were silent now, and that could only mean one of two things: either the antennas were all down – and this was unlikely – or the Coast Guard and NOAAs reporting facilities had been taken out. Next thing to try was the internet, so I fired up the inverter and powered up my StarLink antenna, and it took a few minutes to acquire signal but I had an active connection. Once my MacBook was connected and the browser launched, I went to CNN. 

Coverage was scanty at best, but astronauts on the ISS had imaged the area from Vancouver to Portland, Oregon, and that was when everyone learned that Mount St Helens and Mount Hood had also both erupted overnight. Now even a cursory examination revealed that everything on the Pacific coast north of Eureka, California had been shattered and then scrubbed from the surface of the planet by either tsunamis or lava flows. The largest of the Puget Sound tsunamis had put out the fires we’d seen in the city, but then the wave had marched inland and slammed into the Cascades, in the process running into the lava flows racing down Rainier’s northwest flank. Lava had somehow continued flowing down the valleys that emptied onto the flat coastal plains where Tacoma and Renton had once been, but those images had been taken an hour or more ago and it was likely the lava had reached Puget Sound by now.

I switched on the loud-hailer and called out to the boats within range and asked them to go to VHF 16, then I relayed what I had seen on CNN to the 20 or so boats in our ragged little flotilla.

“So what do we do now?” someone asked. “I mean, we can’t go back, can we?”

“Look,” I said, “I can’t tell what conditions are like north of here, but CNN says there’s been no word from either San Francisco or Los Angeles so they may have earthquake or tsunami damage there. Same for Hawaii, and that begins to narrow down our options. We could move north, towards Desolation Sound and Alaska, or we could try for Polynesia, Australia, or New Zealand.”

“No way I could make it that far,” a woman said, her voice sounding very small indeed. “I’ve got twenty gallons of diesel and maybe forty gallons of water, and I’ve never been outside.” The open waters of the Pacific were often referred to as ‘Outside’ by sailors around Puget Sound, primarily because the Sound offered protected waters while the waters ‘outside’ were exposed to all manner of weather-driven sea states. Making a trans-oceanic passage in a small sailboat was not something to be undertaken lightly, either. Such boats had to be designed to handle offshore conditions and at a minimum there also had to be enough fuel, food, and water to sustain life for a prolonged crossing. A water maker would help, but only if the boat in question had enough fuel onboard to power the system. 

“Okay,” I said. “Before we make any decisions we need more information. I’ll broadcast a news update as soon as I can, and if you have questions or concerns let’s tackle those soon.”

Haiku dropped power and Carolyn was waving at me, so I altered course and closed on her, and a few minutes later I pulled alongside – and then Patrick stepped out of the inside steering station.

“Are you sure you want to take on this kind of responsibility?” he asked – kind of sarcastically, I thought.

“The alternative is what, exactly, Patrick?”

“Let them make their own way to wherever it is they want.”

“I see. What are your plans?”

And then Patrick shrugged.

“I see,” I nodded, now understanding where I stood in his world.

“It’s nothing personal, Neal. I’d imagined you’d be heading south now, whereas we’ll be heading west.”

“Japan? My god, Patrick! Won’t you need medical intervention sooner than that?”

“Not my main concern. Besides, there aren’t exactly many options, Neal.”

“Try UC San Diego; I’d should think they’d still be intact. Why don’t you see if you can’t contact someone down there? With your speed you could be there in under two weeks.”

“Well, I have a bit of a problem in that regard, Neal. I’m the only person onboard with any sailing experience.”

“What?”

“There was no need to engage the services of a captain while Haiku was simply sitting there tied up in that marina.”

“Holy shit, Pat. Carolyn can’t sail? Or her friend?”

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry if this is none of my business, but who was the woman we picked up at that house?”

“Akira. My daughter.”

I tried to hide my reaction to this bit of news, but probably wasn’t real successful. “Where is she now?”

“Below,” he sighed. “She is quite angry with me, I’m afraid.”

“Angry?”

“Yes. In fact, I may need you to help me with that.” 

“Uh-huh,” I think I managed to say. Oh, how the worm turns.

+++++

It fast became apparent after my first broadcast that our little flotilla was breaking down along the usual lines: left and right, as in liberals and conservatives. Even now, even as mutually dependent as many of these sailors were, the usual walls started falling into place. Bigger boats didn’t want to share fuel or water, and heaven forbid if you were low on perishable food or canned goods. Patrick had the largest yacht out there and he’d already made it abundantly clear he wouldn’t share a damn thing, with anyone. Myself included.

Then again, he was dead set on setting out for Hokkaido, a 4,300 great circle route that would take him as far north as the Aleutians. Pointing out that this would be against wind and current, that left him with a more leisurely alternative jaunt via Hawaii, a six thousand mile trip that would strain the physical resources of any fully crewed yacht, let alone an octogenarian in full blown kidney failure trying to single-hand a 120 foot super yacht across one of the most challenging bodies of water on the planet. Whatever he tried, he’d need every bit of food and fuel he had stowed away, so at least I could understand his point of view.

Tiki could just conceivably make the 3800 mile trip to Papeete, Tahiti – with one stop in the Marquesas Islands to take on more food. Assuming I could find someone willing to sell food to me once I got there.  I had a watermaker on board so could turn sea water into fresh – as long as I had enough fuel to run the ship’s diesel. If we ran into the doldrums, or the Intertropical Convergence Zone, Max and I could conceivably sit there bobbing about like a cork for weeks on end, and while I had four solar panels making 800 watts on a sunny day, things could get real dicey, real fast. The more I thought about it the more San Diego made sense, and surely things would be getting sorted out after the two to three weeks it would take us to sail down the coast.

But as I listened to CNN the more unsettled and unrealistic that first rosy outlook now seemed. Preliminary damage estimates to the Pacific Northwest region appeared to be in the tens of trillions of dollars, and entire harvests in California and the mid-American agricultural heartland were now more than questionable – and would remain so for years – and some scientists were saying it was beginning to look more than possible that a prolonged period of extremely cold weather could encircle the globe for up to a decade – because it seemed that no one had foreseen three large volcanos cutting loose at the same time.

And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, it was looking like my little ocean going cocoon might just prove to be one of the most reliable ways to get through this calamity – at least assuming the weather didn’t go completely batshit crazy. Maybe that was why billionaires had been building mega yachts for the past ten years? 

And now all I had to do was get Barnacle Bill to start thinking clearly.

+++++

So, as I passed along events during my next radio session, I passed along what I’d just learned from CNN and the BBC, and that proved to be a peculiar moment. Peculiar – because it was as though we could all feel a collective sigh drifting among the little islands of humanity that was our little flotilla – and what happened in the aftermath of that moment was nothing short of miraculous.

That wall, and all those partisan divisions among us, began to fall away.

A social studies teacher on our net talked about the possibility of near total cloud-cover resulting from all the ash circling the planet, and how that might, just might, bring on something like that so-called ‘little ice-age’ that had happened a couple hundred years ago. The southern hemisphere might not experience these conditions, she added, or might not to the extent the northern hemisphere might.

“So,” another member of our net said, “you think we all need to head south too?”

And that forlorn, lost sounding voice came back on just then: “I’ll never make it,” we heard the woman on the small boat say again. “I wouldn’t make it to Oregon, let alone Hawaii.”

“Then come on over and join us on Silver Bear,” another member of our new group said. “We’ve got tons of food and a water-maker, and plenty of room, too.”

So we started to sort through the people out there; who was on too small a boat and who had room to spare. Who had a water-maker, but maybe not enough fuel, or food. We were westbound now, heading towards Tatoosh Island and the Cape Flattery lighthouse, but already the sky looked peculiar – like there was a pewter-green colored layer high up in the stratosphere, and the winds had died down to nothing – which produced another sort of foreboding.

“Barometric pressure is 30.15 and rising,” Pat said over the net, “but there’s something that looks like a typhoon between Guam and Honshu; at last report it was turning northeast, towards the Aleutians, and there’s another deep low in the Gulf of Alaska.”

“What direction is that storm headed?” someone asked.

“Southeast,” Pat replied. “It should be here in four days.”

It was my turn now. “So you think we’d better head south now? Any idea what the weather in the Caribbean is doing?”

“Something organizing west of the Cape Verde Islands,” Pat added, “but the NOAA sea surface temp map is showing 88 degrees in the central Gulf of Mexico, so it won’t take long before a storm gets organized there.”

“So a storm could form there and jump across to the Pacific and head towards Hawaii?” the voice on Silver Bear asked.

“That’s a possibility,” Pat said. “Your best bet may be to thread the needle, head to the Marquesas.”

And on hearing the words ‘Your best bet’ I knew that Barnacle Bill was giving up the ghost, quitting right then and there. Mind you, I had no idea who this son of a bitch really was but all of a sudden the idea of losing him didn’t sit too well with me. That said, I altered course once again and closed on Haiku. Pat had apparently been reading my mind, and he was out on the rail, waiting for me.

So I hung fenders off my port rail and made my lines ready, then tied off on Haiku’s starboard rail, and when we were rafted together I stepped across to Haiku, and of course so did Max.

“I’m thinking about what you said,” Pat said, “about heading for San Diego.”

“Why not Honolulu?” I said. 

“Which do you think it the more vulnerable location?”

“Pat, if the San Andreas fault let go I’m not sure anything in California makes sense.”

“I’ve been thinking of home,” he said wistfully. “In an ideal world, I think I’d rather pass there,” he said.

“And where would that be, Pat?”

“Britain. South of Oxford.”

“And your daughter? She doesn’t exactly look well, Pat.”

“She’s recovering from chemotherapy.”

“Oh? Will she need medical support?”

“Yes. She could for the foreseeable future.”

“So…where?”

“Tahiti,” he whispered, “might be the most appropriate choice.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve lost me, Pat.”

“I want you to take her with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“No man is an island, Spud. And you, you of all people, should know that by now.”

+++++

There was, I remembered thinking inside another such moment, no place like an aircraft carrier at night. Gliding along in the eastern Mediterranean at two in the morning, the seas looked like a black mirror stretching off into infinity. It looked to be, all in all, a good night to fly. Watching the intricately choreographed ballet of deck-apes and aircraft moving to the cats had, after almost twenty years, taken on the comfortable routine of the familiar, but there had been times when climbing up into the cockpit for a night cat-shot when the butterflies in my gut became unbearable. And so it was that night.

Spooks had identified an Isis command bunker near the Syrian-Lebanese border, and ground-pounders had choppered-in to put a laser on any moving targets that approached the bunker. An E-2 Hawkeye had already launched and was orbiting off the coast, at the time looking at Russian Su-24s flying strike packages against Kurds somewhere east of Damascus, and Navy F/A-18s were waiting for the spooks on the ground to give the Go call. Before they could launch, however, I would take my EA-6B to southern Syria and jam every radar in the region, clearing the way for the F/A-18s on their flight to the target.

Steam was hissing out of the catapult rail when I was given hand signals to taxi to Cat 1, and with the front canopy still wide open I watched as men and equipment scurried out of our way. The blast deflector retracted into the deck and I looked at the controller down to my left as he guided me out onto the foredeck, then I worked through my pre-launch checklist while men below hooked up the shuttle. When the launch director signaled the catapult was ready I closed the canopy and ran the power up to 60 percent and watched my pressures, then advanced power to 103 percent and saluted before pushing the back of my helmet into the headrest. I could see the director signal the launch and feel the catapult take over, slamming me back into my seat while I watched my airspeed and rate of climb indicators.

Launching at night with no moon is like stepping out into a black hole; there is no visual frame of reference, no horizon line or the lights of a distant city to orient yourself to – there are only six instruments in your field of view and every bit of concentration is centered on the information they provide. In the second and a half you are on the catapult you still feel the carrier beneath the aircraft, then there’s a slight dropping lurch before you are enveloped in pure darkness. Hand on stick, eyes on your instruments, you pull back slightly and watch your airspeed stabilize. Next you look for a positive rate of climb and when you see 145 indicated you retract the landing gear as you continue to watch your speed. Flaps and slats up next, then you check in with your controller in the E-2 and get your first vectors as you climb to your assigned cruising altitude. And that’s just the first thirty seconds.

But at that point in the game your job is almost over. The EA-6B is a chauffeur driven limo designed to haul three electronic warfare operators to the skies over the battlefield, and once near the target they do their thing until it’s time to go back to the ship, or to RTB – return to base – to either rearm and refuel, or to call it a night and head to the rack for some sleep. All you do while up there is fly the plane where the controller in the E-2 tells you, unless things get dicey, anyway.

On the night in question, the night Patrick was obliquely referring to, a Seal team had a small Isis command center about 30 miles west of Palmyra in their crosshairs; my part of the mission was to go in and orbit the area at very high altitude and provide cover for the F/A-18s that would bomb the target. The odd thing about Isis, however, was that they were at the time quite well-armed, and with US and Russian weaponry the group had taken with them when their members fled Iraq. In other words, they had Stingers and other small surface to air missiles they could deploy against us. Well, me.

And so, of course, that night the shit hit the fan. It always does.

One of the Blackhawk helicopters extracting the Seal team after the airstrike took heavy ground fire and went down, and within moments ground radars lit up at the Khmeimim Air Base on the coast. Then airborne radar-sets lit off as Russian Migs and Sukhois on ready alert took off and turned south towards Tartus – which was very bad news for all concerned. The Blackhawk was down somewhere east of Homs and I was flying a hundred mile racetrack with Homs my west-most anchor point, but when it was time to return to the carrier I’d need to fly just south of Tartus on my way back to the Lincoln. Only now I’d have a reception committee waiting – just for me and my Prowler. 

But now we also had a rescue mission underway. Several helicopters from a small carrier off Crete had already transited the coast and were heading towards Homs, but there was a big military radar just north of the city, at the air base in Hama, that would light them up momentarily. Then we got word from the strike commander via the E2 Hawkeye: Take out the Syrian radar on the ground at the Hamah Military airfield, then go low and set up high intensity jamming to provide cover for the inbound Blackhawks.

The Syrian radar was primitive, no frequency jumping, no phased-arrays, so as they were focusing their search to the southeast we looped around and came in from the northwest. One AGM-88 took of that radar but my right-seater called an ancient Mig-21 coming online as we returned to our racetrack over Homs. Even though the -21s were older than hell they were also very fast, and they carried two air-to-air missiles so we couldn’t ignore this new threat. Still, the pilot in the Mig relied on ground radar to provide targeting information, and he’d just lost that. 

Then our E-2 chimed in again: there were now four Sukhois south of Tartus and a Russian Mainstay AWACs aircraft was taking off from Khmeimim Air Base, and just then my EWO informed me that the fire control radar at the normally quiet Shayrat Air Base south of Homs had just painted our aircraft. One of my back-seaters then told me that an S-300 surface-to-air battery was concentrating on our racetrack and that they would soon have the Blackhawks.

I relayed this to the strike commander on the Lincoln and I was advised to take out the radar at Shayrat. And I had one -88 left. Normal Russian doctrine for the S-300 was to shut down their radar when they detected either an inbound Shrike or an AGM-88, but the -88 was smart – it would remember the location of the radar set even after the radar shut-down. The only danger with this feature was that the Russian engineers had wised up and soon put their S-300 radars on mobile mounts, so once we fired they could simply shut-down and move a quarter mile and wait for missile impact before reactivating their radar set.

So, just a quick recap here, but we had the Russian AWACs aircraft and four escorting Sukhoi-27s heading for our escape route over the coast, a Mig-21 coming up from behind and a Russian S-300 SAM battery dead ahead. Ho-hum…just another day at the office, dear.

So, priority 1: take out Shayrat. Burn up the spectrum the S-300 SAM used, take away their ability to detect or react to an AGM-88 launch. Their were Mig-23s located there, too, reportedly with a few Russian pilots on hand, as well as Mi-35 helicopter gunships – also with Russian pilots on hand – and killing Russians was still off the table, at least then it was. So it was the same drill; drop in low and come in from an unexpected axis, fire the AGM-88 to take out the radar at Shayrat then move out of range and begin to cover the Blackhawks.

And to the point that Barnacle Bill was making, I didn’t have to worry about the Mig-21 coming in from the north, or the Mig-23s that might come up from Shayrat, or even the Sukhois patrolling my exit lane south of Tartus – because two squadrons of F/A-18s were launching and forming up, getting ready to clear our exit. Kind of like the old Green Bay Packer’s power sweep, with Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston clearing the way for Jim Taylor around the strong side. First down every time.

Flying that night, or during any one of the seventy-plus missions I flew over Serbia, Iraq, or Afghanistan, I knew I was never alone up there. I was part of a team, that team deeply grounded in traditions of duty and loyalty, and yet here I was in the here and now – defiantly choosing to go it alone.

What had happened? Why had I changed?

So when Barnacle Bill told me he wanted me to look after his daughter, I think he was, in effect, telling me to get a life.

+++++

But standing there on Haiku’s broad teak decks, when I looked at Patrick I knew I was looking at a dead man. Whatever it was he had – well, it had him by the throat and wasn’t letting go. Britain was a pipe dream, and just watching him I wondered if he’d even make it to Hawaii. And his daughter? She had been doing chemo? What was her prognosis? How long could she be away from an oncologist without taking a turn for the worse?

“No man is an island? Isn’t that Milton?” I asked.

He shook his head and sighed. “I see another education was wasted. John Donne.”

“And that’s how you think I see myself? As an island?”

“That’s called a metaphor, Spud.”

I sighed. “And if I may? Why?”

“Your best friend is a dog, Spud.”

“Point taken, but then again Max is infinitely more trustworthy and caring than…”

“Oh, shut up, you imbecile,” he growled with sudden ferocity. “Have your experiences with women been so awful?”

I nodded. “Yup. Pretty much.”

“So…you’re a true misogynist, is that what you’re saying?”

“I think you’re missing the point. I don’t hate women, Pat. I hate people. All people. In fact, I’m an equal opportunity hater. I’ve never met another human being I could stand to be around for more than a few hours.”

“Truly?” Pat said, his eyes dancing behind cloudy strata of mirth. “A genuine misanthrope? I hardly knew any of you still existed! How utterly delightful!”

I, of course, found this reaction slightly perplexing. Indeed, almost confusing, which is of course one of the reasons I detest people. His words were laced with sarcasm, the double-meaning of his choice of words obscuring his derision, all of it a reflection of his need to slap a label on another human being.

“You asked to speak to me?” I said, our eyes locked on like dueling radars.

“I see that we’ll need to take on as many of these people as we can,” he said blithely, “and I suspect the best choice will be to make for Honolulu. There’s been no good news out of either San Francisco or Los Angeles, and whatever reasons there might be for heading that way, I doubt they’ll have the time or the resources to take care of an old fart like me.”

“Is there news about anything going on in Hawaii?”

“No, but I’m simply assuming that no news is good news – in this case. It does appear that both Tacoma and Olympia were hit by one of Rainier’s lahars, and that Portland has sustained major damage from two pyroclastic flows, but no one is sure whether these came from Mount Hood or St. Helen’s. Astoria, near the coast, was hit by the tsunami and apparently was severely damaged. The USGS in Oregon just confirmed that the San Andreas fault did let go just moments after Mount Rainier, so going to California represents a huge gamble, as at least two rather large population centers have probably been cut off from outside aid, and that means tens of thousands of people will be starving within a matter of days. And you must remember, Neal, that with all the volcanic ash circulating in the upper and lower atmosphere, it’s quite likely that all aviation will be grounded, and conceivably for a very long time.”

“So, you won’t be flying to London anytime soon, will you?”

“No, of course not, but with any luck at all I’ll find suitable medical facilities for Akira in Hawaii.”

“And for yourself?”

But then Patrick just smiled – as he took an envelope from his back pocket and handed it over to me. “In the event of my death, you are to open this and carry out my final instructions.”

“And your daughter? You said her name is Akira?”

Pat nodded. “That’s correct. Take care of her, Neal, at least until she’s well enough to make her way in the world on her own. Will you do that for me?”

“Why me, Patrick?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s time.”

“Time? What on earth do you mean by that?”

“You can’t go through life with just a dog by your side, Neal. And if you don’t like people, you need to find out why. If you don’t trust them, you need to find someone you can trust. And if you can’t care for another person, then you need to tie an anchor around your feet and jump overboard,” he said – with a straight face, I might add.

“People are evil, Pat…”

“Yourself included, of course?”

“Of course. We’re evil, all of us, every single one of us.”

“But aren’t we also good?” Pat sighed. “I mean, surely you must concede that we are capable of acts of extreme goodness, so are you telling me that you’ve just discovered the dualities inherent in mankind?”

“Goodness is just another word for exercising self-interest, Pat.”

“Oh? So helping these stragglers out here by carrying them to Hawaii is in your self interest? And is keeping Max out here under the present circumstance in your best interest? Come on, Neal. Think it through. Think about what you’re really saying.”

“Well then,” I replied casually, “taking your daughter is certainly not in my best interests, right?”

“If you’re silly enough to think that way, then yes, give me the envelope. Go about your wretched life, and get on with your self obliteration, but don’t do it anywhere around me.” And as he said this he snatched the envelope from my hands and turned to leave, but first he turned knelt beside Max. 

“But isn’t that exactly what you’re doing, Pat?” I said to him as he knelt. “Getting on with your self-obliteration?”

Yet kneeling there as best he could, he rubbed Max’s chin and whispered in his ear, then he stood and looked at me. “You’ll forgive my predilection for falling back into the clutches of the classics, but I find that here I must, one last time: ‘Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’” And with that said, Barnacle Bill turned away from us and walked back to Haiku’s cockpit, then he disappeared down below. And me, not quite knowing what else to do, well, I walked back to the rail and hopped aboard Tiki, and Max followed along, too – yet I sensed he did so reluctantly this time.

And so we set about getting all the people off the smaller boats that had gathered around Haiku, and of the small flotilla out there, only four of us were capable of the almost three thousand mile crossing to Hawaii. One guy said he’d try his luck and head up to Vancouver, and then a small motorboat came alongside Tiki. I saw a family of five huddled in the twenty foot Boston Whaler; two adults and three kids, dad at the wheel and his family huddled under a  blanket and some life jackets. They had been bailing water from their little boat with two plastic buckets, and the kids looked frozen and exhausted.

The man in the Whaler handed me their lines and I tied them off amidships, then I lifted the kids from their mother before I helped her climb aboard. After I helped the man up on deck I could see he was a wreck, his hands were shaking and his eyes as red as plums as we cast off his boat’s lines; the poor soul watched his last possession on earth drift off into the night – just as a tiny sailboat with a lone woman behind the tiller came up alongside. She appeared quite young and adventurous looking, and it seemed she’d already packed all the belongings into a large mountaineers backpack. Now she motored-up alongside then simply stepped across, and her frail little sailboat drifted away, carried along by Tiki’s spreading wake until it too disappeared in the night.

Within ten minutes everyone on smaller vessels had migrated to one of the four larger sailboats, and I set the autopilot to steer 232 magnetic then I went below to fire up the stove and make hot chocolate. Those kids sure looked they needed it, and I knew I had a box of brownie mix down there somewhere.

(c)2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | fiction, plain and simple…

[The Doobie Brothers \\ What a Fool Believes]

So, into the fire and into the fight we go.

Ho-ho-ho.

[Genesis \\ Dance on a Volcano]

Barnacle Bill and the Night of Sighs

The Second Part of the Tale

There’s hardly anything better than waking at first light in a marina, and by that I of course mean first light on a sailboat. With coffee in hand you stub a toe at least twice on your way up the companionway to sit in the cockpit, and when you finally manage to sit, after rubbing your bruised and contused toe for a minute, you realize you’ve forgotten to wipe the morning dew from your sopping wet cockpit seats. And just about then your dog comes traipsing up the companionway steps, farting all the way – because this is his way of letting you know that just because you’ve done your morning business he hasn’t, not yet, and he’s ready – now. This means you put your coffee on the cockpit table and find your shoes and his leash then you hop down to the dock and water ski along behind your dog as he pulls you like a horse pulls a plow up to a patch of grass where he can squat and drop.

And by the time you return to your boat and climb back up into the cockpit, you invariably find that your coffee is now either ice old or that a passing seagull has used your favorite mug for dive-bombing practice. So off come the shoes and it’s back down the companionway to the galley, stubbing the same toe along the way, to wash and refill your mug. By the time you finally manage to sit several toes are now bleeding stumps and the last thing on your mind is coffee, yet somehow you manage to sit and enjoy what’s left of the moment. The mongrel who sleeps beside you settles in and sighs contentedly and for a few seconds you remember why you fell for this dream in the first place. Oh well, shit happens. Right?

But wait! That ever-growing to-do list beckons and the first five items absolutely have to be knocked-out today, so it’s down to the shower and then into some clean clothes we go and hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go…up to the car and into the fight…

But Max came with me that morning. It was his day to be washed and dried and to get his hair cut, so we hopped down and had just started up to the parking lot when Barnacle Bill – aka Patrick – came dragging along behind, and one look told me all I needed to know. The man was in pain and he needed help.

“You okay, Pat?” I asked, and this was met with a grimace and the slightest shake of the head you could imagine.

“No,” he hissed through gritted teeth, “I may need a hand this morning.”

And Max’s response was priceless. He sauntered over and leaned into Pat, in effect giving the Old Man something to lean on, and I came up along his free side and offered my arm, and between us we helped him up to my car, an ancient Chevy Blazer almost as old as I was. Max hopped in back and I helped Pat up into the passenger seat, and when he asked me to drive him over to the ER I knew we were in for a long morning.

But the woman I’d seen walking to and from Haiku was there waiting for us, and she took Patrick from me and escorted him inside.

“Thanks,” he said as the two of them walked inside. “So sorry to trouble you.”

And that was that. 

Max and I weren’t even late for his day at the puppy spa, or whatever the hell you call such places. Once Max was inside all his attention went elsewhere, namely to the über cute girl with the clippers who was about to bathe him. Well hell, I’d have been smiling just like he was if that girl was about to give me a bath, but oh no, that’s not for us mere mortals, not these days, anyway. No, item two on the to-do list beckoned so I was off to another marine supply shop, this time in search of a hard plastic placard that had to be prominently posted in every head regarding the discharge of human waste into coastal waters. I shit you not. There’s a placard for every conceivable human activity these days, too. As I’m sure all methane emissions will soon become illegal I have to assume that farting while at sea will become a regulated activity requiring its very own placard, but where on earth will we post them? Over the crock pot in the galley, I have to assume? Before the kidney beans are so carelessly added?

After I picked up an oh-so-gorgeous Max we wound our way over to the gardens for his hours long walk, and he pranced about the park like a Viennese Lipizzaner, high-stepping his way from tree-to-tree, his golden plumage almost iridescent as he went about his business. Testosterone was in the air, too, and sure enough, soon the ladies came calling. Not canine, mind you. Human females. Each one prancing over to Max, their overt displays of affection no match for him, and soon he was rolling all over their feet as they rubbed his belly. And of course these interlopers would go back to their Chihuahuas and Dachshunds, leaving me to pick the grass off his fragrant back.

But when we finally made our way back to the marina, I was surprised to see the woman from the ER waiting for me in the parking lot. It must’ve looked as though I was expecting bad news, as she walked right up to me and said that everything was okay, and that Patrick would only be staying overnight, but he’d wanted her to make sure I knew how much our help that morning had been appreciated.

“So,” I asked, “do you work for Pat?”

“Occasionally, yes.”

“It’s just that I’ve seen you coming and going a few times?”

But she just smiled.

“Do I need to check on the boat while he’s away?”

“It’s not really necessary,” she replied. “Anyway, I think he’ll be discharged by midday tomorrow.”

“He seemed like he was in a good deal of pain. Is he alright?” I asked.

“You know as much as I do, I’m afraid. He doesn’t tell me about these things.”

“I’m sorry, but could I at least know your name?”

“Ah, sorry. Yes, I’m Carolyn. And you’re…the Spud?”

“Neal Harrington,” I said, trying to break the ice.

But no such luck. “Nice to meet you,” she said, taking my hand. Then: “Well, perhaps we’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she turned and walked back to her car.

Funny, but what I remember most about Carolyn was her hands. They were like ice, her skin cold and almost hard, like she lived in air conditioning and the temperature was set very low indeed. And as she’d failed to lavish either attention or praise on Max, he wasn’t exactly sorry to see her go. Yet what was funny, but no, odd would be a much better word to use here, was my immediate reaction to her leaving. I realized it had been months since I’d touched another human being. Even the times I could remember shaking someone’s hand seemed like a far distant memory, like something from another era, because maybe it was. Once the virus hit, all that stuff seemed to be one of the first casualties of this new war, and yet now that mask mandates and social distancing had been consigned to some vast collective unconscious I was beginning to realize that we’d all gotten a little too used to a new kind of distancing. We weren’t coming together to celebrate surviving a pandemic; no, here in America we were shooting one another in record numbers. And even in the moribund old world people were going around killing each other like it was some new form of sport. 

The net result of all this was a sudden and instant realization that I had grown far too used to a profound lack of human touch in my life, and that I really didn’t like the feeling. I was in my fifties now, though just barely, but I still ran five miles three times a week and still had the same waist size I’d had in college. I had most of my hair, too. And while no one would mistake me for Robert Redford, women had told me I wasn’t ugly. 

And I had another problem, a fairly big one. Recruiters.

Someone at Delta Airlines had found out I had retired and had more than eight thousand hours of flight time. I’d received a letter from them while still in Santa Barbara, and I’d even read through it once, scoffing at the starting salary they’d quoted, and I never replied or answered the calls that followed. Now, even though I’d only been in Seattle a month, I’d received another letter from them, and the salary quoted was nothing to laugh at or about. Pilot shortage was mentioned more than once for their change of position, and in just a few months I could living the dream and getting paid real money, too.

And I wondered. Was that what had happened to dad? Had someone dangled enough money in front of him to make it impossible to follow his dreams? Because isn’t that what always happens?

But I actually didn’t need the money. Sure, working for a few more years would just be, literally more money in the bank, but what else could happen during those “few more years?” Get sick? How about a car accident? Either could certainly ruin your rainy day and all those dreams would get flushed down the very same storm drain that had swallowed my father’s dreams.

There comes a point where you have to decide what kind of importance you attach to your dreams. Were your dreams ever worth anything in the first place, or were they really, really important to your conception of yourself? Were your dreams worth living right now, or were they worth so little that they could be pushed aside with ease – for what? For a few more years? Ten? Even more?

As far as I could tell, my father had spent the last few years of his non-working life on his knees tending tulips and nurturing blue hasta plants. His lawn had been the stuff of every gardener’s dreams, until drought and water restrictions brought all that to a screeching halt. Then he’d bought a recliner and parked it in front of a 65 inch screen and watched other peoples’ dreams until Alzheimer’s came calling, and all those dreams faded right alongside all his dwindling horizons. What would I be like in ten years? Ready to cross the Pacific? Was I willing to put up or shut up, to get back in the saddle again and go to work for 12 more years, or cast off my lines and head south tomorrow? 

Funny, too, how odd moments come together in our lives. I think of synergy when I manage to think about such things. The synergy of souls.

Max was sitting there beside me in the cockpit later that evening and he put his muzzle on my thigh again, just as he had countless times over the last year or so, and he sighed contentedly while I rubbed his head and I could feel all the cares of our world slip away from us both.

And if I gave up this life, this dream, I’d have been throwing all these precious moments right out into a rubbish heap of broken promises, not to mention that all our broken dreams reside in the very same landfill. I’d be gone days at a time, and who would take care of Max while I was away? More to the point, what kind of life would Max enjoy if I was home two nights a week? Would it even be worth it, to put him through that kind of emotional abuse. He’d known no one else for the first two years of his life, and wasn’t abandoning him now no different than abandoning a child? Sure, I’ve heard people respond to that line of reasoning…as in: “get a life, it’s just a goddamn dog…” But when you get to know a pup like I knew Max, you begin to realize just how hollow some people really are, and how mean. Duty is duty, and I’ll make no apologies here – love is love. When you love someone you don’t abandon them, and so yeah, I loved Max and I wasn’t about to put him through that.

So there I was sitting somewhere on the edge of forever wondering what to do while I’d already, when you got right down to it, made up my mind. I was casting off my lines, casting my fate to the wind – or so the song goes – and so it was going to be me and Max, off to see the world, together. 

There’s another funny thought I have about dogs from time to time. Do we choose them, or do they somehow choose us? And don’t answer that one, okay? Just think about it, especially the next time you run across a starving stray somewhere along your beaten path. Just look that soul in the eyes and think about the choices you make.

Running my fingers through his fur, feeling the pure simplicity of love and trust, movement once again caught my eye and I saw the very same snowy white owl land on Tiki’s lower mast spreaders, and it hooted once as our eyes met. Completely unafraid, too. Huge amber eyes, and the only word that came to mind was penetrating. Maybe kinda sorta like he was not simply looking at me; no, he seemed to be staring right inside me, to a place I rarely go and seldom think about. A gray place between night and day, a hidden space halfway between fear and hope. And he was right there, taking a slow walk around my deepest, darkest secrets, taking a casual look – at me.

Looking back on the encounter I feel pretty sure the owl was looking at my hands running through Max’s golden fur, and yet he wasn’t simply watching me, he was looking for the true measure of my feelings. And sure, I get it, it’s easy to say I was projecting, that I was anthropomorphizing out of misplaced emotions brought about by too many years in relative isolation. Sure. Understood. I get it. But, then again, you weren’t there. You weren’t staring into a wild raptor’s eyes. You weren’t feeling exactly what I felt, were you?

And after a minute or so of this the white owl jumped off the spreaders and took wing into the night; he flew off across the black water perhaps a foot or so over the mirror smooth surface – and then he was gone.

Max and I walked down the companionway into the aft cabin and curled up on the bed, and we fell into the deepest sleep as the boat rocked ever so gently, and as little wavelets slapped against the side of the hull the dream began. Gently, like the coming of a sigh…

+++++

A medieval castle in snow, then the coming of spring and with it the endless pink blossomings of cherry trees, yet in the distance the same castle. A tree just above, low hanging branches brushing a small, meandering brook. The castle is nestled into the side of a hill, and the castle’s structure is long and low – the antithesis of the European form. The castle’s wings spread out like the roots of a vast tree, and manicured gardens are spread out among the various wings like emeralds cast about carelessly on snow.

And the man in the dream sees a girl, her black hair pulled up tight, and yet her back is to him. 

He knows this is a dream but he’s never experienced anything like it before. He can feel a cool breeze running through his hair, and as he turns into the breeze he is aware of the sea and pines and he thinks that strange. He’d never caught the scent of things in a dream, not once, so why now? He looks around and realizes he is on a sailing ship, not a yacht or a boat but a ship, something like a cargo carrying sailing vessel. He sees cannons and barrels lashed on deck and the ship is sailing purposefully towards the castle just ahead and finally he realizes that he is the only soul onboard and that there is no helmsman and no one tending the trim of the sails and he runs to the bow and looks ahead. The ship is sailing fast and there are rows and rows of amber-rust colored rocks dead ahead and he looks down into the sea and he can see more rocks as the ship closes on the rocky shore under the craggy cliffs just ahead.

And at the top of the cliffs he can still just make out the castle, and the woman standing there, as the ship’s keel begins grinding into the sloping seabed below. She turns to the noise and he sees that she has the face of the white owl, her amber eyes ablaze in orange light as the ship begins disintegrating under his feet…

+++++

Barnacle Bill, or Patrick, didn’t return the next day, or even the day after that, but when he did come shuffling out the dock towards Haiku the woman was with him. Carolyn, he remembered, and there was a man with her carrying a bag of clothes and all the ancillary garbage the discharge nurse typically sends home with you from the hospital.

And Patrick seemed at once revived and yet a little more frail than he had been before the episode. His skin tones were healthier, a little more pinkish, a little less waxy, and he seemed a bit more clear-eyed, maybe even more alert than he had that morning. 

And Max was happy to see his friend again, too. Pat was in a wheelchair now, and he had no salmon to give Max, but that didn’t seem to matter in the least. Max came up beside the wheelchair and when Carolyn stopped Max gently jumped up and put his hands on Pat’s and then Max licked his chin and the Old Man smiled – and all was once again right in our little world. A boarding ramp had been put in place and Carolyn pushed his wheelchair out to Haiku and up the gently inclined ramp, and after a few twists and bumps they disappeared down below and Max looked up at me, perhaps a little confused. Pat looked different now, after all, and he wasn’t walking, so Max’s confusion was, I think, only natural. 

I had been programming the VHF radio all morning, and was planning on tackling the Single Sideband radio later that afternoon, but now it was time for our walk so Max was leashed-up and off we went, heading to the doggie park above the marina. Clouds were rolling in off Puget Sound and it was getting cool out, too cool for shirtsleeves and cargo shorts, so I ran with Max through the parking lot past the boat ramp, but today we sprinted out onto the sand, running down the beach and out to the pond at the north end of the park. We were winded so I sat on a log that had drifted ashore and Max roamed around, fresh on a new scent, then he turned and bonded down to the water’s edge and started barking.

He does that from time to time, usually when an orca or a dolphin cruises by, so I scanned the water – looking – but after a moment he came back to me and we walked back to the marina and, after I brushed the sand from our lower legs, we boarded Tiki. I freshened the water in Max’s bowl and I ate a few cherries just in from the eastern slopes of the Cascades, and just when I was about to tear into the Single Sideband I heard a knock on the side of the hull. I left the chart table and went topsides, halfway expecting to find Pat or even Carolyn waiting there, but no, I found nothing. And then I heard the knock again and jumped down to the dock to look at Tiki’s waterline. And again, nothing, not even a random bit of driftwood.

Another mystery, I thought as I returned to the chart table. 

A few hours later, with my days as a radio technician now behind me, I showered and was dressing again when the knocking resumed, this time more urgently. Max sat up and growled, so I knew then that these weren’t simply the imaginary knockings of a delusional mind, and he led the way up the companionway and out onto deck. Once again I hopped down onto the dock and made my circuit around the hull and again I saw nothing, as in not one thing. I did catch a slight swirling in the water aft, under the Zodiac, something like the minor disturbance a fish near the surface might make. And then Max looked over at me and sneezed in consternation, and he tossed in a low growl just for good measure.

So, mystery still unresolved.

Carolyn and her man-friend came down the ramp and walked past us without so much as a word, and I shrugged away the slight as I ducked below for shoes and a leash. After that chore was done I made a salad for us both, though I’m careful to avoid onions on Max’s, and he sneers at my salad dressings, and we ate in the cockpit while the last of the midday clouds dissipated and a vast crimson sunset beyond the Olympics burst into view. I read for a while, until it became too chilly for us both, and as I was gathering my book and blanket we heard a thrashing in the water just aft of the stern and I rushed over just in time to see a sea otter land on the swim platform. The creature looked up at me for a while, and even Max stood transfixed as he eyed the creature, though the hair on the top of his neck was now standing on end, and then the furry thing simply turned away and slid noiselessly into the inky black water.

“Well, Max,” I recall saying, “that’s not something you see every day.”

But he stepped close and then leaned into me, and I’m still not sure who was holding whom up at that point; I think we were both in a mild state of shock…

“Next time he comes,” Barnacle Bill said, his disjointed voice drifting over us from nearby shadows, “have a few slices of salmon ready. He loves his salmon.”

“Don’t we all,” I sighed. “So, you’re up and about?”

“Well, I’m not dead yet.” When I turned I saw he was dressed all in black. Like a running suit, with black sneakers tossed into the mix just for consistency’s sake.

“Going on a mission tonight?” I asked, admiring his choice of clothes – though I wondered where he was hiding his Uzi.

“No, just dinner. You two care to join me?”

Max was all-in. He hopped down to the dock and sat at Pat’s feet, his tail swishing in mad love; his hopes for more fresh salmon apparently knew no bounds, and then Pat rubbed his ears and Max drifted into that place he goes when just the right spot gets the attention it deserves. “Let me grab a few things,” I said as went below for car keys and shoes, and a few minutes later we were sitting on the narrowest of patios overlooking the water at Ray’s Boathouse. Slices of salmon magically appeared as soon as we were seated and so Max was on his best behavior; Pat, on the other hand, produced a pair of binoculars and trained them on a house down closer to Ballard locks. He fiddled with the focus and then put them away when our dinner appeared.

“Know someone down there,” I asked, “or are you just a run-of-the-mill peeping Tom?”

“You could say I know someone, yes,” Pat said as he carved a razor thin slice of salmon for himself – and a two ounce slab for Max. Pat actually managed to take in a few leafy sprigs of arugula and kale, too, before he pushed the plate away. Max eyed the remaining salmon dolefully, until Pat relented and started carving several slices for him, leaving me to shake my head in wonder. He kept a few slices in reserve, however, placing them in a zip-loc baggie and then in a jacket pocket.

“How was your stay in the hospital?” I asked, hoping beyond all reason to get him talking.

“All things considered, it could have been worse.”

“I assume you don’t really want to talk about it?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Humor me.”

Pat looked away, then down at the remains on his plate. “It seems that I am a fine candidate for dialysis, Spud. Yet let me be the first to tell you that I have no intention of subjecting myself to such torture.”

“Isn’t that a fatal course of action, Patrick?”

“So they tell me.”

“I see. Well, Max will certainly miss you.”

“He’s a remarkable fellow, you know? Especially his eyes. He seems to see things I can’t.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“I think he can see into my soul, Spud. But isn’t that silly?”

I shook my head. “No, not at all. I’ve felt that too. More than once, too.”

“Do you think it’s just him? Or are all dogs like this?”

“I’m not altogether sure, but I’d like to think they all can.”

“Terrible if that’s true. So many of them are treated so cruelly.”

“Oh, well,” I sighed, “we tend to treat everything and everyone with casual cruelty, at least when the situation warrants.”

“The situation warrants?”

“When the mood strikes,” I added.

“Ah, yes. We are such noble creatures.”

“We can be.”

“When the situation warrants?” he replied, smiling. “‘Oh, what a piece of work is man?’ Are we as simple as that?”

“‘And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?’ Is that what you’re saying?”

“And the pilot quotes Shakespeare!” Barnacle Bill cried. “What have we here?”

“I don’t buy it, Pat. Dialysis can’t be as bad as the big sleep.”

He looked at me cautiously, yet almost sardonically: “And I pray you never have to confront the choice. The two look equally bad to me, at least from where I sit.”

“Are they telling you how long you’ve got? Before your kidneys fail completely?”

“No, of course not. Vague rumblings of a month or two, that’s all.”

“A lot can happen in a month or two, Pat. Can you think of anything you’d like to do?”

“No, not especially, but thanks for the thought. I am enjoying my time with Max, however.”

Our waitress came and despite my protests he picked up the tab, then we moseyed through the restaurant and back out into the night – and then it was as if every bird in Seattle took flight all at once. The air above us was, in an instant, full of birds flying out over the sound, and the hair on the top of Max’s neck stood on end again…

“What the…” I had just started to say when the earth beneath our feet fell out from underfoot and then started sliding sideways, and it all happened so fast that the three of us were quite literally almost suspended in the air above the sidewalk for a split second – and then gravity reasserted itself and we tumbled roughly to the pavement…just as Puget Sound came rushing in, covering us completely. Now, instead of standing up and brushing ourselves off we were treading in water too deep to stand in.

And then the sirens started wailing.

“What the hell is that?” I wondered aloud.

“Tsunami warning,” Pat sighed, just as the restaurant behind us began creaking and moaning as twisting lumber gave way.

“We’ve got to get to the boats!” I said, grabbing a clearly terrified Max and an equally mortified Barnacle Bill and pulling them into shallower water. When I found solid footing I picked up Max and put him around my neck, then I helped Pat climb out of the water. 

And when he was free and standing on a tilted slab of sundered asphalt he turned and looked towards Ballard locks, then to me. “Can you get your Zodiac in the water – fast?”

“My Zodiac? Why?”

“I’ve got to get over there,” he said, pointing to the house he’d been looking at through his binoculars.

And then the earth heaved again, only this time in earnest. We turned to the southeast as a vast rending of the earth unfolded in a sharp series of wrenching, grinding shrieks, this followed by a terrifying blast that once again knocked us off our feet. We couldn’t see the horizon now, just immense reddish-orange plumes of lava arcing into the sky, coming from the general direction of Mt Rainier, and now it appeared as though dozens of houses and businesses in the immediate neighborhood were on fire.

Once again I picked up Max, and after I helped Pat back to his feet we took off through the maze of jumbled asphalt back to the marina. I lowered my Zodiac RIB then my outboard, and after securing it to the little transom and hooking up the fuel line, I pulled the starter lanyard and the Yamaha sputtered to life. I tossed the lines to Pat on the dock and Max jumped in, and I helped Pat step in and sit.

“Where to?” I shouted over the sound of sirens going off all over the city.

“Towards the locks, right before the railway bridge, a house, a grey house, just on the south side…”

And as we spoke all the lights in the area simply went dark.

I twisted the throttle and off we went, and for a split second I could see Rainier. Lava was boiling down her flanks into the forests below and now everywhere we looked we saw two and three story condominium buildings that had been flattened under the concussive hammer blows of the Cascadia subduction zone giving way.

I had a small handheld ICOM radio in pouch near the fuel tank and turned on the WX band, and the warnings now were loud and clear. “Expect a large tsunami within 45 minutes. Seek higher ground now. All air traffic grounded.”

“Can you handle Haiku by yourself?” I asked Patrick as the meaning of the words sunk in.

And he nodded. “As long as I don’t have to set sail, yes.”

“If you’ve got a countdown timer on that watch, set it now.”

“Right. Good idea.”

Then he pointed to an area in the darkness. “Head there,” he said, pointing to a row of houses that lined the entrance channel to Ballard locks. The water level appeared to be six, maybe eight feet higher than normal, and as we drew near it was apparent that some of these homes were now awash, but not the house Patrick was pointing to.

I pulled the Zodiac up onto a small patch of green lawn and then both Patrick and Max jumped out and dashed inside the house. A small house down the hill towards the locks then burst into flames and I guessed that gas lines were venting and sparking off now, finishing the job that nature had just set in motion, but then the entire area was suffused in a garishly bright orange glow.

I saw Carolyn run out of the house, then her friend came out with Patrick, and between them they were helping another woman out of the house. Max sprinted out just before a gas line in the kitchen let go, and in the next instant the house went up in flames. The water level was receding fast now, and I pushed the Zodiac into deeper water to keep her prop clear, then I helped everyone get aboard and seated.

As we motored away, now grossly overloaded, houses started popping off like bursting kernels of popcorn, and the sulfurous odor of rotting eggs floated in the air above Elliot Bay. 

“How much time?” I asked Patrick, and he checked his wrist.

“Call it 20 minutes,” he sighed, because he was doing the same math in his head that I was. Five minutes to the docks, perhaps ten to cast off lines and warm up engines, then the balance to get out into the bay and to get our bows pointed into the tsunami. My only real concern was that the tsunami’s wave might prove too tall, but it would take a mighty wave indeed to take out Haiku.

When we made the docks I didn’t need to tell Patrick what he needed to do; he was, as was I, in the middle of a monumental adrenaline rush, and I think even poor Max was as well, and as Patrick and his group ran for Haiku I secured the Zodiac to the davits then went aboard to start the diesel. About a quarter of the boats in the marina were liveaboards and these were streaming out the breakwaters as fast as their motors would carry them, and after I cast off our lines I slipped the transmission into reverse and began backing out of my slip, trying to keep an eye on all the boats cascading towards the south breakwater while I also looked at Haiku. Her engines were running, lines were being cast off, then her bow-thruster kicked in and her bow began to swing away from the dock…

And I turned on my main VHF and selected the WX channel, and the computer generated voice came through loud and clear once again: “Tsunami imminent, seek shelter on higher ground,” was repeating over and over again. More sirens began wailing and as Haiku and Tiki rounded the breakwater I turned, hoping to see Mount Rainier in all her tortured glory.

But the main axis of her pyroclastic flow had been directed at Renton, and now the southeast horizon was a wall of blackish grey cloud that seemed to be alive with flickering arcs of lightning. The Space Needle was leaning drunkenly, and it must’ve been equipped with emergency generators or batteries as red lights still flashed on her uppermost rooftop, but everywhere else I looked all I could see was a darkened city dotted with spreading islands of fire. Helicopters were in the air, but that was about the only other activity I could see from my vantage point.

Then I heard a chorus of horns, yacht horns and small boat horns playing a shrill symphony of terror and I turned to face the music.

The tsunami must’ve dissipated some of it’s energy on it’s way past Whidbey Island, but now all that spreading energy was meeting the three-mile constriction between Edmonds and Kingston, and the tsunami’s wave was building again – but critically, for us anyway – it wasn’t breaking, yet.

Haiku was ahead and to our left, and I could see Patrick at her helm – steering not by hand but by autopilot inputs – and despite myself I had to laugh. 

As the onrushing wave came at us, it’s speed surreal, everyone out there on the sound pointed their bows directly into the wave, but not Patrick. He was approaching about twenty degrees off axis, correctly, so he could control his ship’s speed on the backside of the wave. Boats behind us began to alter their course as well…

…and then the tsunami was on us…

…and it was then that I saw the woman we had rescued from the house by the locks, and at first I didn’t recognize her. But now I was staring at her from behind, her kimono aglow in the orange light coming from the city burning in our wake…

…she was the woman from my dream. The woman with eyes of amber standing among the trees and the castle, and I followed her up the face of the wave – and then into the unknown on the far side of the night.

(c) adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, plain and simple

[Yes \\ I’ve Seen All Good People]

Taking a break from the Memory Warehouse this week, doing some recreational writing.

[Delius \\ On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring]

Barnacle Bill and the Night of Sighs

The First Part of the Tale

Life on the water comes to some people as naturally as breathing, yet to others, a life afloat comes upon them suddenly, rather like a fish pulled violently from the sea. Some are born into the life, pulled along in the undertow of a parent’s passage through life. Still others happen upon a new way of life – perhaps a chance encounter with the sea at one of life’s critical junctures and a sudden tide turns within.

I think, or perhaps I’d just like to think, that I followed in the wake of my father’s best intentions. He wanted, more than anything else in life, to be a sea captain, to sail a copra schooner between the islands of French Polynesia, running the mail and provisions to scattered European settlements among those far-flung islands. At least he told me as much when we sat in front of the television, watching reruns of an old show called Adventures in Paradise. Yet it was hard to reconcile his life, his life as it really happened, with that other life, a far distant life that came to reside only in his dreams.

After doing hard time at a small college in California, small of course being a relative term when anything in California is discussed, I ‘worked’ in Cherry Point, North Carolina for a while, then in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan, and yes, even Iraq, before finally cashing out and moving back home, to Santa Barbara. I guess I’d had dreams of my own once upon a time, even if they were little more than the distant echoes of my father’s, yet after he passed those dreams took on a peculiar note of urgency. So, a year later, after my mother passed, I had a decision to make: keep their house and inherit all his miseries, or sell out and try to find a new path forward. Perhaps one my Old Man would have taken – under the weight of other circumstances.

Which was how, not quite a year later, I found myself tied up at a slip on Seattle’s north side, wondering why I had just done what I’d done.

+++++

Marinas are, of course, full of boats. Some people call these things yachts, but such people are often misinformed, you might even say that they are misguided souls. Yachts are toys that rich people pick up to amuse themselves, while boats are anything but. Boats are expressions of the soul, and as stupid as this may seem, you can look at someone’s boat and tell a lot about their dreams. And aren’t dreams just expressions of the soul?

Stroll the periphery of any marina anywhere in the States and you’ll find a breathtaking cross-section of the people who live here. In slips closer to shore you’ll find small powerboats good for an afternoon on the water, sometimes laying next to small sailboats – the owners of which often dream of fitting out their little boats to cross oceans and explore different shores. I’ll leave it to your imagination to decide who owns which, but it isn’t hard to make out the two types. 

As you walk out the pier you run across larger boats in the fractionally deeper water; larger motorboats designed for fishing and the occasional overnight trip, and these reside next to real blue-water passage-makers, sailboats purpose built to cross vast oceans in relative comfort. The people on these boats have moved beyond the dutiful dreamer stage, too; they have decided to make the leap and are preparing to follow their dreams.

Walk even further out this imaginary pier of the mind and into the really deep water and you might run across a real yacht or two, but out here the old maxim still applies: if you have to ask how much these dreams costs you can’t afford them. Among the yachts out here you’ll also find the playthings of the idle rich, racy looking boats that for all the world remind you of penile implants. These toys change hands regularly, and yacht brokers salivate when these people walk in the door. Yet strange yachts appear out here from time to time, and strange things come to pass where dreams meet the full light of day.

I was tied off in this middle section, and wondering just how the hell I could justify my new, uprooted and disjointed way of life. I had been retired not even two years, and ‘confirmed bachelor’ fit my worldview to a T; I’d never been married and, as I thought bringing one more child into the world nothing less than a grievous felony, you could say that I was more than content to live out the rest of my life alone.

Well, not quite alone.

At the time I lived with Max. Max was then a not quite two year old Golden Retriever, and I think you could safely say that he liked people a good deal more than I did. He trusted people, even strangers, whereas I had never been able to make that leap of faith, and Max positively doted on women. I mean he loved them beyond all reason, and there were times I thought he simply couldn’t get enough of them.

We all have our failings, I guess.

When a new woman appeared on our pier Max would sit bolt upright, his nose pointed into the wind, scanning the walkway that passed in front of our new home. When this new woman appeared his tail would start swishing away, then he would look at me – willing me to get down on all fours and assume the position: nose forward, tail straight out, and to get ready to pounce and retrieve.

But a few minutes later he would slink back into the cockpit and slump down beside me in utter despair. Resting his muzzle on my thigh, he would do his level best to ignore me after that – for at least five minutes, anyway – then all was forgiven and it was time to move on again. And that was why I had chosen to live with Max, and those of his kind, whenever I could. 

But into every marina a little rain must fall, and in our marina this rain took on the form of an eccentric old soul who most referred to as Barnacle Bill. I assume his name might have been William, or even just plain Bill, but that would be an unwarranted assumption. Barnacle Bill appeared to be in his 70s, but given this lifestyle he might have been forty. Or eighty. You just couldn’t tell, even when he spoke – which is to say he spoke gently, if at all, and he sounded British. Not English, mind you, but very British. 

He was white-haired and as thin as a reed, with skinny legs and knobby knees that had been operated on, and he usually walked – with great difficulty, I might add – to and from his yacht in bare feet.

And yes. I did say yacht.

For Barnacle Bill lived on one. A big one. A seriously big fucker, as a matter of fact. Whether he owned the thing or resided somewhere down in the bilge was a matter of some debate around the marina, but one thing was certain. No matter the time of day, be it seven in the morning or coming up on midnight, Barnacle Bill smelled like he’d just finished a bottle of rum. 

Or perhaps it was just his after shave. I never figured that one out.

He wore old khaki shorts and always had on a worn out polo shirt, but his shirts were always white. If the sun was out he had on Wayfarers, and while there was a stainless steel Rolex Submariner on his wrist I never saw him look at the thing. When he walked by in shoes you would invariably see grey felt Stedmann clogs that looked disreputably old, and on those rare occasions when he walked up to a large, white tricycle that had baskets front and rear, he would pedal off to a nearby market in search of fresh vegetables and salmon fresh off the boat.

His yacht, for, as I have said, it was indeed a yacht, was tied off at the end of my pier, and the thing looked like something out of time, a huge thing from a bygone era, and again, I assumed, like we all did, that the yacht couldn’t possibly belong to him. Dark grey hull, varnished mahogany superstructure and acres and acres of teak everywhere else you looked, the yacht also had two hideously tall masts that stood taller than the tallest pines in the nearby forest. The name of the yacht, Haiku, seemed to fit the man perfectly, though I’d be hard-pressed to tell you why.

Every now and then a woman visited, but she rarely remained onboard for more than an hour, and what transpired while she was there was anyone’s guess.

When I bought my boat, which I dutifully named the Tiki IV, the brokerage helped secure my slip in this particular marina, and the location was a good fit for my immediate needs. Though she was new, Tiki IV needed a few odds and ends to let her be handled by me, myself, and I, and it was thought the additions would only take a few weeks to complete. 

And yes, I actually believed that.

But when you’ve been around boats long enough you soon realize that “a few weeks” can mean anywhere from a month to a year, but usually somewhere in between. You need to be, in other words, flexible. Or not ‘time challenged’ – in the current vernacular. You also need to understand that when you are quoted a price for a project, the final cost will be twice what was originally quoted. 

At a minimum. 

If you’re lucky.

Yet that did not appear to be the case where Haiku was concerned. If something wasn’t running ‘just so’ the appropriate tradesmen were mysteriously summoned and their work invariably completed in record time, and the old man in his khaki shorts and white polo shirt would shuffle by in his felt clogs as if all was right in the world. Because in his world things most certainly were. You could count on that.

And then one day there he was. Barnacle Bill, standing beside my cockpit looking up at me. There was an odd twinkle in his eye, and it was the damndest thing I’d ever seen in my life, but then again, so was his smile.

+++++

“You’re the pilot, right?” he asked, his eyes smiling.

“That depends,” I replied.

“Oh? On what, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“If you want me to fly down to Mexico to pick up drugs, then fuck off. All other inquiries cheerfully accepted.”

His head bobbed back fractionally, quizzically, then his smile deepened just a tad. “I see,” he said – as his eyes settled on Max. “No, no drugs involved. Does he bite?”

“The dog? Or me?”

“You’re a rather stand-offish prick, aren’t you?”

“That’s the rumor,” I replied. Our eyes were locked-on now, as if we had suddenly engaged in a duel to the death. “Is there something I could do for you?” I added, reluctantly, and certainly not out of an abundance of caution, or even guilt.

“I am going to Chinook’s tomorrow for lunch, and wanted to know if you’d care to join me.”

Not at all knowing what to say, let alone how to say it, of course I smiled and said something polite like “Of course,” but to tell you the truth I can’t remember what I said – because by that point Max had stood and hopped down to the dock. And this Max had never done before. But worse still, Max stood on his legs and stretched his hands out and placed them on the Old Man’s chest. “I’m so sorry,” I said, hopping out of the cockpit and down onto the dock. “Max? What’s gotten into you?”

But the Old Man leaned over, and Max tentatively scented him before he licked his chin.

“Now that’s a good fella,” the Old Man cooed soothingly as he rubbed the sides of Max’s face, and just under the ears where he loved it most. And then he looked up at me and smiled again. “How does eleven-thirty suit you? I like to get there early, before the crowds.”

And I seem to recall saying that would be fine – but really, I just don’t remember. The moment is lost now, gone in the shuffling of dreams.

+++++

He came by at exactly eleven-thirty. Very prompt, and quite jolly, too – given the circumstances. Max hopped down and joined us as we walked up to the parking lot and over to a little car hiding under a tan protective cover, and the Old Man unwrapped an ancient Porsche Targa, then he folded the cover and tossed it behind his seat before asking Max to hop in and take a seat.

And here I have to back-up a little. 

Max was usually confined to quarters when I left the boat, but the Old Man assured me it would be fine if Max joined us – yet I had my doubts. Max was just two and hardly what most people would considered trained, and let’s not even mention that he lived to chase seagulls – and females of any breed. Getting him on a leash was usually a two handed chore as that usually meant we were headed up to the Golden Gardens dog park for one of our hours long walks – but not when the Old Man showed up that morning. Max was docile yet smiled all the way to the restaurant’s parking lot, and he walked between us through the restaurant and out to their patio.

And the Old Man had apparently called ahead as there was a plate of thinly sliced salmon ready and waiting on the table. An adorable young thing came by and kissed him on the cheek before she handed me a menu and, I wondered, what other surprises might be lying in wait this morning? He never ordered yet a plate of salmon sashimi appeared out of nowhere, along with a vanishingly small Caesar salad, and whenever Max asked the Old Man slipped him a thick slice of the fatty salmon. 

“So, you flew the EA-6B?” he said at one point, his eyes fixed on mine as he gauged my reaction. “Before you retired?”

“And you know this how?” I asked.

But he shrugged, and I’d like to say he did so playfully but you could never be sure with that guy. Nothing, I soon learned, was ever what it seemed where he was concerned. “Oh, I guess I heard someone talking on the dock,” he finally said.

Which was a meaningless diversion – as I’d never mentioned flying, and hadn’t since my retirement – and I told him exactly that.

And the old bastard had simply shrugged and smiled again, then turned and given Max another slice of salmon. “You were with VMAQ-4, weren’t you? In February of ’13?”

“And you’re beginning to piss me off,” I think I said.

“I was responsible for sending you to Kamchatka. I thought you should know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I might have said, but by that point I think I actually wanted to kill the bastard.

But he shrugged one more time, then he looked away: “Everyone that moves into the marina, well, I’ve made my share of enemies over the years and you can never be too careful.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Splendid.” He reached out and rubbed Max’s chin, a move that was guaranteed to send him into barrel rolls of bliss, then he looked at me once again. “I was married to a Japanese girl, you see, yet I was British Intelligence. I lived a complicated life.”

“And now here you are, living on a boat in Seattle.”

“Some circumstances are beyond our control.”

“Circumstances? What the hell does that mean…?”

“How is your crab? I hear it’s good here?”

“You’ve never tried it?”

“No. I’m on a rather strict diet. Low carbohydrates, no sugars.”

“Diabetes?”

He nodded. “Vicious stuff, but with effort you can stay one step ahead of the curve.”

“I see. So, Haiku. Are you going out, or just living aboard?”

“I’m not quite sure yet. Time will tell.”

“No dog of your own?” I asked.

And he shook his head. “Seems unfair to me. Some days I can barely walk up to the parking lot, and I think such a life would be cruel for a pup.”

“Go to a shelter. Find an older pup with arthritis.”

“Brilliant idea.”

“My mom volunteered at a shelter in Santa Barbara. Dad insisted, because she kept bringing strays home.”

“So you’ve always had dogs in your life?”

“Within the obvious limitations, yes.”

“Yes, always on the move. He seems a good friend.”

“Max? Oh, he’s the best.”

“Where are you headed?” he asked.

“I think we’ll do the coconut run, but nothing’s set in stone.”

“Oh?”

“My dad and I always dreamt of going to Polynesia, sailing the islands.”

“Just you and Max?”

“Yup.”

He smiled. “Romantic, even though it’s illegal.”

“What do you mean, illegal?”

“Single-handing by definition means you can’t stand a proper watch, so you’ll not be able to secure insurance for the longer, offshore passages. No insurance means you can’t clear into France, which the islands belong to, of course.”

“I see.”

“Haven’t done your homework yet, I take it?”

“I guess not.”

“Bureaucrats rule the entire world these days, but I guess you know that. I hear there are a few companies that will underwrite single-handers, but their policies are quite expensive and very limited in scope. You’d do far better, I think, to run down to a shelter and pick up a wife. Perhaps one without arthritis?”

He was of course enjoying himself immensely; if eyes could laugh his were rolling on the floor. “Point taken,” I remember muttering – just under my breath.

“Ah, well, just one more thing to add to the list. Funny how our lists grow and grow.” He passed another slab of salmon to Max, then rubbed his chin again. Max was, of course, not taking his eyes off the Old Man now – not even for a second.

“How’s your salad,” I asked.

“Marie makes a special Caesar dressing for me. No sugar means no lemon, and of course I crave lemon now. I could bathe in the stuff and not be happier.”

“So, what’s stopping you?”

“Indeed. That is the question. Fear of death, I think, more than anything else. But that’s hardly original, I suppose.”

“Doesn’t have to be original to hurt…say, I hate to ask, but I don’t know your name.”

“No, you don’t. And technically, I suppose, I don’t know yours.”

I nodded. “And I reckon you want to keep it that way, don’t you?”

Oh, how those eyes laughed.

+++++

The next day, more out of curiosity than anything else, Max and I walked out the pier to the Old Man’s yacht. To look it over, you might say. To say the design was austere was an understatement, yet her lines were defiantly elegant. The antithesis of almost all modern sailboats – with their fat sterns and plumb bows, Haiku reminded me of an old J boat from the ‘20s – the 1920s. Low freeboard and gallant overhangs, her decks were teak and her coachroofs were varnished mahogany, and all the deck hardware, every bit of it, was bronze polished to a golden sheen. As Max and I walked along admiring her, I couldn’t help but wonder how much this beast had cost. 

But just then the Old Man appeared, walking out the pier from the parking lot, and he had a small package wrapped in white paper in his hand. Salmon, no doubt. And he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see us, either.

“And how is Max today,” the Old Man said as he walked up.

And yes, Max stood and licked the Old man’s chin again.

“That’s such a good boy,” he cooed. “Such a good boy.”

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “He’s usually not like this.”

“Of course he isn’t. But then again, if you walked up to him with two pounds of fresh salmon in hand you might be surprised what he might do.”

“I see your point.”

“So, what brings you out today?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, but I just had to take a look,” I said, my eyes lingering on Haiku’s bow.

“Bruce King drew her; she was built in Spain a few years ago.”

“What? She looks like something straight out of The Great Gatsby…”

“Thanks. I think that was his intent.”

“Again, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For the intrusion.”

“The intrusion. Oh, my. Do I really seem so forbidding?”

I don’t know why, but in a way our being out there felt like an intrusion on his privacy – and this despite the fact that people were forever walking the docks looking at other sailor’s boats. At times it almost felt like an evening ritual, but there was something about the man and his yacht that seemed to scream out for privacy. Like it was a palpably physical need of his. So of course I apologized again and turned to leave.

But Max wasn’t buying it. He sat at the Old Man’s feet and wouldn’t budge.

And then the rascal just looked at me and smiled. “Is this what you call a Mexican standoff?” he said, his eyes smiling again. 

If it was, perhaps that explained what came next. The Old Man walked back down the pier to Tiki IV – with my sorry-ass turncoat hound at his heels – and then he pointed to Tiki’s cockpit and told Max to sit up there and wait for his treat.

God damn dog!

Because of course Max hopped right up into the cockpit – something he had resolutely refused to do for me – and then he just sat there, grinning while he waited for his next slice of nirvana. And the Old Man opened his carefully wrapped package and picked up a rather large slice of salmon and gently passed it over to Max.

Who looked at me as if asking for my permission.

But then Max took the slice so gently I could scarcely believe he was my dog.

And so the Old Man gave him another slice, and another.

“If you keep this up,” I sighed, “I’ll never be able to afford to feed this dog again.”

“If he keeps this up,” he replied, “I won’t be having my supper tonight.”

We laughed and Max smiled, and when the Old Man saw that smile his resolve seemed to melt away. And so, there went the rest of his supper.

“Let me take you down to the Boathouse,” I said. “I don’t want your death from starvation hanging over my head…”

But he shook his head at my suggestion. “I’m beyond tired. Perhaps another time.”

“Assuming you survive the night, you mean.”

“Yes. Quite so. Now Max, you stay there with – oh, that’s right – I forgot, we’re on a no-name basis, aren’t we?”

“Call me Spud,” I offered.

“Ah, that’s right. That was your handle, wasn’t it? In the squadron, I mean.”

“Yes,” I sighed, still aggravated by the depth of his knowledge.

“And I’m just Pat, to my friends, anyway,” he tossed-in, as a kind of consolation prize. “Now Max, I’ve got to go now, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And as I watched him walk off, obviously without a care in the world, it struck me that he looked rather sad, and I’d say almost even lonely – but that would have been just a guess on my part. He seemed indecipherable, not merely enigmatic – like an obsidian wall lost in shadow. There was no way to tell what was inside the Old Man, or where the shadows and the black-hearted wall met.

But as we, Max and I, watched him walk out to Haiku we saw the strangest thing.

A great white bird circled overhead and at first I thought it was just another gull, but then the raptor spread it’s wings and slowed before it settled on one of Haiku’s mast’s spreaders, and then I could see that the bird was a large white owl. Rather enigmatic looking, too.

And as the creature settled-in up there on his perch the creature seemed to watch the Old Man for a while, but then it’s amber eyes turned to me, and to Max, and it would be difficult for me even now to describe what I felt in that moment. Whatever it was I felt, I was aware of a deep shiver running up my spine and into that part of the brain that commands you to run.

(c)2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, plain and simple

Yes, I am still here. Still writing. As mentioned before, writing priorities have turned to The Great American Cop Story, and progress has been slow but steady. I’d even say I’m fairly happy with the progress made so far.

A peripheral tangent of this Cop Story takes place within the soul-scape of The Dividing Line, which was first posted more than ten years ago. The original cop story, begun and discarded several times now, predates The Dividing Line by years, yet when I first penned TDL I imagined it forming one of the core questions within the Cop Story. As such, TDL has been revised once again, and what I’m posting here comes from Part I of the original tale (posted on this site and elsewhere). It’s just different enough to warrant a fresh read – or re-read, but it’s still recognizable as framed by and within the original story.

Pat Patterson is the central character of the Cop Story, and you will find a brief mention of his character here. This story takes place in Dallas, Texas, in the summer of 1982. Like most of the material in the Cop Story, The Dividing Line is grounded in personal experience.

[ ELP \\ The Endless Enigma, Part I]

The Dividing Line – Point A

Sara Wood lived in the shadowlands, and she kept to the darkest shadows – that is to say she lived by blending into the shadows, by knowing how to disappear in the blink of an eye. If caught out in the grim light of day, Sara understood that in order to survive she needed to be able to fade away into the deepest, darkest warrens of the city, for instance into the darker recesses behind huge industrial dumpsters, or by ducking into abandoned warehouses down by the tracks on the far edges of downtown. By the time Sara was ten years old she had become an expert in the fine art of disappearing from view, and of a style of urban camouflage grounded in the sudden appearance of underwhelming innocence. She was also, perhaps inadvertently – or perhaps not – a master at falling through all of the cracks in the few systems left to deal with girls of her sort: homeless and therefore nameless, faceless girls, girls who had grown accustomed to life in the darkness. Or ‘souls beyond redemption,’ as more than a few politicians liked to say. Yet there was ‘no place like home’ for Sara Wood, and there never had been. No Auntie Em, no Toto, and never even a kindly old Wizard behind a green curtain watching and waiting in her dreams to carry her all the way back to Kansas. To the home Dorothy Gale longed for as she followed the yellow brick road.

No house in Kansas, and certainly no family waiting in the wings. Yet there had been a series of “homes” run by various Godly institutions, homes that were really anything but. Homes where bespectacled, fat-thumbed men introduced Sara Wood to the deeper rituals of oral amusement – when she was not yet ten years old. And finally there had been the shelters. Shelters from the storms where wide-eyed women pushed her to the floor – and with Bibles in hand forced her to repent for sins she never knew she had committed. 

There had never been, in Sara Wood’s life, a fridge in the kitchen to feed her empty belly. There was not a television in the den to fill empty time, there had never been a telephone to carry on late night conversations in darkened bedrooms, safe spaces where she could learn about the carefree, almost empty lives of teenagers spread all over the late-20th-century American landscape – lives spread like a thin coat of lily white paint over the variegated walls of Patrician Denial.

So, Sara Wood did indeed keep to the shadows, although there were times when it felt like the city did it’s very best to keep her there. Out of sight was, she understood better than any social worker ever could, truly out of mind. What little comfort in this world she could afford to purchase she paid for in the only currency available to her, in the currency of her soul. This money Sara earned on her knees in dark alleys behind downtown office buildings, or with her legs spread in the backs of furtively parked suburban station wagons. She was paid for doing things other women wouldn’t do, because that was all that was left for girls trapped in the shadows. Curiously enough, she didn’t use drugs, for the thought had never occurred to her. Perhaps because such things were more than she could afford, for dealers and pimps who trafficked in such things had rarely turned a profit on girls like Sara. They had little obvious need to use her body, as it happened, because the market was already glutted with dapper boys and cleaner girls. 

Sara earned just enough money to, from time to time, buy a burger and a coke – and the implicit nature of her social contract stated that she couldn’t rock this boat – because, after all, there really wasn’t a boat to rock anymore. She couldn’t beat the system, or even game the system – because by 1982 the system to care for people like Sara had been systematically dismantled. What might have been never really came to pass…perhaps because, in the end, such things as safety nets tended by caring social workers had always been a cruel illusion. Or perhaps distraction is a better word than illusion, but then again sometimes words have two meanings.

So, in the terra firma where Sara lived, she knelt and prayed on the altar of poverty, and justice for all only applied to people who understood the hidden meanings behind even the simplest sounding words. Yet Sara spent a lot of time on her knees, selling her soul time after greasy time in a story as old as humankind, a story that is anything but an illusion for people lost in shadows.

On any given day, perhaps just like on the day in question, Sara’s face was poised before the unwashed, urine tinged khaki trousers – now gathered around edematous ankles of a fat, smelly man named Bob – sucking his glans. Bob had a dirty red name tag on his shirt, a once shiny plastic thing that identified him as an employee of the New Resurrection Christian Family Bookstore, and, at least so far, he had been enjoying his time with Sara. At about the time in question, Bob had Sara Wood’s hair grasped tightly in his hands, and he was pulling on it roughly, calling her a dirty little whore, telling her to to do the things his so-called girlfriend had told him she would never do. His half-hard penis, Sara Wood thought, was about the size of her little finger and she had been sucking on it for what felt like an hour. Bob would not – or could not – cum, and the more apparent this became to Bob the harder he pulled on Sara Wood’s hair. Bob looked down at Sara Wood’s face and noticed tears in her eyes when he pulled her hair especially hard, and for some reason Bob liked this reaction. He liked it a lot.

Bob gave Sara Wood’s hair a vicious tug, and she cried out, tried to pull away. Bob liked that even more, and he could feel his dick get hard and twitch in response to the sudden pain. But then she attempted to flee, but he forced her down, told her to hold still and that he was going to cum. He held her head forcefully to his groin and tried to pump away, but Sara Wood was now in a fair amount of pain and growing more fearful by the moment, and she was in fact trying to pull away from Bob with a fair amount of effort. Bob both liked and disliked her struggling; he liked the fact that he could frighten and hurt someone so obviously beneath him – and this was something very rare in his experience. Bob disliked the fact that he was probably not going to be able to cum in this girl’s mouth, which, too was a very rare experience in Bob’s life, one that he had paid good money – five bucks and change – for. Determined to prevent her spoiling the moment, Bob decided to shut her up, and with his right fist he swung down with his not very considerable strength – and hit her smartly on the top of her head.

Yet Bob’s penis was, at just that moment, seated rather deeply – and deeply for a three inch penis is of course a relative term – in Sara Wood’s mouth. At that moment, as well, Bob still had a hold of Sara Wood’s hair and he was holding her tightly in place with the grasping fingers of his left hand, holding her tight against his right knee, which he had lifted to brace Sara Wood against, to keep her from pulling away. As Bob’s hammer blow connected – driving Sara Wood’s head down as a result – her lower jaw, now supported against Bob’s right knee, was in effect driven up. Unfortunately for Bob, Sara Wood still had all of her teeth, and they were in decent shape, all things considered.

Bob screamed and reached for his groin as he fell back in agony, his groin now on fire. He fell in a thrashing heap, and as he tried to come to grips with what had just happened he reached for his groin, felt the bloody stump of his cock, and brought his hands to his face. Bob’s ensuing scream was reportedly heard five blocks away, and over city-traffic at that. Bob tossed and twisted on the grimy asphalt, but unfortunately for Bob he was losing a lot of blood at the moment, and as his gyrations slowed to a fetal crawl shock began to set in. 

Sara Wood had, at the time Bob dropped to the grimy asphalt alleyway, fallen to the ground under the impact of his clutched fist, fallen in a completely unconscious pile of ragged disarray. There was now, in fact, a large raw patch on the side of her head where a substantial handful of hair had been pulled out – when Bob’s penis had come into full contact with Sara Wood’s teeth. The remnant of Bob’s penis was, by the way, now lodged under Sara Wood’s tongue. The only visible evidence of this was a small trickle of blood that leaked out of the corner of her mouth, down into the watery, broken asphalt of a large pothole.

In due course an ambulance arrived, and a squad car from the police department was not far behind. Bob was stabilized by the fire department’s paramedics, while a half dozen firemen who had responded with the paramedics began searching the area around alley, even the nearby garbage cans and potholes, for the remnants of Bob’s penis. Of course the street-waif had been ignored by the medics as just another piece of garbage that had been blown out of the shadows, and so they had quite naturally concentrated their attentions on the man who was bleeding profusely from the wound in his groin. This man, his name Bob they learned from the name tag, was now, in fact, in very serious condition. 

The first patrol officer on the scene was J Eddie McCarran. McCarran’s semi-glacial exterior stood in stark contrast to his open, friendly face; these often slow movements obscured a quick, darting scans of his eyes. Yet it was his inherent slowness that allowed for such careful observations, and he’d been told more than once that he would’ve made a good shrink, and perhaps it was his scrupulously analytical observations of people at crime scenes that led people to such a peculiar conclusion. 

But on this hot spring day Ed was also the first public official to move to Sara Wood’s side, and the first to check on her condition. He was the first to see the trickle of blood sliding out of the corner of her mouth, and the first to notice a raw patch of exposed scalp on the side of her head. He looked across at the man on the ground and saw twisted red hair in his hands, and in a way that fit the scene, but he hadn’t quite pieced together events just yet. He bent closer to the girl and felt inside her pant’s pockets, found a grimy, sweat-soaked five dollar bill inside, and he shook his head knowingly as one more piece of the puzzle slid into place. But he saw something else in the girl’s open mouth and he felt a deep twisting churn in his stomach as he took his silver Cross pen out of a shirt pocket and gently pried open her mouth. 

“Get me some saline and a four by four – and an evidence baggie; I’ve found the penis,” McCarran said quietly. A couple of firemen came over, and of course these firemen all had something quick and clever to say about the penis in the young girl’s mouth. McCarran just grimaced as he put on his latex crime scene gloves and pried open the girl’s little mouth, but he swept the penis clear of the girl’s mouth with his gloved finger while he tried to not think about what had happened out here. 

An ammonia stick was produced and cracked open, waved under the girls nose. She stirred, her eyes fluttered, then she sat up in startled confusion. She looked around – at first wildly confused, then she coughed and wretched when she recognized the taste of blood in her mouth. She pulled herself suddenly into something like a fetal ball, holding her knees to her chest, breathing in shallow fear – because she was no longer in the shadows where she belonged. Then, as Sara Wood regained awareness of her surroundings, the first thing she noticed, and this was a very dangerous thing in Sara Wood’s world, was a police officer kneeling by her side. It didn’t matter that this man was speaking gently to her, holding her shoulder with kind, steadying hands. What Sara Wood saw was a navy blue uniform, a badge, a black leather belt, a holster, a gun, a nightstick and radio, and most dangerous of all, handcuffs. She saw a system that could hurt her, all the people who had ignored her over the years, and now here was a man in the uniform that represented this system – and he was beginning to question her.

The policeman asked for her name, and where she lived. He wanted to know what had happened in this alley, yet she was non-responsive, just another deaf-mute shadow-girl. She didn’t exist – how could she? She understood that on some basic level the man knew this one simple fact of her life, and better than anyone else in this alley. 

But then he told her he didn’t want to take her to jail, that he thought he knew what had happened. If he guessed right, he asked gently, would she tell him if he was right? He talked to her, told her what he thought had happened, told her about her missing hair, why her head hurt, what the taste in her mouth was – where that bloody taste had come from. 

Sara Wood turned away from the man in the uniform and vomited bile tinged with curling streamers of deep red blood, and she would have passed all her stomach held but for the simple fact her stomach was empty – she didn’t even have what little nourishment there might have been in Bob’s semen. She fell back to the earth and felt her world spinning out of control, and she lay on her side and drew her knees up to her chest again and cried like a baby, cried like the baby she had never had a chance to be.

+++++

Ed McCarran sat in his squad car writing yet another police report on his battered aluminum clipboard while he listened to calls on the car’s radio. There were two Flying Magazines on the passenger seat, and a letter from Patterson was tucked inside one of them. He’d told Pat that he had recently moved back to Oak Cliff, but not just to be closer to work; the rents were cheaper over here and he needed the extra money to pay for his flying lessons with Jim Horton. True to form, Patterson had then arranged for Horton’s time to be covered by Cardevac, and while thankful for the gesture Ed hated being in debt to anyone.

But he paid attention to the radio just now – to respond if anyone needed back-up – but then he checked his watch. Just a few minutes to go until he was supposed to check out for lunch, so he turned his attention back to the report on his clipboard, hoping to finish it before lunch in case calls got backed up later in the afternoon.

“Hey there!” he heard a girl say – and it was like a bolt out of the blue.

Lost in his paperwork – a rookie’s mistake – Ed McCarran jumped in his seat. His head jerked around to the left, quickly assessing his surroundings, analyzing threats as he reached for his holster. Then he saw the girl, a destitute looking waif that seemed more like the ghosts he’d read about in books detailing the lives of people freed from Nazi concentration camps. 

But as he looked up at her, looked into her eyes for a moment – he recognized her from a recent call, something near Union Station maybe a month ago. He had seen something in the girl’s eyes that day, something lost and alone about her, but then his memory kicked in.

“Sara Wood, right?” he said gently, as the details of that encounter came back to him.

“Yup. How are you?”

“Good,” he said as he scanned her body, habitually looking for any threat she might present. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothin’ much,” she said, looking away for a moment. “I just wanted to thank you for what you said to those D.A. people. They told me if you hadn’t done your job right I’d ended up spending a lotta time in jail.”

Ed McCarran looked down and nodded; he never knew how to take a compliment, or even a simple expression of gratitude. He shrugged it away, like most modest men do out of habit.

Yet the girl took his silence as yet another rejection – so she stepped away and started for the safety of the nearest shadows.

“So,” Ed McCarran asked, “how have you been doing since?”

She stopped. Something in his voice spoke to her, told her there was something different about him. “Oh, you know. Same ole this and that…”

All Ed McCarran had to do was look at this girl to know how she was doing. “Hey, I’m about to check out for lunch. Care to join me?” He could see the conflict roil across her face in an ages old calculation: Trust versus Fear. Hunger versus Fear. He could tell she was afraid of his uniform by the way she held herself obliquely to him, and he already knew the outcome of her simple calculation, and for a split second he wondered why he even bothered anymore.

Yet she shrugged – carelessly, ambivalently – as she looked at McCarran. “I guess,” she finally said.

And he thought he could see her salivating as he picked up the microphone hanging from the side of the squad car’s radio. “2141, 25 code Bob King 114” – and in that stream of jargon he checked out for lunch at one of the Burger Kings in his division, which that day was Southwest, near the Marsalis Zoo in Oak Cliff. He rolled up the window and stepped out of his patrol car and locked the door. “Okay then, let’s do this!” he said with gentle enthusiasm.

Once inside he ordered a Whopper combo meal and then he asked her what she wanted.

“Could I get a glass of water?” she said, looking down somewhere around her shoes.

“Sara, I’m buying. What’ll it be? Come on, sky’s the limit!” 

So Sara Wood ordered two Whoppers with cheese, a large order of fries, a large Coke – and then a small chocolate shake, because – why not? The girl behind the counter repeated the order, called it out over the system and shook her head. Ed found a table and waited for the order to be called, and then he carried it back to the table after the surly girl shoved it at him.

Then Ed McCarran sat back and watched the show as Sara Wood tore into the food. It was almost painful to watch, too, and he was sure that, as shrunken as her belly was, it would be very painful to see in an hour or two. He didn’t say a word, didn’t want to interrupt Sara Wood as she piled down the food – which took about three minutes flat. 

“Still hungry?” he asked.

Sara Wood made a laughing noise that came out her nose – as her mouth was still full of food. She nodded her head and just managed to say, “a Double Whopper?” 

“Comin’ right up.” Ed said as he walked up to the counter again and placed the additional order. He waited until Miss Surly-face slid it over to him, then he carried it back to Sara Wood, and as he put it on the table in front of her he smiled and said “Well, bottoms-up!” as he sat again. He sipped his iced tea while looking at Sara Wood’s contented face – looking at her as if for the very first time – and as he did he flinched. As he looked at her blue-green eyes, at the weathered skin and the scabs on her shoulders, he recognized something within and yet beyond the lost eyes, and the forsaken ambivalence. He saw someone unloved – yet lovable – and he thought for a moment she had been hoping against hope that someone might find her. Whatever else that something might have been, the wave of unexpected feelings tore at his sense of humanity and left him wondering about the rest of her story. 

‘Damn, I’m getting old,’ he thought as he watched her eat. 

“So, filling up?” he said, forcing another smile in the face of her need.

Her mouth full of food, she nodded and just managed to say, “Yeah, this is really good!”

He smiled again. “Alright!” he replied, looking away for a moment, trying not to cry.

After they finished eating, she asked him where he worked, and he told her he was usually at Southwest Division, but then he gave her one of his cards. “You can call me at the station if you need me; if I’m not there someone will know how to get in touch with me.” he said, his smile genuine. And what was that? Did she see concern on the man’s face? 

‘Now just why the hell did I do that?’ he thought – in a moment of regret.

Yet Sara Wood handled his card as if someone had just handed her a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse, but maybe it was more like a one pound bar of gold? The conflict she felt was instant, as was the extremity of her need. She looked at the card intently for a moment, wondering what it said, but she tucked it carefully into a pocket on the rear of her jeans.

The radio on Ed McCarran’s belt came to life: “2141.” He slipped the radio free of the holster on his belt and brought it to the side of his face. “2141, go ahead.”

“2141. 36B K, Clarendon and Tyler, two possible fatalities reported.”

“2141, 10/4 show me Code 5 at this time,” he said into the radio, and he hastily turned to Sara Wood: “Sorry, but I gotta go.” Then he looked into her eyes again. “Really, Sara, if you need me just call the number…” 

And with that he was gone, trotting out the door. 

She watched him as he got into the car, and she almost winced in pain as the red and blue lights turned on, then she watched as his car pulled out into traffic and the siren came on. She jumped back from the sudden noise, then she watched the car speed away, even as she went to a window and watched the red and blue as they disappeared around a curve. She didn’t realize it just then, but she had been standing on her tip-toes, biting her lip as if she was afraid for him – not of him – and maybe she was even then. 

Yet Sara was afraid of all the unknowns waiting out there, whether on the street or in the shadows, unknowns waiting for the kind man, just as they were always waiting for her – but just then the surly-faced girl came over and pushed her out a side door and back into the shadows – right where she belonged. 

Because some things in her life never changed.

+++++

It was the very next Friday afternoon, and Sara Wood looked down Illinois Street at the Southwest Division sub-station, and as always she was standing in the shadows. She had been hiding there all day, hiding in plain sight, watching and waiting for the kind man’s police car. She finally saw him late in the afternoon, and she watched as he turned into a parking lot that was almost completely hidden from view by tall fences, and so she assumed he had walked into the station. Yet she remained where she was – as if rooted to this spot – waiting to see if he would somehow reappear. 

Or perhaps she really wanted to see the man’s face again, know that he was alright. But now she was hoping that, against all odds, maybe he’d come over and talk to her. 

About twenty minutes later the kind-faced man came out of the station, only now he was wearing jeans and a white shirt, but he was wearing white sneakers and she thought those looked out of place on him. He was carrying a small bag, too, and she wondered what was in it. Hiding in deep shadows cast by dozens of oak trees near the brick wall that surrounded the station, she watched the man as he walked along the sidewalk that led away from the station, and for a moment she wondered where his car was parked – but then he stopped to talk with a couple of other – she guessed – cops. A minute or so passed before he started walking along Illinois Avenue, then he turned and walked down Cockrell Hill Road. After a block or so he veered left and walked towards a cluster of two-story apartment buildings – and still she followed him, but from a distance. She stayed well behind him, still keeping to the shadows when she could, and after a couple more blocks he left the sidewalk and started into a grey shingled apartment building, his retreating form suddenly hidden by wooden fences and thick stands of bushy live oak trees. Afraid she might lose sight of him, she also wanted to see which apartment was his – so she ran up to the first fence and flew around the corner – but then she ran into – him. He caught her with strong hands yet brought her gently to a stop. 

“Whoa, there, kiddo,” he said as gently as ever, “didn’t anyone ever tell you not to follow a cop?” 

But Sara Wood just stood in Ed McCarran’s hands, now afraid and being careful to remain still. Suddenly she grew too fearful to speak, and besides – she didn’t know what to say. 

A couple of awkward moments passed, his face awash in a befuddled grin as he scanned his surroundings for other potential threats, then he looked into her eyes, looking for the truth of the moment. She seemed guileless, almost childlike, so he shrugged and smiled at the innocence of the encounter. “Well, I don’t know about you but it’s hot out here, and I’m tired. Could I get you a Coke?” he said as he turned and walked off towards another apartment building one block closer to the police station. Sara Wood figured it out right then and there. He’d known she was waiting there all along, known he was being followed, probably from the time he pulled into of the station, so he’d led her into a diversion, then into the trap he set.

Once at the place he really lived, the man walked up one flight of stairs, took out a key and opened the door to one of the apartments, then she followed him into a room full of half-empty boxes and thoughtlessly arranged furniture. He walked over and turned the thermostat on the air conditioner down, way down, then he put his gym bag on the table by the door before he went into the apartment’s tiny kitchen. He got glasses then opened the ‘fridge and poured two Cokes over ice before he came back out to the entry, where she still stood, waiting. McCarran was still in the process of moving into the new apartment, but when he saw the look on Sara’s face it seemed as though she was gawking at the insides of an elaborate mansion. 

He walked over and handed her a Coke, but immediately he noticed something was seriously wrong; the girl smelled, indeed, the stench was awful. She exuded pure, unadulterated stink, the stink of seriously neglected personal hygiene. He looked at her skin around the worn collar of her shirt just then and he could see the dirt there was actually inside the pores of her skin. Her hair was beyond greasy, while the fabric of her Salvation Army jeans and t-shirt was thin and foul with the grimy smell of the street. He thought the worst would be the shoes, but just then he had no intention of finding out. One thing was for sure, he had to get her cleaned up before the neighbors complained! Cleaned up first, then maybe he could get her to a shelter.

‘Shelter…? Why do I remember that about her?’ He thought and thought, then remembered…a mouth full of hamburger!

“I remember you,” he said as he looked at her eyes again. “It’s Sara, isn’t it? Sara Wood?”

She nodded and looked away, then she took a long, slow sip of the drink before she looked at him again. “Yes,” she said shyly.

“Well, sit you down, Miss Sara Wood,” he said, his voice still soft and gentle, “and tell me a story.”

She looked at him quizzically – as she still didn’t know what to say. “What kind of story?” she finally asked.

“Well, let’s start with your story, Sara. Then maybe you could tell me why you were following me home.”

She looked away again, afraid of the truth, fearful of his reaction. “I’m sorry, I was just scared for you and I wanted to see you was O.K.”

“What were you afraid of, Sara?”

“Afraid of you gettin’ hurt.”

“Do you have any family, or even some friends?” 

But Sara Wood just shook her head. 

“Well, Sara, how old are you?”

She shrugged her shoulders a little, then shook her head. “I ain’t sure, but I think maybe twenty – but nobody’s ever been real sure. Maybe twenty-two, but I guess I don’t know, really. ”

“Do you know what year you were born?”

She nodded. “I heard someone say once, something like 1960?”

“Where did you go to school?”

She smiled and turned away. “I ain’t been to no school. None I remember, anyway.”

“Where do you live?” he asked, immediately regretting he’d asked her that and not really wanting to hear the answer. 

But she just shrugged his question away, like she always did when someone asked her that.

“Well, okay, do you have any other clothes?” 

She shook her head. 

“When’s the last time you got cleaned up?”

“At that place where you took me.” He remembered it all now, Bob and the case of the missing dick! That’s where he knew her from. Street girl, trading sex for food money. His stomach turned as he remembered the scene – then the severed penis in her mouth. 

“Excuse me, but do I stink bad?” she asked, suddenly ashamed.

“Well honey, maybe just a little,” McCarran said, immediately regretting he’d used such an intimate word.

“You can call me honey if you want. I like it when you say it.” 

Ed McCarran looked down at the carpet, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t…”

“It’s okay, it makes me feel like you ain’t gonna hurt me.” 

McCarran looked away, hurting inside for this discarded human being. When he looked up at her again he wanted to cry. “Well, okay then. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He stood and took her Coke into the kitchen, and she followed him like a puppy, with almost thoughtless devotion, but he saw her behavior was like that of a small child. He felt intensely uncomfortable as he went into the apartment’s only bathroom and turned on the shower in the bathtub, and he adjusted the water. “Alright, Sara, you come on in here and get cleaned up. There’s soap and shampoo in the shower, and clean towels over there. You take your clothes off and put them in that hamper,” he said, pointing at the white plastic basket next to the sink. “I might have something to fit you in my kids’ room.”

“You got kids?”

“Yeah, well, they live with their mother in Oregon, but I have some of their stuff here; I bet I can find something you can wear. Now come on in and get yourself cleaned up.”

He closed the door behind her, went to his kid’s room and found some generic sweat-pants and a couple of t-shirts. Socks wouldn’t be a problem, though shoes might be. He pulled out a couple pairs of sneakers from the closet that looked like a ‘maybe’ and gathered them up and put them just outside the bathroom door. He called out to her, told her where to find the clothes and she answered “Okay!” from inside the shower. He looked at his watch, phoned the D.A.s office, got shuffled around, then asked a clerk to look up some information on a Sara Wood, unknown DOB possibly 20 to 22 years old, brought into County as a Welfare Concern back in early May, at least he seemed to remember that much. When he was informed she was twenty-two he breathed a little easier. Not much, but a little. He asked if they had done any blood work, wanted to know if he might have been exposed to anything during his contact with her, then rang off after the clerk told him she’d not tested positive for anything.

He sat in the living room, turned on the evening news which was, as always, full of stuff about Iran-Contra and budget cuts. He heard the water cut off, then the shower curtain sliding open; a few minutes later he heard the bathroom door open and close as Sara grabbed the clothes he’d set out. “Can I use your brush?” she called out once.

“Of course, go ahead. And oh, before I forget. There are some new toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet over the sink. Help yourself.”

About five minutes later she came out. There must have been a pair of gym shorts stuck between the t-shirts, because she came out wearing navy colored shorts, a yellow t-shirt emblazoned with an L.A. Laker’s logo, some white gym socks and an almost new pair of black suede Pumas. 

But by then Ed McCarran’s blood pressure had shot through the roof – because the girl that walked out of the bathroom that afternoon looked hotter than any firecracker on the Fourth of July. Her hair was actually reddish-blond once all the dirt and grime had been rinsed away, and it struck him in that moment that she looked like a very thin Sissy Spacek. And now, suddenly, his voice was shaking – but he looked away – now quite ashamed of the onrushing feelings he was experiencing. 

“Well, how’d that hot water feel?” he finally said. But then he felt his face flush with red heat of a different kind – and now he felt very uneasy that this unexpected stranger was now hanging out in his apartment.

Sara Wood walked into the living room and sat on the couch next to Ed McCarran; she obviously knew enough about the world, and the baser instincts of men, to understand the effect she was having on him. “That felt really nice,” she said with a minty-fresh smile, leaving him adrift in another new silence. She found herself looking at his forehead, then the wrinkles around his eyes. She looked up at his receding hairline, and then she saw his left eyebrow was twitching!

But just then Ed McCarran stood and walked away, headed toward the bathroom. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna take a quick shower, then I’ll take you out to dinner. How’s that sound?”  ‘And it’s gonna be a cold fuckin’ shower, too,’ Ed McCarran told himself as he peeled off his jeans in the bathroom.

Sara Wood sat on he sofa, smiling. ‘So, he isn’t like the rest of them,’ she told herself. ‘And he blushed! I hope he loves me as much as I love him!’ 

In Sara Wood’s world people either used you or used you and then killed you, but there was no such thing as love in the shadowlands. While Sara Wood knew what it felt like to be used, she was pretty certain she had no idea what love was supposed to feel like, because she was certain that in her entire life not one soul had ever loved her. And while she had never loved anyone, she was pretty sure she knew that love existed. 

But something deep in her belly was connecting to a primal need that crawled through her being inside that moment, a distant, faraway need seeking connection. A connection grounded in desire and release, and maybe Sara Wood thought that this was what love was supposed to feel like. When she saw him, that’s what she felt – connection and desire – and it felt good to her as she sat there in his room because this new feeling didn’t make her want to run back into the shadows.

She got up from the sofa after Ed closed the bathroom door. She heard the water turn on and walked around the apartment, curious what he was like. She poked inside the half-empty boxes, saw framed diplomas and strange looking books. Then she walked into his bedroom, around the far side of the bed, and once there she looked out the lone window – and she could see the police station through the trees. She turned to go back to the living room and saw some magazines under the bed so she bent down to look at one of them. She couldn’t read the words on the covers, but there were women on them, women with very few clothes on. She picked another one up and opened it; there were men sticking their things into women, women sucking on men’s things, women kissing women – which she thought looked really funny, and laughed a little at that – and all of the women were wearing really weird stuff. She had never seen anything like what these women had on; not anywhere, not anytime. She picked up another magazine, and another, and they were all filled with pictures just like the first one, and all the women were dressed up in these silly looking things.

Ed McCarran finished drying himself off and cursed when he realized he’d left his change of clothes in the bedroom, so he wrapped the towel around his waist and prepared to dash across the hall into his bedroom. This he adroitly did, only to screech to a halt as he saw Sara Wood sitting on his bed giggling at the pictures in his secret stash of magazines. And just like a deer caught in the headlights of an onrushing car, Ed McCarran froze.

But Ed McCarran had failed to appreciate the innocence harbored within this girl; she turned another page, completely focused on the next set of new images, giving an appreciative ooh here and a stifled giggle there. Then, at some point she became aware of Ed McCarran so she turned around to face him and said, “Look at this!”

Ed McCarran, rarely at a loss for words, was now utterly speechless. He shook his head to clear his mind after a few more awkward moments in the headlights, and as nonchalantly as he possibly could, he asked Sara Wood if he could have some privacy while he got dressed. She grabbed a handful of the magazines and headed out of his bedroom with them toward the sofa – only now with a contented look of happily sated curiosity on her face! 

‘Oh, man, what have I gotten myself into?’ McCarran said as he closed the bedroom door behind her, wiping away beading lines of perspiration that had suddenly formed on his forehead and upper lip. While he dressed he heard her giggle a few more times, and he wondered how he might get those magazines hidden away again without looking like too big an ass. Yet when he went out she had neatly stacked the magazines and she watched him carefully – and again he was struck by how puppy-like she seemed.

“Think you could eat something tonight?”

She smiled. He turned bright red.

“For dinner, I mean,” he stammered.

She shrugged.

“When’s the last time you has something to eat?”

Again she just shrugged.

“Does anything sound good? A burger? Pizza or spaghetti? Anything?”

“I don’t know.”

At a complete loss now,  he led her outside and back down the steps then out to the parking lot behind his building. He walked over to a car covered with a heavy tan cloth and pulled the fabric away from the vehicle, revealing a tangerine colored Triumph TR6 convertible; Sara Wood squealed and clapped her hands as she looked at the car, jumping up and down a few times along the way.

“C’mon, help me get the top down,” McCarran said, pointing to hooks and levers at the top of the windshield, giving her directions. They got the top down and then he pulled a vinyl-canvas cover out of the space behind the seats and snapped it into place. He opened her door and showed her how to put on the rather complicated manual seatbelt, then he shut the door behind her – at this point on autopilot and not having the slightest idea what he was doing. 

“Oh, this is so fun,” she said as he sat down next to her, happily drumming the dashboard in front of her; McCarran turned the ignition and the Weber carburetors feeding the little six cylinder engine kicked the beast awake, and now it was his turn to smile. He studied the gauges while the engine warmed, doing his level best to ignore the pale thighs next to his.

“Nothin’ like an old British roadster,” McCarran said as the car sputtered and burbled to life. “So,” he added, “you want dinner and a movie, or dinner and shopping at the mall?”

Sara Wood’s eyes went round as saucers. “The mall?” she cried. “Could we…I never bought stuff at the mall before.” 

When McCarran simply said, “Answers that question!” she just squealed again, and bounced around in her seat like a little kid.

Ed McCarran backed the little roadster up and pulled out onto the street, heading toward a gathering of restaurants clustered around Red Bird Mall. 

“Whatcha feel like eating?” he asked as they motored along, and he looked at Sara from time to time, at her long red hair dancing in the slipstream, errant curls whipping around her face as she laughed and laughed. This was her first experience bouncing down an urban street in an English roadster, and Ed was entranced by her pure joy.

“I don’t know – you choose…”

So they had dinner at a local steakhouse, and he delighted in watching her fiddle with a ‘bloomin’ onion,’ and he ordered her – again at her request – a filet mignon, a fully dressed baked potato, and a heaping bowl of creamed spinach. She wolfed everything down and McCarran was certain he could see a little color return to her face, and he felt happier than he had in months. After they finished he told her they would get dessert at the mall, and she again clapped her hands and bounced around in the Triumph’s little seat.

He took her to The Gap, and she picked out some – to Ed McCarran’s practiced eye – low-cut bell bottomed jeans and a couple of shirts to go with them. He also got her some khaki shorts and a white cotton polo shirt, just because. They went to one of the athletic shoe stores, and she picked out some Adidas tennis shoes and some hot pink Converse All Stars, which she found especially “cool” and asked to wear from the store. They made their way down to the food court, where she ordered some pineapple sherbet in a small sugar cone, and Ed ordered the same thing. They gathered her packages from the counter and went to sit by a fountain under a huge skylight in the center of the food court, and Ed watched Sara’s pure joy as she nibbled on the ice cream cone. 

But all the while, during dinner and now after, he looked at her and he could feel the weight of the abuse and neglect heaped on her soul, the tacit neglect of people who all too easily turned away from all people like Sara Wood. More troubling still, he had seen and often heard how many took a perverse pleasure in the pain and suffering such endemic homelessness caused. Yet watching her now, looking at her enjoying the simplest pleasure imaginable – eating an ice cream cone on a warm summer evening – he saw a cute girl who suddenly had not a care in the world. And what had it been? Six weeks from those awful moments in the alley? He’d first seen her six weeks ago on her side, unconscious and with the severed remnants of a penis in her bloody mouth.

He struggled while he tried to reconcile these two visions of her, and with the society that allowed such extremes to go unchecked. He’d seen too many Sunday school hypocrites, enough to understand one part of the equation, as usually the richest of these ‘religious’ people were the first to complain about the tax burdens of helping the poor. He hadn’t been the only person to see these same wealthy people drive past starving people on their way from church to a fancy restaurant. And he wasn’t the only cop to understand how starving people simply disappeared from view – day after day.

Yet he was all too often at a loss to understand why these things happened.

And after almost fifteen years on the force, he’d seen it too many times to count. The incremental soul-murders that suburban ‘Johns’ inflicted on downtown runaways, the despair of an elderly woman starving to death just yards away from a restaurant selling fifty dollar steaks. But just then McCarran realized that he too had worked around these same starving, nameless people, and that he too had grown obliviously numb to their everyday reality. 

Why? What had caused that? When had such people become things, and no longer human beings?

His mind drifted, and for a moment he imagined having sex with this girl – yet almost instantly the thought made him feel sick to his stomach. Not that she was ugly or a turn-off, because that was surely not the case. No, it was more like he could see her now for the human being she had always been, and not some thing consigned to the shadows. Her guileless – and very cute face – left him breathless one moment and then he thought of the endless, senseless violations she had endured and those thoughts left him feeling dried-up and feeling lonely inside. If ever there had been a poster child of this society’s manifest hypocrisy and overt neglect, here she was, sitting right next to him. Sitting right here in this mall, one of America’s new cathedrals of conspicuous consumption. Here sat Sara Wood – poster child of an all new and enduring American nightmare.

And yet he couldn’t help himself. He was enjoying the moment. Enjoying the evening. Enjoying her happiness, her joy at experiencing a few of the things that had always remained beyond her reach, and the things he’d always taken for granted. Then she looked at him and said: “Can we go look at more stuff?” 

And he experienced anew the childlike trill of her voice in full bloom, and it was as if the prospect of having something to call her own could erase all the dry, hard facts of her existence. As if “stuff” could somehow erase the last twenty-two years of a life spent without – like she could somehow hit the rewind button and start recording over all the misery. Could “stuff,” he wondered, really let her start life all over again? 

Given the morality-free void that she had obviously grown up in, he thought it remarkable she had the capacity to feel good about herself on any level. But, and this was more to the point, she now had a huge grin on her face, and she was happy in a way very much like his own children once had been in this very same mall, yet her’s was an innocent happiness, a ‘for the first time in my life I’m happy’ expression of wonder, where to his children this place had always seemed almost dull and boring.

Like his marriage had, he assumed, once a certain kind of loved faded from view.

So they took off together in search of more stuff, and soon they walked down a wing of the mall they hadn’t been to yet, and she saw things she had never even heard of – yet everything she saw was all an infinitely bewildering array of ‘stuff’ that most kids in this mall had long taken for granted. 

But soon he realized she didn’t know how to ask for even the simplest things; she had no experience asking anyone for anything. She’d never had anyone in her life to simply give her things; she had never been spoiled by a doting father or a caring mother; there had been no birthday parties with face painting and pony rides, no leaving cookies and a glass of milk left on the hearth for Santa. He soon understood it just wasn’t that things had always been out of her reach; no, it was that she had never known anyone who would simply be there for her, let alone there was no one there to show her how to ask for things. Things, perhaps, as simple as a helping hand. 

She saw shiny stereo and had no idea what it was; she looked at a color television set and was mystified by the images she saw inside the box. She saw posters of popular teen idols, yet she had no idea who they were, or why they were on a poster – even the concept of fame seemed like an abstraction beyond her grasp. The corridors of wealth weren’t a mystery to her, simply because she had no experience of either wealth or power.  

But as they walked along they came upon a store that had scantily clad mannequins in the windows, forms dressed just like the women in the magazines she’d found under the kind man’s bed. She stopped and looked at them, and an embarrassed Ed McCarran looked away as he stopped beside her, as he shrank away from the locus of her attention. When she ran inside he looked up to the heavens and groaned at the forces of destiny that had brought him to this place.

Once inside he watched as she ran up to a figure that was outfitted all in white, kind of like what McCarran thought might be Hugh Hefner’s idea of a bridal lingerie-slut outfit. “Can I get this?” she whispered, and just then a jaded salesgirl came over and looked at Sara Wood, then at Ed McCarran – and the salesgirl passed along a knowing wink to go along with her condescending smirk. Ed nodded at the salesgirl then sent Sara Wood off to be measured, and when she came back to him she looked at another outfit that was lacy and black with jade colored insets here and there and she cooed as she picked it off a rack, “Oooh, ain’t this pretty?” Ed again nodded to the salesgirl, who nodded solicitously, then added, “Would you like to see some shoes, too?” When Ed McCarran walked out of the trashy lingerie store she was outfitted with the whole regalia; garters, stockings, pumps, bras, panties; ‘You name it,’ Ed thought, ‘I just bought it.’ He shouldered the load and carried her loot out to the car, and they stashed her new stuff in the trunk before heading back to Ed’s apartment. The sun was setting and Ed was simply beyond exhausted, yet he didn’t have the slightest clue what to do with the girl.

Simple inertia took over and he carried her packages up the stairs and into his apartment. He paused, thinking about what had been bothering him all evening, and then he made a decision. He took her packages to his kid’s room and put them on the top bunk, then he went back out to Sara, who was standing in the doorway. “You don’t have anywhere to stay, do you?” he asked.

She shrugged as another uneasy realization dawned on her  – because she knew what came next. The shadows sang their siren’s song again and she turned to leave.

“Listen to me, Sara,” Ed McCarran said, catching her eye as she turned away. “If it’s none of my business just say so, or if you feel I should just shut-up, well, you just – tell me, Okay? My kid’s only come here for Christmas and Easter; their room is empty the rest of the time. If you want to stay here, with me – in their room – for awhile, until you can figure out what you want to do, well, it’s yours if you want it. You won’t have to worry about eating, or about getting new clothes, or having a place to sleep, okay? I just have a couple of rules.”

Sara Wood was looking at the floor, because she didn’t have the words for what was running through her mind.

“No drugs, no booze, no friends hanging out in here when I’m not around. Clear? You keep yourself clean, and you keep your room picked up, and I’m going to figure out how to get you into school…” 

Yet Ed McCarran was cut off when Sara Wood ran into his arms at full speed, and as he put his arms around her she started trembling, then crying – at first just a little but then uncontrollably. He kept his arms around her and then stroked her hair, saying meaningless little things like: “Alright, it’s going to be okay now,” and “It’s okay, it’s all going to be okay now.’ In fact, he held her until she was spent, until he could feel her relaxing in his arms. She looked up at him, he looked down into her very tear-streaked face and kissed her on her forehead. “It’s okay now, Sara, you’re safe here,” he whispered. “You don’t ever have to worry about falling down again, because I’m gonna be here to catch you. Okay?” Then he held her face in his hands and wiped away a few of her tears with his thumbs. 

“Can I ask you something?” she finally said, her little voice a faraway whisper.

“Yes, of course.”

“What’s your name?”

A blank look came over Ed McCarran’s face as he thought back to that day. ‘I gave her my business card – but oh no, God why didn’t I think, of course, she can’t read…’ He shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, I guess you should probably know my name. Ed, but call me Eddie, okay?”

“Okay, Eddie.”

“Now, let’s get those teeth brushed, and then get you off to bed.”

After he had her tucked away in the bottom bunk – in his kids’ bedroom, he flipped out the light and closed the door. He went into the kitchen and made a rum and coke and walked out to the sofa to sit – then he put his feet up on the coffee table as he tried to make sense of the evening. He reviewed the decisions he had just made in his mind, which was a problem because he had already made the big one with his heart. He thought about the Sunday School hypocrites he knew, then he thought about Sara Wood lying curled up and unconscious in an alley with the bloody stump of a penis caught in her mouth. 

And then he thought about the dividing line between right and wrong, that cold, grey area where most people feel so uncomfortable they turn away from the mention of it. Yet he lived and worked along that line, didn’t he? He lived and worked in a no man’s land where the absolutes of good and evil defined his every action – yet his feelings for this girl lay far, far away from the contours of that line. She didn’t exist, not really, yet he was presuming he could carry her across that line, carry her far away from the thoughtless eyes that governed her insane existence.

He leaned forward and put his head into his hands, and then Officer J Eddie McCarran cried for a very, very long time. 

‘She’s a child,’ he heard the gnawing voice in the back of his mind say.

‘No, she’s not. In the eyes of the law she’s an adult woman.’ 

‘You’re just taking advantage of that, you’ll be using her like all the rest.’

‘Did you ever think that maybe she’s taking advantage of me?’

‘Hah! Hypocrite! You’re no better than all the rest!’

‘How will she grow if I continue to treat her like a child. She needs to be treated like an adult, not a child…’ 

He was lying in bed a couple hours later – on his back with his eyes wide shut, afraid of sleep and the dreams he knew would be waiting for him there. There was no way he was going to find sleep, not tonight, so he was glad at least that he had three day weekend. He tossed and turned, struggled with his emotions, until… 

Suddenly, quietly, he heard the door to his room opening, then he saw Sara silhouetted in the doorway, her long straight hair falling over the t-shirt she had worn to bed. She walked in slowly, then sat on the edge of his bed, and soon she was looking at Ed McCarran’s face.

“Eddie?” she whispered.

“Yes, Sara.”

“I don’t want to be like one of your kids,” she said, a vast, cool tremor under her words. “Know what I mean, Eddie?” When he was silent for a moment, she went on. “I want to be in here with you. You said you wanted to take care of me, but I want to take care of you, too.”

He didn’t know what to say, but he felt hot and cold running fear lurking in his mind.

“Eddie, say something, please?”

He sat up in bed, pushed himself up on his arms and flinched as an old shoulder wound pulled him back to the line and into the present, and he cried out as the pain hit home.

“What is it, Eddie?” she said, plainly scared by his reaction.

“It’s nothing. I got shot once, and some nights it hurts more than others.”

“Can I see?” she asked. She slid forward on the bed until she was close to McCarran at the head of the bed. She reached out to touch his shoulder and he flinched, pulled away from her. 

“Please,” she pleaded, “don’t run away from me, Eddie.” She reached out again, touched his shoulder. She put her fingers on his skin, softly probing and stroking his fear. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she continued. “I promise, okay?”

Ed McCarran felt an electric tremor pass from her fingers through his skin as she touched him; at first he felt this tremor in his shoulder, then he felt it boiling up from his groin and up into the small of his back, then it moved further up his spine. He tried to look away, to close his eyes as he was carried along the line, but he felt that the worst thing he could do right now, do to the very fragile world Sara Wood lived in, was reject her, hurt her again in some new and unexpected way. But he also knew he had to take charge of the moment – for all his training commanded that he control each and every situation. 

Because that was what allowed him to live and work along the line.

Sara Wood felt the fragility of her own sense of control, too. Yet from the moment she ran her fingernails over Ed McCarran’s shoulder, then across to the back of his neck, she knew she could control the music of his heart. “Turn over, Eddie, turn over and lay on your stomach.” 

Ed McCarran slipped down into the safety of his bed, then he turned over onto his stomach. 

‘This is a good, even a safe position,’ he said to the gnawing voice. 

‘You miserable hypocrite!’ came the sharp reply.

She continued to rub the old wound on his shoulder lightly, every now and then running her fingernails in tight little circles, moving over his neck for a while, then running her fingers through his hair, scratching his head gently. He felt her moving, felt her move to sit on top of him, and then she was sitting on the backs of his thighs. He felt her pubic hair on his skin and realized she only had on a t-shirt, then he felt that other warmth spreading around his soul. Soon she was leaning forward, putting her hands on his back between his shoulder blades, and she began to rub his back with the open palms of her hands. She put real strength into her movements, rubbing from the middle of his back up with both hands, then moving slowly up to his neck and finally out along his shoulders, and after a few minutes of this he let slip a sigh from the deepest reaches of his fear. She retreated down the same slope with her fingernails, those strange electric currents still flowing through him in sync with her movements, and as he drifted along he saw a feeling taking shape in his mind: she was a brook meandering through rich, sun-warmed fields – then she was the hot blood running through his veins.

But Sara Wood kept rubbing his back, his shoulders and neck, and for what felt like hours. Every now and then Ed McCarran sighed, and words like “Oh, God, this is heaven,” and “That feels great,” passed his lips, until at one point he said, “Oh Sara, you feel so good to me.” And with that said, with that opening, Sara Wood leaned forward and slid her arms under Ed McCarran’s arms and cradled his soul in what was left of hers, she put the side of her face on his back, just below his head, and she nuzzled her face on his back. She then kissed his back, moving her tongue to his spine as she ran her hands over his outstretched arms, once gain tracing little eddies in the flow of her currents. 

She then sat up, slid down until she was sitting on the backs of his thighs again. She scratched his back as she slid, scratched where she had been sitting, scratched the warm-moist slick where her vagina had rubbed against his back. She lightly ran her fingernails over his buttocks, felt him tense in the ticklishness of these unfamiliar, silvery motions, then she rubbed his butt coarsely, soothing the currents out and away into the charged atmosphere of her other intentions.

Ed McCarran felt Sara Wood as she moved down his back, felt the weight of her need, and he felt the weight of his desire for her growing with each stroke of her hand, each warm breath of her’s on his back. With the tension that melted from his knotted muscles, with each pulse of her beating desire, he felt his resistance to her withering within the ever-slowing heartbeats of time. He was moving from the world of his training, of his profession, into the dim gray light of the dividing line.

And that was when she asked him to turn over. 

Ed McCarran felt the conflict between his head and his heart. He saw his ex-wife looking at him, fellow officers in the department shaming him, store clerks and fast food cashiers casting dark, sidelong glances his way; all of them looking at him as he fell into the shadowlands, judging him for his transgressions. 

Yet she lifted from his thighs as she felt him beginning to turn under her.

And he turned his body under hers, struggling to make sense of this new world.

She straddled his belly now, just below his chest. She reached behind, reached for Ed McCarran’s groin, ran her fingers through his pubic hair, moved her hand purposely towards his need. 

Ed McCarran’s entire body stiffened as her hand made contact with his belly. He felt her hand as it moved down, as she encircled him.

Sara Wood held him and stroked away his fear, only now she looked intently into his eyes. She saw the passive smile on his face as an echo of her own, and perhaps nothing more or less than that.

Ed McCarran felt her sliding away from his face, away from his chest. She was sliding through time now, away and beyond the infinite. He felt her pubic hairs as they traced faint electric contours on the charged surface of their need.

She still had him in hand as her vagina hovered, wraith-like, pulsing, above his groin. She lowered herself slowly, gently, until she felt the head just grazing the petals of her lips. She reached with her fingers and spread them apart, leaving a faint pink opening that seemed to reach of it’s own volition for the straining loneliness waiting just below.

Ed McCarran felt the heat of her folds radiating throughout his body, and he arced to meet her vast oceanic pull. He felt his skin on her lips, felt her lips parting in supplication, conforming to the shape of this new world. He moaned as her warmth penetrated the darkness, as the flooding tide of the moment flowed through the fabric of time.

The arc of time stands still in such moments, as sometimes happens when Time looks upon new lovers. Yet Time does not judge, does not weigh motive or intent. If in the infinity of Time’s travels such things as love and need can be measured by the arc created between two beating hearts – that moment when two lost souls collide and dance in molecular fury – then surely this comes at a moment of Time’s choosing. Time fuses in the heat of love’s first release and seems to begin anew, but all too often Time is bathed in the light of uncertain wisdom. Yet even then Time laughs with new lovers, not at them – if only for a little while.

This fragment (c) 2023 adrian leverkühn | abw | and it’s simply fiction, plain and simple.

[ELP \\ Tarkus]