Oblivion (9 page)

The casual way he handed his life to her was just as it should be. A code among compatriots. A way that believers knew they weren’t alone.

“I been thinking about this a long time,” she said. “Studying it. Not just when them so-called aliens came, but before. You want to listen?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded toward the people before her. “Join them. When I get ’em fired up, I’m going to find out how many of them is truly interested.”

“In doing what?”

“Crippling the government. Getting rid of all them who killed our family and aim to kill our country. I know the perfect way to do it.”

“Them reporters would say that the government is our only protection.”

“Yeah,” Vivian said. “They would. They’re the ones who aired the phony pictures of those alien ships, and they’re the ones who say, ‘believe in the president,’ and they’re the ones who’re encouraging allying with other countries. We’re going to lose our sovereignty. We’re going to become part of a worldwide dictatorship, run by godless people. It’s been happening for a while. But now your daddy and my daughter, they been caught in the first assault.”

“You think our government did that to our own people?” She raised her eyes to his. His look was flat, even. He didn’t seem shocked. “You do, too.”

He nodded.

“Sit down. We got a lot of talking.”

He found a place in the crowd. She stared at them for a moment, wishing Dale was here instead of in California. He’d be proud of her. Whenever he had a group needed convincing, whenever he had a difficult customer who needed coddling, he called her.

You missed your calling, baby doll,
he used to say.
You shoulda been some sort of preacher, a leader. You wasted it sitting home.

Don't never say I wasted time raising our girl, Dale Hartlein,
she used to say in response. She hadn’t wasted time.

But she had lost it.

She stood in front of the crowd and raised her arms. They looked wary. Then she started to speak, and they all looked at her as if she was going to lead them to the promised land.

They was in the promised land. She was going to show them that. And then she was going to show them how to cast out the evil ones and take the land back.

It would not be easy.

But it would be right.

April 27, 2018
12:55 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

170 Days Until Second Harvest

Dr. Leo Cross wished he had never seen this room.

It was a standard conference room, built in the middle of the last century, and furnished in the 1980s. The conference table, which stood on wobbly legs, carried coffee rings so old that they were practically fossilized. The cushions on the chairs had been worn thin fifteen years ago.

Cross had sat in this room more than he wanted to think about, ever since the Tenth Planet Project was founded earlier that year. The discussions here were often a prelude to gaining more information in the days before the attacks. In those days, he had considered the meetings successful.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

He kept going over and over information in his mind, wondering if he had spoken up sooner—maybe even a year sooner—about his suspicions, the first attacks wouldn’t have gone as badly as they had.

But if he had spoken up then, he might have been dismissed as a crackpot. He didn’t have all the evidence then that he had when he finally approached his friend, Doug Mickelson, who was the secretary of state. Doug had opened a pile of doors for him, and in many very real ways, got the Tenth Planet Project started.

Britt set down the Starbucks travel mug that Cross had bought for her after the last Tenth Planet Project meeting. The mug was steaming. She set down a Starbucks paper cup for him, filled with the lattè he’d asked for. He wasn’t sure, with the heavy breakfast, the interrupted sleep, and the awful way he’d been eating, that his stomach could take any more caffeine.

Robert Shane of the President’s Special Committee on Space Sciences, and one of the Project’s cooler heads, sat down across from Britt. Shane was a tanned, athletic man whose blond hair was cropped short. He had sharp blue eyes and a quick wit that, Cross suspected, served him well in his government post. Shane was first and foremost a scientist, and in all the meetings, through all the debates, Shane never forgot that, which was something Cross appreciated.

Britt took a sip from her mug, and tapped on her wrist-’puter. Taking time away from the office to spend the morning with Cross had cost her a lot. She had been working around the clock, canceling research times on the various space telescopes and trying to determine which agency now had priority with the vast machines. Before the aliens had arrived, the telescopes’ time was carefully parceled out to scientists and researchers all over the globe. Now the crisis took precedence, and Britt found her orderly life in complete disarray.

“I hope this damn thing starts on time.” Yolanda Hayes, the president’s science adviser, walked into the room. She had her dark hair pulled away from her face, and she was wearing minimal makeup. When Cross had first met her—what seemed like years ago, but was actually only seven months before—she was one of the most stylish women he had ever seen. She still wore the clothes, but the details were gone: no painted nails, no lipstick. It was as if she no longer had time for anything but the essentials. “I feel like I’m coordinating an army.”

“Maybe that’s because you are.” Jesse Killius, the head of NASA, followed her into the room. Jesse looked more tired than Cross had ever seen her.

“I guess.” Hayes smiled, but the smile was small. “My job used to be committees and advice. I never expected to coordinate a nationwide research effort in so many different areas.” “None of us did,” Shane said. “At least we have the information about most of the nation’s scientists at our fingertips.” Hayes nodded. “I’m just worried that we don’t have enough.” No one answered her. It was the fear they all had, on various levels, and it really had nothing to do with their areas of expertise. It had to do with the aliens, the tenth planet, and the fact that they were in the lull between storms they didn’t entirely understand.

“I can’t believe Clarissa’s the one who’s late,” Killius said. “She had her aide call me last night to remind me about this.” “She’s balancing too much,” Shane said. “She probably shouldn’t even be in this meeting anymore.”

“I’m glad she is,” Cross said. “She’s still representing the president.”

At that moment the door slammed back and General Clarissa Maddox strode into the room. She was a powerfully built woman who wore her general’s uniform like a shield. Her back was so straight that Cross sometimes wondered if it had been surgically altered.

She took her seat and nodded to the group. “I see I’m just in time for the uplink,” she said, which was probably the only acknowledgment she would make of being late.

“Coffee, General?” Shane asked.

Half a smile crossed Maddox’s face. “Right now, I’m subsisting on the stuff. I’d love some.”

Shane got up, went to the refreshments table, and poured her a cup. Even though there were pastries on the table as usual, no one had taken any.

The two flat vid screens were already down. As the clock hit 1 p.m., images appeared in various comers: the Japanese representatives, the European representatives, the Africans, and the newest members, the Chinese. Most of the groups were sitting at long conference tables like the U.S. group was, and Cross was surprised that he knew the rooms in those faraway lands as well as he knew this room here. In fact, it almost seemed as if the rooms were somewhere in this building, in parts he hadn’t been to yet.

The customary greetings in the various languages echoed. The official language of the Tenth Planet Project was English, partly because it had become the language of science, and partly out of deference to the Americans, who were the ones who first put this meeting together. But the greetings were always in the native tongues, and it was a custom no one wanted to forgo.

When the formalities were done, General Maddox sighed so softly that only those at the U.S. table could hear her. Then she smiled, a businesslike smile that had an edge of weariness to it.

“I have a personal announcement first,” she said.

Cross stiffened. Britt put her hand on his arm.
Here it comes,
Shane mouthed. Apparently he thought what they all were thinking: they were going to lose the general.

“I’ve been asked to leave the Project,” Maddox said, her voice strong.

Shane rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly, his commentary on the stupidity of government clear, at least, to the people across the table.

“But I have refused. I believe that the work we do here may be the work that saves this planet. I want to be a part of this as much as I want to be a part of the military team that eventually destroys those alien bastards.”

Shane turned his head toward her in surprise. Cross let himself relax. Britt squeezed his wrist, bowed her head, and smiled slightly. None of them wanted to lose Maddox.

Maddox said, “I suspect that I will have to defend my place on this Project for some time to come. That’s my problem. However, I do have one favor to ask of the group ”

Cross noted that everyone in all the various conference rooms around the world was watching her intently.

“In the past we’ve had a bit of banter and a rather loose format for the meetings.”

“Loose?” Britt whispered so softly that only Cross could hear her. It was his turn to smile. Scientific meetings were never as structured as the meetings of the Tenth Planet Project had been.

“I would like now to run these meetings as efficiently as possible.”

One of the Russian scientists started to protest. Maddox held up a hand for silence.

“I understand the need for informal discussion,” she said. “I can no longer be present for that. So instead of holding those discussions within the structure of the meeting, I have arranged to keep the uplink going for as long as necessary after the formal meeting, so that the informal talks can continue. All I ask is that I am briefed on any new and important information that comes from the informal discussions. Is that acceptable to the group?”

All of the members of the Project nodded, and many spoke the word “yes” aloud.

Maddox’s smile was real this time. “Good,” she said. “Very good. Then let’s get this meeting under way.”

She touched her wrist’puter, where it seemed as if she had a list of notes. Britt also had notes, and several of the others at the international tables seemed to have notes as well.

“Since I started,” Maddox said, “let me continue with a matter the president has asked me to bring to your attention.” Cross cradled his cooling latte. He wondered if Jamison had had any luck yet in Monterey, and if so, why he hadn’t paged Cross.

“All of the world leaders have discussed this, but the president asked me to make a special point of mentioning it here.” Britt’s grip on Cross’s wrist eased.

“The Tenth Planet Project is something the press does not know about. Our governments have managed to keep a lid on our work, as well as on one other thing: no one has yet, in any credible way, leaked the news that the tenth planet will make a return visit in five and a half months. All our analysts believe there will be massive riots and destruction, with millions dead, if the world finds out that what happened two weeks ago was only a prelude to another alien attack. We cannot allow this to happen.”

There was a general murmuring of agreement. Cross waited for the rest.

“We have been ordered not to speak to the press about the future of the tenth planet. No hints, no leaks. We need to keep this information contained, and part of containment is this: if there is a leak, we have to squelch it, and quickly.”

“You want us to lie,” one of the Chinese representatives said.

“If necessary,” Maddox said.

“The news will get out eventually,” Britt said.

Maddox frowned at her.

Britt shrugged. “Scientists all over the world are familiar with the tenth planet now. They may not be part of our organization, but they’re not dumb. They’re going to come to the same conclusions we do.”

“We’ve already spoken to the best and the brightest in astronomy and physics, at least in this country,” Yolanda Hayes said. “They’re under instruction to send any new information to the president’s Science Office first. We’re forming a brain trust to be coordinated by me, Robert Shane, and two other members of the White House’s scientific community.” “You’re going to control the free flow of information?” Cross asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.

“In a nutshell, yes, Dr. Cross.” Maddox crossed her arms. “What’s your problem with this? I assume you don’t want the millions of dead, which rioting would cause, any more than I do.”

Her remark was like a slap, but he went on anyway. “Science doesn’t function with restrictions on information.”

“Are you familiar with the Manhattan Project?” Maddox’s voice was cold.

“You’re comparing us to a group of scientists hidden in the New Mexico desert, a group whose mission was to design the deadliest weapon of all time?” Cross turned toward her. “Leo,” Britt whispered. “Not now.”