Oblivion (10 page)

He ignored her. The other members of the Project were silent.

“Yes,” Maddox said. “I am.”

“In many ways our mission is similar,” Hayes said.

Cross turned to her. “I can’t believe you want to stifle the free flow of information,” he said. “You of all people know how valuable it is to scientists.”

“I believe in a trade-off,” Hayes said. “If we don’t control this information, we’ll have rioting in the streets, and I personally can’t live with the idea I could be even partially responsible.”

Maddox looked pointedly at her watch. Cross ignored her. “I understand the press blackout,” he said. “It’s the rest of it. The brain trust, the control of information even among scientists—”

“Someone will leak it,” Killius said. “You know as well as I do that scientists don’t always have the best social skills. They sometimes don’t think about the people applications. Do you want some lower-level astronomer posting his notes on the tenth planet’s return on the Internet? Others’ll check it and—”

“How do we prevent it?” Cross said. “Just because you have the best and the brightest already on tap doesn’t mean that some amateur astronomer won’t figure it out on his own ”

“That’s a problem,” Hayes said.

“Yeah, it’s a problem,” Cross said. “It’s a twofold problem. The amateurs are often the ones who come up with the most creative solutions. And right now, that’s what we need. We need creativity, not some brain trust sitting around in a damn meeting!”

He slammed his hand against the table and the sound silenced everyone. They were all staring at him.

His heart was pounding, and he was breathing hard. They clearly knew that he was frustrated being in the room, but he wasn’t going to back down. He had a point. They had to see that, too.

“Pardon me,” one of the British physicists said, “but I do see both your points. Dr. Cross is right; it is always better to share information among like minds. However, if perhaps we set up a web site or a contact number for people who believe they have valuable information, we will still be able to get the input of the creative amateurs.”

“And who’ll monitor the sites?” Hayes asked. She sounded as frayed as Cross felt. “That’ll be a full-time job in and of itself.”

“Graduate students,” Shane said. “Research assistants.

Maybe some high school science teachers. Folks who we can trust with the knowledge but who won’t be on the brain trust.”

“This is a compromise, Dr. Cross,” Maddox said, “and I believe it’s the only one you’ll get. It’s better than anything I would have mentioned. But then, I have a military mentality, as some of you are fond of pointing out.”

Cross made himself swallow hard. Maddox was right. This was a compromise, and it was probably the best one he was going to get. “We’re going to need someone to coordinate this effort in each country.”

“I’m sure that’s something that can be determined after I leave,” Maddox said.

“I think it can, General,” Shane said quickly, with a look toward Cross. “I have some ideas that might make it work.” “As long as any new information is contained, I don’t care what you do,” Maddox said. “But believe me, if something leaks, I’ll have that leak traced and the leaker’s butt in a sling so fast that he won’t even know what hit him. Is that clear, Dr. Cross?”

“I won’t leak anything, General,” he said. “I kept this a secret for a lot longer than anyone else.”

Her gaze met his and in it, he thought he saw a trace of sympathy. So the general understood his argument and the problems with silence. Good. He hoped the others did.

“Good,” she said. “Moving on. The second item on my agenda is, ironically enough, the sharing of information between governments. We need to keep our people in the dark to prevent rioting, but we, as governments, need to share as much as possible. With that in mind, I’d like to update you on the U.S.’s military position.”

As she talked about troop counts and training and increased weapons buildup, Cross finished his now-cold latte and calmed himself down. Without the free flow of information, Cross would never have put together the facts that led to the discovery of the tenth planet. He had contacted archaeologists via e-mail, amateurs and professionals alike, asking simple, pointed questions. He’d brought Edwin Bradshaw into his circle—Bradshaw, who had been a man ahead of his time, and then had been disgraced for research that was now proving central to the tenth planet itself. Cross could have done none of that with the strictures the governments wanted to impose.

.. in the history of the world,” the German military representative was saying, “there has never been a military buildup like this one. Not this quick, not this uniform, not worldwide.” “Every country that has a military is deploying it,” said the British Cabinet member who was fulfilling the equivalent of Maddox’s duties in his tenth planet group.

“We’ve stepped up production of aircraft, weaponry, and anything else we can think of that might defeat these aliens,” Maddox said.

Cross wondered why. The weapons had done no good against the alien ships last time. Or at least not much good. He guessed building weapons was the only thing the military knew how to do.

“Please,” the head of the Japanese group said, “my people have a special request.”

Everyone was silent. The Japanese listened more than spoke at these meetings.

“We are not only conscripting our young people for military duty,” the Japanese leader said, “but we are also taking our youngest scientists, the award-winning students, and putting them to work on various projects that might help us defeat the aliens. We believe we are alone in this program. We ask that other countries do the same.”

“A modified way of dealing with your objections, Dr. Cross,” Shane said.

Cross shrugged. “It’ll do.”

“It’s a wonderful idea,” Britt said.

“I think,” Killius said, “we might also want to consider funneling some of our young people into accelerated astronaut programs.”

Her words were met with another silence as the members contemplated them. Then, one by one, the leaders of the various groups nodded.

“Excellent,” Maddox said. “We’re accomplishing more here than I thought we would.”

Yeah, Cross thought. And if the world survives, everything will be different We won’t recognize the military culture we’ve built. Or be able to control it.

But he said nothing, because as far as he could see, there was no choice.

“Dr. Cross,” Maddox said. “Has there been any progress on the nanomachines?”

He sighed. “Not the kind I want,” he said. “We haven’t found one. But we do have a device that might make finding one possible. We have teams at the various damage sites”—he was already using euphemistic language himself—“searching for the machines. I was there myself until I was called back here, a move that the general probably regrets.”

There was laughter all around. Maddox even smiled.

“We can disagree, Dr. Cross, but your opinion is extremely valuable to this Project,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said. “Statistically, we should find more than one nanomachine—enough were left to form a fossilized record in the past—so it’s only a matter of time. The key is, the sooner we find one of these things, the more time we have to study the aliens’ technology. And if we’re going to defeat them, we’re going to defeat them through knowledge, not guesswork.”

“That said,” Maddox said, “does the South American team have information from the downed alien craft?”

On the vid screen in front of them, one of the men sitting at the South American conference table stood up. He folded his hands together and nodded toward someone off the monitor.

That someone, a man, joined him. Both men were thin and wore dark suits. They could almost have been twins if it weren’t for one man’s thick head of hair, and the other’s baldness.

“We have just begun work on the ships,” the first man said. “We have very little by way of preliminary findings, only that it was not what we expected.”

“What did you expect?” Shane asked.

The other man smiled. “Perhaps something out of your American movies ” Then he shrugged. “But we have been working with a large group of scientists. We have found little enough to report, but our biologists have studied the alien remains.”

Cross felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He had been so focused on the technology and preventing the aliens from returning, he hadn’t even thought of the possibility of alien remains in those downed ships. But, of course, they would be there.

“They are quite different from us, and yet, I think we may have had similar origins.” A third man had joined the group. He was speaking with an Australian accent. “I lead the biological team,” he said by way of introduction.

“Continue,” Maddox said.

He nodded. “I would guess they originated in their planet’s oceans as we did in ours. Only when they climbed into the primordial ooze, they kept their tentacles and a few other features. They breathe through slits, like gills. There are many other features to their anatomy that we don’t completely understand yet, but we have done one thing. We have, using the information we got from the remains and from the structure of the ship, created a composite sketch of what we believe these aliens look like alive. I will uplink it now.”

The vid screen blanked for a brief moment.

“Sorry,” Maddox said to the group in front of her. “That’s the security protocols kicking in. Our techs are instructed to double-check the secure lines before images other than our own go over them.”

Cross folded his hands and rested them on the table. Britt put the plastic cap on her mug. She slid her chair back slightly.

Then the screen lightened again.

The image facing them was not what Cross had expected, even hearing about the tentacles. The creature before him had smooth, rubbery black skin—if skin was what you called it— that covered an oblong center. Cross was reminded of the middle portion of the butterfly, the part that held the antennae and wings in place.

Tentacles floated off the middle of the torso, and the bottom of the oblong center. At the top were what appeared to be more tentacles until the image shifted.

They were long stems, with eyes on the top.

Cross shuddered.

The biologist was explaining that the breathing slits were on the sides near the top of the oblong center and that there were pockets at the very top of the creature’s torso thingy, ten of them, probably for the eyes.

The alien looked like a squid crossed with some sort of nasty stinging bug.

Cross shuddered. He was completely repulsed. And he didn’t know why.

But he did know he was going to do everything in his power to strike back at these creatures for what they had done to his planet. And his people.

April 27, 2018
21:05 Universal Time

170 Days Until Second Harvest

Malmuria filled the streets. Overhead the great solar panels had tightened down, so that a brown light filtered through. The light was greater than Malmuria were used to, but it was still thin and provided little illumination.

Barely enough to see the Elders, floating toward the Great Monument, their wispy bodies like black smoke pouring across the city.

Cicoi had never seen so many of his people outside. Young females, their tentacles tight around their bodies, stood beside older females who had briefly left the nests untended. Worker males had left their jobs and were standing in clumps, as far from the females as possible. And family males, what few of them had been allowed to awaken, were standing with their females, huddled close as if they derived comfort from the bodies around them.

All of the Malmuria had unpocketed two eyestalks—any more would be an insult—and all of those eyestalks were raised toward the sky, turning, watching, as the Elders moved forward.

Cicoi had never seen such a sight. The buildings behind the Malmuria were filled with more timid members of the communities, leaning out windows that hadn’t been opened in generations, standing on balconies whose use was long forgotten.

So much change. Cicoi raised a single tentacle and let it fall. More change than he had ever wanted to see.

He stood on the tips of all of his lower tentacles on the slide leading up to Command Central. The Commanders of the North and Center were beside him, their posture the same as his. None of them spoke to the others; they didn’t dare. The Elders weren’t done with them yet.

How Cicoi knew that, he had no idea. But he suspected it had to do with the Elders touching the inside of his brain.

The Elders floated as a group toward the Great Monument, the last thing ever built by the ancient Malmuria, in the days before they left their original sun.

It was a statue of the ten greatest leaders, each with their ten best advisers, eyestalks pointed toward the stars as if they could see into the blackness of space, tentacles flowing freely as was once allowed. Cicoi loved that monument; it spoke of things lost and things gained, at least to him. He had never heard any of his own people discuss its actual meaning.

The Elders encircled it. Some leaned against the central ten figures. Others touched the tentacles of the advisers. There were not enough Elders to touch all of the advisers.