The Invitation-kindle (17 page)

“You need to eat breakfast, Allen.”

“I had something earlier, Sir. What about you?”

“I’m fine. My wife was up most of the night. I’m glad she’s getting some rest.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Today I will sit with her, and thank her for all the help she’s given to me through the years. Are you married, Allen?”

“Yes, Sir, I am.”

“Too many men lose the habit of expressing affection to their wives. We tend to look past those things that are closest to us.”

“I guess that’s true, Sir.”

“Take all things with gratitude, Allen.”

“I try, Sir. Mr. President, I must ask you to allow a security detail to stay with you for your protection.”

“No, I think you, and I have it covered, Allen. We don’t need any more company. So I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen. Things must unfold as they will. It’s predetermined.”

“What do you mean, Sir?”

“Have patience. This will all be over soon. Actually, we will have company tonight. The Vice President will be with us. He’s a good man, Vice President Conner.”

“Yes, Sir, he is.”

“Tonight he plays the part for which he was chosen. Allen I’m going to check on my wife. Why don’t you get some rest, and come back later today, if you’d like.”

“If… that's what you want me to do Sir.”

“Get some rest Allen, when they debrief you, tell them they have no power to change what will happen, and tell them not to worry. When this is over all that we love will be preserved.  I want to thank you for your good company. It was good of you to sit with me.”

“It’s my duty, Sir, and my pleasure.”

“Mine too, Allen. I’ll see you later today.”

“Yes, Sir, I’ll be here.”

“Good.”

Listening to his Commander in Chief, Allen finds his words and tone unsettling, almost fatalistic, as if knowing he would soon be leaving this world, and as the President rises to check on his wife, Secret Service agent Allen Forbes watches him walk away, and apprehensively wonders what the coming day will bring.

Several hours later, Todd Keniston is packing some things for an unexpected trip to Miami. Receiving a telephone call earlier, he has been told that a critical top secret mission will be assigned to him when he gets there. CIA Director Paul Stuart will in person brief him when he arrives, and the operation will take place immediately. Mr. Keniston has been told that he needs to bring with him only a few personal items for an overnight stay, and that everything he needs will be provided. He has been told that the operation pertains to the strange phenomenon that’s being seen across the globe by millions, and that a hidden, sinister aspect of it has been uncovered. Everything will be explained when he gets to Miami.

In one sense he’s glad to have a reason to leave. The painful memories that come with living in the empty house that use to be his family’s home are far more difficult to bear than he thought. As he’s getting ready to leave, he sees the mail truck approaching as usual. A thread of hope remains that his wife will change her mind and come back. The mail man’s gesture signals that something requires his signature. The registered letter has an unfamiliar return address. As he opens the envelope, Todd Keniston feels his heart sink. His wife has filed for divorce, and has engaged an attorney to handle her case. Without reading any more, he bitterly tears the letter into pieces. A slow, simmering anger builds inside him as he gets in his car and starts out for Miami.

A few hours later, in southern Florida, at a secret government air strip, a private jet touches down. Four men get out, and walk across the tarmac to the vehicle waiting for them. Three of them are ex-military personnel with special operations experience. One of the men is wearing gloves and carrying a black rectangular case. The fourth man is CIA Director Paul Stuart. The fifth and last member of this team is expected later. His name is Todd Keniston.

Since this incredible drama first began nearly twenty-four hours ago, television cameras have streamed uninterrupted live coverage, and additional crews have been allowed, but only at some distance from the inner perimeter, which has been sealed off.

All across the western hemisphere, people in countless millions are either outside watching the darkening eastern sky, or inside watching their TV screens, waiting for the reappearance of what they saw the night before. There seems to be an unspoken hunch by most that the time to expect communication might be at eight o’clock, which had been the time of last night’s appearance. This intuition proves correct. Many are looking at their watches, when precisely at eight o’clock, something happens, and happens instantly. From the top of the craft a pure, white beam of energy begins rising toward the eastern sky, exactly as it had done the night before. Moving much slower than the speed of light, it gradually traces the outlines of the same visual platform that carried the astonishing images of the night before. When the expected facial image of the creature that calls himself a Linesian’ suddenly appears, it immediately becomes the most recorded image in human history. For most, seeing the image of this creature for a second night in a row confirms their belief that what they are seeing is genuinely authentic. A moment passes. All are waiting for something momentous to begin. All the people of the world seem to be collectively waiting to discover what the ultimate destiny of mankind will be, as if something so profound could be told, and understood with only the words, and vocabulary of common human experience.

After another few seconds of silence, the Linesians low pitched voice is heard.

“People of Earth, once again we greet you. A full rotation of your planet has passed since our last communication, time enough to consider what you saw last night. The images of your own future depict a grim, inescapable reality for your descendants. You have begun a process that will catastrophically change your world’s climate. Adulterating a planet’s atmosphere has happened on other worlds across the galaxy countless times. Sentient life emerging from conditions similar to your own, reach a point in their history when they despoil their biospheres. Civilizations that pass through this dangerous phase are, as you will be, careful to never make that mistake again. Some damage their world’s ecology beyond recovery, and self-extinguish. Throughout the galaxy, millions of planets have on their surfaces the archeological remains of advanced civilizations like your own, co-mingled with the ancient bones of those creatures that once inhabited those worlds, now long extinct. The struggle of life to survive that you see in your own world is a theme that runs constant across the galaxy and beyond. Planetary civilizations that survive stabilize over long periods of time. Through millions of generations, highly evolved beings of imponderable cerebral depth emerge with an evolutionary lineage that spans hundreds of millions of years. The Linesians are one of many civilizations of this type.

“Linesia is a planet much like your Earth, a jeweled wonder. Liquid water on its surface harbors a profusion of living forms. Like you, we evolved from early, primitive, cellular life. Hard land surfaces formed on our planet early in its history, and intelligent beings evolved through deep time. We are those beings. We are from a part of the galaxy you call Cassiopeia. The star our planet orbits is twenty-six thousand light years away, and like your sun, is a main sequence G spectral type. Millions of years ago we passed through an ecological crises similar to your own. Our cataclysmic fall was as great as yours will be. We have survived what you will survive. We have learned what you will learn.

In this galaxy, and in all galaxies, emergent life proliferates, and in time beings of deep luminary knowledge emerge inhabiting millions of planets like your own. Fifty-nine million years ago we began cataloging these worlds, and their indigenous life. In that time we have identified more than twenty-two million planets that harbor advanced, intelligent life.

“Your Earth is one of them. Every planet across the galaxy, every civilization, their science, language, culture, and varied histories are preserved, and form an immense repository of knowledge for future generations. Millions of civilizations have pooled their knowledge, and experience for the benefit of all. When your future descendants are ready, they too will be given unfettered access to these deep stores of accumulated knowledge. It would be dangerous for you to possess this knowledge before you’re ready. What lies ahead for mankind is something far more basic. The next ten thousand years will be a grim struggle for survival that proximate human generations cannot avoid. A massive die-off of your population is necessary for what will become a restart of human history. Once this difficult period is over, mankind will stand at the dawn of a great epoch of self-awakening. The evolution of human brain development will gradually begin speeding up, as symbolic language spurs accelerated cognition, and human speech will quicken sharply. This strain of audible speech that you are now hearing from me has been slowed down hundreds of times to accommodate your rate of comprehension. Your stolidly slow cognition will accelerate many times over. .

“If you could return to Earth two million years from now, it would be impossible to communicate with your own human descendants. The technical knowledge that now takes months and years to learn will be acquired and understood in mere hours by your distant progeny. Their densely concentrated speech and language, their accelerated comprehension, and knowledge of exponentially increased volume and complexity will have the effect in some of greatly slowing down and even halting the aging process. At first only about two or three percent of humans will be affected. That small portion of the population will see an already increased lifespan of three hundred years suddenly augmented five times over, and the first ‘Millennials’ will make their appearance in human history. Named for their extraordinarily long lifespans they will be the first humans to live for more than a thousand years, and certainly not the last. But this world will not exist for another three hundred thousand years, and only after war, disease, hunger, and conflict have long disappeared.

“We are here to offer mankind an invitation to that world, an invitation into your own future. The invitation we extend has only one stipulation. You must renounce all forms of war and aggressive conflict. With your own hands you must dismantle, and discard all weapons of offensive capability, and you must, by and through your own volition, embrace a peaceful future. If you do, you will be welcomed into that galactic community which is your immutable destiny.

“Thousands of interstellar civilizations, unending in their multifarious diversity, will welcome you as an equal member. You will be given the means to communicate with them, to learn and exchange ideas, knowledge to alleviate pain and suffering, the eradication of all disease, abundant energy supplies, answers to questions that your science has pondered for centuries. All these things shall be given freely, when you are responsible enough to receive them. That time is not yet.

“We have given you much to think about. In observance of your customs we now show ourselves to you, to answer in person the many questions you must have. Let him approach who represents you, and all questions will be answered.”

At this, Ken Myers rises, and walks toward Vice President Scott Conner. Calling him over, the Vice President comes forward, while at the same time an impending sense of expectation is building. Nearly everyone has their eyes fixed on the strange alien craft that has, to this point, concealed any possible occupants. Then on its surface a vertical line appears and forms an open entrance to the vehicle. All wait in silence, knowing the ultimate moment is finally here when human eyes will for the first time see an alien being from another world. A few seconds pass. Then from the dark, recessed entrance, a creature slightly over four feet high emerges, walking upright with the same bipedal motion as humans, and sated curiosity is transformed into a general sense of wonder. The image that presents itself to the world seems at once both alien and familiar with arms, legs, hands, fingers, a head, and shoulders. The face is the same face projected so dramatically across the night sky for the past several nights, the same face that had spoken so forcefully with succinct, unquestioned authority, divining the fate of man, and his world, is now seen attached to what can only be described as a very slight physique. The large face, and eyes seem to suggest a mismatch with a much smaller body.

As the creature called a Linesian stands there, thousands of camera flashes make the scene reminiscent of a Hollywood movie star’s debut. Looking more like a frail ingénue than a mover and shaker of things, this strange-looking creature that has captured, and is now the focus of the world’s attention, seems somehow incommensurate with the powerfully dramatic events of the past two days, but when the inimitable sound of the Linesians low-pitched voice is heard again all are attentive and silent as he speaks.

“Is there one among you to speak for all?”

Upon hearing this, President Myers responds, “Scott Conner, Vice President of the United States is that person.”

Walking over to the Vice President, Ken Myers takes his hand.

“You were born for this moment, Scott. You may ask anything you want. I cannot do this. You have to fill this role. Your knowledge of science qualifies you. There’s nothing to fear.”

Walking back to his chair, Ken Myers sits down again. His wife joins him. Sitting on the other side of the President is Secret Service Agent Allen Forbes, who has returned. All three of them are conspicuously sitting down as all others remain standing. The casual, relaxed demeanor of the President of the United States seems very much out of place. The fact that Ken Myers has chosen his Vice President to in effect, speak for the people of the world leaves many wondering why.

Scott Conner is now standing no more than eight feet away from the representative of an advanced alien civilization. What could he possibly think to say? As the moments pass he breaks the silence.