Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? (30 page)

Somehow, both of these scenes appeared at once.

And there were more: A young family rested and played and laughed in the sunny late afternoon outside their house on the rolling hills of a farm. Across the hills, a long country road wound through a vast field of wheat waving in the early fall wind. And a bustling city showed itself, with magnificent skyscrapers and busy streets teeming with life.

There were also exotic views. In one, a nearby plant with long leaves of green and yellow streaks waved gently in the wind. The wind created sounds as it blew through the leaves, like a song with random, alternating tones, from a low rumble to a haunting, high-pitched call. The plant was on a broad plain covered with a light yellow moss-like substance. In the distance, a dark mountain range broke through a thin, pitch-black layer on the horizon. This layer gave way to deep blue skies that gradually faded into a mottled light blue and black. A large, bright white moon hung low in the sky. Two smaller, reddish moons rode higher in the sky.

Any one of these scenes, or a combination, or all of them, could be experienced.

At the same time, texts of writings appeared in English. One related a vivid account of warfare, perhaps in the past on the ETs’ home planet. Another appeared to be a political document setting up guidelines and institutions for a government. There were several texts displaying mathematical formulas. A stunning museum opened up, full of artwork with colors and shapes not yet imagined on Earth appearing and fading away on the walls, and in empty spaces in the rooms.

Duggard and the others had no idea how long they had been in the alien gardens and libraries when a chilly wind began to sting their faces again, and the drab scene in the recesses of Andrews Field reappeared. The small red dot shone in front of them.

No one spoke for several minutes as each reran the fantastic experiences in his or her mind’s eye. Then David said in a soft tone, “I must go.”

“We won’t be able to open the red dots until we’ve reached your level in science and technology? That could be generations,” said Ahmet, almost in despair.

“I think we’ve got enough to occupy us for the time being,” said Duggard.

Claire spoke up, “David, you’ve had a lot of trouble with your transportation and communication technology. Won’t the long trip back to your planet be, well, dangerous?”

“We knew there were risks when agreed to undertake this mission,” David said calmly. He turned to Duggard and, after a pause, asked, “May I embrace you?”

A surprised Duggard said, “Well, yes, you may.” She leaned down toward the ET and got another surprise when he rose part-way to meet her. That was when people discovered that David’s limbs could extend about six inches. Duggard put her arms around the unexpectedly soft surface of David’s Earth suit and brushed her cheek against his helmet. David laid his arms lightly on Duggard’s shoulders, apparently unsure how sturdy this strange Earth creature was.

“Did I injure you?” he asked as he pulled back.

“No,” said Duggard with a smile. “That was fine.”

The ET then hugged each person in the group in turn. After embracing Ahmet, he said, “I’m very glad we got to meet.”

Speechless for once, Ahmet looked back with disbelief and sadness.

“Goodbye,” David said, and then walked to his shuttle. The door slid open and then shut behind him after he stepped inside. In a minute or two, the shuttle’s engine began to buzz, and the craft lifted smoothly off the tarmac. When it reached a height of about forty feet, the shuttle disappeared and the buzzing stopped. David was gone.

E
PILOGUE

N
ews that the
ETs would not retaliate and had abandoned their mission to Earth to return home did little to slow the Earth’s slide into anarchy, at first. But in the coming weeks, the Iranian government gained the upper hand over extreme fundamentalists and cleared the Straits of Hormuz. North Korea, shocked by its quick defeat, masked its vulnerability to cyber warfare by threatening its enemies with ever more dire destruction.

Among the public, some still thought the approach of the ETs was an evil hoax perpetrated to help this or that political party, religion, or social class to take over the planet. Some thought that the ETs didn’t actually leave, and were plotting with the government to establish a dictatorship. And extremists of every stripe found it hard to pull back once they had resorted to violence.

But ETs were out of the news, and rent had to be paid, crops had to be tended… Day by day, week by week, people began to make plans again and to resume their old routines. Scott, Claire’s original driver, and Maggie reached a middle ground: Scott continued to go to his neighborhood protection group on Saturdays, and his wife still gave money to her extremist online church, but the family started going to their regular Baptist church on Sundays. As people’s confidence crept back, governments eased capital controls, adding to a sense of return to normality.

However, “normality” itself was altered. The appearance of powerful, advanced aliens from across the galaxy rocked people’s concepts of
themselves and their place in the universe. The collapse or near collapse of governments and other institutions undermined faith in the old order.

Inevitably expressing another side of human nature, some commentators and entertainers found humor in the ETs’ exit. One late-night TV host cited the latest edition of “Cosmic Traveler,” which contained an article entitled “The Four Worst Places in the Milky Way to Visit.” Earth was number three. “Number four is Feces-Swamp Land,” said the host. “Rabid Tyrannosaurus World is number two.” Number one was Giant Ball of Gas. “Now you might wonder why is that so bad,” the host said. “I mean, Jupiter is made up of gas. It’s not so bad. But Giant Ball of Gas is in a solar system that overdosed on bad chili.”

Claire, Ahmet, and the others continued to work at Denver One, but they knew it would close in a year or so, after they finished their comprehensive report analyzing the lessons to be learned from contact with ETs and outlining what lines of research would be most fruitful.

To the disappointment of Blake and other NASA executives, Claire decided to go back into academic research. The ETs’ mind-boggling use of exotic physics rekindled her interest in her special field of dark matter. New ideas for research and even equations popped into her head as she worked at Denver One, like they had in her days in graduate school at Cal Tech. She’d always said the answers to problems in science might be ideas no one had imagined yet, and for her, the thrill of research had been in the possibility that she would discover those ideas. Now she felt that thrill once more. Just as before, she scribbled down the insights as soon as she could. Some of the other scientists at Denver One regularly dropped by her desk to see what she had come up with.

She had the old, painful dream a couple of times—desperately pursuing something or someone but in vain. But the dreams were different, interspersed with scenes of ordinary daily life—driving herself to run harder through awful pain, then a brief replay of yesterday’s lunch in the Denver One break room, then more running. And now it sometimes seemed to Claire like the person running wasn’t really her.

Maybe finding a lasting relationship with Al had altered the dreams, she thought. But she came to conclude that the agonizing chase wasn’t to find
someone in the future; it was mainly the impossible attempt to recover the intimacy and happy family she’d had in her grasp with Sam’s father, Dillon, before his drug addiction.

In the meantime, Claire resumed Sunday morning visits to “her” red dot after a few weeks. On her first visit after David left, she took Sammie. It was cold. In mid-November, there were no colorful leaves, no vibrant green grass. Trees raised their bare branches like boney fingers in the diluted, late-autumn sunlight.

Claire’s heart sank when she saw that Ray wasn’t sitting on his usual mound near the red dot. On the drive there, she couldn’t wait to discuss her meeting with the ET with Ray. Now she worried that with his failing health, maybe he was no longer able to get out, or maybe he had passed away.
Oh, shoot, maybe it’s just car trouble or a cold
, she thought. She realized she didn’t have any contact information for him, not even his last name. She would just have to keep coming back Sunday mornings and hope she saw him again.

Sammie let out an excited screech when he saw the red dot. “Mommy, can I touch it?” he asked. After getting permission, he dashed to the dot and began gleefully jumping up and down on it.

As Claire watched, she thought happily about her visits to the hospital to see President Douthart. Their affection for each other was still there, and grew stronger, as did their sexual attraction. They felt like teenagers again, struggling to keep their hands off each other. One of the first things they did was ask the doctor if the President was strong enough for some “excitement.”

To their embarrassment, the doctor asked them to list the acts they were contemplating. So far he’d approved the first two, and the couple enthusiastically engaged in both when they were alone.

“Come on, Doc, what about number three?” they playfully asked the doctor each time they saw him.

Claire made the most recent visit to see President Douthart—or Al, or sweetheart, as she knew him now—with Sammie. Douthart’s son Ted was there with his spouse, Harry. From the first hellos, the get-together was warm and cheerful. Claire was overjoyed that Al and Sammie quickly established a close bond.

“Tell you what, Mr. Sam, I make a mean turkey sandwich,” said Douthart. “I’ll show you after I get better.”

We’re a good family
, Claire thought. She and the President had not made plans, but everyone, even Sammie, assumed they would be together from now on. And that meant marriage. Ted even called her “Mom” a couple of times.

Claire’s attention swung back to the present when she heard Sammie’s too-loud child’s voice. “Do you have a cat?” he asked an older man and woman sitting on the other side of the red dot. For more than a week, he’d been nagging Claire to get a cat.

“Why yes we do,” said the tall, trim woman. “Delilah is a big, beautiful, ornery cat. Would you like to see her picture?”

“Yes, please. I want to get a cat.”

The couple and Claire exchanged knowing looks, and the woman said to Sammie, “It’s fun having a cat, but it’s a lot of work every day.”

Sammie’s eyes got big as saucers as he looked at the pictures on the couple’s smart phone. “Wow! She’s cool!” he said in almost a shout.

Claire smiled. Her son was just a few feet away from one of the greatest wonders in history—a gift from creatures from space—but now he was totally absorbed looking at pictures of a stranger’s cat.
How is he going to lose that?
she thought with a touch of sadness.
I know he will
. No one retained that kind of openness and wonder as an adult. How much could he keep? Not only would he face inevitable trials like loss and illness, Claire pondered, but he’d face them in a world where old beliefs were challenged.

Now feeling melancholy, she turned her attention to the patchy blue sky for a few minutes. Looking up through the bare branches at the thin veil over the vastness of space, she said under her breath, “I hope he makes it OK.”

END

A
UTHOR
B
IOGRAPHY

Eugene Linn graduated from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, before he joined the US Army.

After studying Chinese Mandarin at the Defense Language Institute, Linn went on to serve as a Chinese language voice intercept operator. Upon leaving the armed forces, he attended the University of Kansas, where he earned a bachelor’s in journalism and a master’s in East Asian studies, with a focus on Chinese language and politics.

Linn went on to become a freelance reporter, working out of Hong Kong for UPI, Business China, Asian Business, and numerous others. Some of his specific writing assignments have included an annual report on China’s government social insurance system for Watson Wyatt Worldwide consulting and special contributor articles on China stocks for
equities.com
.

Linn now lives with his wife in the Philippines, writing novels and editing academic papers.