The End of All Things (39 page)

As long as I didn’t explode.

I did not explode.

Which, frankly, was a relief. It meant the hard part of my trip was over. Now all I had to do was let gravity do its work and just fall to the ground.

I unlatched myself from the sled and pushed off, getting distance from it. Its fate would be to burn up in the upper atmosphere. I did not want to be there when it went.

My own trip through the atmosphere was thankfully uneventful. My nanobotic shield held perfectly well, the turbulence was mostly tolerable, and my descent through the lower reaches of the atmosphere was smartly managed by my parachute, which landed me, light as a feather, in a small park on the Virginia-side banks of the Potomac River, outside of Washington, D.C. As the nanobots that comprised my parachute disassociated into dust, I reflected on the fact that I had become a little jaded about falling to the surface of a planet from space.

This is my life now,
I thought. I accessed my BrainPal to confirm the local time, which was 3:20
A.M.
on a Sunday, and to confirm that I had landed near where I wanted to be: Alexandria, Virginia, in the USA.

“Wow,” someone said, and I looked around. There was an older man, lying on a bench. He was either homeless or just liked sleeping in the park.

“Hello,” I said.

“You just fell from the sky,” he said.

“Brother, you don’t know the half of it,” I replied.

*   *   *

I came across who I was looking for several hours later, having brunch at an Alexandria restaurant, not too far from her home, which I did not visit even though I knew where it was, because, come on, that’s rude.

She was sitting by herself on the restaurant patio, at a two-seater table near the patio’s sidewalk railing. She had a Bloody Mary in one hand and a pencil in the other. The former she was drinking; the latter she was applying to a crossword puzzle. She was wearing a hat to block the sun and sunglasses, I suspect, to avoid eye contact with creeps.

I walked up and glanced down at the crossword puzzle. “Thirty-two down is ‘paprika,’” I said.

“I knew that,” she said, not looking up at me. “But thanks anyway, random annoying dude. Also, if you think butting into my crossword puzzle is a good way to hit on me, you should probably just keep walking. In fact, you should just keep walking anyway.”

“That’s a fine ‘hello’ to someone who’s saved your life,” I said. “Twice.”

She looked up. Her mouth dropped open. Her Bloody Mary slipped out of her hand and hit the ground.

“Shit!” she said, flustered, at the spilled drink.

“That’s better,” I said. “Hello, Danielle.”

Danielle Lowen, of the United States State Department, stood up as a waiter came to pick up her spilled drink. She looked me over. “It’s really you,” she said.

“Yes it is.”

She looked me over again. “You’re not
green,
” she said.

I smiled. “I thought it might make me stick out.”

“It’s throwing me,” she said. “Now that I see you without it I recognize how disgustingly young you look. I hate you.”

“I assure you it’s only temporary.”

“Will you be trying purple next?”

“I think I’ll stick with the classics.”

The waiter had finished cleaning up the spilled drink and broken glass and ducked away. Danielle looked at me. “Well? Are you going to sit down or are we going to keep standing here awkwardly?”

“I’m waiting for an invitation,” I said. “When we left off, I was told to keep walking.”

Danielle grinned. “Harry Wilson, will you have brunch with me?”

“I would be delighted,” I said, and stepped over the railing. When I did Danielle came over to me and gave me a fierce hug, and a peck on the cheek.

“Jesus, it’s good to see you,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. We both took our seats.

“Now tell me why you’re here,” she said, after we sat down.

“You don’t think it’s just to see you?” I asked.

“As much as I would like to, no,” she said. “It’s not like you live down the road.” She frowned for a moment. “How
did
you get here, anyway?”

“It’s classified.”

“I’m close enough to stab you with a fork.”

“I used a very small experimental craft.”

“A flying saucer.”

“More like a space dune buggy.”

“A ‘space dune buggy’ doesn’t sound very safe.”

“It’s perfectly safe, ninety-eight percent of the time.”

“Where did you park it?”

“I didn’t. It burned up in the upper atmosphere and I did a jump the rest of the way down.”

“You and your jumps, Harry. There are easier ways to visit the planet Earth.”

“At the moment there’s really not,” I said. “At least not for me.”

The waiter returned with a new Bloody Mary for Danielle, and she ordered for the both of us. “I hope that’s all right,” she said, of the ordering.

“You know this place better than I do.”

“So you dropped in. Tell me why.”

“I need you to get me in to speak to the U.S. secretary of state.”

“You need to speak to my dad.”

“Well, what I really need to do is speak to the entire United Nations,” I said. “But for the very short term I will settle for your father, yes.”

“You couldn’t send a note?”

“This isn’t really something I could have put into a note.”

“Try it now.”

“All right,” I said. “‘Dear Danielle Lowen: How are you? I am fine. The group that destroyed Earth Station and made it look like the Colonial Union did it is now planning to nuke the surface of your planet until it glows, and frame the Conclave for it. Hope you are well. Looking forward to rescuing you in space again soon. Your friend, Harry Wilson.’”

Danielle was quiet for a moment. “All right, you have a point,” she said, finally.

“Thank you.”

“That’s accurate?” she asked. “The part about Equilibrium planning to use nuclear weapons against the Earth.”

“Yes,” I said. “I have all the documents and data with me.” I tapped my temple to indicate my BrainPal. “The information is not yet one hundred percent confirmed but it comes from sources we can verify.”

“Why does Equilibrium want to do that?”

“You’re going to hate the reason, I assure you.”

“Of course I’m going to hate it. There’s no good reason to nuke an entire planet.”

“It’s not really about Earth,” I said. “Equilibrium is pitting the Colonial Union and the Conclave against each other in the hope they’ll destroy each other.”

“I thought they had a different plan for that. One that didn’t involve the Earth.”

“They did, but then we found out about it. So they changed their plans to include you.”

“They’ll kill billions here just to make the two of you fight up there.”

“That’s about right.”

Danielle glowered. “This is a fucked-up universe we live in, Harry.”

“I’ve been telling you that for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Yes, but before this I could still believe you might be
wrong
about it.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Danielle said. “It might be the Colonial Union’s fault. In fact, I’m pretty sure it is, if you go back far enough.”

“You’re not entirely wrong.”

“No, I’m not. The Colonial Union—”

I held up a hand. Danielle paused. “You know you lecture me about the Colonial Union every time I see you,” I said. “And every time I see you I tell you that you and I don’t really disagree. If it’s okay with you, I’d be fine with just having this bit of our interaction tabled as read, so we can move on to other things.”

Danielle looked at me sourly. “I
like
ranting about the Colonial Union.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “By all means please continue.”

“It’s too late for that,” she said. “The moment’s gone.”

Our food arrived.

“Now I’m not hungry,” Danielle said.

“It’s difficult to keep an appetite in the face of global nuclear extinction,” I said. I carved into a waffle.

“You don’t seem to be having a problem,” Danielle observed, dryly. “But then it’s not your planet.”

“It certainly is my planet,” I said. “I’m from Indiana.”

“But not recently.”

“Recently enough, I assure you,” I said. I took a bite of waffle, chewed it, and swallowed it. “The reason I can eat is because I have a plan.”

“You have a plan.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“And you thought up this plan on your own, did you.”

“No, Ambassador Abumwe thought it up,” I said. “Most of it. I helped in the margins.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way—”

“This is gonna be good,” I said, and took a drink of my orange juice.

“—but the fact it’s Abumwe who thought up this plan is more reassuring than if you thought it up.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “She’s a grown-up.”

“Yes,” Danielle said. “Whereas you look like my kid brother.”

“Despite the fact I’m older than you and Abumwe combined.”

“Scratch that. You look like my kid brother’s distractingly hot college roommate. And please stop telling me you’re old enough to be my grandfather. The cognitive dissonance really ruins it for me.”

I grinned. “You seem to be processing the end of days pretty well,” I said.

“Do I?” Danielle said. “Yes, well. Rest assured that the moment the flirty banter stops I’m going to be well and truly losing my shit, Harry.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Remember, we have a plan from a responsible grown-up.”

“And what does this plan entail, Harry?”

“Several small things, and one very big thing,” I said.

“And what’s that?”

“The Earth trusting the Colonial Union.”

“To do what?”

“To save you.”

“Ah,” Danielle said. “I can already tell you
that’s
going to be a tough sell.”

“And now you know why I’m here instead of sending you a note. And why I’m talking to you first.”

“Harry,” Danielle cautioned. “Just because we like each other as people doesn’t mean that my father or anyone else will listen to you.”

“Of course not,” I said. “But us liking each other, and me saving your life twice, is enough to get my foot in the door. And then the plan will take over.”

“It better be a good plan, Harry.”

“It is. I promise.”

“What else are you going to need besides us trusting you?”

“One of your ships,” I said. “And, if you’re not too busy, you.”

“Why me?”

“Because we’re going to go talk to Hafte Sorvalh, the head of the Conclave. You’ve been head of a mission to the Conclave very recently. If we get an agreement down here, we have things to talk about to her up there.”

“The Conclave’s officially not talking to you right now.”

“Yes, I know. We have a plan.”

“Abumwe again?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Danielle said, and got out her PDA.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Dad.”

“Let me finish brunch first.”

“I thought this was a matter of some urgency, Harry.”

“It is,” I said. “But I fell from the sky today. I could use a couple of waffles.”

PART THREE

“Well, and here we are again,” Hafte Sorvalh said, to the three of us. “And how completely unsurprising this seems to me.”

Sorvalh’s audience consisted of Ambassador Abumwe, Ambassador Lowen, and me, as their joint underling for the meeting. Sorvalh had her own underling with her, if one could genuinely call Vnac Oi, the head of intelligence for all of the Conclave, an underling. Sorvalh and the ambassadors were sitting; Oi and I, standing. I was doing a lot of standing in meetings recently.

We five were in her private study at Conclave headquarters. On the other side of the door, literally and figuratively, were ambassadorial staff and experts and advisors, from Earth, from the Colonial Union, and from the Conclave. If one was quiet, one could feel their combined howling frustration at not being in the room at the moment.

“May I be honest with you?” Lowen asked Sorvalh. I noted that I found it difficult to think of her as “Danielle” when she was on the job. Not because she materially changed her personality when she was working, but simply out of respect for her position.

“Ambassador, I believe the point of this current discussion is to be honest with each other, is it not?” Sorvalh asked.

“I assumed that there would be more of us in the room for this discussion.”

Sorvalh smiled one of her absolutely-terrifying-to-humans smiles. “I believe each of our staffs thought the same thing, Ambassador,” she said. “But I have always found that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of people in a room and the amount of useful work that can be done. Now that I am the person in charge of things, I find it even more so. Do you not?”

“No,” Lowen said. “I think you’re right, by and large.”

“Of course I am. And, Madams Ambassador, I believe that the reason we are here is to have a
definitively
useful meeting, are we not?”

“It is to be hoped,” Abumwe said.

“Precisely,” Sorvalh said. “So, no, Ambassador. I believe we have precisely the correct number of people in the room.”

“Yes, Premier Sorvalh,” Lowen said.

“Then let’s not waste any more time.” Sorvalh turned her attention to Abumwe. “You may begin, Ambassador.”

“Premier Sorvalh, Equilibrium intends to attack the Earth with nuclear weapons and make it appear to the Colonial Union that it is the Conclave that initiated the attack.”

“Yes,” Sorvalh said. “Vnac Oi here gave me a précis of the report you prepared for us. I assume you are going to ask us for our help in thwarting the attack, seeing that we are meant to be blamed for it.”

“No, Premier,” Abumwe said. “We want the attack to proceed.”

Sorvalh reared back slightly at this, looked over to Lowen, and then back at Abumwe. “Well!” she said, after a moment. “This is certainly a bold and unexpected strategy. I’m fascinated to learn how this will be beneficial to any of us, not least the poor irradiated citizens of Earth.”

“Lieutenant,” Abumwe said to me.

“We want the attack to proceed because we need to draw out Equilibrium,” I said. “The group is small, driven, and has been difficult for us—any of us—to locate and attack. The one successful attack against the group as a whole was by Rafe Daquin, when he escaped from their control. But other than that they’ve been very good at working in the shadows.”