“Mitch?”
Mitch almost fell off his seat. Sarah was standing at the top of the gangway. His first reaction was a sudden and undeniable wave of irritation at being interrupted.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Sarah said.
“Sarah, I—”
“You what? You can’t stop? Is that it?”
“It’s not that simple,” Mitch said, but the words sounded feeble even to him.
“You think the world stopped turning when this thing arrived?” she said, looking around.
“Sarah, this is the most—”
“The most incredible thing that’s ever happened to you?” she suggested.
“That’s not—”
“You think I don’t get it?” she said. “You think I don’t understand how important all this is? I do, Mitch. But I also know that you can’t just put your life on pause because the rest of the world has suddenly become more interesting.”
She walked over to him and took one of his hands in her own. “I miss you, Mitch. The part of me that belongs to this organization is as excited to know what will happen as you are. But the part of me that belongs to
you
doesn’t care about any of it. Does that make sense?”
He looked at her for a long time, his stubborn resolve slowly giving way to an unbearable feeling of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sarah put a finger to his lips. “Kiss me.”
He did.
When she pulled away she said, “You need to come back to Aurora. Richelle wants to see you.”
“She does?”
“Captain Almila told her what happened.”
“Oh, shit,” Mitch said.
Sarah nodded. “Yep.”
“When are we supposed to leave?”
“Now,” Sarah said. “Ride’s waiting.”
Mitch looked at her startled. Sarah saw his face and laughed. “Oh Mitch, you really do think too much. It was my idea to come and get you, not hers. And I didn’t come to get you for
her
, I came to get you for
me
.”
She took his head in her hands. “And when you’re done talking your way out of this you can help me pack up our room.”
“Where are you—”
“Here, you dummy. I’m coming here. I was going to wait until next week to tell you.”
“What made you change your mind?” Mitch asked.
“I spoke to Richelle a couple of weeks ago.”
“She said you
had
to move?”
Sarah laughed. “No, not at all. But she
did
put things into perspective for me. This is what everything else depends on. I knew that before, but I didn’t really want to understand. And I was scared. I guess when you spend your whole life somewhere it’s hard to leave it behind, even if it’s only for a while.”
Mitch looked down at the floor. “I haven’t been a very good husband, have I?”
She considered this question for a moment. “Well, you
started
on the right track, I’ll give you that. You’ve just had a little trouble maintaining the momentum.”
Mitch smiled, but then looked troubled again. “What did your father have to say about this?”
“He’s not exactly over the moon. But then it’s none of his business.”
“He hates me,” Mitch said. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“He doesn’t
hate
you,” she said. “He’s just, you know, protective.”
“Trust me, he hates me. He’s hardly said a word to me since the wedding, for God’s sake.”
Sarah laughed. “Oh, Mitch, you do think too much. Give him time. He’ll come around.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will. Now we better get out of here. Yoshi’s waiting.”
Madison, Wisconsin
Friday 8 June
2000 CDT
Francis started packing as soon as they got back to the hotel. Caroline had called him back an hour ago to let him know she had managed to get Titov a seat on the same flight as Jasper, albeit in economy. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. Francis would be traveling by a different route that would get him there several hours ahead of them. She had also confirmed what Francis had pretty much known from the beginning: Emirate Global Mining didn’t exist. It was an elaborate scam by most standards, but a fiction all the same. Titov, in the meantime, was on babysitting duty. He hadn’t liked the idea of staying behind, but had been unable to argue with the logic that Jasper was unlikely to get on the plane without the proper motivation. Thus Francis would be the advance party, while Titov shadowed their bait into what was clearly a trap. As for who was behind it and why, all he could do was guess.
Francis grabbed his suitcase and headed for the lobby, but didn’t check out of the hotel. He would be doing that with a phone call once he was safely out of the country. He took a cab to the airport, where the prospect of another trip through immigration rekindled his trepidation, but it turned out to be as free of fanfare as the first. By the time the sun met the horizon he was safely over the Atlantic, sharing a row in business class with a mother and her young son, the latter of which informed him with great enthusiasm that they were visiting his father in the “city that never sleeps”. He emphasized this as if it were a rule that canceled bedtime rather than a nickname.
Aurora
Saturday 9 June 2007
1200 EEST
Mitch walked into Richelle’s office with a joke in mind that died on the tip of his tongue when he saw her face. Heinz was already there.
“Mitch,” Richelle said, “how good of you to join us. Heinz was just telling me how the two of you managed to put this entire organization at risk. Perhaps you’d like to add something.”
“It wasn’t our fault,” Mitch said.
“Really?”
“We don’t exactly have a user manual to work with. There’s a risk that anything we do with RP One could have unintended consequences.”
Richelle picked up a photograph and held it up to him. It was a grainy color shot of a blue sky with a thin beam of bright light running from bottom to top. “You know what this is?”
Mitch shook his head.
“It’s a picture taken by a Russian tourist from a cruise ship less than ten miles from here. He swears he saw a spaceship take off from the middle of the sea. It’s gone viral on the Internet.”
“It’ll be dead in a week,” Mitch said.
“That’s not the point,” Richelle said. “What if the damn thing hadn’t disappeared? What if it had landed somewhere instead?”
Mitch looked at her defiantly and said, “Then I guess we would have a problem on our hands.”
“Gee, you think?”
The color in Mitch’s face began to rise. Heinz looked at him and shook his head to indicate this wasn’t a good time, but Mitch ignored him. “You want me to apologize for what happened? Fine, I’m sorry. But I’m not going to stand here and promise you nothing like this will happen again. It’s a fucking alien spaceship. If you want us to figure out how it works you’re going to have to accept the risk. I don’t know if it’s occurred to anyone around here, but everyone on that ship is risking their lives. For all we know the damn thing could explode one day and take everyone with it.”
Richelle only looked at him, her own temper on the edge of spilling over.
“He’s right,” Heinz said.
For a long awkward moment no one spoke. Then Richelle sat down and sighed. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Listen,” Heinz said, flashing Mitch a dark look. “No one is questioning your right to be angry about what happened. And we’re sure as hell not suggesting anyone could do a better job.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Mitch said, “I don’t actually think that would happen. I mean, I think if the ship was dangerous we would know by now.”
“Great,” Richelle said.
“Mitch,” Heinz said, “Why don’t you wait outside? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Mitch left the office. The facility’s arc lights had been turned off to indicate the sun had now set in the real world. In their place were a thousand points of artificial starlight. All around him the transformations dictated by the change in circumstances were in full swing. Amity, the small strip of wooden buildings along the shore of the bay that had once housed the original crew and then gone on to serve as the facility’s social hub, was finally being demolished. In its place an even larger township would be built, this one resembling not so much a New England fishing village as 1950s America, complete with a new movie theater, diner, bar and a three-story town hall. Mitch had seen the model in Erik’s office and had suggested that it looked a lot like the set of downtown Hill Valley of
Back to the Future
fame.
In the wall at the back of the cave lay the nearly completed tunnel leading to the dock and the elevator shaft to the research station above. At the opposite end, the Callisto sat idle alongside the dock. With the completion of the tunnel and the dock, Aurora’s fuel and supplies would soon be arriving by way of the Karl Gustav, relegating the submarine to an emergency role.
“That was quite a display.”
Mitch turned and saw Heinz standing behind him. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Richelle has always had a short fuse.”
“I don’t envy her, you know,” Mitch said. “If I had to make sense of everything that was happening, I think I would have given up by now.”
“Which is why we need to do everything we can to help her,” Heinz said. “I’ve known Richelle and Caroline since they were teenagers. She’s a tough girl.”
Mitch began to say something, then closed his mouth.
“What is it?” Heinz said.
“Well, it’s none of my business,” Mitch said, “but don’t you think she would be happier if she—you know—
had
someone?”
Heinz laughed. “She did. She almost married Jack Fielding.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Before Brendan extinguished his wits and convinced him to help take this place over, Jack was a very different person.”
“Does she blame herself?” Mitch said, “You know, for what he did?”
“Of course she does,” Heinz said. “That’s not to say anyone
else
blames her. He made his own choices at the end of the day.”
Mitch smiled. “I kind of thought maybe she and Francis might, I don’t know, hit it off?”
This time Heinz’s laugh was both louder and longer. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Call me a hopeless romantic,” Mitch said. “But if you ask me, they’d make one hell of a couple.”
“Do me a favor,” Heinz said, “Don’t try your hand at matchmaking. In fact, I think you’d be better off worrying about your own relationship, don’t you?”
Mitch nodded somberly. “I’ve kind of screwed things up, haven’t I?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. These things happen. At least now the two of you will have a chance at a fresh start.”
“Yeah, if her dad doesn’t disown her first.”
Heinz looked at him curiously. “You two still not getting along?”
Mitch let out a long sigh and chuckled. “I always thought it was the mothers who were supposed to get in the way. Did you know he asked me not to marry her?”
Heinz looked startled. “He said that?”
“A week before the wedding. He said she was infatuated with me because I’d come from the
outside
, and that it wouldn’t last.”
“Does she know?” Heinz asked.
Mitch shook his head. “It would only make things worse.”
Heinz put a hand on Mitch’s arm. “Listen, Mitch. I know I’m a little old, but I haven’t always been. If you need someone to talk to, I’m a pretty good listener.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. I better get going. I told Sarah I’d help pack up.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Heinz said.
“Sure.”
“Go back in there and make peace with Richelle first. She’s a lot more sensitive than she lets on. And she has a lot of respect for you.”
“She does?”
“Trust me, I know her. She may not have been too happy about the way you arrived, but she knows you’re one of the few people around here—maybe the only person—with the brains to do what we’re doing with RP One. I happen to think so too. Go in there and tell her what an asshole you are then go help your wife.”
Dubai
Saturday 9 June 2007
1400 GST
Francis was beginning to get worried when he saw Jasper walk into the arrivals terminal. He resembled nothing less than a deer caught squarely in the headlights of an onrushing train. Francis had a sudden vision of the whole plan going up in smoke as Jasper lost his nerve and approached the first police officer he saw with an incoherent story that would quickly turn into a Pandora’s box. Titov appeared a moment later and walked over.
“You made it,” Francis said.
“The flight was delayed,” Titov said.
Jasper’s instructions, received by phone shortly before they boarded in Frankfurt, were to wait in the arrivals hall, and that’s exactly what he was doing when an Asian man in a light beige suit approached him.
“Japanese?” Titov said.
“Chinese or Korean,” Francis said.
“You can tell?”
“Not always.”
Francis handed Titov a set of car keys and his parking ticket. “You better get the car. I’ll keep watch.”
Francis followed Jasper and his host through the terminal and out to the pickup point. Jasper, having now lost sight of Titov, was starting to look even more nervous. The man he was following made no effort to talk to him, but stayed a few paces ahead. When they stopped, he made a short phone call and stood back, leaving Jasper to stew in the discomfort of his new surroundings.
The car arrived less than a minute later.
It was a black SL500 Mercedes, and it didn’t pull to the curb, but stopped in the road, earning an agitated blast of the horn from the driver behind. Jasper’s host opened the door and ushered him inside, then rounded the back of the car and got in himself. Francis tried to get a look at the driver but the windows were tinted almost to black. Then they were gone, speeding away with a deliberate haste that made Francis even more uneasy than he already was. A moment later Titov pulled up behind the wheel of a white Porsche 911.
“Go,” Francis said as soon as he was in. “Black Mercedes. They’re in a hurry, by the looks of it.”