SUPERIOR FISH, ELLSWORTH, MAINE, APRIL 6, 1993
The photographs scrolled by in two columns on the monitor, scores of human faces that had been collected in the database.
“These are matched repeaters,” Wakeman explained. “We started with anyone who’d been taken more than once. We noticed there was a subset. People who were repeatedly taken on the same day as others. These are the eight-timers. Taken eight times since childhood, all on the same day, every time. Fifty men and fifty women. They seem to take them when they’re young. Again when they hit puberty.”
“Breeding pairs?” Eric asked.
Wakeman shrugged. “It makes about as much sense as anything else they’re doing.” His eyes suddenly sparked when Charlie Keys’ photograph scrolled onto the screen. “Stop,” he cried. “Russell Keys’ son.”
Eric nodded.
Wakeman indicated the picture just beneath it. “And this, of course, is Lisa Clarke.” He considered the two photographs briefly, then said, “They were both taken on September eighth of last year. That’s the most recent simultaneous abduction. In fact, they’re the only one among the fifty pairs in the last year and a half.”
“You think they’re being bred?” Eric asked, returning to his earlier idea. “Keys with a girl who’s one-quarter alien?”
“You know, maybe I’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” Wakeman said, almost to himself. He looked at Eric. “I’m used to looking at genetic engineering as a way of breeding out certain traits. What if our friends are interested in breeding in?”
“Meaning what?” Eric asked.
“Well, think about Russell Keys. He was a pilot, right? Brave, courageous and bold, so to speak. His son Jesse had the same characteristics. That is, when they were taken, they fought back.”
“And the Clarkes. I know Jacob could… do things,” Eric offered.
“But what are they breeding for?”
“It could be anything,” Wakeman said. “Maybe they’re trying to create a superweapon.” He shrugged. “Or a supersavior.” He returned his attention to the photographs on the screen. “Either way, we should have the answer in another couple of months,” he said.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, APRIL 7, 1993
Lisa stood at the stove, making tea for her mother and Nina.
“What do you think?” Nina asked, displaying the spi-raling conch tattoo on her shoulder.
“I think it must have hurt a lot,” Lisa said. She glanced over and caught her mother looking at her silently.
She knew what her mother was thinking, that her little girl had moved to Seattle, gotten a dingy little apartment, and was now pregnant. Not very impressive.
“Come home,” Carol said.
“I can’t,” Lisa told her. “I’m safe here.”
“Why?” Carol said, her voice laced with anger and frustration. “Because beings from another world are looking out for you?”
“Yes, Mom,” Lisa answered, daring her mother to say otherwise. “And if you’d seen what happened to me, you’d…”
Carol got to her feet. “Enough, Lisa.”
“But it’s true,” Lisa pleaded. She rose and drew her mother into her arms. “It’s going to be all right, Mom,” she said. “I can feel it.”
Carol looked at her, and Lisa saw that she was seeing her father also, the terrible burden of what he’d known, the long years of his suffering.
“I never wanted to believe any of this,” Carol said. “Your father let me see some things, but I really couldn’t accept that any of it was real. I just thought it was his way of dealing with his own life, the fact that he never knew his father.”
MADISON, WISCONSIN, APRIL 9, 1993
Charlie startled at the knock at the door and grabbed the ball bat before answering it.
Naomi glanced at the bat, then at Charlie. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Charlie said. He put down the bat. “I’m sorry.”
Naomi stepped into the room, surveying its disarray, the piles of paper, library copies of articles, magazines, books. “So this is how you’ve been using your leave of absence,” she said. “Sitting in the dark, reading with a baseball bat by the door in case anyone drops by.”
Charlie closed the door. He could imagine what his friend was thinking, that he was a nut, the sort of crazy eccentric who ended up talking to himself on street corners or in parks, destined for the mental hospital. “I just needed a little time to myself,” he said lamely.
Naomi faced him squarely, her stern middle-aged face a perfect vision of the no-nonsense disciplinarian. “I’ve been principal at Lincoln for ten years, Charlie,” she said. “I taught there before that, and let me tell you something, you’re the best teacher I’ve ever seen and I’m not going to lose you without a fight.” Her gaze fell on one particular book. She picked it up, stared at the illustration of a little gray space creature on the cover and read the title skeptically. “Arrival, by Tom Clarke.” She looked at Charlie. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” Charlie said, embarrassed.
Naomi read the subtitle. “The alien agenda-what the abductions really mean.” She let the book slip from her hand, then snatched up another. “Compendium of Alien Races.” She looked at Charlie in stunned disbelief. “Charlie, you think you’ve been abducted by aliens, don’t you?”
Charlie knew that he had no answer to give her. She thought he was crazy as a loon. Everyone did. Or would, if they knew the… what he… his… it was all so useless, he thought, so utterly futile, and yet he knew the truth.
“Do you have any idea how many people say they’ve been abducted every year?” he asked.
Naomi looked at him as if he were a small child in need of serious correction. “Charlie, people believe in these things because they want to believe in something.”
“If that’s true, then why are all the stories so similar?”
“Because we all see the same movies and read the same books,” Naomi answered emphatically. She picked up the first book and turned the cover over to the face on the back. “For instance, this guy, Tom Clarke. He’s everywhere, Charlie.”
Charlie felt something break inside him, the last reserves of his argument, leaving him nothing but the raw edge of his pain, the heartbreak of the pariah. He saw the sadness in Naomi’s eyes, how much she wanted to help him, and how helpless she felt in the face of what she had to believe was his madness.
“They’ve been taking me since I was nine years old, Naomi,” he said quietly. “They came again seven months ago. I fought back. I kicked and bit and…” He stopped and stared into Naomi’s fretful eyes and more than anything yearned simply to be believed! “I’m not crazy,” he said. “And so I’ll find the proof.”
SUPERIOR FISH, ELLSWORTH, MAINE, MAY 31, 1993
Eric peered at the map of the world that Wakeman had displayed on a huge board. It was filled with lights, and in each light Eric saw the nature of the encounter, the fear and wonder of it all, the news both dreadful and awe-inspiring, that we were not alone.
“Always the same story,” Wakeman said. “A woman in Siberia. Another one in Norway. A third in Alaska. All over the world. Zanzibar. Australia. One hundred and forty-four multiwitness, confirmable reports.”
Eric kept his eyes on the map. Something had changed, he knew.
“When did all this start?” he asked.
“Six weeks ago. One big rush, then zilch. No activity since then.”
“What do you think it means?”
“It’s the calm.”
“The calm?”
Wakeman returned his attention to the map. “The one before the storm,” he said.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, JUNE 22, 1993
Lisa stared out the window of her room in the maternity ward, listening to the radio as the reports came one after the other, lights in Grand Teton, in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, lights seen by all manner of people, farmers, workers, doctors, cops… and now here, in Seattle, where she could see them, radiant orbs that hung silently in the night sky as the radio reporter breathlessly narrated the scene, all the wild speculation, the government’s unwillingness to confirm or deny anything.
“Are you focused?” Nina asked.
Lisa felt the cramp draw in like a belt yanked tight around her.
Nina pressed her hand on Lisa’s sweat-spattered forehead. “Listen, I have a great idea for a tattoo for the baby,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Nothing too big. Just a little snake.”
The cramp subsided, and Lisa once again stared out at the night sky.
“When the next contraction comes,” Nina told her, “take in a deep breath.”
The cramp came again, fierce and searing, but Lisa continued to gaze into the sparkling night.
“She’s fully dilated,” one of the nurses said. “Stop pushing.”
Lisa was not aware that she’d been pushing. It was the baby who was pushing, being born at its own pace and of its own free will.
“Stop pushing,” the nurse cried.
Lisa watched the heavens. “I can’t,” she said.
The nurse’s voice was tense. “ Call Dr. Catrell.”
Lisa’s eyes swept over to the nurse. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”
She heard the nurse give her blood pressure. “She’s having seizures,” the nurse said, but Lisa felt no seizures. She turned her eyes back to the window, where scores of lights sparkled brightly in the night sky. One, two, three, she said to herself, counting the lights as rapidly as she could. Six, seven, eight…
“She’s preeclamptic,” the nurse called.
“Let’s stabilize her.”
The lights were coming together, and Lisa’s eyes widened as the dazzling display began to move in upon itself.
“Four grams magnesium.”
The beauty of the lights bloomed like a flower in her mind, but she continued to count.
“Five milligrams hydralazine.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Dr. Catrell draw near, his lips at her ear. “What’s happening is called eclampsia,” he said.
Lisa watched the sky, the lights moving in upon each other, drawing in as if toward the nucleus of some great cosmic soul.
“BP’s down to one twenty,” the nurse called.
“It’s coming,” the doctor cried.
“So much blood,” the nurse said.
“She’s DIC,” the doctor said.
Lisa held her gaze fixed on the sky, all the lights in their final convergence, becoming one dazzling ball of light.
“She’s bleeding out!”
And the light flashed in a huge magnificent radiance, an explosion in the vast night sky, but silent, utterly silent, so that all Lisa heard as the light engulfed the room was the faint cry of her newborn little girl.
A blackness settled over her, then rose in a slowly building light. When she opened her eyes, it was morning, and Nina sat beside her bed.
“Hey,” Lisa said softly.
“Hey,” Nina said. She smiled. “You weren’t supposed to be here, you know. You were bleeding to death.”
“What happened?”
“The bleeding stopped,” Nina answered. “No one knows why.”
“My baby?” Lisa asked fearfully.
Nina stepped over to a bassinet, picked up the baby and brought her to her mother. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” She placed the child in Lisa’s arms. “Seven pounds three ounces of perfect little girl.”
Lisa nodded. “Yes.”
“What are you going to name her?”
She hadn’t considered a name, but one sprang into her consciousness so quickly it seemed to have been there always, as if long ago implanted in her mind.
“Allison,” she said. “Allie. Her name is Allie.”
ELLSWORTH, MAINE, AUGUST 2, 1993
Eric stirred the lone olive in his martini and looked admiringly at a daughter he’d rarely seen since the divorce. His bright little girl had grown into a lovely, intelligent woman with intense, determined eyes. Looking at her, he felt a vague sadness for the inevitable passage of time, the way fathers grew weak as their children grew strong, shrank as they developed. Becky came to mind again and he wondered how his life might have been different if he’d simply met her on a spring day, just an ordinary guy, a doctor or a scientist perhaps. Had he been only that, she might have loved him. But he was Eric Crawford, Owen Crawford’s son, the dark legacy of his father like a stain on his soul.
“So,” Mary said with her usual directness. “Why did you want to see me, Dad?”
Eric smiled. Right down to business. That was Mary. No time for sentiment, for idle conversation, a simple inquiry into his health.
“There’s something I want to show you,” Eric said. He opened the drawer of his desk, took out the artifact and handed it to her. “Your grandfather found this in Pine Lodge, New Mexico. He found it at a crash site.”
Mary turned the artifact in her hand, and he could see the way she was drawn toward it, almost mystically, a power pulling her in.
She looked at Eric. “It’s all true then,” she said finally. Her eyes swept back down to the artifact, and he saw that she believed it, and was suddenly, miraculously in league with him.
Then he told her everything, the whole history of his involvement with the artifact, as well as her grandfather’s. The artifact she held in her hand was the one proof in all the world that the kooks and crackpots had gotten it right, that out there, somewhere in space, there was another world, that creatures from that world had visited the earth, taken people and in some way used them. He told her about the implants, his theory that people were being bred in some way and for some purpose he had not yet been able to discover. He told her about Charlie Keys and Lisa Clarke. Chet Wakeman knew all of this, Eric said, but he knew nothing of the artifact. That, and that alone, was a secret she must keep to herself.
“Chet’s coming by in a few minutes,” Eric said in conclusion. “He says he has some news. From now on, we’ll all be working together.”
Mary said nothing, but Eric saw her eyes flash with excitement.
When Wakeman came into the room a few minutes later, Eric noticed that Mary’s fingers instantly curled protectively around the artifact.
“Hello, thrill seekers,” Wakeman said as he stepped into the study. His gaze immediately leaped to Mary.
“Well, look at you,” he said. “All grown up and beautiful. How’s the quest for the Nobel Prize coming?”
“I came close to coming up with a genomic-mismatch scanning technique,” Mary answered proudly.
Wakeman smiled. “And you’re only in graduate school.” He looked at her admiringly for a moment, then turned to Eric. “Well, ready for the news?”
Eric nodded.
Wakeman sat down in the chair opposite Eric. “Well, here’s the latest. Lisa Clarke has had a baby. A little girl.”
“Are we going to try to pick them up?” Eric asked immediately.
“What would be the point of that?” Wakeman asked.
A few hours later, Mary lay in Wakeman’s arms, her eyes moving along the walls of the small motel room.
“God, I’ve been waiting a long time to do that,” Wakeman said.
“Me, too,” Mary said. She leaned over, kissed him, then drew away. “Why don’t you pick up the baby?”
Wakeman smiled. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”
“She’s clearly important,” Mary said. “In fact, I’d say, she’s the point of this.”
“Definitely.”
“So pick her up. Take her.”
Wakeman shook his head. “They’d just take her back… and they’re way better at that than we are.”
“So what do we do?”
“We watch and wait,” Wakeman told her. “And we work on a way to take her that will work.”
“‘Watch and wait,’” Mary repeated. “That sounds a lot like my father.”
Wakeman chuckled. “I’m nothing like your father.”
Mary kissed him softly.
“I have a theory about who she is,” Wakeman said. “Want to hear it?”
Mary nodded.
“Evolution tends to eliminate, or at least, subjugate emotion,” Wakeman said. “The limbic brain is still down there.” His eyes slid over to Mary. “Imagine their… abilities combined with the energy of our strong emotions.”
“They’d be cherry bombs,” Mary said, her eyes lifting toward the ceiling as if picturing the terrible force of such a combination. “But she’d be a thermonuclear weapon.”