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Luisa enjoyed being the intermediary between Matt and Darcy. Matt had been elated Luisa had found his mystery person, but then elation turned to discouragement when she refused to tell him who the girl was, which was all he had hoped to learn.
On the other hand, she was willing to meet with him, which was better than he expected, and really aroused his curiosity. He readily promised Luisa that he wouldn't write anything about it until the mystery girl okayed it, even though he never dreamed there would be an actual story there.
What would it be? "Smart Girl Reads Books, Runs Fast?"
To be honest, meeting this fascinating creature was all he dreamt about, day and night. Any story that might come from it was secondary.
Next, Luisa reported back to her friend that Matt promised to hold any story on her. The two decided that Mrs. Alvillar's kitchen would be a suitable place to meet, since Mrs. Alvillar would be gone until early afternoon to her teacher aide job at the elementary school. Luisa agreed to both Darcy and Matt that she would leave them alone while they talked.
The next morning Darcy was sitting at the kitchen table staring into the backyard, barely noticing its falling-down doghouse and tattered chain-link fence, when she heard two vehicles pull up out front.
From the front window she saw Luisa get out of the first, and a man who had to be Matt Méndez getting out of the faded red pickup she remembered all too well. He was youngish, with squared shoulders and an erect posture, and he smiled at Luisa as she ushered him up the walk. Darcy nervously returned to her chair at the table.
Luisa and Matt came through the front door a little before 9:00 o'clock. Matt, wearing pressed charcoal slacks and a maroon dress shirt, carried a box under his arm.
"Darcy, this is Matt Méndez. Matt, this is Ana Darcy," Luisa said simply, using the name they’d agreed on for when in public. .
Looking from one to the other, she added, "Well, I'll leave you to it. See y'all later," and left.
So this was the person in his photo. Ana Darcy. She was smaller than he remembered, but still beautiful and mysterious. He could feel his heart start to seize.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she acknowledged him briefly with a glance and then looked away, as if she didn’t want to meet him or was nervous for some reason.
She was wearing a dark blue track suit and sneakers, and her dark brown hair was pulled back into the ponytail he had seen before. She wore no jewelry or makeup, and her nails were short.
Matt felt his old shyness coming on again, but he took a deep breath, smiled, and said, "Luisa says you like to be called Darcy, right?"
"Yes."
Setting the box on the table, he opened it and pushed it slightly toward her.
"How about a sweet roll? These are fresh."
"OK, in a minute, thanks."
"I'll have one now, if you don't mind," said Matt. "This is my breakfast."
She gave him a half smile.
He looked around.
"Mind if I get some water?"
When she didn’t respond, he got two glasses from the cupboard, filled them from the sink, and set one in front of her.
"Thanks."
"I'm sorry if I upset you the other day. Sometimes I'm awful clumsy, you know? I didn't mean to come on too strong."
He took a chair on the opposite side of the table, setting his glass down.
"That's all right. I was startled, that's all. I just reacted."
Did you ever! he thought.
"See,” Matt explained, “the whole thing started when I happened to notice the books you were reading in the library. They were in three or four very advanced subject areas. I figured whoever would be interested in all that must be an unusual person, you know?
“And then when...when I saw you sit down and start reading them, that was even more of a surprise, because, well, because you...."
His voice tapered off as Darcy looked straight at him for the first time. There was no longer any trace of nervousness. Matt felt something change between them, but he had no idea what. This was not the person who ran from him in fear. This was someone else entirely.
The poor man was flustered. She took that as a good sign. He wasn’t rude and confrontational like the uniformed men had been. Clearly, he had no idea who she was. His reason for seeking her out seemed believable. Yet he worked for a newspaper. She had acquired enough background about earthly institutions in her years on the moon to have some idea of what newspaper reporters did.
Well, she had already decided to talk to him. She couldn’t continue as she had been. Something had to be done. If another disaster came from it, then so be it.
"Yes, I can imagine why you were surprised. I will tell you why I was interested in those books. But that's only a small part. Why don't I start from the beginning? I'll try to make it concise."
He didn’t know why he was surprised, but she had a soft alto voice, and just the hint of an accent he couldn’t place.
"Sure, that's fine. Start wherever you want."
"I'm not sure—we're not sure," she said, "but it started maybe three to five thousand years ago. There were some sophisticated civilizations then, like in Egypt and China, but most people on earth were living in tribes, in small nomadic communities."
Matt's sweet roll stopped midway to his mouth. He hadn't been expecting a lecture in cultural anthropology.
"Yes?" he said, hopefully.
"We think your planet was visited by beings of some sort. We don't know anything about them. We call them The Others. They were not malicious. They took a large group of people to another planet, very similar to earth, and helped them create their own civilization. All we remember of them is what is in our creation myths."
Matt nearly choked on his bite of sweet roll. He stared at her.
"You said 'we.' 'We?' ‘Our creation myths?’ You mean, you...you...?" he stammered. What was she saying?
"Those people were my ancestors. Our home, my home, is a planet many light years from here. We always knew we originated somewhere else, but our history, the collective memory of our people, is hazy. We were pre-literate at the time. Once we developed the technology of space travel, we set ourselves to searching for it, for our place of origin. I believe I have found it. I believe this was our original home. That's what I was doing with those books—looking for supporting evidence, more or less. I was sent with enough equipment to set up a base on the moon and study Earth and its people, to make sure. I've been studying this planet a long time. I'm pretty sure, now.”
She looked evenly at him. “Earth is our home."
Matt had totally forgotten his sweet roll. He was feeling as disoriented as he had when Darcy vanished before his eyes three days before. She couldn’t be serious. Had he heard her correctly?
"You mean...you mean, you come from...another planet?"
"Yes."
"But...but...you're human, just like us? Right?"
"Pretty much, yes. I'm your distant cousin, if you like."
What am I missing? he thought. She’s just sitting there, not even fidgeting. But delusional people can be quite serious. Well, the first thing a reporter does is let the other person talk.
"'Pretty much?' What do you mean by that?"
"I'm human like you are, but our culture has developed in many fields of science well beyond what exists on earth. I read, for instance, that some of your medical researchers are working on germline therapy."
"On what?"
"Germline therapy is the name your scientists have given the technique of modifying the genetic character of cells from which people grow. That is, it can shape heredity, improve it."
"It can? It is? I never heard of that!"
"There's no reason you should have. It's in the earliest stages here on Earth. But I, for example, have had some of my genes altered just after I was conceived. For one thing, I have many more fast-twitch muscle cells than you do. While I'm not quite as strong as a comparable native of earth, but I can move considerably faster."
Tell me about it, he thought. He shook his head slowly.
"I'm sorry. This is so, so, well, I don't mean to be rude, but is there some way you can actually prove you are from another planet?"
"Maybe. There might be. Do you have a coin?"
"Huh? A coin?"
He reached in a pocket.
"Yeah, here's a quarter."
"Hold it over the table and drop it. Don't let me know when you're going to let go."
She positioned his hand about a foot over the table. Her fingers were cool and steady, and he felt his ears begin to get warm. She laid her forearms flat on the surface, closing her hands into fists, about a foot either side of where the coin would fall.
"Any time you're ready," she said.
Being careful not to flinch and give it away, he slowly relaxed his fingers so the coin would drop suddenly, without his moving at all. Just as it slid from between his fingers, there was a blur. The coin disappeared in midair when it should have clunked on the table. Darcy's hands were exactly where she had left them.
"Which hand?" she said.
"I’ve no idea."
She opened her left hand and there was the quarter.
"Again?" she said.
This time he held his hand only eight inches over the table. The result was the same. He heard a slight whiff. The coin vanished. It was in her right hand. She had moved so fast his brain hadn’t registered it until it was over.
"See?" she said. "Much faster than the average person. You saw me run the other day."
"My gosh, I never saw anyone move so fast."
"There might be other ways to prove it too. For example, my station on the moon is maintained by a human intelligence programmed into, basically, a computer. He was a real person. His name is Hleo. Before he died of old age, his brain was, I guess you would say, backed up into a computer with his permission. If I could get the communication equipment, he might talk to me."
"Might? You mean, he might not?"
"Yes. I was operating under strict instructions from my people to observe earth and not interpose myself or let anyone know I was present. I disobeyed those orders and probably will now be banned from the tribe for life. Hleo is a loyal soldier. I’m afraid he might refuse to have anything to do with me now. He warned me not to come down here, but I disregarded him.”
Darcy looked so sad that Matt said nothing. Her overwhelming sadness left him speechless. . Her voice faded to a whisper. “I was stupid."
Matt shook his head again. This was getting way too weird.
"I'm sorry, Darcy. I'm having trouble understanding all this. But I'm trying. If you weren't supposed to come down here, then why did you?"
"Hleo figured out that two meteoroids, now approaching the sun, would collide in several years and break apart. Earth would pass right through the densest part of the debris field. The crashing fragments would create tidal waves, nuclear-like explosions, and dust clouds: enough havoc to threaten all the life on earth. I couldn't let that happen. I came here to warn people, and to help make sure action was taken to avoid that collision entirely, if possible. But no one believes me, and hundreds of soldiers are hunting me like an animal."
Matt's eyes grew as big as saucers. He leaned forward.
"You... You! You're her! You're that missing girl in the poster! I knew there was something familiar about you! You've dyed your hair and painted on some eyebrows but that's who you are! Aren't you?"
"Yes."
She put both hands to her head, peeled off her wig, and shook out her honey-colored hair.
Matt fell back in the chair.
"Oh, my God, oh, jeez! Oh, holy Pete!”
He massaged his temples with his fingers.
“Oh, jeez! Oh, me! Ay yi yi! I promised Luisa no story! Oh, dang! Man! You think you're stupid? How about ME?"
Matt couldn't stand it. He jumped to his feet and paced back and forth in the small kitchen, finally going to the sink and splashing cold water on his face.
The story of the century, of the millennium, hell, of ever! Earth visited by a creature from another solar system—and she turns out to be human! A photogenic human! A literate, lightning-fast human! And he, Matt Méndez, had the exclusive...except that he had promised that human he'd sit on it! Was there ever a bigger dumbass? Oh, jeeez!
He kept shaking his head and trying to catch his breath until he noticed Darcy staring at him, arms and legs braced and wide-eyed, evidently ready to zip out the back door if he barked or tried to grab her.
Whoa; keep your head, Matt, he thought. This won’t do. You’re scaring her. Calm yourself. Don’t let her run off on you twice!
He sat back down and shook his head again, trying to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said, more softly.
Think, man!
If she was the reason for the excitement at the observatory, then she ought to know some of the details he’d wondered about at the time.
"How did they know you were here? How did they know to chase you?"
"Apparently, radar tracked my landing pod. They were surprised it made course changes instead of just crashing or burning up like a meteorite. They sent searchers in helicopters, but they didn't know what they were looking for until they questioned that astronomer, Dr. Harcroft. He gave them my description. After that, they found me in just a day."
"They found you? But you got away? How?"
"They misjudged me. I’m a small person. They thought I was a child, and probably insane as well, babbling about meteoroids and coming from another planet. They didn't realize I could get over a high fence or run past the El Paso city limits in a couple hours. But I could. I came back here because Luisa was the only person I knew who might help me."
She stared down at her hands on the tabletop. "I didn't know what else to do. I was stupid, very stupid."
"Why are you telling me this?" Matt asked quietly.
She sniffled. "It isn't important what happens to me. What's important is to convince the right people to check Hleo's orbital data, and if it's accurate, which I'm sure it is, to devise a way to move one or both of those meteoroids into another orbit. There's not a lot of time to spare.”
“I see.”
“I tried to deliver the warning, but I messed up, badly. I'm not from this culture and I don't understand how to manipulate it to make that happen. I need someone who does. Maybe that person is you, or if not, maybe you can find such a person.
“Many lives depend on it. Could you help? Please?"
Again, she looked straight at him with those deep-set eyes. But this time, instead of a starving waif, he saw utter seriousness. She looked a little like a hawk.
He struggled to comprehend. It was the wildest tale he’d ever heard. But if it were true, then her actions did make a kind of sense. He’d been expecting to meet an egghead student with peculiar reading habits. But a stunning human woman from another planet? Meteors headed for earth? His poor brain was reeling.
She was still looking steadily at him, waiting for a response. He shook his head.
"Oh, wow. Yeah, I'll try to help, of course. Just promise me: I get the story before anyone else does, please?"
He leaned back in his chair again.
“I don't know. I'll think of something. We'll think of something. Oh, jeez."
They looked at each other in silence.
