"Next." His voice rose in pitch, like a shrill bugle's call. "Ah, cadet Moseley-Kerr, just the opposite of cadet Strong. You need to improve your target practice. It's good to avoid the enemy, but you do have to help fellow team members," he said, letting a bit of sarcasm through. "Cut your speed a little and practice more on the targets."
"How'd you do?" Michael whispered slyly to Scott when the major turned away from them to look at the monitor.
"Fine, but I had to veer away from the flight path." Scott said, shrugging.
"You wretch!" Michael exclaimed. "I wanted you to fly rings around that Thomson ass and Grant Shore. Wicked of me, isn’t it? But they're such smug bastards," he said in an annoyed tone of voice. Suddenly, Mike switched topics. "Know what? I got assigned as leader, can you believe it? Awesome!"
".....cadet Thomson—remarkable.” Henrikson’s voice redirected their attention. “You missed only two targets, and your time was the second best overall. Your second turn was perhaps a little too wide. Be careful not to anticipate your turns too soon, but good reflexes..."
"The second best time?" Mike said in mock-pity. "Oh shit, he's slipping."
"...cadet Dimitriev—" Major Henrikson's call came so suddenly that Scott jerked to attention, aware him thoughts had wandered. "I want you all to watch Scott's training run very carefully." Henrikson said, betraying a hint of intrigue.
"Mis-ter Dimitriev, you ignored my warning about speed—that explains the plane that passed by cadet Thomson that you all just observed.” Henrikson coughed. “You had me worried for the first minute. I didn't think you could handle the speed. Our intermediate trainer planes aren't meant to fly continuously at top speed—they lose maneuverability." Even in the compliment, there was a note of warning.
All eyes turned to Scott. Mike glared at Henrikson. He had been telling everyone to speed up earlier, and now criticized Scott for taking his advice!
"However, you proved to me that you could take the speed. Excellent job, Dmitriev, I am surprised. These are some of the best turns I've ever seen." Henrikson chuckled. What was this? Mike thought. Henrikson was being a human being for a change!
"I was afraid that we were going to have a collision, but you managed to arc around cadet Thomson. You had the fastest flight time, and yet you managed to hit every target. I guess I misjudged you." Major Henrikson gave Scott a brief smile of approval before continuing down the roster.
The entire company stared at him in surprise.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sitting together by the window, Erin and Colleen watched the world in the brief moments between Statue City's last transport terminal and the connecting terminal at Central City. When the bright lights of the diminishing city behind them died, the forests appeared below, vast, beautiful, beckoning to their souls to return to the wild. The clear transport tunnel reflected the dim lights of the transport shuttle inside it, shadowing the view, never giving them a clear sight into that abandoned world of humanity's yesterday.
Neither had seen the beauty during their years of training. Colleen would have called it incarceration, even though she understood that she willingly sacrificed her freedom for that beauty of the Earth—that it might live, not only in memory.
Colleen had been reading, but after a moment put aside her electropad, irresistibly tired, and let fatigue over take her, her eyes falling blissfully shut; her thoughts drifted in the monotonous whine of the shuttle, but she was not quite asleep when an image slowly formed in her mind...
The shining, rustling trees, like birches but not, were silver-gold in the sunlight, together forming a wide, open forest by a clear, whispering brook that flowed like liquid silver; on the banks of a neighboring pool, cool-colored stones, like unpolished amethyst, met the warm, soft brown turf of the neighboring forest floor. All around lilac-colored flowers, smelling like the fresh rain, perfumed the rich air... So bright, so bright it was even under the shade of the silvery-gold trees! This beloved place cried out to be adored, to be remembered, as though it had a life and sentience of its own—and yet it was alone.
But Colleen had seen it now, and when the evening came and turned the sky at dusk into a mild grey-blue, she watched the shaded world in amazement and ecstasy. In the transient sunset, the river quieted and darkened, the pale green coats of the trees now a deeper emerald in the dim light, their whispers gathering force as the wind rushed through them...
Colleen blinked and woke, startled by a message over the intercom.
"Attention, passengers, shuttle now approaching Central City Northeast Sector. Passengers continuing southeast to Coast Charles, please remain on the transport."
Colleen nudged Erin; a peculiar expression had frozen on Erin's face, part fear, part recognition.
"Erin," Colleen said. "Did you hear? We're approaching the northeast sector."
Erin took a moment to respond with an affirmative nod.
"What's wrong?" Colleen wondered.
Erin's mouth dropped open as if she were about to say something, but she shrugged instead.
"Nothing. I was dreaming, but I can't remember what I was dreaming about."
"So was I. Only I was imagining the most beautiful forest I've ever seen. The trees! You should have seen—"
"Did you say the northeast sector?" Erin gave a start.
Colleen nodded.
"Well I'll be glad to get there," Erin said. "I know the aliens don't seem to be interested in attacking the transport tunnels, but I always feel so vulnerable in them."
"I think everyone feels that way, but at least they're quicker than booking a transport shuttle and waiting for a landing window—and the transport tunnels are certainly much safer."
"That's true, but I still get tired of sitting for so long, don't you?"
"Would you rather stand the whole way?"
"Of course not," Erin said.
"It's just your nerves talking." Colleen declared; Erin shrugged. "Well, we'll be there soon. Say Erin, did I tell you what was I dreaming a minute ago?" Colleen asked, a look of irritated confusion knitting her eyebrows together.
"I—don’t know.”
"Well that's strange." Colleen picked up her electropad once again.
"What's that you're reading?" Erin asked, now curious.
Colleen pressed a button to recall her reading selection.
"It's called 'The Bell Song'," she read. "By Friedrich von Schiller—an ancient writer."
"Oh. Never heard of it." Erin shrugged. "May I look at it?" She asked, taking the electropad where Colleen had left off reading.
"I've got my place marked there," Colleen said, pointing.
"'It's dangerous to wake the lion," Erin read aloud, "And horrible is the tiger's tooth," she went on, "but the most horrible of horrors, that's man in his illusion!'”
"Every time I read it, I think it sounds just exactly like what's happening to the world, though I can't say why. Or that—maybe... maybe nothing's changed at all—at least not human nature."
"I try not to think about it."
"Oh, honestly Erin," Colleen said, throwing up her hands in exasperation, but laughing nonetheless, "Can't you just let yourself be philosophical for once?"
"I wish I could, Colleen," Erin said quietly, thinking about what that boy Dimitriev had once said to her. "But talk doesn't change anything."
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," Colleen said, throwing the head cushion at her.
"Colleen, I have a confession to make."
"Huh?"
"Last time on leave, I took a trip to the ancient Middle East."
"God, Erin, whatever for?" Colleen said in surprise.
"A strange hunch I had. I wanted to see the pyramids in person, the ziggurats..."
"Like I said, whatever for?"
"To see the writing on the walls. I have a strange idea that th
ere may be some connection to the ancient Earth past and our alien invasion."
"You have got to be kidding," laughed Colleen. "What kind of connection? Oh, I've heard of Nostradamus. Tell me, did he predict aliens coming to the world?" She laughed again.
"No, I hadn't heard that." Said Erin. "I think aliens came to the world already."
"Huh?" Colleen turned white.
"I think that aliens created the world somehow. Call it a hunch, but... I think that they've only returned to claim what was theirs."
"Now I know you've gone insane," laughed Colleen.
* * * * *
For five weeks, Cameron had been away from his apartment in British Columbia visiting his mother in Oban, a city across the Atlantic Ocean. He had planned the trip for late May to celebrate her one hundredth birthday, but she had called him home earlier to alleviate her loneliness. Cameron's father had died unexpectedly thirty-nine years ago at the young age of sixty-five in a transport accident; his mother was fond of joking that he had done it just to antagonize her. She lamented that she would probably live another forty years without him, dismissing Cameron's suggestion that she might remarry. Cameron knew that his mother greatly missed his father, despite her feisty facade, and so he didn't press her very hard to change her mind.
As much as he missed the tranquillity of life by the sea, the beauty of the highlands preserved in the rural zone near his old home, Cameron was glad to return to the apartment in British Columbia. He had been interrupted in the middle of his analysis on Erin Mathieson's condition and was anxious to get back to finish his report and send it to her family.
His emptied bags now stowed in the overhead storage canister in the entryway, a cup of hot tea in hand, Cameron returned to the room that had become his domicile laboratory.
The bioscan printouts taken in Statue City lay across the videocom where he had left them. He perused the documents for a moment, trying to recapture what his train of thought had been.
None of the numbers were alarming at first glance—though none of them fit the profile of the average human being. Cameron had come to expect the unexpected—but he didn't notice any immediate aberrations from her last physical. Coughing a little from the slight cold he had picked up in Oban, he moved towards the computer bank and called for a comprehensive file display. Glancing between the screen and the present readout, he carefully compared previous records of Erin's medical history.
Cameron suddenly wheezed, unable to breathe.
A mutation had occurred in Erin's system, documented in the new sample. Sometime in the past year, the strange tri-nuclear cells had multiplied in every area of Erin's tissues. But in the bloodstream, the number had almost doubled.
Cameron hurried towards the dry cold holding canister that contained his plasmid cultures and delicate experiments, searching through them until he found the tube marked "E M-B". He fumbled around, pulling out the microscanner and dropping the tube nervously into it.
An hour passed, and Cameron continued to scrutinize the genetic evidence before him, running computer simulations to check his findings. Finally, he slumped back to the lab stool. For minutes, he listened to the sound of his own breathing, his mind struggling to accept what he observed. He pushed himself away from the table, trying to shake off a rising temptation, a giddiness he felt down to his very toes.
The key to the fountain of youth dangled before him.
Even as he tried to convince himself that he did not desire immortality, he had nonetheless been considering it, he realized. What would it be like, truly, not to fear the future? Then his cautious side reminded him that there was no guarantee that the sample would bring about the same metamorphosis in his own system that seemed to be taking place in the alien child from which it had been obtained.
At the most, her blood might kill him. Or worse, as far as Cameron was concerned, it might kill his own consciousness, and keep his body alive. He knew nothing of how the alien species produced itself, if indeed what he had observed was not two species living in some kind of symbiotic state, the one in the other's circulatory system, or if it was not something else altogether.
Besides, he told himself, Zhdanov would notice any alteration in Cameron's behavior—they had known each other too long. What would Zhdanov think of him them? And what kind of evil might Cameron have unleashed on the Earth? And perhaps this immortal metamorphosis, the slow metamorphosis Erin seemed to be going through, merely held the host organism in stasis for several years, in seeming immortality, before the host's final and sudden eventual death and decay—or perhaps what he had observed was the initial stages of a disease that seemed to grant eternity but destroyed the body of its host. That might explain why Erin's people had all died, leaving only an infant child behind.
For the first time in his life, Cameron had no idea what he was dealing with. He couldn't trace the years of unknown alien history and evolutionary development that would explain what he had.
And he wasn't willing to take a chance. He had seen the radiant power that consumed her, and controlled her...
Quietly, he put the sample back into the canister among the other plasmid cultures and experimental solutions—and reshaped his generation's history.
Unseen, he closed the lid to Pandora's box.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Erik Flynn Ross was lying down in his quarters, stretched out, listening to an audigital recording of Asian windstorms. It was not his usual selection. He did not call up the vidigital screen to create a visual accompaniment; had he wanted to, he might have made the room into a rocky, Asian desert, except for the ceiling and the tell-tale door hanging in mid-air; UESRC doors had no projections or sensors on them.
He was content just to listen. Without sight, his ears became more attuned to the reality of the music only; he sensed more, forced himself to understand his surroundings and how they moved, rather than merely observe them. Today, however, he hardly listened. Listening to music felt routine.
The others probably wouldn't arrive until after the meeting in the UESRC's East Wing Cargo Bay, where the transports came into the base; that was the way of it: returning cadets kept away until the last possible moment. So of course, he was the first of his roommates to arrive back at the UESRC for their second year of training. He was the only one who had nothing to stay home for.
It was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the year looming ahead, but he had come to terms with it. He was not afraid. What was training to an actual battle? There were worse things to fear. No one knew why the Charon aliens had attacked or what they wanted—the world was filled with unknowns. He was infuriated by his weakness when he dwelled on it, so the best thing to do was not to think about it.
All of Earth was acutely aware that the situation could change at any minute, that the aliens might leave Pluto and come to destroy the Earth; the government broadcasts indicated that attempts at communicating with the aliens continued to fail. So, what else was there for him but training? Erik wondered. Training provided him, and many others, with immediate goals, immediate distractions.
Yet he wasn't afraid to die. Death was inevitable, and brought the final answer to all mysteries. However, Erik was afraid to die without having experienced all life had to offer. He did not care if such a wish was futile; he wanted a lifetime of experiences packed into his remaining years before death took him. I'm coming, that far-off day warned him as each day passed, making him plunge headfirst into things before he thought them through. This sense of urgency moved him through the world, as though he had to sink his teeth into as much of it while he still could.
It was strange how war readjusted your opinion about what was important, Erik often thought. More than anything, he did not want to die before he knew the taste of real love.
As for love, well, there was little enough time for it during training, and privacy was a luxury. Of course,
he had heard things could be sometimes be arranged among roommates for private time—but no one in his squadron had managed it so far. Anyway, he did not like the idea of sneaking around against orders—or of relationships that had no meaning. He really wanted more than that. Something to bring him to life.
He admitted he had made a few mistakes searching for what he thought he wanted, but he had no time to dwell on any regrets. Life went on—cruelly so. It never paused to let anyone adjust to the present. And now that his second year had begun, he had only two years left before being sent to the Charon front.
Time was running out.
* * * * *
During the month of freedom before the new training year began, Erin had stayed with her family in Statue City, but Colleen had gone to the UESRC early to visit her parents. So on the day of her departure Erin traveled alone on the crowded transport shuttle heading north. People came and went and sat next to her; some attempted small talk, others sat quietly, reading or gazing out at the landscape below.
Many of the other cadets from Statue City had taken the same transport, though she only knew a few of them. They disappeared after the second shuttle arrived at the UESRC, into the bustle of the civilian terminal at the far end of the Cargo Bay, where all of the trainees waited to be met by their new unit supervisors.
"Major Watanabe, Blue Division, second year—they'll be wearing blue stripes," she muttered, looking around for others wearing the same uniform as hers. Each trainee had been issued three flight uniforms, all identical, emblazoned with unit number, insignia, rank, and identification number.
At last she sighted the second year cadets wearing white uniforms with double Blue Stripes down the sides gathering by the corridor that led away to the East barracks. They laughed and greeted one another like old friends as Erin approached. Her feet betrayed her, taking short steps and edging closer, as though their owner hoped to be noticed and spared the first bold introduction.
One of the young men on the periphery of the circle lifted his head to glance around the room only briefly; as he did so, he noticed Erin standing some distance away in her double-striped uniform, her hand tightly clutching her dusty carry bag which held her few belongings. He hopped to his feet and smiled as he approached.