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ADVENT
by Tom Mach
Copyright 2011 Tom Mach
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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PART ONE
”We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring will be
To arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.”
--T. S. Elliot
Chapter 1
Early 21stcentury
Lick Observatory
12:35 AM San Jose, CA
“What the—!”Greg muttered as he watched the space satellite Mayflower veer even farther off course. “Impossible!” How could a satellite experiencing no equipment or control problems suddenly change direction in outer space? It was as if a giant hand had grabbed the Mayflower and pulled it in another direction.
This was supposed to be a routine assignment. NASA contracted him to take several high-resolution images of the Mayflower. Already familiar with the LDNL high-performance scientific camera at Lick, he assumed he would soon wrap this up. He’d return to verifying the location of a dark spot at the southern hemisphere of Neptune for his contribution to a Science magazine article.
Greg closed his eyes. They were hot, burning. He hadn't had much sleep these past few days. Stanford University kept him busy teaching. He had a paper to write, and his projects, like this one for NASA. He cussed under his breath again. What is driving the Mayflower off course?
He left the refractor telescope, rechecked the data on the interface screen, opened his digital logbook and posted his data entries. His gut told him he was on to something big. Trust your feelings, Greg. Remember your strong premonition about the massive earthquake that devastated Los Angeles fifteen months ago? Or the time you urged Barbara not to take that trip to Kansas City? Remember how you knew the date your wife would be killed in an airplane crash? You even saw the flight number, didn’t you?
“Stop it!” Greg Sorensen said aloud.
“Anything wrong?” The voice belonged to Dr. Audrey Asher, an astronomer at a computer twenty feet away and working on her own project for Stanford University. Thirty-seven years old and ten years Greg’s junior, Audrey felt closer to him than any man she had ever known. She was sure he felt the same way about her, but when they worked together, she put on a persona of being professional and detached. Even now, with her attention directed at her work, she made her question sound casual.
“No,” he said, feeling the warmth of embarrassment on his cheek. “Just complaining aloud. I can’t determine how the Mayflower could possibly be off course.”
“You’re driving yourself too hard. You know that business about all work and no play, don’t you?”
“Of course.” He offered her a weak smile. Her platinum blond hair cascaded down to her shoulders as she finally looked up from her computer printouts. She smiled back at him, but her eyes returned to a paper stream that snaked from her hands, to the desk, and to the floor.
“Maybe your calibrations were off,” she suggested, still focused on her data.
“I’ve checked them more than once.” He put his face in his hands. There had to be something he overlooked. If anything, the gravitation pull of Neptune itself should have kept the position of the Mayflower in check. So what was he overlooking? He knew there was a 600-pound payload less than 150,000 miles away from a planet that still represented a lot of mass...more than 17 times the mass of the Earth! He once had calculated that Neptune's mass would probably be about sixty-eight tons--followed by 21 zeros. If there was an object out there taking the Mayflower out of circulation, it had to be a big one. And one that was close to our galaxy. Where the hell was it? And what was it? A massive asteroid? A black hole? Why couldn't he see it?
“Greg!”
He looked up, surprised to find Audrey staring down at him with inquisitive blue eyes. “Maybe you ought to call it a night.”
“I think I’m hallucinating. There’s no reason for the Mayflower to veer significantly off course.”
She paused long enough to clear her throat. “Were you able to get a fix on Neptune’s position?”
Greg shook his head. "That’s another thing. I swear Neptune is in a different orbital position than it's supposed to be this time of the year."
"You obviously made an error in your measurements.”
"Possibly, but I doubt it. Right now, I’m trying to find an answer to the Mayflower problem.”
"Have you ruled out equipment malfunction? Could the satellite have somehow turned around and fired its rockets away from the planet?"
"I thought of that. But I find it difficult to believe our computer wouldn't have recorded it.”
"Then the data may be wrong. You and I both know our electronics are not one hundred percent reliable. Many strange things have been happening lately. I wouldn't rule anything out." She returned to her computer and stacked her printouts into a neat pile.
What Audrey said made sense, Greg thought. Many weird things have indeed been happening--the volcanic eruption of Mt. Shasta, the incredible 9.0 Richter scale earthquake in Peru, the tsunami that destroyed Tokyo, the disappearance of the ozone layers above both poles. So why couldn’t Neptune have had a shift in its orbit?
Because it was impossible, he reasoned with himself. True, theorists claimed that our galaxy, as well as all the galaxies in the universe were gradually moving toward Virgo. But the individual orbits of the planets wouldn't change, even if that theory were true.
Greg put his hands on her hips when her back was turned toward him. “Audrey, sometimes I dream about you and I being married, where I could go home and you would be there for me, fetching me my slippers and serving me a glass of pinot noir while I unwind on my lounge chair.”
She turned and looked at him, a hint of a smile crossing her lips. “I think you’re living in the nineteenth century, Greg. Women shouldn’t cater to men, even if they’re married.”
He released his hold on her and cocked his head teasingly. “Well, I’ll have my fantasies and you can have yours. I think I am going to call it a night. Dr. Bronson is using the scope in an hour, so I better finish up my report and get a little sleep. I've got a class to teach tomorrow afternoon."
“You deserve a rest.” Her face was dangerously close to his and an awkward moment of silence passed between them. She moved away, walking toward her desk. “Are you still on tenure track at Stanford?”
Greg stroked his gray beard. "Yes, I'm up for a review in February. If I can just learn how to fit in with the rest of the faculty and not make any waves I should be able to make it."
She nodded.“That’s the key. Frankly, there were a few NASA projects that I didn't feel totally comfortable with, yet I told myself there must be someone somewhere at headquarters who apparently knows more that I do about the project. I'm not expected to show them how smart I am. They just want me to do my job, pure and simple. Whether I am actually achieving whatever ultimate truth there is to achieve shouldn’t concern me.”
“But it would concern you if lives were in danger because you didn’t want to risk telling the truth.”
Her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “What are you talking about? What danger?”
Greg laughed weakly. “There I go, talking nonsense. I guess I am tired.”
Audrey’s face relaxed and a friendly smile returned to her face. “How are you doing on your paper on the Orion nebula?”
“Still writing it. I'm planning to have it ready to submit by February. I hope it'll be good enough to put me in good graces with the Grand Inquisition, as the review committee is fondly called."
She sat on her desk and folded her arms. ““You’ll do fine, Greg. What do you say we go outside and get some fresh air?"
He agreed and followed her toward the rear of the observatory. She said nothing until they arrived at the exit door. "Greg, I have a mystery of my own. That large number of comets that have been observed in the past several months seem to be coming from the Oort Cloud. It's as though something had perturbed it, causing these comets to shoot into our galaxy. I've requested some scope time so I could dig deeper into this. Looks like you have your puzzle to solve with the Mayflower and I have something to solve with the comet project."
Greg stroked his beard again. "Wouldn't it be fascinating if these mysteries were somehow related?"
She waited until he opened the door for her. “Interesting,” she said, “but highly unlikely.”
They stepped outside and Greg took in a deep breath. It was one o’clock in the morning and San Jose was asleep. The parking lot was deserted except for two cars—Audrey’s solar-driven Mercedes and Greg’s antique, his gasoline-driven Toyota.
The darkness felt like a heavy blanket of peace, and the night air was cool but refreshingly clean. A slight breeze caught Audrey’s bouncy whitish hair.
“Greg,” she said, “what do you think of the show the universe has put on for us?”
Greg gave her a questioning glance as he placed his hand on her waist. He was surprised she didn’t object.
She pointed toward the sky. “There.”
He saw it at once. The cross formed by the planets and stars was faint, but very definitely a cross, with the horizontal section shorter than the vertical. It was a white cross hanging up there against the black velvet sky shocked him at first. He had been so focused on Neptune and the Mayflower satellite in the observatory, he neglected to take in the sky, a sky painted black, with thousands of stars, like eyes, gazing back at him. He knew every constellation up there, and he could name practically every visible star. These stars were almost like his children. He knew which ones were newly born and which were around for quite a while. He knew just about every one of them. But the unexpected sight of this white cross
"I had forgotten all about this,” he said. “This is the unusual conjunction of three planets and five bright stars which everyone had been expecting.”
Audrey laughed. “You are like the lumberjack who was so focused on one tree he forgot all about the forest.”
“I deserved that little dig,” he said, his hand dropping to her hip. “The media made a fuss over this, didn’t they? It probably helped both their Nielsen ratings as well as newspaper circulation. All of this hullabaloo simply slipped my mind. I guess I was just preoccupied with other matters.”
She moved away from him, crossing her arms as she surveyed the valley. “Well, religious kooks are making a big deal of this as well. They’re claiming this event to be the official announcement of the Second Coming. Yet I do have to agree that if we could just forget these fanatics and enjoy it for what it's worth, it's a darned interesting sight. Wouldn’t you agree?"
Greg nodded, pretending to agree, but his instincts of foreboding kicked in, now that he was faced with the puzzle of a possible shift in Neptune’s orbit and the unexplainable course change of the Mayflower. He had similar eerie feelings before…Barbara’s fatal crash before she drove to the airport…his nightmare of a devastated Los Angeles a month before the earthquake struck…. his precognition that Tokyo would be struck by a tsunami…
He looked up at the sky again. Could this also be an omen? If so, what?
A student raised his hand. “Professor, I understand in the 1980s, two teams of astronomers have developed a hypothesis about our sun having an undiscovered companion star. Can you please clarify?”
“Yes,” the professor answered. “This supposed companion star later became known as Nemesis, and because of its highly elliptical orbit, it supposedly returns to our solar system every 13 million years.“
“Professor,” the student asked, “wasn’t it also 13 million years ago since the last extinction event on Earth occurred?”
“Yes, and if the Nemesis hypotheses is correct, it’s returning soon.”
Chapter 2
1:32 AM
Chicago, IL
A light breeze blew from Lake Michigan. Erika Turner loved Ben Levin's suggestion that the two of them sit out on the balcony tonight. At one in the morning, she could still see a couple of modern, saucer-shaped cabin cruisers out in the distance. Below her, ribbons of cars streamed along Lake Shore Drive. She wondered what her great-great-grandfather, a 19th century Sioux warrior, would have thought of present-day Chicago. Maybe he'd want everyone to clean up the polluted lake, trash their cabin cruisers and cars, and return the town back to the Ojibwa Indians.
Or maybe he would have said he was glad the Great White Spirit had at last given her the wonderful gift she was carrying. She put her hand on her abdomen. There was an embryo in there; her obstetrician told her that if she could remove it from her womb it would barely be seen. It seemed strange to have had life growing inside of her for four weeks now. She looked at Ben and wondered if the baby would look anything like its father when it grew up.
Ben Levin seemed to be in a trance, his hardened chestnut eyes focused intently at something in the heavens. He jabbed a determined finger at the evening sky. "That is the damndest thing I've ever seen."
Erika's eyes made a sweeping, rushed search across the star-pinched sky. Then she saw it. The curious, dagger-like intersection of two white streaks. Two crossed streaks that dominated a black quilt that usually only contained a patchwork of randomly-spaced points of light.
She held her breath for a second, then remembered that the media had forecast this event. Even so, she thought it was awesome to behold.
"That's interesting," she said, her shaky voice betraying the excitement she felt. "Looks like a cross. I've never seen anything like that before."
Ben put his brandy glass down and stood up, all in one smooth but quick motion. He laughed, a deep throaty laugh, and he placed his firm hands firmly on her bare shoulders. "Sure you have, Erika, my darling. You're wearing it."
She frowned. "Wearing it? What do you mean?" She followed his gaze and instinctively touched her neck. "Oh you mean this cross I'm wearing? Does it offend you?"
Ben waved his hand. "No way! I may be Jewish, but I'm not Orthodox. Not even religious to tell you the truth. Crosses don't bother me. I was even best man at a Lutheran wedding once."
"I almost forgot I was wearing it,” she said.
Ben's cynical smile widened. "It's a way to advertise your Christian beliefs, isn’t it?”
"Look, I want you to know I'm not wearing it because I happen to be married to a minister. And it has nothing to do with my being an anchor for the Salvation Broadcast Network either. I guess it's just a symbol of my Christian faith, something that's still important in my life, even though I find some Christians can be hypocritical at times."
Ben laughed. "Hypocritical? You mean like calling yourself a Christian even though you're having an adulterous affair?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Ben. As I told you before, a religious leader should try to be an excellent example to his followers. When my husband Don started drinking and lying to me, I lost all interest in his Sunday sermons and religious crusades. Now I even find myself questioning some of the rituals we Christians are supposed to believe in, like baptism or like the laying on of hands to heal the sick."
Ben glowed. "But you don't seem to mind when I lay my hands on you, now, do you?"
She arose in a huff. "Quit playing cat-and-mouse with me, Ben! You know damn well what I mean."
He stood up, still smiling. "Erika, it's impossible to be married to a religious fanatic like Don and not be one yourself."
"I'm not a religious fanatic. I simply want to enjoy life."
"And I want to enjoy you. You know, your husband's a damn fool for traveling around the country instead of staying home with a great lay like you."
She frowned, but relaxed when she saw the twinkle in his eyes. "You're pretty sexy yourself," she said, placing her hand firmly on his behind.
"Sexy, and not to mention as well that I'm one of the most successful architects around. The fact that I'm so disgustingly rich probably adds to my charm."
"Not with me it doesn't. All that I'll ever ask, honey, is that you be completely open and honest with me. I'd love you even if you only had a dime to your name."
Ben reached in his pocket and pulled out a nickel. "That's all the cash I have with me right now. Still love me?"
"I'm carrying your baby, aren't I?"
"You are, but as I told you the first time when you told me you're pregnant, I'd gladly pay for an abortion."
"I really want this child, especially since it's yours."
"Well, you really don't know yet if it's mine, do you? It could be Don's."
"I'll know soon enough. I'm going to have my prenatal visit with the doctor in a couple of weeks. He's going to run some tests. I'll know for sure then."
"And would you tell Don it was mine even if the two of us ever split?"
"Don't even think that! We'll always be together. We love each other too much."
"But what if something happened to me and you decided to remain married to Don? Would you then tell him it was mine?"
"Never. I guess I'd pretend it was his."
"Pretending can be dangerous, Erika. Lies can stack up, one atop another, just like bricks. But as soon as one lie is discovered, the whole structure can collapse."
His reference to "structure" suddenly reminded her of that underwater city in the North Sea which he had helped design. She realized he felt as strongly about Genesis as she felt about the baby.
"Ben, don't you pretend sometimes that Genesis is really yours, even though it actually belongs to our Federal government?"
"The Feds may own it," he answered, "but as one of Genesis' chief architects, I'll always have the satisfaction of knowing that I gave birth to its basic design, even though I found the project to be a real pain in the ass."
"Yes, I guess it would be."
"You better believe it! For instance, when you go down 500 feet underwater you're talking about many thousands of tons of ocean pressing down on your structure, and you have pressurization problems and pumping problems and filtering problems. We had an airtight elevator and stairway system that would go all the way down to the sea floor. We had a tough time making sure the structure would resist the immense water pressure from the sea currents. Like I say, it was a real pain in the ass."
"When is Genesis scheduled to be completed?"
"I think maybe by May if we're lucky."
Erika restrained herself from telling him this was a boondoggle. It was inconceivable to her that the government would contract with Ben to build an underwater city named Genesis in order to house two thousand people for six months or more. Given the possibility of extinction from a world catastrophe such as a nuclear war, Genesis would become a survival city. For who—important dignitaries and world leaders?
“Look,” Ben added after a taking another sip, “let’s talk about Levin Design Engineering and Genesis some other time. It's getting a bit breezy outside. What say we go inside? A warm shower would do me good just about now."
"You and me both. Why don't you go on ahead and get it started? I'd like to finish my soda."
While Ben got undressed in the bathroom, Erika took another sip. She touched her cross and wished Ben had not mentioned it, because it brought back some painful memories. Don had given it to her after her conversion to Christianity. It was only after they married that she discovered what a rigid disciplinarian he was--taking the Bible literally in everything, telling her that a wife should be subservient to her husband or that wearing a low-cut dress was immoral and a personal offense against God. She tried to accept it. But after he’d be out of town for several days, never call, and then come home drunk, she confronted him with the same Bible he had used against her. She reminded him how the book of Proverbs and Isaiah and the writings of Paul had all preached against drunkenness. He didn't want to hear it and slapped her.
The following day he denied it ever happened. Then the cycle would repeat itself--the lonely days without a phone call from him, the drunkenness when he returned, the verbal and physical abuse, then the denials. Finally, she demanded a divorce after he pushed her against the wall, causing her to break her wrist, but he cried like a child even as he drove her to the hospital. She ended up fabricating a story to the doctor about falling down the stairs. Then she met Ben, who was a guest on her SBN show. Now evenings with Don away from home not only weren't depressing, they were fulfilling. She found she didn't need Don in her life anymore.
Taking another sip of her soda, she touched her cross again. Maybe she wore it to remind herself that even though Christ may have carried His cross, she certainly wouldn’t carry hers. What mattered now was her own well being and certainly Ben played a big role in her happiness.
The clear night was black velvet and the stars were tiny diamonds on display. But the brilliant object in the sky prompted memories of the Star of Bethlehem and of Christmas. In fact, it had been Christmas Day ten years ago when Don had proposed to her. He had told her their marriage would be the beginning of a new and wonderful life for her. She would be the wife of a simple country minister.
Here she was, ten years later, the wife of anything but a simple country minister. Reverend Donald J. Turner, a national figure in TV evangelism, spiritual advisor to President Anderson. And a national hypocrite.
She threw her drinking glass against the brick walled patio. It shattered into countless pieces.
"Erika! Are you okay?"
The explosive sound of Ben's voice startled her. Clutching the towel about him, he made long strides toward her. "What happened?" His voice showed genuine concern.
"I was getting up and forgot I had the glass in my hand and it just flew to the wall."
"Well it's a good thing you didn't hurt yourself, Erika. By the way, the water's hot and so am I."
She put her arms around him. "If you'll give me just another minute, I'll join you in the shower."
Ben retreated and Erika quickly undressed, throwing her clothes on the bed. Well, Don had had the good sense to rent this beautiful Lake Shore Drive apartment. But he traveled too much to enjoy it, so she was glad she and Ben could share those secret moments together.
Ben patted her rear end when she entered the shower. She felt sexy with Ben. Ben was a hard-working executive, but he never let that get in the way of being a good lover. She moved the shower head in her direction and let the warm spray wash over her face. Her skin tingled and she showed Ben the goose bumps on her arm.
"Doesn't take too much to get you excited," he teased.
She looked down at him and laughed. “I could say the same about you, Ben.” Despite Ben being 52 years old and 14 years her senior, she treasured every inch of him--the sculptured, decisive cleft of his chin, his strong back muscles, the round firmness of his buttocks, and his broad shoulders.
After she left the bathroom, she found Ben in her king-size bed, waiting for her. She was about to join him when she heard a car door slam outside.
Don’s home! What will I do?
Deep in the outer reaches of space, a dim star, smaller than the sun, zooms through the eerie darkness. A blue planet seventeen times the mass of Earth, is repelled by the star’s nearness and shifts from the orbital pattern that it had held for millions of years. The faint star moves on, gaining, accelerating, and moving aggressively toward the interior of the solar system.
Chapter 3
Arlington, VA
He was rugged, determined, and looked more like a well-dressed weight lifter than a Presidential candidate. Vice-President Brian Miller was a giant shadow in the window of his Colonial style home in Arlington, Virginia, minutes away from what he hoped would be his future home--the White House. His pajama-clad legs were spread apart, his bathrobe pulled around him, his oval face and pointed chin chiseled against the pale yellow moon. His dark brown eyes were focused on the white cross in the sky.
He laughed as he stared at it. "Maybe it's a vote of confidence for me from the Ku Klux Klan," he murmured.
Of course, he wanted the Presidential vote so badly, he'd even burn a cross on his lawn if it would make a difference. Running for the office required the biggest acting job he'd ever have to undertake, and he'd do the best job he could. Hell, Reagan got away with it decades ago, didn't he?
If he had lived in a previous life more than 4,000 years ago, like Latusha, his Russian grandmother, had claimed he did, he might well have gathered his Neolithic people at Stonehenge and offered a human sacrifice on the Slaughter Stone. As their astronomer-priest, he would have found some hidden, evil meaning in the celestial movements in the sky.
He shook his head at the fantasy. Although as a child, he had a certain fascination for stories about the hideous rituals of ancient Sumerian astrologers or priests of New Kingdom Egypt, he refused to believe everything Latusha said. While neighbors called her a witch, he saw her as a strange but well-meaning woman. When he was thirteen she tattooed his hand with a special symbol. When he turned fourteen, she gave him a metal amulet. Both, she said, would give him success and power in later years.
He removed the metal amulet that he wore around his neck and lifted the ancient object toward the window. The hexagonal-shaped golden piece caught a glint of the moonlight. He had carried it with him all these years to remind him of her strange superstitions. She had told him it was blessed with the prayers of ancient astrologers and it would always bring him luck. He felt foolish wearing it, yet he sensed a surge of power whenever he held it in his hand.
There was no harm in carrying it around, he reasoned. Of course, what would the media say?--that the Vice-President of the U.S. cherishes a centuries-old piece of metal because it might carry with it an obscure promise of good fortune? Well, he'd just have to keep a lid on this little secret. He felt good about his destiny whenever he wore it, foolish or not.
His slippers brushed against the slippery parquet floor as he trudged his way to his bedroom. His wife Naomi had pulled all the covers over to her side of the bed. Gently, without waking her, he took the covers from her, leaving her with one thin blanket.
Women were warm-blooded animals, he thought. She didn't need all those blankets. Fact was, she was damn lucky to be married to him. Today he was the Vice-President of the United States. Soon, if all went according to plan, he'd succeed Anderson as President.
And he was damn lucky she had never really insisted on learning about his early life. She would be horrified if she ever learned his well-kept secret.
If she did, it would be her death sentence.
My path is getting tighter,
My force is getting stronger
The last time I was there to greet sister sun
I caused all dinosaurs to die,
I now return, for humans.
unknown poet
Chapter 4
Thursday, Oct. 23
9:59 AM
Washington, D.C.
Kerry Kingston moved with grace. Maybe that's what they'll put on my gravestone, she thought: Kerry Kingston moved with grace. After all, she was a towering six-foot redhead with long legs that curved in the right places, and when she walked, her high heels clicked on the ground with the light, delicate touch of a data entry operator.
But Kerry would rather have as her epitaph that she was very intelligent, perceptive, and the most persistent investigative reporter the Chicago Sun-Times had seen in years. No chance, Kerry thought, as long as her peers felt she was nothing but a 28-year-old looker with an ivory face, blue eyes, and just a hint of a nose--a typical Cosmopolitan cover girl. She was proud of the fact that she had already made progress. Only three years on the staff, and already she was covering important news stories like today's press conference with Vice-President Brian Miller.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President of the United States."
The announcer's voice was brittle and mechanical. Kerry rose from her chair along with some sixty other reporters in the Sheraton ballroom. Kerry saw the CBS, ABC, and NBC cameramen jockeying for a good position of the speaker. Mr. Miller was a large man, his line-quarterback frame adding to his already impressive stature. He smiled broadly and lifted his hands for silence.
"Rather than my boring you with a speech, why don't you ask your questions? I'll answer them as best as I can."
"Mr. Vice-President," a young man's voice rang out, "you have pledged if elected President you would seek world peace. Just how do you plan to do that?"
"John," the Vice-President said, addressing John Kirk from the New York Times, "world peace is the number one item on my agenda after I'm elected President. I intend to sit down with leaders of nations that we had once considered hostile--nations such as Libya, Iran, Syria--and really listen to them. Many things can be resolved at the peace table rather than on the battlefield, and I will have a very specific proposal for getting such peace negotiations started."
"Follow up question," John said. "Can you tell us some of the specifics of such a proposal?"
"If I did that," the Vice-President said, "I'd be tipping my hand, both to the nations who would be involved in such a discussion as well as to my worthy opponent from the Republican Party. Now you wouldn't want me to blow this chance by describing such a proposal now, would you? Next question--Kerry?"
Kerry's heart skipped a beat. She stood up, embarrassed at other reporters turning around to stare at her. She hoped her dress would hide her shaking knees.
"Mr. Vice-President, some Christians are saying that this so-called cross in the sky we witnessed recently due to the conjunction of the planets is really a sign of the end of the world. Right or wrong, Christians form a very important part of your constituency. Do you feel that, if elected, you will push for programs that would tend to pacify Christian beliefs, such as outlawing pornography, bringing back prayer to the public schools, or the like?"
Miller's eyes were dark, probing, and they focused intently on the tall redhead from Chicago. "I want to do what is right for all people, Christians and non-Christians alike. Of course, I believe in many of the moral issues that Christians hold so dear and I would never want to do anything that would jeopardize their values. Just look at my track record. I helped obtain relief for the homeless, aided disaster victims, and tried to restore the dignity of men—“ He winked at Kerry. "—and women." The male reporters clapped. Miller went on. "I tried to restore their dignity on a worldwide basis. I am behind human rights issues one hundred percent, as you well know. And as your next President, I will do everything in my power to destroy corruption and make this country, and hopefully the world, a better place in which to live."
Miller turned to an aide and whispered in his ear. Then he went on with other questions from reporters. The conference lasted only about ten more minutes, and Kerry trailed behind the others while she jotted additional comments in her notebook.
She felt a hand firmly grab her arm. A black gentleman smiled politely.
"Kerry Kingston? Would you follow me please? The Vice-President would like a few words with you privately."
Kerry flushed. With me? What could a man of his importance want with this reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times? She tried to contain her nervous excitement and pushed a few strands of red hair from her forehead. "Okay. If you're sure the Vice-President of the United States wants to see me, please lead the way!"
The man escorted her to a large walnut-paneled office, past three busy employees, and then into an inner office. Vice-President Miller was sitting in his judge's chair, engaged in a telephone conversation when she entered. He turned and waved her in, motioning her with his finger to have a seat.
Miller had high-boned cheeks but a handsome face, with a strong Roman nose squarely situated above thin, smiling lips. But it was his dark eyes that Kerry noticed. There was a depth in them that was bottomless, mysterious.
Kerry always prided herself on her ability to make accurate judgments of people, but Miller presented a real challenge to her. He seemed so generous and kind on the exterior. He had given generously of both his time and money to many charitable causes. He was always praising others in public. The people liked him. There was a charisma there, certainly.
But there was a dark side to him that she couldn't understand. He said and did the right things but his eyes, his manners betrayed something sinister.
The Vice-President hung up the phone and rose immediately. He extended her his hand. Glad you could come, Kerry!"
"Forgive me for appearing surprised, Mr. Vice-President, but I'm really kind of floored that you asked to see me. I'm a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, not an anchorwoman for a national TV network like NBC."
Miller took a seat after she sat down. He folded his hands under his chin and his eyes seemed to be studying her. Kerry offered him a cigarette, but he shook his head. She rarely smoked, but this man was making her nervous. She placed a cigarette in her mouth, dropped it, picked it up, and fumbled in her purse for a lighter. She noticed that Miller never moved to help her with a light even though she could see a cigarette lighter inches away from him on his desk.
She lit up, took a drag, and stared back at him, hopefully, she thought, with an equal sense of coolness. She knew what bugged her about him. It wasn't his manners or his exaggerated sense of self-importance. Those penetrating eyes of his unnerved her. Eyes like a vulture ready to eat its prey and spit out the bones.
Miller grinned broadly. "I bet you're an Aries."
The question caught her by surprise. "Why yes, but I don't understand."
"An Aries likes to lock horns with life itself and rushes into conflicts. Actually, it's an admirable trait to have. Van Gogh was an Aries, and he showed his fire and drive by filling his canvases with bright colors."
"I've heard of your interest in astrology, Mr. Vice-President."
Miller was still grinning. "Yes, I dabble a bit in it. Actually when I'm elected President, this won't be an unusual hobby to have. I understand that former President Reagan ran his daily itinerary on the basis of astrological signs. As far as you're concerned, Miss Kingston, you have a creative flare that is also true of your sign. You write very well, very well indeed. I've read your columns and I've read your feature stories. You have a flair for words. A real gift."
Kerry glared at him. Cut the bullshit. You didn't invite me here to tell me that I'm another Dorothy Parker.
"Unfortunately, Ms. Kingston, you sometimes take what you think is the truth and make it the truth before checking out your facts."
Kerry's face tightened. "What exactly are you getting at, Mr. Vice-President?"
Miller leaned forward. "I'm getting at the way you've distorted my image. You told your readers that my loyalty to our country is questionable because I'm trying to impress upon our people the importance of listening closely to what our enemies are saying. I've been telling the press that we need to put our past feelings about the Russian Commonwealth aside and listen--really listen--to what the Russians are saying. They're saying they want peace. Maybe they do. They're saying that the Citizen Freedom Party has all the earmarks of being a revived Communist Party. Maybe it has. But does this make me a supporter of its philosophy? Does this make me unpatriotic?"
"Well, you have to admit, Mr. Vice-President," Kerry answered, "you've said some things in the past that are very questionable."
"Such as?"
"Such as coming flat out and saying that Christian theology can be dangerous to the very tenets of our Constitutional rights."
Miller displayed no immediate emotion. He toyed with the cigarette lighter on his desk. Kerry shifted in her chair, uneasy at his long silence. Finally he put the lighter down. His cold eyes softened. His thin lips curled into a teasing smile. "You're something else, Kerry. You come right out with a falsehood and state it as if it were a fact. But I like you, Kerry. I like the fact that you come right out and say what you believe, regardless of your listener. That ability to speak out is an asset I'd like to see in others. I know you won't believe it, but I do admire you a great deal."
No doubt this man had charm, Kerry thought. One moment he's cold and calculating, and the next moment he's stroking you.
"Are you denying you said that?" she asked.
"Yes, you've taken what I had said out of context. I was directing my remarks to a few militant fundamentalist Christians who were forcing their way into public classrooms and insisting that everyone in class say prayers. Now if that isn't a violation of civil liberties I don't know what is. But I certainly wasn't saying that Christian theology itself was dangerous to our Constitutional beliefs."
Kerry wanted to interrupt, but Miller raised his hand to silence her. "Therefore, all of these negative comments about me and my candidacy for the President are totally unjustified. When you give your opinion to millions of readers, you should base that opinion on sound fact. Otherwise, you are doing a disservice not only to me but to your loyal readers."
Kerry rose to leave. "So you called me in here to slap my wrists, I take it!"
"On the contrary, Kerry. I called you in here to ask you to set the record straight with your readers. Give them a fair opinion--one based on truth, not on innuendos and distortions."
She touched the doorknob, hesitating. "Mr. Vice-President, with all due respect to your office, I don't think you have a right to tell me how to write my columns. You talk about Constitutional rights…have you heard the one about freedom of the press?"
"Miss Kingston!" Miller exploded. "Don't be so thick-headed. How can I have my future Press Secretary write articles like this about me? She has to exhibit fierce, undying loyalty, and loyalty would be what I'd expect to find in you, Miss Kingston."
Kerry was stunned. Press Secretary! Why would this man want her--a reporter for a city newspaper--to be his Press Secretary? Surely there would be more qualified people around for such an important position.
She turned to look at him. He simply smiled and said, "It's true. I've had my eye on you for some time now."
"Well," she said, "you may think you know me, but you don't. I can't be bought." She slammed the door behind her. She ignored the stares of the receptionist and secretaries in the outer office as she dug her heels into the carpet and strode through the outer door. Everything was a blur to her, the long hallway, the elevator ride down to the lobby, the guard at the entrance. Who did Brian Miller think he was dealing with, she thought--some punk cub reporter who would be mesmerized by the idea of being a Press Secretary?
But all evening, she thought about it. At Francois's, she thought about it as she fussed over her chicken fricassee and sautéed vegetables. At the Hilton she thought about it while waiting for the slow hotel clerk to discover any messages in her mail slot. In her room she thought about it while taking a shower.
Kerry Kingston, Press Secretary. How much higher could she go? All her life she wanted to be somebody. She knew she was smart, even at twenty-eight, and for being able to get on the Washington circuit after only three years was an outstanding achievement. But she wanted to rise as fast as she could and as high as she could. Her mother always hinted about getting married and having children, but Kerry wasn't interested. Maybe if she had to blame someone for her sense of urgency in rising quickly and to the top, like cream in a milk bottle, it was her father. When he was twenty-six, he had already owned a chain of clothing stores; but nine years later, when Kerry was only eight years old, he had a stroke and died. Maybe that would be her legacy too, but she promised herself, even when she was a high school senior, she'd make it big in the world of journalism. No one thought she would. But the world was full of surprises. Who would have thought the United States would have destroyed all of its nuclear weapons? Or that in this century we had an African-American serve in that high office?
By seven o'clock the following morning, Kerry waited in line behind fifteen others at the airport check-in counter. She had convinced herself that if she showed up at Washington National to board her flight, she'd forget all about that irresistible carrot Miller had dangled in front of her. But it was no use. When her turn finally arrived, she knew what she had to do. It wasn't a hasty decision; she had even dreamed about it. People always got ahead in this world by making deals. When opportunity fell into your lap you weren't supposed to jump up and let it crash to the floor. You were supposed to stroke it and use it.
"May I help you?" the blonde ticket agent asked with a piano ivory smile.
Kerry bounced the envelope containing her ticket against the palm of her hand. This was a tough one. Should she go back to Chicago or return to Washington to see the Vice-President?
* * *
Brian Miller had just left the Senate chamber and was walking back toward his office. Senator William Barstow from North Carolina was reminding him that the senators would probably be one vote short of approving an increased expenditure on the space program and that the Vice-President would have to vote on the measure.
"Bill, no one believes in the space program more than I, but where the hell are we going to get the money? Everyone's screaming about the budget deficit, yet everyone's also screaming about increasing spending on everything. Look at the billions we've already poured into the Genesis project. Something's got to give."
"True," the senator affirmed. "But we've launched the initial modules for our space station last year on the promise to the voters that it would help us unlock the secrets of the universe. It's unfortunate there are cost overrides on Alexandria, that space telescope that we're now asking the taxpayers to approve."
"But then we have other programs where we've wasted millions of dollars. Take the Mayflower, for instance. Hell! That payload gets lost in outer space somewhere and no one can explain what happened. Six hundred pounds of valuable scientific gear--high-tech cameras, expensive radio transmitters, platinum electrodes, and no one knows what the hell happened to it. I can't believe it!"
"I understand that one scientist, a Dr. Sorensen, thinks there might be some large object out there that may account for it. Of course, that's only theory, and I don't know of anyone else who's supporting that argument."
"Hell! We don't need theories. We need facts."
Bill put his hand on Brian's shoulder. "And we need more money to get those facts."
Miller laughed. "You sure you weren't a used car salesman before you became a senator?" He spotted a woman in the distance walking toward him. He knew her from her walk. She moved with a certain amount of grace, a tall woman with an intelligent, deliberate stride.
"Excuse me, Senator," Miller said. "There's someone I have to see. We'll discuss this later."
Miller knew she took the bait even before she said anything to him. "Kerry, what a pleasant surprise. I thought you'd be halfway to Chicago by now."
"You probably know why I'm here, Mr. Vice-President."
Chapter 5
Monday, Oct. 27
6:18 AM
Cupertino, CA
The sun had just nudged itself over the foothills in the far distance ahead when Greg jogged down Bollinger Road. Aristotle, his five-year old collie, had already reached Blaney Avenue and was waiting for him, panting, his tail brushing the sidewalk.
Four years ago he had discovered the collie following him when he was picnicking with his wife, Barbara, in Vasona Park. He had noticed that the pup was limping, so he told Barbara he'd take it to a vet because it appeared that the animal had broken a bone. Barbara used to compliment him on his sensitivity, but this made him uncomfortable. It reminded him of the times his mother used to tease him whenever she'd catch him crying during a particularly poignant scene in a movie. It especially embarrassed him now to realize he was a scientist who still melted under the right emotional moment. If he had a ruling passion in his life it was to help people who really needed his help. Stories of great men of medicine like Salk or Pasteur intrigued him because they had rescued so many lives through their painstaking research. But he knew he could never be a doctor. It was physics and math and the stars that moved him, not an appendectomy or a coronary bypass. His research into the field of astrophysics might never help people, but it was the love of his life. There was no denying that.
But he had initially denied Barbara's death. How could a wonderful woman like Barbara, he thought, just disappear from the face of the earth? It didn't make sense. Now, three years after her death, Aristotle continued to be a comfort to him--as was his nineteen-year-old daughter Rebecca. But he began to think about a possible relationship with Audrey. She was certainly attractive as well as intelligent, and they certainly had similar interests when it came to science.
He loved Audrey for who she was, and had been seriously considering marriage, but would that be the way to start a new life? He had grown accustomed to structuring his life more carefully. At six-fifteen he'd jog, rain or shine. Then he'd have breakfast at six-forty with Rebecca before she went to her classes at San Jose State. At seven, he'd either drive to Stanford for a class he had to teach or go to the library to finish his research for the professional paper he needed to submit to the Astrophysical Journal.
He was almost done with his study of the Orion nebula. Since the Orion was in a region of active star formation, his paper dealt with the theoretical versus actual movements of a new star across his field of view in space. If there were no planetary influences, the star would move in approximately a straight line while if there were planetary influences, it would tend to follow a curvy path, similar to that of a trigonometric sine curve.
His paper would be ready to submit in January. Then, in February, Stanford would review his qualifications for a tenure-track professorship. He'd didn't expect any problems in getting it. After all, he had been the Assistant Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, was a member of the respected International Space Exploration Group formed two years ago, and was also a member of the distinguished Board of Studies in Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.
Keeping busy was not a problem for him, and he found many things to do outside the house. During the week, when Rebecca was either at school or organizing a demonstration to protest rain forest destruction or the slaughter of minks, it was easy for him to be away. He knew he needed to be away from the walls of his home, walls that still lingered with Barbara's pain and tears and whispers and sometimes her weak attempts at laughter. It was three years ago, and she was 40 years old--six years his junior--when she was killed. With her still youthful, vibrant face, flowing chestnut hair, sparkling hazel eyes--contrasted with his graying hair, white, short-cropped beard and lazy brown eyes. She was so youthful in appearance that friends would tease them about them resembling a father and daughter team rather than man and wife. But then came the place crash when landing at the Kansas City International airport. Eight of the thirty-one passengers and crew were killed. Barbara was among those eight. Greg never could erase the memory of how she kissed and hugged him at the San Jose terminal before taking her flight to join an PETA convention in Lawrence, Kansas.. It was their final kiss.
"Come on, Aristotle!" Greg shouted. "Race you back to the house." The dog leaped up at the challenge and outdistanced him by at least a city block by the time he reached the house. By then the sun had broken through a hole in the clouds and lit up a portion of his lawn.
If Barbara were still alive, he thought, she'd say something poetic like "God has put His finger on our grass and lit the dew in the brilliance of His Majesty." As a scientist, he could never hope to become that poetic. When he looked at the sun, he could describe the sun to her as a huge ball of nuclear fusion--where hydrogen atoms collided together to form helium. He could tell her that the sun was 864,000 miles in diameter and 93 million miles away from our planet. He could even describe it as a yellow dwarf star, a "cooler" star in the "G" spectral class, which meant it was relatively not as bright as many of the hundred billions other stars out in the universe. And if she asked him how that could be when anyone could plainly see how bright the sun was, he could explain that since it was close to our planet, it looked bright, but put it a distance away, as far as the star called Sirius, and it'd be pretty dim. And to make a real impression on her, he could tell her that there were other stars that were cooler and smaller than our sun and were practically invisible to even the most powerful of telescopes.
Rebecca, like Barbara, wasn't impressed by any of that. His daughter appeared to be more interested in preserving nature than in studying it. If there was a rally on campus for any cause that had to do with animal abuse or pollution or cutting redwoods in Northern California, she'd be there to help the cause. Once she even joined other young female supporters of animal rights by parading topless at the Berkeley campus and managing to get arrested in the process.
Her defiance, Greg felt, didn't end there. Greg had long felt that her going to San Jose State and majoring in English was probably an act of defiance against his love of math and the precision of science. She didn't want to hear about his "precession of the equinoxes" or the "harmonic theory of the universe." She'd rather talk about the intense humility of Emily Dickinson ("Twice have I stood a beggar before the door of God") or Walt Whitman's intense identification with nature ("I celebrate myself, and sign myself, and what I assume you shall assume.").
Greg felt that Barbara tried to inspire his deep-rooted but suppressed creative instincts by asking him to take a literature class with her or to attend a poetry reading. She wanted him to free the right hemisphere of his brain and do all those creative things that he knew his sixth sense urged him to do. Barbara, like Rebecca, strongly believed in the intuitive powers of the mind. Greg had to admit that he did too, but grudgingly so, and only after he kept finding his strong impressions coming true--like the nagging feeling he had about the devastating Missouri earthquake or "knowing" the exact day Barbara would be killed in an aircraft accident, two weeks before it happened. Now his intuition was working on him again, telling him that the Mayflower incident somehow was signaling an urgent problem.
Only thing was, he didn't know what it was, but sensed it would make any of his other problems pale by comparison.
Tuesday, Oct. 28, 10:13 AM
Chicago, IL
"Well, I take it you believe that the peculiar alignment of the planets in what appears to be the shape of a cross is a sign of the end of the world--rather than just an ordinary, natural phenomenon?" Erika Turner tried to sound like an objective anchorwoman for the Salvation Broadcast Network. But she couldn't help interject just a bit of sarcasm in her voice.
Reverend Lawrence of the United Federation of Churches frowned. "Of course, Erika! You surely are familiar with Matthew 24:30 where it is written that 'the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky' or with Luke 21:11 where it says that 'there will be great earthquakes, plagues, and famines in diverse places, and in the sky fearful omens and great signs.'"
"I am familiar with those quotations, but don't you think Christ has a little more flair than that? I mean this 'sign' that's mentioned in the Bible is some supernatural event, not just a random occurrence of planets that happen to appear to some to be the sign of the cross. Matter of fact, I've read accounts of people who claim they saw things other than a sign of the cross in the sky. Some say they just saw a line, some say they saw an 'x', and others say it was just a fuzzy glow in the dark."
"Erika, my child," the minister said in deep, resonant tones, "can't you see it all coming together? I mean look at the tsunami that wiped out a third of Tokyo ten months ago or that killer earthquake in Peru just four months ago, and the growing famine in East Africa and India. These are all signs of the end times."
"Speaking of signs," Erika said drily, "I'm getting one from the station saying that time has just about run out. Reverend Lawrence, I'd like to thank you for coming, and I'm sure our listeners appreciated hearing you."
She mechanically smiled at the minister until she saw the red light on the camera flicker off. Then she removed her headset and moved off the set. Reverend Lawrence turned to look at her and shook his head. Her husband, Reverend Don Turner, took long strides after her, and grabbed her arm. She spun around to face him. Her face was a cold marble stare.
"What is wrong with you, Erika?" he demanded. "You sound like you're reverting back to your former ways."
Former ways? She hated it when he made reference to her conversion to the Baptist faith when she was a teenager living on an Indian reservation in the Dakotas. Don never did understand that the Indians had a religious belief that was as sacred and intense as that of any Christian sect.
Don was still carping at her: "This is a Christian show, yet you seem to be challenging our guests on almost any Christian topic they bring up."
"Are you unhappy about the way I'm conducting myself as your anchorwoman?"
"Of course not. I mean there's something about you lately that's changed."
"Oh, now it's me that's changed, not you!" She pushed his hand away from her arm and continued walking toward her dressing room.