Her hands rested, and the tiny red lights seemed to stare as she watched Alex, Aimee, and Joshua lying on the grass. Minutes passed as she studied their every nuance, expression, while following their lip movements.
Her hands reached forward again, and she zoomed in a little more, angling carefully this time. Aimee’s face filled the screen, and Sophia paused the feed, and sat immobile before the woman’s face.
After a moment, she tilted her head, seeing her own reflection in the dark screen next to Aimee’s face. Sophia looked from one to the other — Aimee’s features, and then to her own near featureless visage.
“This time, I’m not letting you go,” Sophia said. Then she repeated the phrase several more times until the voice was perfect.
Sophia signed off and went and sat back in the chair. The tiny lights where her eyes should have been slowly dimmed.
CHAPTER 50
Colonel Jack Hammerson closed the file then poured himself a double Jack Daniels, neat. He then opened his drawer to take out a box of long, dark cigars, and hummed as he clipped the end from one, stuck it into the center of his mouth, and lit it.
He blew a long plume of blue smoke into the air, and then rolled the cigar to the corner of his mouth as he got to his feet. He grabbed his glass and walked toward the large armor-plated window that looked out over the USSTRATCOM base parade grounds.
The sky was darkening now, showing the pinpricks of stars in among the countless trillions of miles of black nothingness. In that vastness of space, he knew there were probably things that would take advantage of their benign little blue world if given the chance. This horror had come out of the void and taken them by surprise. This time they got lucky.
He removed his cigar and sipped his whisky, letting it roll around his mouth for a second or two before swallowing the golden liquid down to scald his belly.
He raised the glass. “To all the good men and women lost, who fight to the death for us, and whose names will never be known.” He went to lower the glass but paused. “And to all the luck we can damn well get.”
He sipped again. Jack Hammerson continued to stare up at the night sky. The last of the dark blue velvet had already turned black.
He sighed. We don’t know what’s really out there. And maybe it’s better it stays that way.
EPILOGUE
Russian Space Shuttle Orbiter Buran II, 300 miles above the Belozersky District in Vologda Oblast.
“It’s still with us.”
Commander Sergey Volodin watched the view screen as the shining dot grew larger. He turned in his seat.
“Trajectory?”
Cosmonaut engineer crewmember Valentina Marishnakov looked at her radar and shook her head. “Trajectory unchanged, velocity unchanged, astral body intersection unchanged — collision course confirmed; it will strike us in eleven minutes and twenty-three seconds. Evasive action has failed again.” She turned, her face pale. “We have not been able to outrun it.”
Volodin threw his head back. “Voloch, this damned bit of rock must be magnetic.” He wished he were seated in his Sukhoi jetfighter; he’d give it a burst from the undercarriage canon and shatter it into a million pieces.
“Wait.” Cosmonaut Nikolay Berezik held up a hand. “Roscosmos thinks they have a plan.” He listened to the voice in his earphones from the Russian Space Agency for a few more seconds. He began to nod and smile. He spun to Volodin.
“They believe we can use the robotic arm to bring it onboard.”
Volodin turned and looked at his engineer’s beaming face. He then turned to Valentina, who also nodded and raised a thumb.
She hiked her shoulders. “It’s the lowest risk.”
And doing nothing is suicide. Volodin turned back to his screens.
“Then let’s do it.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Many readers ask me about the background of my novels — is the science real or fiction? Where do I get the situations, equipment, characters, or their expertise from? And just how much of any element has a basis in fact?
In the case of cosmic arrivals somehow kick starting or modifying the evolutionary process, there is strong evidence to conclude this may certainly have occurred.
Life on Earth is shaped by its environment(s) and even tiny alterations in those environments can force creatures to adapt, move away, or die out. Geological forces like volcanoes, glaciers, warming/cooling climates, sea levels rising/dropping, and continental drift play a big part in the physical characteristics of organisms.
But looking further from home we also need to acknowledge the effects of forces beyond our Earth. Could entities and cosmic effects from the stars also have played a part in shaping us? Of course they could!
The most dramatic example of astral interference everyone knows about is the theory of a massive meteorite impact some sixty-six million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. This theory was bolstered by the physical presence of a layer of Iridium laid down in the sedimentary rock. Below this Iridium layer we found dinosaur fossils, and above, there were none. Added to that, Iridium is extremely rare on Earth but found in high concentrations in asteroids.
But there are other theories besides the meteorite impact for the dinosaur extinction and the associated Iridium layer. At Japan’s Spaceguard Association, Tokuhiro Nimura suggested that the rare mineral layer might have been caused by the Earth passing through a molecular cloud — a curtain of death in space that then built up in the atmosphere. It blocked sunlight and so cooled our planet’s surface.
It is possible that, just like smaller-scale population crashes, these off-worldly interactions could be an inherent part of the way ecosystems work. Because all life is interdependent, a small change in one population might create a ripple effect that sends out waves through the entire system. Basically, everything doesn’t need to be initially affected, just some things.
There have been five mass extinctions in Earth’s history. In the most significant one — 250 million years ago — ninety-six percent of marine species and seventy percent of land species died off. Many theories assert that though local, earthly factors were involved, it is not beyond the realms of possibility to assume that otherworldly effects also played a part.
But there is another theory about falling stardust. That it not only can destroy, but also create.
When cosmic rays collide with molecules in the air they produce showers of particles that could induce mutations in DNA. Many mutations would be aberrant and lead to dead ends, but some may be beneficial and they could amplify variety and make life more diverse.
Panspermia is the name given to the theory that life has been ‘seeded’ through the universe by roving meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and also brought back by our own spacecraft in the form of hyper-resilient micro-organisms.
The theory behind panspermia is that microscopic life forms that can survive the effects of deep space are blasted free when collisions occur between planets, planetoids, moons, and even meteorites. These are ejected into space and can lay dormant until they arrive on a new astral body with ideal conditions. The hibernating organisms then switch on and become active, and from there, growth and evolution can begin to take place.
One piece of supporting evidence is that the emergence of life began on Earth soon after the heavy primordial asteroid bombardment period of Earth that occurred between 4 and 3.8 billion years ago. During this period, scientists believe we endured a very powerful series of meteor showers that could have continued for many millennia. Then we also found that the earliest evidence for life on Earth suggested it was present some 3.83 billion years ago, occurring right at this bombardment time. Was the meteorite shower the ‘seed of life’ Earth was waiting for?