The Orion Plan (43 page)

The apartment's door was gone, so he went right into what used to be the living room. All the furniture had been removed or destroyed. Black metal covered every square inch of the room, but one of the walls seemed a little brighter than the others. It glowed slightly, shedding just enough light to let Hanson see where he was. This wall was the one his soldiers had discovered two days ago, the one that separated the apartment's living room from the bedroom. The critical alien machinery—whatever it was—lay on the other side of it.

He turned to the pair of Special Tactics men. “Put him over there. Prop him up against the wall.”

Hanson pointed at the spot he'd chosen. The soldiers dropped the sack there and wrestled it into place. Emilio squirmed inside the sack, fighting them, but he gave up after a few seconds. His sack was bent at a right angle now, with the lower half stretched across the floor and the upper half leaning against the glowing wall. The top of the sack swayed a bit as the boy caught his breath, which whistled in and out of the rubber tube.

Hanson was satisfied. The boy was in the optimal position. The C-4 would detonate the crystal, and the explosion would strike the wall at its center, its weakest point. The black metal would buckle and the whole building would go down.

The soldiers stepped backward, away from the sack. Hanson was just about to order them to return to the street when he heard a
whoosh
behind him. He turned around and saw a metallic panel stretch downward from the ceiling above the apartment's doorway. In an instant it reached the floor, sealing off the room.

Hanson's stomach clenched. For a moment he just stared at the black panel. Then he looked to the left and right, trying to see if the room had any microphones or loudspeakers. “What's going on?” he yelled. “Why did you block the exit?”

“Please remain calm.” The same voice he'd heard outside—steady, emotionless, vaguely female—now emanated from the glowing wall. “I need to ensure that no one interrupts us.”

The Special Tactics men looked at Hanson, awaiting orders. Their faces were tense but professional. They didn't know about the C-4 hidden in the boy's arm, so they didn't feel the panic Hanson felt. He was more than willing to give up his own life to cripple the enemy, but sacrificing his men? Without their knowledge or consent? It was dishonorable. It went against everything he stood for.

He stepped toward the wall, nudging his men aside. “Open the door! Open it right now!”

“You asked to inspect this facility. Now I'm going to show you what you wanted to see.”

“Goddamn it! You're violating the truce!”

“No, I'm overruling it. The truce was proposed by the Emissary. The program's task was to guide and protect the probe until my birth. But now that I'm here, I can reverse its decisions.”

Hanson was confused. “There's two of you?”

“I'll state this as plainly as I can in your language. The Emissary is a computer program, but I am
not.
I am Naomi of the First People. I am
alive
.”

The wall suddenly turned as transparent as glass. Bright yellow light flooded the room, and Hanson shielded his eyes. After a moment of disorientation, he gave a hand signal to his soldiers, directing them toward the sealed exit. The men threw themselves at the black panel, pounding their fists and shoulders against it. At the same time, Hanson lowered his hand from his eyes. He stared at the transparent wall, looking for Naomi of the First People, whoever the hell that was.

Instead, he saw a tank of cloudy yellow water on the other side of the wall. It was only half full, and the mucky surface of the water was at Hanson's eye level. A yellowish vapor billowed above the surface, and higher up was an array of grow lamps. Their blinding light poured down on the muck, which clumped together in greenish islands. Smaller bits of scum floated in the water below and settled on the tank's spongy bottom. But there was nothing else in the water—no fish, no sea monsters, no swimming aliens. The tank looked dirty and disused, like something you'd see at an abandoned aquarium.

Now Hanson was even more confused. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“This is my cradle.” The voice still came from the wall, even though no loudspeakers were visible. “But perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an incubator. I've lived inside it since I was born sixteen hours ago.”

“What the hell? There's nothing in there but pond scum.”

“The First People are multicellular organisms like you, but the organization of our cells is looser, more decentralized. They're not held together within a membrane like your skin. The cells are able to exchange signals and act in concert while floating in the oceans of First Planet.”

Hanson scowled. He didn't believe it. It was too absurd. He glanced at the sack propped against the wall, which now looked very dark against the yellow brightness behind it. Then he looked over his shoulder at the Special Tactics soldiers, who were still banging away at the panel. They were big, extraordinarily strong men, so maybe there was a chance they could knock it down. He couldn't sacrifice them if there was still some hope.

“Look, Naomi? I've heard enough. You're not making any sense.”

“Similar species live on this planet. Slime molds, for example. They're colonies of microbes that cooperate when they need to find new food sources or reproduce. On First Planet, the microbial colonies flourished and evolved. And one species was more successful than all the others because it grew intelligent. They became the First People.”

“Really? You're saying a bunch of microbes built a spacecraft?”

“The cells in our colonies can manipulate objects on the molecular level. So our first tools were nanodevices that we used to enhance our environment. We built structures on the planet's ocean beds and along the coastlines. And eventually, after thousands of years, we built power plants and computers and rockets and space probes.”

Hanson looked again at the pair of soldiers. One of them looked back and shook his head. They hadn't even made a dent in the panel. The general's slim hope was disappearing, but he decided to make one last effort. He stepped up to the transparent wall and rapped his knuckles against it. Although the wall looked like glass, it felt like steel. “Enough!” he shouted. “Let us out! Right this second!”

All at once, the water in the tank seemed to come alive. A billion sparks flashed in the muck, glittering like diamond chips. In less than a second the lights died and the water turned murky and scummy again. But Hanson jumped backward and pulled his arm away from the wall.
Something
was definitely in the water. And it was looking at him.

“Don't touch it.” Her voice sharpened. “And don't tell me what to do. I don't recognize your authority.”

Hanson took another step backward. He lowered his right hand, bringing it closer to the radio transmitter in his pants pocket. “Listen carefully, Naomi. The secretary of state is waiting for us outside. If you don't let us out of this building soon, the truce will be over. And that means you'll die.”

“You're going to fire your Tomahawk cruise missiles? From the USS
Florida,
your SSGN submarine?”

He winced. She knew about the assault plan. She'd eavesdropped on their communications, just as he'd feared. But there were other things she couldn't know. He'd taken precautions. “Yes, we'll fire the missiles. We'll turn this whole block into a crater. But it doesn't have to go that way. We don't want a war, and neither do you.”

“But war between us is inevitable. Haven't you realized that yet?”

Hanson glanced at the sack again. Then he put his right hand in his pocket and gripped the radio transmitter there. But he didn't push the button. His heart was hammering. “You're wrong. It's not inevitable.”

“Look at the water in my cradle. Its color comes from dissolved arsenic compounds. Although my biochemistry is roughly similar to yours, it requires high concentrations of certain chemicals that are poisonous to Earth's life-forms.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Over the next year, my machinery will spread around the planet and make it suitable for the First People. The tendrils are already mining for arsenic, and soon they'll spread the compounds in your oceans and atmosphere. Nearly all of Earth's native life-forms will go extinct, including the human race.”

Hanson tightened his grip on the transmitter. He noticed that the pair of soldiers had stopped pounding the metallic panel. They'd heard what Naomi had just said. Breathing hard, they stepped toward the transparent wall, their bruised and bloody hands clenched into fists. To their credit, they didn't look afraid. Their faces twitched with fury. And as Hanson stared at them he felt the same fury in himself, the same righteous, murderous rage.

He turned back to the wall. “You bitch! You think you can steal our home? You think you can just take it away from us?”

“The action is justified. Your species is destroying the Earth's ecosystems. For evidence, just measure the air temperature outside this building. Your carbon emissions are warming the planet so rapidly, it will become uninhabitable for nearly all forms of life within a few hundred years. I will halt that process and put the Earth on a better ecological path.”

Hanson shook his head. The rage was still rising inside him. He moved his index finger to the button on the radio transmitter. “No, we won't let you! We'll fucking tear you apart! And then we'll send rockets to your First Planet and kill every last one of you!”

Sparks flashed again in the cloudy water. They looked like a billion tiny eyes.

“That's impossible, I'm afraid.” Naomi's voice turned low and quiet. “There's no one left on First Planet to kill.”

Hanson shivered. He didn't understand.

At the same moment, the Special Tactics men lost their patience and charged at the wall. They started beating their fists against it, grunting and cursing. Soon the transparent sheet was covered with bloody hand marks. Their efforts were futile, of course. They couldn't damage the alien's incubator.

But Hanson could.

The sack moved a bit, leaning away from the raging soldiers. Although the boy inside the steel mesh couldn't hear anything, he could probably feel the vibrations of the wall behind him. Hanson looked at his men one last time, his brave doomed warriors. Then he whispered, “Forgive me,” and pushed the button.

And nothing happened.

He took the transmitter out of his pocket and tried again. He pointed it at the hidden antenna in the sack and pushed the button a third time. He ran right up to it, jammed the transmitter against the antenna and stabbed the button over and over. But still nothing happened.

“
Fuck!
” Hanson stumbled away from the wall, dizzy with disbelief. He could barely stand. “
Fucking Christ!
”

“Emilio Martinez is stronger than you.” Naomi's voice was triumphant. “Without any help from the Emissary, he took control of the nanodevices inside his body. He ordered them to cut the wire in his arm, the one that connected the radio receiver to the explosive.”

Hanson's legs buckled. He fell to his hands and knees, his stomach heaving. The Special Tactics men heard the noise and turned around. But before they could dash toward him, a thick black wire stretched upward from the floor at their feet. Its tip speared one of the soldiers in the chest and burst out of his back, erupting between his shoulder blades. Then it swung to the left and plunged into the other soldier's skull.

Hanson vomited on the polished floor. By the time he looked up again, the wire had pulled out of the soldiers' corpses. Slick with their gore, it stretched toward the sack.

“Emilio Martinez has served me well.” The wire's tip pierced the sack's mesh, then began to slice through it. “Now he'll perform another service. One he'll enjoy, I think.” The mesh fell off in strips, uncovering Emilio's head and his naked torso. Then the wire started to cut the plastic sheath binding his arms. “I know your assault plan. I know which combat units and naval vessels you've assembled. But I don't know the exact position of the USS
Florida
. And that information is important, because the submarine carries one hundred and fifty-four cruise missiles.”

Hanson shivered again, more violently this time. The floor was so cold.

“I believe you delivered certain orders to the submarine commander by courier to prevent me from intercepting them.” The sheath cracked and dropped to the floor. Then the wire slashed the lower part of the sack and cut the bindings on Emilio's legs. “But I'm sure my nanodevices can extract the information from your memory. My technology is much quicker and more efficient than your interrogations.”

Emilio flexed his arms and grimaced. He rubbed his bare legs, kneading the life back into them. After a few seconds, he rose to his feet and reached for the black wire, grasping it near the tip. A foot-long section of the metal broke off in his hand like an icicle. He gazed at it for a moment, then stepped toward Hanson.

The general couldn't stop shaking. Another wire came out of the floor and curled around his waist. It tightened and pulled him down, forcing him to lie flat on his stomach, with his head turned to the side. The cold floor burned his cheek.

Emilio knelt beside him and pointed the black icicle at Hanson's forehead. At its tip was a gleaming, curved blade.

The boy smiled. “
Hola, pendejo.
Remember that promise I made? What I said I was going to do to you?”

Hanson remembered.

 

TWENTY-SIX

Through the windows of the Amtrak train Sarah recognized the countryside. They were in the central part of New York State, somewhere between Utica and Syracuse. The landscape to the north of the railroad tracks was mostly flat, but the view to the south was full of rolling, wooded hills. They were about fifty miles away from Cornell University, where Sarah had gone to college and grad school, the happiest years of her life.