Stolen Worlds

by Bob Blink

  "Nyet," Vladimir Bykov replied. "We have people who are very good at this kind of thing. They spend their careers examining the images our satellites collect. Yet we have spotted nothing. Perhaps your admiral was right."

  Gelon knew this was all talk, and found it enlightening that Bykov had a political side to him they needed to consider in their interpretation of what he had to contribute. While the U.S. President had elected to delay any active searches by the Navy, there was ample evidence that the Russians and Chinese hadn't felt similarly inclined. His NASA friend had informed him that the two countries had located several dozen old sunken vessels, and unfortunately one secret monitoring base the US would rather they hadn't. Perhaps that was why the Russian was holding back discussing their underwater efforts.

  "Why would they hide at all?" Gelon asked. "They could reveal themselves at this point and there is little we could do. They have completed construction of their installations, gone operational, and their plan is progressing according to whatever schedule they have made."

  "One hopes you are wrong, Dr. Gelon," the Russian replied. "I believe they fear something. Something we can do, which suggests they are not as invulnerable as some want to believe. They have a weakness, I suspect. That weakness might put their project at risk. We won't know what it is until we find them, so we must be successful in our searches."

  Dr. Gelon hoped he was right.

  "Have you considered another possibility?" Dr. Allen asked. "They might not be here at all any longer. Perhaps they have completed what they need to do here, and from this point the long drawn out process is fully automatic. Maybe they simply check back every ten or twenty years, and the gear is hidden carefully because they are not around to watch over it."

  That wasn't something the professor had considered. In his mind the activity they had witnessed appeared more likely a start-up and calibration of the system, which was now running smoothly enough, but which required periodic changes in the acceleration vector. He'd assumed someone must be present to fine tune the pointing of the force driving the acceleration, but his friend had seen the absence differently. After all, they had predicted what the next shift would be and when, so why couldn't some advanced software do the same. It distressed him to believe that their enemy might have gone and left behind somewhere some automated machinery that would finish the human race off.

  "If this is so, it is very bad for us," Bykov said softly, making it clear he'd hadn't had the thought before either. What about the searching on the moon?" he asked, shifting the subject.

  "Both the Tranquility Base and the southern base near Shackleton Crater are due soon for their regularly scheduled delivery of supplies," Gelon replied. "Tranquility Base is first, with the package due in four days. The delivery capsule always makes a couple of orbits around the moon after arriving before firing the landing jets. Both packages have been significantly modified with cameras and sensing electronics, almost entirely replacing the standard payload. The base will have to ration for a bit, but the hope is for the two passes to gather sufficient information we get a reasonable look at the entire surface. Hopefully they haven't felt the need to hide things as much as they would here on Earth. What about your base at Peary Crater?"

  "We do not resupply so frequently," Bykov explained. "We are not due for another delivery for some time. If necessary or desirable we can fake an early one, but it has been decided it might be best to see what, if anything, your attempts reveal first. You really believe their control center for the actuator is on the moon?" the Russian asked. "I cannot see how that could work."

  "I don't see how any of this can work," Gelon admitted. "We have to do everything we can and search everywhere for some sign of these creatures."

  "We aren't really doing that," Bykov objected. "I do not like this overly careful approach. We are being far too cautious. We need to find these Zasranecs right away. I would be more proactive in this search and not worry so much whether they become aware of our interest."

  "We still have time if we find them later than sooner," Dr. Allen said.

  "Nyet! We won't be undoing anything they have already done, even if we kill off the lot of them. We lack the ability. We are stuck with the new orbit as it stands the moment we shut things down."

  The two Americans knew he was right. Although so far relatively small, there were already going to be disruptions as a result of the weeks of acceleration shifting the Earth.

  "We talked about them leaving. Are we certain they are no longer arriving?" Dr. Allen asked, flipping the earlier discussion.

  "There have been no more close encounters of late," Dr. Gelon pointed out. "That might suggest they are no longer coming here, although we can't know if they have some means of slipping past our sensors and arriving unseen."

  "I think they are not still coming as well," the Russian said, "but I'm not sure they would feel the need to arrive secretly if they did come. Maybe we should be happy these bastards continue to choose to hide in the shadows. If they did suddenly decide to show themselves, it might signal a change with undesirable consequences for all of us."

  Several days later they waited expectantly as the data from the moon capsule was downloaded for study. No broadcasts were made from the capsule itself, as that would have been an operational change, but once it had landed at the base, the data was quickly recovered and beamed via laser to Earth. Multiple organizations now had it, including Tony and the two professors who were monitoring it to see if anything stood out. Their quick look wouldn't be anywhere near as revealing as the careful study it would get at NASA, but they hoped that a base of some kind would reveal itself.

  "Nothing!" Tony cursed. "It isn't there."

  "Run it again," Dr. Gelon suggested. "Slower this time."

  But even at one tenth of normal speed, none of them could spot anything unusual on the surface of the backside of the moon.

  "Let's see what NASA's experts find," Dr. Allen said hopefully, but they could tell from his voice that he didn't expect anything to be discovered either. No one wanted to consider that any facility could be hidden below ground where they'd never find it.

  "Now what?" Tony asked.

  "The other probe will concentrate more to the south. Maybe that's where we'll find something."

  "I wonder if they can blend in with humans?" Tony asked absently. "Maybe that's why no one has reported anything."

  There was no meaningful answer to that since there was absolutely nothing to provide a clue as to the appearance of the interlopers. A week ago the United Nations had released an appeal for every nation on Earth to have its people report anything that was new and unexplained in their area. Of course, many of the less developed nations were without a communications system that allowed this request to be easily disseminated, so there were huge gaps in the effort. For that, or other reasons, the effort had been completely non productive thus far. The only effect had been to spur an additional round of panic-driven riots and deaths around the world, fortunately far fewer than initially.

  Chapter 9

  The realization that the world governments were engaged in an all-out serious search for aliens had an immediate impact. It wasn't as if one country had gone off the wagon and was conducting a search while the others looked on aghast. The search was something every major power was involved in. That triggered the crazies again. Not like before, fortunately. The majority of the populace now seemed to realize the world really hadn't changed much. They hadn't seen any of the horrible predicted conditions, and from day to day things pretty much as they always had. In truth, it was too soon for the effects to materialize.

  But the entire concept of alien invaders pushed the lunatic buttons on a whole different group of people. It was their turn to run amok with 'the-sky-is-falling' cries of despair. There were suicide pacts, with cults of individuals killing themselves and their families, either to escape the threat, or to ascend into space to meet the alien ships, depending on how they viewed the situation. It was hard
to be certain how the minds of these people worked. Unfortunately some were dangerous, as were some of the other, smaller groups that seemed to like the burning and looting atmosphere.

  Universities had become a favored target. In the minds of the deranged, that was where the scientists who had triggered all this could be found. What was almost universally the case, was true in spades at Cal Tech because of Dr. Gelon and his newly found fame. Guards had been brought in, both military and private security to watch over the students and protect the buildings. The protectors wandering the grounds initially tried to keep a low profile with weapons concealed, but as matters escalated that had changed. Rifle carrying soldiers could now be spotted all around the perimeter of the university, and ID cards were required to gain access to the campus. The armed security hoped an open and obvious presence would keep away the majority of the trouble-makers, and maintained roving patrols and a serious perimeter watch. Cahill Hall, which was offset from the main campus and somewhat isolated, always had armed guards stationed at the only open entrance to limit access to those with the proper credentials.

  Tony and Gwen ventured onto the campus together these days, especially earlier in the day and during the late afternoon or evening. During the busiest hours of the day the campus grounds were quieter, with those gathering to protest seemingly less belligerent and threatening. This evening, the pair had gone out for dinner at one of the nearby bistros, and had just returned to the campus, driven by Tony's urge to look over his computer analysis output that had been crunching numbers the better part of the day.

  With nothing he could contribute to the on-going alien search, and every astronomer in the country manning all available telescopes, he'd been spending his days completing his research in order to submit his thesis, the last step in his doctoral program. Tony was a planetologist, specifically interested in magnetology. He'd been studying the magnetic fields of the moon for several years now, one of a number of astrophysicists trying to understand what drove the unusual fields. Unlike the Earth, the moon had a small, solid core, and nothing to produce a bipolar magnetic field like the Earth. While moon rocks returned from the surface suggested that the moon had once had a substantial magnetic field, the theory appeared flawed and unlikely. The field seemed to be concentrated in the crust of the moon, with some believing it was a byproduct of the large meteor impacts. Tony's thesis was investigating the idea of a plasma cloud that carried magnetic particles resulting from these impacts.

  His last run had come up with several very strange distortions, unlike anything he'd seen before. They seemed to have no clear sense or pattern, and in order to try and pin down what had changed, he had set the Astronomy Department's computers to work, subtracting the old measured patterns from what the probes were now showing. It was a task that had taken even the Department's powerful computers all day.

  As they approached Cahill Center, he felt both excited at what he might find, realized the change might highlight the mechanism that drove the unusual fields on the moons surface. He might have stumbled upon something new that would ensure his doctorate. Dr. Antony Symmes! He could almost see the day now. At the same time, deep in his gut he couldn't help wondering if the magnitude of the change was somehow related to the shifting orbit of the Earth, perhaps picking up particles as the orbit moved, or even more importantly could be related to whatever mechanism was driving the planet. That might actually invalidate years of effort on his part, pushing the sought after title even further into the future.

  When they reached the entrance, he pulled open one of the massive doors and held it for Gwen to enter. Her long black hair shimmered in the light evening breeze, which also pressed her thin dress against her body highlighting the slender shape that had first caught his attention more than a year and a half ago.

  "No guards?" she asked surprised, glancing around the lobby expecting to see the familiar armed protectors they'd become accustomed to.

  Cahill Hall, being the astronomy department and the target for some of the crazies, always had a minimum of two guards assigned to the entrance in addition to the main roving security force assigned to the campus grounds. Many of the rabble that were proving troublesome hadn't spent the time to discover that the department wasn't on the main area, but enough were smart enough to have checked the maps before making their approach.

  "I would have thought Dr. Gelon's building would be special, and always have people on duty."

  Tony had told her about the personal threats the professor had been getting.

  "That's really odd," Tony agreed, his eyes searching the lobby for any sign where the men might have gone. For weeks now, there had always been two of them on duty. "Come on, let's get the printout and leave. This doesn't make me comfortable."

  They headed off toward the computer center located on the lower level, but on the way to the stairway they came across the two private cops. Both were dead, one of them very messily. He'd been disemboweled by someone using a large butcher knife that was still sticking into the chest of the second, less drastically damaged body.

  "Oh shit!" Tony said, feeling more than a bit queasy. He glanced toward Gwen, wondering how she would be reacting to this grisly discovery.

  To his surprise, Gwen, timid about many things, had walked over to the guard whose body showed the murder weapon. Tony had seen Gwen move swiftly and powerfully as she sped across the running track during one of her races. This was different. She was intently focused, and she almost glided, silently and smoothly toward their objective.

  Kneeling down quietly, she carefully extracted the dead guard's sidearm from the holster where it rested. Tony glanced at the partially dismembered guard and saw what Gwen must have noticed right off. His weapon was missing. She expertly, at least from what he could see, checked the weapon to see if it was loaded, then grabbed the spare magazine from the holder on the man's belt.

  "We should get out of here," she whispered after she had stood and back-stepped over to him.

  Tony looked at his girlfriend, who now held the weapon as if she was more than casually familiar with it. He'd never held a gun in his life, and was somewhat uneasy around them. He was surprised how comfortable she appeared with the deadly weapon in hand. It was apparent there were areas of interest they had never discussed during their months of dating. He could see her eyes scanning the lobby area and stairs leading up and down to other levels for potential threats.

  "I want to call Professor Gelon," Tony said softly. "How about you call the campus police and report what we have found?"

  "It would be better to clear out and then get some professional help," she insisted wisely. "Whoever did this could still be around."

  Tony shook his head. "I'll bet they are after the Professor. The police might not get here in time." Tony had a friend who had convinced him that the primary duty of the cops was to arrest and punish those who committed crimes and not to actually protect the potential victims from harm. He couldn't allow any harm to come to Dr. Gelon after all the scientist had done for him.

  Before she could object, Tony had his cell out and was calling the Professor. Shaking her head, she grabbed her own phone, and maintaining a hold on the Sig 9mm she'd acquired, she used her off hand to thumb through the screens and locate the preprogrammed number of campus security.

  "He's not answering," Tony said. "Did you call the police?"

  Gwen nodded. "I think they are on the way. They didn't sound like they believed me. Let's go and get out of here while we can!" Her voice was a bit louder than she wished, but fear was starting to make itself felt.

  "Wait. They are almost certainly after the Professor. He's had a lot of groups threaten him. We need to warn him. It isn't all that unusual for him to ignore his phone when he's studying something."

  "Tony! Whoever did this is dangerous. Let the police warn Dr. Gelon when they get here. We need to go, now!"

  "It will only take a minute. We'll be quiet and these guys probably don't know where to find him. The poli
ce might be too late."

  Without waiting for her to agree, Tony started across the lobby toward the stairs that led up to the Professor's office. Unfamiliar with this kind of threat, he clearly didn't appreciate the danger.

  "Damn it!" Gwen cursed, but followed after him, afraid to make too much of a ruckus that might alert the killers, and very much aware that her dumb boyfriend had absolutely no means of protecting himself.

  The office they wanted was across from room 229, the Departmental Office. Tony hurried down the hallway, his NuBalance shoes quiet on the smooth floor. Gwen followed, heart thumping, not wanting to do this, but in truth afraid to leave Tony here on his own. She was certain that wouldn't end well.

  They came to the open door, and as they stepped inside, they could hear voices. The Professor obviously had company. Knowing they should be running, Gwen followed Tony through the door, the handgun held ready as she'd been taught. As they came around the corner, Gwen spotted the two assailants, one generously covered in blood and holding a gun, while the other still brandished a knife. The one with the gun was preparing to shoot Dr. Gelon.

  Realizing what was about to happen, Gwen switched into automatic defense mode, the liberated 9mm coming up in her right hand while the left hand moved into place as support. The distance wasn't great, less than fifty feet, but the nut with the other guard's pistol was already in motion, and even as she fired, so did he. Her shot slammed into the back of the killer, but his bullet struck the Professor somewhere, causing him to collapse as she was firing the second, and fatal shot, into the slayer.

  The second attacker spun at the sound of her shots, the large blade raised in his hand. His eyes were wild, indicating he was almost certainly on drugs of some kind, and without a moment's hesitation he completed his turn, and screaming loudly, charged at them. There was no time to think about what needed to be done. Gwen shifted her aim, and started firing. She fired five shots before her adversary finally crumpled to the ground. She gasped. The first shots had seemed like they were having no effect at all. She'd feared he'd reach her before he finally died. Her unprotected ears stung from the repeated sharp blasts confined by the walls of the scientist's office.