The Event Series (Book 1): Life After the Meteor

by Thomas Larson

  It was kind of a surprise when we found a new one last night; actually it was Lance who found something new and different in the sky. We had been used to the idea of the meteor circling the planet, but this was different, this was smaller, and it was just hanging in the same spot in the sky. One of the communications satellites moved maybe. Maybe the International Space Station had repositioned but by the time they were able to get the telescopes on it the high clouds had rolled in and although we could see the glow, it was just a little too fuzzy to make anything out.

  I had not thought about the International Space Station at all until now. What a terrible place to be. I mean it is good, they were not infected and with their recycling systems for air and water they were ok there but food, they were trapped there with only a limited amount of food. What do you do?

  This is getting weird. Ethan says that there are signals coming in on almost all the frequencies. Those signals are back to the clicks and sounds that had freaked Asuna out the first time she heard them.

  There was a pow-wow this afternoon with The Three, the Major, the Science kids, Heather, Asuna, Steven and me. Matt and Tanya were also there. We talked about what was going on, the meteor, the dreams, the new satellite and the clicks. A lot of the eyes and ears were turned to Lance, Ethan and Asuna.

  In the end it was Asuna who really kind of ended the discussion.

  “I think, I am supposed to get on the radio, I think they are looking for me, and Heather.” She said.

  “But you don’t click, or whatever it is.” Said the Major.

  “I know, but I think they will know it is me.”

  There was a buzz and talking / whispering and finally Henry said, “I think she is right. They are looking for something, or someone, maybe anyone, but they are ringing the phone, I think someone should pick it up and say ‘hello’.”

  A look at the rest of the council and there was nods of agreement. I think we all agreed but that did not preclude a certain level of fear. What did they, or it, want?

  Half an hour later we were all crammed into Lance’s little electronics rooms. Asuna sat at the console, I was right behind her.

  “Hello, Hello, can you hear me.” She transmitted, her hand was shaking as she held the microphone button.

  We waited.

  A series of clicks.

  She tried again, “Hello” and then she made a little click sound, the best she could at imitating what she had heard.

  The radio sputtered to life. “Greeting Terrains, Greeting, harm to you we no intend.”

  “You understand me?”

  “Return to you Asuna we have,” crackled the radio.

  There were a couple of “Holy Shits” and at least one “Fuck” in the background, our background.

  Asuna sat for a few seconds and then under her breath muttered, “It was real” and began to cry.

  “Found your location, track on you, we will be there soon.” The radio crackled.

  “Wait, What, No!” shouted Asuna.

  “Asuna, this is Krezz, you knew of me, and I promised.”

  “Krezz? I ….. from my nightmare?” Her hand was shaking badly, tears were flowing freely.

  “Yes, from your past, we will be with you soon.”

  Lance whispered to me, “Do you notice that the more he talks with her, the more normal his speech?”

  I nodded my head.

  “I must prepare my entry vehicle, I can see where you are found.” crackled the radio. “Tomorrow we will re-meet little one, I must go now.”

  Everyone was staring at Asuna; she was just staring at the radio.

  “I need to go to my cabin, I need to think and maybe puke.” She said as she quietly rose and walked toward the door. A path was made for her as she moved.

  I followed, quietly.

  When we got to the cabin, I just sat and watched her. She stared at the fire in the wood stove and tears ran down her checks.

  I brought her some water.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

  She stood up and said “Just hold me.”

  I did and she cried, and cried.

  Finally she said softly, “I always thought it was a nightmare, a dream, it wasn’t. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  I could feel her anguish, and confusion, but had nothing to offer to help except my being there and my love.

  Jan 19th

  I did not sleep at all watching over her, she did sleep, fitfully at times, but she did get some sleep. At times she twitched and mumbled at others she just was out like a light.

  When she awakened she looked at me, smiled and said, “I love you Tom, we are going to be okay.”

  She told me about Krezz, he was the chief scientist on the QUalz ship. He was, is a kindly creature that stood about 4 feet tall. He was a reptilian based and looked very much like a giant gecko.

  “Did he have an Australian accent” I asked.

  At first I got a blank stare and then she laughed, “No, and he didn’t try to save me any money.”

  “I was not there for long, on the QUalz ship, I don’t think. It was a long time ago, and I was very young. But they did some testing on me and inspected me. And no they did not do an anal probe” she added with a smile.

  “Nice,” I laughed.

  I know it seems that the conversation was very light, Asuna seemed to have been freed from some suppressed mental block and understood that Krezz meant her or any of us any ill will or harm. He had been kindly and truly concerned with humans and their future.

  We dressed and headed over to breakfast. The dining room was packed and the noise was considerable as we walked through the door, then it became quiet, all eyes on us. Some were relieved that Asuna was smiling, and looked happy, others were curious.

  “It is a long story,” she said loudly, “and by the end of the day we will have this all sorted out. Till then trust that you are safe, safer than we have been in months.”

  You could see the questions on the lips of everyone.

  As we sat down with coffee Teckla came over, she sat down with us.

  “We have told everyone one that weapons are unacceptable today.” She said.

  “Good, there is no need to fear.” Asuna told her.

  “I would have thought he would have been here by now.”

  Asuna responded, “No, it does not surprise me, Krezz was kind of shaky on time issues.”

  Right about then Biter began to bark like crazy, and Lance raced into the dining hall with Ethan and Delaney on his heels, “Show time, we have company coming and it will be here in a couple minutes.”

  “Well, here goes,” I muttered under my breath.

  Matt stood at the back of the hall and loudly said “Quick Prayer everyone?”

  We turned toward him, why not?

  “Merciful God, this is a moment that we never believed would come, or happen, yet you have seen fit to bless us with this contact. May it be a peaceful one, in your heavenly name, Amen.”

  “Amen,” we echoed and started to file out of the dining all.

  For a spaceship it was rather unremarkable. It looked very much like a small, very small space shuttle, about the size of a cargo van. It lightly touched down on the ground and after a minute the door opened on the side and a 4 foot gecko stepped out. He was dressed in a reflective suit with heavy boots and wore gloves. He was followed by 3 similarly dressed geckos, although each wore a different color.

  We had kind of circled around and just watched as they unloaded.

  The first gecko said “I am Krezz; I am asking your patience as I am still assimilating the subtleties of you language. But we are here to help, and come in tranquility.”

  Asuna stepped forward, “I know you Krezz.”

  “Asuna, I know you too, you have grown since then, long ago.” He replied, it all sounded very formal.

  “I have.”

  Introductions were done, and we found that besides Krezz the other three QUalz were Ferk, a researcher in a
blue suit, Slar, the pilot in a gold suit, and Hreet, a security guard in a red suit.

  At the description of Hreet’s job as a security guard Mark and a couple of others quietly laughed. I did not catch it at first, but then the red shirt reference came to me.

  Frek, Slar and Hreet stayed with the ship and Krezz met with The Three and a number of us from the camp. Asuna and I were there of course, as was the Major. Early on in the meeting Krezz asked if Heather would also be joining us. And that raised a few eyebrows. But as he was asking there was a knock on the door and Heather with Steven poked their heads in and asked, “You sent for us?”

  “Yes, I did” replied Krezz.

  Ok that was weird, a telepathic thing going on here I thought to myself.

  “I will get to the issue quickly because time is a concern,” Began Krezz. “Almost a year ago a meteor crashed into your planet’s atmosphere. When it did it let loose a virus. We, the QUalz had tried to get to the deadly rock before it reached you, but failed. It was too fast a runner for our ship.”

  “Whoa, let’s back up a little,” said Henry. “Why were you even aware of Earth, and worried about its inhabitants?”

  “Yes, asking, well we have been watching your planet for many years, what do you call them, centuries? I have been interested since I was just an Eggling in my early years. Each cycle our ship, I think you perceive it as a space rock, circles your planet for a brief chance we actually can see close up what was happening. As you became more aware and advanced, you created signals, ‘click’, electronic signals, wave signals so we were able to further study you and your Earth.”

  “So that is how you know our language,” said the Major.

  “Yes, or Si, or Oui, we learned many of them and in that time of my studies I became more and more interested. It fascinated me that with all that you had on your Earth you were so intent on destroying it with your wars, your pollution and your over population. But even with that, I wanted to see no harm come to it, or your masses. Is masses the right term?”

  “Yes, Krezz, that will work,” said Asuna.

  “So when we found that the space stone that was heading toward your Earth was contaminated with ‘click’ what is the term, illness, dying…..”

  “Virus?” said the Major.

  “Yes, that is it, we tried to stop it. We chased and chased but as it got closer and closer it went faster and faster and we could not catch it.”

  “But how did you know about the virus, or that it would hurt us?” questioned the Major.

  “We look at things, study them. Many space rocks have some form of life on them. Many are not kill things. But we have tested, with probes. We saw it was a danger and tried to stop it.”

  “Okay, but how did you know it was a danger, what did you test it on?” pressed the Major.

  “This is a troubling question for me, but I will answer it. Over the centuries we have circled and come near your world and in doing so.”

  Looking down, Asuna said, “Have taken biological samples for testing. I was one of those who were sampled.”

  “Yes, little one, and it was wrong that we did so without your consent or without request.”

  “And that is why you are here now, you need samples?” asked Henry.

  “Yes that is part of it. But there is more, we are sorry that we have done this in the past, in spying, and wish to ask for help with the samples. But we also failed in preventing the space rock illness to your masses. We wish to make amendments.”

  “That is amends Krezz,” said Asuna.

  “Amends,” he weighted the word, “yes, and make an offer to you, and your masses, a trade.”

  “Go on,” said Henry, a serious stern look on his face, the Yankee horse trader was coming out.

  It was at that point that I realized that other than an occasional blink or a licking of the air this creature had no facial expression, there was no read.

  “I would like to propose a trade. Give us Asuna and the Heather Mother for a cycle to allow us to sample and create a means to end the space rock illness. In exchange we will give you a means by which to cure the illness in those of you who have it.”

  I looked at Asuna, then Heather, I expected each to jump up and tell the little lizard that it was not going to happen, but they didn’t.

  “So all we need to do is to go give you two of our people for a year and you will get a cure for the virus? Are you out of your little Lizard Fu…..” started Teckla.

  “No, wait, listen to him, I want to go. I need to go, I have questions and things from my past I need to settle, I will … volunteer, for me, and for those of you, actually all of you, we all have it.” said Asuna. “But there is one stipulation Krezz, that if he wishes to go with me, Tom, my mate must also come.”

  She looked at me with those eyes that I could never say no to.

  I shrugged, “Let me think, a year in space, seeing things that I could never see, ah…ok, I am in.”

  Krezz looked at us both, “Interesting, this could be a bonus in learning, we would agree.”

  The council and the rest of the group was staring at us both, I could not read minds, or faces at this point.

  “Would you hurt my baby if I go?” asked Heather.

  “No, it would be a learning chance for us.”

  “And I can come too?” asked Steven.

  “Yes, you can come too.” Said Krezz

  Teckla, still steaming a little finally said, “Okay, we can’t stop them if they want to go, but how soon, can you give us all a little time to think this through?”

  “Yes, we must depart the orbital within three of your cycles.”

  “We will return then” said Krezz.

  “Krezz, do you have religion?” asked Matt.

  “Religion, click, yes, there is the Great Egg.”

  “Do you have Priests or Holy Men to the Great Egg?” continued Matt.

  “There are the Learned.”

  “Could I talk with one of your Learned?”

  “I can have one come during tomorrow light cycle if you wish.” offered Krezz.

  “Yes, that would be good, thank you,” said Matt.

  The meeting broke up and we walked Krezz back to the ship. As Asuna said goodbye to him you could see a link, a bond had existed between them. As they climbed back into the ship Krezz turned to Hreet, “See I told you the Red Suit does not cease to exist in these on planet excursions.”

  After the ship left there was a lot of talk, Asuna and I pretty much hid out in our cabin. We talked, and we both were good with what we were going to do. I did not look forward to telling Margo.

  Jan 20th

  Margo and I took a walk this morning. It was not easy. We sat in the snow for a while as I stammered through the why I needed to go, and that it was only for a year. On paper it was easy, in my mind the logic made sense but my heart was not letting me off easy. It was going to be the hardest thing I have ever done. No, the second hardest after what I had to do to Anne.

  “I understand Dad, I know that you have to go with Asuna, I wish you didn’t, but it is what is right. That vaccine is important, and there will come a time when I will want my children to be free of the fear that we all live with now, turning, hurting the others, being denied rest after we die.”

  “I know but that does not make it any easier, I am going to miss you most of all, we have a lot of history and I promised Cyril I would take care of you, and your mom, I failed in that.”

  “No, you didn’t, what happened to Mom was not your fault, and we can’t change that. You have taken good care of me, and now, we need to look down the road. We have a chance to make things right, we always have, but now, if we can stop the changing, it will be a real new start. You both have to go.”

  “I know, but…..”

  “You will only be gone a year, we can do without you for a year.”

  “I know it is a short time, but I will worry, and stuff.”

  That was the meat of it, we remembered, we laughed,
we cried, it was both heart-wrenching and joyous at the same time. I knew I would be back, and I knew everything would be okay, but still.

  When I got back to the cabin, Asuna asked, “So how did it go?”