The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  “It’s a world full of plants? No animals at all?”

  Not exactly. Your definitions of “plant” and “animal” can’t be applied to First Planet’s life-forms. What I want to stress is that the ecosystems there are based on cooperation rather than competition. Cooperation maximizes the success of all the planet’s species.

  Joe nodded, his eyes still closed. He was trying hard to understand. He remembered what the Emissary had said about its machinery on Sherman Avenue and what it was doing there. “So First Planet is kind of like the Garden of Eden? And the First People are peaceful and harmonious and godlike?”

  Yes, I suppose that analogy is roughly correct.

  There was a hesitancy in her voice that Joe hadn’t noticed before. He didn’t think she was lying to him—their minds were so closely connected now, he felt sure he could detect an outright lie—but he suspected she was omitting something. And the omission was connected somehow to the images in his head that she wasn’t allowing him to see.

  “When will I be ready? What are you waiting for?”

  The process can’t be rushed, Joe. That’s one of the lessons the First People learned from the catastrophe on Second Planet. When one intelligent species encounters another, they should focus on the things they have in common. I want you to see the First People as partners, not aliens.

  Joe frowned. He wasn’t convinced. “So what’s the next step in the process?”

  Your government officials will be wary. They’ll want to see proof of my good intentions. They’ll probably ask for more concessions before they agree to a truce. I’ll need your help with that, Joe, and not just as a translator. I need you to be my advocate as well.

  He opened his eyes. The cigarette butts were still on the ground, but the redness was gone from his vision. He looked up and squinted at the sun, which was descending toward the heights of Riverdale. It was past six o’clock. His ex-wife would be home by now, assuming that she still worked at St. Luke’s Hospital and that her shift still ended at five. And Annabelle would be in her bedroom, probably doing her homework.

  Joe stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. Then he walked out of the park, heading west toward Riverdale.

  Where are you going?

  “I’ll do what you asked. I’ll be your advocate. But I want to see my family now.”

  That’s not a good idea.

  “Why not? I’ve stopped drinking. My suit’s a little wrinkled, but it’s still okay.”

  I thought you wanted to rebuild your life before getting in touch with your family. Didn’t you plan to find a residence, an apartment? And seek regular employment?

  Joe kept walking. He turned left at the corner of 233rd Street and Broadway. “All that can wait. I need to see them.”

  You should reconsider. You’ve had some traumatic experiences over the past few days. In your present state, you may not be able to handle the emotional upheaval.

  “There won’t be any upheaval. I’m just going to apologize to them. It’s long overdue.”

  I have access to your memories, Joe, including the memory of your last meeting with your ex-wife. It was a difficult confrontation. The chances are good that—

  “Shut up, all right? Just shut the fuck up!”

  Joe stopped in his tracks. A woman across the street stared at him, alarmed, but he didn’t care. He was sick and tired of hiding. Starting right now, he was going to become visible again. He was going home.

  “I know you can stop me,” he whispered. “You can take control of my muscles and keep me away. But if you do, I’ll fight you. I’ll never cooperate with you again.”

  The Emissary was silent, this time for almost half a minute. Joe imagined the program reassessing its strategy, recalculating its options.

  I won’t stop you. Just prepare yourself. This won’t be easy.

  Joe resumed walking. He crossed Broadway at 232nd Street, passing underneath the elevated subway tracks. Then he headed for his old apartment building.

  * * *

  Sarah followed him, staying about sixty yards behind as he walked west on 232nd Street. She was being cautious, maybe a little overcautious. Joe looked straight ahead, never turning his gaze to the left or right. She could’ve probably walked three feet behind him and he still wouldn’t have noticed her.

  She’d been tailing him ever since he left Yankee Stadium. She took her eyes off him only once, for half an hour, while he napped on a park bench. She’d used the time to run to a nearby convenience store, where she’d bought a sandwich, a bottle of water, and a disposable cell phone. (Hanson had confiscated her iPhone when he’d arrested her, but luckily he hadn’t taken her wallet.) Then she’d called Tom Gilbert, who’d already flown back to Washington and met with the National Security Council. He’d told her about the positive response to the truce offer but warned her that it wasn’t a done deal yet. They might need Joe’s help to conduct further negotiations with the Emissary, so Tom urged her to keep tracking him. He offered to send federal agents to assist her, but Sarah said no. She didn’t want to risk angering the Emissary.

  Several blocks west of Broadway, 232nd Street climbed steeply uphill. Although this neighborhood was only a mile north of the evacuation zone in Manhattan, there was no panic in the streets. It seemed that New Yorkers didn’t scare easily—they weren’t fleeing their apartments or loading suitcases into their cars. They went about their daily business, dismissive and annoyed. And no one but Sarah paid any attention to Joe.

  Her pulse quickened as she walked uphill, struggling to keep up with him. The truth was, she would’ve followed him even if no one had told her to. Inside his head were the secrets of an alien civilization that had mastered artificial intelligence and bioengineering and who knew how many other technologies. The answers to a thousand questions were just ahead of her, less than a block away.

  After five more minutes Joe walked across the overpass spanning the Henry Hudson Parkway, then turned right. Sarah watched him approach an apartment building that loomed over the highway, the tallest building in the neighborhood. He walked past the front of the building and went around the corner to the service entrance at the back. A truck from Shleppers Moving & Storage was parked nearby, and two burly men in orange T-shirts were lugging a sofa toward the service door. Joe rushed forward and held the door open for the movers. Then he casually slipped into the building behind them.

  Sarah was impressed. She turned around and found a place to sit on the hood of a car parked down the street. Keeping one eye on the front of the building and the other on the service entrance, she started to wait.

  * * *

  Joe rode the familiar elevator to the twenty-fourth floor. He’d avoided the lobby because he wasn’t sure how the doorman would react to seeing him after an absence of two years. The guy might’ve been pleased, but he also might’ve been suspicious. Either way, he would’ve buzzed Karen’s apartment to see if Joe was welcome, and there was a very good chance she would’ve told him to get lost.

  His anxiety grew as he walked down the hallway toward apartment 24G. The door was exactly the same as he remembered, painted dull green, with the doorbell a couple of inches below the peephole. He’d seen this door at least ten thousand times, after coming home from work or going to the supermarket or taking Annabelle to the playground, but he’d never really looked at it before, never saw the chipped paint at its edges or the long diagonal scratch above the doorknob. Joe stood there for a few minutes, clenching and unclenching his hands as he worked up his courage. Then he pressed the doorbell.

  He heard footsteps, slow heavy ones, then a tired voice asking, “Who is it?”

  It was Karen’s voice. Joe felt the shock of recognition run through him, tightening his throat. “It’s me.”

  The door opened so suddenly that for a moment Joe imagined that Karen was overcome with joy and couldn’t wait to see him. But one look at her face convinced him otherwise. Her mouth hung open in dismay. She narrowed her bloodshot eyes, drawing her
eyebrows together and making a deep vertical crease in her forehead. Her hair had turned gray since the last time Joe had seen her, and she wore a blue terry cloth bathrobe with fraying sleeves. He remembered that bathrobe—he’d given it to her ten years ago, for her thirty-first birthday—and as he stared at it his eyes began to sting. This was, by far, the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  He didn’t know how to start. His mind had gone blank. “I … I want to … I didn’t…”

  He should’ve thought ahead. He should’ve practiced what he was going to say. He’d anticipated this moment for so long, wondering how he should apologize to Karen and imagining how she’d respond. But now that he stood here, right in front of her, he couldn’t find the words.

  She closed her mouth and widened her nostrils. She was sniffing the air between them, trying to find out if he had alcohol on his breath. And Joe didn’t blame her, not one bit. In the last year of their marriage he’d frequently come home from work half-crocked. It used to scare Annabelle to see him that way.

  He held up his right hand, as if he were taking an oath. “I stopped drinking, Karen. Honest to god.”

  She didn’t believe him. Frowning, she looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on his bedraggled jacket and pants. “Where’d you get the suit? A thrift store?”

  He grimaced. The conversation was less than thirty seconds old, but he already wanted to start over. “Can I come in? I only need a few minutes, I promise.”

  “A few minutes for what? You want to use the bathroom?”

  Joe bit his lip. When he’d married Karen nineteen years ago she’d been so kind and tender. She’d surrendered herself to him, body and soul. But everything changed after she decided she no longer loved him. She turned as hard as stone.

  “I want to apologize,” he blurted. “For everything.”

  “You’re gonna need more than a few minutes for that.”

  “Please, Karen. Let me come in. I’ve stayed away for two years. I just want to talk.”

  She let out a long, theatrical sigh. Then she backed up and held the door open for him. Though his ex-wife’s permission was grudging, Joe’s heart somersaulted inside his chest. He gratefully entered the apartment, stepping past the small foyer into the living room.

  He noticed that Karen hadn’t changed the place much. There was the same furniture in the living room, the same paintings on the walls, the same books on the bookshelves. Framed pictures of Annabelle—at ages two, five, seven, and nine—stood on an end table next to the sofa. Annabelle’s bedroom was on the other side of the apartment, past the dining room and the master bedroom. She liked to listen to music on her iPod while she did her homework, and Joe suspected that she hadn’t heard him come in. He felt a powerful urge to rush into her bedroom and throw his arms around her, but he restrained himself. First, he was going to prove to Karen that he was sober. Then he’d ask if he could see his daughter.

  The only difference from two years ago, Joe thought, was that the apartment looked messier. A pair of Karen’s tennis shoes lay under the end table. A sweatshirt was draped over the back of a chair, and several sections of the Sunday Times were scattered across the sofa. There was also a sour smell in the room, stuffy and unpleasant. As Joe looked around, Karen did a hasty cleanup, bending over to pick up the shoes.

  “If you’re here for money, forget it,” she said. “They raised the rent on this place last month and I can barely cover it.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t need money. I’m going to get my old job back.”

  “Really?” She carried the shoes to a closet and tossed them inside. “At the hospital?”

  “Yeah, why not? I guess I’ll need a lawyer to get my license back, but I think it’s worth a try.”

  “Well, the lawyer better be a good one.”

  Her voice had a familiar tone, one that Joe remembered with bitterness. At the start of their marriage Karen had been the most supportive wife in the world, but by the end she belittled everything he did. He grimaced again. “I don’t think it’ll be so difficult. I’m better now. I bet there are plenty of doctors who are recovered alcoholics.”

  “Sure, the hospital will forgive you for the drinking.” She picked up the sweatshirt from the back of the chair. “But not for assaulting Craig.”

  “Craig? What? I never assaulted anyone.”

  “Come on, Joe. I saw what you did to his jaw. And believe me, that man can hold a grudge. He’ll make sure you never work at St. Luke’s again.”

  At first he had no idea what she was talking about. But as he stood there in the living room he felt another throat-tightening shock. Of course he knew who Craig was. He was Craig Williams, the chief of surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital, the man who Karen slept with, the man who destroyed their marriage. And at the same moment Joe remembered getting plastered one night, driving to Craig’s home in Scarsdale, and punching him in the face. The memory was like a home movie that Joe had recorded long ago and forgotten until now. He saw Craig collapse on the lawn in front of his home. He heard the man’s wife screaming from the doorway.

  “Shit.” Joe felt dizzy. How could he have forgotten this? Did he have a blackout? “I need to sit down.”

  Karen stared at him, narrowing her eyes again. She clearly had some doubts about his sobriety, but now Joe was too nauseated to defend himself. He lurched past her and slumped on the sofa. His butt thumped on the scattered newspapers, wrinkling and tearing them. Something hard was beneath the newspapers, wedged between the sofa cushions. It dug into the small of his back.

  There was no sympathy at all in Karen’s face. She glared at him. “Christ! I don’t believe this. You’re wasted!”

  “No. I’m sick.” He trembled, and the newspapers rustled underneath him.

  “Why the hell did you come over here?”

  “I told you, I—”

  “Were you hoping I’d feel sorry for you? Did you think I’d be stupid enough to take you in?”

  He didn’t respond. Karen wasn’t listening, so what was the point? Joe’s heart sank, because he knew he had no chance of seeing Annabelle now. Karen was going to kick him out of the apartment, and his daughter would never even know he’d come to visit.

  After a few seconds Karen pointed at the door. “I want you out of here. Right now.”

  Joe nodded. He should’ve listened to the Emissary. He wasn’t ready for this. His head throbbed, his back ached, and his legs felt so weak he didn’t know if he could stand up. Leaning forward on the sofa, he reached behind him to remove the hard, cylindrical thing that was digging into his back. He didn’t realize what was in his hand until he held it in front of his eyes.

  It was a bottle of whisky, three-quarters full.

  Karen lunged at him. “Give me that!”

  She reached for the bottle, but Joe pulled it away. Her arm swiped the air and her knees banged into the end table, knocking over half of the framed portraits of Annabelle. Karen cringed at the noise, then stepped backward, folding her arms across her chest. Her face slowly reddened.

  Joe glanced at the label on the whisky. It was Canadian Mist, ten dollars a bottle. “So now you’re a drunk too?”

  She scowled. “I had a good teacher.”

  “And you drink right here? In the middle of the day?” His anger rising, he pointed toward Annabelle’s bedroom. “You get smashed on the sofa while Annabelle’s doing her homework?”

  Karen opened her mouth but hesitated before responding. Something had thrown her off balance. She furrowed her brow, obviously confused. “What the hell did you just say?”

  “You heard me. I may have been a drunk, but at least I tried to be careful about it. I didn’t leave bottles on the sofa where our daughter could find them.” Joe shook the bottle and the whisky sloshed inside. “You always said my drinking scared her, remember? So how do you think she’d feel if she came out of her bedroom and saw you sucking on this?”

  Again, Karen didn’t respond right away. The color drained from her face,
leaving her pale and stunned. When she finally spoke, her voice was a whisper. “What’s wrong with you? What the fuck are you doing?”

  Now Joe hesitated. His ex-wife seemed so appalled. He didn’t understand it. “I’m still her father, okay? And I’m worried about what she might—”

  “Why are you talking about her as if she’s still here?”

  The question hit him like a truck. Joe felt a burst of adrenaline in his stomach. “What do you mean? Where is she?”

  A tear leaked from the corner of Karen’s right eye. It slid down her cheek in a crooked line. “Damn you, Joe. You know where she is.”

  The adrenaline flowed downward, giving him a pins-and-needles sensation in his legs. He didn’t know what Karen meant, but her words filled him with alarm. He felt an overpowering urge to find Annabelle, to see her. He stood up on his tingling legs and stepped away from the sofa. Then he headed for his daughter’s bedroom.

  “Hey!” Karen shouted, following him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Breathing hard, he raced down the hallway. The bedroom door had a handmade sign with her name on it, ANNABELLE in wiggly red letters. He flung the door open and rushed inside.

  The chair behind her desk was empty. So was the narrow bed with pink sheets and a purple quilt. Joe swung his head left and right, looking in every corner. Her desk and bookshelves were perfectly neat but there was a layer of dust over everything. She wasn’t here. No one had been inside this room for a very long time.

  “Annabelle! Annabelle!”

  Karen ran into the bedroom and grabbed the back of his jacket. She bunched the fabric in her hand and pulled. “Get out, asshole! Just get the fuck out!”

  His chest ached. The room spun around him. “Oh God Jesus, where is she?”

  “She’s in Calvary Cemetery, you fucking bastard! And you put her there!”