The Orion Plan

by Mark Alpert

  Sarah nodded. “That’s why I sent the message. You can kill off the human race and take over the Earth, but you won’t keep it for long. The Second People will come here and slaughter you all over again.”

  The hum coming from the loudspeaker cable rose in pitch. It turned into a scream, earsplitting and inhuman.

  “You’re like them! Just like the Second People! All you care about is vengeance!”

  “No, you’re wrong. I did this to save my species. Now the only way the First People can survive is by letting the human race help them.”

  The scream began to stutter, fading in and out. It sounded like static, interference, the noise of confusion.

  “How could you help us? Your technologies are hopelessly primitive.”

  “Second Planet is two hundred light-years away, so they won’t get the signal till the twenty-third century. And even if they launch their fleet right away and travel at blinding speeds, it’ll still take them another three hundred years to get here. That means we have five hundred years to prepare ourselves.”

  “And why do I need humans to help me prepare?”

  “You can’t win this war alone. The Second People defeated you once, and they’ll do it again. They’re fiercer than the First People. More zealous. More bloodthirsty.” Sarah pointed at the ground and swept her arm in a wide arc, gesturing at all the buildings and roads below. “And that’s what humans are like too. We’re very good at killing each other. We’ve had thousands of years of practice.”

  “And you think this qualifies you to be our saviors? Your ferocious nature?”

  “You have access to the Internet, so you can read our history. Sometimes we fight for good reasons and sometimes for bad. But the point is, we never give up. If you share your technologies with us, we’ll find a way to defeat the Second People. We’ll destroy their war fleet before it even gets here. And if necessary, we’ll obliterate their planet.” Sarah pointed at the branching tentacles. “Can the First People do the same? Can you really achieve this victory on your own?”

  The screaming noise ebbed, then abruptly cut off. In the silence that followed, all Sarah could hear was the wind blowing. The loudspeaker cable pulled away from her, retreating a foot or so, and the cable that had slashed Joe pulled away from him too. He looked at her for a moment, nodding to assure her that he was okay. His face was purple from hanging upside-down for so long, but somehow he managed to give her a smile. Then he turned back to the tentacles.

  “Sarah’s right!” he shouted. “You said it yourself—humans are like the Second People. We can beat them and you can’t.”

  His words echoed against the massive black trunk, and then the silence continued. The wind whistled between the cables. Sarah became convinced that this silence wasn’t a good sign. At any moment she expected the tentacles to fling her and Joe to the ground.

  Then the loudspeaker cable withdrew another foot. “I have just one question.” Its volume was lower now, more bearable. “How can I trust you? If I share my technologies, what’s to stop you from using them against me?”

  Sarah shrugged. “It’s simple. Just don’t share the knowledge right away. First we need to learn to live with each other.”

  “And how will we do that? Our biochemistries are incompatible. I can’t live in your environment and you can’t live in mine.”

  “Couldn’t you build a habitat for your species? An enclosure that’s watertight and airtight?”

  “Like a tank in one of your aquariums? Is that where you expect me to resurrect the First People?”

  “No, no, I’m talking about a large-scale habitat. You could wall off a big part of the Pacific Ocean and build a giant dome overhead. Then you could fill the seawater and the atmosphere inside the habitat with the chemicals you need to live.”

  There was another silence, but this one was shorter. “Our reproduction rate is very fast, so the habitat would have to be at least a million square kilometers. Would the leaders of your government agree to that?”

  Sarah nodded, trying hard not to let any doubts show. It was a bit of a shock to find herself negotiating on behalf of the human race. But someone had to do it. “It would be an enormous engineering project, but it would also give us a chance to work together. To build up some trust. And once we’ve learned to cooperate, you can decide whether to share your technologies with us.”

  Now that she’d said the words out loud, they made a lot of sense. This wasn’t a desperate, last-chance ploy. It was a logical plan, the best solution.

  After several seconds, the tentacles that held Joe turned him right-side up. Then they began to lower him and Sarah. The descent was gentle and slow, and the loudspeaker cable followed them down. “I’ll halt my attacks against your military forces, but not my defensive measures. If your government refuses to cease hostilities, I’ll return to my original plan.”

  Soon they hung a few yards above the Thurston Avenue Bridge. Because Joe was injured, the tentacles carefully rested him on his back. Sarah, though, landed on her feet. The cables set her down on the bridge’s walkway and uncoiled from her waist.

  While she caught her breath, the tentacles withdrew into the thick black trunk. Then the massive thing began to slide back into the gorge. Its gleaming tip descended below the cliffs and retreated into the hole it had dug beneath the creek. Sarah peered over the bridge’s railing and watched the tentacle sink below the water.

  Then she ran over to where Joe lay.

  * * *

  Emilio opened his eyes. He lay on his side in the middle of Sherman Avenue. The street was littered with bits of concrete and half-cooled metal.

  He was shirtless, and there were bandages on his shoulders and the back of his neck. He felt a throbbing, burning pain under the layers of gauze, but it wasn’t so bad. The same people who’d bandaged him must’ve given him some painkillers.

  Then he looked up and saw the Trinitarios. Luis, Carlos, Miguel, and Diego stood around him in a circle, their heads lowered. All four boys grinned when Emilio looked up at them.

  “Ho, shit!” Carlos pointed at him. “The muchacho’s alive!”

  Emilio stared at their faces. His homeboys looked normal again. They weren’t staring at the sky or listening to voices inside their heads. Best of all, the disks in their palms weren’t glowing, and neither was Emilio’s. He didn’t feel the burning inside his arm anymore. Someone had shut the damn thing off.

  He sat up and smiled at the Trinitarios. Now he had something to be happy about. “Damn, what happened? What did I miss?”

  Miguel shook his head. “You were lucky, hombre. You fell on your face right before I fired, so my beam went above you. You got some burns on your neck and shoulders but nothing serious.”

  “And where the fuck did you get the bandages? Did you find a first aid kit or something?”

  Luis stepped forward. “La Madre put them on you. Using her black wires. And she gave you some medicine too. Then she told us to go home. She said she didn’t need us anymore.”

  “Really?” Emilio looked down Sherman Avenue. He didn’t see any fireballs or running soldiers now. He didn’t hear any distant explosions either. “So the war’s over?”

  Carlos laughed. “Yeah, at least for now.” He bent over Emilio and grasped his right hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “But who won?”

  Luis bent over him too and took his other hand. “I think we did.”

  EPILOGUE

  Three Months Later

  Sarah was dying for a cigarette. She was so nervous she took her Zippo and her pack of Marlboros out of her pocket. But after a moment she put them back. She took a deep breath instead and continued walking through Inwood Hill Park.

  It was a late September afternoon, and the weather in New York had finally started to cool. Sarah strolled down an asphalt path that ran alongside the soccer fields. No one was playing ball today, but there were plenty of people in the park. Most of them sat on the benches, taking their lunch brea
ks. Some wore business suits and some wore dresses or khakis, but they all had government IDs hanging from their necks.

  For the most part, they weren’t New Yorkers. The vast majority were bureaucrats from Washington, D.C., recruited to join the biggest federal project since the New Deal. Over the past hundred days Inwood had been transformed from a residential neighborhood to a major government installation, with U.S. Marines standing guard at checkpoints all around it. The Federal Housing Authority had found new homes for the Inwood residents who’d been forced to leave, and now the apartment buildings north of Dyckman Street were being used as offices for the newly created Department of Interspecies Cooperation.

  Sarah had a similar ID, which bounced against her shirt as she walked. Her office was on Sherman Avenue, just a block from the First People’s temporary complex. Her job title was chief scientific liaison, but in essence she was running a complaints department. The complaints came from Naomi and the three children she’d already spawned in her complex’s tanks, and all their grievances boiled down to the same thing: the humans weren’t working fast enough. Although the First People had already extended their tendrils to the Pacific Ocean and were eager to start building their habitat, the United Nations was just beginning the process of choosing a site.

  Sarah took another deep breath. The fundamental problem, as she saw it, was that the First People never fought with one another. Because they were so naturally cooperative, they couldn’t understand why the humans had to argue over everything. Naomi was particularly impatient, and her firstborn child, Ruth, was almost as bad. But her next two children, Leah and Judith, seemed a little more tolerant, and Sarah was starting to enjoy her conversations with them. If the following generations of First People were more like those two, there was some hope for the future.

  The intolerance from her own species was worse, of course, but luckily she didn’t have to deal with it. That was Tom Gilbert’s job, and Sarah was frankly amazed at how much he’d accomplished so far. He was the one who’d convinced the president not to fire a nuke at New York City. Nearly every general in the Pentagon had pushed for a nuclear strike, but Tom presented reams of evidence proving how futile that would be. In his uniquely annoying but effective way, he managed to persuade the White House to accept its losses and reach a compromise with the First People. And Naomi smoothed the negotiations by making several conciliatory gestures, such as rebuilding the tunnels and bridges around Manhattan. Her tendrils also constructed dozens of geothermal power plants under New York, enough to provide pollution-free electricity to all the city’s households.

  After passing the soccer fields, Sarah followed the path that ran along the base of the hill. To her right was the steep wooded slope where the probe had landed three months ago. Nothing important was at the landing site anymore—the Emissary had moved all its vital machinery to more secure locations—but Sarah stared in that direction anyway. Then she looked straight ahead and kept walking until she came to the last bench on the left, the one closest to the park’s Dyckman Street exit. That was where she’d arranged to meet Joe.

  He was sitting there as promised, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. An army-green duffel bag sat on the bench beside him.

  Sarah didn’t sit down. She pointed at the bag. “So you made up your mind? You’re leaving?”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah, I got my papers. I’m free to go.”

  “What about your hip? It doesn’t need any more therapy?”

  He slapped his right hip, the one the tentacles had dislocated. “That’s all done. I can walk just fine.”

  Sarah paused. She didn’t like to repeat herself, but she couldn’t help it. “And you’re sure you don’t want to reconsider my offer? I could really use your help, Joe.”

  She thought he might get annoyed, but instead he smiled at her. “You got better people to work with. Experts and scientists, people with real experience.”

  “But you know the First People better than anyone else. You looked into their minds. That’s the kind of experience I need right now.”

  He shook his head but kept smiling. “We did twenty debriefing sessions, remember? I told you everything I knew, right down to the last detail. It’s all in the files.”

  “That’s not the same. I can’t get advice from a bunch of files.” Sarah stepped toward the bench, moved the duffel bag aside, and sat down next to him. She was determined to make one last try. “Look, I’m already working with Emilio and the other boys. They’re not experts either, but they’re helping me a lot. They’re giving me insights about the First People so I can communicate with them more effectively. And you could be an even bigger help.”

  Now Joe stopped smiling. For a second his eyes darted to the right, glancing at the hillside where he used to sleep. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have to work some things out, and I can’t do it here.”

  She frowned. Although Joe had stayed sober for the past three months, she knew how fragile he was. She wouldn’t be surprised if he started drinking again as soon as he left. “I don’t get it. You were living on the streets for two years, trying to work things out. And now you want to go back to that life?”

  He shook his head again. “No, I wasn’t doing the work. I was just trying like hell to forget.”

  “And how will it be any different now?” Her voice was getting loud. She was seriously angry. “How do you know you won’t take the easy way out again?”

  She’d gone too far. She shouldn’t have said that. But Joe didn’t look insulted. He just shrugged. “You’re right. I may not be strong enough.” He got up from the bench and reached for his duffel bag. “But I’m gonna try. I’m thinking of going back to my hometown in Alabama. I hate the place, but I feel like I need to go there. You know, go back to the beginning and see what went wrong.”

  Sarah stood up too. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she grasped his hand before he could pick up the bag.

  “Please,” she whispered. “I want you to stay.”

  He smiled again and gave her hand a squeeze. But it was a sad, apologetic smile, and a moment later he pulled his hand out of hers. “I have to do this, Sarah. I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in penance.”

  He picked up his bag and turned toward Dyckman Street. And then Joe Graham, the man who helped her save the world, walked out of the park.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I got the idea for this novel back in 1999 when I edited a special issue of Scientific American that focused on space exploration. One of the articles in that issue was entitled, “Interstellar Spaceflight: Can We Travel to Other Stars?” Written by science journalist Timothy Ferris, the article argued that traversing the vast distances between stars was so inherently difficult that any spacefaring civilization would be unlikely to send large starships across the galaxy. It would make more sense to launch small automated probes instead, because they would require so much less fuel to complete their interstellar journeys.

  The article inspired me: I could easily imagine a small probe from a distant star system landing in someone’s backyard. Better yet, I could imagine it following a set of preprogrammed tasks, using the raw materials at its landing site to establish a foothold on our world. This kind of probe could swiftly build all the machines it would need for exploring the planet—or colonizing it.

  As I wrote the novel I tried to weave some real space science into the story. A group of Cornell astronomers (including Frank Drake and Carl Sagan) really did send a message across the Milky Way in 1974 using the Arecibo radio dish. And the novel’s description of Martian microfossils is based on the investigation of ALH84001, the meteorite that became famous in 1996 as scientists debated whether it held fossils of Martian microbes. My opinion on this subject is similar to Sarah Pooley’s: as we continue to explore planets in our star system and others, we’re bound to discover evidence of extraterrestrial life.

  But what are the odds of finding intelligent life out there? On Earth, it took billions of years for microbes to ev
olve into complex multicellular organisms, and only in the past century has one species become capable of building powerful rockets and radio transmitters. We simply don’t know how evolution would progress on other planets, or how long an extraterrestrial civilization would be likely to survive. Still, some scientists are worried about intelligent aliens; in February 2015 a group of prominent space experts warned against trying to find extraterrestrials by transmitting more signals similar to the Arecibo message. As the group’s statement noted, “It is impossible to predict whether extraterrestrial intelligence will be benign or hostile.”

  Also by Mark Alpert

  Final Theory

  The Omega Theory

  Extinction

  The Furies

  The Six

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MARK ALPERT is the author of Final Theory, The Omega Theory, Extinction, and most recently, The Furies, as well as the young adult novel The Six. He is a contributing editor at Scientific American and his work has appeared in Fortune Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Playboy. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their two children.

  Learn more at www.MarkAlpert.com. Or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8