by Mark Wandrey
April 23
It was hard to get used to a forest at night without insects and night birds. It was even harder getting used to a slow moving black moon, and a swiftly moving green one. Lt. Colonel Dan Wilson sat at his improvised desk of cut faux bamboo on an ultra-light camp chair and typed a report. Through the open door to his tent he could see the other two tents of his tiny detachment and beyond that the alien forest. Just then, the strange ethereal light cast by Romulus, the black moon, was high in the sky. The little green Remus was due in another hour. As operational commander, he'd claimed the honor of naming the moons. No others had yet appeared.
It was three hours after local nightfall. The planet was remarkably similar to Earth. Days were twenty-seven hours long divided into eighteen hours of light and nine hours night during a season he would call summer. The days hovered around eighty degrees, the nights sixty. The atmosphere was a little thicker, but the gas chemistry was basically identical as were the flora and fauna's amino acid chains. He didn't understand what all this meant but the best part was none of them had gotten sick. The water was safe, and they had nicknamed their camp Ft. Eden. Hell, even those Komodo sloth lizards didn't taste half bad; they just had kind of a strange aftertaste you got used to after a few days.
Lt. Col. Wilson took a break from his report and moved to the door of his tent. His sidearm hung from his hip and his automatic rifle rested nearby. It had become quickly apparent that the Komodo sloths had no fear of humans whatsoever, and also found humans just as tasty as humans found the Komodo sloths. Three attacks marked their first night in the new world. One of his men still had difficulty using his left arm after a lizard had given him numerous deep gashes. Luckily, these Komodo didn’t have the same deadly bacterial cocktail in their mouths that the ones on Earth did. The man suffered no infections from the wounds and was recovering well enough.
That next morning he had led his men on a half mile perimeter stalk, killed a dozen of the beasts and destroyed one nest with a huge pile of eggs. The attacks had ceased, but they could still hear them roaring in the distance. Without permanent defenses, the men would be continuously at risk. Their fabric tents were absolutely no defense against the powerful predators. He had to admit he felt sorry for Hooper, the lost scientist. Going up against a Komodo sloth with a Swiss army knife was not his idea of fun.
At the door to his tent he listened to the strange sounds of this world. It must have evolved quite differently from Earth. There seemed to be little bio diversity. Everything had scales and nothing had fur or feathers. They hadn’t managed to catch a single insect, bird or mammal. Reptiles occupied every niche that, on Earth, would have been filled with all kinds of diverse species.
There were lizards ranging in size from smaller than a mouse to larger than a horse. What worried him was the thought of something even bigger than the Komodo sloth. Did dinosaurs still roam this world as they had once roamed Earth? More importantly would a Tyrannosaurus Rex come walking into their camp some day? He’d rather not think about it. But what ate the Komodo sloths?
The forest was quiet even though it teemed with life all around them. At the peak of his tent, a lizard recently named a howler was eyeing him. This eight inch long lizard reminded him that this was an alien world. It watched him with one pair of eyes while another pair regarded a smaller reptile dubbed a Scrubber. The howler was a predator, eating smaller reptiles or scavenging whatever it could find while the Scrubber was an herbivore. The Scrubber feasted on the golden moss that grew with amazing speed on any food left uncovered. Between the golden moss and the scrubbers a twelve-course meal would disappear in less than twenty-four hours.
The Scrubber realized it was being sized up for lunch and beat a hasty retreat. The howler was undaunted and stood its ground, willing to wait for another meal to come along. Howlers were harmless unless you tried to move or touch one. They had earned their name by doing a fair impersonation of an outraged drunken Irishman howling as their football team lost. Lt. Col. Wilson had been so flustered the first time he’d reached out to move a bothersome howler and it cut loose that he’d wasted a round on the tiny predator. To make matters worse, whenever a howler screamed every other one in ear shot seemed honor-bound to join in. That could result in a cacophonous noise to rival any heavy metal rock band ever formed. Nevertheless, there was an unsteady truce between the soldiers and the howlers. The lizards only stole an occasional bit of food, and the humans left them to their jobs.
Outside there was silence except for the occasional rustle of leaves, scrambling sound or the barking call of a forest denizen. At first, it was easy to get spooked in the forest. On Earth it only got quiet like that when something was wrong. Here it was normal. Lt. Col. Wilson was no botanist and not much of a scientist, but he was still amazed by this world. Earth was the norm in his mind, and seeing how different a world could be while still sharing similarities was an incredible experience.
Most of the plant life was familiar, if simpler. The forest was mainly composed of trees similar to pines, but with wide fern-lined boughs. Intermittently, you would find wide glades of gold-tinted grass and huge spreading ferns. A dazzling variety of flowers were everywhere, even sprouting in the bark of trees. He remembered reading how the time of the dinosaurs looked a lot like this. “I think this world is much younger than ours,” he'd written in his report. Later he added “You need to get some scientists over here, we don’t know what we’re doing.”
“Why doesn’t anything fly here?” he wondered aloud from the door to his tent. No insects, no birds, and no flying reptiles. “There were flying dinosaurs, I remember that.” They had encountered one local reptile that could jump dozens of yards, and another one that had membranes it used to glide like a flying squirrel, but that was as airborne as they got here. “A pair of stray parakeets could take over the planet!” His watch beeped, warning him that the next crossing was only an hour away, so he went back inside and wrapped up his report. “Be certain no pigeons come over,” he added at last, “they could overrun this place in no time.”
An hour later the entire contingent of Ft. Eden was standing in front of the circular Portal, nearly identical to the one they had stepped through back on Earth. The only differences they could see what that this one lacked the one hundred forty-four lights, and it didn't come alive when you stepped on the top step.
Right on time the Portal flashed bright purple and the fifth member of his team stepped though. There were cheers and a quick reunion that had to be cut short because crates began flying through the Portal and they needed to go to work. He picked up the communicator’s handset from the laser transceiver and said hello.
“How are things?” asked Dr. Osgood from probably billions of miles away.
“We’re doing well. I’m transmitting the sum of our research in a detailed report. Do we have a coherent plan yet?”
“That’s a negative. We’re to continue crossing over your men one at a time every two days until we formulate that plan.”
“Any progress on figuring how to get us back?” the Lt. Col. asked hurriedly.
“We’re making some small progress.” The soldier knew it was a lie but he decided not to let on that he knew.
“Send us a scientist soon, we’re running out of things to do, except shoot lizards.”
“I’ll see what we can-” But he never finished his sentence, the Portal had closed. The new man was standing nearby looking around and taking the measure of his surroundings. “Welcome to Ft. Eden, soldier, let’s show you around.” He didn’t like how that conversation ended, but what was he to do. It was hard to lodge a complaint when your commander was billions of miles away. Besides, he'd volunteered. Maybe on this new world, soldiers would finally learn not to do that. Right.
Harold was going over the data for the third time. Mindy had worked with him long enough to know he was having difficulty controlling himself as he compared column of numbers on printouts with those recorded in Mindy’s pictures, and then
with the ones from the Followers web page. For the first time in an hour he spoke. “There are some inconsistencies between the hand drawings and the pictures,” he said.
“Considering they were done from memory by an eye witness, that shouldn’t be a surprise,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
“They’re very detailed though. This is a complete validation of what we’ve been doing!” He gave up any attempt to control himself and was sporting an ear-to-ear grin. “The repetition of patterns, structure, and base pairs were all identical. There is no way it could be a coincidence. Whoever sent this Portal used the same code in this writing. And we still don't know what they were trying to say in the damn message.”
“How about: we know you’re in trouble and are sending help?”
“How about: better answer this call or we’ll kill you?” Mindy looked at the image of LM-245 on a display. SETI had volunteered some of its newly improved computer power to the amateur astronomy community to assist in the independent threat analysis of LM-245. The huge rock was getting closer by the day.
“Why would they try to kill us, then provide an escape?”
“I don’t know, but there is obviously some sort of link.” Harold’s eyes sparkled every time he looked at her composites of the Portal and the other partial image showing a man stepping through to another world. “Hard to believe SETI is now a moot point,” he said and pointed to the Portal. “The Extra Terrestrial Intelligence has found us!”
“Yeah, but who are they, and what do they want.”
Harold nodded his head and brought up another image. It was the drawing of the Angel of God that Victor had seen, now labeled as the 'Avatar of God'. “It’s an amazing creature,” he said, “just imagine what they could teach us! What kind of world did they evolve on? What rules of the universe do they know that we have yet to even imagine? What brought them here?”
Mindy’s computer beeped for attention and she turned her chair around. She read the message then smiled. “’Nothing in the universe happens by accident’, my father said. I don’t know the answers to the questions you’re asking, but I’ve got a piece of a question.” He looked over her shoulder and could see she was running a strange image analysis program full of fragments of star fields. “I found a partial match on a constellation on the other side of the Portal!”
She picked up the phone and called Skinner in Florida. He wasn’t there so she left a message saying she would call him tomorrow morning at 10 A.M. from the federal building, just like before. “That’s who I got these images from,” she explained to Harold.
His mouth made an O as he nodded his head. “This thing goes high up, doesn’t it?”
“I get the impression from the security measure Leo is taking; it goes all the way to the top. Notice how NASA is refusing to even acknowledge that LM-245 is going to come close?”
“I’ve been wondering about the stonewalling.” Harold picked up his tea and took a sip before continuing. “In two weeks even a kid with binoculars will be able to see it. A little patience, a calculator, and a year of college astronomy will be all you need to see where this is all going.”
“Yeah, add the killer asteroid to these Portals and what do you have?”
“A way to save humanity?”
“Or a way to cause anarchy?”
“If people know there is a way to be saved, they’ll work together.” Harold, always the optimist when it came to human nature.
“Maybe, but what if everyone doesn’t get saved? What if the Portals aren’t what they seem?”
“Then it would probably be a disaster,” Harold agreed. “If that rock’s going to hit, and there’s no way off the planet, it will be bad. If only a million or so could get off, I don’t know, I guess it would be worse.”
“I don’t think I follow you.”
“Well, when faced with inevitable death, many people find the place they need to be that allows them to face the ‘great beyond’ with a certain amount of aplomb. Most find some dignity, at the very least, to die quietly. My psychology professor said it had something to do with our own innate sense of mortality. Most of us realize deep down that we are doomed eventually, when certain death looms we can adjust.”
“Sorry I missed that class!”
“Yeah, Professor Hitchcock, no relation. He was incredible at macro sociology and at procuring Maui weed. Remember that stuff from our junior year at UCLA? Anyway, he also said that all that dignity could go down the toilet if you give someone a way out, no matter how remote. It seems even a small amount of hope is all a human needs to go from dignity and aplomb to a savage beast whose sole goal is survival at any cost.”
Mindy stared blankly at the computer monitors for several minutes while her mind worked. “Maybe getting a solution on this rock is a mistake. If it’s aimed down our throats and we go on the networks announcing it, and then tell them there are these Portals, it’s going to be a disaster of biblical proportions.”
Victor stepped through the Portal and arrived on the other side. Endless grassy fields spread out in all directions and in the distance a sparkling city of gold rose into the sky. His apostles came through behind him, followed by wave after wave of those who'd believed his words of God. To make room for those arriving, he began leading them toward the city.
It seemed like an immense distance, but as they walked the city loomed close quickly. Just as he’d read in the Bible, it was surrounded by a wall hundreds of feet tall. Coming into view was a vast gate of brilliant white marble. Standing guard at that gate was the Avatar he'd already met. And just as before it looked at him and seemed to be smiling.
He walked up to the Avatar and smiled. “I have brought my children through. We are ready to enter Heaven.”
A voice replied directly in his head. “You have indeed arrived in Heaven, but others have come before you. They are the chosen ones now, and they will decide whether to allow you into Heaven or not.”
Victor stood in shock as the gates opened and a squad of soldiers marched through. They quickly set up a blockade and barred anyone from entering the pearly gates. “This is now US Military Territory,” announced one of the soldiers. “File forward and show your identification before entering the Military District of Heaven.” Victor looked up and could see golden attack choppers and jet fighters circling around the city, intermixed with flights of angels. As he watched, the city slowly began changing from golden to olive drab green, and he woke up screaming.
The door to his room opened, and Duke was standing there framed in the hall’s light. “Same dream?” he asked.
“Same dream,” Victor said as he sat up and wiped sweat from his head. Duke had hardly left his side since Detective Harper showed up with the warning of an arrest warrant. “I think either God or His Avatar is trying to speak in my dreams. He’s warning me we need to take the Portal back from the government. It wasn’t sent to them. It was sent to the people; to the faithful!”
“We’re gathering an army of followers!” said Duke with a big grin. “More and more every day. Talk of the doomsday asteroid is making everyone real spooked. God seems to recruit well, under those situations. I’ve been reading some of those Old Testament stories and God has his faithful do a lot a killing, when he needs them too. Maybe we should get together as many as we can count on and just take it away from them army guys?”
“Kadru has spent some time watching them and it would be a blood bath. There are a couple hundred soldiers and they keep their eyes open. These aren’t a bunch of lazy security guards we’re talking about.”
“I know brother, I was in the military. Did a hitch as a Marine in Germany.”
“I had no idea.”
“Don’t like to talk about it too much. It was kinda the beginning of where I went wrong. Anyway, I made a lot of connections back then, and made even more since. I could get us some stuff. Stuff that would leave anyone there in no condition to stop us when we moved in.”
“You talking about bio or chemical we
apons, Duke? I don’t think God would approve of that.”
“Who’s us to say? I mean, look at all those times someone slaughtered thousands on God’s say so, and with just a jawbone of an ass, or shit like that. ‘To stand against God is to be cast out,’ is what it said.”
Victor nodded his head. “Maybe you have a point, but I think it’s too soon to be considering extreme measures. There might be other ways.”
“Indeed there might,” said another voice. Kadru stood in the doorway behind Duke. Victor was concerned. Every time he saw her she seemed to be more tired than the last time. She appeared just as alert but now her left eye seemed to droop slightly, as if she were having trouble staying awake. It reminded him a bit of an old street woman he'd known with Bell’s palsy.
“What do you have?” he asked.
“I have made contact with someone on the inside. We’ve exchanged e-mails and, whoever it is, they know a lot about the Portal and what is going on.”
“Are they one of the faithful?”
She recalled how Sky Watcher described the Portal in scientific terms, what he believed it was, how it might work, and that they were trying to figure out what star system it goes to. “They have a sort of faith, but it is not the same as ours.”
“Ask them if they will come to the temple to talk. Maybe they can be made to believe, or at least become our allies.”
“I think they are already our allies in some ways, but we should be conscious that we are not immune to being converted to someone else’s way of seeing the world.”
