by Nancy Lieder
down every time.
The light goes on for Danny, who realizes Maya’s reaction is not
the first.
You mean, you’ve tried this before?
Isaac says,
I was asked to contact your paper, give it another
shot. A group of us have been trying to find an
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outlet. So far, no one’s gotten past the guard. They
tell these editors that it’s national security or
something, can’t have panic. God knows what they tell
them, but one thing is clear, this is a story that the
public is not allowed to hear.
Danny is new to the cover-up, and is searching for a route around
it.
Someone could go to an observatory. I mean, our
observatory has a public night, you can go there,
point the scope anywhere you want, they help you ..
Isaac, older and wiser, knows what encountering a serious cover-up means.
You can try it. We did, when it was still able to be
seen in the night sky. Got the runaround. It’s not
just the editors, it’s the observatories, the
astronomers you can’t believe. You think the American
people didn’t want to know about what happened to JFK?
They didn’t get the story then, and they don’t have it
now. When the hammer comes down to protect the people
in charge, in Washington, it comes down hard.
Youth perseveres. Danny says,
Yeah, but I bet I could. I mean, I can be pretty
persuasive.
Too late, in any case, says Isaac.
Observatories don’t cut it anymore, it’s too close to
the Sun now. They can’t look at light, they need the
night sky. It’s arrived, Danny, we’re not doing the
waltz anymore, we’re setting up for rock and roll!
Danny has fallen silent, but finally takes a big breath.
So what do we do?
Isaac explains that bottom line, one should be personally
prepared.
I know what I'm going to do. I'm not waiting for
anyone to tell me to do it, either. I've got a place
up in the hills, and as soon as things get funny,
that's where I'm headed.
_______________________________
Big Tom and Red are replacing wooden fence posts out in a field. They have a
stock of posts in the back of the truck, are pulling a broken post, snipping
the wire, hammering a new post in its place, and finally patching the wire
with a new piece of wire. Meanwhile, they converse. Big Tom says,
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Heard that some rich folks come in from the coast
wanting to stock a bunker in big-top mountain. Wanted
this quiet, I guess, but you know Fred Harvey.
Big Tom and Red glance up and grin briefly at each other through their sweat.
Fred Harvey is apparently a known big mouth. Big Tom continues,
Fred says they had him take enough bottled water and
canned good to feed an army for a year up there, one
truckload after another. Says the big shock was the
hole in the mountain.
Big Tom stands straight, hand to his back, stretching. He continues while
standing, gesturing, his two hands together punching forward to indicate the
tunnel hammered in the rock.
They’d had someone hammer a tunnel, then a room.
Lights everywhere. Furniture too.
Red glances up from where he is crouched, mending the wire. He is not
interrupting as he wants to hear the story. Big Tom continues,
Now what were they expecting? An invasion?
Big Tom shakes his head and puts the sledge hammer back into the truck.
Muttering to himself and Red.
Crazy rich people. Got more money than they know what
to do with.
19
-Signs-
Danny and Daisy are driving to their campsite, a week into their camping trip,
somewhere out west in Utah. Danny glances sideways to drink in the lanky body
of Daisy in her shorts and halter top. Taking off for a camping trip, where
he can have her near him around the clock, should make him forget the unease
he has felt since that day talking to Professor Isaac, and the anger he still
feels at having his story cut. Daisy, for her part, is also looking forward to
two weeks alone with Danny. No phone. No editor. No assignments. Most of
their friends are married, and many with small children in arms or on the way,
and she rarely has opportunity to pry him away from his enthusiasms.
Danny is still upset in part as he is still angry about his story being
canned, being silenced and feeling there is something to it. It is pouring
rain, the windshield wipers flapping furiously and the car steamy. Daisy says,
Honey, you’ve got to let that go. It’s all just theory
anyway. This is your vacation, and all you’ve done is
fume about it. We’ve been on the road almost a week
already, and between you moaning about that damn
planet and Maya quashing your article and this damn
rain, it feels more like Hell than a vacation. How can
it be raining so much! Dry as a bone in New Jersey and
washing away in the rest of the country.
But Danny is still seething.
It’s just that all those things Professor Isaac was
relaying, that stuff really happened. No one can
explain it, there’s nothing that fits except the
passage of this rogue planet. Even a friend of
Einstein’s, guy named Hapgood, figured this out. Said
the sliding crust theory is the only explanation, and
Einstein agreed! And then they stop it at the gate,
block the story from getting past editors. And that
observatory guy!
Danny is almost gritting his teeth in his rage, his anger at being blocked at
all fronts palpable. As a young man, he is running into the reality of life in
the grown up world, and not liking what he is finding. How dare the truth be
buried, a cover-up occur in front of his eyes!
Daisy would just as soon put it aside, as she has other things on her mind.
All that stuff gets my stomach in a knot. There’s
nothing you can do about it, so forget it, honey.
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Danny is ignoring her but reaches over to pat her thigh with a glance and a
smile so she does not pout. Seeing that he is not going to comment, Daisy
switches on the radio.
.. seem to have completely disappeared from most
wetlands. Naturalists theorize that the damaged ozone
layer may be a factor, allowing harmful sun rays to
kill the frog eggs, but the disappearance of frogs is
not just occurring in areas affected by the ozone
holes. For those traveling on I-15, we have a flash
flood warning near Fishlake National Forest. Drivers
should take alternate routes, or drive with extreme
caution. . .
Daisy quickly switches off the radio, not wanting bad news to spoil the mood.
Daisy turns and looks out of the car window. It’s still raining. She says,
Are we on I-15?
Danny’s battered blue Toyota is beset by a downpour, moving slowly. Up ahead
beyond some hills the highway is flooded, traffic stopped on either side of
the washout.
_______________________________
> Danny and Daisy sit around their camp site sharing a beer with some campers
from the site next to them. Introductions have already been done, tents are
setup, dinner dishes washed and put away, a fire roaring in front of them as
Danny and Daisy and the couple camping next to them prepare to relax at the
end of the day. It has stopped raining, but occasionally some water splashes
off the rain drenched trees above them, causing the group to raise their hands
to block the drops when this happens, or shake the drops off their shirts
afterwards. Danny is perched on a convenient rock. Danny says,
Pull up a rock . . you wanna beer?
Jane is from California and a health nut. She quips back.
Do you happen to have any fresh squeezed orange juice?
Danny replies,
We have some fresh squeezed Coors.
Danny leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and gets a serious look
on his face.
I'm in the newspaper business, and ordinarily we chase
a story down and if it has any appeal at all, rush it
to press. Well, I had a real live wire, a local
professor who had a theory about crop circles. Gave a
talk at a local club and someone in the audience was
so impressed they sent me the flyer. Then he called
the paper wanting to get some coverage. What the heck,
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we print everybody else's theories about crop circles
- its math, it DNA, whatever. His theory was that
we've got another planet in the Solar System, comes
orbiting around only once every 3,600 years or
something, and these crop circles show up just ahead
of another visit, like a warning!
Danny holds up two fingers, counting off on them.
Two things are bothering me here. One, he had a damn
good argument, and two, my editor wouldn't let me
print the story.
Jane’s husband, Frank, is pleased that the campground has at least one party
he can talk to, beyond the usual chatter about mosquitoes and barbecue sauce.
You're talking about Sitchin's theory. He claimed some
ancient records showed that this planet exists. And
that number - 3,600 years - these ancients had a term
for it.
Danny sits up, back ramrod straight, suddenly energized.
Well, dang! My editor went ballistic when I presented
the story. I've never seen him like that. So now I'm
wondering, if there's nothing to it, why did he react
like that? So I went out to see this guy, the
professor, and he told me the media is being silenced.
He told me the government knows about this, has the
dang thing in its sights and is watching it barrel
towards us, and is saying nothing to the rest of us!
Danny starts demonstrating what's going to happen with his hands, relaxing now
that he can talk about his worries and has an intelligent ear.
Mountains pushing up, tidal waves rolling across the
coastlines, howling winds, and of all things, red
dust. Red dust.
A slight flicker of a smile plays over Frank 's mouth, seeing Danny's
consternation. Having lived with the legends, and with a wife well into New
Age prognostications, Frank had come to find these theories almost stale.
Oh, there's something to it all right, at least all
the prophecies point to it in one way or another.
Finding an opening, Jane leaps in.
The Hopi speak of the Purification Day, when the whole
world will shake and turn red. And White Buffalo
calves are being born, that's another Indian prophecy
coming true.
Loath to let his wife take the center stage completely, a constant battle
between them, Frank joins in again.
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There was an obscure channeled work by an Ohio
dentist, about a hundred years ago. Oashpe, I think
it's called. Talks about a Red Star that travels and
causes a lot of death. Says that souls are harvested
at that time. That's the term used - harvested.
Glancing at her husband, and seeing an opening, Jane jumps in.
Edgar Cayce saw California covered with water.
But Frank has the prize prophecy.
And then there's Mother Shipton, several hundred years
back, who pretty much predicted the same thing back in
merry 'ol England. She had a good track record on
predicting our technology, too.
Frank stands up and quotes Mother Shipton.
For seven days and seven nights
man will watch this awesome sight.
The tides will rise beyond their ken
to bite away the shores and then
the mountains will begin to roar
and earthquakes split the plain to shore.
Still emotionally unwilling to accept the situation, even if his intellect is
telling him otherwise, Danny interrupts.
Aw, come on! You can’t be serious! Do you really think
that’s going to happen?
Jane comes to the rescue, as she always does when opinions differ.
Let’s see what the cards say.
Jane pulls out her Tarot Cards and shuffles them, spreading them out in a fan
like fashion, face down on the blanket below which has been spread out over
the pine needles. She turns the top cards over, one by one. The first card is
the card of Death. Danny, eager for some reassurance at this point, raises his
eyebrows. Danny says,
Oops!
_______________________________
Colonel Cage is talking to a Zeta from the Zeta Reticuli star system. The room
is dark, lights off, as a private conversation is going on. Standing in the
shadows is a middle-aged man, fit with no signs of middle-aged spread or slack
muscles. A military man, Colonel Cage considers being fit the first bastion
of discipline. Tightly disciplined, he lives by rules both military and
personal, which often are at war with each other.
The colonel is talking to a figure taller than he, bone thin, with an enormous
head seemingly too heavy for the stick thin body. But there is grace in the
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motions made by the long lanky arms, and the colonel seems not to notice or be
alarmed by the shape of his companion. He has long been accustomed to
conversing with this visitor from Zeta Reticuli. Where a conversation is going
on, only the voice of the colonel can be heard. Yet the intensity of his
words shows that an interchange of ideas is clearly going on.
We can't tell them. Don't think I don't want to. It's
orders, and orders are orders
Colonel Cage breaks down a bit, moving his hands in front of him in an
emotional way, as though groping for an answer, a resolution that will not
come.
My God, don't you think I want my neighbor's children
safe? They practically live at my house. But if I say
anything I'll disappear. What will my Mary and the
kids do then, for God's sake.
_______________________________
Back at the campground, the foursome has been camping together for a few days,
hitting it off. During this time the days seemed inordinately dim, as though
overcast to the point of not being able to see the Sun. Due to the cloud
cover, they took this to be an extrem
ely cloudy day, but Frank has been
nervous. Danny as he is leaning into his car, retrieving some item with the
car door open. Frank comes up behind Danny. He says,
It’s so damn dim I can hardly make you out! I’ve never
seen it this overcast, it’s eerie. We’ve not seen the
sun for the past few days.
Danny ducks out of the car, looking around him to ensure that Daisy and Jane
are not in earshot, before replying in a low voice.
Did those prophecies you were quoting the other night
say anything about something like this? This gloom?
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Frank raises his eyebrows, suddenly realizing something he’d forgotten. He
raises his hand.
Be right back.
Frank dashes off into his tent, rummaging around, coming out with a book he is
flipping through frantically. Finally, after pausing, he quotes.
Here it is. The Biblical three days of darkness
predicted. And in the Book of Amos ‘I will cause the
Sun to go down at noon and I will darken the Earth in
the midst of daytime.’ And the Greeks, in the
Phaethon, ‘One whole day went without the sun. But the
burning world gave light.’
Frank pauses, looking at Danny.
Damn!
_______________________________
At NASA in Houston the darkened skyline can be seen on a video, as though
stalled at the pre-dawn hour when the sky is light but no sun can be seen.
Rows of gray metal tables are placed to look forward at this wall, which has
several video screens, all currently meshed together to show the same scene,
an enlarged skyline. This is one of those high tech video screens that can
show individual shots, or can mesh together to show a large single shot.
Monitors and keyboards and various other electronic equipment are on the
tables, computer chairs that can scoot about with wheels, and some papers and
