She woke up in deepest night bathed in sweat, looked over at the man sleeping next to her and wondered who he was, then it all came back in a rush...
She was in a small adobe lodge next to the old mission, the Alamo, and that 'rich' smelling man was Davey Crockett – but...something was wrong. Something had changed. She ran her hands over her thighs and belly, then...
...she sat up and looked around the room, just as a sharp blade of nausea passed through her like a scythe. A lone candle flickered on the one small table in the room, and she could just make out bare mud walls with a single crucifix hanging above the entry. She saw a small scorpion crawling up the wall above her head and sat up quickly, then, what?
Do I feel light-headed? No, I feel ill, or something like ill, because...what was that?...the room just faded from view! But...
Thoughts came out of the darkness in a rush now, disjointed fragments of images – like dreams out of sequence – filling her mind with chaos...then the room brightened and quickly came back into focus...
"Something's not right," she said as she quickly laced up her boots and ran outside. She looked around, spied a low wall nearby and sprinted to it, then jumped up and started scanning the horizon.
"It's over there," she heard Higgins say, and she turned towards his voice, followed his eyes to the south.
"Oh, God no," McKaig said, her heart now filled with dread. She couldn't tell how big the blue sphere was, or even how far away it might be, but her first impression was that it was huge, and not more than ten miles away.
"Interesting," Higgins said, looking at his wristwatch. He punched a button on the watch, then lit the display, and McKaig could see the blue glow from where she stood. "Two-oh-five degrees. I make it 15 miles. What's your guess?"
"Ten, I think." McKaig looked around, but couldn't see any other people asleep in the courtyard.
"One of us needs to tell Aronson," he said.
"What woke you?" McKaig said, still unsure what she'd just experienced.
"Nothing. I've been talking with Bowie all night. I gave him an A-pak and a Z-pak, and a shot of Vita-stim in the thigh. Big mistake. He didn't stop talking for five hours, then it was like: bang! The lights went out and that's all folks."
"Interesting conversation, I take it."
"Yeah, you could say that. Uh...how was Mr Crockett," he said, grinning.
"He, uh, has big feet." She was glad it was dark out; no way could he see her blushing...
"Ah. Feeling a little stretched, are we?"
"Man alive. Felt like a Roto-rotter attached to a jack-hammer..."
"Shoulda popped him with a Vita-stim. That woulda been fun to listen to from out here..."
"You have a sick mind, Higgins."
"Say it ain't so, darlin'. Well, just so you know, there're a shitload of snakes out here. Rattlers and copperheads mostly, so if you see something that looks like a large twig on the ground, make sure it doesn't move before you step on it."
"I hate snakes," McKaig said...
"Who doesn't?" she heard Crockett say. "Rattlers taste good, but them copperheads taste like dog shit. What're y'all doin' up so early, anyway?"
"Hey," McKaig said, surprised how happy she felt when she saw him. "Did we wake you?"
"No," he said as he walked over to a tree and started peeing. "Little too much bourbon last night, I think. So, what got you two up?"
She looked at Higgins – who looked away, grinning. "Something didn't feel right," she said at last.
"You too? I felt like I was going to get sick, opened my eyes and everything was black...like I was looking through haze..."
"Me too," Higgins said, startled. "About ten minutes ago...everything went black..."
"Aronson," McKaig said. "Gotta tell her..." she said as she bolted from the courtyard.
"Snakes!" Higgins called out, reminding her. "Watch out for the goddamn snakes!"
+++++
Todd Parks sat at his computer, Galileo on one side, June sitting very close on the other; he had a planetarium program open and Parks was slowly, methodically explaining the origins of the solar system, June making the translations she could. When Parks ran into concepts June just couldn't translate he tried Latin, but that language's basic vocabulary simply wasn't geared to 21st century cosmological discoveries, so when he ran into those items he tried visual demonstrations on screen, followed with mathematical explorations to clarify key concepts. He noticed after a while that while Galileo was intuitively intelligent, and his basic math skills were solid, he broke down when calculus was invoked – and Parks had to backtrack and fill in the holes with sketches.
They came to a discussion of the sun, and he backtracked to the spectral characteristics of stars, all stars – including "our" star – and how electromagnetic radiation was first analyzed by using prisms. He pulled up the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and went over the spectral classification of stars, then over the basics of the Morgan-Keenan temperature classification system, and somewhere in this discussion a video screen popped up and began playing.
Parks was annoyed when this happened because it was an un-commanded execution, and when he tried to shut the video player down – and nothing happened.
Then his "Death Star" video started playing, and Galileo asked what they were watching...
The object moved towards the Sun then – and again, with no command from Parks – the playback speed slowed to a crawl, and Parks gasped when he saw the black shadow behind the brilliant white orbiter for the very first time.
"What is this?" June translated almost as fast as Galileo spoke, but Parks simply held up one finger while he studied the on-screen image.
"It's not a screen artifact," he said to himself, though he was unaware he was speaking aloud, then he pointed at the screen, at the "Death Star". "Now, what the devil is this?" It looked like the outer hull of the orbiter was shedding material... "Ice? Could it be ice boiling off as the hull superheats?"
Then Galileo pointed at the screen, and June began translating: "This black object has mass," she said. "See how the white matter flows into the black sphere? It is almost like it's being drawn to the blackness. It has mass...and gravity...?"
"A singularity?" Parks muttered. No, he saw the white matter fall away after contact... So, the black object had mass, it had velocity, and it appeared to be following the orbiter.
"But what are these things?" Galileo asked, and Parks sat back and looked at the screen one more time, then at Galileo.
"They are ships, my friend. Ships that travel between the stars."
"Who pilots these ships," the old man said, his voice trembling, and Parks could hear the fear in June's voice as she translated. "Are they human? From Earth?"
He looked June, then at Galileo and shook his head.
The old man looked at the little girl and understood, then he crossed himself – something he hadn't done privately in years – then he stood and walked unsteadily from the table.
+++++
