Impact

92

A half-hour later, with a huge relief, Abbey could begin to make out the lights of the Earth Station, winking on and off through curtains of rain. The yacht, its superstructure battered but still seaworthy, ploughed into the calmer waters of the well-protected anchorage that served Crow Island. The big white bubble itself loomed into view, illuminated by spotlights, rising from a cluster of buildings on the barren, windswept crown of the island.

From a long-ago school trip Abbey vaguely remembered a couple of nerdy technicians lecturing them about what the Earth Station did and how they lived on the island and kept it running. Inside the huge white bubble was a huge, motorized parabolic antenna that she remembered could be rotated to point at any number of telecommunications satellites or even used for deep-space communications with spacecraft. But its primary function was to handle overseas telephone calls--or at least that was what she remembered.

She hoped it could be moved to point at Deimos--and that Deimos, in its orbit around Mars, hadn't gone around the backside of the planet where it would be cut off from radio contact with Earth.

The yacht slowed as it came into the harbor. It was well sheltered by two high, rocky arms of land that encircled the harbor like an embrace. A pair of concrete piers, old and cracking, jutted into the water below the Earth Station. A few boats were moored in the harbor but the ferry slip was empty.

Her father throttled down and brought the yacht into the ferry berth, easing it toward the landing.

Abbey checked her watch: four o'clock. She gazed up at the huge dome.

'So what's the message?' Jackie asked.

'I'm working on it.' How could she even begin to understand the purpose of the alien weapon--if it even was a weapon--and what it wanted?

'If it's a weapon,' Jackie said, 'why didn't it destroy the Earth already?'

'Perhaps habitable planets like Earth are hard to find. Or maybe it didn't want to destroy the human race but instead do something else with us. Warn us, kick a little ass, intimidate with its power, enslave us.'

'Enslave?'

'Who knows? Perhaps their psychology is so unreachable that we'll never hope to understand it.'

The engines backed as the yacht shuddered to a halt against the platform.

'Tie up,' her father ordered tersely.

Abbey and Jackie hopped out and secured the boat. They stood on the dock in the howling storm, the rain lashing down. Abbey was so wet and cold that she hardly felt it. Looking at her father and Jackie, she realized they looked a fright, faces smeared with engine oil, clothes smelling of diesel.

Abbey glanced up at the dome and felt incipient panic; what should she say? What could she say that would save the Earth? Suddenly her plan seemed half-baked, even idiotic. What was she thinking--that she could talk this alien machine out of destroying the Earth? On top of that the machine might not even be able to interpret English--although she felt certain an artifact that advanced would surely be capable of listening in on communications, translating and interpreting what it picked up.

Whatever. It was worth a try--if she could only think what to say.

Her father tucked the gun into his belt. 'Follow my lead, stay cool--and be nice.'

93

Hunched against the storm, they made their way to the end of the pier and up the asphalt road leading to the complex of buildings on the crown of the island. The wind howled, lightning flashed, and the thunder mingled with the crashing of surf on the shore to create an continuous roar of sound.

As the road ascended the island, the Earth Station came into full view, occupying the highest ground, a big white geodesic dome rising over a cluster of drab cinder block buildings, with a radio tower and cluster of microwave antennas. Far from being a high-tech wonder, the Earth Station had a sad, neglected air about it, a feeling of desuetude and abandonment. The dome was streaked with damp, the houses shabby, the road potholed and weedy. Once whitewashed, the buildings had been so scoured and battered by storms that they had been partly stripped back to raw concrete. A large Quonset hut, open on one end, was filled with rusting equipment, stacks of I-beams, sand piles, and graying lumber. Below the station, in a protected hollow, stood several houses and what appeared to be a recreation hall. A scattering of gaunt, gnarled spruces--the only trees on the island-- surrounded the houses, providing little shelter and less cheer. The rest of the island was barren, covered with grass, scrub, and knobs of glacially polished granite.

The road split and they took the fork leading to the Earth Station. A rusty metal door stood in a concrete entryway, the word trance on it, the first part effaced by weather, and was illuminated by a harsh fluorescent light that cast a pall over the dismal islandscape. Abbey reached out and tried the handle. Locked. She rang a doorbell set into a rusted plate.

Nothing.

She pushed the button harder but heard no ring inside, and finally resorted to knocking. A crackle of static sounded from a rusted grate next to the door, and a tinny voice came out. 'What's the matter, Mike, forget your key again?'

Abbey spoke into the grate. 'This isn't Mike. We made an emergency landing in your harbor. We need help.'

'What? Who's that?'

'WE'VE BEEN SHIPWRECKED,' Jackie yelled into the grate, enunciating each word.

'Holy crap.' The door opened immediately. A balding, cadaverous man of about fifty stood in the doorway, the sad fringe of hair around his pate tied back in a long, thin ponytail. 'Good God! Shipwrecked? Come in, come in!'

They filed into a stuffy annex, grateful for the warmth. An old bulbous television stood in the corner, screen filled with silent snow. On the table were scattered the remains of a midnight snack, candy bar wrappers, several Coke cans, and a coffee mug, along with several well-worn books--Eliot's The Waste Land, Kerouac's On the Road, Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

'Are you all right?' the guard said, staring at them and almost babbling. 'Did your boat sink? Sit down, sit down! Can I get you some coffee?'

'We're fine now,' said her father, extending his hand. 'My name's Straw. Our boat's in the harbor.'

'Coffee would be great,' said Jackie loudly.

'Right, hey, coming up.'

They sat down at the metal table and the man bustled over to a coffeepot warming on a hot plate and poured out coffee, bringing the steaming mugs to the table with jars of cream and sugar. Gratefully, Abbey dumped in huge amounts of cream and sugar, stirred, and drank.

'What the heck were you doing out there in that storm?' asked the man.

'It's a long story,' said Abbey's father, stirring his coffee.

'Do you want me to call the Coast Guard?'

'No, we're safe now. Please don't. They wouldn't come out here anyway, until the storm's blown over.'

'Of the northeasters I've seen out here,' said the fellow, 'this is one of the bigger ones--especially for summer. You're damn lucky to be alive.'