Time, Like a River

[Note: By Lifting Winds Forgot and The Ceremony of Innocence precede this tale. If you've not read these two this story will make no sense at all.]

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Time, Like A River: The Voyage From Driftwood III

Part I: They called for the harp – but our blood they shall spill

Byron, By the Waters of Babylon – from The Hebrew Melodies

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The Air Force C37A turned on base over Maryland's 'eastern shore' – flying towards it's next waypoint and now 4500 feet over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and Grover Smithfield looked down at Annapolis as the pilot configured flaps for the extended approach.

So many decades had passed, Smithfield thought as he looked down at the campus by the bay, since his class had first formed up on drill fields by the waterfront. JFK was in the autumn of his presidency, and only a few of his teachers glimpsed the great dissolution that would follow Kennedy's murder. One of his favorite instructors, a Navy captain who just happened to be a well regarded historian, remarked casually on the Monday after Kennedy's assassination that Lee Harvey Oswald had just accomplished what all the navies and armies of Germany and Japan had failed to do in the second world war: in the span of a few brief seconds he had completely shattered America's sense of itself. No matter who was ultimately held responsible, he saw Americans from that day forward drifting apart from one another, flying off to their polar extremes. "Belief is a fragile thing," he said, "a shared set of ideas that can disappear in an instant – even in three seconds." Smithfield remembered the captain's office, and a little sign the man had hung on the wall above his desk. "History is the graveyard of tyrannies," the little placard stated, and even now Smithfield recalled the captain had gone to work for first Nixon, then Ford, eventually ending his non-partisan career in the Carter White House. Smithfield had tried to emulate the man all his life.

But what had happened to that perspective over the years?

He watched the little harbor slide by, then Washington's eastern suburbs, looking at the captain's rigid prediction that was even now coming true. Politics had devolved from the soft art of compromise to cold obstructionism. Compromise was considered evil, and thugs on the right and idiots on the left all sounded more and more – like what? Ignorant, or simply arrogant? Unwilling to even consider a thought that didn't conform to a fixed set of ideas? Now he could see better than ever how communities had grown into ossified extensions of ideology, yet even so, looking down on the Beltway in that moment, for some reason he remembered sitting in Sergey Gorshkov's office one rainy May afternoon in Moscow, listening to the old admiral expound on the role of Soviet seapower.

"The Soviet Union will collapse soon," he'd said as their meeting drew to a close, and Smithfield had thought the man insane to speak those words aloud in that office – even if he was the architect of modern Soviet naval doctrine. "But I do not worry so much about that. Your Kennan predicted our collapse, in 1947, and he had it down almost down to the year. And he was correct, his working hypothesis was accurate, the whole Buddenbrooks analogy, how political cultures decay like families decay over time. But, Captain Smithfield, what troubles me most is what happens when your country falls. It will, you know, perhaps in your lifetime. That is the working assumption in the Kremlin, anyway."

Smithfield's Gulfstream made it's last hard left onto final – and a half mile off their left wingtip he saw two F-16s, and he thought again of Israel. That beleaguered nation had been at war since 1947, since it's modern inception – and keeping a strong military presence in the public eye was a vital fact of public life.

But here? In our skies? My, how times had changed. Was this what Gorshkov had been thinking of?

Now it was routine for airliners approaching New England from Europe, or Alaska from the Orient, to find squadrons of interceptors waiting to 'escort' them through the relevant ADIZ. Terror alerts were taken seriously now – by the military, at least – because that was the reality of post-modern 'neoliberal' existence. Newton's Laws, Smithfield sighed, just couldn't be ignored –  though the political world had tried often enough – only now actions and reactions were coming so fast there was no time to adjust, no time to plan. He'd found himself reacting to events all during his presidency, rarely ever ahead of events.

And now the extreme reaction to the Hyperion Contacts – as the current president called them – with ever more liberties curtailed, and everyone clueless about the facts. Still, almost seven months after Hope Sherman's 'disappearance,' information about the project within the intel community had been rigidly compartmentalized. Of more importance, information had been stopped before reaching the greater political hierarchies within the American congress, let alone the European Union and Russia. As a result, only a handful of people around the world had any idea what had happened last Christmas – in space, between the earth and her moon. So focused had those governments been on the threat of expanding Islamist terror, the idea that the Hyperion Fusion Project had been a ruse and that so-called 'First Contact' had already occurred remained a great unknown.

The fact that Russia's intercontinental missile force had been neutralized in an instant completely altered the role of the military, and an early Cold War hysteria gripped planners in the Pentagon and the Kremlin – "Flying Saucers and Death Rays, oh my!" – yet countering this new threat became the next mission. Planners and designers from Boeing and Grumman and Sukhoi hypothesized and groused – because no one knew what the threat was – not what the threat looked like, or even what "their" capabilities were. These planners and designers just shrugged and shook their heads and wondered how best to spend the billions of dollars suddenly knocking on their doors.

So the race was on: how to assess the threat became the next great game, and the President called Smithfield, or, rather, he had called the Prime Minister of Israel...

...and now here he was...walking down air-stairs on a torrid July afternoon to a convoy of waiting Suburbans. Turning out of Joint Base Andrews onto Pennsylvania Avenue, four black Suburbans and eight motorcycles in line, making the half hour drive through the city to the Big House; once past the Beltway the traffic grew oppressively heavy, the edifice of empire was everywhere he looked, while legions of homeless and the infirm lay in every shadow. The city was, Smithfield thought, still the living embodiment of extreme contradictions, and then, the white Capitol Dome looming just ahead in a thick, brown haze. Perfect, he thought. So few with so much.

The House was unchanged, he saw, but security was oppressive now; not even one tourist on the sidewalk waiting for a tour; those had been suspended for the time being. Snipers not visible either, but he knew they were up there, watching this arrival. Through the White House gates and out of the Suburban, he heard a formation of jets overhead and didn't even bother looking at them; he saluted the pair of Marines by the entry and saw Paul Kirkland, the President's National Security Advisor, waiting, and they walked together through the West Wing to The Office.

The President looked much older now, and uncharacteristically tired, his face lined with cares he'd never imagined seven years ago, and Smithfield smiled. He paused, looked at a sword on the president's desktop, a simple Samurai's sword, and Smithfield thought it looked ancient, indeed, it's silvered steel now almost elegant with the patina of age – and use, perhaps – yet the President pointedly didn't stand, and barely acknowledged his predecessor's presence in the room.

Smithfield listened as an old clock beat away on a bookshelf, and still the President simply continued looking at the sword, his eyes fixed on the cold steel, while Smithfield remained standing. The old man wasn't aggravated by this breach of protocol – no, he was simply more interested in the mood he felt in the room. Oppressive curiosity, perhaps? With a lingering sense of despair?

"Japanese Ambassador just left," the President finally said, slowly looking up at the previous occupant of this office. "Symbolic, don't you think?"

Smithfield glanced at Kirkland, then back at the President; Kirkland shrugged, rolled his eyes, so Smithfield sat down across from the President. "Why symbolic? Think he wants you to commit seppuku?"

The President shook his head then, and chuckled. "Wouldn't be surprised, Grover. Not a bit surprised."

"What can I do for you, sir?"

"Have you been out there yet?"

"Sir?"

"KIC 8462852, the system. Have you been out there yet?"

"No, sir."

"Really? I'm surprised." The President was staring at him, as if taking the measure of his predecessor once again.

"Oh? Why's that, sir."

The President turned in his chair and looked out the window. "Don't you want to?"

"No sir, not really."

The President steepled his hands in front of his face, took a deep breath. "That ship of there's. The one on the far side. Have you seen it, know it's capabilities?"

Smithfield shook his head. "No, I haven't, and I don't."

"Well then, that's going to be a problem."

"Yessir. I understand."

"Oh? Do you?. We're confronting a hostile species that has demonstrated the capability to neutralize all our offensive and defensive weaponry. Doesn't that concern you?"

"No sir, not really."

The President turned to face his desk again, yet once again he looked at the sword as he spoke. "Interesting. I never took you for a fool."

"Was there anything else you wanted to talk about while I'm here?"

"Such as?"

Smithfield shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Who goes next, on what ships? How we go about setting up colonies on new worlds? Things like that."

"You mean, of course, that we tell the people? Let the people know who's up there, what they're capable of doing to us?"

Smithfield looked at the man, at the lack of imagination he saw in his eyes. "Why not tell them the truth? What they have to offer us."

"What's wrong with you, Grover? Have you gone soft in the head?"

Smithfield smiled, looked him in the eye. "Maybe so."

"You're dead, I guess you know?"

"Sir?"

"After all that nonsense out in Santa Monica, the funeral at Arlington. The country thinks you're dead. Maybe a handful of people in the world know you're still alive. Have you considered your position?"

"Ah."

"I have reports you've been with them."

"Sir?"

"Well? Have you met them? The aliens?"

"Yessir. Several of them, as a matter of fact. About all I can add is that, in my opinion, you have no reason to fear them."

The President snorted derisively. "Do we need to send you down to Cuba? Maybe for a little R&R at a little naval base we still have down there?"

"That's your prerogative, Mr President. But I'd recommend against that course of action."

"Would you, now? So you do know a few of their tricks. Well, it occurred to a few of our people across the river you might say something like that; in fact, I think more than a few were kind of hoping you'd imply a threat of one kind or another."

"Yessir, I imagine they have. That's understandable."

"So? No hard feelings?"

Smithfield smiled, and stood...

...And the national security advisor shouted into his handset, screamed for the president's secret service detail to get to the room – ASAP –

The team entered the room, found Kirkland open-mouthed down on the floor, pointing at the president's desk, but both presidents were nowhere to be found – they had simply vanished – but why was Kirkland down there on the floor? When the head of detail ran closer, he saw Kirkland was kneeling, his hand out, talking to what he at first thought was a toddler – a blue-skinned girl, perhaps two feet tall, and then she too was gone – leaving a thousand questions hanging in the air – apparent.

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[Log entry SailingVessel Gemini: 7 July, 0700 hrs GMT, Friday morning. 

COG: at anchor, Ile du riou , calanque des contrebandiers

SOG: 0.0 kts; 

Temp: 83f;

Winds: NW at 15, viz unlimited +10nmi; 

Barometer 29.98 and rising; 

GPS:  43°10'26.16"N | 5°23'11.17"E

We are still anchored inside the calanque des contrebandiers, aka smuggler's cove, effectively in another world yet only six miles from Marseilles. Liz is turning out to be a decent diver, both she and Carol are spending lots of time down there – two hours yesterday – while Ted remains preoccupied and sullen, for the second day running. We're warped to limestone walls, some of the pitons we found are still secure, and we've been checking the ones we set a couple times a day. A late-season 'mistral' blew through yesterday yet we were snug in here, unaffected by wind or waves, while a few hundred yards away the sea looked like a washing machine. I remain wary as we're roped off in here with zero maneuvering room, but we're practically invisible, and the mood is magic, esp. at sunset, when the limestone cliffs glow an incredible orange.]

Gemini lay 'at anchor' within a narrow finger of water, a hidden treasure Collins had learned about from a local at the marina in Cassis. They'd taken Hyperion over for a haul-out, to get her bottom painted and anodes checked, and to refill the SCUBA tanks once again, so the four of them had decided to spend a few days over on the island until Hyperion was 'ready to go' again. He'd just managed to get Ted out into the sun, and now they were taking the Zodiac over to les Empereurs with masks, fins and snorkels, yet their conversation had been brief – though telling.

"You seem down, almost out of it..." Collins asked, setting a little anchor on the sandy bottom near the rocks.

"Yeah. I've been thinking about Hope. I worry about her, you know?"

"I know, Spud. I think we all do. What does Carol think about all this?"

"She misses LA, her work. Hell, I do too."

"No shit? You'd rather be back on the streets – than here?"

Sherman nodded his head, looked away. "I wasn't really ready to retire, whatever the hell that means. Sitting around doing nothing, drinking fruit punch and watching sunsets."

"Well hell, why don't you go back?"

"I'm dead, remember? Buried, at Forest Lawn. My name's been chiseled on a wall, too."

"You have a house there, don't you?"

"I did, yes. A friend is renting it, from – 'my estate.'" He spit out those last two words angrily, looked back at the island.

Collin's snorted. "It's hell being dead, ain't it, Spud."

Sherman looked down into the water. "So, what's down here?"

"Fuck if I know. Looks like it falls off fast. What does it show on the chart?"

"Sharp drop to 110 feet, a shelf on this side, then another steep drop-off. Real deep after that."

"Well, I can see the bottom. Thirty feet, anyway...looks like some coral, too..."

They both heard it then. The wump-wump-wump of a helicopter, turbine driven and making for the island at high speed.

"There he is," Collins said, pointing at the MH-60S Knighthawk as it skimmed the surface, heading straight for the cove where Gemini lay tethered to the rock. He turned the outboard's tiller and rolled the throttle open and the Zodiac began bouncing across the lite chop, back to the cove.

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"There they are, over there," the gunner onboard the Knighthawk said, pointing at the inflatable that had just pulled away from a rocky, crown-shaped islet. "Both of them."

The helicopter wheeled around and bore in on the Zodiac, then arced alongside as it skimmed across the water, it's two gunners leaning out the door, taking aim at the men in the Zodiac.

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"They don't exactly look happy to see us, Spud."

"I do believe that one in back is going to shoot us, Sumner..."

"Oh well...that's too bad."

The rear gunner disappeared, then the man by his side vanished as well.

"Ain't life a bitch, Spud?"

"I think that Rotorhead just shit his britches."

Collins could see Gemini's mast jutting up above the rocks now, and he slowed down to make the sharp turn into the narrow-walled cove. "Wonder what that was all about," he said, watching the helicopter turn and head back out to sea.

"Someone's not happy."

"Uh-huh. Well, this ain't gonna make 'em any happier, Spud."

Sherman looked at the girls standing on the aft deck; Liz and Carol waiting with arms crossed, Charley sitting beside Liz with a grin on her face, and then he saw the one they called Jenny. She was standing there too, her face impassively still, which, he knew, meant absolutely nothing. And he could just see someone sitting in the cockpit...a man...no, two men.

"Uh-oh. Trouble."

Collins perked up when he heard that, looked at the cockpit. "Damn. It's Smithfield. And who's that with him...oh...no..."

"Shit...that explains the helicopter."

"Yup." Collins tied-off the Zodiac and they both climbed aboard.

The Presidents, both of them, were sitting the cockpit, deep in shade and both looked dazed.

She was beside them now, the one Collins called Jennie, and the sight of her still unnerved him, left him feeling more than a little dazed. She was sitting on a hatch, looking at Sumner as he crawled over the coaming, and as he sat she 'spoke' to him – in her halting, fine-pitched voice.

"The effect is still hard to watch, like sitting on a rattlesnake, Smithfield told me," she said. "We are sorry."

"I know just how they feel," Collins said, looking at her. Perfectly human – aside from the pale, almost translucent blue of her skin. No hair – yet, she said – though maybe in time. She'd let him measure her once: 26 inches tall, 17 pounds, eyes the most piercing green he'd ever seen in his life. Fingers, toes: perfectly human – yet no breasts, absolutely no outward signs of function or gender – no anus, no vagina or penis. Completely asexual, yet even so Jennie was decidedly female –  and 'she' self-identified as such.

And the 'we are sorry' was still discomforting, too. They had no word for 'I', never identified as just one self – always to a collective. Linked, from creation onwards to their local community. No birth referred to, no parents – simply to a creation...

"This man's group was going to imprison Smithfield. We decided intervention was necessary. Sorry," this urJennifer said, "but life's a bitch."

"I see. This might cause a few problems."

"We have anticipated. The word Hope used is clusterfuck. Does this mean something to you?"

"Yup, that's the word. Can you send this one back?" Collins asked, pointing at the current President.

"Many vessels approach now, by both air and sea. Would it not be better to keep him here? Or should we place these vessels into a low earth orbit?"

"Let's not do that, okay? Ted, would you help me with him; let's get him into the Zodiac and run him out there."

Sherman was chewing a fingernail, looking at four Hornets circling the island at about 15,000 feet. "Sounds like a plan," he said as he and Collins helped the man stand...

"Where am I?" the President mumbled.

Sherman ignored him, helped him into the inflatable, then steadied the boat as Collins stepped aboard. They puttered out of the cove and into the open sea, and immediately saw an aircraft carrier and five frigates steaming their way.