In the Solar System: Present Day

Dom could not contain himself. His excitement was contagious throughout the Collective. The Explorer had slowed and was closing rapidly on its destination on the back side of the sub planet called the Moon of the planet called Earth.

He now knew everything about Earth and its inhabitants. He was pleased that these warlike people had not annihilated themselves, but had become more peaceful and concerned about their planet. But there was still danger in its burgeoning population and unbridled industrialization. Dom was pleased at how well humans had predicted global warming. He was, however, disturbed by the lack of understanding of the catastrophic effects of it. Or, the profound effect overpopulation would have on the land and water, with as yet unknown poisons released and new diseases running rampant without cure. They did not know how close they were coming to the end. A fiery end with a huge meteor hit was far less likely than a slow, strangling death, with no food, no clean water, and no pure air to breathe.

The back side of the Moon was chosen because Earth's inhabitants were so prone to panic when faced with the unknown. Dom and the Collective wanted no fore warning from which these warlike creatures could mount some sort of response that would hamper or slow the speed of the relief. Parking there, unseen or sensed, would allow them to deploy the relief mechanism.

It was simple. Humans were hunters and gatherers. Their brains were directly connected, through the visual cortex to their eyes. Humans learned almost everything through seeing. The auditory sense was important too. So, plans were to use the auditory sense to help bring people into the visual sense. So, the Senses had developed a way to reach six billion inhabitants nearly at once.

In the great room, the model of Earth had grown. It was now a nearly perfect one ten thousandth scale model. Around Earth, in fixed orbit, were three glowing pearlescent balls, each one thousand kilometers in scale diameter. Placed in geosynchronous orbit, 18,000 miles from the surface, the Sense Projectors did not have to be that large. However, there was a need for them to be seen.

The Sense Projectors had been in preparation for rotations. Within, they contained the knowledge of both the Collective and Universal Intelligences, and the power of the Senses. Fully maneuverable, they contained asteroid dust fuel and a drive similar to the Explorer for their short journey to their destinations. The surface of each ball was an energy projector that turned off and on from the Senses inside. For the journey, the surface would be turned off, giving no visual or other indication of their presence. The Earth's defense, weather, and astronomical systems were well known and easily thwarted with Sensor designed nullifying information. The Sense Projectors would be invisible as they moved into place.

Even the Senses could not control the ball from the back side of the Moon or Earth. The three Sense Projectors had synchronized their Senses so that, although the journeys would be of different length, all would arrive at the same time and effect the relief at the same time, the Earth over.

There was no timetable. Relief would commence when the Sense Projectors were in position.

Washington DC: A Mid Winter Night

After the flurry over his decendency from the storied ice man, Otzi, Albert had settled into relative anonymity. He dated some of his fellow faculty members, and some of the career women that DC is known for, but he could not find one who could measure up. His bipolar existence, shunting from his full time teaching in DC to his dedicated little wilderness, left little time to establish a relationship.

As was his department's custom, Albert had one night class. He had arrived home after his 3 PM class, checked his mail, then his email. Paid some bills from his computer, then settle into correcting experiment reports from Microbiology 301. There were 43 reports from two classes, so it took him some time. When he finished, it was already 5:15. He flipped on the early news and watched from the kitchen. He broiled a couple of venison steaks he'd left out to thaw in the morning, microwaved an Idaho potato, and some beans he'd harvested from his garden in the UP.

Albert stood at the counter, eating and watching the news, washing it down with some current wine he'd made the summer before. Nothing special on the news that evening. Soon it was 6:30 and time to go.

He put the papers he'd corrected into his pack, bundled up against the cold, and headed out into the street. He loved the six block walk to the University in any season, but these winter trips were invigorating. It was 17 degrees that evening, so he pulled his hood up and wore his fur-lined gloves. He walked quickly. His breath puffing clouds as he walked. The streets were well lit and white from a recent snow, but nearly deserted.

Albert's class, Biology 420, was well attended. The cold and the fact that most of his students had full-time jobs did not deter them from coming and earning their degrees part-time. He admired their perseverance. He had gone to school full time, in a different era and culture. By 9:15, the lab had cleared out. He packed his backpack again and headed out onto the deserted campus. Just Albert and his thoughts, walking home on a cold city night. He could hear each step as the heels of his boots hit the sidewalk. His cell phone rang in his pack, forcing him to stop the cadence he was keeping. "Damn!" he thought, "Who could be calling me now." He enjoyed these solitary walks and rarely talked to anyone while he was walking.

Albert dropped his pack on a snowbank and pulled out the phone. An unfamiliar, but very pleasant, female voice said, "Continue to the intersection with L Street and look left, you won't be disappointed," the hung up.

Albert thought, "That's strange? Well, ..., I'm going that way anyway. Guess it won't hurt to have a look." As he started that way again, people were already pouring into the street.

The Galaxy Explorer on the Back Side of the Moon

Approaching at a fraction of the speed of light, the Explorer had slipped into the Earth's Solar System without detection. The ship was nearly as big as the Moon, but hid nicely behind it, its drive maintaining a constant five thousand kilometer distance from the Moon's surface, constantly correcting to keep it positioned in that spot as the Moon rotated around the Earth. The Moon's meager gravity and slow rotation made this holding position easy for the Senses to maintain.

Dom and the others watched as the portal opened and the three Sense Projectors deployed. It was as though the Explorer, finally, had given birth. They watched as the Projectors accelerated around the Moon, then with neutrino penetrators through the Moon and Earth as the Projectors in a simultaneous ballet of great beauty and anticipation. For the moment, normal communication was lost, the Projectors were on their own.

Back on Earth The street was alive with activity. Cars were stopping and their occupants spilling out, left with their doors open and the engines running. People were running, walking, limping, in wheelchairs, and even being carried on stretchers from a nearby hospital. They were in various states of dress, but most had thrown on heavy coats against the night cold. The exhaust from the stopped cars and breath from the moving mass filled the air with a quickly evaporating fog, made even more strange because the night had become almost as bright as the day, a moonlight far brighter than any he had ever seen. Albert felt like he was in some strange Marathon, only he didn't have far to run. Up the block, people were running toward him. Everyone was turning the corner at L Street. Albert, running fast now, was one of the first to turn the corner.

What he saw was not in the street, quickly filling with everyone from the half block on either side, but in the sky. To the southwest, about at a forty-five degree angle from where he was running, was a Moon-like object in the sky. It appeared more than twice the size of the Moon or Sun and glowed with a pearl-like light that lit the street and cast dark shadows. Transfixed, he stopped running, and stared at it. Then he heard it, the others were singing a strange, yet very beautiful, song.

The Moon before him grew and changed colors until it filled the sky. He focused on the center, from which the colors burst forth. A psychedelic wave flowed into him. But he felt good, relieved, and warm. He was in a dream of the ages. He was singing.

Then, it was over. The huge moon was still in the sky, but he no longer saw the vision. He didn't need to. He understood. He was relieved. But his work was not over. He stood for a moment, observing others, standing, or on their knees. With multicolored beams flowing from the Moon, directly in each's eyes as they stood, paralyzed by the sight, their eyes wide open and singing. The chorus of human voices, acuppella, was better than any he'd ever heard. And he new what they were singing. He bolted and ran.

Albert headed back up the block he'd come. He ran like he had as a child. He had forgotten what it was like to run pain. The abandoned cars were still there, running, but the street was now empty--almost. Quickly, he reached a walkdown to a basement apartment in a brick building. One set of old tracks marked the two inches of new snow on the steps. Through the single window, it was dark inside. Albert had never been a burglar, but he quickly swung his bag down, reach in for his Swiss Army knife, selected the right tool, and picked the lock.

When the door opened, a tepid warmness greeted him, but also the unmistakable smell of near death. He pushed the door open and found a light switch. What greeted him was a dirty little living room with worn furniture. A kitchen off the living room was empty. When he turned on the light to the back bedroom, smelling strongly of urine and worse, he made out the form of a man lying on the bed, near comatose, his tongue out, drooling, and his eyes open, fixed on some imaginary spot on the ceiling.

There was tackboard next to the bed with some notes tacked to it, and, what appeared to be a nursing schedule. There was no time to wait for a nurse. Albert found a robe and pulled off the covers. The man, who appeared to be in his nineties, with the affects of a stoke or Alzheimer's, tried to resist, but Albert spoke softly and calmed him. He was tall, close to six feet, but he was skin and bones and weighed little more than a hundred. He and the sheets were dirty, but Albert didn't bother with that. He just rolled the man over enough to get the robe on. Then, back in the living room, he found a dusty, unused folding wheelchair and brought it into the bedroom.

He gathered the frail old man in his arms and gently lifted him to the chair. He had stockings on his feet. Albert found some slippers and put them on him, then he took two of the cleanest blankets and tucked them in around him. The old man just stared straight ahead and drooled, a slight smile on his face. Albert had left the front door open, and it was getting very cold. He wheeled the man out and closed the door behind him. His feet were sure as he pulled the chair up, step by step, to the street. It was still empty.

When he again arrived at the corner, the throngs were gone, but there were a few people in wheelchairs, hospital beds, and stretchers, attended by others on L Street, in the light of the new moon, getting their relief.

The old man seemed to recognize the bright object in the sky, and stared at it. Soon the multicolored beam, like a benign lightning bolt, struck the man in the eyes. Albert was now observing what had happened to him. Soon, the man was singing in a deep, but beautiful voice. It was in a strange language, but Albert understood it. He now understood everything.

It took fifteen minutes, but the old man changed. His eyes became clear and bright, and his pallid cheeks became rosy with new vitality against the cold. The beam evaporated as quickly as it came. He turned to Albert and spoke: "Hello Albert, thanks for saving me. My name is George. (Albert knew his name before he spoke it, but it was wonderful to hear him speak it.) I feel so relieved. Well, we'd better be heading back."

With that, the old man rose from his wheelchair, retied his robe and wrapped the blankets around himself in a makeshift, but adequate coat, and turned the chair around to begin pushing it toward home. "Looks like we've got work to do," he said. Albert knew, but the idea of work had already changed. He walked back to his apartment with George by his side, listening to wonderful tales from George's long life.