Emma couldn’t look away from that visage — his tiny, dark eyes stared out from under a jutting, shelf-like brow-ridge, and his jaw was weak and receding. Hair grew all the way down to his bushy eyebrows, on his cheeks, and sides of his face, as well as hanging long and wiry hair to his shoulders.
“Don’t stare,” Zach said. “It’s rude and they don’t like it.”
Zach leaned between them and made some shapes with his hands. The small eyes of the deformed-looking guy followed his fingers for a moment and then looked like he snorted from wide nostrils before moving on.
“The Neans are okay.” Zach sat back. “But they really hate being stared at just ‘cause they’re a bit ugly.”
Emma and Ben watched as the hunched man crossed the road in a bow-legged gait to join with more people exactly like him — men and women.
“Neans,” Emma said softly.
“As in, Neanderthals.” Ben half turned. “How long have you known about them?”
“Huh?” Zach frowned. “About the Neans?” His frown deepened and his mouth curled up a little in the corners as though waiting for the punch line. When it didn’t come, he went on. “Like forever.”
“What do they do?” Emma asked.
“The tough stuff usually. They’re really strong.” He pointed. “See the guy in the blue cap? That’s Gorin; he’s the Ohio state arm-wrestling champion.”
Ben and Emma continued to stare, and Zach sighed theatrically.
“Can we go now?”
Ben and Emma looked at each other, and she could tell exactly what Ben was thinking: the Neanderthals never died out in this version of reality. The next version they might be gone again, but one thing was for sure: the changes were now working their way up the evolutionary chain and were about to reach them. They might be next.
“Yeah, sure, buddy. The peanut, bacon, and egg burgers are on me.” Ben glanced again out the window at the group of powerfully built hominids. And Emma noticed that he slumped a little in his seat.
PART 2 — JUST A SINGLE TICK ON THE EVOLUTIONARY CLOCK
“Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them.”
CHAPTER 23
“Impossible.” Jim Henson stared into the viewing piece of the 12.5-inch Newtonian reflector. The massive steel tube was now pitted with rust spots on the outside but was too expensive to replace and even cleaning the entire telescopic infrastructure was a bitch.
However, inside the highly polished glass lenses and mirrors, plus large view aperture, still gave the man crisp images of the solar system. Henson typed rapidly into his computer and then stared.
“Predictive position plotting now gives us a 91 % chance of a strike.” He sat back. “This is big.”
Andy Gallagher leaned away from his computer screen. “P/2018-YG874, Primordia, has had close calls before. Besides, it’s basically a massive chunk of iron. It’ll survive.”
Henson typed and shook his head. “Primordia is huge, but this little guy is no lightweight. Its composition is… ” He read from his screen, “… around 20 % being a mixture of nickel, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, magnesium, plus some osmium, ruthenium, and rhodium thrown in for good measure. But its base, and 80 % of its composition, is also solid damn iron.” He looked up. “It’s an astral ball bearing.”
Gallagher bobbed his head. “A ball bearing meets a wrecking ball — no contest. My money is still on a no-strike — they’ll miss by a thousand miles.”
“You’re forgetting something.” Henson folded his arms on top of his prodigious belly. “Primordia is magnetic.”
CHAPTER 24
Emma and Zach dropped Ben at the airport and she pulled in at a far runway, slowed, and then stopped. He sucked in a huge breath and stepped out.
Ben immediately saw at the end of one of the longest runways a massive airplane sitting there.
“Wow, Dad, is that one yours?” Zach grabbed his arm and hung on, his mouth hanging in an open-mouthed grin.
“Yep, that’d be it — the LRS-B.” Ben could just make out Drake as well as his mercenaries standing around outside. But the airplane exceeded his expectations. It was a retired Long-Range Strike bomber, or LRS-B — matte-black in its radar-reflective paint, looking like some sort of hulking metallic bat.
“Looks fast,” Zach said.
“Subsonic maximum speed. And it can fly for 5,000 miles before we need to refuel.” He looked down and smiled. “In mid-air.”
“Oh wow.” Zach nodded. “I so want to go on it.”
“Looks fast, and expensive,” Emma said, standing beside him and folding her arms. “Does the military know you are stealing one of their stealth planes?”
“Hiring, not stealing, and at great cost. And the LRS-B is an obsolete model now, even though it still has state-of-the-art propulsion, computer systems, radar technology, and can even withstand heavy weapons attack.” He winked at her. “And you don’t want to know what it’s costing to hire it, including a pilot, fuel, a drop-crate, plus extras.”
“The GDP of a small country, I bet.” She lifted her chin. “But worth it I guess to get there fast and without anyone asking too many questions.”
“Yeah, the radar deflection alone will allow us to sneak into South America without them even knowing about it.” Ben got Zach in a headlock. “Hey, I’ll give you a tour when I get back, promise.”
Zach nodded and laughed, and then pointed to the men and women watching them from in front of the bomber. “Are they your friends?”
Ben turned, first to the group and then back to Emma. She rolled her eyes. “Friends, yeah.”
Ben just smiled. “Well, they’re definitely going to be my travel buddies. But my real friends Drake and Helen are there.”
Zach stared for a while and then turned his large eyes up to him. “Dad?”
“Yeah?” Ben crouched and Zach dropped his gaze to his shoes. He wiped his nose. “What’s up, buddy?”
Zach continued to keep his head down and when he spoke, his voice was tiny. “I don’t want you to go. I have a funny feeling in my tummy.”
“A pain?” Ben grabbed his shoulders.
He shook his head. “Just… can you not go this time, and maybe just your friends go?”
Ben hugged him, and for a second, he wanted to jump back in the car and go home and lock the doors. He wanted to spend whatever time they had left with the people he loved most in the world.
Zach sniffed, wiped his nose again, and then reached out to grab Ben’s sleeve with his fingertips. Ben felt the agony of indecision; if he went home, they might have months, weeks, or only days together before things changed to become insane. But if he went and was successful, they may have the rest of their lives together.
There was no choice. “I’ve got to, Zachy. But wherever I am, know that I’m thinking of you. And I’ll feel good knowing that you’re thinking about me.” He raised the boy’s chin to look into his eyes and leaned forward to whisper, “I’ll also feel good that you’re here to protect your mom. She gets a little scared by herself.” He leaned back. “Can you do that?”
Zach gave him a tiny smile and nodded.
“That’s my boy.” Ben hugged him again.
Zach held his arm for a moment. “Can you bring me something back?”