When she was done, Constantine continued to stare at her, a look of wariness behind his steel-gray eyes. Understandable, she supposed as she returned his stare; Emily knew he probably possessed a highly tuned bullshit detector after years of navy service, but he must also be a highly intelligent pragmatist to have achieved the position of Captain of a nuclear submarine. It wasn’t like they handed out those positions to just anyone, after all. Still, his inscrutable gaze made her uneasy.
“You know,” he said, finally unfurling his fingers from beneath his chin. “I think I will have that drink after all.”
Jacob poured two fingers of whisky into a glass and handed it to Constantine. The captain downed the whisky in one go and set the glass aside, smacking his lips in appreciation.
“I hope you will forgive my bluntness, Emily,” the captain said, “but apart from your own eyewitness account, do you have any other proof—not that I am questioning your honesty, of course—but do you have any physical evidence to back up your account. Photos maybe?”
Not for the first time since leaving Manhattan did Emily give herself a mental kick in the ass for not thinking to take her camera. She had left it behind with almost everything else she owned in her apartment, an unforgivable sin for any journalist, but all the more so considering the incredible sights she had witnessed. There had been mitigating circumstances of course; like trying to escape from a city whose population had turned into an alien menace, but still. A couple of pictures of the aliens or even some video footage would have made explaining what had happened so much easier.
“No, nothing tangible that I can give to you or show you. Not unless you’re willing to travel back to Fairbanks with me at some point.”
Rhiannon had taken the seat next to Emily, sitting quietly while the adults talked. “Emily wouldn’t lie,” she said, suddenly interrupting. “I saw the monsters too. They murdered my daddy…” Her cheeks flushed almost as scarlet as the storm clouds surrounding their tiny island, her bottom lip quivering as she struggled to find the words, “…and my baby brother. They would have killed me too if Emily and Thor hadn’t saved me.”
Rhiannon’s voice trailed off when Emily laid a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. “It’s okay,” Emily said, smiling reassuringly. Rhiannon leaned in closer to Emily, a trickle of tears moist against her cheeks. Emily glanced at Jacob for some support of her story.
“Perhaps if we can get in touch with Commander Mulligan, she could at least tell you what she saw,” Jacob said.
“Commander Mulligan? Is she a member of your military?”
“She’s a Brit, like you,” said Emily.
“Oh!” said the captain, suddenly brightening, “You mean that Commander Mulligan, of the International Space Station fame? You’ve been in contact with her?”
All contact had been lost with the commander of the ISS and her crew, a consequence of the wild electromagnetic activity created by the huge storm that had blanketed North America, and Emily explained this to the captain.
“She’d be able to confirm what she saw on the first day, but not what I saw.” Emily leaned toward the sub commander. “Captain, I’ve gone through this experience once already with Simon, Rhiannon’s father; our lack of knowledge of just how dangerous the world had become cost him and his son their lives. I understand that you have a crew to worry about, but I have nothing to gain by lying to you—this is no longer our planet, and the sooner both you and your crew come to terms with that fact, the longer we all will live.”
“She’s telling the truth,” insisted Rhiannon.
Jacob nodded his agreement as he sipped from his glass.
“I believe you, Emily. At least, I believe that you believe what you saw was real. And, given the lack of evidence to the contrary, I think it would be foolish of me not to assume that you know what you’re talking about. But surely there could be other reasons. I mean, aliens?”
“Of course there could be other explanations,” said Jacob, finally coming to Emily’s defense. “It’s possible that the creatures Emily encountered were the result of some genetic experiment gone awry. It’s possible that the red rain and the storm are both just some natural beat within the ecosystem or some geological event. But Occam’s razor favors Emily’s account; the simplest answer is probably the correct one. Factor in that she is the only person we are aware of to have come into direct contact with the red rain and lived to talk about it, then logic seems, at least to me, to dictate that she is telling the truth. In short, listen to what she’s telling you, Captain.”
Constantine now regarded all three individuals sitting in front of him with a laser-sharp focus, his eyes moving from person to person, lingering momentarily as he considered them with an air of quiet intensity.
Eventually, he simply nodded. “If you will excuse me,” he said, standing and offering Jacob his hand again, “I have dead I need to bury.”
Given their circumstances and the storm that now lurked menacingly on the horizon, Captain Constantine eschewed the traditional burial at sea for his men. Instead, they chose a spot at the easternmost tip of the island. Four graves, shallow given the toughness of the frozen ground, lay in a row before the gathered mourners, each marked with a rough headstone denoting the name, rank, and date of death of the grave’s new occupant. Even though the wind had quieted somewhat, the temperature was still fifteen below, cold enough to freeze the tears in the mourners’ eyes. The group of crew members and Emily and Rhiannon stood quietly, shuffling from foot to foot to keep warm as Captain Constantine read a brief eulogy for each of the dead men; then, in his deep baritone, he read from a small, well-thumbed book of poetry clasped awkwardly in his gloved hands.
When he was finished he closed the book and slipped it back into his winter coat. Without another word, chilled and with a tangible sense of depression clinging to the air, the group left the dead to their new home and crunched their way back to the station.
CHAPTER 2
“Knock, knock.”
Captain Constantine and Jimmy MacAlister glanced up from their conversation to see Emily and Rhiannon standing in the doorway of the makeshift office he had chosen, hidden away at the back of the hospital building. The desk had a collection of maps, a laptop computer, and notebooks brought from the Vengeance strewn across it. The captain and MacAlister had been poring over the maps when Emily interrupted them.
She felt her cheeks flush as Jimmy’s face broke into a wide smile when he saw her. “Sorry to disturb you, but do you have a moment, Captain?” she asked.
“Of course, come on in. Excuse the mess.”
“No, thank you,” Emily said to the offer of a chair from MacAlister. “We’re beginning to feel like the proverbial fifth-wheel around here,” she began. “Your crew have been working around the clock over the past forty-eight hours, they look exhausted. There must be something that I can do to help?”
“Me too,” chirped Rhiannon. “I want to help too.”
The captain chuckled. “That’s what I like to see, enthusiasm in the youth of today. Let’s see: Sergeant MacAlister, is there anything that Emily and her young assistant can help with around here?”
“Aye, skipper. I think we have a few job opportunities available,” the soldier said with an even broader smile than usual. “Emily. Rhiannon. If you would like to follow me?” MacAlister escorted Emily and Rhia back up the corridor to the main hospital area.