Keep Quiet - 10. The alien

This morning, a cylindrical monolith hovers over London.

It is the only image on television, a live transmission coming from every channel. Every radio station on the planet, every news outlet, every newspaper, they all talk about one thing and one thing only: the object that came down from the sky, enormous, easily three times the size of any man-made skyscraper. It did not crash to the ground, however. It hovers. It waits.

The object, the ship, the UFO… Whatever people call it, its true nature remains a mystery to most. It is entirely featureless, a cylinder of polished black metal that appears to drink in the light and neither emits any sort of electromagnetic radiation nor appears to receive or reflect any of the ceaseless transmissions it has been bombarded with as the entire world tries, desperately, to make first contact. It has no discernible means of flight and the fact that it hovers less than a mile above Central London and yet gives off no energy signature of any kind has every single scientist puzzling over how such a thing is possible at all. It is silent, undetectable by radar, and invisible to every single detection mechanism we have except for our own eyes, photographs, and cameras. We would not know it is there but for the fact that we can see it in the sky. It seems almost like magic – but, then again, advanced technology will always seem like sorcery to the ignorant barbarians who see it for the first time. Scientists are asking the wrong questions right now. I wonder if I should call a news station somewhere and tell them: you should not be asking why the object won’t communicate. Its very presence is already a message. You should not be asking why none of our telescopes picked it up before. It has obviously been designed to be invisible in the blackness of space, its apparent inertness the cloak which kept it hidden from our detection until it decided to show itself. Why has it now revealed itself? This is the question we should be asking. What has changed, or what is about to happen? Is that thing a mere probe, like our own Voyager 1 or Voyager 2? Is it a ship, are there occupants inside? Or is it a weapon?

At first, people thought it was the Soviets. A declaration of war was issued by the United Kingdom and all its allies early this morning. Thirty minutes later it was withdrawn when it became obvious that the object did not come from this planet. People fear the usage of atomic weaponry against it as a preemptive measure and many are fleeing London if they can. Military forces from a dozen countries have been deployed and they have converged on Great Britain, patrolling the sky above and around the object, circling the seas, watching, waiting. No one knows what is happening and no one knows how to act. The tension cannot hold for much longer without breaking, I am sure. Even if the object does nothing else at all but hover silently, it is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, launches a missile or detonates a bomb out of nervousness or negligence or fear.

The next few hours will dictate the future of the entire human race. The irony of the fact that we may yet end up destroying ourselves because of our own stupidity is not lost on me.

I wonder if They know. Is the waiting deliberate? Is this mysterious silence a display of patience or a display of cruelty, or both?

I wonder what will happen next.

Here in America many news outlets are questioning the events, suggesting a hoax perhaps, urging people not to panic. They speak of the Roswell incident in the fifties and remind everyone that despite the craze, things turned out to be nothing out of the ordinary in the end. They suggest this is one of those scenarios. They keep telling everyone to just go to work and stay tuned in for any new developments.

I suppose they have been instructed to do so by the government. It is working, at least for now – as far as I can tell if I look out the window, the city of Albany hums along much as it has always done, with commuters coming and going on their vehicles, the mailman delivering mail, and people walking their dogs past my house as if nothing were the matter. I treasure these sights of normalcy because I know they will never return. This is no hoax.

This is the beginning of the end.

***

I waited in the darkness, shivering, for what felt like an eternity until I was certain that I was alone again in the pitch-black hallway. Only then did I open the gate which had kept me safe from my unidentified attacker. My legs trembled as I took my first step out into the hallway. I could not forget the evil shining eyes of the thing that had chased me, and I did not want to even hazard a guess as to what its true nature might have been. There were too many unknowns, too many mysteries piled upon mysteries. I knew, now, that by returning to this accursed Observatory I had stumbled onto something sinister and secret, something that surpassed all other strange occurrences which had taken place over the years on this site.

Step after hesitant step, I made my way down the hall in total darkness, trying to be as silent as possible so as to avoid detection in case that thing were still out there, somewhere. My mind was a jumble of fear and confusion.

I knew one thing for certain, however.

I needed answers.

I climbed the stairs which led out of the basement and it was only when I had shut the door of that awful place firmly behind me that I could relax, if only slightly. I was out of that darkness at last and I made my way quickly through the building until I reached the corridor which led to the bedrooms. My heart was pounding in my chest and I was sweating, but stronger than the fear or the urge to simply run away and never come back there was an angry sort of curiosity which needed to be satisfied. I needed to find Charles and demand an explanation. I did not care about the late hour. I would find him, even if I needed to wake up every last person in the household in order to do so.

I first made my way to Charles’s bedroom but it was empty. I walked back down the corridor and looked up when I reached the staircase which led to the attic.

The heavy reinforced door at the top was ajar.

I did not hesitate. I walked up the steps two at a time, breathing heavily, afraid of finding the thing which had chased me but also determined to put an end to the questions. I pushed the door aside when I reached it and stepped into a place which I remembered as a wide open space in which Charles had sometimes taken refuge and sought solitude in order to think.

It was nothing of the sort now. The place was… transformed.

It had been transformed into a laboratory, I could see. The heavy, unpleasant smells of chlorine, formaldehyde, and animal waste all assaulted my nostrils at the same time and threatened to make me retch. Under the illumination of several cold electric lights set on the ceiling, I was able to take in the entire scene in an instant. I saw several long, flat tables set at regular intervals all along the center of the rectangular space. Many of them were stacked high with equipment from the biology lab. Others held piles upon piles of books. Paper sheets of every size littered both the tables and the floor beneath, all of them covered with lines of notes in the tight scrawl which I recognized as Charles’s handwriting. A shelf to my right held dozens of jars and pots with liquids of various colors, many of them unlabeled. Another shelf, further down and standing between two of the large windows which offered a view of the grounds beyond held… Things. Things in jars, suspended in either alcohol, formaldehyde, or some other preserving agent. Some of them looked like fragments of living things, paws, eyes, inner organs. Others look like embryonic reptiles or mammals or birds. And still others I could not identify, but I must confess I averted my eyes before I could ascertain just what the horribly misshapen unborn things floating inside implied as to their origin.

My attention was drawn to the opposite wall without too much effort, for here I saw the cages.

Many of them were empty, but some were not, and by God, I wish they had been. I took another hesitant step forward but then stopped. It was all I could do to remain standing there, staring at the animals inside the cages, instead of running downstairs screaming in visceral fear.

Three cages had living things in them. In the first one, which was about three feet by three feet, I saw a creature which had often been in my nightmares over the past three years. It was a squirrel, larger than usual, standing perfectly still and staring at me with horribly intelligent eyes.

Time had changed it, however. It was now completely green, having lost all semblance of fur. Instead, moldy growths undulated over its skin like a horrible caricature of what fur should be. Its eyes were now a golden shade of green, and they glowed. They glowed just like the eyes of the thing in the basement. When I made as if to move forward again, the squirrel tilted its head in a gesture I could only interpret as idle curiosity. It looked at me, unblinkingly, and I could not shake off the impression that I was being analyzed, but not by a brainless animal.

Movement in the second cage drew my eyes. It was a larger cage, and inside it there was a cat, except it was not a cat. It could not be.

Cats do not have six legs.

The creature there stared at me as well, motionless, in complete silence. Its eyes did not glow, nor was its fur green, but I had the exact same impression as I watched its abominably deformed body as I did when I had watched the squirrel. I was being observed. I was being analyzed.

The third cage contained a featherless bird, large enough to be an eagle and yet with the shape and proportions of an ordinary pigeon. It was disgusting to look at, not only because of its lack of feathers which made it look like a plucked chicken, but because of the fact that there appeared to be something underneath its skin which undulated ceaselessly, pushing against it as if trying to break free. The misshapen creature must have been in agonizing pain and yet it also stood as if petrified, in absolute silence. Its eyes never blinked as it, too, stared in my direction.

I lifted my hand up to my face. All three animals followed the motion in unison.

I heard a groan then, muffled, coming from beneath the cages. I broke free of the horrified spell under which the discovery of the animals had seemed to put me and walked further into the lab. It was then that I saw Henry lying facedown on the floor, next to the largest cage of all, a cage big enough to hold a grown man, the door to which looked as if it had been torn open.

Despite my disgust, the fear, and the awful smell, I made my way forward and knelt beside Henry. I turned him over carefully, trying my best to ignore the stares of the three caged animals. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I also caught the faintest hint of motion from some of the things floating in jars on the shelf by the opposite wall, but I refused to look in that direction. Instead, I focused on trying to revive the unconscious youth before me.

“Henry. Henry, wake up!” I said, flinching at the very obvious effect which the sound of my words had on the creatures nearby. They moved at last, approaching the mesh of their cages, trying to get closer to me. Then they stopped and resumed their horrible staring.

Henry moaned again. He appeared to have hit the side of his head against the floor, judging from the bruise I could see and the blood running down his temple. I should have perhaps been more gentle and patient, waiting for him to come to his senses in due time, but the circumstances were anything but normal and I needed answers. I shook him several times until I finally got him to blink.

“Henry!” I called loudly. “Do you know where you are? This is Daniel. What happened here?”

He opened his eyes at last and focused on my face. He blinked twice as if confused, like a person who has been woken up suddenly in the middle of the night.

Then he sat bolt upright.

“Where is it?” he cried, but then he grimaced and brought his right hand up to his temple. He swayed weakly and I steadied him with my hands.

“Where is it?” I demanded. “Henry, answer me!”

He looked at me and, for the first time, appeared to realize that I was there. His eyes widened in alarm. “Mr. Fenton. What are you doing here?”

“Something attacked me in the basement. I need you to start talking. What is going on here?”

But Henry ignored my question, instead looking to the right, at the large empty cage next to us.

He started shaking.

“It got away. Dear God, it got away.”

I grabbed hold of his shirt, tugging on the sling in which he carried his wounded left arm by accident. He grimaced in pain.

“What got away?” I demanded.

He tried to jerk away from me but all he managed was to tear off the sling and expose his wounded arm.

I could not help but look. There was a bite mark there, and it looked infected. The edges of it were covered with blackened scar tissue, but some of it was… fuzzy…

I let go of him, recoiling, and jumped back onto my feet. Slowly, still in evident pain, Henry stood up as well. He leaned back against the cage with the squirrel and the animal inside did not reach for him or attack him in any way. I realized all of the animals were still looking at me.

My mind reached its breaking point quite suddenly and I turned around, intending to run away and never come back to this awful, godforsaken place.

As I did so, though, I saw Charles rushing up the stairs. He came to a shocked standstill at the threshold of the attic door. His clothing and his hair were soaked through.

“Where is she?” Charles demanded. He looked all around wildly, spraying water droplets everywhere. “Where is she?”

It was the last thing I expected him to say and so I stood still, dumbstruck.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” Henry whimpered behind me. “I was dizzy… She waited until I opened her cage to feed her and then…”

“No,” Charles whispered. He stepped forward a couple of steps, blinking quickly, as if his mind were racing. He started signing and appeared not to notice. Then that thing at the well… I thought…

“We need to catch her,” Henry said. I glanced back at him and saw he was swaying on his feet. His brow was beaded with sweat and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked really unwell. “We need to catch her before –”

“It’s too late,” Charles interrupted. He walked up to a table and leaned his hands on it as if he were under a great burden. “She’s gone. And just when we were finally getting her to talk!” He slammed his fist on the table with his last word. I started, surprised at the outburst. Then I saw how Charles reached up to his neck and clutched the fragment of meteorite that hung from its metallic chain around it.

It was my turn for an outburst.

“That’s it,” I said loudly. “That’s it! Charles, tell me what is going on here right now.”

He focused on me as if for the first time noticing, truly noticing, that I was there as well.

Danny, he signed. It’s nothing –

Don’t you DARE tell me it’s nothing, I said, my gestures violent, stepping forward until only the width of an examination table separated us. I was just downstairs in the basement. Something came for me, Charles. Something with eyes that were glowing just like that damned pendant you wear. I will ask just one more time. What is going on?

Charles looked at Henry fleetingly. I followed his glance, and I noticed how Henry’s knees buckled under him. Instinct took over. I rushed back and caught him before he could hit the floor, grunting under the youth’s weight. He was unconscious, I saw. His body felt clammy. Silently, I glared at Charles.

“Help me carry him downstairs,” I told him slowly. “Then, you talk.”

Charles nodded sheepishly, all traces of his previous anger apparently forgotten, and he swung Henry’s left arm over his shoulders while I did the same with the right. Together, awkwardly, we left the ghastly attic behind and stumbled down the stairs until we reached my room, which was the closest one. We dragged Henry to the bed and set him down with effort.

I’m going to call Mr. White, I told Charles. Henry needs a doctor.

But Charles shook his head. It’s no use, Danny. Doctors can’t help him. Sit down. I’ll tell you everything.

I hesitated. But no matter the antipathy I might have felt towards the youth, it was clear to me that he needed to go to a hospital as soon as possible.

I don’t know what’s going on, Charles, but I will not be an accomplice to negligence. I will be right back.

I walked down the hall and turned right at the corridor which led towards the servants’ quarters. I knocked on Mr. White’s door, pounding really, and he opened it a few seconds later, bleary-eyed.

“I am sorry to bother you at this late hour, Mr. White,” I said. “It appears Henry has fallen ill. Kindly see to it that a doctor is called right away, and if none is available, make all arrangements necessary to take Henry to the nearest hospital. You may use my car.”

I handed him the keys. It took him a moment to nod.

“Yes… Certainly, Mr. Fenton.”

“I would also greatly appreciate your being discreet about this whole matter,” I added. “I do not know what has happened to Henry, but it will not do to begin spreading rumors around. Do you understand?”

“I do,” he answered, standing up straight. Even in his pajamas, he managed to portray an air of calm efficiency for which I had never been more grateful.

“Thank you. I will be in my room with Henry and Mr. Wentworth while you sort things out.”

I turned around and hurried back. I found Charles sitting right where I had left him. He appeared not to mind his wet clothes at all. Henry was still lying on the bed, eyes closed, his breathing apparently shallow.

Now we talk, I said to Charles, sitting on the armchair opposite his. What is happening? What were those… things I saw upstairs? And what, just what attacked me in the cellar?

Charles took a shaky breath. He looked at the door once, as if contemplating either leaving or arguing. But then his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

It’s the meteorite, Danny, he said, his fingers quick as they danced through the air. It’s always been the meteorite. Do you remember the mold?

Yes, I answered, recalling the many times over the years that I had seen it, either around the crater or inside the property, like the day I had visited the maid, Ms. Avery, who had complained about its presence in her room.

Wait here, Charles told me.

I frowned but allowed him to leave since I couldn’t leave Henry alone. Charles hurried out the room and was back within a couple of minutes carrying a medium-sized fish tank in his arms. The tank must have been transparent and one point, but now it was a uniform shade of slate-green. Charles set it on a small coffee table beside my armchair. His expression, strangely enough, was… eager.

What’s this? I asked him.

For an answer, he opened the lid that had been covering the top of the fish tank. An overpowering stench of rotting vegetable matter wafted out from the open container. Inside, I saw mold. A lot of it.

Watch this, he signed. Then he reached his hand into the container.

“Don’t!” I cried out, but Charles ignored me. He plunged his hand into the velvety mass.

His fingers never touched it. The moment I thought his skin would come in contact with that thing, the mold shrank away from him, contracting to half its original size. Charles moved his hand around and the mold did its best to avoid being touched. Openmouthed, I watched the display for several horribly fascinating seconds. I cannot help but be reminded of certain species of anemones which will retract their tentacles when they sense danger nearby. This was the same thing. Somehow, simple vegetable mold was able to sense that Charles’s hand was nearby and it appeared not to like it.

Why is it doing that? I asked him.

That’s not all, he replied. Now watch this.

Charles slipped off his pendant and hung the fragment of meteorite over the fish tank.

Slowly, so faintly at first that I thought my eyes were deceiving me, the tips of the mold stalks in the tank began to luminesce. It was that same light, that very same gold-green light that by now I had grown to hate. As if in reply, the core of the meteorite fragment gave off a soft glow of its own.

Charles put on his pendant after a few seconds, closed the lid of the tank, and set it down on the floor so it would be out of sight. Aghast, I again saw that, far from being horrified, he looked fascinated. Pleased. He was very nearly smiling.

Charles. Explain.

I think the mold is a new kind of life form, Danny, he said, and he could not stop himself from grasping his pendant for an instant. It must have come inside the meteorite. Do you remember how cold it was when we found it first? I have long thought about that, and many other things. Any sort of biological agent a meteorite could house would surely be destroyed by the enormous heat of atmospheric reentry and eventual impact, would it not? But what if it had, somehow, been designed to keep its contents cold so they could survive and take purchase after reaching a new world?

What are you saying? I gestured, although I knew very well what he was implying.

This mold is an alien organism. It has to be. It’s too different. I have studied it for years now, and it’s… Danny, it’s fascinating!

I shook my head slowly, horrified. My logical mind came forward, I suspect, as a kind of defense against the unbelievable things I was hearing. Charles, consider Occam’s razor. A far simpler explanation is bound to be the correct one. This mold looks like any other mold, even if it behaves differently. You cannot say –

Oh, but I can, he interrupted me. I exhausted every other possibility. I was patient. I experimented. I observed. Danny, this mold does things to other living creatures, things that nothing on Earth would be able to do. You saw the creatures in the lab upstairs.

Those monsters?

Monsters? he echoed, frowning, as if the thought had never occurred to him. Rather, advances. Hybrids. Most of them failures, yes. But it’s part of evolution, is it not? Trial and error. Mutation and eventual success.

I shuddered, thinking of the misshapen animals I had seen in those cages. What purpose could such horrible mutations serve?

Here, incredibly, Charles grinned. His expression reminded me very sharply of the way he would smile whenever I arrived, on my own, at a conclusion he had carefully guided me to.

Exactly, Danny. Well asked. Why has this alien thing come? How was it sent here, and for what purpose?

We do not know it is alien, I countered.

It is. I understand your reticence. It took me years to reach these conclusions and you have had less than a few hours to process this entire experience. Nevertheless, I am certain you will arrive at the same conclusion I have. This mold comes from a different planet and the vehicle it used to travel between the stars was designed.

It was a meteorite, I reminded him. A horrible fluke of nature which killed your entire family.

Charles grimaced slightly and, although it had been a low blow, I was glad to see that he could still feel bad about that ancient tragedy.

“Do you remember that night?” Charles asked me, turning his back to me so he would be able to look out the window, arms crossed behind his back.

“Yes,” I said softly. I doubted he heard me.

He continued, nevertheless.

“Perhaps you have forgotten one detail, Danny. Or perhaps you did not see. Do you remember how closely we were following the thing I thought was a comet? Do you remember how my calculations showed clearly that it would come close but not impact with the Earth?”

“Of course,” I replied, stepping forward and raising the volume of my voice a little bit. I looked out the window and saw nothing but darkness through the glass, but in my mind’s eye I could see that night once again.

“I wasn’t wrong, you know,” Charles said quietly. “My calculations were correct. But there was a flash of light, do you remember? An unexpected flash of light. And the trajectory of the comet changed.”

I blinked. I did remember that. I hadn’t thought about it for years, but he was right.

“What happened?” Charles went on. “What changed, why the light? It was calculated, Danny. It must have been an explosion of some kind. Fuel burning in the void. Bright chemical exhaust. Something. And its ultimate consequence was to alter the trajectory of the comet so it would impact. It was planned.”

“Nonsense.”

He turned to look at me. “Really? I have gone over that night hundreds of times, thousands. At first I had doubts but no longer. This thing, this object, was sent to our planet. Some form of intelligence, whether directly present or long ago programmed in some way, directed the comet so that it would enter our atmosphere and deliver its payload. The vessel itself was carefully engineered. Remember the odd coolness of the meteorite when you found it. No material on Earth is able to sustain such a temperature differential in the absence of active energy production. And why bother keeping the inside cool, if not to protect the delicate biological cells it housed? The entire system is a masterpiece. It is an incredibly efficient way to send living biological matter across the vast empty expanses of space in such a way as to ensure that the contents will have a survival chance after impact. Can you imagine the inherent complexities of creating such a machine? We are in the presence of either great genius, or nearly incomprehensible technological advancement. Maybe both.”

I shook my head. Cold sweat beaded on my temples. “Maybe. But even so, it does not change the fact that this thing is evil. It corrupts everything it touches. Like the things in your lab… Or this odd luminescing mold… Or the thing that attacked me downstairs.”

A shadow of worry appeared to pass over Charles’s features but then he frowned as if pushing it aside. “You would have been in no real danger. She was much too weak. And just when I was about to get her to communicate…”

“She?”

“Ms. Avery, of course. We kept her upstairs for the better part of three years. It’s ironic that only now, when the corruption had truly spread –”

“What? Charles, was I attacked by the maid, Ms. Avery? The one who disappeared three years ago? The one who somehow returned to her village in the middle of winter when we all thought she had died?”

“Yes. Her family sent her back to me eventually. They said she kept escaping and wandering off in the direction of the Observatory. It was about six months after you left. They said they could no longer care for her and so they entrusted her to me. I kept her upstairs while her condition worsened. It was fascinating to witness. She had been infected by the mold but, somehow, it was nowhere near as aggressive with her as it had been with the reporter, Eoin Caine. You remember him, yes? We read his journal.”

Flashes of memory swept past my mind. I remembered the increasingly desperate notes I had read in those pages.

“Caine must have died within a week of infection,” Charles continued, seemingly oblivious as to the growing horror plainly visible in my face. “Ms. Avery did not. I’m not sure, Danny, but I think the mold was somehow… learning. When it killed those missing hikers all those years ago, it was almost instantaneous. A single night and they all went insane. With Caine it took a week. Ms. Avery is still alive, in a way. The life form is making progress. It is adapting itself better to inhabiting terrestrial organisms without killing them. You should take a walk through the woods around the crater if you can. You’ll see a lot of squirrels… They always watch me when I get close. Silently. Like the one that sneaked into our bedroom that night. They are all green now, no traces of silver fur anywhere. Their eyes are… different...”

“This is madness,” I whispered. I took a step back from him. I did not know what horrified me more: the possibility that he had gone insane and all he was saying was a figment of his overactive imagination, or that he was speaking the truth word for word.

“Quite the opposite, Danny. We are in the presence of intelligent life even if you find it hard to accept it. There is a purpose behind this invasion, if indeed an invasion it is.”

“And just what purpose is that?”

I don’t know, he signed, reverting back to silent language without appearing to notice. I have tried to find out. I was making progress, but now she’s gone. Is it hostile? Is it slowly taking over the planet? There is so much to learn… So much…

Charles, this needs to stop. Look right there! I gestured, sweeping my hand in the direction of Henry’s prostrate figure. The authorities need to be notified. Whatever this is, it’s dangerous. We must let other people know –

“NO!” Charles screamed. “No. Not when I’m so close. We must know, Danny. I must know. Why is the alien here? Why did it come? Is it one or many? Is the mold conscious? Or can it only attain consciousness if linked to a living creature? Even if it’s going to destroy us, we can learn so much before then! All this time I have been hopelessly beaming out information to the stars, hoping to get a reply, and the reply has been here all along! Don’t you see? I… I… I need to go to the crater. I need to find Ms. Avery before she –”

At that moment, someone knocked at the door and a moment later Mr. White entered the room. He had changed into clean clothes.

“The doctor at Tupper Lake cannot travel here, Mr. Fenton,” Mr. White notified me. “He nevertheless agreed to be awake and ready by the time Henry is transported over to him. I have prepared your car, as you asked.”

“Good,” I replied before Charles could get a word in. “Get two of the cooks to help you carry Henry over to the car and take him there posthaste. You will drive, Mr. White. you know the road to the village far better than I.”

He nodded. “And you, sirs?”

I looked at Charles. He appeared conflicted. He looked at me, at Henry, at me again.

Then that abominable pendant of his began to glow.

I’m sorry, Danny, he said. I must know. I must.

Then he took off running, faster than I had ever seen him move before in my life, roughly pushing Mr. White aside.

It took me a moment to recover from the surprise and then I sprinted after him.

“Get Henry to a doctor!” I yelled at Mr. White as I rushed out of the room.

Then I ran, trying to catch up to Charles even if I could not see him anymore. From far off, I heard a heavy door being slammed. My own footsteps pounded down the hallway as I made my way to the place where I knew Charles must have gone. It was the only place he could go.

The crater.