Something is coming toward earth. Only a few select people know it is not simply an asteroid due to pass by earth, its a visitor, and they will do anything to prevent that news from getting out.
The World Space Organization controls what goes on in space and is in the process of terraforming the planet Mars. In this future time the WSO orchestrates the arrest and disappearance of three astronomers who have been caught with information the WSO considers classified.
One of these three scientists is Frank Bishop a man who has experienced a jolt of hyper-space from an experimental engine which put his mind in touch with the cosmos itself. This jolt also changed his body so that he cannot age.
The information that got the scientists in trouble was the fact that a mysterious meteor approaching the star system is not a meteor but a huge space ship. The three scientists are taken to Florida to WSO headquarters where they are put under house arrest and permitted to work with the WSO on the mystery of the approaching ship.
Investigating their disappearance, publicly declared to be an act of abduction by anty-teraform radicals, is Detective Abraham Lisk. After the death of an anty-teraform activist he comes south and begins to watch the WSO complex.
WSO security arrests him and puts him in with the three scientists who have been given a small house on the grounds. When the four are alone Frank announces that he has been communicating mentally with the ship and he knows why it is coming. It is coming to give mankind a warning, a gift and to take him away. To be an immortal on earth is not a pleasant fate.
With Lisk’s help they cross the WSO compound to a shuttle launching station and steal a small ship. They take this ship out to the huge meteor like craft where they see hallways and doors decorated with symbols of faith from human history.
In the center of a huge black hall Frank climbs into a stone sarcophagus and is covered up by a mysterious mist before the lid to the sarcophagus closes. On their way back to the ship the three pick up a huge scroll that has been left for them by the unseen force directing the ship. Once in the shuttle they press the auto-pilot as Frank instructed and are shocked into insensibility by sudden movement. When they wake they find that they are in the Arizona desert and every circuit in the shuttle, a ship used by the military, has self-destructed.
They are picked up by a native of the area who rides across the desert leading three ponies. He takes them to his home village where the entire village has gathered in a building along with a collection of people of faith who were pulled there by dreams and visions.
They learn from these people that the "meteor" they were aboard circled the earth so that every place on earth could come in contact with its sparkling tail then shot off into space. A great many miracles happened at that time but the greatest of them consisted of the fact that all military weapons from a common solders gun to biological weapons to weapons grade plutonium has been destroyed.
The story ends with the youngest member of the three travelers putting the scroll down on the table unrolling it to the beginning of what is written and reading:
"In the beginning..."
Excerpt
The whispering wouldn’t be ignored. It battered at his mind, insisting to be heard. He gripped his head and screamed against the torture, denying the reality of what his senses were telling him. Falling to the floor in a room he didn’t remember, Frank Bishop looked up at a round window three feet across and five inches thick. He was on the moon. Beyond the vista of rocks, mountains and craters visible from this portal, was a view of the stars unequaled anywhere on earth. It was there where the sounds were born.
Jerking awake, Frank slowly sat up in bed. He was soaked in sweat. His heart was racing. He had no idea why. He only knew it had happened way too many times for comfort.
Frank looked down on the floor at the university psychology textbook. The thing had an extensive technical explanation of dreams and dreaming, but the conclusion the authors came to was remarkably prosaic. The book stated quite clearly that some dreams meant something, some didn’t. In the long run, both the worst and most meaningful were just dreams.
“It’s just a dream, Franky,” he muttered to himself. “You can’t even remember it that well can you? I turn to PhD’s for help and they tell me the same thing a mother with a grade school education would tell a child. So much for higher learning.”
After a long breakfast while reading the morning news on his computer, Frank left his house locking the front door with an old-fashioned metal key. Most homes in this elegant up-scale neighborhood had thumb print or number-coded locks. This house he lived in, however, was one of the oldest in Boston and Frank was determined to preserve what he could of its authenticity.
Nodding to a passing neighbor walking a dog, Frank proceeded to the driveway and his waiting car, swinging his heavy walking stick in a wide swath as he went. He slipped behind the wheel and began to drive, heading out of his residential neighborhood and through the busy traffic of down town Boston.
His destination was the main building of the college of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Boston University. In this day of huge space stations and heavily funded development of the planet Mars, this part of the university had become the largest. What effected the space sciences dictated what happened to Boston U.
Walking with a determined gate, now leaning heavily on his cane, Frank knew that he wanted to effect more than just this building or this institution. He wanted to shake the entire world to its foundations. The problem was, he had no idea why he wanted this. It reminded him of the dreams he couldn’t fully remember and bothered him almost as much.
Frank arrived at the office of Lawrence Delbin, the Dean of Space Studies. First, he passed through the outer room filled with office personnel, speaking to no one. No one did anything more than look his way. They knew who he was.
The executive assistant, who supervised this cluster of men and women, stood and moved in front of the dean's office door. Frank eyed the woman who withered slightly beneath his gaze. She knew who he was too.
“Mr. Bishop, you know the dean sees nobody without an appointment,” she said defensively.
He gave her his best friendly grandfather smile and said, “Let’s see now, I should know your name. Scarlet Wilson, isn’t it?”
The slender attractive woman smiled and put a finger to one temple as if to ward off an approaching headache. They’d done this dance several times before. She’d lost the game each time. Unfortunately, that did not eliminate her obligation to continue the fight. Frank admired persistence in a person. It didn’t mean he was going to let her win but it did earn his admiration.
“Yes sir,” she said.
“Ms. Wilson, I am old enough to have dated you’re grandmother. For all I know, I might have. I was a very active and, dare I say, attractive lad at one time. If she was as pretty as you, I would not have missed her. That was before I married naturally. Do you really plan on physically preventing my walking in there?”
He pointed toward the door with his cane. Scarlet Wilson held up her hands in something close to a display of surrender. She wasn’t quite ready to give in but Frank knew he had the upper hand.
“Mr. Bishop, please,” she began.
“Ms. Wilson, I am going in there today, right now, not six weeks from Tuesday. Are you going to try and stop me?” Frank pressed.
Scarlet Wilson’s shoulders slumped and she sat behind her desk. She leaned against the desk arms crossed. Looking up at him she radiated the frustration of a baby sitter facing a precocious and troublesome charge.
“Mr. Bishop, you do this too many more times, you’re going to get me fired,” she said, playing her one remaining card.
Frank gave her a charitable smile. He’d won, but this victory had little to do with the real battle. That struggle would take place on the other side of this door.
“Now you and I both know there’s no way he’d hold this against you. It’s academic anyway. If I fail this time I will not return,” he said.
The dean’s office was in the corner of the building with two walls of windows. It was large and functional with plenty of space and comfortable seating to hold meetings with at least ten participants. The focus of the half of this space nearest the door was a large desk holding a powerful personal computer. Frank closed the door with a thump that pulled surprised eyes from the computer monitor.
“Frank, have you been intimidating Scarlet again?” the dean asked.
“She’s a good girl, Lawrence. I am sure she is a very efficient and capable woman. Most of the time at least,” Frank said charitably.
Frank crossed the room and settled into a chair in front of the big desk. Lawrence Delbin watched him, smiling and chuckling softly.
“You’ve got the poor woman convinced that if she stands up to you she’ll push you into a coronary. You and I know that’s a lie. Your heart’s in better shape than mine,” Delbin said.
“You need more exercise,” Frank said.
Lawrence leaned back in his chair far enough to stare up at the ceiling. He then looked across the desk not smiling. Frank frowned at the lost look in this man’s eyes. He’d known Lawrence Delbin for thirty years. This was something he had never seen.
“I need some peace,” he said. “You’re an inventor Frank. How many patents do you hold? Ten? Do you think you could invent a way of giving me some peace?”
“I want time on Angle Eye,” Frank said.
Lawrence closed his sad tired eyes and shook his head slowly.
“This is not a request designed to give me peace,” he said.
Frank waved his cane in a wide half circle indicating the elegant office that surrounded them.
“You wouldn’t have all this without me.”
The look in Lawrence Delbin's eyes went from lost to just short of angry. Frank knew he had touched a nerve and prepared himself for the resulting lecture.
“Don’t you think I know that. I have been protecting you Frank. I’ve been doing it for a long time. What’s it been? Fifteen years? Seventeen? After it happened, do you know what they really wanted to do with you?”
Frank knew the answer to this just as much as his old friend did, but that didn’t change a thing.
“I need time on Angle Eye, Lawrence,” Frank pressed. “It’s an old, out-of-date radio telescope damn it! Why won’t they let me have time? It makes no sense.”
Face looking increasingly flushed, the dean pushed himself out of his seat. He walked across the room past the long meeting table that took up much of that end and stood looking out at the bustling street. The short-lived anger had been replaced by a world-weary exhaustion.
“They’re throwing me a retirement party at the end of the term. You’ll come, won’t you?” he asked.
Accepting the momentary change in subject, Frank said;
”I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Our disagreements have always been professional, Lawrence. I understand you. I respect you, in spite of the fact that you’ve stood in my way. And yes, I also know you’ve protected me. I’ve already RSVP’d my invitation. Though I rather assumed it was supposed to be a surprise party.”
Lawrence Delbin turned from the window, a bitter-sweet smile on his face.
“That crack about your heart being fitter than mine was serious, Frank. I can’t handle big surprises any more.”
Frank looked from his long time colleague and friend to the sliver handle of the cane he held. He’d lost a great many people in the past ten years. They were friends, relatives and colleagues. This announcement was a shadow of yet another funeral in the not too distant future yet another empty space in his life.
“They’ve picked a company man to replace you, haven’t they?” he asked quietly.
Lawrence nodded slightly. He rubbed his eyes then ran one hand through what was left of his wavy silver gray hair. The hand trembled just a little.
“From now on, if you try and get at equipment they’ve declared off limits Ogden Philips will find out,” said Lawrence. “This, as we both know, would not be a good thing.”
Frank stood and crossed the room. He placed what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Lawrence Delbin’s shoulder.
He said, “I’m going to have the information I need, Lawrence. I won’t tell you any more than that, but I will find a way.”
The dean shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and looked back out at the campus. Frank let his own hand lower and slip into his pocket. They found his car keys. The fob on the key ring was the shape of the sort of rocket men first used to step into space. They were primitive, wasteful, but they got the job done.
Quietly Lawrence said, “I think I’m beginning to understand you, Frank. It scares me. Now that I’m on the way out, they aren’t telling me things. I still run this college, but I used to be in on the things that happened up there. The World Space Organization Secrecy Act never applied to me. Yesterday I requested information that directly effects three of my teachers and I was denied. I had to find out from some junior clerk that they’d revoked my security clearance. To be fair I knew it would happen eventually, but I deserved better notice than that damn-it.”
“There’s more than one way to slay a giant,” muttered Frank.
Lawrence shook his head and said, “Not I. I’m taking my pension and leaving the whole mess for you to fight.”
The dean looked up at the sky and Frank knew that his old colleague wasn’t seeing the wispy white clouds. In his mind he was seeing the black star filled void beyond. The place that had grabbed his imagination as a boy and even now, as an old man, refused to let go.
“Life in space is becoming totalitarian Frank. It always has been, of course. That’s what you get when systems are put together by the military. There’s not even much wrong with things as they stand. It’s a system that works.”
“But?” prodded Frank.
“What happens when civilians start living and working up there? Space is opening up. Academics, people in the connected disciplines, come and go all the time. Some time in the next fifty years, ordinary people will go there to live.”
Lawrence turned from the window and wandered back to his desk. He sat and stared at his computer unseeing. To Frank he looked like a man dealing with a revelation that he would give anything to have taken away. Frank understood how he felt and at the same time he wondered why. It all seemed connected to the dreams.
Lawrence asked, “You’ve never told me. Why do you need Angle Eye? It’s not that I’m going to let you have time I can’t. I let you at that thing, not only will I lose my pension I just might be letting you put yourself in serious trouble. I won’t let you self-destruct Frank. I owe you too much to let that happen.”
Frank Bishop started for the office door.
“I’ll see you at the party, Lawrence,” he said.
Lawrence spoke up as he went, “You understand, don’t you Frank?”
Frank turned and looked back.
“My very old friend, of course I understand. There are other ways to do what I want. It’s just that they’re damn complicated and will take months or years to work out, even for me.”
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