Reconnaissance: The Creator Returns

By Craige McMillan

A mysterious streak of light cuts through the sky. Those it touches see the past and the future together, but the memory soon fades. The American military investigates, but finds nothing.

Archeil, a Native-American in Alaska, feels the light cut through him. Now the sun sets to the north of where it belongs. He consults a tribal elder, b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Revelare
• Release date: Feb 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781946047014

Craige McMillan

Craige McMillan is an American writer. He grew up in the rolling farmland and small towns of the Midwest, which served farmers and provided railroad transportation for their crops. His family later moved to southern California. There he finished high school and met the girl who would become his wife. They both attended college, where he studied history during the social turbulence of the early 1970s. He followed the same route to novel writing that many other authors have taken. He wrote articles, news stories, and later worked in signals intelligence overseas during the Cold War. When he returned to the United States, he worked in large-scale computer systems where he did programming, database design, computer security and disaster recovery. Craige now lives in what is still cowboy country, the high desert American West, with his wife of forty-some years, and a Belgian Shepherd, to whom he reads his first drafts.

Book preview

PART I: THE ARRIVAL

CHAPTER 1

Archeil thrust his paddle into the river. The canoe slid silently over the shimmering expanse of water, disappearing into the evening. Ahead of him the Yukon River widened. Far in the distance to the west he could glimpse the sky over the Norton Sound. Beyond that the Bering Sea stretched out toward the south and the Pacific Ocean.

The proud Yupik native sat with his back erect, ears listening, paddle poised just over the water’s surface. River water droplets peeled off the lower corner of his oar, slipping back into the flickering waves of evening river light. High overhead a flock of Canada geese traveled the river toward the sea.

Archeil’s eyes peered ahead into the settling twilight for a familiar landmark. He felt the grasp of the stronger current near the center of the river carrying him along the darkening surface. He edged closer to the shoreline.

The elevation would soon change—the current was carrying Archeil toward the river falls. In the distance, the afterglow of the Alaskan sunset persisted, streaking its colors through the clouds that brooded over the darkness of the sea.

Now Archeil’s eyes fixed on the clouds that settled over the horizon. His brow furled. He studied the light and the darkness. The glow was still there, but it was in the wrong place. In his fifty years on the river, Archeil had never seen the aftermath of an Alaskan sunset persist so far into the evening. Yet the glow was over the west; it was not the Northern Lights.

Archeil returned his attention to the river’s shoreline as trees and riverbank slid silently by. He searched for the trio of uniquely spaced trees on the shore that was his first landmark. There they were—silent sentries. They had pointed Archeil home during all his years on the river.

Archeil  guided his canoe closer to the riverbank. The silhouettes of pine trees along the riverbank across the water intervened, cutting off his view of the sky and sea in the distance. Above him the sky was growing as dark as it would become during the summer, clear and incredibly deep, populated by only the largest pinpricks of light—worlds that Archeil knew nothing about. The stars and their patterns in the sky were as they had always been. Yet something was different. There had been a change in Archeil’s world. He knew it because he could feel it.

Archeil’s final landmark glided into view as his canoe slid silently over the water, just off the shoreline. Archeil slipped his paddle into the water. With several swift strokes, first on one side and then the other, he gathered speed to free himself from the remaining grip of the river’s current. 

A moment later Archeil’s canoe slid abruptly onto the gravelly bank downstream from his cabin. He hopped out of the canoe, his ankles wet and cold, his feet feeling the pebbly riverbed. Archeil pulled the canoe up onto the smooth gravel of the riverbank. He grabbed his catch of the day and walked up the path to his cabin.

Archeil thought about the light out over the water as he prepared dinner in his kitchen. His arthritic old dog sat patiently by the table, knowing that dinner was coming without her doing a thing.

Archeil turned the fish over in the pan, applied more lemon and butter, and cooked the other side. He separated the fish from the backbone, carefully removing the remaining bones that had broken free. He gave the dog half and sat down at the table to eat the other half.

Archeil’s mind returned to the glow out over the horizon. It was not the northern lights as everyone had told him. Archeil had been on the river for fifty years. I know what the Northern Lights look like, Archeil assured himself.

The Northern Lights often appeared as waves or spirals in the sky. When they were streaked, it was more often upward from earth stretching toward the sky, not spread out across the horizon as a sunset. Sometimes they bore an unnatural green tinge. Green did not belong in the sky.

No, it is not the Northern Lights, Archeil said with finality. It is the home of the light that passed through me while I was on the riverbank.

Archeil remembered well what the light had said to him. At the moment it had touched him, Archeil understood things. So many things. Questions he had always wondered about. Questions the elders had debated after dinner. Now, so soon after the light had cut through him, Archeil was left with only the memory of having understood. Only at the moment the light passed through him did Archeil truly understand. And now that understanding was fading.

I will go to a tribal dinner this week and ask an elder, Archeil thought. Elders were the keepers of the tribe’s history—its accumulated knowledge. They carried it in their heads, along with what their fathers had told them. And their father’s fathers. The elders would know things that Archeil did not know. Things their fathers had passed onto them. Things that Archeil could not understand. Yes, an elder would know. Archeil would go to dinner tomorrow evening. He would ask about the light. Then his question would be answered.

CHAPTER 2

Praise be to Allah! Sanginaf said. I have seen him.

Who have you seen? asked the imam. The two men were seated near the front entrance to the Mosque, in a small garden alcove. The heat of the day had given way to the cool sea breeze of evening that accompanied the setting sun.

I have seen Him, said Sanginaf.

No one has seen Allah, said the imam. He speaks only through his prophets and his teachers. The imam looked at his feet as he moved them lazily back and forth across the brick pathway underneath the bench where they sat. Someday, Sanginaf, you shall see Him. But not in this world. Now tell me, what did you see?

Sanginaf wondered why he had brought this up. Had his wife not warned him? No one will believe you, Sanginaf. You will only bring disrespect on all of us. Please, let it be our secret. I believe you, my husband. Keep silent.

Imam, Sanginaf said. It was Allah. He streaked across the sky on a chariot of light. That light…it was so brilliant that I could see it pass through me!

Sanginaf, Sanginaf, said the imam. It is not possible, what you saw. Only the prophets…not even the prophets…can see Allah, Sanginaf. Allah is a spirit, although he speaks to some of us.

Sanginaf heard the words of his wife in his head. I believe you, Sanginaf. Do not speak to anyone of this. It is a sacred sign for us, alone. Please, my husband, I beg of you…

Imam, I can show you his camp, Sanginaf said. His words sounded to him as the words of someone else speaking.

The imam sat silently. He had no desire to see Allah, if such a thing were even possible. Visions of his own uncleanness flashed through his mind—his sometimes unkind words to others, his deeds, as hard as he tried, so often his efforts fell short of what was required. No, Allah would not be pleased. This was not the time. The imam was not ready to give an account of his life just now.

No, Sanginaf, said the imam. Allah will not come to the earth until everyone welcomes His coming. We must prepare the world to meet Allah. Then He will come.

The sky is already dark to the east, said Sanginaf. Walk with me to the water, Imam. From there we can see Allah’s camp in the distance. Sanginaf rose from the bench and tugged at the imam’s sleeve, Come, please.

The imam relented. The two men walked in silence toward the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Behind them the sun was setting over Vietnam and Thailand. Darkness was already slipping silently over the waters to the east, which loomed before them just over a short distance of sand.

He heard the waves wash onto the sandy beach, which lay in just a hint of twilight still ahead of them. The two men crested a small knoll between the village and the bay. The sound of the surf grew louder. It washed out the sound of their footsteps as they came to the edge of the water. 

Sanginaf stopped them. There! He pointed with his finger, straight ahead into the darkness over the northeast. A small streak of light struggled to be seen underneath the clouds. Do you see it, Imam?

The imam looked. He looked very hard. In the twilight the water was only just visible if one looked above it. Yet the imam saw nothing. Nothing but darkness. He did not know whether to feel ill or relieved. But regardless of his feelings, his position in the community must not be jeopardized. It is not Allah’s camp, Sanginaf, the imam replied with certainty. It is as I told you.

Sanginaf stared in the direction he was pointing. It is only the light, Imam. That is all that remains. He turned his eyes to the imam, whose face was barely visible in the twilight. But you see, it must be Allah’s camp, Imam. This is the way he came. Sanginaf made an arc across the sky with his arm extended, beginning behind them in the southwest where the sunset now lingered, passing directly overhead, and then ending in the northeast out over the water where he had been pointing. All that remains is the glow.

It is not Allah, said the imam, staring into the blackness.

Miranski stared at the horizon from where he stood at the stern of the fishing boat, his hands gripping the railing. The sea was calm now, the swells only a few feet high. It was a welcome respite from the hellish wind and rain of the previous evening. 

But then storms were a part of Miranski’s new life. They were just different than the storms in his old life. I guess maybe that means it’s me, Miranski muttered, as the Myrtle Dean chugged back toward port with her holds full. 

It had been a good season. Miranski’s share of the catch would support him through the winter. He could write his music. And when that didn’t work he could drown his sorrows, contemplating his life in the melting ice cubes left in the glass.

But now it was the sky that bothered Miranski. It had bothered him for the last several evenings. The sun would set out over the Bering Sea, somewhere north of the long string of Aleutian Islands. The water and sky darkened, merging into the soft twilight that passed for evening during the late Alaskan summers. But a patch of light remained just underneath some persistent clouds that had settled over the horizon just north of the sunset. And the soft glow persisted, refusing to yield to the darkness surrounding it. Hours after the last traces of the sunset should have been gone, the clouds held a remnant of light. 

Even in the midst of the storm last night, with the chaos of the waves washing over the Myrtle Dean’s deck, Miranski was certain he had seen that same glow whenever the fishing boat had crested the eight to ten foot swells. Then the bow would dip and the Myrtle Dean would crash headlong into the next trough. Water, foam, and darkness washed over her deck, threatening the crew with an early grave. Yet each time the old gal recovered and lifted her bow for an assault by the next wave.

The Myrtle Dean’s crew was small: the captain, a cook, and half a dozen fishermen who doubled as crew when needed. Everyone Miranski had talked to about the light on the horizon knew what it was. Northern Lights, government weather experiments, a Siberian oil well fire, reflections off the ocean’s surface. 

Barring a consensus, the glow remained Miranski’s little puzzle, a problem to solve. It was one of his leftover vices. A page he’d finally ripped from the scrapbook of his previous life, but still too much a part of him to be discarded. For Miranski, there had to be an answer…always. If you just looked hard enough.

.

Too much whiskey, Archeil. That’s what you saw. The men at the long table in the Alaskan tribal dining hall laughed. Archeil turned his eyes from their familiar faces to the rough-hewn interior of the dining hall. The ceiling’s open beams, the log walls, the tiny windows at either end. Finally the rough wooden floor Archeil had walked over so many times.

I know what I saw, Archeil said, returning their gazes. His voice was not defensive or combative. But the rebuff and humor at his expense had hurt. Archeil felt wounded inside. The elder had not taken him seriously. Archeil fell silent.

It’s the Northern Lights, Archeil. That is all.

The words came from another tribal elder, and one did not dispute them, at least publicly. But silence was an acceptable alternative. The conversation that followed left Archeil behind. The glow on the horizon continued to perplex his mind.

Perhaps the elders were right? The second man had lived on the river longer than Archeil. Longer than anybody. Now he was old. He forgot. He drank too much. He had to be helped from the table after dinner because of his stiff joints. But still, he knew a lot.

Yet Archeil had not told him everything. He couldn’t. He had not told any of the men of the blinding flash of light that had given birth to the strange glow, the open wound the light had left in the sky as it traveled to its present location. The memory of the light continued to invade Archeil’s thoughts when he would have preferred solitude.

The conversation around the table returned to fishing, to the expected salmon run in the river, to the number likely to be taken and the tribal income. Archeil joined in. These things he understood. They had persisted for generation after generation. They did not need to be explained. They just were. Everyone knew and understood.

CHAPTER 3

Son of a bitch! Captain!

Captain Ronson bolted out of his office and down the long aisle of radar screens. For the briefest instant he was confused. Then he remembered—they weren’t in the live operations room at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colorado. They were deep inside the old Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker. The site had been decommissioned, but still provided warm disaster and equipment backup for Peterson. Live ops were routinely conducted, several times a year, to test the equipment. This time it was his turn.

Captain Ronson’s newly-minted lieutenant flight commander was standing over the shoulder of an airman monitoring the southwestern Atlantic sector of American airspace, in the bunker underneath the Rocky Mountains. The tall, young lieutenant was happy to back off and let Captain Ronson take over.

Speed? Captain Ronson asked.

Mach 12, the airman said cautiously. In fact, the reading was off his scales. Nothing went that fast through the atmosphere.

Sergeant Greyson! the captain bellowed.

Sir! responded a tall, gray-haired senior master sergeant near the end of the aisle of radar screens.

Get me some planes in the air, Sergeant! Now! The captain looked at the airman’s screen again. Estimated destination, airman?

Siberia, maybe, said the airman. Alaska? Canada? If it doesn’t burn up first.

Sergeant Greyson was at the captain’s side now. Do you have some coordinates for me, sir? he asked.

Airman? asked the captain.

Airman Slayton scribbled several pairs of coordinates tracing the target’s path toward an area over central Siberia. It was a wild guess. He handed them up over the back of his head without taking his eyes off the radar screen. Sergeant Greyson snatched the paper from his hand.

Entering continental U.S. airspace in 5…4…3…2…1…mark! the airman said.

Scramble what you still can from the East Coast, Sergeant, said the captain. Tell Midwest and Pacific commands to get their planes up in the air, now! The important thing is to get them off the ground and up in the air, understand? Get me General Roberts on the secure line, now! Send somebody.

Get a line to NASA, Lieutenant. Find out if they see anything. Have Shirley check with the National Reconnaissance Office. And get me the Pentagon, he added. Whoever is in charge at this ungodly hour back there. Everybody—if anybody you talk to has seen anything, I want to talk to them, understand?

Trajectory will take it over the Midwestern United States and up toward southern Alaska. That puts it into Siberia, said the airman. Computer confirms. Now passing over Omaha. Estimated departure from CONUS is over northernmost tip of Idaho. On track for Alaska.

Son of a bitch, said the captain. Get on the line to Patterson! Wake up the Colonel, he added. Nobody who was anybody in the Pentagon would talk to a lowly captain, as Ronson well knew. He looked up and down the aisle of radar screens, each covering a different sector of United States and Canadian airspace. Anybody else seeing anything? The row of heads shook no, their eyes glued to their radar screens.

Captain Ronson knew that Airman Slayton had a computer composite screen that patched together all the sectors over the continental United States. Programmers were constantly upgrading the software, and equipment glitches were not unknown.

Captain! A staff sergeant’s hand went up across the aisle. I have a target entering sector eleven. Captain Ronson breathed a sigh of relief as he hurried across the aisle to Sergeant Randall’s station. The programmers had done their job. The composite and individual sector maps agreed. Is it an ICBM, Captain? asked Randall. It wasn’t a textbook reentry trajectory; it was too flat.

The captain gritted his teeth. No, he said. If it were, it would have MIRVed by now. Both men knew the consequences. If whoever had launched something like this had multiple re-entry technology for their nukes, there would not be a major city on the eastern seaboard of the United States that still existed in just a few more minutes.

Space junk, something not mapped maybe? asked Randall.

Let’s hope so, said the captain. Somebody from the Pentagon would have to call what was left of the Ruskie Rocket Command and warn them it was coming. They still had a few working ICBMs, and since the collapse of the USSR they had become paranoid. If they thought the Americans had launched an attack on them…lately, the Russians had begun to display grandiose ambitions again. Taken together with the paranoia, it was a bad combination.

CHAPTER 4

Elian knocked three times in rapid succession on the door to the aircraft carrier’s stateroom, then opened it. Admiral, he said.

Enter, Commander, responded the admiral. He nodded an acknowledgment from behind his desk as his officer entered, saluted, and walked briskly toward the desk.

Sir, there are two submarines in the area.

Now the admiral focused his attention more closely on his subordinate. His eyes studied the man’s face.

Origins? the admiral asked.

The sound patterns from their propellers indicate that one is American and the other is Chinese, the commander said.

So they are adversaries of one another, the admiral said, thinking out loud. He rose from behind his desk and walked toward the window, staring out over the water. Are they aware we are here?

Unknown, but possible, said Elian. The Chinese submarine may have been hunting the American sub. His behavior changed unexpectedly. He broke off the hunt and went deeper. We’re not certain how, but he may have detected our presence.

The admiral stared out the window in thought. Then he turned, his decision obviously made. He walked back to his desk. Without sitting down, he grabbed a memo pad, leaned over his desk, consulted the nautical chart spread across half the surface, and scrawled a note. 

I want both submarines out of the area, Commander, the admiral said as he wrote on the pad. It is too risky to have them here during this phase of our operations. The admiral