Chapter Eight
I stared at her. I didn't know what else to do. I mean, what else is there to do when you find yourself standing in your bathroom with the woman you loved who died who is now talking like she's not human, calling herself a kepler, whatever the hell that is? What do you do? I put down the bottle of Jack, for starters. That certainly wasn't helping. The bottle clinked as the bottom of it rested on the counter top by my tooth brush and mouthwash.
CowBelle stared back at me.
"We were warned that most of your species was unaware of us," she said, "But I thought surely at least those connected to the whitenoise would know about us." She shook her head.
I blinked. My mind raced, trying to wrap around what she was saying, trying to wrap around anything that was happening.
"Bellatrix Watson didn't tell you about Kepler?" she asked.
"You are Bellatrix Watson," I said, my voice constricted. I lowered myself onto the closed toilet seat.
"I'm not Bellatrix, I'm a Kepler," she said. "I only look like Bellatrix to you."
I closed my eyes.
"I am Gliese," she said, her mouth bending the word funny. "I guess that's as close to saying my name in your language as it will come."
I squeezed my eyes tighter shut. I wanted to wake up. I wanted her to go away.
"I'm from Kepler-62e, as your people call it," she said, "My planets and my people are 1,200 light years away. The whitenoise came to us about one year of your Earth-time ago and we have travelled here to stop it at the orders of our queen, Lyra." I heard her shift. A moment later, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Nick Carter?" she asked. I opened my eyes. She was half-knelt before me, staring into my face. "She has commanded us to destroy the planet to stop the whitenoise if we must, and some of the crew do not have the patience to talk to humans to make it stop in a non-hostile manner. I'm here to warn you so that, together, we can stop the whitenoise and save your planet."
"So you're an alien," I said.
"Yes," she answered.
My heart beat wildly. I knew it was irrational, I knew it was impossible. I knew it was mental to even consider believing her. And yet... I swallowed. "Gliese, you said?"
She nodded.
I shook my head, "I don't know how to stop the whitenoise," I confessed. "I'm hardly to be considered a part of the project."
"But it's your voice that is broadcast in the whitenoise," she argued, "Your song, your music."
I nodded, "But that's all. I mean I helped pay for the project, but it was all CowBelle that did it, she was the one with the idea and she wrote the proposal and did the math and --" I shook my head, "She's the one that operated the thing, that knew where to point it."
"CowBelle," Gliese said, "This is Bellatrix Watson, yes?"
I nodded.
"There must be some way, some way to stop it," she said. "Some other human to contact that works with the transmission or else it would have stopped by now already."
"Well Fabritz worked with CowBelle but only God knows where he is at now," I answered, "He disappeared after the accident..."
Gliese-the-Phantom-CowBelle tilted her head. "Accident?"
"The one that killed CowBelle," I said thickly.
She stared at me blankly.
"Car accident."
Gliese's eyes seemed sad for a moment, then she unfocused and looked away, her eyes skimming over the sink, over the mirror, the messy towels clustered in the corner of the room where I'd left them after my last shower. "We will find this Fabritz," she said, "But we must be quick before Lyra orders the attack."
"Why does Lyra want the whitenoise stopped so bad?" I asked.
"The whitenoise is aimed at our host star," Gliese answered. "Our star acts like a satellite, intercepting the whitenoise, then projecting it outward again like a mirror and the sound fills our solar system, fills our air. As we walk and talk and live and breathe everyday the whitenoise is everywhere. Some people are driven mad by it, others enjoy it. Some cannot even hear it now it has been so long. But Lyra... the queen... she cannot stand it. We've sat quietly aware of your planet for many years, we've been preoccupied with our move from Planet E to Planet F due to an uncomfortable warming of our planet's climate in recent years. But this is too much. Lyra sent us to stop the whitenoise transmission, to bring silence back to the Keplers."
"There's two planets?"
She nodded. "Our climate has changed and the protective chemicals in our atmosphere on Planet E have burned away after years of misuse. We discovered Planet F about seventy earth-years ago and have been working to move our civilization to Planet F to save ourselves. Lyra was hoping that the signal would not reach Planet F as it is further from our host star but the signal reaches even clearer on Planet F, only because it is further from Planet D, which is very large and apparently blocked portions of the signal from Planet E."
"That sounds like a big deal," I said.
"It is."
"If you knew we were here, why haven't you Keplers reached out to us? You know we've been going nuts trying to reach you... If you had the knowledge and the capability, why didn't you answer us?"
"We weren't sure if you were intelligent, if you were safe." She shrugged. "You're still using light and radio waves as your primary outreach sources," she smirked.
"What do you use?"
"I don't know that you'd understand it."
"Try me."
"Quantum Waves," she replied, "Though they are beginning to become largely antiquiated, they were how we started the process of reaching out. We decided as a people that if a race is not intelligent enough to be using Quantum Waves that we didn't want to interact with their inferior intelligence."
"So basically you think we're stupid."
"Basically."
"Well, that's nice."
"Would you try to reach out to an inferior race?" she asked hotly, defensively. I blinked in surprise, "Some race that upon observing it you saw they were playing with things they didn't understand, things that could be harmful to your own race if they used them inappropriately? If we contacted you and you decided to try to defend yourselves you'd go nuclear. You'd end up killing yourselves and polluting your galaxy, and believe it or not your galaxy is actually quite important to our own. Your star is much older than ours and we study your star to learn the coming changes in our own so that we can adapt to them accordingly." Gliese shook her head. "You've sent out information about yourselves that, luckily for you, were intercepted by my people - people with respect for your people. The information you sent was highly sensitive. In the wrong hands, it could've been the end of your species."
"What information?"
"Your DNA make-up," she said, "That's how we are able to take your shape. We studied the message sent with your DNA make-up."
"This is insane," I muttered.
"You're just lucky we are a peaceful race."
"But you said you're here to stop them from destroying us," I argued. "That ain't peaceful."
"Well most of us are peaceful. Lyra did not intend for you to be destroyed, only if we had to destroy you... Our commander, Borucki, he's blood-thirsty. He didn't really want to try at all. I had to sneak away to warn you."
I took a deep breath. I was about to ask her if she was for real when there came a knock on the door downstairs. A panicked look came over her face. I started to go to answer it, but she caught me by my elbow and pulle me back. She slammed the bathroom door and blocked it with her body. She stared up at me. I heard the door being knocked on again downstairs. "You can't go down there. It could be one of Borucki's henchmen."
"It's probably the mailman or something," I answered.
"You can't trust anyone," she said, "It is too easy for DNA to be borrowed, for someone to be here in disguise to lure you into a false sense of security. There is no level too low for Borucki to stoop to..."
"But --"
"As soon as they find out that I am not on the ship they will come for me, they'll try any way to get you to hand me over, to reveal my location. They'll come in forms that you would expect to be able to trust. Parental units, best friends... you name it, they'll try it. They are not above deception." Gliese words were rushed, thick with fear, "If they find me, Nick, they'll destroy everything."
I heard the door bang open downstairs.
"NICK?" Kevin's voice rang through the house. "NICK ARE YOU HERE?"
I stared into Gliese's eyes burning green, just as I remembered CowBelle's. So deep I could fall into them it seemed...
"Please," she said, her voice thick, "I don't want to go back there."
Whitenoise by Pengi
