Free Heaven's Fall by David S. Goyer, Michael Cassutt Page A

was not immediately detected.”
    “No one tracked their vesicle?” Rachel said. She knew that NASA had tracked the hell out of the Houston version.
    “It landed in the South Atlantic, entering over the Antarctic, just like you. There were almost no detectors looking that way, and those that did judged it to be a big meteoroid.”
    Since no one knew, the Aggregates had time to establish themselves and launched their own strikes.
    “It started with plagues—from serious influenza right up to substantially more deadly things resembling SARS and Ebola.
    “Countries wanted to close their borders, and did. Immigration and travel were restricted—and the barriers remain.
    “It stretched to cyberwarfare, doing to data networks what they did to human beings. It’s simplistic to say, that’s all it took . . . but in truth, that’s all it took.”
    Rachel lowered her head for a moment, a gesture Yahvi recognized. It meant she was getting to serious matters. “How difficult would it be for the six of us”—Yahvi was happy she was still including Sanjay—“to travel to the United States?”
    “Openly? As voyagers from Keanu?”
    “Let’s say yes.”
    “Possible. I’m sure you’d be officially welcome everywhere on the planet, even in Free Nation U.S.” He smiled, not pleasantly. “And totally restricted in anything you heard or saw or did, or tried to do.”
    “What if we traveled less openly?”
    “That would be quite difficult,” he said. He actually glanced left and right, as if being watched, lowering his voice. “And the first trick would be getting out of India.”
    Now Rachel stood. “Then it’s time we took those steps. Did you say our media agent was waiting?”
    “Agents. And I’ll get them in here as soon as possible. But first it would be helpful to take some questions from the press.”
    Yahvi wanted to run. But a look from Rachel caused her to freeze where she was.
    She was beginning to wish she had never come to Earth.

QUESTION: For General Radhakrishnan—
TAJ: I am not part of this press conference.
RACHEL: Oh, please—if we have to do this, you do, too.
(laughter)
QUESTION: What are your thoughts, seeing your son for the first time in twenty years—and learning that you have a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter!
TAJ: It’s been a great pleasure.
QUESTION: Would you like them to remain on Earth?
TAJ: I haven’t considered that.
INTERVIEW AT YELAHANKA,
APRIL 14, 2040

TAJ
    Bangalore and the Committee had been in careful communication with Keanu for months prior to Adventure ’s landing. Careful for the obvious reasons—the NEO’s return was apparent to anyone with a telescope. Taj had seen rumors online before any official word reached him, and he was close to the top of the list of those who would be informed.
    It was mutually decided that ISRO would acknowledge the “apparent return” of the Near-Earth Object Keanu, and the “hope” that its presumed human inhabitants were alive and well . . . but with no disclosure of the fact of direct contact, nor of the content of any messages.
    Some information was exchanged, of course, but the continuing conflicts between India and China on the one side, and the so-called Free Nations of the Americas and Europe on the other, distracted most people from the Keanu story.
    There were those in the astronomy community, not to mention various fringe groups around the world, who kept the matter alive. But they had little hard information—at least as far as Taj and the Committee knew. (He had learned early in his military career to never make the mistake of assuming that you had the only intelligence!)
    Taj concentrated on arranging the mechanics and protocols for arrival and reception. He had firsthand experience of such an event—one of four humans on Earth who did—and it had not been pleasant.
    Returning from their disastrous missions to Keanu in August 2019, survivors Tea Nowinski, Lucas Munaretto, Natalia Yorkina, and Taj