Halcyon's Wake: Faith
Chapter 7

Clear as Mud

It’s kind of difficult to explain what it was like to hear Lothar’s voice in my mind for the first time. Back on earth I’d gone to a wealthy friend’s home after he’d finished installing a new, private, home-theater… sub-woofers built into the seats, a gazillion speakers all around the room - a truly immersive, cinematic experience - yet it paled in comparison to the resonance and vibrations during this ‘link’ with Lothar and Beth. I was truly proud of myself for not totally freaking out.

Lothar ‘told’ me that he was an Orion. I say ‘told’ because I can’t think of a better way to describe the images, emotions and knowledge conveyed to me within the simultaneous barrage of data. It wasn’t like Lothar was just a voice in my head - more like Lothar’s entire soul was jacked into mine - along with Beth’s. All their feelings, emotions, memories - conveyed to me in gentle, overwhelming waves. It took me a few minutes to really process all that was happening, and it wasn’t until I mentally ‘let go’ that the messages became cogent and clear. And let me tell you, it was a helluva message.

Lothar sounded like Tom Selleck on helium. A resonant bass timbre offset by a child-like pitch of soothing tones. The sincerity conveyed in his speech and presence was staggering, like one of those chance encounters with someone you instantly bond with. Any doubts I’d had about Beth’s veracity were quelled - although I adamantly refused to blow up the station, and Lothar calmly acquiesced to my plea. Mouse and the others would still need a home whenever they returned from Luna Base, and I was not about to destroy the last vestige of humanity’s reach to the heavens.

In the half-hour we traversed the eye, I learned more than I ever did in high school, Annapolis and grad school combined. It wasn’t as if I’d received some kind of massive download- you might call it that, somewhat - but there were a lot of unspoken questions I received answers to, and I had a greater appreciation of our situation. Still wasn’t too sure about how to rightfully proceed - but I knew more than when I woke up this morning. Doubt may have been erased - but suspicion wasn’t vanquished entirely.

The Orion’s seemed to be just as puzzled by Halcyon as the ‘other’ aliens at Luna Base. Lothar kept repeating over and over, “there are those that we are greater than, and there are those far greater than us… we are studying.”

Lothar also told us that those on Luna Base were deceivers - but not all of them. Director Salek was who he purported to be, but the Zeta Reticulan known as Balthus was not. Balthus was actually of the Reptilian species - a highly advanced, cruel race bent on enslaving mankind. The Reptilian’s had the ability to make humans and other races perceive them in any way they wanted to - and in Balthus’ case, he had everyone believing that he was of the Zeta Reticulan species - the Grey’s to most humans. With some difficulty, Lothar and other Orion’s were able to see past the Reptilian guise, but their efforts over the years to convey this information to Director Salek had been thwarted repeatedly. With the arrival of Halcyon and the placement of the sky-skin, those efforts had been further hampered, but Lothar seemed to believe that all was not yet lost.

I learned that prior to Halcyon’s arrival humanity had been teetering on the verge of a grand transformation. A step forward in evolution that hinged simply upon humanity’s belief that we were not alone in the universe. Roughly 35% of the planet’s population had believed in life elsewhere, with that figure shooting up to 45% when news of Halcyon broke. Lothar said the magic number was 50% - and if we had achieved that level of belief world-wide then the grim armageddon that played out would never have occurred.

Lothar projected imagery from an alternate time-line, showing me what life on earth would have been like had the shift occurred. The beauty of it had brought me to tears - and the knowledge that we were so close to moving beyond our simple existence saddened me deeply. So close yet so freaking far.

But all was not yet lost, supposedly.

Lothar said that there were still pockets of humanity littered around the globe. The sky-skin seemed to nullify and absorb radiation in a way that perplexed even the Orion’s, and within just a few day’s time, save for a few heavily hit areas, the earth would once again be habitable; albeit much darker. The physical devastation from the nuclear weapons could not be undone, but the lingering effects of lethal radiation were almost completely eradicated. Many on the planet would still succumb to exposure to lethal doses of radiation, but others would get past it - and eventually flourish again. Lothar estimated the planet’s eventual population to level out at about 13 million. We’d blasted ourselves back to a population that hadn’t existed since the dawn of agriculture tens of thousands of years ago. Earth was now a purple-hued gravesite for more than 5 billion souls vanquished in a matter of hours. How could we have been so foolish when opportunity for better things was so damn close? And why the hell didn’t we know about this?!

As the connection faded with Lothar I looked at Beth, blinking away frustrating tears and swooning from the emotional connection I’d just experienced. She looked guilty and ashamed, and the lingering effects of the link carried her emotional despondency to me in a trickling flow of pain. Her hands still rested in mine, and I gave her a gentle squeeze then wiped the errant tear drops from my face. When I broke the connection, I still felt a tendril of something linking us, and I could sense her deep guilt. She blamed herself for the downfall of man - and she knew I knew it. The weight of so much loss borne upon her shoulders -unnecessarily- definitely explained her behavior over the past few months, but I was still at a loss in trying to determine how to comfort her.

I think she understood my inability to say anything, the softness in her eyes and a feeble, gentle smile the only communication between us as I drifted off down the corridor to the safety of my cubby hole in the shuttle - with more on my mind than I could possibly comprehend.

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