Years passed again on the polar waste without apparent change on the surface. The Master was laboring hard at reforming the various specimens his drones had brought back into a useful tool. His base organism was a medium-sized bipedal anthropoid that appeared to possess considerable dexterity in its anterior limbs and surprising range in its vocal capabilities.
While the Master labored to create his tool his drones labored to provide a suitable underground habitation for the results. They carved great caverns out of the ice and rock. They built power plants to heat and light the caverns. They started factories and hydroponic farms to provide food and fiber. As the Master came closer to finishing his creation the drones’ work became more elaborate and extensive. Finally they started building the great vats that would be used for cloning the Master’s work.
Once during this period the work stopped suddenly. Another falling star, which had been a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, suddenly came crashing towards earth, burning up in the atmosphere without a trace. The great metal antenna was retracted, disassembled, and replaced with a large array of much smaller camouflaged ceramic replacements. Most of the drones ceased all activity. Only those required to keep the Master and his works alive continued to function.
A few months later a large comet penetrated deep into the solar system, following a peculiar orbital path: A driven hyperbolic, not freefall. It entered the solar system from the direction of Alpha Centauri and exited in the direction of Barnard’s Star. In fact, the Master concluded, it was a thinly disguised interstellar ship burning up lots of power as it moved quickly and deeply into the solar system.
As the ship passed its perigee with the sun it calved. The split-off fragment’s vector changed to let it remain in a highly elliptical orbit that took it from inside Venus to outside Saturn. It was a surveillance probe left behind by the interstellar ship as it continued its search.
Work started up again cautiously as the fragment orbited out beyond Mars. Years later, as it fell back in towards the sun, it was vaporized as it passed a massive laser cannon the Master had his drones build on an asteroid. The interlopers never came back to investigate; apparently even smart probes can have accidents.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mary and Tarna spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the rally. Out came their finest casual clothes—designer jeans, new tops, and just the right touch of accessories.
They borrowed the car from Mom (Dad was still out in the bay and wouldn’t be back for two days) and as light dimmed beneath the lowering clouds of the coming storm they headed for Clamsport.
The rally was lightly attended that evening—it was a week night with bad weather—so much of the time was devoted to planning for the bigger rally coming up that weekend. Ned was one of the speakers and he sat on the podium. His speech was one of the highlights of the meeting as he urged people to be sure and get their friends out for “the big one” coming this weekend. The plans were finalized and the meeting broke up early. As people were streaming out, Mary and her sister moved up to the front.
She noticed that scrawny little Toby was at Ned’s side almost as soon as he was off the podium and that they were conferring seriously from the moment they got close until the women got within hailing distance. As soon as Ned noticed them, the enthusiastic grin appeared followed by a hearty greeting.
“Welcome, ladies; glad to see you could make it. There’re just a few things I need to take care of for a moment. But if you wouldn’t mind waiting I’d love to talk with you further.”
With that he and Toby hurried off into the rear of the meeting hall. There they sat huddled in serious conversation for several minutes.
Meanwhile Mary and Tarna wandered around and greeted friends they had met previously in Clamsport. From them they learned that Ned had just recently arrived as part of a larger wave of organizers who wanted to bring nationwide attention to Clamsport. This new group was even arranging for television coverage of the rally coming up that weekend. The older protesters were in general quite gratified at the new interest, but one or two seemed to be somewhat suspicious of the newcomers’ motives.
Ned, while not the leader of this new group, was one of its more charismatic members. One of the other young women commented, “Boy, he sure does spend a lot of time with that little kid, though. Seems sometimes like he won’t make a move without him. Look at ’em now, huddled over there like a two-man football team.”
Just about then Ned and Toby seemed to make a decision. They broke their little huddle and Ned came striding over to where Mary and Tarna were standing while Toby disappeared into the crowd.
“Sorry to keep you ladies waiting,” Ned beamed over his pipe. “Now that the day’s business has been taken care of, may I invite you ladies to a bite to eat?”
They accepted readily and spent the next couple of hours dreamily learning of the dangers of nuclear power over a dinner of steaming clams, fresh-boiled lobster, and corn on the cob at one of Clamsport’s dock-side restaurants. The details of the arguments were lost on Mary but the deep resonant voice soothed her often argumentative nature to the point where she didn’t care. She was just enjoying listening to Ned’s enthusiasm, and Tarna seemed to be as well. Finally, Ned got to his point.
“Mary and Tarna, you understand how important this matter is and you also understand how important it is to make the public both aware of the hazard and confident that they can do something about it. One of the key things we need is for informed and credible opinion leaders—like your father—to lend us visible support.
“Mary and Tarna, will you try to get your father to support us at the rally this weekend? It would mean a lot to the cause and it’d mean a lot to me personally.”
“So,” thought Mary, “that’s the pitch: Deliver your father and be showered with my attention.” Somehow at that moment it didn’t seem that terrible. Out loud she said, “Tarna and I will see what we can do.”
Ned’s voice swelled effusively. “That’ll be super! I’m sure we can count on you. Sure has been great having dinner with you. Hope to see you again soon.”
With that Ned bounced up from the table and hurried out of the restaurant, barely stopping to pick up the tab on the way. Tarna noticed that the little jerk, Toby, was waiting just outside the door for him.
“Boy, he really is always around, isn’t he?” she remarked.
“They are a strange sort of pair,” Mary agreed.
Then she and Tarna headed back for Forthright through the drizzling rain.