Transmission

Kevin shook his head. “We might. When I translated, I gave the reporters the information, right? So, won’t people all around the world have been looking at it? You said the problem was having enough people to do it. Well, doesn’t this mean you have the whole world helping?”

“The kid has a point,” Ted said. “Have you checked?”

“Well… no,” Professor Brewster admitted.

Dr. Levin shrugged. “Maybe it’s worth a try. SETI has often borrowed computing power from people around the world.”

“Do it,” Ted said.

Dr. Levin went away for a few moments. She came back with a tablet computer, and a faintly shocked look.

“I… I don’t believe it,” she said, and started tapping away on it. “Hold on, I’ll bring it up on a bigger screen.”

She pressed a few points on the tablet, and a computer screen across from them lit up, big enough that the entire room would be able to see it. Coordinates sat on the screen, along with the words “Alien craft to hit Earth!” The site appeared to be anonymous, but there was no doubt about what it was saying.

“If we take this set of coordinates,” Dr. Levin said, “well, watch.”

A map of the world appeared on the screen, first so broad that Kevin couldn’t work out where the crash site was supposed to be. It turned, zooming in on South America, then kept going. It took in a country, then a region, then what seemed like a patch of jungle just a couple of miles across.

“The Colombian rainforest,” Ted said, staring at it.

“We’re sure about this?” Professor Brewster asked.

“We’ll check, of course,” Dr. Levin said, “but on first glance… yes, it looks correct. Which is astonishing in its own way. The idea that a civilization could predict where their vessel would land this precisely at such a distance is… almost impossible to believe.”

“Well, I think we need to start believing it.” Ted put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “If you’re right about all this, our alien friends are sending their cargo to Colombia.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Kevin asked.

Ted shrugged. “I don’t know. It might make things complicated. I’m more worried about how many other people will have seen this. Dr. Levin?”

“There’s no way to know,” the SETI director said. “I’d guess that if we found it, plenty of other people will have.”

“Which means that half the world will be there,” Ted said. “What do you say we go there to meet them, Kevin?”

“Go to meet who?” Kevin’s mother asked, walking into the computer pit. “What’s going on?”

Kevin tried to work out the best way to phrase it. “Mom, um… can I go to Colombia?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“You don’t need to come, Mom,” Kevin said as he and the others found themselves waved through security at the San Francisco airport. She was just a step away from him, as if afraid that moving further would mean losing him in the chaos of the airport. Ted was close by too, although Kevin suspected it was for different reasons.

“Of course I need to come,” his mother said, wheeling along a small suitcase that made it look as though she’d packed for a vacation. “One moment people are trying to murder you, and the next, you’re flying off to the middle of a jungle? Do you think I’m going to let you do that alone?”

“I wouldn’t be alone, Mom,” Kevin pointed out. If anything, it seemed like the entire institute was heading to Colombia, packing itself aboard not one but two chartered airplanes, and taking with it an array of equipment designed to search for the escape capsule.

“I’m still coming,” his mother said, and Kevin knew better than to argue with that tone.

One person who wasn’t coming was Luna, and Kevin found that he was already missing having her there. She’d gone home, because her parents apparently had stricter views about her flying to South America in search of aliens.

Professor Brewster stood toward the front, marshalling the scientists and the soldiers, the agents and the occasional reporters as they loaded onto the plane.

“Are you all set, Kevin?” he asked. “We have a long flight ahead of us.”

Kevin nodded. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“We nearly aren’t,” Professor Brewster said. “A lot of people are having to pull a lot of strings to let us fly into Colombia for this. Now, hurry and get aboard.”

Kevin got onto the plane and found a seat where he could look out of the window. His mother took one next to him, while Ted took one just in front of him.

“It’s a long way to Colombia,” Ted said. “It’s been a while.”

“You were there before?” Kevin asked.

“Officially?” he said with a faint smile. “Never been there in my life.”

“And unofficially?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, it was very unofficial the last time I was there,” Ted replied. “Things are a bit more peaceful there now though. There are still a few cartels, but without the civil war going on, the government can pay a bit more attention to them.”

“It sounds cool,” Kevin said.

His mother didn’t agree. “It sounds like a dangerous place to take my son.”