THE FIRST MIGRATION

THE FIRST MIGRATION

Daniel Logan

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NASA Time Travel Research Leads to the Discovery of Our Missing Link

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Read Excerpts from The First Migration:

An Evening with Tracey

PROLOGUE

The Anomaly

“Our fuel’s running low. I don’t know how much time we have

left,” Skeeter grumbled, frustrated by the heavy layer of frost

that obscured his view through the snow cat’s windshield. He

rubbed a small circular patch on the glass with his gloved hand

and peered into the darkness. The shrieking winter storm cre-

ated a whiteout condition in front of him. Skeeter shivered and

glanced at the thermometer, registering sixty-seven degrees be-

low zero and dropping. His mind, already numbed by the fumes

from grease and diesel fuel that permeated the cabin, fought

the maddening vibration from the staccato thuds of the treads

on the ice.

“Jesus, how’d we get in such a mess?” he asked Taylor, his

passenger. “Do you see any sign of ’em?”

“Nope,” Taylor answered. “Nothing.”

Skeeter and Taylor were members of a United States geo-

physical team studying the shrinking ice pack on the Ross Ice

Shelf. Skeeter drove the last snow cat in a convoy of seven

returning to the Admundsen-Scott Base Station at the South Pole,

but in the storm he had lost sight of the others. The lead cat,

Delta One, contained the electronic equipment necessary to

navigate back to the base. Tense with concern about straying

off course, Skeeter grabbed the mike with a trembling hand

and shouted a transmission above the growl of the snow cat.

“Delta One, this is Delta Seven. Do you read?”

“Delta Seven, you’re readable, but weak. Do you have us in

sight?”

Skeeter squinted through the clearing in the windshield and

swore to himself, “Damn it, all I see is snow streaking right into

the headlights. I feel like I’m diving into an abyss.” He clicked

the mike switch and answered, “Negative, Delta One, I can’t

see shit.”

“Delta Seven, stop for a minute and turn off your lights.

We’ll shoot a flare.”

Skeeter turned off the headlights and in the darkness said

to Taylor, “You watch out back. I’ll watch the front. Our

situation’s pretty simple. If we don’t find them . . . we die.”

“Delta Seven, did you see the flare?”

Skeeter looked at Taylor and saw him shake his head.

“Christ,” Skeeter swore, “they could be anywhere—ahead

of us, behind us, or right next to us—and we’d never see them.”

Again he shouted into the mike, “Negative, Delta One, we have

no visual contact. Can you wait a few minutes and try another

flare? The snow might let up.”

“Delta Seven, we’ve been stopped now for over fifteen minutes.

We’re low on fuel, too. We can’t chance running out in

this storm,” came the weakening reply. “If you don’t see us in a

minute or two, we’ll have to go on to the base without you.

We’ll bring back a search party.”

“For corpses,” Skeeter muttered, staring into the blackness.

After a few minutes, he snapped the lights on and said, “Taylor,

we’re going outside and drop the sledges to save fuel. Then we’re

going to push on by ourselves.”

“But Delta One has the global positioning navigation equip-

ment. How can we get back to the base without following them?”

Taylor asked.

“We’re going to stay on the same heading we were on before

we got lost.”

“You’re crazy. We don’t have a chance of finding the base

that way.”

“Maybe we can get within radio range. Do you want to die

here?”

“No.”

“Okay then, we’re going outside to drop the sledges. Don’t

get more than an arm’s length away from the snow cat. Let’s do

it.”

Skeeter opened his door and scaled down the side of the cat

over the ice-encrusted treads. The wind tore at him, making

even the act of standing difficult. He struggled back to the hitch,

using a hand-over-hand grip on the treads. Taylor came around

from the other side. With Taylor’s help and all the effort Skeeter

could muster, he disconnected the sledges. He brushed the ice

from his eyebrows and beard.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Skeeter shouted over the shrieking

wind. “Take a can of kerosene, and I’ll get one too. If we get

snowbound, we’ll need a fire.”

Skeeter struggled with one of the ten-gallon cans and made

sure Taylor kept right beside him with another can. He reached

the relative safety of the snow cat when the wind howled to a

level that made further progress impossible. He had survived

Hurricane Ito many years before, but this gale was worse. The

wind began a strange and rapid reversing, slamming into the

snow cat from first one side, then the other. Skeeter dropped

the kerosene can and flung Taylor to the ground against the

side of the cat, grasping for any available hand-hold to keep

from being blown away. He felt the air being sucked out of his

lungs and his eardrums resonating from a sudden drop in pres-

sure. He saw an iridescent haze similar to Saint Elmo’s fire

cascade over the snow cat. The occurrence, unlike anything he

had ever experienced, terrified him.

“God help us!” Skeeter screamed. He was astounded when,

as if in answer to his plea, the wind abated and in a few minutes

became a mere breeze. The snow stopped, and the temperature

warmed to above zero. The moon became visible in the clearing

sky.

“There they are!” Taylor shouted, pointing to a row of pin

lights. “Look! Over there. There’s the convoy.”

“I see ’em. Dump the kerosene and start a signal fire. I’ll get

the radio.”

Skeeter opened the door and reached into the cab for the

mike. He barked his transmission as the signal fire bathed the

snow cat in a flickering, orange light.

“Delta One, Delta One, this is Delta Seven. We have you

in sight. Do you see our signal?”

Silence.

“Delta One, Delta One, this is Delta Seven here. Do you

read?”

Nothing.

He checked the radio’s frequency and volume. He tried again

to raise Delta One but had no luck.

“Damn, now the radio’s gone bad. Taylor, keep the fire going.

Maybe they can see it,” he said. He climbed back into the

cab and retrieved a pair of binoculars. He peered through them,

focusing upon the lights, and swore again. “Son of a bitch! That’s

not the convoy,” he yelled.

“What?”

“It’s some kind of a large base camp. I see buildings.”

“Your brain’s frozen,” Taylor shouted. “There’s no camp

within sixty miles of here, and there are no buildings anywhere

on this whole continent.”

“Well you come and take a look, smart ass!” Skeeter said.

“They’re buildings, I tell you.”

Taylor put the binoculars to his eyes. “No way! That can’t

be. What do you think it is?”

“It looks like a city—it’s too big for a camp,” Skeeter said.

Pointing to the sky, he yelled, “Look at that!” He thought he

saw the lights of a plane streaking over the city.

“It’s some kind of an aircraft. But nothing can fly down

here this time of the year,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

Skeeter felt a wave of nausea. He tossed the binoculars onto the

seat and grabbed the door with both hands, struggling with

vertigo. He fought off the urge to throw up and yelled to Taylor,

“Get in. Whatever those lights are, getting there is better

than freezing to death here. Let’s go!”

Skeeter slammed his door shut and wrenched the cat into

gear, not waiting for Taylor to get his door closed. He jammed

the accelerator to the floor. Freed of the drag of the sledges, the

cat now jolted ahead like a huge, lurching snowmobile. Steering

toward the lights, Skeeter could see the image of the city

become clearer. Behind them, the signal fire weakened in intensity

and went out. Skeeter drove the snow cat up a slope

toward a ridge visible in the moonlight, but at the crest, he saw

the edge of a steep bluff. He braked to a skidding stop.

“We can’t go down that. We’ll have to find a way around.”

Across the valley beyond the bluff, Skeeter could still see the

lights of the city. His bewilderment turned into disorientation.

Things didn’t add up, and his mind couldn’t deal with all the

strange inputs. Skeeter sensed the lull in the storm was ending.

In an instant the wind intensified and slammed into the snow

cat. The snow began again, obliterating the lights of the city.

The snow cat rocked and began to slide on the ice toward the

edge of the bluff. Skeeter racked the transmission into reverse

and floored the accelerator. The engine screamed. The treads

spun at first but then gained traction. The snow cat crawled

away from the edge. The wind gusted and buffeted, constantly

reversing its direction. The temperature plummeted once again.

“We’re in trouble! We can’t stay on this heading, and now

we don’t have any chance to get back to the base,” Skeeter said.

“Trip the emergency transmitter. Our only hope is to conserve

our fuel and wait here for rescue from the station.”

Skeeter set the brake and powered down all the equipment

that drew electricity—even the windshield defroster. Watching

the windows become glazed over with ice, he worried that he’d

never see his family again. Skeeter kept up a conversation with

Taylor, trying to force both of them to stay awake, but after a

few hours, he lost his battle with exhaustion and nodded off to

a tortured sleep.

(To find out what happens to Skeeter and Taylor—Read the Book!)

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

CHAPTER TWO

Tracey

—Three years later—

“It’s time to quit, Darren. We’ve done all we can do today. We

need to leave something for tomorrow,” said Jeff Ryder, the

construction superintendent for Project TIME. “Let’s go get a

cold one.”

Jeff ’s suggestion hit Darren the wrong way. Yeah, as if we

needed to leave work unfinished so we’d have something to do

tomorrow, he thought. We’ve been working on this $3.7 billion

project in the middle of the White Sands Missile Range for

three years. Facing the wartime priority deadline for startup of

the facility, it seemed to Darren that the stack of items remaining

to be finished got larger, not smaller. Darren had assured

his boss that they would begin the final systems checks on schedule.

He and the whole organization had been working twelve- to

eighteen-hour days for longer than he cared to remember.

“That’s okay, Jeff, you go on,” Darren said. “I’ve still got a

lot to do before I quit today. I’ve dreamed all my life about time

travel, and we’re too close to finishing this project to let up

now.”

“Come on, man, this job’s getting to you,” Jeff said. “A

good-looking stud like you ought to be scoring all the time, but

you spend your entire life at this place. When’s the last time you

got laid? Not since your divorce, I’ll bet, and your obsession

with work caused that.”

Darren thought long and hard about Jeff ’s comments, not

sure whether he was pissed at Jeff ’s meddling or jolted by the

truth of his insight. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “You’re

right, Jeff, let’s get a cold one before we head home.”

“Okay, but drinks are on you. I bought the last time,” Jeff

said. “Wanna try the Stealth Landing again?”

Darren knew that Jeff liked the Stealth Landing, a bar in

Alamogordo frequented by stealth fighter jocks from the

Holloman Air Base near by. Jeff ’s choice of the Stealth Landing

did not surprise Darren. It had more to do with the women

who flocked there because of the pilots than with the quality of

the drinks. Darren laughed to himself. What business did two

men their age have in a place like that? Although Darren had a

pilot’s license, he had never flown fighters. He would take to

the sky in an acrobatic plane and wring it out whenever he

needed to rejuvenate himself. He knew, with few exceptions,

that women who were attracted to pilots were after the men,

not the joy of aviation. If aviation meant being upside down in

a plane pulling enough negative Gs to overcome the stomach’s ability to hold down its contents, then most women lost interest.

Helen had been one of the few women he knew who loved

flying. But she left him four years ago when his work on the

NASA research grant ruined his private life. Darren remembered

the happy times when they were first married. She taught

mathematics. He ran a government-funded research program

in the physics lab at M.I.T. on possible modes of time travel. At

that time their lives were in balance. But, when NASA took

charge, Darren’s hours and commitments overwhelmed his abil-

ity to maintain a good relationship. Small disagreements led to

major conflicts, and after one vicious argument, Helen stormed

out with the words straight out of a soap opera: “Get a lawyer.”

Darren had not seen her since. Her lawyer handled the divorce

proceedings in court, and—

“Hey man, did you hear me? Do you wanna try the Stealth

Landing?” Jeff ’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Sure, Jeff, go on ahead. I’ll fill my briefcase and be there in

twenty minutes. Don’t let any leggy blonde fool you into thinking

you’re a fighter jock. Your heart wouldn’t last.”

“Yeah, but what a way to go, huh? See ya there in a few

minutes.”

Darren gathered up the instrumentation diagrams he and

Jeff had been checking and put them into a locked file. He

stepped into the men’s room to wash his face and comb his hair.

Thinking of Jeff ’s comments, he studied his reflection in the

mirror. He had the build and natural good looks of a quarterback,

but he had never even stepped onto a football field during

college. He concentrated on his study of physics instead.

His face featured a wry smile, no matter what his mood. Sometimes

the smile came from the humor he saw in things, but

other times it caused people to wonder what he knew and wasn’t

sharing. Strands of gray added a touch of dignity to his wavy

brown hair. In a suit and tie he could be quite distinguished

looking, but he hated suits and seldom wore one. His weathered

jacket gave him a bit of a disheveled look, belying the constant

worry and turmoil going on in his head. The unassuming

looking man he saw in the mirror had control of a project vital

to the survival of the country, if not the world.

Darren left the men’s room and walked up the metal stairs

to leave the underground complex. The sterile, gray interior,

illuminated by the cold, flickering glow of fluorescent lights

added to his somber mood. The hum of computer-controlled

equipment, running unattended, amplified the inhuman feeling

of the surroundings. Darren felt minuscule, and a sense of

being alone overcame him. His footsteps resonated in the cavernous

chamber and gave him the eerie feeling that someone

was following him. Turning around, he realized he had been

startled by an echo. Embarrassed, he thought, This place is enough

to make anyone feel spooked. The enormous responsibility he

carried for the project dwarfed all the other priorities in his life.

And the immensity of the task sometimes made him question

his ability to pull it off.

Darren reached the top of the stairs and opened the door

to the outside. The sight of the brilliant stars in the desert

night sky and the rush of a cool dry breeze restored his faith

in himself. Gazing at the stars always helped him put things

in perspective. As big as his responsibilities were, they paled

in comparison to the sheer size of the universe. And the stars

contained an implicit message of an order, a purpose, a meaning

to life.

Jeff had no doubt ordered his second beer by now. Darren

closed the door behind him and hurried to his car, the only

one remaining in the parking lot. Pulling into the Stealth

Landing lot a short time later, he heard the unmistakable

beat of an electric bass guitar going full tilt. The place looked

crowded.

Once inside, Darren searched for Jeff. He spotted him at a

table stacked with empty beer glasses and surrounded by a couple

of Stealth pilots and several women. Seeing Darren, Jeff waved and

shouted above the din for him to come join them. Darren wasn’t sure

he was in the right mood yet. His mind remained on the myriad details back at the missile range. He went over to the table anyway.

“Darren, this is Kyle, Jim, Amy, Kim, and, and . . . uh . . .”

“. . . Tracey,” she said, with a smile.

She was stunning, well-dressed and poised, but she looked

like she felt out of place. She seemed happy to meet someone

who didn’t appear to belong there, either. Darren could not

believe how pretty she was. Trying not to be obvious—but failing—

he couldn’t resist making a visual assessment of her features.

His gaze settled on her face, surrounded by shoulder length,

auburn hair. The sounds and images around him faded

into a dream-like background.

“Tracy was my grandfather’s name,” Darren heard his own

awkward detached voice say, “but, you . . . you’re . . .”

“A woman!” she laughed. “I’m happy you noticed. Tracey’s

a woman’s name these days. My parents added an ‘e’ to the spelling,

but there are lots of other ways to spell it.”

Now Darren felt stupid. You would think a man his age

could be more suave than to stammer like a teenager calling a

girl for the first time. He tried for a save. “Yes, but however you

spell your name, you’re a beautiful woman,” he recovered, hoping

in the dim light she would not notice the red tinge of embarrassment

creeping across his cheeks. The sensation surprised

Darren. He met pretty women all the time in his work and

conversed with them at ease. This woman knocked him off balance,

taking him outside his comfort zone, yet the give and

take fascinated him.

“Thank you, Darren,” she replied. “Now tell me about your

name.”

Darren sensed trouble ahead. He tried to slough off her

question with a quick answer. “My dad named me. His parents

came from Ireland, and Darren’s an old Celtic name.”

“Go on. What does it mean?”

Darren swallowed. “My dad always had high aspirations for

me. Well . . . uh, roughly translated, it means ‘Great One.’”

Tracey’s response relieved Darren. Rather than taking advantage

of his awkward position, she gave him a genuine smile,

tipped her glass toward him, and winked. In that moment their

eyes connected and would have remained so had it not been for

Jeff ’s intrusion.

“She’s Kim’s sister. Here visiting for awhile,” Jeff yelled. “But

don’t start talking politics because she’s a professional woman

. . . er, I mean, she’s on President Earlman’s staff.”

“Well, welcome to Alamogordo,” Darren said, feeling his

anxiety return upon learning this beauty who already had him

somewhat tongue-tied was a White House staffer. “I hope you

don’t think all the people on our project are as unsophisticated

as we have been.”

“No, I know I caught you off guard in this pub,” she replied.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t help that

they put the time travel project in such an out-of-the-way place.

Maybe there’s hope for you to get up-to-date by putting your

machine on fast forward!”

Darren recognized Jeff must have been talking to her about

the project. “Perhaps I can go back in time a few minutes and

do a better job of introducing myself. I’d like that chance. You’re

visiting Kim?”

“Yes, she’s my baby sister, and I haven’t seen her for four

years—not since the election. But the main reason for my trip

is to prepare a background piece for the president on Project

TIME.

“I knew a member of the press secretary’s staff was scheduled

to visit next week. We’ve been working hard to put our

best foot forward. But I never dreamed I’d get off on the wrong

foot before the visit began.”

“No one said you got off on the wrong foot. You do have an

uphill battle to help the president win support for the continued

funding of this project. Getting your project through Congress

will be a big hurdle for him because this is an election

year. But let’s forget this meeting happened tonight. We’ll begin all

over again Monday at the start of our official visit. Right

now, I’m going to have Kim take me home. I’ve had a long

day.” She arose, bid her farewells, and worked her way toward

the door. Darren noticed a number of envious eyes followed

her all the way.

( (To learn where Tracey went—Read the Book!)

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CHAPTER FOUR