The Travelers - ebook

In 1947, the Queen Mary transmits a message which is intercepted by extraterrestrial intelligence. This errant radio signal serves as a beacon for a North Atlantic encounter between James and Jess Bennett, a GI and his war bride, and an otherworldly, desperate mother and her two small children.

In the present day, Guy Turner, a melancholy, black filmmaker, finds himself at the center of a supernatural mystery after a haunting prelude with the now elderly mother in a corridor aboard the retired liner in Long Beach, California. Standing at the edge of eternity, the old woman and the Bennetts have the complex task of setting certain aspects of the past in order as the doors to their lives are closing.

Guy is thrust into an unexpected and unwanted voyage of self-discovery as he is solely enjoined to bring the three together one last time.

Excerpt:

“I’m working on a documentary about the career of the liner Queen Mary and I came across a radio signal that was first transmitted from her in 1947 but was just received a few days ago. Repeatedly. Why don’t you tell me the government’s take on it?”

There was a long moment of silence, but Guy heard volumes in it.

She knew.

“What information could the Pentagon have that CNN hasn’t already reported? They’ve been running the story all morning, very tongue-in-cheek, I might add. There’s a very good possibility that there is a hoaxer in southern California.” Her words were defensive yet dismissive. She let a few moments pass, waiting for a counter response. “The general consensus is it’s just a fluke, a message that somehow became space-bound through some freak atmospheric anomaly and has now re-entered the earth’s atmosphere through the very same anomaly. The Pentagon’s official stand is that if it’s not a hoax, then it is simply a signal that has been bouncing around through space all these years.”

“Perhaps, but CNN and the rest of the world don’t know about the seventy times that the message was received by the Leviathan, now do they? And what an obscure message to use as a hoax, particularly in the middle of the North Atlantic, don’t you agree?”

Silence, then, “Someone from Leviathan has contacted you?”

“Julie, let’s not play cloak and dagger. I know firsthand this is much more than an atmospheric anomaly, and so do you. That message has not been random. It’s been concentrated in specific locations.”

“Guy, I could lose my job.” Her voice lost all cordiality. “How do I know what I tell you won’t show up thinly disguised in your documentary?”

“You know me better than that, Julie. This is not research for the documentary. There is much more involved than an old radio signal, believe me. Just tell me what old man Van Cleve knows, and do I ever have a story to tell you.”

Guy heard a sigh of concession, and she asked, “Are you on a secure phone?”