Anomaly (10 page)

It was quite clever, thought Teller. As much as Mason hated the idea and as bad as Mason came across, it actually worked in his favor. Even though the American networks were butchering the footage looking for controversy, something to grab a headline, it demonstrated to the critics that there was no political interference in the investigation. Mason just had to keep his nose clean.

“So this is what we have to work with,” said Mason, leaning forward and switching off the monitor. He'd seen enough.

Teller figured Mason knew full well he'd come out looking worse as the days went by. That was just the nature of leadership, it wasn't about building consensus, it was about getting things done.

“You, young lady,” Mason said, pointing at Susan. “We need to get you back to your family.”

“And as for the rest of you, we don't have time to be sitting around watching ourselves on television. There will be time for that later. Back to work. Come on. We've got an alien intelligence to talk to. I want to know what's next. I want scenarios. I want options. I want possibilities.

“Personally, I think it's a mistake broadcasting all this, but it's not my call so we've just got to live with it. But it does mean we need to be sharp. We can't be sloppy. The world is looking over our shoulder. Now is the time to shine. Let's do what we do best and focus on the science.”

And with that, Mason walked away with Susan, determined to make sure she didn't spend another night sleeping in the tents with the rest of the team.

Over the course of just a couple of days, the research group had tripled in size, and that meant the logistics supporting the effort had also grown in size and complexity. The army brought in air conditioned tents for the team to sleep in and provided portable amenities, including showers.

Considerable effort was invested in the mess tent to ensure the quality of the food was high and healthy. Mason was concerned with morale. Everyone was putting in long hours in a tense environment and he said food was an important part of keeping them happy and productive.

An on-site medical facility had been established along with a quarantine area if the need should arise. A section of the park beside the Marine post had been cleared for use as an impromptu helipad. Much to their disgust, the networks had been pushed back into the side streets.

All in all, thought Teller, it was quite impressive to see the support structure growing out of nothing. Someone had even arranged for a state trooper to pick up some of his clothes, his laptop and a few of his books. He didn't ask how they knew which ones he was reading at that point in time, but someone had obviously thought long and hard about what things to bring from his home.

Teller wondered how they'd gotten in. On second thought, he realized, it was probably quite easy. They'd have called out a locksmith and been inside within minutes, which was a scary realization in itself.

The sound of diesel generators filled the night air. Although the research group was working in the middle of New York, tapping into sufficient power was proving difficult, and there was a concern about power surges. Computers and electronic equipment was run off mains, but everything else, including lighting and air conditioning was run off diesel generators.

The concrete slab making up the intersection had slowly passed overhead and was now moving down again, so it was some time after midnight, figured Teller, being too tired to look at his watch. The evening had been spent running through scenarios, double-checking observations and preparing for the next phase of their interstellar conversation.

“Hot chocolate?” asked one of the Army chefs wandering around and making sure people had everything they needed to put in the 16 to 18 hours most of the team was investing into their research.

“Sure,” said Teller, taking a break from pouring over the log files. Two hours of examining what had been labeled the gravitational partition and his mind was starting to wander.

Dr Anderson had broken down the anomaly research into a number of sections to allow for various teams to focus on different problems. There was the gravitation partition team investigating the physical characteristics and motion of the anomaly for clues as to how it functioned. The core team was running scenarios on the next steps in communicating with the anomaly. They were also considering how to handle the heavy metals problem when it arose. The contact team had been tasked with lateral thinking about ways in which communication with the anomaly could branch off beyond basic chemistry. They were considering how to discuss aspects like relativity and quantum mechanics with the anomaly, as well as more esoteric subjects like history, art and literature.

One suggestion was that certain types of music might also be universal, being based on harmonic breakdowns and natural rhythms, so thought was being given as to how communication could also proceed along those lines. When it came to quantum physics, one of the brighter young scientists had, tongue in cheek, suggested placing a cat in a box with a vial of cyanide to see if the anomaly would resolve Schrödinger's paradox for them.

The engineering team was on the slab itself, and they clearly loved their assignment, getting to ride the inverted intersection through the night. They were setting up scaffolding to make it easier to reach the core. Several soldiers worked alongside the civilian construction group. They had been raising, or was it lowering, equipment to the slab by rope as it moved slowly throughout the evening.

The liaison team was the interface between the research teams and scientists from around the world. In some ways, they had the toughest of all tasks, filtering thousands of requests and connecting scientists with each other. All in all, thought Teller, it was very well organized and that raised his confidence in the research being undertaken.

Cathy sat down next to Teller. A couple of marshmallows floated on top of her hot chocolate, betraying her sweet tooth. Teller was pleased to see her. He felt like she was the only one he knew prior to all this madness unfolding. That she'd led him into the madness escaped his thinking.

Finch was hovering in the background. He had a sound man and a back-up cameraman working with him, but he was determined to film as much as he could himself.

Dr Anderson and Dr Bates came over and sat down as well. It was just after one in the morning and the thought of a nice cup of hot chocolate before heading off to bed was just too alluring.

“It's been a long day,” said Cathy, with the emphasis on drawing out the word long. “Have we learned anything else about our new, intergalactic friend?”

Teller thought about it for a second.

“Kind of,” he replied.

Out of the corner of his eye, Teller could see Finch making sure he caught the conversation. Teller wondered who would be watching the telecast this late into the evening. He figured, for the most part, the live feed must have been boring, like watching grass grow. It's daylight somewhere, he thought, so someone would be watching all this live.

Cathy just listened, letting Teller talk, as did Bates and Anderson.

Mason was nowhere to be seen. He must have turned in for the night, thought Teller.

“It's quite clever, really,” Teller began, describing something he'd been thinking since the UN meeting. “The whole idea of how ET has chosen to interact with us is ingenious.”

He sipped his hot chocolate.

“I mean, we have no way of detecting the anomaly directly. All we can see is how it manifests itself. We have no idea what it is actually made from. I read one comment on the Internet that suggested it's made of non-baryonic matter.”

Cathy turned her head to one side, not following him.

“Dark matter,” he said, clarifying his comment. “But we really don't know if there is any dark matter. That's just the best theory we have at the moment to explain vast discrepancies in our gravitational model.”

Teller was aware his comments were being broadcast so he tried to stay as objective as possible.

“The anomaly might be made of dark matter. But it could just as easily be some kind of technology that can exist at a subatomic level, below what we can register, or in some other dimension. Certainly, that glowing ball of lithium is an example of manipulating matter at a subatomic level. It should burn out within seconds, but it is constantly being replenished.”

“How?” asked Cathy.

“Oh, I have no idea,” replied Teller. He looked over at Bates who shrugged his shoulders.

Bates added his thoughts, saying, “Remember E=mc
²
? The amount of energy required to continually create matter in this fashion is phenomenal, and yet we see no evidence of the energy itself, no radiation at all, but there it is.”

“They're showing off,” said Anderson lightheartedly.

Teller smiled, saying, “Oh, they're certainly doing that. The whole flip-the-world-upside-down does that quite effectively. But I've been thinking. We can't see the anomaly directly. We can only see what it does, like moving the intersection or the flags and the vaporous ball of lithium, but we can't actually see the anomaly itself. And I think that tells us something important about it.”

“What?” asked Bates, intrigued by the point.

Teller sipped his hot chocolate before continuing.

“Well, Mason was right in his address to the UN. This is all about trust. Whoever made this probe could have set it up to actively investigate any foreign intelligence it came across, and it could have done that without us ever knowing anything about it, but they didn't. They wanted this to be a discussion, a two-way conversation. They wanted this to be respectful, not forceful. And I think that's quite profound.

“Look at the patience involved. I released that helium balloon almost thirty-two hours ago, and the anomaly responded with lithium in a fraction of a second. Now it's just sitting there waiting, knowing full well the flurry of interest it has just generated among us ignorant savages.”

Anderson added his thoughts. “I remember reading about how Jane Goodall first enticed wild chimpanzees into the open. She sat on the edge of the forest every day for a year, patiently waiting, watching as her presence challenged their social order. And finally, one day, a brave young male came out and made contact. Then, slowly, over several days, others joined in.”

“It's funny,” said Bates. “But I think patience is a sign of higher intelligence. And it seems this thing would wait centuries for us to give it some beryllium, if need be, when it could interrogate our facilities at CERN or the reactor at Indian Point to find out exactly how advanced our nuclear technology is. If it wants to know our strengths and weaknesses it could go out and probe them and we'd be oblivious, but no, it's asking politely.”

“Perhaps,” said Teller, “This is an example of intergalactic etiquette.”

Cathy laughed at the thought, saying, “So this is like the alien equivalent of not chewing with your mouth full, or keeping your elbows off the table?”

“It's something like that,” said Teller with a smile. “With anything disruptive like this, there is always bound to be some fear. That's only natural. But when people stop and look at how gentle the anomaly is, and how respectful it is, I think they'll realize there's nothing to fear.”

Anderson was falling asleep in his chair. He was trying to stay awake, but his eyelids clearly had other ideas.

Teller stood, saying, “It's time to hit the sack.”

“Yeah,” said Bates, stretching his arms and yawning.

Slowly, they disbanded, saying their good nights.

Finch turned the camera on the Navy SEALs working with a couple of the engineers to set up some more fast ropes running up to the intersection high overhead.

It was a counter-intuitive view. Teller and Cathy saw Finch's preoccupation with the soldiers and stopped to watch for a while. The soldiers had drilled anchor points into the concrete road beside the intersection and had thrown their ropes up inside the anomaly, watching them fall up toward the inverted slab above, well away from the tiny glowing core.

Several of the SEALs were upside down, ascending the ropes as they fell upwards toward the slab. They were carrying equipment down to the team already on the slab. At least, thought Teller, it was down from their perspective. But for him, it looked weird seeing the rope pulled taut from the ground up, only to go slack and loose above them as they slid still further upwards on an angle. Above them, below them – it was all a matter of perspective and Teller was so tired his head was starting to hurt trying to figure it out. It sure looked impressive, though.

He, Cathy and Finch talked idly for a few minutes as Finch set up the camera on a wide angle shot, leaving the back-up crew to film through till dawn.

Finch wandered off, talking about ordering additional equipment, leaving Teller and Cathy alone. They turned and started walking the hundred yards to the sleeping tents in the adjacent park.

“Do you really think it's friendly?” Cathy asked.

Teller hadn't actually used that word, but she was right, that was the implication, that the anomaly was peaceful. Far from the Hollywood blockbusters, mankind's first contact with an alien species appeared to be friendly.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think it is. And I think it is far more aware of us than we are of it, and it knows how difficult this is for us.”

Without looking down, Cathy reached out and took his hand in hers. Her fingers were warm. He responded, gently holding her hand.

“Are they like us?”

“I don't know,” said Teller honestly.

“Yes, you do. If anyone knows, you do.”

“It's all inference,” said Teller. “Guesswork, really. I suppose there would be similarities. Here on Earth, we have what's called evolutionary convergence, where things like eyes evolved fifteen to twenty different times, all independently, for the simple reason that eyes are so darn useful. So, could they have eyes? Based on how successful eyes are on Earth, I'd say, yes. But it would depend on how transparent their atmosphere is, I guess. Bats and cave fish have no need for eyes, so it's hard to know without knowing more about their home world. Certainly, you'd have to imagine they looked up at the stars like we do, with a sense of wonder and awe.”