Anomaly (17 page)

Mason walked over with Anderson. Cathy sat up, feeling like she was doing something wrong by snuggling up to Teller. Mason swung a chair around and sat backwards on it, facing them as he straddled the chair back. Anderson sat on the arm of the other armchair while several other NASA scientists milled around, sitting on the coffee table or just standing in the background. Finch angled for the best shot.

“So,” began Mason. “What do you think of our progress?”

Teller looked up at the anomaly. He could see another injection process under way. Whatever substance they were up to in the Periodic Table was in the process of being dropped upwards from a canister ten feet above the center of the anomaly. The clump of silvery metal was roughly the size of a tennis ball. It floated for a second or two upon reaching the center of the anomaly before continuing up and into the catchment basket on the inverted concrete slab. Only, as it fell up toward the basket, it seemed to have a slightly different hue to it.

“That was the Fermium drop,” said Anderson. “It's a fascinating process. The anomaly catches our offering, somehow adds a proton to all the atoms within that mass, converting it before our eyes into the next element in the periodic table, and then lets it fall through. So that would have been Mendelevium coming out the other side with the green tinge.”

“Incredible,” said Teller, lost for words.

“You should have seen the platinum drop,” said Anderson. “We released a one kilogram glistening silvery sphere only to watch a kilo of gold drop out the other side. There was more than one technician that wanted to see that one again. Astounding. Alchemy in action.”

“So what's next?” asked Mason, looking at Anderson, Bates and Teller. “What kind of machine is this thing likely to build?”

“No idea,” said Bates.

“I can't think of any machine that would use all these elements,” replied Anderson.

They looked at Teller.

“You're asking me?” asked Teller, looking back at Mason. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Teller corrected himself, pointing at Anderson and Bates, saying, “In fact, their guess is significantly better than mine. These guys understand the physics, they're operating on a whole other level to me.”

“I don't know if we're going to be able to preempt the next step,” said Anderson. “We may just have to wait and see.”

“Got any more helium balloons?” asked Bates. “Any ideas?”

“Well,” said Teller, stalling for a second. He was sore and tired. He pushed his mind through a sense of lethargy. “Let's look at what it knows about us. It knows we're able to isolate a continuous string of periodic elements through to the heavy radioactive metals like uranium and plutonium. So it knows we're in the atomic age. It knows we have nanotech and can form buckyballs and sheets of graphine. So it must figure we've stumbled upon relativity and quantum mechanics, at least at a basic level, as without that knowledge we wouldn't be able to come up with these things.”

Bates and Anderson nodded in agreement.

“So we've passed Chemistry 101, probably not with an A+, but I think we would have been given a strong B. We certainly didn't flunk. It knows we're out of the dark ages and should be in the space age.”

“So what's next?” asked Anderson. “You don't think it's going to get into advanced physics, string theory or anything like that? Astrophysics maybe? Astronomy?”

“Too specialized,” suggested Teller, liking his thinking but realizing there were other possibilities. “I mean, this is just a guess, but I'd think it's going to branch out and establish a broader base of understanding before delving too deep on any one specialist subject. You've got to remember, we're still at the trading-beads-for-blankets stage at the moment. We've got to expand our shared scientific vocabulary before we can get into some of these other topics. Perhaps delve into some of the other fundamental concepts for life.”

“So what?” asked Bates. “You're thinking biology?”

“It's possible,” said Teller.

“Really,” said Anderson. “Not a particle accelerator or something like that?”

He seemed disappointed.

“Hey,” said Teller, qualifying his comments. “I may be completely wrong on this. I was wrong on the whole Vega thing, so it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong when it comes to this thing. But my guess is biology because any kind of mechanical device is going to be so far beyond our level of understanding it would be meaningless. And, picking up on the point Dr. Anderson made, it's the only thing that uses at least a majority of the lighter elements in the Periodic Table.”

Mason looked intently, not saying a word.

“Hey,” Teller continued. “It's just an idea. I mean, imagine trying to teach Archimedes how to build his own tablet computer. Imagine taking one apart and trying to explain to Plato or Aristotle what each of the components are, how they work, how they are built, and how they all fit together. And these guys were highly intelligent. I just think the anomaly's tech is going to be so far beyond us, we'd never get it. And besides ...”

“Besides what?” asked Cathy, not wanting the thought to slip away.

“I think it's curious about us. We've exchanged chemical elements. Elements make up molecules. Molecules make up DNA. DNA makes up life. It's here because we're alive. I think it's going to want to know what makes us tick. Remember, this isn't just about what we want from the anomaly. It has goals and objectives too. It's going to want to examine life on Earth.”

“So what?” asked Mason. “We start dropping animals and people into the damn thing?”

“Not quite,” replied Teller. “Just samples of their DNA. And we'll need to do it sequentially, traversing the phylogenetic tree of life. It's going to quickly work out the pattern of inheritance and link species together.”

Bates groaned. “And I thought the periodic table was tough. Where the hell am I going to get sequential biological samples from? Good God, most of it's bacteria. Where do I start? At a zoo? At a university? At a garden nursery? For that matter, I could start in a garbage can.”

Teller laughed, saying, “How about all of the above.”

“And?” asked Mason, suspecting there were more ideas bouncing around in Teller's head.

“And there will be another exchange.”

There was silence.

“Ah, what do you mean by that?” asked Mason.

“I mean, it's whole premise of interaction has been based on exchange. It presented hydrogen, we responded with helium.”

“So we give it some of our DNA,” said Bates.

“And it gives us some of its DNA,” added Anderson. “Or whatever its equivalent is.”

“Maybe,” said Teller. “It's just an idea. We'll find out soon enough. But I suspect it's not going to be interested in seeing our computers or electronics or any other kind of machinery. It's going to want to see what chemicals make us tick.”

Mason's phone began vibrating. He looked at the caller ID.

“Let me guess,” said Bates, knowing the President's Advisers would be watching the live broadcast along with everyone else. “Make sure he understands this is speculative. We could be way off base on this, but it makes sense.”

“Tell him progress will be slow,” said Anderson. “It took us decades to decipher our own DNA. Anything the anomaly shows us could take decades to unravel and map out. Making sense of it could take even longer still.”

“Yeah,” said Bates, agreeing with him. “I suspect the days of sensational news events are over. Now is when the serious science begins.”

“Absolutely,” said Teller. “And maybe once the anomaly has sat here for four or five years, slowly conversing with us about the mysteries of the universe, we'll finally figure out there's no reason to get all upset and feel threatened.”

“Where's Charles Darwin when you need him?” asked Bates, to which Anderson and Teller smiled, appreciating the sentiment.

Mason walked away, taking the phone call from the White House. Finch followed him with his camera, catching his every word.

“Did you say all that stuff about biology just to set the cat among the pigeons and get everyone out of your hair?” asked Cathy as the others had dispersed.

“No, but that would have been a great idea,” laughed Teller.

She leaned into him on the couch, while he slipped his hand around her shoulder. They both quietly appreciated how natural and comfortable it felt. The events of the past day seemed to fade like some distant dream.

“You really think it's going to move from chemicals to biology?”

“If I was setting up something like this, it's what I'd do next. After all, the whole reason for coming to Earth was to seek out intelligent life, so it must be intensely curious about us. It's at least as curious about us as we are about it, so yeah, I think cycling through the periodic table of elements was a prelude to the main event.”

She rested her hand on his thigh.

They chatted idly, watching the hive of activity on the inverted slab. It was almost directly overhead which meant it was getting close to midnight. Hundreds of feet above them, soldiers and workers moved around, their feet seemingly glued to the concrete slab. After a while, Cathy drifted back to sleep with her feet curled up on the couch. Teller leaned back, getting comfortable himself before drifting off to sleep wondering what they'd see next. Someone noticed the two of them asleep and covered them with a blanket.

Finch made sure he got a shot of the two of them curled up together.

Cathy opened her eyes, hearing the familiar sound of the zoom lens moving.

“Human interest, Cathy. Human interest,” said Finch softly. “There's only so much people can take of hydrogen, helium and lithium.”

Teller stirred. He was awake, but he kept his eyes shut, not wanting to give that tidbit away to Finch and the camera.

“I'll give you human interest,” growled Cathy, shaking her fist at him.

Finch laughed and wandered off. Cathy got herself comfortable, curling up against Teller, and drifted back to sleep, as did Teller.

Shortly after midnight, the core team ran out of elements to exchange with the anomaly. Mason made the call to pull everyone off the intersection. He wanted to send a message, let the anomaly know they were finished. And besides, he figured, no one knew what was next so it made sense to be cautious.

The members of the contact team on the slab ascended the ropes one by one, being hoisted up/down from the ground using pulleys. They'd become used to twisting around in midair once they felt the pull of normal gravity just past the halfway mark. It made for great footage, said Finch, capturing their descent on camera.

It was almost one in the morning before the team was back on firm ground. Mason and the others turned in for the night, leaving the graveyard shift to just a handful of scientists and engineers.

Bates woke Teller and Cathy so they could get some proper sleep in the air-conditioned tents. Truth be told, Teller was a little disappointed at being woken. He would have been quite content to stay there all night, although he realized being woken by the rising sun would have cut his sleep cruelly short. He ached as he got up, his muscles sore from the events of the day.

Teller stretched. He was a little dehydrated. The bruising on the side of his head throbbed slightly. He figured he'd stop by the medical tent for some painkillers before turning in. Cathy was just as lethargic as he was.

The two of them looked up at the anomaly. Nothing had happened. The scaffolding sat there idle. There was no visible activity at the heart of the anomaly. If it wasn't for the scaffolding, Teller wouldn't have been able to pick out the center. All was quiet. It was a bit of an anticlimax.

“Maybe alien probes need their beauty sleep too,” Cathy said as they wandered off to bed.

Neither Teller nor Cathy rose before noon. They ran into each other while heading for the showers. Neither of them looked respectable, and looking at each other, they knew it. Cathy's hair looked like she'd stuck her finger into a light socket, while Teller's looked like something out of a 70s punk band. With knowing glances and coy smiles, they went their separate ways and enjoyed relaxing under a hot shower, washing the aches and pains away. Teller finished first, and sat outside waiting for Cathy, which she seemed to appreciate. It was amazing what a good night's sleep, a shower and a fresh change of clothes could do, thought Teller.

The anomaly was almost perfectly aligned when they wandered up to the NASA trailer with a coffee in hand. The noonday sun made it a bit hot for coffee, but Teller felt he needed the caffeine kick. Cathy barely touched her latte.

Bates and Anderson were busy chatting with the contact team over to one side and didn't notice them, which was fine with Teller.

The anomaly looked as it always had, a fractured segment of reality. Nothing was glaringly out of place at this time of the day. It was the subtlety that made the anomaly unnerving. The slow moving slab, the ragged sections of the State Department and the flags looked almost normal as they approached their original positions, but that they were in motion at all was unsettling. The mind demanded that these artifacts remain stationary, but they moved in defiance of expectation. The abandoned equipment on the slab looked chaotic, out of place on what should have been an unassuming road cutting north through New York City.

Finch saw Cathy and Teller walking down the road toward the anomaly and yelled out, “Hey, Teller. Looks like you were wrong again.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” replied Teller, not appreciating Finch and his caustic humor. So much for his theory of progression, with the anomaly moving on to a biological conversation. Oh, he thought, why did I open my mouth last night.

“Don't worry about him,” said Cathy. “Mouthing off is a kind of compliment for Finch. It means you have his attention.”

“Great,” said Teller, feeling a little low.

Cathy wandered off to talk to Finch, probably to tell him to pull his head in, figured Teller.

Mason was sitting alone on the couch with his laptop and phone, madly typing on the small computer keyboard. He seemed quite pleased nothing had happened. They needed a few days just to catch up on everything that had happened so far. It was nice to have a break. Mason said he'd spent the morning trying to patch up diplomatic relations, and answering a backlog of correspondence and emails.