He
passed
out pairs of prismatic goggles, then gave a signal to Freiling, who was
standing on the operators platform of the energy cannon. The old man
threw a
switch, and the room filled with a shrill buzzing sound as the gun
began bombarding
the alien ship with power. A loud crack ripped through the vessel and
bounced
off the concrete walls. Lenel gave an OK sign from the output meter he
was
watching. Cibatutto directed the visitors' attention to the mirror at
the
bottom of the ship, where they watched the swirling green cyclone being
created
by the aqua-box. And, through the special filters of the goggles, they
were
able to watch the energy being purged from the ship's system. Instead
of the
spasmodic and undirected waves they had seen before, the energy was now
channeled
through the arms of the whirling ankh. Four pinpoint beams traveled
around the
walls of the bunker, searching for another ship to power.
A
moment
later, the wooden trestles holding the ship off the floor groaned as
the weight
bearing down on them began to ease. Slowly, like an ancient pterodactyl
riding
an updraft, the ship lifted into the air. The moment it did so, the
scientists
abandoned the monitors they were watching and threw their arms in the
air,
cheering.
"Holy
guacamole!" Okun gasped. When a nod wasn't enough to express his
excitement, he began bouncing up and down, then turned and grabbed the
first
body he could find—it happened to be Spelman's—and bounced around with
the
colonel wrapped in his arms. He leaped from the platform to the floor
of the
bunker, still bouncing. The ship had lifted two feet above the
trestles. He
gave Cibatutto five, then bounced over and kissed Lenel on the forehead
before
the old man could swat him away. When he came to Dr. Issacs, a little
of the
air went out of his tires.
As
calm,
cool, and collected as ever, Issacs indicated the heat gauge. "The
temperature inside the ship is 160 and climbing," he called out over
the
screech of the electro-cannon. "It's time to shut down."
Okun
turned and waved the cutoff signal. But Freiling remained oblivious,
hypnotized
by the dark bird floating before him, until Okun ran up next to him,
and
yelled, "TURN IT OFF!" The old man flipped the kill switch, abruptly
bringing the power level down to zero. The saucer crashed down onto the
trestles,
which cracked and teetered, but, fortunately, did not collapse.
"Gotta work on
the landing," Freiling observed, pulling off his goggles, "but I'll
be damned if we didn't get her to fly."
"We
sure did, Daddy-o!"
"I
only wish Sam could've seen this."
Okun
smiled sadly. "Me too."
The
scientists rejoined their visitors on the observation platform, then
repaired
immediately to the kitchen. According to the long-established rules of
procedure at the top-secret facility, champagne was served.
Somewhere
between the uncorking of the bottles and the departure of the visiting
dignitaries late that afternoon, there was an important exchange of
documents.
Okun went first.
As Spelman had
requested, he'd prepared a report detailing everything he knew about
the aliens
up to that point. It ran to over two hundred pages. At the end of it,
he tried
to answer the question of how great a threat the aliens posed to the
world in
general and the United States in particular. He found the question
nearly
impossible to answer. Despite all that had been learned about them, the
most
basic question of all remained a mystery: What did they want? The
possibilities
ranged all the way from the hope they were beneficent beings bearing
gifts to
the fear they had come to invade the planet and take it away from us.
Okun took
both possibilities seriously. But his gut told him it was bad news,
VDJ. They
were dealing with an intelligent race with advanced technologies. Their
ships
were armed, they used other beings as armor, and they had offered no
sign of
friendship. If Wells had interpreted the vision of the alien planet
correctly,
they were also dealing with a catastrophic food shortage. Perhaps the
encounters
were few because they were only scout ships. On the other hand, they
had made
no sign of being hostile either. Never once had they demonstrated a
clearly
malicious intent to humans, with the possible exception of the Eau
Claire case.
They had ample opportunity to torture, maim, or kill any of the people
they'd
captured. Instead they had been released unharmed, and although many of
these
people came away from the experience traumatized, an equal number
longed for it
to happen again.
Then
there
was Okun's own experience. He recalled how wildly terrified he'd been
of being
detected by the aliens outside the cave. But looking back on it, they
must have
known he was there all along. Instead of harming him, the Tall One had
given
him the ankh, allowing research to continue. It might even turn out
they were
shy tourists ferried through a time warp in the Van Allen belts for
five-day
vacations, observing earth from the safety and comfort of their flying
fortresses—their version of visiting a safari park. Who knew? He
concluded that
it was too early for conclusions and called upon the military and
intelligence
branches of the government to aid in the recovery of more evidence. To
this
end, he proposed a handful of clever stratagems designed to lure the
creatures
into traps.
Spelman
accepted the report with the promise that it would circulate through
the
highest levels of the government.
"Including
the president?"
"Especially
the president."
Okun
actually breathed a sigh of relief when he learned that soon this
important
information would be in the right hands. It was too heavy a
responsibility for
him to carry around, and he didn't feel right about the CIA and the
Army being
the only ones to know about it.
"Now
we've got something for you."
Dr.
Insolo
snapped open the locks on an attaché case and pulled out some pieces of
paper.
"The only reservation any of us had about appointing you director
concerned your educational qualifications. Something isn't quite right
when the
leader of one of the nation's top laboratories doesn't hold a Ph.D. But
given
the restrictions on your travel, we knew you wouldn't be able to attend
classes. So, we took the liberty of transferring your credits from
Caltech to
the United States Naval Postgraduate School, where I'm a member of the
faculty.
Hope you don't mind." He held up what looked to Okun like a diploma and
read what was printed on it. "Whereas the candidate. Brackish Okun, has
exhibited full mastery of the body of knowledge and technologies
associated
with his field of study, and whereas he has made a unique and original
contribution to this field, he is hereby awarded a doctorate of
philosophy in
Xenoaeronautics."
Spelman
was the first to extend his hand. "Congratulations,
Doctor
Okun."
"How utterly
cool," Okun enthused, reading over the diploma. When he looked up he
was
surrounded by the smiling faces of his friends and guests. Without
realizing
it, they had all begun mirroring the minuscule cranial motion so
characteristic
of the labs director. The entire room was nodding.
"The
end." Nimziki smirked when he saw those words on the last page of Okun
s
report. "What does he think this is, a bedtime story?"
"Sometimes
he's a little weird." Spelman chuckled.
"What
did you think of it?" Nimziki asked, tossing the report onto his desk.
"It's
wordy, and parts of it don't make much sense, but the ideas are strong.
Overall, I'd say it's a balanced presentation of the evidence. I'm
anxious to
hear what the president has to say about it."
"Yeah,
me too," Nimziki said absently. He wasn't any great fan of President
Ford's. When it had been time to appoint a new director of the CIA,
Ford had
ignored the unanimous recommendation of the intelligence community that
Nimziki
get the job. He had named one of his longtime political allies to the
post
instead.
"I
especially liked his ideas about how to capture another ship."
"Yeah,
I'll have to reread those. Smart."
"And
what about his ideas for slowly introducing the truth about the aliens
to the
public?"
"The stuff
about saturating the media with alien stories before breaking the true
story.
Interesting. I'll have to give it some more thought." Spelman could see
Nimziki was tired and distracted by other thoughts. That was
understandable. It
was almost eleven o'clock at night, and they'd both been at work since
early
that morning. "I think I'll get out of here and let you go home."
Spelman walked to the door, then turned, and said, "Please let me know
as
soon as you get any reaction from the White House so I can pass it
along to our
team out at Groom Lake. I'm as anxious as they are. And, Al"— he waited
for Nimziki to glance up—"we all did a hell of a good job on this one,
didn't we?"
"Yeah,
we sure did, Bud. But listen, don't expect an immediate response from
the
president. You know how they are over there. They want to preserve
their
plausible deniability option. But the moment I hear anything, on or off
the
record, I'll let you know."
When
Spelman was gone, Nimziki thumbed through the report once more, then
walked
into the next room and fed it into a paper shredder. He turned out the
lights
and went home.