They put this plan into action with Runyan
noting the vicinity where the hole had come up and Danielson
several hundred feet away locating where it had descended.
Then Gantt gave orders to set up a fourth
instrumentation site outside of camp and prepare accommodations for
Runyan and Danielson, a legitimate task postponed earlier.
Danielson joined Runyan. For the next few minutes they assiduously
searched the several square yards just outside the main tent,
Runyan erect and Danielson in a low crouch.
“Let’s try something else,” Runyan finally
said. He directed Danielson to stand against the tent wall.
“Now I’m going to jump and stamp—you look for
some sign of settling dirt.”
He launched himself upward and came down with
a satisfying thud. He looked at the ground as Danielson peered
around. They looked up at one another and shrugged. Runyan repeated
the faintly ludicrous operation, working systematically across the
suspect area.
On the fifth try, Danielson pointed, “There,
just by your left foot.”
Two small stones were wedged in a depression,
but as they looked a trickle of loose dirt sifted beneath the
stones and disappeared.
Runyan crouched and carefully plucked away
one of the stones in each hand. Beneath them was a hole in the
sunbaked clay soil the size of a finger. Danielson jogged over to
Gantt’s tent and returned with a coat hanger under her arm and
another she busily untwisted. When she straightened the hanger, she
lowered it slowly into the hole. It met only minor resistance and
sank to the hook, which remained on the edge, marking the spot.
They walked to the second location and after
a brief search found another hole. Again, they straightened a coat
hanger and embedded it to mark the spot. Runyan rummaged up a tape
measure he had spotted in the main instrumentation tent, and they
marked off the distance between the two holes, which Runyan
recorded in a small notebook in his pocket.
“Alex,” Danielson asked as they headed back
to Gantt’s tent, “is there a special significance to the fact that
it came down a bit further to the east? Is that related to the
Earth’s rotation from west to east?”
“That’s one of many effects,” he replied as
they settled into their chairs, “but you have to be careful to
treat all the irregularities, all the perturbations.”
“How does the rotation come in?” she
asked.
“Well, here, I’ll show you.” Runyan retrieved
his computer output from the ground where he had left it and turned
it over on his lap to write on the blank side. He pulled out a pen
and carefully blocked out a set of equations. Danielson scooted her
chair around close to his so she could see.
Gantt returned an hour later and found them
in an animated discussion of orbit perturbations. He did not follow
the details, but it was clear to him that Danielson was holding her
own with Runyan, giving him pause with penetrating questions and
occasionally adding a twist of her own. Although the discussion was
purely intellectual, Gantt could sense the electricity between the
two. Alex is well into stage two, he thought, black hole or no.
Then a question of the generation and propagation of seismic waves
arose, and Gantt pitched into the discussion as well.
They were still at it when the dinner bell
sounded. Runyan and Danielson lagged behind as they headed for the
mess tent.
“Listen,” Runyan said quietly, leaning over
toward her, “there’s not much to do here in the middle of god’s
country, but how about an evening stroll after things cool off. The
desert can be quite beautiful then.”
Danielson turned her head to look up into his
eyes, light flashing within the dark aura of his hair and beard.
She wanted to be alone with him.
“That sounds very nice,” she said, holding
his gaze for a moment. Then, with a new energy, they moved to catch
up to Gantt.
After supper Runyan and Danielson joined
Gantt at his tent in the fading evening light. Despite the
lingering heat, they went inside the tent where Gantt switched on a
generator- fed bulb. They discussed their current position and laid
plans for the immediate future. Although the major point they had
sought to check seemed well settled, they agreed that Gantt’s
station should remain in operation to compile a precise record of
the behavior of the object. Danielson would return and report to
Isaacs and redouble the effort to discover the hypothesized point
of origin. Runyan would report to Phillips and resume his orbital
calculations. Gantt again proferred his bottle of bourbon, and they
drank a nightcap to seal their arrangement. Danielson excused
herself. Runyan followed a few minutes later.
Runyan pushed aside the tent flap and stepped
out. The acrid aroma of tarpaulin mingled with the wafted delicate
fragrance of grease wood. The clean dry air was warm and
enveloping, as if you could shuck your clothes and drink it in
through every pore. Runyan waited for his eyes to adjust, then
turned toward Danielson’s tent, a sense of anticipation beginning
to tickle his loins. He peered through the darkness toward her
tent, some forty paces away on the other side of the one erected
for him, but could only make out the vaguest outlines. Then he saw
her, waiting for him in the deepest shadow. The familiar feeling of
sweet power flooded him, and his mind filled with images of her
warm curves, putting flesh to the dim silhouette he could barely
perceive as he approached.
Danielson watched the figure picking his sure
way in the dark. She had the irrational feeling that the ground
would open up and swallow him before he reached her. It didn’t. He
stopped a pace from her, his strong presence palpable even at the
distance. She felt an urge to reach out and touch him, but he made
no motion and neither did she.
He lingered a moment savoring the invisible
aura between them, then whispered, “Let’s head out this way.”
He pointed to the rudimentary road that led
to one of the outlying sites. They walked carefully out of the
campsite and onto the road. The Moon was nearly full, casting faint
shadows. Danielson found that at their strolling pace she could
walk easily, with only part of her attention on the rocky roadbed.
She looked around and up. Away from the Moon the pure desert sky
was almost a solid blanket of stars.
“It’s so lovely,” she whispered.
As she looked upward and outward the trauma
of the afternoon receded and an overpowering expansiveness filled
her. She reached for Runyan’s arm and hugged it in both her hands,
pulling him close to her. After several paces he freed his arm and
encircled her waist. She slipped her arm across his back and leaned
her head on his shoulder.
They walked on, speaking little, each lost in
thought, awash in awareness of the other. Runyan estimated they had
walked a half hour when he said, “I think we better head back.”
“I suppose we should,” she replied, her voice
hinting regret. She felt something slipping by, something she
didn’t want to lose. As they turned around in the darkness she
tugged at his sleeve to halt him. He turned toward her, and she
gripped his other sleeve as well, facing him, arms open, body
exposed.
He raised his arms to encircle her shoulders,
drawing her into a gentle embrace. She cradled her head against his
chest, arms around his waist, and stared down at the Earth beside
them. She thought again of the shattering event of the earlier
afternoon, of the miniscule horror hurtling beneath their feet.
Somehow, she felt this man was her protector, the sole barrier
between her and the ferocious void. She lifted her head to look
into his eyes. The shadows on his face were portals to a vast
emptiness that she had to keep at bay. She moved her face closer to
his so his features were clear, the shadows muted. She opened
herself to a feeling she knew had been growing. She wanted this
man. The world seemed large and empty. She needed to be with him,
to hold to his firmness and strength.
She stretched to kiss him, feeling the
prickle of his mustache and beard as he responded. Their lips
brushed. A cool current raced through their bodies at the touch of
sensitive flesh on flesh. He cupped her jaw and neck, fingers
lightly tangled in her hair, kissing her deeply, drawing a dormant
passion up and out.
They walked as quickly as they could back to
the camp, pausing for another prolonged kiss when the interval grew
too long to bear. The camp was dark and quiet when they
returned.
Outside her tent she embraced his neck and
stood on tiptoe for one more lingering kiss before crossing the
threshold.
An image of the ludicrously narrow cot
flashed in her mind. They could throw the thin mattress on the tent
floor. She broke their kiss, found his hand, and brushed her lips
across his palm. Then she pushed aside the tent flap and, still
holding his hand, led him in. Runyan stooped to follow her, a small
smile playing on his lips.
*****
Viktor Korolev forged down the sidewalk with
long solid strides, his black mood radiating ahead, parting
grumbling pedestrians like the bow wave of a ship. They had offered
him a ride, but he needed to walk to work off his frustration.
So the Americans had done it! This
inconceivable thing. He’d had to lay his proof before the generals.
After that, none of his bellowing power could dissuade them from
narrow thoughts of retribution. Granted the Americans were formally
at fault, this thing was too different to be handled with
old-fashioned polarized modes of behavior. Good arguments, to no
avail.
Korolev thought of his message to Zamyatin, a
meager return for gifts received. The American would rue the day he
had proffered his insights, seeking help. Korolev sighed. Had this
Robert Isaacs not catalyzed events, the day of reckoning would only
have been postponed.
Korolev slowed his pace, frustration waning,
pushed aside by the need to develop a constructive response. He
began to mentally list others in the power structure to whom he
could take his case for moderation, cooperation. Whatever the
generals plotted now, he hoped it would involve no loss of
life.
On Thursday morning, Isaacs studied each one
of the photographs as Vincent Martinelli handed them over. He set
one of them aside. All the others ended up in a neat stack of
rejects. He picked up the special one and peered at it closely
again.
“These are all the possible sites?”
“Every one Danielson gave us.”
“And this is the only one that shows anything
but natural terrain and vegetation?” He flapped the photo in his
hand.
“The only one.”
“Okay, so I’ll bite. Where is it?”
“New Mexico.”
“New Mexico! Good god! Then this thing may
have begun in the United States?”
“Looks like it. We took five shots of New
Mexico. That one is in the Guadalupe Mountains to the east of the
White Sands missile testing range.”
“Hmmm. Some connection there, you think?”
Isaacs asked. “What is the place?” He waved the photo again.
“Hey, don’t ask me.” Martinelli protested.
“You’re the smart guys who figure ‘em out.”
“No idea?”
“No, seriously. I came up here as soon as
they came out of the print machine. All I’ve got is the
coordinates. They’re on the back.”
Isaacs turned the print over. The numbers
meant nothing to him.
“I’ll get Baris on this.”
“Anything else from my side?”
“Not until we know what we’re dealing with
here.”
“Okay, give a holler if you need
something.”
“Right, thanks for the quick work, Vince.”
Isaacs waved a salute as Martinelli let himself out.
Mid-morning was slow time. Esteban Ruiz sat
in the guard house at the front gate of CIA headquarters trying to
pick a rim of varnish from under his fingernail. A quiet smile
reflected his thoughts. Tonight he would put the final coat on the
new desk and shelves, and by tomorrow they could permanently set up
the small computer he had scrimped and saved to buy his children.
It was not the biggest, but it had been on sale, and when he lugged
it in the door the children had shouted with surprise. Carlos, the
oldest, had grumped a bit that it did not have enough memory, but
Esteban’s heart swelled with pleasure that his son even knew to
question such a thing. Esteban did not know computers, was more
than a little frightened of them, but he did know wood. The new
shelves, the product of his hands, mind, labor, and love, looked
good. He was proud of them and proud of his children who yearned to
embrace a world he would never know. Ruiz was not aware of the
black limousine until it slid to a quiet stop in front of him.
Without quite focusing on detail, he knew what it was.
Holy Mary, Mother of God! he exclaimed to
himself. Russians! He stepped quickly from the gate house, right
palm on the butt of his service revolver, and tried to adopt his
most gruff manner, but his voice shook, betraying his shock.
“Hold on there! Where do you think you’re
going?”
He addressed himself to the stolid faced
driver, but received no reply. Instead, the rear window whisked
down in response to an inner button.
“We don’t intend to go in, Sergeant,” Grigor
Zamyatin used his most appealing tone. “But I have an urgent
message for Mr. Isaacs, your Deputy Director of Scientific
Intelligence.”
He put a core of steel in the next words. “I
must see that he receives it.” Then he spoke smoothly again. “Could
he possibly come here to the gate and receive it directly?”
Ruiz could not help the edge of respect that
crept into his voice. His hand slipped off his pistol butt. The
driver of the limousine surreptitiously shifted his body and
relaxed slightly as well.