Diablo Mesa(91)

Spacecraft. The word had come to her mind instinctively, unconsciously. But in just the last sixty seconds, all lingering uncertainty had drained from her. It was impossible for human science to build, even simulate, a hull like that. Despite the gravity of their situation—the armed soldiers, the hostile underground base—she felt an unexpected relief as she realized she could stop fighting now. She could let all her cynicism, doubt, and scientific skepticism simply melt away like an unwanted weight…to be replaced by wonder.

Without thinking, overcome with awe, she took a step toward it.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Rush said.

Nora stopped.

“It looks quiescent, I know. But the appearance is deceptive. During our initial reconnaissance in 1947, that thing killed two dozen soldiers. In the subsequent salvage operation, it took the lives of almost half again as many.”

Nora listened, unable to take her eyes from the otherworldly ship.

“We only managed to get it back here to Pershing—as it turned out, the closest available site—by encasing it in graphite shields. As far as we’ve been able to determine, the neutron-reflecting properties of graphite offered protection. Partial protection, that is, and only temporary; it appears to have adapted its weaponry to compensate. As a result, we couldn’t risk trying to move it elsewhere. However, Pershing ended up suiting our needs exactly: an abandoned base with tunnels that could easily be expanded, full of hazardous waste and unexploded ordnance, strictly off-limits.”

But Nora was still staring. And then, she began to wonder if her eyes were playing tricks on her. When she’d first entered the hangar, she’d been sure the craft had a long, graceful neck, like a goose or swan in flight. But she blinked: what she thought had been a neck now looked more like a truncated collar. And yet no lighting or other optical effect of the room had been altered.

“Did it just change shape?” she asked.

Rush sighed, perhaps in exasperation. “We can discuss such details later. It would be easiest if you just watched this. Follow me, please.”

He led the way across the echoing hangar toward a small viewing area set near an equipment-festooned wall behind a plexiglass enclosure. As they walked, Nora saw the small black chest containing their recent discovery placed on a graphite table, with barriers being put up around it.

Rush motioned for them to sit down before the viewing area’s large monitor, then took a seat beside them and reached for a remote control. “I’m going to show you a very brief overview of the last seventy-five years,” he said. “It won’t take long, but it’s important to demonstrate the nature of the…device.”

Now the monitor came to life, showing what appeared to be an old black-and-white filmstrip, full of scratches, warping, and jitter. Several anachronistic warning messages from the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, and other entities appeared, asserting how sensitive the video was and offering a variety of maledictions against anyone who tried to duplicate it or otherwise make its contents known. Then the word ALPHA was displayed on a title card, and the scene shifted to a desert setting: a remote location with a high, cloudless sky of gray against a gray sun. Almost immediately, Nora recognized it as their forward dig site. The surrounding topography had changed, but it was nevertheless unmistakable. She could see a cordon of soldiers forming a secure perimeter, weapons at the ready. Various 1940s-era military jeeps, troop trucks, and ambulances were parked nearby. At the center was the same craft that now sat in this vault. It appeared to be half dug out of the earth—or perhaps that was where it had come to land—and the dirt and sand around it were dotted with large, dark stains.

“This was taken the day after we located the device,” Rush said.

Now onscreen, two soldiers approached cautiously. The one in front held what looked like a minesweeper; the one slightly behind him had a carbine at the ready. They stepped closer, then still closer. Except for the carbine, their movements were not obviously threatening.

Suddenly, there was a bright light; so bright that the film lost all contrast, its emulsion fully exposed. Over several seconds, the light receded. Once the landscape came into view again, the soldiers were gone and there were two additional dark stains in the sand beside the craft.

“That is how we were greeted,” Rush said. “Again and again.”

“It probably thought they were armed,” Tappan said. “And it wasn’t wrong.”

Rush laughed mirthlessly. “It was approached, has been approached, in every way you could imagine. The best minds have been tasked with solving how to communicate with it, to demonstrate our friendly intentions. We’ve been met only with sudden violence and death.” He nodded toward the craft. “Like I said, it looks quiescent. But finding an environment to keep it that way has been the work of decades, at the price of countless millions of dollars and many, many lives.”

Now the filmstrip changed. It was still black-and-white, but the orientation was different, and the position was farther away. Nora watched as two tanks approached the craft, which had now been removed from the earth and lay on its side—not unlike its current position here in the vault. Both tanks stopped some distance away, then fired a number of shells from their turrets directly at the craft, without discernible effect.

“Friendly intentions, huh?” Tappan said.

“This was 1947,” Rush replied, as if that explained everything.