Jaunt (7 page)

Marlane had begun work on cataloguing the cryptid’s DNA and ribosomal RNA protein sequences, concluding—until better evidence could be uncovered—that the skull was of “no known terrestrial origin,” and, due to the presence of Y-90 isotopes, “most likely extraterrestrial,” eliciting the highest echelons of the USNA government to seek access to it. That, however, was on hold indefinitely, until all other avenues of cross-checking could rule out laboratory errors.

Valagua, on his own time, had analyzed the US government map and written a computer program that displayed a holographic representation of the topology of the Nepalese region. Consulting known records from the time, he was able to extrapolate the terrain of the former country during the mid-twentieth century with a margin of error of positive or negative one-three-thousandth of a percent. This holograph would also take into account the shifting sub-Indian continental plate, the changing course of mountain rivers, flooding and cumulative rainfall over the centuries, and the regular shifting of Earth’s climate and magnetic field strength.

With these factors plotted, Valagua set to work discerning the angle of approach the extraterrestrial body responsible for the crash may have taken. In this way, he could perhaps correlate these data with past or future satellite observations to determine any additional crash sites, if they existed. Thanks to nearly two hundred years’ worth of orbital astronomical observations, Valagua knew that often enough, if not always, more than one extraterrestrial object could be involved in any impact on Earth. Armed with all the Global Security Network data he could ask for and the knowledge of hundreds of government astronomers, Valagua set out to decipher the mystery.

Amid the scientific pursuits of de Lis’ staff, Gilmour and Mason were treated to a DoD and State Department update on the ongoing St. Petersburg summit involving the President and the Premier of the Confederation. Lieutenant Colonel Dark Horse, practical as he was for a career Army officer, proved to be an easy man to hold dialogue with, even providing the agents insight on how to approach de Lis, whom he had known for the better part of a decade.

Professor Quintanilla, in contrast, was aloof, perhaps due to her years of dealing with foreign diplomats, and the games of chance government negotiators often played. She possessed a no-nonsense air about her, keeping to herself even when Dark Horse actively included her in his discussions on the summit proceedings.

The colonel had arranged a daily briefing for the agents to read, a summary similar to what Defense Secretary McKennitt would be given with his breakfast. Quintanilla would also make herself available to discuss current foreign affairs, by appointment, only, of course. In the agents’ eyes, she was perhaps here strictly by order of de Lis, or the State Department itself.

Despite Quintanilla, the agents readily anticipated the reports. If nothing else, to do their duties more efficiently and keep the DoD off their backs, as well as Quintanilla. After three days—two since the MPs had allowed the agents to travel from their quarters to the lab unaccompanied—the scientists were still fruitless in their various examinations of the jewels. They had been no more successful gleaning additional data from the remaining samples than at the mobile lab. Valagua, on the other hand, had succeeded in recreating the circumstances and geography of the former Nepal.

Honing the holographs in his office alone, often late into the evening, Valagua had meticulously generated the exact conditions for the date of the crash. The Allied armed forces kept remarkable records for that particular theater; the topographical map itself had several penciled-in references to the day, as well as weather and other, shorthanded, communications reports. Employing these field notes, and coupling them with official records from the National Archives and the spectral dating taken from the crash strata by Waters, Valagua was able to calculate a rough date for the event, a reckoning of sixth October, AD 1940.

Valagua had duly warned de Lis that his research might drag on for several weeks, perhaps not even accomplishing all of his goals. But in his usually understated way, Valagua had somehow managed to outdo himself once again, not only squeezing every exabyte of data out of his computer, but substantially beating his own estimated timeline.

Now, with his holographic presentation ready to be unveiled, Valagua had downloaded the research for transport to the U5-6 gallery, where the three-dimensional work would best be viewed in its entirety, giving the assembled scientists a startling look at the day the world was changed.

Gilmour and Mason dressed hastily in their issued attire, hurrying to respond to the summons from Doctor de Lis to report directly to the U5-6 gallery. As if to reinforce the importance of this newly called briefing, an MP had rapped loudly on each quarters’ door, quickening the agents’ response.

The MP led them to the theoretical studies laboratory, saying nothing while the two wondered privately what de Lis had up his sleeve. He had failed to provide the agents with details, providing only that the promised gallery visit was at hand.

Gilmour and Mason lined up behind several of the junior scientists at the gallery’s entrance, their anticipation of visiting the mysterious mini-facility nearly overpowering their curiosity about the hasty briefing. Walking inside, an oval, two-meter-diameter monitor affixed to a large wall greeted them; this small area was the observation anteroom, where guests were allowed unparalleled access to the holographic chamber’s many activities, as if one were indeed a participant in the gallery itself. A computer terminal below the monitor provided constant streams of data to observers in the event of a failure or error in the gallery’s systems.

Moving past the monitor, a narrow door appeared to the right, bearing a tiny, obliquely inscribed word: GALLERY. With their heads craned upwards, then cranked around, they absorbed as much of the atmosphere as possible while filing through the threshold. Measuring at least thirty square meters, the facility was devoid of any and all equipment. Illumination was provided by a circle of lights directly above the assembled staff that cast a smattering of shadows across the walls, giving the gallery a rather Spartan appearance belying its reputed price tag.

On the west wall was an affixed panel twenty centimeters in height, wafer-thin and smooth, which Gilmour realized was the control panel for the holographic simulation. Standing near it was de Lis, gesturing broadly with Roget, appearing to be having quite the animated discussion. The junior scientists stood with the senior staff, forming a semi-circle in the center. Checking faces, Gilmour accounted for everyone but Valagua.

The assembled staff had but a few moments to mingle before Valagua showed up, brandishing an equipment case slightly larger than a holobook. He parted the crowd and headed straight to the control panel on the wall. Presenting the MP with a pass key, the Marine ran it through a groove at the head of the panel, allowing Valagua’s codes to activate the controls underneath. Valagua slid the security panel up, revealing a touchscreen. He attached his equipment case squarely onto the control panel’s surface, which accessed the gallery’s software.

As Valagua finished, de Lis cleared his throat, grabbing the crowd’s attention. “Thank you all for coming at such short notice. As you are aware, Javier has been putting in some long nights here at the office. You’re about to discover what his hard work has accomplished.”

De Lis then backed away, letting Valagua have his presentation.

Valagua tapped an icon on the control panel, dimming the overhead lights. Only two beacons remained, permitting Valagua to see his panel. He followed with a series of buttons, each emitting a tiny chime during the machine’s warm-up period.

After a moment, light barraged the group from all directions, like an interrogation. Once Gilmour and Mason had regained their wits, they saw that the blinding brilliance was the gallery’s walls turning translucent, letting through a stream of photons from an array of pyramids sandwiched between the gallery’s opaque exterior and now-revealed fullerene interior.

Photons spilled forth into the seven colors of the spectrum, flowing and pooling into a flat, amorphous holograph hovering a meter-and-a-half above the floor. The project scientists backed away from the image, watching it maneuver. A squared plane condensed from the amorphous photons, which was soon sculpted into a series of blue troughs and red peaks, with a smooth green sheet as a median of the two.

Valagua’s simulation evolved further for several more minutes, rendering a virtual terrain, complete with snow caps, rivers, flora, and various soil strata. Even a scaled sun rose to the zenith and descended in the west, appropriately situated for his reckoning of the date. A final touch brought dusk and the appearance of the constellations above the heads of the scientists.

Valagua stepped to the edge of the image and began, “Allow me to present Nepal, sixth October, Nineteen hundred and forty. Our research indicates a small team of Allied reconnaissance officers were traveling along this route...” a single gesture from his index finger illuminated a blue beam, which traced a path over a low mountainside, “...and witnessed what I—and the senior staff—believe to be the crash of an extraterrestrial object.”

Out of the simulated night sky an interloper crashed the length of the terrain at an angle. A red circle flashed where the earth was impacted, corresponding to the crater.

“This occurred midway in the evening...the soldiers present noted that a particular smudge was seen to advance against the constellation Cygnus. The crash you saw was an interpolation of the notes retrieved from the Allied topographical maps. A transcript I have created from the written report of the event notes two more related objects crashing somewhere beyond the horizon.”

His blue beam continued on through the mountainside, descending slowly, while overhead, the stars drifted, edging closer to dawn.

“The officers traveled through the night, following the observed crash. The distance from the sighting and the crater was twenty-seven hundred meters.”

The blue beam met the valley floor and snaked around a dry river bend before hitting the red circle of the crash site.

“Dawn, “ Valagua said, before the sun peaked over the eastern edge of the simulated terrain. “The officers arrive at the crash site, finding...?”

De Lis’ form broke through the holograph. “That’s what we’re here to discover. We have all the right pieces, and Javier has provided us with a dramatic reconstruction of the crater’s first hours. But we still have inaccessible avenues. The DoD is researching their military and civilian archives, attempting to dredge up any records of the officers involved in this reconnaissance. The Global Security Network is currently scanning the region for the two other supposed crashes. Javier will also continue to modify his simulation as new data arrive to supplement it.”

De Lis glanced at Valagua, then back to the group. “Dismissed.”

“Take a look at this,” Waters said, plopping a clear rod into Roget’s hands. “I scraped the carbonized material off this morning. The rest is metallic hydrogen.”

Roget lowered his glasses before bringing the rod closer to his eyes. He brushed his fingers along the odd material, which felt—and looked—like normal glass. “Metallic hydrogen? This?”

Waters nodded. “Pure, one hundred percent, no bonding atoms at all. Tensile strength equal to thirteen times that of fullerene glass. It was locked inside that twisted debris we recovered.”

“Beautiful.” Roget tapped the rod with his index finger, sounding a tiny clink. “DoD

received a sample?”

Waters scrolled down her holobook. “Dropshipped at noon. Lionel...I think we should...keep this one for ourselves and Richard. Perhaps even the other samples.”

He raised an eyebrow; Waters rarely shared thoughts of confidentiality among the Ottawa group. He wondered why she bothered to now, after all of the trouble de Lis had gone in assembling the best and brightest Canada had to offer.

“Why?!” Roget said, pacing in front of her desk. He carefully looked out the fullerene glass before continuing, checking for eavesdroppers. “There are no factions here. We don’t keep our research privy to a specific department. This is—”

“I...I was wanting to keep our security in check. You know the rumors.”

“Not the men and women here. No.” Roget watched the working scientists, like ants in a nest. “I’m not keeping this all to myself. If we’re to fulfill our respective assignments, we can’t hide research.”

Pursing her lips, she rose from her chair. “It’ll be Richard’s call.”

As Waters passed him to open the door, he said, “You’re making a mistake.”

She ignored him as she left, leaving him alone in her office. How confidential was this?

He could pour through her personal files, if he wished to.

Roget stole a peek at the holobook on her desktop, sighed, then followed her out.

De Lis rotated the holographic skull around 180 degrees. His index finger traced the virtual surface suspended before him, his eyes comparing the reconstruction to the genuine object he had first caught sight of several days ago, halfway round the globe.

Marlane typed a series of buttons on her keyboard, which then displayed a crude image of an anthropoid skeleton on her monitor. “Without a specimen from the rest of the body, I can’t do much better than this.”

His eyes shifted from the exquisite rendering of the complete skull to the highly speculative framework. “This is an approximate head/body proportion? The skull’s rather large in comparison to the whole.”

“I agree. Human children exhibit this, as well as those of other hominids, as you are aware, but not to this degree.” Marlane glanced back to the reconstruction. “I’m convinced. What about you?”

De Lis nodded. His eyes roamed the holograph’s cranial roof, noting the absence of unfused cranial plates. Human children are born with highly malleable bones, which knit themselves together, particularly in the cranium, as they mature. If this was indeed a hominid, it was not a child. Its size could potentially mislead a less educated person, but its unusual characteristics would not fool an anthropologist, or anyone with a basic understanding of human anatomy.