“Ceil,” Max said, “this is Tom Lasker. Our straw boss.”
They shook hands.
Tourists and sightseers were everywhere. They engaged workers in conversation, blocked bridges, and generally got in the way. Many were standing on the edge of the excavation, others were dangerously close to the precipice. “We need to do something,” Max said.
Lasker sighed. “I had some people trying to keep them away. But they’re aggressive, and there are just too many to control. Anyway, nobody up here has any real authority.”
Max watched an unending stream of cars approaching across the top of the plateau. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll ask the police to establish some controls on the access road. Maybe limit the number of tourists they allow up here at any one time.”
“They don’t want to do that.”
“They’re going to have to. Before somebody gets killed. We’ll need to make up ID cards for our people.”
“What do we do in the meantime? We’re almost at dead stop here.”
Max took a deep breath. “Send everyone home early.” He looked at the swarms of people. “Who’s the chief of police?”
“Emil Doutable.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah. We don’t run in the same social circles, but I know him.”
“Call him. Explain what’s happening and ask for help. Tell them we’ve been forced out of the excavation, and ask him to send some people to clear the area.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Meantime,” Max said to Ceil, “I guess you’d like to see the whatsis?”
“Yes,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”
They crossed a wooden bridge over the main trench. In the inner area, heaps of dirt were thrown up everywhere, and several other ditches had been dug. Max peered into each as they advanced. Finally he stopped. “Here,” he said.
The excavation was wider than it had been in the morning. And the green patch had also grown. “It looks like glass,” Ceil said.
Several minutes later, Lasker rejoined them. “Cops are coming,” he said.
“Good. By the way, Tom, April says this is more of the same stuff. Maybe we’ve really got ourselves a UFO.”
Lasker shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Max had been careful not to allow himself to get carried away by his hopes. But Lasker’s comment, and something in his tone, disappointed Max. “Why not?” he asked.
Lasker looked pained. “Follow me,” he said.
He led the way back to the main ditch and descended one of the ladders. Max and Ceil followed. It was cold and gloomy in the trench. Boards had been laid along the ground. People were digging everywhere. Others hauled dirt away and loaded it into barrels. The barrels were lifted by pulley to the surface, where they would be dumped.
“Here,” said Lasker. He pointed at a curved strut that emerged from the earthen wall about five feet over his head and plunged into the ground. “There are several of these,” he said. “The upper end is connected to the outside of the object. This end,” he added, pointing to the lower section, “is anchored in rock. Whatever else this thing might be, it sure as hell wasn’t meant to go anywhere.”
11
The entire macroindustrial system is predicated on a persistent and statistically predictable level of both dissolution and waste. That is, on major components of what is normally defined as use. A significant reduction in either of these two components could be relied on to produce immediate and quite volatile economic disruptions.
“I’d like to start by putting an end to the flying-saucer rumor.” April spoke directly into the cameras. She was flanked by Max, who would just as soon have been somewhere else but was trying not to look that way. A state flag had been draped across the wall behind them. “I don’t know where that story came from, but it didn’t originate with us. The first I heard about it was in the Fort Moxie News.” She smiled at Jim Stuyvesant, who stood a few feet away, looking smug.
They were in the Fort Moxie city hall. Max had been shocked at both the number and the identities of the journalists who had turned up. There were representatives from CNN and ABC, from the wire services, from several major midwestern dailies, and even one from the Japan Times. Mike Tower, the Chicago Tribune’s celebrated gadfly, was in the front row. For at least a few hours, the little prairie town had acquired national prominence.
April and Max had made a decision the previous evening to hold nothing back but speculation. If they were going to show up on CNN, they might as well do it with a splash. April had rehearsed her statement, and Max had asked every question they could think of. But doing it with the live audience was different. April was not an accomplished speaker, and there were few things in this life that scared Max more than addressing any kind of crowd.
April pulled a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase. “But we do have some news. These are lab reports on a sample of sail found with the Lasker boat and on a sample of the exterior of the object on the ridge. The element from which these objects are made has an atomic number of one hundred sixty-one.”
Photojournalists moved in close and got their pictures.
“This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart.”
Several hands went up. “What exactly does that mean?” asked a tall young woman in the middle of the room.
“It means it is not an element we have seen before. In fact, not too long ago I would have told you this kind of element would be inherently unstable and could not exist.”
More hands. “Who’s capable of manufacturing this stuff?”
“Nobody I know of.”
Cellular phones were appearing. Her audience pressed forward, holding up microphones, shouting questions, some just listening. April asked them to hold their questions until she completed her statement. She then outlined the sequence of events, beginning with the discovery of the yacht. She named Max and Tom Lasker, giving them full credit (or responsibility) for the find on the ridge. She described in detail the test results on the materials from the boat and from the excavation site. “They will be made available as you leave,” she said. She confessed an inability to arrive at a satisfactory explanation. “But,” she added, “we know that the object on the ridge is a structure and not a vehicle of any kind. So we can put everyone’s imagination to rest on that score.” She delivered an engaging smile. “It looks like an old railroad roundhouse.”
Hands went up again.
The Winnipeg Free Press: “Dr. Cannon, are you saying this thing could not have been built by human technology?”
CNN: “Have you been able to establish the age of the object?”
The Grand Forks Herald: “There’s a rumor that more excavations are planned. Are you going to be digging somewhere else?”
She held up her hands. “One at a time, please.” She looked at the reporter from the Free Press. “Nobody I know can do it.”
“How about the government?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. But you’ll have to ask them.” She turned toward CNN. “The element doesn’t decay. I don’t think we’ll be able to date it directly. But it appears that the builders did some rock cutting to make room for the roundhouse. We might be able to come up with a date when the rock cutting took place. But we haven’t done that yet.”