“Nope.”
Clay lowered his phone and looked at Langford and Foster who were now watching him. “We’ve got to get Borger on this call sir!”
The call started when the giant screen came to life. On the other end, it showed a large conference room which Clay surmised was somewhere in the Pentagon. Around that table sat Secretary of Defense Miller, National Security Advisor Stevas, and several other military personnel including the Joint Chiefs Chairman, the Vice Chairman, and the chairmen for each of the five military branches the Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines and National Guard.
A moment later, four other images appeared along the bottom of the screen which Clay assumed were the experts that Langford mentioned. Finally, in another small window appeared Borger and Caesare. Borger was out of breath from running a quarter mile to the nearest video enabled conference room. Caesare did not look the least bit winded.
“Gentlemen,” Langford began, “I’d like to dispense with introductions for reasons of expediency. John Clay has just arrived here in JAX and is ready to debrief us on exactly what happened on Emerson’s ship today.” He turned and nodded to Clay. “Go ahead Clay.”
“Thank you sir.” Clay stood up and faced the camera. He started from the beginning and explained the loss of the Triton submersible, the enlisting of the marine biology team in an attempt to find it, and everything that occurred on the Pathfinder from the time they left port. When he finished, he remained standing for questions. He thought to himself that if anyone were shocked by the story almost no one on the screen showed it.
Miller, the Secretary of Defense, jumped in first. “So Lieutenant Commander Clay, you’re saying that the air in the Med Lab just opened up and this man whom you call Palin stepped right through?”
“Yes sir,” answered Clay. “That is what I believe happened.”
Stevas leaned forward in the video feed. “That is what you believe happened? What the hell does that mean? Did it or didn’t it?”
“Sir,” replied Clay. “I do not know exactly what happened, or how something like that is even possible. What I am explaining to everyone here is what I experienced to the best of my understanding.”
Langford interjected. “Might I suggest that before we get into a debate we find out if something like that is possible, and if not, what else it could have been.” Langford called one of the experts on the screen. “Professor Harding is on this call who leads the physics department at MIT. Dr. Harding, can you please speak to what we may be looking at here?”
“Well,” Harding started, clearing his throat. “To be honest it sounds hard to believe.” Harding’s video grew larger on the screen as he spoke to the group. “The kind of technology required to accomplish this sort of feat…well just isn’t available today.” He thought a moment. “Mr. Clay is it possible that this Palin person was already onboard the ship?”
“It is,” nodded Clay. “However we checked with every crewmember and passenger, and no one had seen him during boarding or any time on the trip.”
“What about this patient?” asked Langford. “The one who was injured. Could they have had some trick up their sleeve, something coordinated?”
“It’s possible,” acknowledged Clay. “But I don’t think this was a trick.”
“And why is that?” shot back Stevas from the Pentagon. “Why are you so sure this was not some deception? Mr. Harding himself said that it’s not even possible, so it seems to me that some form of deception is the most logical conclusion here.”
“Well that’s true sir,” Clay replied, “except for a couple of problems.”
“Which are?” Stevas insisted.
“The disappearance of the examination table, not to mention the body that was lying on top of it.”
Stevas did not appreciate the sarcasm. “Well can we be sure that the table is in fact missing? You also said from your description that the man on the table and this Palin person looked very similar in appearance.”
“That is correct.”
“Isn’t it possible that some kind of illusion or trick might make it seem as though there were two people when in fact, there was only one?”
“I don’t see what that would accomplish,” Langford said. “If someone were in trouble, getting off the ship as an injured reporter would have been far easier than becoming a prisoner. Besides, why would someone go to so much trouble to get onboard a research vessel? To learn about some of our newly discovered oil deposits?”
“I agree,” added Leonard Bullman, the Army Chairman. Bullman was slender and had a quiet, thoughtful look about him. “Why the elaborate deception or risk of life and limb just to get on a science vessel?” He turned to look at Bruce Bishop, the Naval Chairman sitting next to him. “Is there anything else on Emerson’s ship of any serious value?
Bishop shook his head. “I spoke with Emerson an hour ago. There is nothing with that kind of value aboard. In fact, the majority of their data has not even been analyzed yet.”
“Which means,” said Langford, “that the only thing that changed on that ship by the time it left port…” he trailed off and looked at Clay.
“Was the dolphins,” Clay finished.
“What’s this little piece of translation software worth?” asked Defense Secretary Miller.
Clay shook his head. “Not much according to the team, bragging rights primarily. Something worth winning a prize over but certainly not a lifetime in prison.”
Will Borger raised his hand on the screen and spoke. “Uh, excuse me.”
Clay spoke up. “Gentlemen, this is Will Borger and my colleague Steve Caesare. They discovered the ring on the ocean bottom. I asked them to join the call as they have come up with more information on it. Go ahead, Will.”
The video window showing Borger and Caesare grew larger and moved to the middle of the screen. “We uh, have analyzed this quite a bit more and it looks like this ring is…moving.”
Most of the participants on the call looked confused. Harding however, looked intrigued. “What do you mean?” He asked leaning forward.
“Well when we say moving, we actually mean spinning. From my calculations it looks to be making a full rotation every three minutes. Given that this thing has a total circumference of about 47 miles, that means it is spinning at a speed of nearly 700 miles per hour.”
Everyone on the monitors were suddenly speechless. Harding’s mouth fell wide open.
22
“What did you just say?” said Miller.
Borger continued. “The ring appears to be generating energy.” He typed a few commands and his laptop screen appeared on the large monitors for everyone to see. The picture showed an area of the ring. “If we measure the light waves emanating from it, we can see a subtle shift in the Doppler which shows movement. The change in wavelengths allows us to measure the speed.”
Nearly everyone on the call was still stunned.
“Will,” said Clay. “What do you think this is?”
Borger shook his head. “We’re really not sure. My guess is some kind of power plant.”
“A power plant for what?” asked Stevas.
“I don’t know,” answered Borger. “There are too many unknowns. For instance, why is it underwater? Why is it located so remotely? How much power could it generate? It would help if we could see whether something was situated in the middle, but the resolution is not clear enough.” He shook his head. “If it is a power plant, I’ve sure never seen one that spins like this.”
“Let’s back up here,” Miller interrupted. “Obviously this thing is enormous. What country is even capable of building something like this, and undetected?”
No one answered so Miller continued. “What would it take if we built it?”