And lo and behold they never even got around to shining those same boots before they were loaded in vans and, preceded and followed by a police escort doing about a hundred and eighty, driven up to Orlando and dropped off in a howling wasteland that looked suspiciously like Beirut. They’d caught just enough on the tube to have some idea what was going on but there wasn’t much to see at the moment except a bunch of national guardsmen standing around drinking coffee under klieg lights.
That and the globe.
“If there’s a penetration of the globe, from our side that is, we’re tasked to do it,” Glasser said. “There’s no SOP for this; we’re into science fiction. Do you read science fiction?”
Crichton wasn’t sure how to answer; most military officers were death on SF. But Glasser didn’t seem to mind.
“I used to,” Lieutenant Glasser mused. “Used to read a lot. I’m dead worried about biological or chemical contamination from that side. What happened to that bug?”
“Well, sir, it’s two bugs now,” Crichton answered, gulping. “Sergeant Grant and I got them both up out of the hole. We wore our protective gear and decontaminated afterwards.”
“Decon foam might not work on bugs from another world,” Glasser pointed out. “As I said, no SOP.”
“Yes, sir, but we also used bleach,” Crichton said, stubbornly. “Sir, if it can stand up to bleach, I don’t think it can bond to anything in this world.”
“Where are the bugs?” the SEAL said, ignoring the comment.
“The sergeant and I trussed them up with duct tape and then dumped them in the back of a Humvee with all the windows rolled up and big signs on it not to open it. But they’re both dead, sir. They just stopped twitching after a while.”
“I guess something on this side is poisonous to them,” Glasser said. “Which is the first good news I’ve had today. And bad, for that matter, it doesn’t mean the other side isn’t poisonous. Any idea what?”
“No, sir,” Crichton responded. “They were moving fine and strong as bejeezus. Sergeant Grant helped me because he usually works in an alligator farm wrestling gators. And it took both of us on them to get the tape on them. They didn’t attack us or anything but it was like riding an elephant if you know what I mean; they just didn’t seem to feel the weight, even the smaller one. If I’d make a guess, sir, I’d say that it’s a higher gravity world on the far side and that something in our air, carbon dioxide or oxygen, is probably what killed them. Too high or low of oxygen or too high carbon dioxide. Just a wild-ass guess, sir. I’ve gone up by the globe and taken readings but the instruments I’ve got don’t show anything harmful coming out of it.”
“You do read science fiction,” the lieutenant said, smiling at him. “Crichton, right?”
“Yes, sir. I did. Still do for that matter when I’ve got the time.”
“My boys can kill anything they can see,” the SEAL said, reflectively. “They can move like lightning, go anywhere, do anything. But with the exception of the command master chief, who reads Starship Troopers once ritually before every overseas assignment, I don’t think any of them have ever read an SF novel. Or thought about how an alien world could be different. Comments?”
“You’d better brief them carefully, sir.”
“That is we, Sergeant. We had better brief them carefully. Believe it or not, SEALs are willing to listen to people who know what they are talking about. And, also contrary to popular opinion, they’re smart. Which may matter one hell of a lot. Or not at all.”
Orlando International Airport’s call-sign was MCO, which stood for McCoy. It had previously been McCoy Air Force Base back when the security of the United States against the Soviet nuclear arsenal rested in Mutual Assured Destruction and intercontinental bombers were one leg of the triad that assured the Mutual.
As Orlando grew in size and importance from a small cow town with a few defense firms to an entertainment and research center, MCO had grown as well, adding flights, adding congestion and eventually adding runways. But the main runways were the same that had been laid down in the 1950s and they were more than adequate to handle an F-15. Which was how Dr. Weaver arrived after a flight from Andrews Air Force Base he would remember for some time.
FAA regulations prohibited military jets from breaking the sound barrier over inhabited areas. Jets which were supersonic, therefore, were limited to training over water or uninhabited desert areas.
Bill Weaver had flown in F-15s before, including aerobatics to try to make him sick. They hadn’t. But this was radically different. The F-15, carrying conformal wing tanks, had climbed for altitude at what was called “maximum military thrust.” Since an F-15 is one of the very few aircraft in the world that has more thrust than mass, that meant virtually straight up for a minute and a half. It was very much what he imagined being in the shuttle would be like, if you were able to look around in every direction. When it reached its optimum altitude, 65,000 feet, it had turned south and the pilot had pushed the afterburners to full. From that high it is normally hard to notice the change in motion relative to the ground at all. Just as high jets look as they are moving slow from the ground, from the air the ground itself tends to look stationary. Not at darned near Mach Three. It had taken thirty minutes from when the pilot turned south to when he flared out for a landing in Orlando. And the earth, which from their altitude had a very distinct roundness to it, looked as if it had shifted rotation from west-east to north-south. Even at their height Bill was pretty sure they’d left a string of broken windows behind them.
There had been very little conversation. Ground crewmen had helped him into a G suit, hooked him up, explained the two switches he was permitted to touch, pointed out the ejection system which he was not permitted to touch except in obvious circumstances and climbed out. The pilot had, if anything, less to say.
“Can I ask who you are?” the pilot, a lieutenant colonel, said when they reached cruising altitude and the bone crushing acceleration had eased off.
“I’m an academic egghead,” Bill said, glorying in the view out the window. The sun was down in the west on the ground but they were still in sunlight at altitude. Despite that they were high enough that the sky was purple and he could see stars. It was as close as he’d ever been to space, the one place he’d wanted to go since he was a kid.
“Pull the other one,” the pilot said.
“No, really, they’re sending me down to look at this thing in Orlando. I’m a physicist.”
“I figured that they weren’t sending you to Disney World, but you don’t look like any academic I’ve ever seen.”
“You need to hang out at the Hooters in Huntsville more often.”
Bill had heard it before. If you had a Southern accent and looked like a track and field coach everyone assumed you were a jock. But at the level of physics which was his specialty, you could get as much “work” done working out, or mountain biking, or SCUBA diving, or rock climbing, as you could sitting in a darkened office with the door looked and your clothes off contemplating your navel. Which was what one academic of his acquaintance swore by. It was all in the head until it came time to sit down and start drawing equations, which if you’d done the head work in advance practically drew themselves. And if you grew up with a body that only required two hours of sleep a night, a mind like an adding machine and the energy level of a ferret on a pixie stick, you had to find some way to burn off the energy, physical and mental. So he mountain biked, consulted with the DOD, went to national level Wah Lum Kung-Fu tournaments and, occasionally, stood in front of a white board for a few hours and then stayed up for three days writing a thirty-thousand-word paper which he sent off to the National Journal of Physics and Science serene in the knowledge that it would both pass peer review and be published.