In Situ (15 page)

C
hapter 18

A
rea Five-One

Batter’s helicopter touched down on the west side of the Area 51 complex at 1130 hours local. It was a trip he had made countless times over the years. He knew they were getting close when he saw Groom Lake appear on the right side of the aircraft followed by the massive crisscrosses of runways that made up a good part of the surface facility. They were so large they could easily be seen from space. From the air, Batter thought, the runways and ramps looked like the giant X’s of a target.

Area 51 was not only the emergency alternate headquarters for the U
.S. government; it was also the predominant research site for government funded studies on everything from the atom to life in distant galaxies. Anything that was deemed “not safe for public consumption” occurred within the site. There was a primate lab, a lab that worked on viruses, advanced weapons, and lasers. Batter could have named over one hundred other such specific areas of study, given the question. Most of the work was carried out underground, but the centerpiece of the facility was the ARC itself. Batter, by order of the President and a secret congressional committee, and under the authority of the CIA, was somehow in charge of all of it, as well as the other three ARC unit sites.

What would the public think if they knew the actual truth about the extraterrestrials that had been discovered in the 50s, he mused, making his way across the
tarmac. As he walked out of the wash of the blades, Pete Wilson approached and half saluted then shook his hand.

“Good morning
, Mr. Batter,” Pete screamed above the blast of the helicopter shutting down.

Batter noticed that Dr. Wilson
, who was perhaps half his age, really looked barely old enough to be out of high school. How in the hell does a guy like that get to be in charge of the whole scientific division, he wondered. Then he suddenly remembered that it was he, himself, who had appointed him. Pete offered to help Batter with the one small bag he had brought, which Batter declined.

“Would you like some lunch
, Sir, or would you like to get right to it?” Pete asked as they climbed into a Jeep and headed towards one of the buildings.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a quick bite and perhaps you can fill me in
, Doctor. I cannot remember the last time I ate.”

“Likewise
, Sir.”

Pete would rather have gone right back to the observation room, but he really was starving
, and he had instructed his people that he was to be paged immediately if the creature began to awaken. He hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place, but figured it would be a big mistake not to see to Batter’s arrival himself.

A few minutes later, both men
entered a large dining hall five hundred feet below ground. There were probably two or three hundred uniformed and non-uniformed personnel having lunch. How in the hell do we keep this place top secret, Batter wondered again as they made their way through the lunch lines. Some of the best food on the planet was served here, and almost no one in the world knew about it. Now, it might all be over in a few days. No more dining of this caliber, that was for sure, he thought.

They found a table and Pete proceeded to fill Batter in on all that had happened since they had
returned from the Utah site, including the exact details of the accident. They ate quickly, then Pete got a page, the creature was coming around again.

“Mr. Batter
, we have to go.”

Pete took Batter deep into the heart of the primate unit and ushered him up some stairs into a viewing gallery that was raised from the main floor of the compound.
There were just two entrances to the compound itself, along with a couple of pass-through drawers where food could be delivered or experiments could be carried out.

Even though Pete had already prepped him, Batter found himself amazed at what he saw on the floor of the room below.
At first glance, the creature looked to him like an alligator sleeping—but past the scaly skin and the obvious reptilian features, there was absolutely nothing else about this animal that resembled a gator, particularly the fact that the thing had no tail. In fact, its body looked far more human than most primates.

Another young doctor approached Batter and Pete in the gallery.

“Mr. Batter,” Pete said, “this is Dr. Randall Philips. He actually discovered the heartbeat. What’s the status Randall?”

“Well
, Doctor, the creature stirred and then appeared to drop back to sleep. We are just waiting again now. The anesthesiologists say it should be any time,” Phillips said, checking his watch. He glanced at Batter, clearly nervous about being in the man’s presence.

“What
are you going to do with her? It is female, I take it?” asked Batter.

Pete nodded.
“Yes, we determined that when we first exhumed her.”

“Anyway,” continued Batter,
“what are you going to do with her when she wakes up?”

Pete turned to Batter directly, “Sir, I have no
fucking idea.”

*

The Arzat could feel herself coming back
around. This time she had convinced herself to be more careful. She was fully awake before she even thought about opening her eyes. Her mother had warned her that she might find things very different when she awoke, advice she had failed to fully take into consideration the first time around. She decided to keep her eyes shut for the moment, pretending to still be asleep while she studied her surroundings. She had many other strong senses besides her eyes, and this time she planned to use them. She had a good sniff around, but without flicking her tongue, it was difficult to isolate exactly what was where. Nothing was familiar at all. Could she escape? Where were the other Arzats? Were there any others? She was very disappointed that she could not sense any. If there were others, she should have been able to detect their presence, even if they were not nearby, and even without the use of her tongue.

She wasn’t freezing now and she didn’t think that she was still in the cave.
Last time she woke up, she found herself on some kind of table, but now she felt like she was on a rock floor. She did not sense the immediate presence of the strange creatures in the room with her, although she was certain she could hear many close by. There were definitely strong and distinct odors coming from them. She listened and felt. How many were there? One flick of her tongue was all she needed but it would be a dead giveaway that she was awake.

She finally risked opening her eyes
, doing it ever so slowly, her retinas mere slits against the light coming from overhead. The brightest light the female had ever seen was direct sunlight, and this seemed even brighter. At first she could see nothing but glare, but gradually her surroundings came into focus. She tried to move her body again, expecting restraints, but was surprised to find none. She actually raised her head slightly and there was nothing attached to her as there had been before. Had she just been dreaming? Had she just imagined them?

As her eyes continued to adjust, she began to look around the chamber.
Never had she witnessed any space so well formed. The room was square and smooth, the walls a perfect white—as brilliant as any clouds she had ever seen. At the top, high up on the wall, was a series of openings that went all the way around the chamber. They reflected light like still water. Perhaps they were openings, she corrected herself. Be careful, and assume nothing, she reminded herself.

Batter and Pete watched as the dinosaur
slowly gained consciousness. Pete was relieved to see that the creature had not become immediately violent, and that his strategy of just leaving her alone so far seemed to be working. He did have two men prepared with tranquilizer guns stationed near the doors just in case.

“Extraordinary
, Doctor!” Batter said as he watched the lizard awaken. “What do you know about her?”

“We carbon dated everything we could get our hands on in the cave.
Some bone fragments and some items that we think were used as tools. There were also some carbon deposits we think might have originated from torches. Everything so far points to 65 million years give or take a million. You may not remember, but that was the period in the Cretaceous just before the infamous K-T event.”

“Don’t remind me.” Batter replied under his breath. At some point very soon, he knew he was going to have to break the news to Pete about the new asteroid
, and he was not looking forward to it.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind, Doctor, you were saying….”

“Well, even more mind—
numbing than the creature’s apparent age, is the fact that her species appear to have been full-on
sentient
.”

“Which in English
means…?”

“Intelligent.
I mean language, tools, fire, writing—‘the whole enchilada,’ as they say. There were engravings in front of all twelve burial plots which we assume might have been numbers or even their names. No paleontologists have ever even suspected… Well, you might imagine… I mean the whole thing is impossible.” Pete shrugged, his eyes fixed on the female. “One thing we now know for sure, is that cryogenics
is
possible, at least for her species. I sent a sample of the material she was packed in over to the lab and my guys are testing it now. I mean 65 million years! Can you imagine?” Pete went on, watching the creature, talking to himself as much as he was to Batter.

The Arzat rolled up into a squatting position and studied the room around her.
Her joints were stiff and sore. She really needed to urinate, and she was extremely hungry and thirsty. She had the uncomfortable feeling again that she was being watched, though the room she was in appeared to be quite empty. Finally, she couldn’t hold it any longer and went to a corner.

The entire staff gasped.
The creature’s move was so swift it seemed supernatural. She had disappeared from the center of the room and reappeared on the side like a tiny lizard darting, all three hundred pounds of her.

The female sensed the react
ion but continued to relieve herself, disgusted by the way her urine was running so uncomfortably close her feet. The Arzats had a communal bath that had a stream of water running through it for this purpose, and since the females were seldom out of the caves for more than short scavenges, they were rarely forced to urinate outdoors. She hissed and flicked her tongue, totally embarrassed, and looked up toward the glass.

Pete could have sworn the creature was looking right into his own eyes.
“Wow, I never even considered that,” he said as he watched her urinate on the compound floor.

“I would probably have to go pretty bad myself after a few million years,” Batter chuckled.
“The next thing I would want is a glass of water or a Bloody Mary and a big-ass breakfast.”

“No kidding,” Pete said heading for
the stairs. “Please, excuse me.”

Alex and Mot put the finishing touches on the camp, doing their best to erase any obvious evidence that they had ever been there. Mot was very familiar with what Alex was trying to accomplish. The Arzats attempted to always leave as little trace as possible after a hunt, and especially a kill. There were too many competing tribes and too many scavengers to advertise success. He had expertly managed to remove any signs of blood from his kills by carefully scattering desert dust over the area. When he was finished, there was no indication that anything had happened. He showed Alex how he covered his own footprints, and put her to that task with the shovel.

For Alex, removing any sign of her camp was simply
a matter of trying to keep Mot’s existence secret as long as she could. Her big advantage, if she had one, was that, for the moment, everyone probably thought she was dead. That would give her some time, but Tom or someone else was sure to eventually come looking for her dig site and start snooping around. She made a mental note to call him as soon as they got to the ranch.

“Mot, are you ready?”
Alex was standing by the driver’s door of the truck.

“Yes.”

“Mot, remember when I was trying to describe just how different this world is?”

“Yes
, Alex.”

“Well, if your mind wasn’t already blown by what you’ve seen so far
, meet this thing we call… well, we call it a lot of things actually, but let’s just call it a truck. My good ole truck,” Alex said, and gave the side a nice open handed pounding.

“
Good ole truck,” repeated Mot, confused again. What he really wanted was something else to eat, and he had no idea what Alex was talking about.

“Mot, I imagine that you d
id a lot of walking where you are from, and we humans do too, but we also have invented several faster ways to get around from one place to another. This is one of them. Nothing to be scared of, OK?”

“I am not fearful
, Alex.” Mot said, standing by the driver door of the truck, watching her, wondering why they hadn’t started walking.

“
OK, good. I am going to do what we call ‘starting’ the engine. There is some noise and stuff that happens but don’t worry.” She got in the truck and turned the ignition. The old Ford’s starter hesitated at first, then caught the beat and spun until the engine fired, much to Alex’s relief. When she looked up, Mot was wide eyed. He cocked his head—a habit Alex noticed was indicative of him listening to something intently—and flicked his tongue.

“See how I am sitting?
I need you to come around the other side and get in and sit like me.”

Mot tentatively
made his way around the truck as Alex reached over and opened the passenger side door. Good thing this isn’t a compact, she thought. Even so, Mot was about all the old Ford could handle even with the seat all the way back. The truck’s suspension sank under his weight as Mot awkwardly climbed in. He was barely able to get his feet on the floorboards and his knees in front of him. Mot placed his huge hands on the glove compartment and waited. The smell of the truck’s exhaust was interesting, if not overwhelming—like fire but with a sharp after-bite. Mot suddenly worried that the odor was going to make him sick.

“Ready?” Alex cautiously asked.

“Yes, ready Alex,” Mot said, hoping she would hurry with whatever she was doing. He thought they were going to leave, not sit here roasting in this noisy metal box.

Alex pushed in the clutch and jammed the transmission into first gear.
The truck protested as Alex let the gears take hold, and then it began moving forward. She was trying to be as smooth as possible so as not to alarm Mot, who was sitting stoically, suddenly wide eyed. Alex thought that, if she could see deep enough below his green and blue skin, she might see a lot of white. He might be scared right now, but he is going to love this later when he gets the hang of it, she thought.

Mot felt his hands and feet digging for a better hold.
The ‘good ole truck’ began moving at a pace that would equal his best for a long hunt, yet he was doing nothing.

“Is this magic Alex?” he asked overwhelmed.
There seemed to be so many things in Alex’s world that were completely inexplicable.

Alex laughed, “No
, Mot, when we get to my father’s ranch, I will try to show you how this works.” They were on a long section of the dirt road that had originally led Alex down to her camp. She was keeping an eye out for the dead men’s vehicle. They must have driven something to get here, she thought, now where was it?

Finally, just before the highway
, she spotted a brand new Chevrolet pickup parked far off on the side, well out of view of the main road. That must be it, she thought. Alex considered stopping to take the registration and the license plates, but she was too worried about someone else coming by. She would just have to take her chances that no one would spot it for a while and get curious. Besides, someone was probably going to have to report the men missing before they came looking, and she doubted that anyone was going to miss those two very soon. She shuddered again when she thought about how her encounter with them might have turned out had Mot not been there.

Now that they were about to get on the highway she was about to have another problem
. If anyone saw Mot, they were not going to mistake him for just some ugly kid. “How ya doin’, Mot?” She looked over, he seemed better, but his eyes were locked on the road.

“I am
fine, Alex. I wish to know what makes this move.”

“I promise I will explain everything when we get to my house
. In the meantime, I need to hide you,” she said pulling on an old Indian blanket that was draped over the seat, “so can you kind of duck down a little and put this around your head.” Alex helped Mot make the blanket look like a shawl.

“Boy, you make one ugly looking woman
, Mot,” she laughed when she was finished.

“I do not understand
, Alex,” Mot said, looking back at her with his reptilian eyes, his forehead shrouded by the blanket.

“Never mind
. Let’s just get you home.”

When they reached the highway just south of Vernal, Alex made a
right toward Price. It was about 110 miles to her dad’s ranch, about two hours if she drove fast. Alex was exhausted and she just hoped that she had enough adrenaline left to get them home before she passed out. There weren’t a lot of cops out in the middle of the desert, which was good for fast driving, but she had to make sure that she didn’t get stopped by a patrol car. That would be a disaster.

As the
truck’s speedometer climbed past sixty, she looked back over at Mot. He was still staring straight ahead. “Home sweet home, here we come,” Alex said with much more enthusiasm than she felt. Mostly she was nervous. There were a million more bad things that could happen along the way.

This is much faster
than I could run, thought Mot, mesmerized by the pure speed. He was relieved to find that the sickening smell had more or less disappeared as the wind flew through the open window of the truck. Mot stuck his arm out and was surprised when the wind slapped it back. He had never felt anything like it. As he sat there, trying to imagine how the truck worked, a similar metal box buzzed past them going the other direction. Mot looked at Alex expectantly when this happened, imagining for a moment that they would collide.

Alex was busy looking forward
, and sometimes glancing into a shiny object above her head. She appeared to be worried, but not at all concerned about the thing that had almost hit them. Mot was very confused again, but as they drove on, the blanket was making him warm and the steady hum of the tires on the road was making him sleepy.

“Alex?”

“Yes, Mot.”

“Will there be food there
, at this place you call home?”

“Yes
, Mot. I have a freezer full of venison that I think you are going to really enjoy.” Alex made a mental note to check when she got the ranch, but her caretaker tended to hunt deer at night with a spotlight, and he liked to keep his stash at her house in her dad’s old chest freezer.

“Hum,”
Mot grunted, having no idea what venison was, but imagining it was meat of some kind. He was still very hungry. “Alex, how long until we get there?”

“I am not sure how to answer that Mot.
How do Arzats mark time during the day?”

“We refer to all times as animals that are common to my world.”

Like the Chinese, Alex thought. “How many animals do you have for the day?”

Mot held up both of his giant hands and stretched out his fingers—this many for day and again at night.

OK, thought Alex, so we have twenty four and Arzats have sixteen, roughly eight to our 12 for daytime hours, and eight for night. Seeing Mot hold up his hands that way went a long way to explaining their base eight numerical system. “Probably then, just about one of your ‘animals’ to get to my father’s house,” she finally answered.

“Will your father be there
, Alex?”

“No
, Mot, my father died some time ago.”

“Do you have other family
? Siblings, children, a mate?”

Alex shook her head, “No
, Mot. I used to have a husband but no more.”

“Husband?”

“Mate. I used to have a mate but no more.” Alex said, thinking about Tom. She wondered what she would say when she called him.

“You must be very lonely.
In this, we are the same,” Mot said absently, looking out the side window.

Alex did not answer.

Mot felt his eyes becoming heavy when, just for a moment, he thought, that he could feel the very vague presence of another Arzat far, far away.

*

Alex didn’t relax until they were only a few miles out from the ranch.

Mot had been asleep for a good part of the trip despite his interest in the truck and its workings. Fortunately, there had been very little traffic as Alex had pulled through Price, and then through even-smaller Wellington, where everyone knew her and definitely knew her truck. She was low on gas but decided against trying to fill it at the only station in town, and having to risk explaining to Sally the station owner just what was
really
under the blanket. There was a two hundred gallon tank of fuel at the ranch if they could manage just a mile or two more. The gas needle sat precariously on E.

Just past the south side of town Alex turned off the road and stopped
-the sudden change in pace and the gravel crunching under the tires waking Mot. “Here we are,” Alex said, relieved to be home. “Wait here, Mot. I am going to open the gate.” She opened the door and slid out of the truck seat and walked forward.

An old wooden sign hung in the western style above the road at the main gate with block letters IN SITU carved into it.
You more or less had to be a scientist to get it, but the term meant “found and left in its original place,” undisturbed, not moved-just where it belonged; like Alex’s fossil before Tom and his guys destroyed it, like this home in the desert her father had created for Alex after her mother’s death.

Alex
could still remember watching as old Simon had patiently carved the words into wood with a hammer and chisel in his shop. She had been around the world and back again, but the ranch was still her favorite place on the planet. She had loved the place from the first moment she had seen it.

The
ranch encompassed a full section of land-six hundred and forty acres-a mile by a mile of beautiful desert. The entire property was loaded with fossils and all kinds of great finds that, as a child, Alex had proudly hauled back to show to her father. “What have you brought me this time, Alexandra?” she could hear him saying.

As Alex swung open the gate and was just about to jump back in the truck
, she spotted a sheriff’s patrol car coming around a bend in the road. Her worst fear, it pulled off directly behind her pickup and stopped.

As the officer exited his car, she was
relieved to see that he was an old friend of hers, but she was worried about Mot. She gave him a silent warning not to move and hurried to the back of the truck to get between it and the patrol car.

“Hey
, Gus!” Alex said, giving him the familiar hug of an old friend.

“Well
, hey there, Alex, haven’t seen you in a while.” Gus still thought Alex was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. They were just about the same age, had gone to grade school together, and Gus had always had a mad crush on her. Alex’s dad had often invited the kids in town to “big” science events at the ranch, which Gus had always attended, despite having no interest whatsoever in Simon’s lectures. Gus spent the time secretly fantasizing about marrying Alex when they got older, but had eventually given up on that idea when Alex moved away. He had ended up settled down with Sally, another local girl who had been part of his very small graduating class at the high school in Price. Now she helped her parents run the only gas station and convenience store in town, and Gus was the local cop.