Overture (Earth Song) (11 page)

“
Welcome aboard, Major,” Osgood said, coming over to introduce himself.

“
He’s a Lt. Colonel,” Volant corrected him, stepping in and shaking the now smiling soldier’s hand, “and your assessment is not far off.”

“
Thanks, you must be Mark Volant. This is the chief egghead?” The soldier cocked a thumb at Osgood.

“
That would be me,” Osgood said, laughing at the now inside joke. Many in Portal City were now calling the dome The Egg, in deference to Volant’s preferred title for the scientific community.

“
You’ve been fully briefed?” Volant asked the soldier.

“
Sure, not that I made a lot of sense out of it. This is supposed to be some kind of doorway to another planet?”

“
That’s what the eggheads think. We need an assessment of the situation. Is that just some sort of fancy hoax, or is it a Portal to another planet? One person went through ten days ago; he was unable to return.”

“
We’ve all seen the video.”

“
I'm the one who wrote the briefing.”

“
So there may be no way back, making this a one way trip. We’ve got all kinds of plans to establish a research base on the other side, if time provides.”

The
two men exchanged a strange knowing look that made Osgood cock his head and look from one man to the other. Was something going on he wasn’t aware of?

“
But we don’t know how that’s going to work out, which is why you are all volunteers,” Volant explained.

“
Like I said, we saw the video and we’re here, so that means we’ve volunteered.”

Osgood
spoke up. “We want to break your team up into three groups.”

“
Break up my team? I don’t think so.”

“
There is too much still to be learned about the Portal and the particle physics behind whatever sort of dimensional transition is taking place. That you transition through in three groups has been deemed the most expeditious use of your assets.”

“
Huh?”

“
He says there is more to be learned if you go through in groups of three,” Volant translated. “It will probably give them a better chance of getting you back too.”

“
Splitting us up was not part of the OP.”

“
You volunteered for a possible one-way mission into unknown territory. You make the call, Lt. Colonel. Your team’s not up to it, that’s fine. We’ll call your superiors and get another one out here. But from where I’m standing, aside from the one-way gig, it looks like camping in the Sierra foothills.” The soldiers were all looking around, making their own evaluations. The commander turned and made eye contact with each of them, one at a time. Every one of them nodded their head.

“
Looks like we’re good to go, sir.”

“
Excellent. The science fair is under the direction of Dr. Osgood.”

“
Fine. Proper introductions, Doctor. I am Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wilson. My
ass
ets are at your disposal.”

“
Very good. If you could decide how you are going to split into teams over there, and please don’t touch any of the equipment, we’ll call you when we’re ready.”

Osgood
moved over to a group of excited scientists and told them the experiment was on. They all cheered and began giving each other high fives. “These eggheads are too much, aren’t they?” Lt. Col. Wilson said to Volant.

“
They are, but Osgood’s also a fuckin’ genius. I wondered when I got here if NASA found him in a closet somewhere, so I pulled his dossier. The guys got more doctorates than I have socks. He’s been involved in the design and implementation of a dozen interplanetary probes and he’s actually been in orbit once. He’s the biggest brain I’ve ever known, that’s for sure.”

“
Big brains don’t always mean big smarts. I’ve seen a lot of soldiers killed over the years by people put in charge just because of the degrees they have on the wall.”

“
I think this guy’s got it together well enough. Besides, I’m going to be here and I have my hand on the plug.”

“
Easy for you to say, you’re not going through that!”

“
You have a point.”

One
by one, the science teams called out their readiness until finally Osgood came over and gave the thumbs up. “We’re ready to start. The Portal team is going to take a run with a robot first. After that we’re going to try and send a monkey through. If we progress as planned, the soldiers are last.”

“
Whatever you say, doc,” the soldier shrugged.

“
Good. We’re hoping to make some major strides in understanding this thing as we go, hopefully learning how to bring things back through. Gentlemen, here we go!”

The
first tests were simple. A scientist climbed the dais on foot. He was dressed in camouflage and had a backpack full of equipment. When he reached the top step the Portal sprang to life. He didn’t step through. Instead, he removed a tennis ball from a pocket. It bristled with a number of tiny instruments. Using an underarm toss he threw the ball through the Portal. Another scientist on the other side stood ready in case nothing happened. There was the briefest purple shimmer and the tennis ball was caught on the other side.

“
There was an incident!” called out the chief recording technician. “Only about ten milliseconds in length. Minor pulse in the terahertz band and a slight rise in ionizing radiations.”

“
Almost like it was looking at what went through,” Osgood commented. “Step up to stage two.” From out of view came a humming sound, which was followed by the appearance of a wheeled robot. The scientist standing on the dais held its controls and he guided the machine up the steps and through the Portal. It arrived on the other side of the dais still on their own world.

“
Same response, maybe a little more energetic,” the recording technician reported.

Next,
the camouflaged scientist was handed a cage. He stepped right up to the edge of Portal and opened the cage. A single pigeon shot out of the cage and through the Portal. Again the instruments recorded an energy emission, nearly identical to the first one.

One
experiment after another proceeded. A watermelon followed the pigeon, then a keg of water, ending with a derelict refrigerator. Of course no one caught this last item, it merely crashed to the floor in a flash of photographs and chuckles from the soldiers. Unnoticed by Osgood, one of the scientists passed another a twenty-dollar bill.

“
Are we going to spend all day tossing appliances through there or do I get a swing at it?” wondered Lt. Col. Wilson.

“
Patience my good man,” said Osgood. “We have one more static test to perform.” He turned back to his team. “Bring in Bernie.” A pair of technicians rolled in a wheelchair with a covered figure riding within.

“
I thought we would be the first people to go through.”

“
No, not the first, but you possess something Bernie does not.”

“
And what’s that?” Osgood stepped over and pulled the blanket from over the seated person’s head. It revealed a man in his late thirties dressed in street clothes with a pack on his back. He was clearly dead.

“
Life, Lieutenant Colonel.”

Volant
chuckled and shook his head at the surprise and consternation on the commando officer’s face. The man made a disgusted sound and backed away.

“
Let’s give Bernie his moment of infamy.”

The
corpse was wheeled to where a simple mechanical catapult waited. The body was placed inside and everyone backed away. On the dais, the suited man moved as far to one side as possible and at a signal from the event recorder, the catapult was triggered, sending Bernie flying.

There
was more of a reaction this time. The same pulse of radiant purple for a split second, and nothing landed on the other side. “Was Bernie transported?” Osgood asked, surprised anything had happened.

“
Doesn’t look like it. Based on the readings it’s just the opposite.  I’d have to say the Portal disintegrated Bernie.”

“
How rude,” Volant mumbled.

“
Get air samples, check for any debris, run back the high speed data capture!” Osgood barked. A few minutes later, it was obvious that the cadaver had been completely vaporized. Nothing more than a few parts per million of hydrogen gas and carbon remained. “It would be impossible to do a more effective job with a commercial incinerator,” said one scientist, “and this only took about three milliseconds.”

“
The energy readings were elevated,” said another scientist, “but nothing like what we got when Hooper went through originally. Let’s try the chimp!”

“
I think we have more or less confirmed that this thing is smart enough to only allow a living human being through the Portal,” Osgood said to his team. “There’s no need to disintegrate Bobo. Lt. Col. Wilson, we’re ready for your first people.” The military man nodded his head and four soldiers separated from the group, led by him. “You sure you don’t want to wait until last to go through yourself?”

“
A commander would never ask his men to do something he wouldn’t do himself,” Lt. Col. Wilson said and looked up at the Portal. He nodded to his men who took off their packs and knelt to go through them for a final check.

Osgood
watched them work, amazed at the impressive array of equipment the packs contained. Most of the items he could not identify, but some were obvious. There was a reverse osmosis filter that looked like a microwave burst transmitter broken up between the men. One man was carrying their shelter while another transported a tiny high-tech hydrogen heat exchanger that would keep them alive in temperatures from fifty below zero to one hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Another man had a case of instruments Osgood provided for the mission.

They
knew from the brief view of the other side after the first accidental trip that there was a breathable atmosphere on the other side, but just in case things were not as they seemed, each man had on a gas mask and replacement canisters rode their belts. Their web gear pouches contained hundreds of items to aid in their survival and as the last touch the other soldiers came over and handed each man their rifle.

“
Do you think weapons are really necessary?” Osgood asked with a look of distaste on his face.

“
I don’t tell you what thingamabob to use on that whatchamacallit,” Wilson said and hooked a thumb toward the Portal, “I'll ask you not to tell me what kind of hammer to use on any nails I’ll encounter.”

“
There were no indications of hostile life forms on the other side of the Portal. If there are any intelligent aliens, we don’t want to provoke an intergalactic incident.”

“
Right, in the entire ten seconds that you recorded there was nothing there. I have no intention of becoming an intergalactic entrée.” Lt. Col. Wilson slapped a clip into his M-4 and thumbed the slide release to load the weapon. Osgood’s eyes got a little wider and he took a step back. Lt. Col. Wilson smirked and mounted the steps at the base of the dais. Just as always, the glowing circular Portal with hovering icons around the edge sprang to life. “Ready when you are!” He slung his rifle and they all leaned close like football players in a huddle.

“
All right people,” Osgood yelled, “this is for the record!” More instruments were turned on while still others on long articulated booms were moved in from either side to afford the best angles possible. One of the soldiers cursed and slapped at a boom as it bumped him in the back of the head.

Final
preparations only took another minute before Osgood was able to give the thumbs up. “We’re ready to roll!”

“
Okay men,” Lt. Col. Wilson said, “it’s time.” He turned back to the eight remaining soldiers watching with eyes wide a short distance away. The image of Bernie being disintegrated was fixed firmly in all their minds. “The rest of you are only to proceed if we made it through okay and have visual proof; you are not to risk your lives solely on their assurance that we made it. I will send a message from the other side. In the absence of any communication from me, you are absolutely not to proceed. Agent Mark Volant here is in charge. If we get vaporized you have my authorization to shoot any egghead that tries to make you follow us in order to ‘establish a scientific sampling’.”

Osgood
laughed as did most of the scientists, but then it trailed off into a difficult silence as the Lt. Colonel just stared at him. Osgood cleared his throat, “Okay, we’re ready whenever you are. Just step through when you feel like it.”

“
Easy for you to say,” he mumbled and turned to the Portal. Facing death was nothing new to him. Taking point in enemy territory was much harder than this. He knew at the worst he wouldn't end up face down in the mud bleeding out. If it went wrong he wouldn't feel a thing. With a deep breath he stepped through.