Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? (10 page)

“And now, why they’re having so much trouble communicating—that’s really hard to say. We’ve been talking a lot about that here, and Wyatt had an interesting idea, didn’t he?” she said, looking at Ahmet. “Why don’t we have him explain it to Claire?

“You’re right,” said Ahmet. “I’ll go get him” He turned and walked to the stairwell and part way down. “Wyatt, hey Wyatt!” he shouted down the stairs. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

As Ahmet returned smiling, Cindy said, “Shame on you! You’ll scare him to death.”

“He’s a little shy,” Ahmet said to Claire.

In about a minute, Wyatt’s baby face and profuse blond curls haltingly headed up the stairs.

Denver One employed many young scientists and technicians. Some, Claire thought, barely looked to be out of high school. But Wyatt looked like the youngest of the young. He looks more like he could be Wyatt’s
son
.

“Hi, Wyatt,” said Cindy soothingly. “We were just telling Claire here about the idea you had about the aliens’ communication.”

Confused, Wyatt looked like a fawn in the headlights.

“What you said yesterday before we got off work, about why the aliens might have trouble sending clear messages,” Cindy said.

“Oh … oh you mean that. Well, I just said maybe it was the same reason that D9 disappeared and kind of, I guess, took a random, unplanned move. My guess is maybe they’re in some kind of exotic physics bubble or force field that lets them use some quantum or other weird physics,” said Wyatt, as he repeatedly looked between the floor and the shoulders of Cindy, Claire, and Ahmet. “But I don’t know, it’s not working or broken. Like they have to use advanced but normal propulsion, at least for short distances, like less than a couple light years. And maybe they can’t communicate through the bubble—don’t know why. Like maybe they were trying to put something at a place or a time but it didn’t exactly go there. Or maybe there’s a different definition of ‘exist’ or ‘now’ or something, and they can’t quite make the connection with our definitions,” Wyatt finished, exhausted by his oration.

“So maybe they wound up where they weren’t supposed to be, and maybe they can’t send messages exactly to where and when they want them,” said Claire. “Really interesting, Wyatt.”

“But like Ahmet said, we don’t have any idea if it’s true,” said Wyatt, glancing at Claire’s face for a split second.

“No, Wyatt,” said Ahmet. “That’s a really good idea. Thank you for sharing it.”

Wyatt smiled shyly, said goodbye, and went back downstairs.

“Can you guys help Wyatt put his ideas down on paper? Just something fairly simple and short, for the National Security Council briefing I have at 1:00? And have him put down something more technical to pass around here, for people to add to.”

Cindy and Ahmet agreed to help Wyatt flesh out his ideas and to bring Claire up-to-date on other findings and theories before she left for the meeting. Claire thanked them, then went to her office to make a few calls to other experts who might be able to contribute to her report. The rest of her time at Denver One and on the ride to the White House, she organized her thoughts to try to make them clear and useful for the NSC. Focused as usual at a critical time, she put her nervousness aside for the most part. But she couldn’t help but feel a knot in her stomach about addressing the NSC, and also some apprehension about meeting the President. Obviously he had been perturbed with her after her second call, when she suggested he address the nation about the ET crisis.

Claire still felt uneasy about presuming to tell the President of the United States what to do.

In the Situation Room in the White House, NSC members gathered with casual informality, temporarily putting aside their rising differences. Douthart smiled and shook hands around the room, but felt the stress from the certainty of confrontations during the meeting. And he didn’t look forward to meeting his NASA contact. She had been right to advise him to reassure the
public about the red dots. But instead of being grateful, he felt resentment. Maybe she saw him as weak, he thought.

When Claire arrived, an aide introduced her to the President. When their eyes met, they suddenly became speechless for a couple awkward moments. Their faces relaxed and jaws dropped open just a fraction of an inch as the rest of the people in the room disappeared for them. Douthart broke the spell to welcome Claire to the meeting, and then went on, slightly embarrassed as they exchanged brief, businesslike, and forced greetings.

Vice President Vanlisa Duggard and Secretary of State Douglas Whiteton noticed the instant attraction, and exchanged surprised looks with raised eyebrows. Claire and the President maintained their business-as-usual attitude during the meeting, but at several points, one of them looked at the other a few seconds longer than might be expected. A couple times their eyes met again, and they quickly looked away.

A few minutes after the meeting started, Claire delivered her report with her usual incisiveness and confidence. The Space Policy Team was making progress deciphering the ET messages and expected the progress to accelerate. However, it might be two to four weeks before they would really understand the messages. Claire also explained the idea that the aliens had problems coping with the exotic physics they were using and the speculation Cindy had raised about their motivation.

“Thank God we have a real prospect of being able to understand them,” said the Vice President. “We’ve got to find out what they want.”

Duggard was the practical one in the Douthart administration. She had gone from waitressing after high school in Toledo, Ohio, to establishing increasingly large businesses in the food industry. Her entrepreneurial success helped her rise in Republican politics after she retired from business. The fact that she was an African American and a woman meant she could help shore up support in two weak areas for Republicans. And she was from a key state in electoral politics, which added to her appeal. Her refusal to dilute her liberal views on voting rights and social issues, however, made rising to the top a tough slog. And her age was starting to work against her as she neared
seventy. It didn’t help with family-value Republicans that she had admitted to having an affair before she divorced her first husband.

Her forthright personality rubbed some Party kingmakers the wrong way, and her unvarnished straight talk originally annoyed Douthart, especially when they butted heads in debates during Douthart’s first presidential primary run. But Duggard had given her heartfelt personal support when Douthart had to pull out of the race because of his wife’s illness. Building on that rapport, the President came to rely on Duggard’s frank assessment of people and situations. He also relished her teasing sense of humor, and the two highest elected officials in the country developed an easy, give-and-take relationship in private that gave the President some welcomed relief from his burden.

“Yeah, until we hear what they want,” said National Security Advisor Raul Peterman, “it doesn’t do much good to speculate on their motives.”

For the next few minutes, the Council discussed D9 and the ETs, directing a few questions to Claire. Suddenly the Situation Room door flew open and an aide barged in. The unusual urgency of the interruption startled everyone, and all eyes went to the aide.

She said, “Dr. Montague’s office needs to speak to her. Something has happened. D9 disappeared.”

Claire quickly stood to leave the room, turning to tell the President and Council members that she’d be back as quickly as possible. Chaos broke loose as everyone started talking at the same time, loudly, in an effort to be heard.

Finally, the President got everyone’s attention by banging his fist on the table. “Let’s not let our imaginations run away with us,” he said. “Let’s wait until she gets back with some information, and
then
let our imaginations run away with us.”

The room quieted down, but tension rose as Claire seemed to be gone for an interminable length of time. National Security Advisor Peterman was just about to go out to get a report from her when Claire walked back into the room.

After taking a quick deep breath she said, “We lost visual contact with D9 at 1:41 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. One second D9 was there, and
the next second it was not. Observatories around the world connected with the UNETC immediately started looking for D9 in other parts of the sky. It … it could be a time-consuming process, possibly hours or even longer, assuming D9 has reappeared. I want to point out that the same thing happened a week before we first discovered D9. Our photographic records showed it had abruptly appeared in one spot right after disappearing from another. At that time, the movement appeared random. I mean that the spacecraft didn’t move closer in its path to the inner solar system.”

Looking at the President, she said, “If you think it’s all right, I’m going to get back on the phone with Denver One so I can let you know the minute there’s a new development.”

Douthart motioned for her to go ahead. After she left, a look at the monitors in the room quickly showed news about D9’s disappearance was everywhere on television and the Internet. It was impossible to keep it secret, because the craft was close enough now for some powerful private telescopes to track it, and leaks were inevitable from the huge networks tracking D9 at the UNETC and in many individual countries. The Council agreed to put out a statement noting that D9 had disappeared before, and immediately reappeared in another part of the sky, about the same distance from Earth, with no major changes.

Claire came back to the Situation Room every four or five minutes to update the NSC, but for the first half-dozen times, all she could say was that D9 hadn’t been found. Finally, she scrambled into the room in an uncharacteristic rush, with a piece of paper in her hand.

“We relocated D9 at 2:40 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. We found it by tracking a new message. It’s slightly closer to Earth by maybe about 100,000 miles, and displaced laterally more than a million miles. Its course and velocity are essentially the same. The estimated intersection with Earth’s orbit has been pushed back … let’s see … about two and a half hours. It’s still due to arrive in Earth’s orbit on October 16, in thirty-one days.”

Claire stopped abruptly and the Council sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then Peterman spoke.

“So after all that, basically nothing changed?”

“So far as we know, just like the first disappearance,” Claire said.

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Vice President Duggard.

“So what did the freaking message say?” asked Deputy Secretary of State Susan Binski, almost shouting to be heard above the rising voices.

Claire explained that the message contained more words that could be deciphered than in previous transmissions, but it was still impossible to determine what the aliens were trying to say. She also noted that the second disappearance, again for no apparent reason, lent weight to the theory that D9 was having trouble controlling the exotic physics it seemed to be using for space travel.

After a few more minutes of discussion about D9, the President excused Claire from the meeting. As he watched her leave, Douthart braced himself for what was sure to be a raucous debate.

F
IREWORKS

C
laire had barely
stepped out of the room when the fireworks began.

“This shock demonstrates perfectly that anything can happen in this crisis. Any second, they could be here on Earth, attacking us. We must take stronger measures to protect ourselves,” declared Defense Secretary Donner Fitzgerald, his heavy-browed face looking even more stern than usual.

Douthart watched with concern as “Dr. Doom” took the floor. Fitzgerald’s tepid public support for the President’s actions made him a rallying point for criticism that the President was weak in his response to the ETs.

But in his family and neighborhood, Fitzgerald was a caring person, active in the local church and charities. His parents’ bitter divorce had introduced the young Fitzgerald to the shocking ability of people to cause others to suffer. And after two tours as a Special Forces officer in Iraq, he came home changed, his family thought—more quiet and pensive. He didn’t tell anyone, but he often thought of some of the horror he inevitably saw in the war.

One of the scenes that disturbed him most came during a house-to-house search for insurgents and weapons in a small Iraqi town. Fitzgerald and the five soldiers with him knew that most households would offer no resistance, and may not even support the rebels, but the death of two soldiers to an IED explosion that morning filled them with rage and fear. After breaking down the door, Fitzgerald and two other soldiers burst into the
tiny house, aiming their M-40 carbines at the people inside and shouting in Arabic for them not to resist.

Nothing was unusual about this household. The room was poorly furnished, and the family—a man and woman apparently in their early thirties, and a small girl and a boy—cowered in a corner. But Fitzgerald caught sight of the boy—about six years old, his own son’s age—and for a few seconds, all his fear and anger faded, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the child. He was clutching his father’s left arm with both hands, his big brown eyes looking back at Fitzgerald in absolute terror as his whole body trembled.