The Gift (8 page)

“Not out to two decimals, Sir," the technician responded.

“What did we get on thermal?” Web asked the technician monitoring that system.

“Not what I expected, Sir. The object was a uniform 162 degrees Fahrenheit. It should have been much higher than that and it should not have been uniform." the technician was about to continue, but remembering where she was and who she was answering stopped her.

“Please continue,” Web encouraged her.

“Well, Sir, I’m not an expert, but I’ve participated in a number of aircraft tests using this equipment and the planes always show significant temperature variations from the leading edge to the trailing edge of the flight surfaces, and the temperature is always higher than this, even at Mach one. This was traveling closer to Mach two. I would have expected temperatures closer to 300 degrees," she responded.

“Is it still at 162 degrees?” Dan asked.

The technician moved her view from the monitor showing the replay to the real-time monitor, “No, Sir. It is not showing up on thermal anymore.” She stopped again.

Web nodded slightly before thanking her and returning his attention to the team, “We’re running full spectrum analysis now. We should have results shortly. Does anyone have any thoughts they’d like to share while we wait?”

“I have some questions I’d like to ask whoever built that thing," Rui said, to no one in particular. It was a thought shared by them all.

Angela, as focused as ever said, “I’d like to try to re-establish communications now.” The anomaly had stopped broadcasting as soon as Dan executed the program it had sent. Everyone was anxious to restart the conversation, such as it was.

“Go ahead," Web replied. Angela grabbed Dan’s arm and pulled him away from the group toward the system connected to the communications array. She’d developed a few new ideas on the flight and was eager to test them. Dan offered no resistance. He was as eager to do something as she was.

A couple of interminable minutes passed as the team reviewed the various recordings of the object’s arrival, waiting for the results of the analysis. When it arrived it was as consistent as it was confounding. The sphere was not emitting anything measurable from the observation site: no microwaves, radio waves, x-rays, no light on any spectrum, no radiation of any kind. It appeared to be an inert mass sitting at ambient temperature, waiting for them to make the next move.

“It’s as safe as we know how to measure, for now at least," Web noted before directing Jack to get the cover and concealment team over to hide the sphere from overhead observation. It was standard procedure for anything interesting in the open: cover it and camouflage it as quickly as possible. The fact that there were 16 similar spheres elsewhere in the world, including one in each of the countries with the means to spy on the U.S., changed nothing. Nor would the fact that the U.S. was now in possession of one stop them from doing everything in their power to observe every other landing site in the world as closely as possible. Enigmatic visitors unfathomably more advanced than human kind were no match for standard procedure.

“I’m on it," Jack replied as he departed the CP.

Web turned to Chang, “Would you like to work with the active scanning team until we can re-establish communication with it?” It was unlikely Chang would be able to materially contribute to the work of the technicians who used the tools regularly. Web was mending fences.

“Yes. Thank you.” Chang moved to the other side of the shelter to do just that.

Web sat down in front of the large monitors and waited. You can’t spend a quarter century in the military and not become very good at waiting. This time, he didn’t have to wait long.

At 01:19, within minutes of Chang’s departure to work with the active scanning team, without warning and in complete silence, the sphere transformed itself again. Under the watchful electronic eyes of dozens of cameras and sensors and almost as many people, it ceased being a sphere and became something else. To the watching people, the transition appeared instant. It was only upon review of the high speed cameras’ recordings that they would later see the sphere seemingly turn to liquid and quickly melt away, leaving a much smaller group of objects in its wake.

Where the sphere had been, there were now two equilateral triangular prisms, nearly touching at their bases. Each prism was 81 centimeters on a side and 30 centimeters tall. One of them was perfectly aligned with magnetic North, the other South, leaving the middle of the diamond shaped formation aligned along East and West.

“What the hell just happened?” Jack asked the room as he reentered it.

“It appears our visitor has found a form more to its liking," Rui replied laconically.

“Zoom in on the center monitor," Web instructed the responsible technician.

Upon closer examination, what had appeared to be solid prisms was in fact a collection of small spheres, each about the size of tennis ball and every bit as dull and black as the larger sphere had been.

Chang rejoined the main team and worked his way to the front of the crowded space. “Interesting," he commented as he stared intently at the closer image of the collection of spheres.

“What?” Asked Jack.

“I believe it is trying to tell us something, something it wants us to understand as soon as possible. Angela, come here please.”

Angela had been across the CP when the change had taken place and was, as such, at the back of the group arranged around the monitor. Her height made it difficult to get a good view of the screen. Grateful for the opportunity to get a better look, she joined Chang.

“Look at the grouping," he continued as she joined him, pointing out faint lines between components of the northernmost prism. “Each of the larger prisms is made up of nine smaller ones.”

“Yes, you’re right. The separation is small, but I see it. Did you notice the number of spheres in each of the component prisms?” Angela asked him.

“How could I miss it?” He smiled at her like a kid on his first carnival ride.

“Would one of you care to enlighten the rest of us?” Web asked.

“Yes, of course.” Chang turned sideways to the monitor so that he could address the team. They were not his only audience. Everyone in the room who could steal a look at his explanation was doing so. Even Jack was too interested to notice and admonish them. “You’ll note there are thirty-six spheres in each layer of each of the smaller prisms, and that each of them consists of nine such layers," he paused for a moment to allow everyone to verify for themselves what he was saying before continuing, “Nine appears to be a fundamental to them. I suspect it’s their numeric base.”

Angela joined him in the explanation. Her enthusiasm matched his. “I’m willing to work with that hypothesis. Consider: the original anomaly transformed into eighteen smaller anomalies, two times nine. Our visitor transformed itself into eighteen sub-groupings in two distinct nine-component groupings; again, two times nine. Thirty-six is the product of four and nine, but its individual numbers, three and six, add up to nine; and four is, of course, two squared. Everything about this formation is focused on two, nine or eighteen, their product. Even their orientation is binary.”

“Exactly,” Chang resumed. He was holding a calculator and looking at its miniature screen in satisfaction, “and there are precisely 5,832 spheres; or to put it another way, there are eighteen to the third power spheres." He looked around the group as if he’d just proven a theorem.

“I see what you’re saying, Chang, but you may be underplaying the importance of three and six," Dan commented.

“I think we are to consider three and six to be constituent elements, not the base, though that’s an assumption that will require validation. Still, this is communication. I want a closer look," Angela replied for Chang.

“Not yet, Major. We need to get it under cover and spend a little more time observing before I’m willing to risk any of you getting closer.”

“Sir, with all due respect, we may not have time to be cautious. The original sphere was here for less than 20 minutes…”

“Eighteen!” Chang interrupted her.

“The original sphere was here for eighteen minutes,” she continued, “This manifestation of it may last no longer, and unlike the rest of the science team, I am a Marine. We’re made to take risks.”

Web considered for a moment. Failing to find a valid argument to the contrary, he decided to let her go, “Okay. I’ll allow you to go. To observe. Do you understand, Major?”

“Yes, Sir." She was on her way out of the CP before she finished speaking.

Up close, the formation was beautiful. It was like a perfectly executed piece of modern art ironically placed in the middle of a cornfield. It was the individual spheres that were most interesting to Angela, however. What had seemed cold and dull from a distance appeared warm and inviting up close. Angela felt drawn to them, as if they were calling her on some primal level. She moved closer to get a better look and the feeling grew stronger. When they were close enough to touch, she couldn’t resist reaching out. It felt to her as if they wanted to talk, that perhaps they were trying to teach her another language, an alien language. With the radio in her pocket squabbling nonsense, her hand grasped one of the spheres, and that changed everything.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Sam awoke much later than usual. The early morning sun was no longer shining through curtains covering the east-facing window of his bedroom. It had risen to the top of the sky, indifferent to the events taking place on any of its captured planets. He glanced at the window, wondering how he had slept through the sun’s passage as well as the usual Sunday morning noises of the suburbs. He was loath to admit it, but he’d never developed the habit of lying to himself: this one hurt. He’d long since adjusted to the fact that he saw the world differently than most and that his view often made him a bit of a loner. He’d even adjusted as best he could to being disfigured, but he’d always had his work to fall back on. He did good work. He made a difference. It’s what got him out of bed each morning.

Sleeping through the morning was not a good sign, and he knew it. Roughly rubbing his eyes with one hand, he grunted and threw the covers off with the other. He threw them too hard. They slid off the bed and into a pile on the side opposite him.

So, it’s going to be like that is it? He thought to himself as he rolled out of bed and on to his feet, ashamed at his lack of control, just now and the night before. He knew that goading Web was a pointless exercise in false control, just like he knew that drinking until he passed out last night was a pointless exercise in self-destruction.

“Perhaps that’s the problem,” he said aloud to the empty room, “I know it has a point.”

He turned his head to the nightstand on the other side of the bed and stared at the picture he’d kept there since the day he’d taken the keys to the place. It was among the few things in the house that Sam owned. It was of Elizabeth and Zach. They were smiling at the camera, without a care in the world. Sometimes he talked to them. Today, he didn’t feel worthy. Instead, he wandered into the bathroom to clean up for the day. Moments later, cleaner on the outside and wrapped in a towel, he walked to the modest kitchen to find something to eat.

There was very little to choose from. He grabbed a half-empty package of cheese, turned on the coffee pot and headed to the living room to eat his breakfast while he waited for the coffee to brew. On his way, he passed a little round table occupying the eat-in portion of the kitchen. The owner called it a breakfast nook. That was optimistic in Sam’s view. He never used the table. In fact, he disliked it quite a lot. Its homey farmhouse style matched the house, not Sam’s tastes. It had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist as part of the house in Sam’s mind, until today.

Sitting on top of the roughly finished wood was a small black sphere about the size of a tennis ball.

Sam stopped, took a step back to set the cheese down on the counter and stepped back over to the table. He quickly dismissed his first thought that someone from work was playing a cruel joke on him. Anyone other than himself who knew what was going on would surely still be working. Besides, this kind of joke could put the prankster in jail.

“Well, what do we have here?” Sam asked aloud. He waited a moment as if to give the object a chance to answer. When none came, he took a seat and leaned in on his elbows to get a better look, his face less than a foot away from the sphere. It was completely featureless and incredibly dull. Rather than reflecting very little light, it actually seemed to absorb it. On a hunch, Sam got up from the table, went to his junk drawer in the kitchen, retrieved his flashlight and returned to his seat. Turning the flashlight on, he aimed it at the sphere. There was no reflection on the surface of the sphere. Turning the flashlight around, he lightly tapped the sphere, to no apparent effect. Knowing that his curiosity would get to him eventually and feeling particularly incautious, he reached out and picked the sphere up. It was pleasantly warm. Holding it felt good, though Sam could not have explained why.

“Did everyone get a visitor like you last night?” Sam asked, thinking aloud.

“No,” the sphere answered.

Sam was so surprised, he nearly dropped it. “You can speak." Sam waited for a response. When he didn’t receive one, he tried again, “Can you speak?” He asked.

“Yes,” the sphere replied.

“Why didn’t you answer me before?” Sam asked.

“Before what?” The sphere asked.

“Before I picked you up.”

“I require contact with a sentient biological being in order to exist.”

“You existed before I picked you up.”

“The object you hold in your hand existed before you picked me up. I did not.”

Sam reflected on that for a moment before asking, “Will you cease to exist if I put the object I’m holding down?”

“Yes.”

“If I then picked the object back up, would you resume your existence?”

“No. You would start over. I would not.”