The Visitor (3 page)

She raised the canopy and took her first breath of Earth’s air. It was cool and refreshing air, full of the delightful odor of farm vegetation and moist, tilled soil. The exhilaration of the mission, along with the fresh air, filled her lungs and fueled her ambition. She set the computer to warn of native vessels, got out, and reached in for her satchel. It was too dark to venture out now. Had she been detected? Were more warships on their way?

The best move, she concluded, would be to wait, without destroying the shuttle in case warships came, in which case she could climb in, head back out of the atmosphere, and call for her starship. She leaned against her shuttle, waiting for night to pass, absorbed in the mesmerizing odor of the farm with the beauty of moonlight.

Off in one direction, she noticed the outline of a farmhouse. She could walk there at first light. But she would have to destroy the shuttle, so as not to leave evidence of her visit. That was an apprehensive notion after the encounter earlier. But here she was on a mission.

After a while, light could be seen in the sky to the east. High cirrus clouds began to refract shades of pink, presenting a delightful greeting to her entrance on the planet. Rain was on its way, perhaps later in the day.

There being no apparent threat, she decided to carry on with the mission. She checked her computer bracelet on her wrist to see if it was functioning, just to be sure. It was. Resembling a large wrist watch, it had a screen and a removable blue object that looked like a lapis jewel.

She took from the satchel one of several small balls, each just a bit bigger than a large grape. Touching one to her wrist computer, she commanded it to determine the mass of the shuttle and to activate the self-destruct in three minutes.

“Acknowledged. Disintegration will be in three minutes. Move away from the shuttle.”

She put the ball into the shuttle and began to walk toward the farmhouse to the east. She then turned and looked back. The shuttle began to glow and then disappeared.
It’s gone
! Loneliness and an empty feeling set in with the absence of the security the shuttle brought. Her escape had vaporized with the shuttle.

On with the mission
, she ordered herself, trying to fortify her resolve. She bounced a bit due to lighter gravity than what she was used to. As she walked east, the sunlight crept out, reflecting against the high cirrus clouds, creating a beautiful pink color--her first such early daylight sight on the planet, and one she would always remember. The morning dew soaked the growing vegetation and her boots.

After a time, she could make out not one, but two structures ahead. She could see that one was a dwelling, and the other a storage place.
Barn
was the word.

Two men had just driven up on a tractor, gotten off, and gone to sit on the porch. Both were middle-aged men. Early rising farmers. It had become their practice to meet once a week to talk.

As she approached, they noticed her, stopped talking, and stared. There had been no hikers or pedestrians at that farm before.

Tak had chosen, in an attempt to blend in with the native dress, an outfit of black boots, black pants, a gray sweater, and a black jacket made of a substance that resembled leather. But her clothes were certainly not those of a farm girl, or a nature-loving hiker. She was quite out of place as far as the two men were concerned. They continued to stare and said nothing.

She got ready to speak the first words to the human race. “Hello. I wish to go to the nearest town.”

The men began to talk among themselves in a language Tak did not understand.

“English,” one of them said, a relief to her as it was the first word she understood.

Her wrist computer was on all the time and recording this language so as to learn it. The computer would remain on during the entire Earth excursion.

“I speak little English,” said the younger man, holding up his hand with his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to indicate a measure of a small amount.

“Would either of you be willing to take me to the closest town?” she asked.

The one who spoke translated her request to his friend. They looked at her, then at each other, and then back at her, evaluating her request. Both of them then began a very intense discussion in their native tongue over the topic. Their voices rose at times, and the conversation elevated to a debate. Strong views were expressed

The English-speaking man turned to Tak. “He does not think it proper to take a young woman to town. But I do not agree. I would take you to town. But neither of us have a car and I do not drive.”

How strange that they debated whether or not to do what they cannot even do
. It was time to move on. “Thank you. What’s the name of the next town?”

“Wieliczka.” He pointed down the only road.

“Thank you.”

Off she went on foot, along the rough dirt road, on her mission to learn the ways of the natives of the planet.

CHAPTER 2

Raymond Houser, Homeland Security Director, came in early. He worked long hours and wanted to be advised of any new developments, if at all suspect, immediately. He required his staff to condense situations into brief summaries to save time. Sixty, gray hair, medium build, and very well dressed, he was often called on with short notice to see the joint chiefs, the president, the head of the FBI, the CIA, or some other very important person.

Richard Ralls, formerly with the CIA and now one of the top operatives under Hauser, waited for his turn to see the director about a new development that was indeed curious. Richard was thirty-nine, in excellent shape, just under six feet tall, dark hair, and had a ruddy complexion.

It was 8 a.m. when he was ushered in. The director, already sitting at his desk, motioned for Ralls to take a seat. A secretary brought over a tray with an insulated coffee flask, sweeteners, and cream so he could fix his coffee as and when he preferred. Ralls fixed himself a cup and began his presentation without further delay. He needed to utilize the time he had, as they had to deal with all the world-wide threats that came in every hour of the day.

“Director, we have something quite unusual. The military was conducting a test yesterday with our 747 mounted laser to knock out a mobile-based SCUD missile over White Sands. During the test, an intruder aircraft, somewhat resembling a NASA gliding craft with almost no radar signature, glided down over the test area from very high. It was first recorded at one-hundred-fifty-seven-thousand feet--which means it presumably started higher--and then, at over fifty-thousand feet, when approached by our F-22, which was airborne as part of the SCUD missile test and armed. The jet was sent to intercept and order it down. Instead of complying, it sped from its slow glide to seventeen-thousand miles per hour while still in the atmosphere, then it headed up and east, out of the atmosphere. We then tracked to a spot in rural Poland where it landed.”

“What have you been smoking, Richard?” the director joked. “Nothing can go seventeen-thousand miles an hour in the atmosphere.”

“I know it seems like a mistake, but we have it recorded by NORAD and then by all of our systems and two satellites. The speed is confirmed. It had a radar signature when accelerating. But then, when its engine shut off, as it had no radar signature. We were only able to follow it visually via our satellite, which was very compromised. It landed at night, and then clouds came in and covered the area, preventing visual tracking. By the time the sun rose, and the cloud cover thinned, the craft was nowhere to be seen.”

The director was still just getting started for the day. He frowned. “This occurred yesterday and I’m only now being informed?”

“Well, you see, the notification came from NORAD, and it seems that this is the first time since Homeland Security was established that NORAD has had cause to notify Homeland Security. And, when the report was made, our own staff did not at once consider it important enough to notify you on the golf course on a Sunday that a UFO was identified leaving the United States, as opposed to entering it. Frankly, it seems that some of the staff doubted the validity of the report. We just don’t get UFO’s like that. So it was passed on to me last night, and I thought this morning was soon enough.”

The director pursed his lips, leaned forward, and rested his forearms on his desk. “Go on. More details.”

“It was first detected on radar entering the atmosphere, apparently gliding down, from one-hundred-fifty-seven-thousand feet above White Sands. As it was gliding, it gave off a reduced heat signature. We don’t know how high it started from. It was first seen visually seen at fifty-eight-thousand feet by our F-22 Air Force pilot. He did not have cameras on his plane, only radar. He described it as a black, stealth-shaped aircraft, twenty-five feet in length, gliding down into the atmosphere in the direction of the jet stream winds. It had a shape similar to one of those NASA lifting bodies, which glide well without long wings, and are not super-streamlined like a hypersonic rocket. Our pilot said he could see the pilot, who was, surprisingly, a red-haired female without any helmet or oxygen mask.”

“Russian?” Houser asked.

“I contacted Russia to see if it was a Russian test vehicle, or if they knew anything about it, or would admit to it. I was told no, and they confided that Russia had also tracked the craft at their Armavir Radar Station which tracks incoming missiles to their west. Anyway, why would Russia test something over the US, rather than off in northeast Siberia, where it would be hard for us to detect? To do it over the US would be a very serious provocation. I rule out Russia.”

“You say it sped to seventeen-thousand miles per hour while still in the atmosphere?” Houser asked, unable to believe what he’d been told. “Are you sure about that?”

“That’s the bombshell. It achieved that speed while still in the atmosphere. Anything we have, or know of, would have been incinerated at those low altitudes and that speed. Also, it did not accelerate faster than seventeen-thousand miles per hour once it left the atmosphere, as you would expect it to. It just went to seventeen-thousand miles an hour as though the atmosphere had no effect on it.”

“Any clues?”

“Nope. It’s a mystery. I have spoken to our F-22 pilot, and he has no additional information to offer. I’m having an FBI criminal sketch artist make up a drawing of the pilot’s face, but our pilot was looking through his face shield, through his canopy, and through the canopy of the mystery craft. So his view was compromised as to minor details.

“One theory is that it is a privately made craft sent over to us to us as a warning that whoever made it can reach such speeds with a bomb--even a small, dirty bomb. And since it can go so fast, it could be launched from a ship or even the ground in nearly any country and reach us at low altitudes, for which we are not prepared. We have nothing that could intercept it and knock it out. It could be a warning from someone with a future extortion threat, possibly to release some Muslim prisoners or something like that. Maybe some lunatic with Arab oil financial resources sufficient to have such a craft built.”

“Do you think that whoever sent it will want to request ransom?”

“That seems hard to believe,” Ralls said. “Catching the group that would collect a monetary ransom would be all too easy, and they could most likely never get away with it. More likely, it’s something else, but I’m not sure what. Maybe a release of prisoners, or maybe pulling out of some country or military base we have somewhere.”

Director Houser shook his head and sighed. “Putting in a young woman with no headgear, instead of, say, a regular pilot or a robotic pilot must have been to make some kind of statement. I can’t imagine a Muslim nation doing that, since they won’t even let women drive cars. It would be an insult to the Koran, or so many of them would think.”

Ralls nodded. “Good point.”

“Do you have any idea at all where the craft might have come from?”

“None whatsoever. One remote possibility is that it might have come from one of those crazies with their homebuilt rockets, trying to show off. But the person did not claim any glory, and she could have made it a media event if she wanted to. Or it could possibly even be some disgruntled engineer who wants to get even with the US, or someone in it, and wanted to show what he knows and we don’t. But we have no knowledge of anyone who can build anything like that.”

“We can’t let anything with that much intercontinental travel capability and tremendous speed go unhampered,” Houser argued. “This is especially true since we don’t know who built it. Someone could send over a nuclear bomb, even a small dirty bomb, and hit a target city here before we could knock it down. The very purpose of the SCUD missile test over White Sands is to stop such a missile if one was tracked coming in to our territory from a relatively nearby launching station, such as a ship near us or a territory nearby or one of our protectorates. Where do the satellites show where it landed?”

“The exact coordinates have been plotted by satellites,” Ralls said. “So we can determine where it landed by GPS satellites.”

“I want you to go over to where it landed and check it out. Maybe there’s a hanger around somewhere or some evidence as to what happened to it.” Houser turned to the monitor on his desk and typed in an inquiry. “We have a military base in Lodz, Poland. I’ll see if I can get you a special military aircraft today to get there so you won’t have to go through commercial flights with several plane changes to get to Poland. You can pack a weapon that way, in case you need it. I’ll arrange a military chopper there and a few soldiers to help look for that craft, whatever or wherever it is. I’ll get my contact at the National Security Council to make the calls to arrange things and put you in touch with the CIA. I want you to leave today if you can, so no more time lapses to let whoever flew that craft hide it.”